The Girl Next Door

by MacDonald, Patricia

“Never mind that,” said Nina. “Tell us why you’re here.”

  Chief Perry sighed again and looked from Nina to Jimmy. Then he shook his head. “I’m sorry to have to be the one to tell you both this. We got a call about an hour ago from a fisherman down by the river. He thought he saw somebody slumped over in a green ’ninety-five Volvo that was parked down there. He was a little reluctant to go over and look. A couple of officers responded. When they opened the door to the car, they found your …”

  “No,” Nina cried. “No!”

  “Your father. I’m terribly sorry, Miss Avery. I understand he just got out of jail, and I’m sure you were hoping—”

  “What happened to him?” Jimmy demanded.

  “He’d been shot in the chest. We found a gun in his hand. It appears that he took his own life.”

  “Oh my God,” Jimmy whispered, all the color drained from his face.

  “No,” Nina cried. “That’s crazy. You’re wrong. That’s not my dad. He doesn’t even have a gun. He’s not allowed to have a gun on parole.”

  Chief Perry nodded. “That’s true. But if he wanted to get one—well, you have to realize that he had certain connections from being in prison. He was forbidden to associate with former felons by the terms of his parole. But if getting a gun was his intention—well, guns are not hard to come by, Miss Avery. Especially if you’re determined …”

  “Suicide,” Jimmy whispered.

  Nina was shaking her head. “It’s probably not even him. What made you think it was him?”

  “We found his driver’s permit in his wallet,” said Chief Perry firmly.

  “This isn’t true. Somebody stole it from him. This is a mistake!” she cried.

  Chief Perry looked at her sadly. “This has got to be so tough,” he said, and there was genuine empathy in his gaze.

  “Where is he?” Nina demanded. “I want to see him.”

  “No, Nina, don’t,” cried Jimmy.

  “Look,” said the chief. “I know you need to see your dad, and as it happens, we need you to see him to make a positive identification. They’ve moved the body to the morgue. I’ll take you over there. The car is still down by the river. We can have it towed back here once our lab guys go over it. If that would suit you.”

  “Stop talking like he’s dead,” Nina protested.

  “This is my fault,” Jimmy said. “I’m sorry, Nina.” Tears trickled out of the corners of Jimmy’s eyes and down his face.

  “Take it easy,” the chief said. “I know it’s a shock. Come on. Let’s go. The sooner we get this over with …”

  “Stop it, Jimmy,” Nina insisted. “There’s some explanation. This is all a mistake.”

  NINA stood in the chilly hallway at the county morgue and stared numbly at the blank slider that covered the window in front of her. All she could think about the whole way over in the car, and during the walk up the echoing stairs and through the empty corridors of the building, was why she had thought it was so necessary to go back to New York for these last two days. If she had been here … If she had only been with him when he needed her …

  Nina shook her head as if to ward off the possibility that the dead man was her father. She hadn’t seen the body yet. There was a still a chance it wasn’t him. There was no reason to think the worst yet. But she couldn’t deny, even to herself, that suicide was one of the unspoken fears that had plagued her the most. Why did I leave him alone? she thought. How could I leave him alone when I knew the kind of disappointment and rejection he’d been facing? How could I have run off to New York like that and left him to handle everything on his own? Please, God, don’t let it be him. If it isn’t him, I promise, I won’t leave him again.

  “Are you ready?” Chief Perry asked.

  Jimmy, who had recovered his composure, touched her arm. “Nina, why don’t you skip this part? I’ll do it. You go sit down.”

  She shook off his consoling hand. “I’m ready,” she said.

  Chief Perry pressed a buzzer beside the window, which sounded on the other side of the wall. “All right,” the chief said. “It’ll be over in a minute.”

  The slider was pushed open and Nina gasped, clapping her hand over her mouth at the sight of the dead man lying on the table. She stepped back, colliding with Jimmy, but she did not look away.

  “Jesus,” said Jimmy

  Duncan’s face was gaunt, his mouth hanging open. His skin looked rubbery and had no life to it, no color except for a grayish green tinge. Nina could see his bare shoulders just above the drape that concealed the rest of his body and the mortal wound. His shoulders were white, and his bony clavicle and slack, sinewy biceps made him look frail, old.

