The Girl Next Door (21 page)

“Dammit. What did my father want with Calvin Mears?” she mused aloud.

“I don’t know. Ask your brother.”

Immediately, Nina remembered Jimmy telling her on the
way to the funeral that he had paid Duncan a visit. He had insisted that they didn’t
discuss anything important. He certainly hadn’t mentioned the name of Calvin Mears.
“I believe I will,” she said.

“If you want, I can go talk to him,” Frank said.

Nina pictured Jimmy hyperventilating in the church when she told him that Duncan had
been murdered. “No,” she said. “I’ll talk to him.” The thought of Jimmy pretending
not to know anything filled her with fury. Was he protecting Calvin Mears at the expense
of his family? Could he have stooped that low?

“It might be a good idea to have someone else there,” said Frank.

Nina felt as if her heart had turned to stone. “Thank you, Lieutenant,” she said.
“I appreciate your help. But I’ll deal with my brother.”

B
Y
ten o’clock the next morning, Nina arrived at her aunt’s house. She went inside only
long enough to drop her bag on the piano bench and pick up the car keys. She looked
around, knowing there was housekeeping she should do, but not now. Now she had to
find Jimmy. She started out to the Volvo. The day’s newspaper, still in its sleeve,
was lodged in a tangle of bushes near the driveway. She tucked it under her arm, unlocked
the car door, and tossed the paper on the seat beside her. In fifteen minutes, including
a stop for gas, she was climbing the wooden steps and ringing the bell of the Connellys’
neat bungalow.

George Connelly came to the door. “Nina,” he exclaimed. “I don’t see you for years
and now it’s getting to be an everyday thing.”

“Hi, Mr…. George. Is my brother here?”

George frowned. “No, he’s not here. I don’t know where he is.”

“Isn’t this his day off ?” said Nina.

“Yeah,” said George. “We take the same day off. Planned it that way so we could spend
some time together. But I got up today and he was gone. Rose probably knows where
he is, but she left me a note that she’d gone to the store. Do you want to come in
and wait? She should be back … Oh, wait a minute—here she comes now.” He waved as
Rose’s car pulled into the driveway. “Let me help her,” he said. “She’s got groceries.”

Before Nina could reply, he was off the porch and down the steps, meeting his wife
by the trunk of her car. Nina watched as he lifted the bags out of Rose’s arms and
insisted that she precede him into the house. They walked up the path chatting amiably
about someone Rose had seen at the grocery store.

“Nina, could you hold that door open?” George asked.

Rose’s smile faded as she looked up at Nina in the doorway. “Well, Nina.”

“Hello, Mrs. Connelly.”

“She’s looking for Jim, honey,” said George. “Do you know where he went?”

Rose stopped just inside the porch door, holding a paper sack as if it were a baby
in her arms. “No, I don’t.”

I don’t believe you, Nina thought.

“Can I give him a message when he comes back?” Rose asked.

“This is … something personal,” said Nina stiffly..

“I hope this isn’t more about your father. I only say that because after what happened
in church the other day, Jimmy was quite upset,” said Rose. “And he doesn’t need that.
He has his own struggles and he’s done a magnificent job. He doesn’t need to be constantly
reminded about unpleasant things.”

“Unpleasant things?” Nina cried. “Both of our parents have been murdered. You can’t
very well just forget that.”

“Yes, we read that in the paper. Now they think your father was murdered,” said George.
“Terrible. That poor man.”

“I don’t expect Jimmy to forget it,” said Rose sternly. “But Jimmy has come a long
way, and I don’t want anything to drag him down again.”

“You mean, like me,” Nina said bitterly. Her face flamed. She wanted to start shouting
at Rose Connelly that it was none of her business what Nina said to her own brother,
but years of being cautioned to respect her elders inhibited her, and she kept silent.

“Don’t take that the wrong way, Nina,” said George soothingly, giving his wife a reproving
glance. “We may be a little overbearing when it comes to Jim. It’s been such a struggle
for him. And he’s like a son to us. You know that. We’re very aware that he doesn’t
cope well with turmoil in his life.”

“I do know that,” said Nina, a note of sharpness in her tone.

Rose looked at Nina sympathetically. “I didn’t mean to offend you, Nina,” she said.
“I could never forget all you children have suffered. And please believe me, I’m only
thinking of your welfare. The both of you. It’s not healthy for you either, Nina.
I think you might need to talk to a counselor or someone about this anger of yours.
Before you let it ruin your life.”

“My life is fine,” said Nina.

“Well, I’m not going to tell you what to do. You’re a grown woman,” Rose said. “But
I’d prefer if you didn’t get Jimmy involved.”

Involved? Nina thought. Isn’t Jimmy an adult? she wanted to demand. But she already
knew the answer. It was as if Jimmy had become a child again, in the family he really
wanted to belong to.

“So you won’t tell me where he is,” said Nina.

Rose looked at her with a tranquil gaze. “I told you. I don’t know where he is, Nina.
He doesn’t tell me everything he does.”

