The Girl Next Door (28 page)

“Sure,” said Gemma. “No problem.”

Nina thanked her sister-in-law, paid for the gas, and headed toward Seaside Park.

Dark clouds were gathering over the deserted beach town by the time Nina arrived.
She stopped at another service station for directions and made her way slowly to the
street, two blocks from the beach where the Ocean Breeze Motel was located. As soon
as she turned the corner and saw the neon sign for the Ocean Breeze, she also saw
that there was some sort of commotion going on around it. There were police cars and
an ambulance in the parking lot, and people were clustered outside the motel office
talking and pointing. A yellow police line had been set up, blocking access to the
motel rooms. A few angry customers were demanding that they needed to get in. Nina’s
heart was in her throat as she parked at the curb and walked up to where a knot of
police officers were standing.

Before she could even open her mouth to ask a question, one of the officers said,
“All right, move along here.”

“What happened?” she said.

The officer did not look at her. “Everybody move along. We need everybody to get out
of the way.”

A heavyset girl in a barn jacket and blue jeans was making notes on a pad. “They had
a shooting,” she volunteered.

Nina’s heart skipped a beat. “Who got shot?” Nina demanded.

“I don’t know. I’m trying to get some answers myself. I work for the weekly paper.
Somebody who was staying in the motel.”

“My brother was … visiting here,” said Nina anxiously. “Do you have any names?”

The girl looked at her pad. But before she could find the name, Nina saw a car door
open and two people she recognized got out. The stocky, balding man was wearing fishing
gear and waders, and the woman was wearing stretch pants and a T-shirt with some sort
of Victorian design on it. It took Nina a moment to recognize them as one of the officers,
apparently in charge, went up to them and shook hands with the balding man. Calvin’s
aunt and uncle, from the cemetery, she thought. The uniformed officer leaned in and
spoke earnestly to the two of them. The woman let out a startled cry and sagged against
her husband.

“Calvin … Mears,” said Nina.

“That’s right,” said the female reporter. “He was killed. The ambulance took the other
two away. Hey …”

Nina rushed past her and up to the police line, behind which the plainclothes officer
who had been speaking to Calvin’s aunt and uncle was talking with a woman wearing
plastic gloves. “Excuse me,” she said. “Excuse me. Please, I need help.”

The officer turned to Nina with a frown. “Get back from there, please,” he said.

“My brother was with the man who got killed. I need to know …”

“What’s your brother’s name?” asked the detective.

“Avery … James Avery.”

The officer looked at his notebook and his frown deepened, but his impatient look
disappeared. “I’m sorry, miss. What’s your name?”

“Nina … Avery.” Her mouth was so dry she could hardly get her name out, and her heart
was hammering.

“Your brother, James … uh … he’s been taken to Shore Medical Center. If you want,
I can have one of my men drive you over there to see him.”

“Oh my God,” said Nina. “Oh my God. Who shot him?”

“Your brother … no, he wasn’t shot. The other two men were shot. Your brother … he
apparently was the victim of a drug overdose. He’s … uh … he’s critical right now.
He’s in a coma. Here, you want to sit down? Can somebody bring this lady a chair?”

One of the uniformed officers ducked into a nearby room.

“What was your brother doing here with Mr. Mears? Do you know?” asked the detective.

“I don’t know,” said Nina. “They were old friends.”

An officer appeared from inside one of the rooms carrying an armchair. He put it on
the walkway, and Nina sank down into it, her legs feeling like rubber.

“Are you all right?” the young officer asked solicitously.

Nina nodded.

“Sepulveda, go get her a drink from that machine in the office,” said the detective.
“When she’s ready, drive her over to Shore. Her brother’s the one who OD’d.”

OD’d, Nina thought. Oh God. “But … who, what happened?” Nina whispered.

“Detective Milgram,” said another uniformed officer, who was approaching with a woman
wearing a cotton shirt, with mirrors sewn around the neck, a long skirt, and sandals.
She had walnut-colored skin and shiny dark hair pulled back in a messy knot at the
back of her head. “Here’s the chambermaid. She just got back. You said you wanted
to ask her …”

“Yeah,” growled the detective. “Miss … Patel, is it? I want you to tell me everything
you saw …”

“I’m not a chambermaid,” the woman protested. “My uncle owns this place.”

