The Girl Next Door

by MacDonald, Patricia

  Calvin Mears, she thought, her heart skipping an anxious beat. He still had the tired, lost look she remembered from their teenage years, which made him appear both unhealthy and strangely compelling. There were large bags under his gray eyes and a faint pinkish tinge to his nose, which indicated that Calvin had shed tears over the death of his mother, Penelope, a.k.a. Perdita Maxell.

  A large, hulking man, his hands clasped in front of him, his head bowed, loomed behind Calvin protectively. Nina realized, with a start, that it was Jimmy. His eyes widened as he looked up and saw her approaching.

  He frowned at her as she came closer. Don’t worry, Nina thought. I’ll mind my manners. She bowed her head and said a brief prayer along with the priest. She didn’t intend to disrupt the funeral. Her questions could wait a few minutes more.

  The last prayers were said, and then Calvin stepped forward and took a white carnation from one of the two small arrangements that had been set beside the grave. He placed it on the top of the plain coffin, sniffed, and wiped at his eyes. The woman in the gray coat turned and gave him a perfunctory hug as the priest signaled that the service had ended. Her husband stood by, his gaze darting around the deserted graveyard.

  Nina walked over to her brother and pulled him aside.

  “What are you doing here?” Jimmy asked.

  “I came looking for Calvin,” said Nina. “Don’t play dumb, Jimmy. You have to know his mother was the”—she lowered her voice and turned her back on the mourners—“the hooker that the cops were looking for. About Dad’s death.”

  “What?” Jimmy asked.

  “What?” Nina mimicked him impatiently. “Come on, Jimmy. Why was Dad looking for your friend, Calvin Mears? You know, don’t you?”

  Jimmy lowered his eyes, and a flush crept up his neck.

  “Jimmy?” she asked. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing,” he said. “I can’t talk about it here.”

  Calvin was being embraced by first one and then the other of his mother’s friends, the blonde and the redhead.

  “I thought you didn’t associate with Calvin anymore,” said Nina.

  Jimmy looked around anxiously. “Look, I hadn’t talked to him in years. Yesterday Calvin called me. He told me about his mother and he … asked me to meet him here.” Jimmy shrugged. “I figured I should come. The cops are saying that his mother killed Dad. I wanted Calvin to know that I don’t believe it.”

  Nina crossed her arms over her chest. “Why not? What do you know?” she said.

  Calvin shook hands with the priest and then came over to where Nina and Jimmy were standing. He fumbled for a pack of cigarettes in his breast pocket, shook out a cigarette, and lit it, offering them one before he put the pack away. Nina declined, but to her surprise Jimmy took a cigarette and accepted a light from Calvin. He inhaled deeply. The priest and the two hookers made their way down the hill toward their separate cars while the middle-aged couple stood resolutely behind Calvin.

  “Calvin, are you ready to go?” asked the woman in the gray coat.

  “My aunt and uncle,” Calvin said apologetically to Jimmy and Nina. He turned back to the older woman. “Just a minute. My friends are here.” He exhaled a cloud of smoke and closed his eyes in relief. “God, I’m glad that’s over,” he said. He took another deep drag and clapped Jimmy on the back with his free hand. “Thanks for being here, Jim.”

  Jimmy blushed, and indicated Nina, who was standing quietly, looking around the cemetery. “You remember my sister, Nina,” Jimmy said to Calvin.

  “Yeah, thanks for coming, Nina,” said Calvin.

  The cemetery was peaceful and apparently empty now except for the black pickup truck that had been parked on the shoulder when Nina came in. She saw it rolling slowly toward them down the winding road. Calvin turned and looked at his mother’s coffin for a moment, a thoughtful look in his gray eyes. “This bites,” he said. Then he turned to Jimmy. “Look, man, we gotta talk. I mean, she had a shit life, but still, it’s not fair for them to go saying she killed your old man. ’Cause she did not do it. She had a cup of coffee with him and she gave him my phone number. That’s it.” Calvin’s restless gaze traveled over the nearby headstones, as if seeking something. “That’s all it was.”

  “Did he call you?” Nina asked abruptly.

  “Yeah,” said Calvin. “He called me.” Calvin looked at Jimmy accusingly. “He said you told him everything.”

