The Neighbor

by Lisa Gardner

  Marianne closed the door. She moved to the middle of the room, but rather than taking a seat in one of the little red folding chairs, she sat cross-legged on the edge of the pink rug. She ran her hand over it a few times, as if inviting the girl to take a seat.

  D.D. picked up the mic, and stated for Marianne’s sake, “Consent form has been signed. You may begin.”

  Marianne nodded slightly, her fingers brushing over the receiver nestled inside her ear. “What do you think?” she stated out loud to Clarissa Jones, gesturing to the pink rug. “Is this a pretty flower? It looks like a sunflower to me, except I don’t think sunflowers come in pink.”

  “It’s a daisy,” Ree said in a small voice. “My mommy grows them.”

  “A daisy? Of course! You know a lot about flowers.”

  Ree remained standing, clutching her well-worn rabbit. Her fingers had found one of its ears and were rubbing it rhythmically. The unconscious movement pained D.D. She used to do that as a kid. Had a stuffed dog. Wore its ears right off its threadbare head.

  “So, as I told you downstairs, my name is Marianne Jackson,” the specialist was saying brightly. “My job is to talk to children. That’s what I do. I talk to little boys and little girls. And just so you know, Ree, it’s not as easy as you think.”

  For the first time, Ree responded, her forehead crinkling into a tiny frown. “Why not?”

  “For one thing, there are special rules for talking to boys and girls. Did you know that?”

  Ree edged closer, shook her head. Her toe touched the pink flower. She seemed to study the rug.

  “Well, as I mentioned outside, this is a magic room, and there are four rules for talking in a magic room.” Marianne held up four fingers, ticking off. “One, we only talk about what really happened. Not what might have happened, but what really happened.”

  Ree frowned again, moved a tiny bit closer.

  “Do you understand the difference between the truth and a lie, Clarissa?” Marianne reached into the toy basket, came up with a stuffed dog. “If I say this is a cat, is that a truth or a lie?”

  “A lie,” Ree said automatically. “That’s a dog.”

  “Very good! So that’s rule number one. We only talk about the truth, okay?”

  Ree nodded. She seemed to get tired of standing, taking a seat just beyond the flower rug, her bunny now on her lap.

  “The second rule,” Marianne was saying, “is that if I ask you a question and you don’t know the answer, you just say you don’t know. Does that make sense?”

  Ree nodded.

  “How old am I, Clarissa?”

  “Ninety-five,” Ree said.

  Marianne smiled, a bit ruefully. “Now, Clarissa, do you know how old I am? Have you asked or has anyone told you?”

  Ree shook her head.

  “So really, you don’t know how old I am. And what are you supposed to say if you don’t know something?”

  “I don’t know,” Ree filled in obediently.

  “Good girl. Where do I live?”

  Ree opened her mouth, then seemed to catch herself. “I don’t know!” she exclaimed, a trace of triumph this time.

  Marianne grinned. “I can tell you’re very good in school. Are you an excellent student?”

  “I’m very pre-pre-cushush,” Ree said proudly. “Everyone says so.”

  “Precocious? I fully agree and I’m very proud of you. Okay rule number three. If you don’t remember something, it’s okay to say you don’t remember. So how old were you when you first walked?”

  “I’ve been walking since I was born,” Ree started, then caught herself as she remembered rule number three. She let go of her stuffed bunny and clapped her hands gleefully. “I DON’T REMEMBER!” she shrieked with delight. “I. Don’t. Remember.”

  “You are the best pupil I’ve ever had,” Marianne said, still sitting cross-legged on the rug. She held up her four fingers. “All right, star student—last rule. Do you know what rule four is?”

  “I DON’T KNOW!” Ree shouted happily.

  “You are so good. So, rule four, if you don’t understand something I say or ask, it’s okay to say you don’t understand. Capisce?”

  “Capisce!” Ree yelled right back. “That means ‘I understand’ in Italian! I know Italian. Mrs. Suzie’s been teaching us Italian.”

  For a moment, Marianne blinked her eyes. Apparently, even in a forensic interviewer’s world, there was precocious, and then there was precocious. Frankly, D.D. was having a hard time keeping a straight face. She slid a glance in Jason’s direction, but he had the same blank look on his face. Light switch, she thought again. He was in the room, but shut off.