  “Is that your father, Duncan Avery?” Chief Perry said.

  Nina heard the voice from far away. She had to answer. She had to admit to them, to everyone, that this was her father. Duncan Avery. All those years of waiting and hoping and suffering, all for what? For this. She wanted to say that it wasn’t him, that it wasn’t over. She wanted that to be true more than anything. Maybe if she just denied it. Nina opened her mouth to reply, and then the whole world went black.

  · · ·

  WHEN she woke up, she was lying on a sofa in a little waiting room that had been fitted out for the families of the morgue’s occupants. Jimmy sat hunched on a chair beside her, gazing at her worriedly. Chief Perry was across the room, talking quietly on a cell phone.

  “Nina, are you all right?” Jimmy asked.

  The image of her father’s face in death filled her mind’s eye. She closed her eyes again, wishing she could blot out the reality of it. Tears slid out from under her eyelids and down the sides of her face.

  Chief Perry folded up his phone and deposited it into his jacket pocket. He came over and stood behind Jimmy, cocking his head to get a look at her face. “You gave us a scare,” he said.

  Nina gave up and opened her eyes. She was awake. There was no use in pretending it was all a bad dream. She felt her tears trickling down onto her neck, into her hair. She wiped her eyes and struggled to sit up.

  “He’s at peace now, Nina,” said Jimmy earnestly. “We have to take comfort from that.”

  “No,” Nina pleaded. Jimmy leaned over and put his arms around her. She wept against his broad chest. “No. No.”

  Chief Perry waited a respectful interval until Nina pulled away from her brother and began to fumble in her coat pocket for a tissue. The chief handed her his pristine, folded white handkerchief. “I’m terribly sorry,” he said

  “Thank you,” Nina sniffed, blotting her tears.

  “We have some loose ends,” said the chief. “When you go home, can you look around and see if there was a note?”

  Nina sniffed again. “Wasn’t there one in the car?”

  “We haven’t been able to find one.”

  Nina looked at Jimmy and then back at the chief. “No note?”

  “Often there’s no note,” said Chief Perry.

  “And he didn’t have a gun,” Nina said.

  “Well, actually he did,” the chief said.

  Nina shook her head. “He didn’t own a gun. Maybe it wasn’t suicide. Did you consider the possibility that someone else might have killed him?”

  Chief Perry looked at her patiently. “Like who?”

  “I don’t know,” Nina cried. “But I can’t believe he would have done this without even a word … no explanation.”

  Chief Perry cleared his throat. “Look, I didn’t know your father, but …”

  “There are a lot of people in this town who seem to hate him,” Nina insisted. “Everywhere we turned, people were cruel to him. Somebody posted a hate message on our door. It could have been someone like that. You’re just accepting that he did this without any reason.”

  “I’ll want to see that hate message,” said Chief Perry somberly. “If the wound was not, by some chance, self-inflicted, the autopsy will tell us that. But I have to tell you that I saw the fatal wound, Miss Avery. Point-blank range is w
hat we’re talking about.”

  “Still,” said Nina stubbornly. “There’s a possibility … When will you know about the autopsy?”

  “In the next few days,” he said.

  “And the gun. Don’t forget about the gun.”

  “That gun will be difficult to trace. It’s an old Colt automatic. There were a lot of them issued years back to police, to military men. You can buy them anywhere.”

  “And there’s something else,” Nina said. “I just remembered this. He made a dentist’s appointment for Monday. You mean to tell me that a man who was going to kill himself would make an appointment to have his teeth fixed? Is that rational?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” said Jimmy dully. “None of it matters.”

  Chief Perry shook his head. “Suicide is an irrational act. You’re not going to turn it into something reasonable.” He pulled up another chair, sat down, and leaned forward. He frowned and pressed his lips together, as if struggling with what he was about to say. Finally, he sighed. “Look, you seem like a couple of good kids and I know this is horrible for you. Suicide always leaves the survivors with so many questions. But in a case like your father’s, it’s not that unexpected.