  “Mears!”

  They all turned around. The black pickup truck had come to a halt at the foot of the sloping hillside and a heavyset man with graying hair had emerged from the car. He was wearing work boots and a bulky hooded sweatshirt, and he was holding a baseball bat in his meaty hand.

  “Oh shit,” said Calvin, his gray eyes widening. “It’s Keefer.” Calvin turned to his uncle. “It’s him,” he said. The stocky man in the checked jacket nodded and slid silently into place beside his nephew.

  “Don’t say anything to him,” the older man advised. “Let me do the talking.”

  “I told you I’d catch up to you, Mears,” the man in the sweatshirt announced in a threatening voice as he started up the incline. “You thought you could just slip in and out of town without me knowing. Sorry, buddy. There’s a lot of people around here with long memories.”

  “Hey, man, this is my mother’s funeral. Have a little respect,” Calvin called out indignantly, but his voice had a quaver.

  Calvin’s uncle nudged him. “I told you to shut up.” He turned around and spoke in a low voice to his wife. “Sally, go get in the car.”

  The woman in the gray coat let out a little cry, but her husband scowled at her. “Now,” he said, and this time the woman obeyed, looking anxiously back at them as she descended the little hill to their sedan.

  Keefer continued advancing on them, swinging the bat like a pendulum.

  “Oh, Christ,” said Jimmy. “This could get ugly.” He dropped his cigarette, ground it with his boot, and started toward Calvin. Nina grabbed her brother by the hand and tried to jerk him back.

  Calvin’s uncle unbuttoned his jacket to reveal a shoulder holster. “Look, Mr. Keefer,” he called out to the man in the sweatshirt. “My name is Joe Jenkins, and I’m a police officer, so before you start anything, you should know that. I know all about your beef. My nephew here don’t want no trouble. We just buried his mother, and we want to leave this place in peace, understood?”

  Keefer stopped where he was and glared at the man’s gun in the holster.

  The two cemetery workers who had been watching this encounter crouched down behind a headstone.

  “You gonna shoot me?” Keefer demanded.

  “If I have to,” said Jenkins.

  “That bastard killed my little girl,” Keefer cried.

  The veteran policeman spoke calmly. “It was a drug situation, sir. I’m not defending him, believe me. But your daughter died because she did too many drugs.”

  Keefer raised the bat and shook it at Calvin. “He gave them to her. He knew what would happen. She was pregnant with his baby and he didn’t want to support a kid.”

  Calvin’s uncle shook his head sadly. “Mr. Keefer,” he said, “Calvin didn’t have to kill your daughter because she was pregnant. All he hadda do was walk away. Which is just what he would have done. Wouldn’t ya, Cal?” he said, cuffing Calvin on the head.

  Keefer stood staring at them, the bat raised, his shoulders hunched.

  Jenkins walked slowly toward the enraged father and spoke quietly. “I’m guessing you’ve got a wife, and other kids, and maybe even grandchildren. They all need you. You probably got a job and a house. You crack his skull and you lose everything.”

  “But he killed my baby,” Keefer protested, and his voice cracked. “He’s the one who gave her the dope.”

  Jenkins shook his head. “You go on home now, Mr. Keefer, and don’t get yourself in any trouble. Because this guy’s not worth it.”

  Keefer glared at Calvin, who stood stock-still, wat
ching the exchange. Calvin’s uncle turned and grabbed his nephew by the upper arm. “Come on,” he said. He pointed a finger at Keefer. “Stay right where you are, sir,” he advised, as he dragged Calvin along with him. Calvin kept looking back at Keefer, but Keefer’s shoulders had slumped. He watched them depart and then walked heavily over to a cast cement bench under a nearby tree and sank down on it, dropping the bat to the ground.

  “We better get out of here, too,” said Jimmy.

  Nina did not budge. “What did he mean, you told him everything? What did you tell Dad?”

  Jimmy was stone-faced.

  “I swear to God, Jimmy. If you don’t answer me …”

  “Okay, okay,” he said with a sigh. “But not here. Follow me in your car.”

