The House Next Door Read online

  “Snap out of it, Evie!” he barks, shuffling into the living room still rebuttoning his pants. “Thanksgiving? It’s March. Do you hear me? It’s springtime!”

  “Oh, of course it is, Leonard!” my mother snaps, waving her hands in the air like she’s at a revivalist church service. “I know that. I’m talking about next year!”

  I let out a long sigh, my patience wearing thin.

  “Let’s all stop with the yelling, huh?”

  I love my parents. I really do. But dealing with them isn’t always easy.

  They refuse to move to an assisted-living home, so I’m the one who has to do the assisting in their home. I try to swing by as much as I can, but working overtime these last few weeks on the Pierson case has mostly kept me away. But now, here I am.

  “Andy, tell your father and me more about that nice girl you met. She worked in real estate, didn’t she?”

  Ugh. This time I have to grit my teeth as I speak patiently and pleasantly.

  “Mom, you’re thinking of Kelly. We broke up two years ago. Remember?”

  My mother’s expression gets spacey for a few seconds as she processes this.

  “You know I just want you to be happy is all.”

  “You deserve to have a special woman in your life, son,” my dad chimes in. “Just like I do.”

  My mother warms and puts her bony hand on his.

  “Her name is Gloria,” he says. “She’s a real doll. I’ll introduce you sometime.”

  With a laugh, my mother playfully swats him. Despite myself, I chuckle, too.

  But the thing is, lately, I have been thinking about a special new woman in my life—a helluva lot more than I thought I would be.

  Her name is Ellen Anne Pierson. She sure is an intriguing creature. Married to a psychopathic, pedophilic serial killer for years and never had a clue.

  Or so she says.

  Except more and more, I’m really starting to believe her.

  And if she is telling the truth, just think about what she’s going through! The shock. The denial. The loneliness. The pain.

  For a sweet, attractive, bighearted woman like that—a school nurse, for God’s sake—it’s gotta be overwhelming.

  I guess I’ve been starting to feel sorry for her.

  And maybe—Jesus, I can’t believe I’m even saying this—maybe I’ve been starting to feel something else for her, too.

  Chapter 16

  “Sir, I will ask you one more time. Do you fully understand the severity of the crimes of which you have been accused?”

  When facing the formidable, no-bullshit superior court judge Linda Knier, plenty of suspects tremble in their shackles. But not Michael Pierson. That smug son of a bitch is just standing there in his orange jumpsuit, saying and doing nothing.

  Hang on. Scratch that. I’m wrong. Even though I’m sitting in the very back row of the courthouse, I can make out that he’s literally twiddling his thumbs.

  “He does, Your Honor,” answers John Kirkpatrick, Pierson’s rumpled, perpetually disheveled lawyer. “And my client strongly denies any and all allegations. Furthermore, given that so much of the evidence the State has outlined against him is circumstantial at best and mere conjecture at worst, we urge the court to toss out each and every count with prejudice.”

  I shake my head. Defense attorneys.

  I’ve encountered Kirkpatrick a few other times. He even cross-examined me once on an assault-and-battery case. By all accounts, he’s a good and decent man. And I know it’s wrong to condemn attorneys—especially public defenders, who don’t have much say in it—for the clients they represent. But the fact that the guy can stand up there with a straight face and say Michael Pierson should walk free makes me sick to my stomach.

  And apparently, most of the spectators feel the same way. His comments trigger a chorus of groans and boos from the packed gallery. These onlookers include Brittany Herbert’s mother and stepfather, of course, as well as the parents of Claire, Samantha, Maria, and Patty. Black, white, Hispanic, rich, poor—the families of Pierson’s victims represent a cross section of San Luis’s diverse community, united in their shared grief and desire for justice.

  Judge Knier holds up her hand, and the commotion simmers down.