  “You have to remember that for fifteen years your father was living for the day when he would have his freedom. Planning what he’d do, how he’d spend his time. But men in that position, that your dad was in, they sometimes find that freedom isn’t at all like they’d hoped it would be. Would you say that was true of your dad, Nina? Were there a lot of disappointments?”

  Nina folded her arms over her chest and would not meet his gaze. “I suppose,” she said.

  “Their old life has disappeared,” Chief Perry continued gently. “They’re greeted with suspicion, sometimes out-and-out hatred. They have no money. The best years of their lives are behind them. They can’t find work because they have to explain where they’ve been for the last fifteen years. And nobody wants to hire a felon. Family and old friends reject them. They’re afraid to meet new people because the subject is gonna come up. Everywhere they look is loss. It’s more than a lot of people can bear.”

  “He wasn’t like other people,” Nina insisted. “He was strong.”

  “No,” said Chief Perry. “He wasn’t like a lot of prisoners on parole who had nothing to begin with. Your father had a big life. He was a doctor, he had money, he had a family. For him, the fall was that much greater.”

  Nina didn’t want to hear it. She didn’t want to give in to it, because if she did, she was closing the door on any possibility of doubt. And once she accepted the idea that Duncan had taken his own life, she could not avoid the next logical conclusion. “Then it’s my fault,” she said. “For leaving him alone. He kept saying he was all right. But I could see what was happening to him …”

  “Oh, you mustn’t think that,” Chief Perry said kindly. “You know as well as I do that day-to-day life can be boring and frustrating under the best of circumstances. Imagine a man like your father. The experience was probably crushing.”

  “You didn’t know, Nina,” said Jimmy miserably. “How could you have known?”

  Just then the door to the lounge opened. Nina looked up and saw Patrick.

  “What are you doing here?” Nina demanded.

  “I called him,” said Jimmy.

  “He was my father. Nina, are you all right?” Patrick asked.

  Chief Perry stood up and offered his chair to Patrick. “I’m gonna leave you folks. When you’re ready to leave, Officer Burrows is out there. He’ll escort you home.”

  Nina glared at her brother as Patrick sat down in the vacated chair. He frowned at her. “I’m sorry, Nina. I’m not that surprised, but I’m sorry all the same. I guess it was all too much for him.”

  “Especially the fact that you wouldn’t even speak to him,” she cried.

  “You can’t blame me, Nina. After what Duncan did …”

  “Don’t call him Duncan. Show him some respect, for God’s sake.”

  “Please, we shouldn’t be arguing over this. It’s over. It’s finally over. Can’t we just let go of it?” Jimmy pleaded. “ I don’t want to fight with the two of you anymore. Can’t we try to get along? Dad would want us to get along.”

  Nina didn’t want to agree. It seemed like agreeing would be betraying her father’s memory. But she also didn’t want to argue. Not with her brothers. Not now.

  Patrick reached out and put his hand over Nina’s. “Jimmy’s right. It doesn’t do any good. Nina, I just want you to know that I admire you for what you did for … him.”

  “Oh sure,” she said.

  “No. I mean it. You did everything humanly possible for him. Your love was unconditional. He was very lucky to have you …”

  Nina felt the tears finally rising to her eyes. A tidal wave of regret was welling up inside her. Spilling over. “It wasn’t enough,” she croaked.

  “Don’t ever think that, Nina,” Patrick insisted. “You didn’t deserve this. None of it. None of us did.”

  10

  THE funeral was held on Monday and was completely private. Despite Jimmy’s protests, not even the Connellys were invited. In this instance, Nina found herself allied, for once, with Patrick. She didn’t want to know who would or would not show up to pay respects to her father. She didn’t want to talk to a single reporter or answer a single question. She was relieved that despite everything, Patrick was going to participate in laying Duncan to rest. He insisted that there be no eulogy and, reluctantly, Nina gave in. It would have made a miserable day even worse if Patrick had refused to attend. As it was, Patrick invited his sister and brother to come back to his home after the brief graveside service. He had arranged for a lunch to be catered for them. “It will be just us,” he said.