  That made her think of a thing or two, and she found herself scrawling a quick question on her notepad.

  In the interrogation room, Marianne Jackson seemed to recover herself. “All right, then. You know the rules. So, tell me, Clarissa—”

  “Ree. Everyone calls me Ree.”

  “Why do they call you Ree?”

  “ ’Cause when I was a baby, I couldn’t say Clarissa. I said Ree. And Mommy and Daddy liked that, so they call me Ree, too. Unless I’m in trouble. Then Mommy says, ‘Clarissa Jane Jones,’ and I have until the count of three or I get the timeout stair.”

  “The timeout stair?”

  “Yeah. I gotta sit on the bottom step of the staircase for four minutes. I don’t like the timeout stair.”

  “What about the little gal you’re holding? Lil’ Bunny. She ever get into trouble?”

  Clarissa looked at Marianne. “Lil’ Bunny is a toy. Toys can’t get in trouble. Only people can.”

  “Very good, Clarissa. You are a smart cookie.”

  The child beamed.

  “I like Lil’ Bunny” Marianne continued conversationally. “I had Winnie the Pooh when I was your age. He had a music box inside that when you wound it up, played Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star.’”

  “I like Pooh, too,” Ree said earnestly. She had moved closer now, onto the rug, peering around Marianne to the wicker basket. “Where is your Pooh bear? Is he in the basket?”

  “Actually, he’s at home, on my bookshelf. He was a special toy for me, and I don’t think we ever outgrow our special toys.” But Marianne moved the basket onto the rug, closer to Ree, who was clearly engaged now and very curious about the rest of the contents of the magic room.

  D.D. sneaked a second glance at Jason Jones. Still no response. Happy, sad, worried, anxious. Nada. She made a second note on her pad.

  “Ree, do you know why you are here today?”

  Some of the spark went out of the child. She hunched a little, her hands rubbing her rabbit as she sat back. “Daddy said you are a nice lady. He said if I spoke to you, it would be all right.”

  Now D.D. could feel Jason tense. He didn’t move, didn’t speak, but the veins suddenly stood out on his neck.

  “What would be all right, sweetheart?”

  “Will you bring my mommy back?” Ree asked in a muffled voice. “Mr. Smith came back. Just this morning. He scratched on the door and we let him in and I love him, but … Will you bring my mommy back? I miss my mommy.”

  Marianne didn’t speak right away. She seemed to be studying the child sympathetically while letting the silence stretch on. Through the observation window, D.D. contemplated the pink rug, the folding chairs, the basket of toys, anything but the pained look on the little girl’s face. Beside her, Miller shifted uncomfortably in his chair. But Jason Jones still didn’t move a muscle or say a word.

  “Tell me about your family,” Marianne said. D.D. recognized the interview technique. Back away from the sensitive topic. Define the child’s broader world. Then circle back to the wound. “Who’s in your family?”

  “There is me and Mommy and Daddy,” Ree began. She was rubbing Lil’ Bunny’s ear again. “And Mr. Smith, of course. Two girls and two boys.”

  D.D. made more notes, the family genealogy as seen through the eyes of the four-year-old child.

 
“What about other relatives?” Marianne was asking. “Aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents, or anyone else?”

  Ree shook her head.

  D.D. wrote down, Extended Family??? The child apparently didn’t know about her own grandfather, perhaps confirming Jason’s assertion that Sandra and her father were estranged, or perhaps confirming that Jason Jones had done an excellent job of isolating his much younger wife.

  “What about babysitters? Does anyone else help take care of you, Ree?”

  Ree regarded Marianne blankly. “Mommy and Daddy take care of me.”

  “Of course. But what if they’re working, or maybe they need to go somewhere?”

  “Daddy works, Mommy watches me,” Ree said. “Then Daddy comes home, and Mommy goes to work, but Daddy has to sleep, so I go to school. Then Daddy picks me up and we have Daddy-Daughter time.”

  “I see. Where do you go to school, Ree?”

  “I go to preschool. In the brick building with the big kids. I’m in the Little Flowers room. Next year, though, when I am five, I will go to the big classroom with the kinnygardeners.”