  “Thank you, Counselor,” the judge responds. “But the court disagrees. I will take under advisement your motion to dismiss the ancillary counts against your client. But the primary charges against him very much still stand. A jury of Mr. Pierson’s peers will decide his guilt. Your motion for bail is also denied. Defendant is to be remanded into custody until the start of trial. We are adjourned.”

  Crack-crack-crack goes her gavel. And just like that, the hearing is over.

  Kirkpatrick tries to hastily confer with his client as a burly bailiff cuffs Pierson and starts to cart him off, but the bastard couldn’t seem to care less.

  Instead, he looks back at the gallery and makes eye contact with Ellen. She’s been sitting in the third row on the far left side, as still and silent as a statue. He gives her a solemn nod, and I see her quickly mouth something back to him.

  Wait—that was the first time they’ve made contact since his arrest.

  What did she say?

  It looked like “Good-bye.”

  But it also kind of looked like “You’ll die.”

  Or maybe: “Should I?”

  Shit. This could be important. I gotta find out. Fast.

  Chapter 17

  “Mrs. Pierson, hold up!”

  I’m racing through the courthouse hallway after Ellen, my boots slapping against the white marble with every step. I’m already feeling out of breath, but I’m very happy I found her.

  Just after Pierson was led away, Samantha Gonzalez’s mother, Maria, buttonholed me and asked if there was any new evidence in her daughter’s case. In the approximately 3.2 seconds it took me to politely say, in my badly broken Spanish, “No, señora, now excusa-me,” Ellen is gone.

  Now, scurrying down the hallway, Ellen glances back at me, but she doesn’t slow down. In fact, she slips on a pair of sunglasses, ties a white scarf around her head, and quickens her pace.

  Is she running from me?

  “Mrs. Pierson,” I call out again, “I just wanna talk to you!”

  But still she pretends to ignore me and keeps moving. Damn it!

  She’s pretty fast, too—until she gets caught up in a gathering crowd of reporters all hollering questions at her. In no time, they’ve practically got her surrounded. Poor Ellen tries to snake her way through, but she can’t.

  Which gives me the opportunity to snap into action.

  “Police! Everybody step back!”

  Hurrying over, I wave my silver badge in the air with one hand while moving the reporters aside with the other until I reach Ellen, who’s now cowering, practically frozen.

  “Mrs. Pierson will not be answering any questions!” I bellow. Then I drape my arm around Ellen’s slender shoulders and start pushing our way through the horde like a human snowplow.

  “And if any one of you keeps giving her a hard time, now or at her house? I will personally arrest you for aggravated harassment and disturbing the peace, and you will never get another quote or tip from the SLOPD until I retire. Anybody wanna test me? Go right ahead!”

  That does the trick, all right. Even though most of these reporters are smart enough to guess I’m probably bluffing, they back off anyway and let us pass.

  Once we’re out of the thick of it, I steer Ellen away from the main entrance and down a side hallway.

  “Wait…wh—where are we going?” she stammers, still overwhelmed by it all.

  “I know a side exit,” I tell her. “It’ll spit us out right next to the employee and law-enforcement parking lot. I’ll drive you home, Mrs. Pierson, okay?”

  “What about…my car?”

  “I’ll have it towed.” With a smirk, I add: “To your place. It’s no sweat. I’m a cop, remember?”

  Ellen gives me a grateful loo
k, along with a smile.

  It’s only then that I realize, even though we’re far from those crazy reporters now, I’ve still got my arm wrapped around her.

  Chapter 18

  Not twenty minutes later, I’m turning onto Ellen’s street. Her house comes into view. And she gasps.

  It’s an unbelievable sight.

  There isn’t a single reporter or news van out front anymore.

  “I…I don’t know how to thank you, Detective,” she says as we pull into her driveway. “They were monsters.”

  “They just want to find the facts. Know the truth. Can’t say I blame them.”

  Ellen seems to get my message. When I shut off the engine, she finally takes off the sunglasses and scarf she’s been wearing since the courthouse and turns to me.