  19

  SNOW flurries swirled around the Volvo as Nina followed Jimmy’s car. She hunched forward in the driver’s seat, her neck muscles tense as she kept the Saturn in view through the mist of flakes.

  Where the hell is he going? she thought angrily. She hadn’t thought to ask him where he was heading, and she hated driving like this, not knowing where he intended to lead her. For one terrible moment she realized that he might be trying to shake her. They had left the Hoffman city limits and entered Port Regent, a run-down, working-class town. Nina didn’t recognize the neighborhood where he had led her, a deserted area where rows of warehouses stored freight for trucking lines. Nina started to mutter at Jimmy under her breath when suddenly she saw his blinker indicating that he was pulling over. Through the dingy white veil of flurries in the sky she saw a blinking neon sign over a low corner building that read THE END ZONE. The window of the old building also had a neon sign, partially lit, which read BAR AND GRILL.

  Jimmy parked and turned off his lights. Nina followed suit and got out of the car. A few scattered cars were parked near the corner. In this neighborhood of featureless warehouses the bar was the only place in sight that did not look utterly lifeless.

  Sliding a little on the leather soles of her boots, Nina shuffled along holding on to a chain-link fence to where her brother stood waiting.

  “What are we doing here?” she said.

  “Let’s go in,” he said.

  “It’s a bar, Jimmy.”

  “I know it’s a bar, Nina,” he said irritably. “Our carpet warehouse is just across the street. So when I have time to kill I come in and relax a little bit. Okay?”

  “Okay, okay,” she said. She followed him down some steps to a heavy double door, which he opened. Inside, she saw darkness and smelled cigarette smoke and stale beer.

  Jimmy took his coat off and hung it up on a hook just inside the door. When he reached out a hand for Nina’s, she shook her head.

  “No, thanks, I’ll keep it,” she said.

  Jimmy shrugged. “All right,” he said. “Follow me.”

  It was easier said than done, at first, but in a few moments her eyes adjusted to the gloom. It was a long narrow place with an old mahogany bar, obviously the pride and joy of the owner, because despite its many scars, it did have a rich patina. The floor of the bar was tiled in tiny white octagons, many of which were missing, with grout gone to dirt in the empty spots. The ceiling was tin and the tables were round and battered, with glass ashtrays liberally distributed on the tabletops and utilitarian wooden chairs surrounding them. In the back were a pool table and an ancient jukebox. It was the kind of bar that would get a gentle refurbishment in midtown Manhattan, Nina thought, and quickly become a fashionable hangout. Here in the suburbs, people’s idea of a bar was Applebee’s or T.G.I. Fridays. This bar was in a neighborhood few people from Hoffman would want to frequent.

  This gloomy afternoon The End Zone was about half full of men in down vests and heavy work boots. Guffaws and smoke rings hung in the air. At the end of the bar, ESPN was playing on the suspended television, the sound too low to be heard as anything other than more noise. Aside from the two waitresses, Nina was the only woman in the place.

  Jimmy took a table and sat down, pointing out a chair for his sister. Nina sat and looked around her, studying the crowd and the atmosphere.

  “You don’t need to look so superior,” said Jimmy.

  Nina turned and looked at her brother. “I’m just looking around. Do you mind?”

  “Take your coat off,” said Jim.

  Nina removed her coat and laid it on a chair beside her.

  A blond-haired girl with coarse-looking skin came up to their table holding a tray under her arm. She was wearing jeans and a tight black T-shirt that said BABY LOVE on it. “Hey, Jimmy,” she said.

  “Hey, Rita,” Jimmy said sheepishly, avoiding Nina’s questioning gaze.

  “Who’s your friend?”

  “My sister, Nina. This is Rita.”

  Nina smiled thinly and then looked at Jimmy. Clearly, he was no stranger here. “What’ll you have?” asked the waitress.

  Jimmy tapped his fingertips lightly on the edge of the table. “I’ll have a … Guinness,” he said.

  “No Coke for you?” Rita asked, clearly surprised.

  “I’m not working today,” he said. “It’s my day off.”

  Nina looked at him in consternation. She didn’t want to make a scene in front of the waitress. “Just club soda,” she said.

  “And bring us some chips,” said Jimmy, still not looking at Nina.