  “Who are your teachers?”

  “Miss Emily and Mrs. Suzie.”

  “Best friends?”

  “I play with Mimi and Olivia. We like to play fairies. I’m a Garden Fairy.”

  “So you have best friends. What about your mommy and daddy who are their best friends?”

  It was another routine question, generally used in CSAs, or Child Sexual Assaults, when the person of interest might not be a relative, but a suspected neighbor or friend of the family. It was important that the child define her own world, so later, should the interviewer bring up a name, it did not appear as if the interviewer were leading the witness.

  Ree, however, shook her head. “Daddy says I’m his best friend. ‘Sides, he works a lot, so I don’t think he gets to have friends. Daddies are very busy.”

  This time Miller looked at Jason. Ree’s father, however, remained immobile against the wall, staring resolutely through the window as if he were watching a TV show and not a trained specialist interviewing his only child. After another moment, Miller turned back around.

  “I like Mrs. Lizbet,” Ree was volunteering. “But she and Mommy don’t play together. They’re teachers.”

  “What do you mean?” Marianne asked.

  “Mrs. Lizbet teaches seventh grade. Last year, she helped teach Mommy how to be a teacher. Now Mommy teaches sixth grade. But we still get to see Mrs. Lizbet at the basketball games.”

  “Oh really?”

  “Yes, I like basketball. Mommy takes me to watch. Daddy works, you know. So it’s Mommy-Daughter night, every night. Yeah!” For a moment, Ree seemed to forget why she was in the room. Then, in the next instant, D.D. could see the realization crash down onto the child, the little girl’s eyes widening, then her whole body collapsing back into itself, until she was hunched once more over her stuffed rabbit, rubbing the poor bunny’s ears.

  Behind D.D., Jason Jones finally flinched.

  “When did you last see your mommy?” Marianne asked softly.

  A muffled reply “She put me to bed.”

  “Do you know the days of the week, Ree?”

  “Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,” Ree sang in a little voice. “Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday.”

  “Very good. So do you know what day it was when your mommy put you to bed?”

  Ree looked blank. Then she began to sing again, “Sunday, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday …”

  Marianne nodded her head and moved on; it was obvious the child knew a song about the days of the week, but not the days themselves. Fortunately, there were other tricks for establishing date and time when dealing with a young witness. Marianne would start asking about shows on TV, songs on the radio, that sort of thing. Children may not know a lot from an adult’s perspective, but they had a tendency to observe a lot, making it possible to fill in the necessary information, often with more credible results than a witness simply saying, “Wednesday night at eight P.M.”

  “So tell me about your night with your mother, Ree. Who was home?”

  “Me and Mommy.”

  “What about Mr. Smith, or Lil’ Bunny or your daddy or anyone else?”

  The anyone else was another standard interview technique. When presenting a child with a list of options, the last item always had to be “anyone else” or “something else” or “somewhere else;” otherwise, you were leading the witness.

  “Mr. Smith,” Ree said. “And Lil’ Bunny. But not Daddy. I see Daddy during the day, Mommy at night.”

  “Anyone else?”

  Ree frowned at her. “Nighttime is Mommy and me time. We have ladies’ night.”

  D.D. made a note.

  “So what did you do for ladies’ night?” Marianne asked.

  “Puzzles. I like puzzles.”

  “What kind of puzzles?”

  “Um, we did the butterfly puzzle, then the princess puzzle that takes up the whole rug. Except it got hard, ’cause Mr. Smith kept walking on the puzzle and I got mad, so Mommy said, maybe we should move on.”

  “Do you like music, Ree?”

  The girl blinked. “I like music.”

  “Did you and your mommy listen to music while doing the puzzles, or maybe have the TV on, or the radio on, or something else?”

  Ree shook her head. “I like to rock out to Tom Petty,” she said matter-of-factly “but puzzles are quiet time.” She made a face, perhaps like her mother, embarking on a lecture with one wagging finger: “ ‘Children need quiet time. That’s what makes brains grow!’”

  “I see.” Marianne sounded suitably impressed. “So you and your mother had quiet time with puzzles. Then what did you do?”

  “Dinner.”