“You could try the gym. He’s often there,” said George, trying to be helpful. “Or
the church. He helps out there. He might be at a meeting. Usually he goes to the meetings
at the Fellowship Hall of the Presbyterian Church. At any rate, we’ll
let him know you were here,” George said, more gently, “when he comes home.”

“Thanks,” said Nina. Thanks for nothing, she thought.

“We’ll pray for you,” Rose said.

A
N
hour of driving from one of the places George had mentioned to another yielded no
clues to Jimmy’s whereabouts. When she stopped at a light opposite the Claremont Diner
Nina’s stomach rumbled and she suddenly realized that she was hungry. She’d been in
such a hurry to get the bus at Port Authority that she hadn’t even had a chance to
pick up something for breakfast. Part of her was tempted to keep on looking, but physically
she was running out of gas. She pulled into the lot and parked. For a moment, she
recalled the night of her father’s funeral, when she had come here with Andre. She
wondered when he would get back, and then she reminded herself that his life was no
business of hers.

As she started to get out of the car she saw the newspaper on the seat beside her
and decided to bring it in with her. It would be something to do while she waited
for her order. Maybe she would find an article in it about the police investigation
of her father’s death.

Inside the diner, she took a two-person table by the window and waved away the giant
menu, asking the waitress for a roll and coffee. She pulled the plastic sleeve off
the local paper and unfolded it, paging through it. There was a brief article about
Duncan headlined, “Woman sought in Avery murder inquiry dies in hospital.” Nina pounced
on the article and read it, but it left her feeling more frustrated than ever. All
it said was that Perdita Maxwell, a.k.a. Penelope Mears, whom police believed may
have been involved in the death of
Duncan Avery, had died in the hospital from pneumonia, complicated by AIDS. Nothing
more was said about the investigation except that it was ongoing. Instead, the newspaper
devoted several column inches to rehashing the murder of Marsha Avery and Duncan’s
conviction. Nina flipped the page impatiently.

The waitress brought her order, and Nina ate, her eyes glazing over as she scanned
the Kiwanis Club photos and editorials about property taxes. But when she came to
the obituary page, she stopped short.

“Mears, Penelope, 47,” read a small headline over a paragraph, without a photo, near
the bottom of the page. The obit offered only the briefest, most sanitized summary
of a life Nina now knew to be rather sordid. Penelope’s occupation was listed as massage
therapist, and her only surviving family was a married sister named Sally Jenkins
living in Seaside Park, N.J., and one son, Calvin, of Los Angeles. Nina tried to put
a face to the name of Calvin’s mother, but she couldn’t remember ever meeting her.
When she was a kid, she remembered the adults talking about Mrs. Mears as a mother
who didn’t care what kind of trouble her son got into. Nina had always somehow understood
that about her, but she’d never realized what it was that Mrs. Mears had done for
a living. It must have been a well-kept secret at the time. She wondered if her own
parents had known the truth about Calvin’s mother. Nina read over the funeral arrangements,
and then, with a start, she looked again at the date and time listed. She glanced
up at the clock over the diner counter. This was an opportunity. Maybe. She hesitated,
remembering what Frank Hagen had said—that Calvin wouldn’t dare show his face in Hoffman
because of that vengeful father. But it was surely worth a try.

·   ·   ·

B
Y
the time she got to the funeral home, there were only two cars in the parking lot.
A ponytailed attendant in a shiny suit, standing under the portico outside the doors,
told her that the Mears mourners had already left for the cemetery.

“You can catch them if you hurry,” he said.

Nina got back in the Volvo and drove as fast as she dared to the stone pillars that
marked the entrance to Shadywood Cemetery. She drove slowly, looking right and left
for signs of life among the quiet markers. She passed a black Dodge pickup truck with
tinted windows parked by the side of the road. Nina glanced over and saw that someone
was sitting in the car. She looked away, not wanting to intrude on their grief, and
continued on along the winding road through the cemetery.

The small party of mourners was not hard to spot. They were on a hillside that sloped
up from the road. Nina parked the Volvo and got out, walking up to where the knot
of people were standing. The blustery gray November wind rattled the few leaves left
on the trees around them, and a shower of flakes, looking more like cinders than snow,
whirled around the tiny group. The priest was intoning a blessing while a sad-eyed
middle-aged woman in a navy blue dress and a gray coat chewed the inside of her mouth.
Beside her, a man in a checked sport coat and a fedora stood with his feet apart,
his hands folded in front of him, in a straight-backed stance.

There were two other women, both dressed in black, one a bleached blond, the other
a redhead. The blond’s tight black dress had sequins across the yoke. The redhead
wore a short skirt and tight sweater. There was a huge run in her dark stockings.
Both of the women were red-eyed from weeping, and if appearances were any indication,
Nina thought, they might have been Perdita’s colleagues.

Between these disparate pairs stood a lean man with filthy hair and classic features.
He wore an open-collared black shirt
and a gray pinstriped suit over unbuckled black boots. He swayed slightly, and his
large, glittering gray eyes stared blankly down at the coffin.

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.