  The waitress left and Jimmy sat with his back against the wall, pretending to be absorbed by the game of pool that was going on at the table beyond where they were sitting.

  “Jimmy,” said Nina.

  Jimmy turned and she saw the baleful look in his eye. “What?” he demanded.

  “What about … I thought you didn’t drink,” said Nina.

  “One isn’t going to kill me,” he said.

  “I thought that was against the rules,” said Nina.

  “What rules?” he demanded. “I’m a grown man, Nina. I make the rules.”

  “You know what I mean,” said Nina. “Your program.”

  “I know what you mean. You don’t think I can handle it,” he said defensively.

  “I’m not judging you,” she said.

  “Right,” said Jimmy.

  Nina hesitated. “What about the Connellys … ?”

  “What?” he cried. “You going to call my family and tattle on me?”

  Nina was silent. His family. It still stung to know that he regarded other people as his family. Then again, there wasn’t much left to the family he had started with. Maybe she just envied him that luxury. People who really cared, who would really be upset if they knew that he was going to have a beer. “No. I’m just worried about you.”

  Rita returned and set down their drinks. Jimmy stared at the dark beer but did not pick up the glass. “Don’t. Please. Don’t worry about me.”

  Nina saw the expression of dread in his eyes. He looked like a man facing his own execution, and she knew it was their conversation that he was dreading. Maybe she shouldn’t force him. Maybe if she dropped the whole thing, he would pour out his beer and they could leave. But at the same time, she knew that intentionally or not, this was exactly what he wanted her to do. He wanted her to feel guilty and stop hounding him for answers. No, she thought. I won’t. I can’t. She took a deep breath. “Why did Dad call Calvin Mears?”

  “I’m not sure,” Jimmy said evasively.

  Nina peered at him and when she spoke there was an edge in her voice. “I don’t believe that for one minute. You told me yourself that you talked to Dad while I was in New York. What did you two talk about? What did it have to do with Calvin?”

  Jimmy sighed and stared at his glass. But he didn’t pick it up. For a minute, Nina thought he was going to refuse to answer her. Then, at last, he spoke. “I went to see him,” said Jimmy. “I told you that.”

  “Yes,” said Nina. “While I was out of town. You mentioned that. Why? It wasn’t just to talk about old times, was it?”

  Jimmy shook his head and sighed. “One of the steps in
AA—you’re supposed to apologize to the people you wronged. You know, make your peace with them. Admit that what you did while you were drinking may have hurt them. You know?”

  “Yeah. I remember when you did that with me. That was years ago. And I remember telling you that you hadn’t ever really wronged me. I said that the only one you hurt was yourself,” she said.

  “Well,” he said, staring at the drink sitting in front of him. “That wasn’t exactly true. There was something that I didn’t tell anyone. Not you, not anyone. I never really finished with that step because … I never actually … apologized to Dad.”

  “Apologized for what?” Nina asked. Then she looked at him through narrowed eyes. “Jimmy, are you trying to avoid my question? What has this twelve-step business got to do with Calvin Mears?”

  “I’m not avoiding anything,” he said. “I’m trying to explain …”

  “All right. Sorry,” she said. “Go on.”

  He reached out to his glass and put his hand around it, studying the drink in his hand as if it were a jewel with a curse on it. “I never wanted you to know any of this. You’re going to hate me.”

  Nina’s stomach turned over and she suddenly felt sick. The smoke in the air seemed suffocating. “What are you talking about, Jimmy? Why should I hate you?”

  Jimmy picked up the glass.

  “Jimmy, don’t,” she said.

  For a minute he hesitated, obviously torn. Then he set down the glass and pulled his hand back.

  “What?” she prodded him.

  Jimmy looked around the bar anxiously, as if worried that he might be overheard. Then he leaned slightly closer to Nina. “No matter what Dad did—you know, no matter how bad a thing he did. Well, I did something too. The night Mom died.”

  Nina’s eyes widened, and her heart beat a tattoo.

  Jimmy hesitated, and then continued. “The night Mom died, Calvin and I … we went over to our house. The place looked dead. I thought no one was home …”

  Nina was staring at him. He glanced up at her, and then looked away.