  “Dinner? Oh, I like dinner. What is your favorite dinner?”

  “Mac-n-cheese. And gummy worms. I love gummy worms, but you can’t have them for dinner, just for dessert.”

  “True,” Marianne said sympathetically. “My mother never let me eat gummy worms for dinner. What did you and your mommy eat for dinner?”

  “Mac-n-cheese,” Ree supplied without hesitation, “with little bits of turkey dog and some apples. I don’t really like turkey dogs, but Mommy says I need protein to grow muscle, so if I want mac-n-cheese, I have to eat turkey dogs.” The girl sounded mournful.

  D.D. jotted down the menu, impressed not only by Ree’s level of detail, but the consistency with her first statement given Thursday morning. A consistent witness always made a detective happy. And the level of detail meant they could corroborate Ree’s account of the first half of the evening, making it harder for a jury to discount what the child might say about events in the second half of the night. All in all, four-year-old Clarissa Jones was a better witness than eighty percent of the adults D.D. encountered.

  “What did you do after dinner?” Marianne asked.

  “Bath time!” Ree sang.

  “Bath time?”

  “Yep. Me and Mommy shower together. Do you need to know who was in the shower?” Ree apparently recognized the pattern by now.

  “Okay.”

  “Well, not Mr. Smith, ‘cause he hates water, and not Lil’ Bunny, because she takes a bath in the washing machine. But Princess Duckie and Mariposa Barbie and Island Princess Barbie all needed baths, so they came in with us. Mommy says I can only wash three things, otherwise I use up all the hot water.”

  “I see. What did your mommy do?”

  “She washes her hair, then she washes my hair, then she yells at me I’m using too much soap.”

  Marianne blinked her eyes again.

  “I like bubbles,” Ree explained. “But Mommy says soap costs money and I use too much, so she puts soap in this little cup for me, but it’s never enough. Barbies have a lot of hair.”

  “Ree, if I tell you I have blue hair, is that the truth or is that a lie?”

  Ree grinned, recognizing the game again. She held up her first finger. “That’s a lie
, and in the magic room, we only tell the truth.”

  “Very good, Ree. Excellent. So you and your mommy are in the shower, and you have used a lot of soap. How do you feel in the shower, Ree?”

  Ree frowned at Marianne, then something seemed to click. She held up four fingers. “I don’t understand,” she said proudly.

  Marianne smiled. “Excellent again. I will try to explain. When you and your mommy shower … do you like it or do you not like it? How do you feel?”

  “I like showers,” Ree said earnestly. “I just don’t like having my hair washed.”

  D.D. could sense Marianne’s hesitation again. On the one hand, a mother and her four-year-old girl showering together was hardly inappropriate. On the other hand, Marianne Jackson wouldn’t have a job if all parents were appropriate. Something had gone wrong in this family. Their job was to help Ree find a way to tell them what.

  “Why don’t you like your hair being washed?” Marianne asked.

  “’Cause my hair snarls. My hair’s not really short, you know. Nope, when it’s wet, it goes halfway down my back! It takes forever for Mommy to get all the shampoo out, and then she has to condition it or it gets all snarly and I don’t much like my hair at all. I wish I had straight hair like my best friend, Mimi.” Ree sighed heavily.

  Marianne smiled, moved on. “So what did you do after your shower?”

  “We got dry,” the girl reported, “then we go to the Big Bed, where Mommy wants me to talk about my day, but mostly I tickle her.”

  “Where is the Big Bed?”

  “Mommy and Daddy’s room. That’s where we go after bath time. And Mr. Smith hops up, but I like to wrestle and he does not like that.”

  “You like to wrestle?”

  “Yeah,” Ree said proudly. “I’m strong! I rolled Mommy onto the floor and that made me laugh.” She held up her arms, apparently in imitation of flexing. “It made Mommy laugh, too. I like my mommy’s laugh.” Her voice trailed off wistfully. “Do you think my mommy’s mad because I pushed her off the bed? She didn’t sound mad, but maybe … Once, at school, Olivia tore the picture I drew and I told her it was okay, but it wasn’t really okay and I got madder and madder and madder. I was mad all day! Do you think that’s what happened? Did my mommy get mad all day?”