  Aunt Mary’s Volvo was in the shop being detailed to get rid of the bloodstains on the front seat, so Nina rode with Jimmy in his Saturn. As they rounded the curve leading to Patrick’s property, Nina could see the stone house, flanked by billows of slate gray storm clouds. The surrounding trees swayed and a few still bore isolated leaves the color of bronze or claret that had stubbornly resisted the autumn winds.

  “He wanted to see the twins so I brought him up here the other day,” said Nina.

  “Yeah, I heard,” said Jimmy.

  Nina turned from the window and looked at her brother. “You did? Who did you hear it from?”

  Jimmy did not reply.

  “Did you talk to Dad?”

  Jimmy’s large frame shifted uneasily in the seat. “Yeah.”

  “When?”

  “I went to see him the other night. When you were in New York.”

  “You did?” Nina asked. “Why? I thought you didn’t want to see him.”

  “I changed my mind. I felt bad about … I just wanted to clear the air with him,” said Jimmy. “Is that allowed?”

  “Of course,” said Nina, ignoring his sarcasm. “It’s just that you never mentioned it. Did he give you any idea of what he was going to do? Was he depressed?”

  “How do I know?” Jimmy said defensively as he turned down Patrick’s winding driveway. “I’m not a shrink. He didn’t say he was going to kill himself, if that’s what you’re asking.”

  “But he must have told you something,” Nina demanded.

  Jimmy pulled up behind another car parked in Patrick’s driveway, a white minivan. “We caught up on some things. That’s all. What does it matter anymore?” Jimmy asked. As soon as the Saturn stopped in the drive, the driver’s door to the minivan opened and George Connelly got out. He was wearing a plaid tweed jacket and a tie. He gave Jimmy a smile and a wave. Rose Connelly came around the front of the van carrying a cake plate with aluminum foil over it. Jimmy jumped out of the car and rushed to embrace them.

  With a sigh, Nina got out of the car also. She forced herself to smile. “Hello, Rose, George,” she said.

  Rose, balancing her cake, gave Nina a hug. “I’m so sorry, dear.”

  “Than
k you,” said Nina.

  “Patrick invited us to lunch,” Rose said. “Wasn’t that nice of him?”

  “Very nice,” said Nina. She stepped back to let them pass. Jimmy walked between them, with George’s arm draped protectively over his shoulders. For a minute, Nina felt as if Jimmy was shielding himself with the Connellys. Shielding himself from her questions, which obviously made him uncomfortable.

  Gemma, dressed all in black, stood at the open front door as they approached, twisting her sparkling rings nervously. Patrick stood behind her.

  “I brought a little something,” said Rose, indicating her cake.

  “That’s nice,” said Gemma.

  “Not that we really need anything,” said Patrick. He led the way into the dining room, pointing out a lavish buffet that was set out on a glowing antique sideboard. The room was lit with dozens of candles, which made a welcome contrast to the gloomy weather outside. In the den the TV was blaring and Nina could see the twins through the door, lying on the carpet, transfixed. Elena sat on the sofa, peering out warily at the arriving guests.

  “Turn that off, boys,” Patrick called out. “Come in here and eat. Go ahead, everyone. Help yourself.”

  “Patrick ordered enough food for an army,” Gemma said. “Here, Nina, this came for you.” She pointed to a lavish flower arrangement that was set on the highly polished surface of the dining room table. “There’s a card.”

  Nina opened the card. “Thinking of you,” it read. Love, Keith.

  “Who are they from?” Gemma asked.

  “Keith,” said Nina. She had called him in L.A. to tell him the news.

  “That was thoughtful of him,” Gemma said.

  “Yes, very thoughtful,” Nina said.

  The twins came barreling into the dining room, squealing, and Patrick squatted down and scooped them into his arms, burying his face in their necks. Gemma leaned over and rubbed Patrick’s shoulders.

  Jimmy loaded up his plate and put it down at the table between Rose and George. “Mom, Dad, can I get you a plate?” he asked.

  “No, no, honey,” said Rose. “You sit down and eat. We’ll get ours in a minute.” She patted the chair between them and smiled tenderly at Jimmy.