Nina, still in the chair, looked down the walkway at Calvin Mears’s aunt and uncle,
who were talking to another detective. Calvin’s aunt was sniffling into a tissue and
shaking her head miserably. The uncle was speaking angrily, making a gesture as if
he were wielding a club, and suddenly Nina heard him say, “He had a bat with him.”
Nina realized that Jenkins was telling the police about that guy, Keefer, at the cemetery.
The guy with the baseball bat.

“What about the other guy?” his wife cried. “The Puerto Rican guy. The one that came
to the house.”

The detective, whose back was to Nina, murmured something, and they both nodded.

Officer Sepulveda, a serious-looking young man with a long
narrow face, returned from the soda machine and handed Nina a can of Sprite. Gratefully,
Nina took a drink.

“You ready to go over to the Medical Center now, miss?” he asked.

“It’s all right. I’ll be all right. I can drive there,” Nina said faintly.

“It’s no problem,” said Sepulveda. “If you’re too shook up to drive.”

“I just need to sit a minute,” she said. She closed her eyes and sipped at the soda.
The chambermaid was droning on about the mess she had found in 408 and how in India
her parents had servants who cleaned up after her.

“So, did you see anything at all … anything unusual?” the detective asked. “Anything
that might help us find out who did this.”

“No, not really,” said the woman apologetically in a singsong accent. “Well, maybe
one thing,” she said.

“And what was that?” the detective asked.

“Well. I saw a Jaguar parked out in back there. You know. The British sports car.
Silvery blue color. Brand-new. Really a beautiful car. You don’t see many of those
in a place like this, I can tell you that. It was only there a short time.”

“Did you notice the plate?” the detective asked.

The woman shook her head. “Jersey plates, I think. I didn’t pay attention.”

Officer Sepulveda put a hand on the back of the chair and leaned over to speak to
Nina. “How you doing?” he asked. “Are you ready to go?”

Nina did not reply. She was staring straight ahead, thinking about what the chambermaid
had said. A late-model silvery blue Jaguar, Nina thought. Parked right outside the
room where Calvin Mears was gunned down. The room where Jimmy was dying of a drug
overdose. A silvery blue Jaguar. No, she thought. It couldn’t be.

“O
KAY
, miss,” said the nurse kindly. “We’ve got him stabilized and he’s in an ICU cubicle
now. You can go up, but only for a few minutes.”

Nina had been sitting in the Emergency Room waiting area of the Shore Medical Center
for nearly two hours, waiting to see her brother. She understood that the doctors
and nurses were busy trying to save him, and she was patient. Occasionally a nurse
would come out and give her an update on his condition. Now, at this latest bulletin,
Nina stood up. “How is he?”

“He’s still critical,” said the nurse apologetically. “He’s not conscious, but … maybe
he’ll know you’re there anyway. Sometimes they do.”

Nina thanked her, and made her way through the maze of the unfamiliar hospital, following
the signs to the ICU. Directed by a receptionist, she entered the curtained cubicle
timidly and saw her brother lying in a hospital bed, lit by a fluorescent halo
from the harsh light over the bed. Nina tiptoed up to Jimmy and put a hand on his
clammy forehead, which was about the only visible part of him that was not crisscrossed
with wires and tubes. His eyelids were a grayish color, closed over his sunken eyes.
There was no sound in the cubicle except for the whoosh of the ventilator. The tube,
taped to his face, snaked out of his mouth between his parched-looking pale lips.
What happened to you in that motel room? she wondered.

“Jimmy.” She leaned over and spoke into his ear. “It’s me. Nina. You’ve got to come
back to us. Come on. Open your eyes. You can do it.”

There was no response from the man on the bed. Nina straightened up and looked down
at him. All the way over here, all the time she had been keeping a vigil for Jimmy,
she kept thinking about the silver-blue Jaguar in the motel parking lot. Last night,
Patrick had picked Jimmy up at the bar. Jimmy had probably told him about how he and
Calvin had conspired to rob their mother on that long-ago day. Maybe it made Patrick
angry enough to want to confront Mears himself. Maybe Patrick walked in on them and
found Jimmy overdosed like this and went crazy. Jimmy, what happened in there? She
asked the question in her mind. But now, with Jimmy comatose and Mears dead, she wondered
if she would ever know the answers.

A nurse poked her head between the curtains and spoke quietly to Nina. “Keep it short,
hon,” she said.