  “Is this the part where I invite you inside, and since your partner is still working that other case, you ask me some even more probing, personal questions?”

  “Maybe. But let’s start with one you do know the answer to.”

  “I’ll try,” she says moments later as I follow her into the kitchen. “That’s what I mouthed to him as he was led off. I’ll try.”

  Ellen heads straight for the sink and pours herself a tall glass of water. She drinks it down in a few big gulps. She starts to fill the glass up again, then stops and opens the freezer. From the back she pulls out a half-empty bottle of Grey Goose vodka. Fancy stuff. She pours a healthy amount of that into her water glass and guzzles it just as fast. It seems to settle her nerves almost instantly.

  “You’ll try what?” I finally ask as she wipes her mouth with her forearm.

  “To survive. To get through this nightmare. To stay strong. To move on. I think that’s what Michael was trying to tell me with his look. I wanted him to know I would.”

  As I watch Ellen put away the vodka and rinse out her glass, I can’t help but be fascinated by this strong, beautiful woman.

  “Detective,” she says softly, “do I ever get to ask you any questions?”

  “You can ask me anything,” I answer. “If there’s something you want to know about the investigation, or police procedure, or—”

  “That’s not what I’m talking about. I mean, questions like…‘With so much crime and hate and ugliness in the world, how do you get up every morning and still do your job?’ Or, ‘Is there any line you wouldn’t cross if it meant solving a crime?’”

  Ever so slightly, Ellen pouts her lips.

  “Or…‘Is there a special someone in your life?’”

  This woman! If she’s trying to throw me off, I will not let her succeed.

  Breaking the tension, I say: “Your butterfly collection, I presume?”

  I’ve just spotted a couple items sitting on the table on the back porch. They look like frames of some sort, beside a few bottles of paint and brushes. Without letting Ellen answer, I head out to get a better look.

  “After I’ve cataloged and filled a new shadow box with specimens,” she explains as she follows me, “I like to stain the frame. I use different colors for different woods. It’s too stuffy to paint up in the attic. All the fumes. So I do it out here.”

  I glance out at the backyard now and see all the uneven mounds of dirt where Dr. Hyong and his team dug up the dog grave we stumbled on. It was just a few weeks ago—but it feels like ages.

  Then I look back at all the colorful butterflies in their freshly stained frames.

  “It really is a wonderful collection, Mrs. Pierson.”

  I turn to face her and look directly into her sad, tired, but still entrancing bicolored eyes.

  What kind of woman, I wonder, takes pleasure in collecting dead things?

  Chapter 19

  Sometimes I wish I was one of those cops who drink.

  Watching Ellen chug that vodka the other night—and seeing her flooded with such instant relief—actually made me a little jealous. Sure, I’ll have a beer or two or four with some pals once in a while, but the hard stuff just isn’t my style. Which is why my liquor cabinet looks so pathetic. Rifling through the couple of dusty bottles in it from God-knows-when, none of them really appeals to me.

  Except that Macallan 25-Year-Old Sherry Oak. It’s the gift all the guys in the department got me years ago, right after I got my detective’s shield. It’s the extra-extra-good shit I’m only “allowed” to pour after I’ve solved a murder case.

  That’s the drink I’m dying to have right now.

  After almost five weeks since Pierson’s arrest, I’m more convinced of his guilt than ever…but I’m still no closer to finding those other girls.

  I know I should be focusing more on the case. Me and Gina should be out there hunting down more leads. Scouring the town and woodlands for more clues.

  But instead, all I can think about is Ellen.

  The goddamn killer’s wife.

  She’s such an enigma. The more time I spend with her, the less I get her.

  Most of the time, she seems like an open book. But every once in a while, I feel like she’s hiding something, even though I can’t put my finger on it. I can’t tell if she’s as steely as she seems, or as delicate as one of her butterflies.

  But either way, there’s something about her that’s simply…intoxicating.

  Jesus, McGrath, stop it. You’re talking crazy!

