The Deadly Neighbors (The Zoe Hayes Mysteries)

SUMMER SESSION

THE NANNY MURDERS

THE RIVER KILLINGS

THE BORROWED AND BLUE MURDERS

AMERICA’S DUMBEST DATES

IF SHE WEREN’T MY BEST FRIEND, I’D KILL HER

PLEASE DON’T KISS ME AT THE BUS STOP

I LOVE HIM, BUT…

I LOVE HER, BUT… (as Robin Jones)

BIRTHMOTHERS: WOMEN WHO HAVE RELINQUISHED BABIES FOR ADOPTION TELL THEIR STORIES

STEPMOTHERS: KEEPING IT TOGETHER WITH YOUR HUSBAND AND HIS KIDS

A Merry Jones Reprint

I was maybe two-thirds of the way through the first draft of this book when, suddenly, my mother and favorite woman ever fell violently and gravely ill. For a good six months, she hovered between life and death. Family gathered around her in Chicago; my Miami-based sister and I took turns flying into town; my daughters, brother-in-law, a niece and two nephews, aunts and cousins and uncles and friends joined us at Mom’s side during her seemingly endless struggle.

I am extremely thankful to these people for helping me finish the book:

Detective Chuck Boyle, now retired, of the homicide division of the Philadelphia Police Department for sharing his time and insights on the inner workings of the Roundhouse and police procedures.

Janet Martin, Nancy Delman, Jane Braun and the rest of my family—I can’t list everyone—for being consistently encouraging and dependable through good times and bad.

Our late sweet corgi, Sam, for keeping me company, lying under my desk as I wrote until he died one morning while I was with Mom.

Our new corgi, Jack, who is the devil incarnate.

My daughters, Baille and Neely, who are love and joy incarnate.

My beloved, brave husband and merciless in-home editor, Robin.

My sorely missed late dad and brother, Herman S. and Aaron N. Bloch.

And my late miracle mom, Judy Bloch, who fought her way back to us for two more years by sheer strength of will and determination, and who, even in the worst parts of her ordeal, remained a lady.

To Robin, Baille and Neely, and the memory of Sam

T
HE HOUSE LOOKED SMALLER
than I remembered. Smaller, and much more forlorn. Standing at the curb surveying the property, I half-expected to see myself at six, bursting out the door and running down the hill to the stream, or burying myself in mounds of crisp fallen leaves. Or at ten, hiding in secret shaded spots in the garden where no one could find me. Or at sixteen, sneaking out on crisp fall nights to meet Kenny Birch, the high school track star who lived next to the gated property on the corner. Who, it turned out, cheated on me with that trashy redhead in my trig class, Stephanie Laing.

Oh, Lord. Why was I remembering all this? I hadn’t thought about any of these people in decades. But now, from all sides of the street, memories came swirling. Old Dr. Hennigsman, who lived across the street and always wore a three-piece suit, even when taking out the trash. Professor Hogan, who smoked nostril-searing, pungent tobacco while sitting on his porch swing, arias charging full-throttle from his window. Hilda, our plump housekeeper, her waist-long caramel-colored hair coiled into a gravity-defying knot, trimming rosebushes in the side yard. And my dapper dad, eyes twinkling, rushing off somewhere magical with a cheerful kiss and dazzling smile.

Stop now, I told myself. Don’t revisit the past; those times are gone. You’re here to deal with the present. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, steeling myself for the walk up the path, reminding myself that I was not a child anymore. I was a grown woman, no longer vulnerable to the house or to the demands of the man who occupied it. Years had passed since I’d lived here. Decades. I had my own life now, my own home and family, a second child on the way. Being here was no reason for my stomach to churn or my hands to go clammy. What could happen? After all, he was just an old man.

Molly let go of my hand and raced up the path to the veranda steps. Six years old and high-spirited, Molly had little tolerance for standing around. “I’ll ring the bell,” she called.

Fine, I thought. You ring it. Because if you don’t, we’ll have to stand here while I get up the nerve. Which might take days. Weeks. Oh Lord. What were we doing here? Why had we come? Yes, okay. We’d come because my father was a widower, alone and eighty-three. And Molly was his only grandchild. And I was his only daughter. But still, I hadn’t seen or spoken to him in years. I hadn’t wanted to and still didn’t. Our complete estrangement suited me fine. In fact, I tried my best never even to think of him. Life was easier, more normal, that way.

Of course, there had been times—entire years—when I’d thought of him ceaselessly. His handsome, contagious smile; his twinkling, playful eyes. His deep reassuring voice. His boundless promises. His endless lies.