Nina nodded and then bent over to kiss her brother’s forehead. “I’ll be back,” she
said. She thanked the nurse on her way past the central command desk in the ICU, and
the nurse smiled at her sympathetically.

She held her breath as she passed through the busy unit. She opened the door and stepped
gratefully out into the relative quiet of the waiting area.

“Nina!” Nina looked up and saw Rose and George Connelly,
who had just arrived. They hurried toward her, their eyes full of pain. Nina had
dreaded this encounter ever since she called Rose from the hospital. They had tried
so hard for Jimmy, and now they would have to endure even more suffering on his behalf.

“How is he doing?” George cried.

“Not too good,” said Nina, and for the first time since she had entered the hospital,
tears welled in her eyes.

“The Lord will protect him, Nina,” said George, putting an arm around her. “Have faith.”
Is that your secret? Nina wondered. Is that how you can stand the blows?

Rose shook her head. “Ever since you told me that Calvin Mears was back, I was afraid
something like this would happen.”

“I’m sorry, Rose,” said Nina.

“Oh, Nina,” said Rose. “Don’t apologize. It’s not your doing. You have nothing to
be sorry about.” Rose reached out for her and enveloped her in a motherly hug that
felt like forgiveness, and Nina allowed herself, for a few moments, to let down her
guard and have a good cry.

H
UNGER
and exhaustion overwhelmed Nina as soon as she left the hospital, and at the first
rest stop she pulled in and closed her eyes for a minute. Nearly an hour later, the
chill in the car woke her from a deep sleep. She went into the restaurant and got
herself a quick bite. Then she drove the rest of the way back to Hoffman.

Nina was surprised when she pulled into the driveway to see the little wine-colored
Honda Civic parked there. She trudged up to her aunt’s front door and reached for
the knob. The door opened and Nina was greeted by her sister-in-law.

“How is Jimmy?” said Gemma, as Nina brushed past her coming into the house.

“Not good,” said Nina.

“Will he live?” Gemma asked.

Nina shook her head. “I don’t know.”

“What about the other man?”

“Calvin Mears?” Nina asked. “He’s dead.”

“No, there was a Hispanic man. They said on TV he was still alive but he was critical.”

Nina shook her head. “Oh, I don’t know. I don’t know anything about that. I’ve been
with Jimmy. I’m numb.” Nina took her jacket off and sat down in a chair, rubbing her
eyes. “The Connellys are with Jimmy now. Have you heard from Patrick?”

Gemma shook her head. “Not yet. He’s still at work, I suppose. I want to get down
there to the hospital, but I need to wait for Patrick.”

Nina stared at her. “He hasn’t called you back?”

Gemma shrugged. “That’s not unusual. He hates for me to bother him at work. And he’s
often late.”

Nina couldn’t meet Gemma’s inquiring gaze. She had been thinking dark thoughts about
Patrick for the last few hours.

“Where are the boys?”

“With the new housekeeper,” Gemma said.

“How’s my aunt?”

“Sleeping. She took her medication,” said Gemma.

Nina exhaled a little sigh of relief. “Thanks for doing that. And for staying with
her.”

“No problem. Well, now that you’re back,” said Gemma, “I’ll be going.”

“Gemma, can I talk to you for a minute first?”

Gemma looked surprised. “Certainly, Nina.” Gemma sat down on the sofa, her wiry frame
barely making a dent in the cushions. Her fingers moved restlessly in her lap, twisting
her rings. Her large brown eyes studied her sister-in-law. “What is it?”

Nina glanced behind her at the hallway leading to her aunt’s bedroom. “We have to
talk quietly. I don’t want my aunt to wake up and hear any of this.”

“Any of what?” Gemma asked.

“I’ve been thinking about this the whole way home in the car. Trying to think why
… I don’t know where to begin.” Nina took a deep breath. “I have to ask you something.
It’s about Patrick.”

Gemma frowned. “What about Patrick?”

Nina clasped her hands and rubbed them together. “All right, I know this is going
to sound … Look, I’ve been very worried ever since I heard that … well, someone saw
a silver-blue Jaguar at the motel where they found Jimmy.”

Gemma stared at her. Nina could see her pulse beating in her throat.

“It may not mean anything because there are lots of blue Jaguars …” Nina backpedaled.