  I finally cave and grab a grimy old bottle of Jack Daniel’s that’s probably been sitting in my cabinet since the first George Bush administration. I slosh a bit into a tumbler and shoot it back—and nearly gag.

  Can hard alcohol go bad?

  Can an innocent woman go bad?

  Chapter 20

  After her scuffle with that horde of reporters outside the courtroom—which ended only thanks to her white knight, Detective McGrath—Ellen thought her war against the press was over.

  She had no idea it was about to get worse.

  By the following morning, even more members of the media appeared in front of her home. The courthouse episode seemed to energize them, not discourage them. They took to knocking on Ellen’s door at all hours of the day and night, preventing her from getting any decent sleep. (Maybe this was a deliberate tactic to wear her down.) Even just opening the blinds to peek outside for a few seconds subjected her to a hail of screams and taunts.

  If Ellen was afraid to leave her house before, now she was terrified.

  On more than one occasion, she thought about calling McGrath. She assumed he hadn’t been serious about his threat, but she figured he would at least keep an eye on her place. Come to think of it, she hadn’t heard from him since that day. Had he gotten too busy? Had he lost interest in her as a source of information? Or had the unexpected intimacy of their last conversation spooked him and pushed him away?

  It doesn’t matter. With or without him, Ellen knows she can’t keep living this way, a prisoner in her own home. And as the start date of her husband’s trial draws closer, this hell will only get worse—unless she puts an end to it now. Herself.

  Standing in her kitchen, so bone-tired that she’s brewing a rare pot of midday coffee, Ellen knows what she has to do. A simple act of defiance to show the press who’s boss. She flips off the gas, opens her freezer, and downs the remaining few gulps of Grey Goose straight from the bottle—a little liquid courage that she very much needs.

  Then she unlocks her front door and steps outside.

  “Mrs. Pierson! Any comment on your husband’s charges?”

  “Will you ever apologize to the families of his victims?”

  “Do you plan to stand by that monster’s side at trial or divorce the bastard?”

  The questions come fast and hard, hurled like rocks and glass bottles by an angry mob. Ellen’s instinct is to duck and hurry back inside, but she resists it with every ounce of her strength.

  “Will your husband be mounting an insanity defense, Mrs. Pierson?”

  “Can you confirm reports he’s been put on suicide watch?”

  “How could you live with him
for so long and have no idea who he really was?”

  Ellen still refuses to take the bait. I can do this, she thinks.

  Keeping her head held high, she walks calmly down her driveway, past her car, then steps onto the sidewalk. Now that she’s on public property, the reporters swarm around her like vultures, surrounding her on all sides.

  Still, she forges on, moving slowly and steadily down the block. But then the questions begin to get even worse. The reporters are growing frustrated by her silence and are desperate to get a rise out of her.

  “How do you respond to claims that you knew about your husband’s crimes and kept quiet?”

  “If you’re really innocent, why won’t the police leave you alone?”

  “Is it true you helped him pick his victims out of the yearbook and were there when he killed them?”

  Ellen feels her lip start to quiver now. Her hands ball into fists. The notion that she had anything to do with what happened to those young women is sickening. Humiliating. And infuriating.

  She feels the urge to start screaming at those vicious reporters to be quiet, to leave her alone, to show a little human decency. But making a scene when a dozen cameras are rolling is the last thing she needs.

  Ellen walks faster now, keeping her eyes straight ahead. Let me just make it once around the block, she thinks. Just give me that tiny victory. Please.

  But the reporters smell blood in the water.

  “Did you and your husband get off on hearing those poor girls scream?”

  “Where the hell are the bodies, Mrs. Pierson? Where did you bury them?”

  And that’s it. All Ellen can take. The final straw.

  But instead of having a meltdown in the middle of the street, she turns and starts to run. Shoving the reporters out of her way, she races back home.

  Once back inside, she slams her front door, locking and bolting it. Then she collapses in a heap of tears right there in her entryway.