Eventually, I’d stopped spending energy on him. With the help of an interchangeable stream of sitters, housekeepers and maids, I’d managed to survive my mostly motherless childhood, had finished college, married, divorced, adopted a child. I’d built a career, gotten engaged again, become pregnant. Hell, I was forty-plus-one-or-so years old. I bore no resemblance whatever to the skinny, self-conscious, apprehensive and often disappointed kid who’d once lived here and unconditionally, usually at her own peril, adored her father. Through long years of repeated disillusionment, I’d turned so far away from my father that when I’d been making a list of wedding guests, I’d automatically omitted his name. I’d never even told Nick, my fiancé, that my father was still alive, let alone that his house was only a twenty-minute drive from ours. I’d acted as if I’d had no father. And that had been fine.

Until now. Somehow, despite my strongest survival instincts, here I was, at my father’s door, my six-year-old daughter at my side. A warm October breeze rattled the brilliant leaves of a dozen ancient trees, sounding like applause. As if the trees were clapping, welcoming me home.

Molly pushed the buzzer, removed her finger and immediately pushed again. And again. And again.

“Molls—” I grabbed her hand before it could make another jab. “Don’t ring so many times. It’s rude.”

“But Grandpa’s waiting. He’s expecting us.”

Grandpa? She’d never met him, yet she seemed instantly comfortable with the concept. Grandpa. She was going to visit her grandpa, as if it were a normal thing to do. I wondered what she expected, how she pictured him. How would she greet him? And how would he react? Would he scoop her up in still strong, suntanned arms, charming her with a broad grin and baritone laugh? Would he lure her with a jangle of gleaming gold coins and silver dollars?

“Wait a minute.” I squeezed her hand. “Give Grandpa a chance to get here. He might be upstairs.”

Her eyes turned to the door, waiting. And my mind wandered. Somewhere close by, dogs barked furiously, cloyingly. Across the street, a large buffed man in a black T-shirt and jeans stood under a weeping willow tree holding a huge dog, maybe a mastiff, on a leash. Was he watching us? He seemed intent, staring at the house, eyes darting away when I looked at him. But why would he be watching us? He wasn’t; he was just a man walking his dog, gazing across the street while waiting for it to sniff a tree trunk. So, where was my father? Why wasn’t he answering the door? And, when he did, what would I say to him? How should I greet him?

My stomach fluttered and wrenched, and I put a hand on my belly, as if reassuring the baby. I didn’t want to be here. When Dad’s next-door neighbor, Lettie something—Kinkaid? Yes, Lettie Kinkaid. When she’d called, I should have told her that she had the wrong number. That I’d never heard of Zoe Hayes or her father, Walter Hayes, or any Hayeses at all, ever. Or that Zoe Hayes had moved away, leaving no forwarding address. Or that she’d died; that, in fact, I’d buried her myself.

But I hadn’t said any of that. Instead, I’d asked what was wrong, what had happened. She’d pointedly asked when I’d seen my father last, and I’d felt my face get hot, embarrassed by her chastising tone, a stranger’s assumptions. She must have wondered what kind of daughter I was, neglecting an old widower. She must have thought I was an ingrate, a self-absorbed superficial brat. Living so close, not seeing him at all. Ignoring the poor man in the winter of his years.

Afterward, I’d considered pretending that the call had never come. That I didn’t know he was ailing. But in the end, I’d been compelled to listen to the stranger who lived next door to him imply that it was my fault that my father hadn’t been eating, had become fragile and occasionally disoriented, had been ill with the flu much of last spring and hadn’t played cards in months.

“No cards?” I’d repeated.

“Not even with his usual guys, hon. Not a single game.”

My father was avid about few things; one of them was cards. Any kind of game that he could bet on gave him pleasure, but card games were a way of life for him. He’d play anything. Gin. Poker. Blackjack. Even Canasta. So when Lettie’d said that he’d not played a single game, I knew the situation was serious. Emotions became irrelevant; the duties of blood prevailed. It was time to go home.

And so here I was, waiting for the door to open. We waited. And waited. The neighbor’s dogs kept barking, fraying my nerves. Fidgeting, Molly pushed the buzzer again. Then she climbed the stone railing that ran along the long veranda, jumped down and ran beneath the weeping willow branches on the front lawn. I watched her, recalling my early years, and gazed beyond her along the street of aged rambling homes, the gold and red hues of century-old trees, the mix of color and shadow.

Mount Airy was hilly and overgrown with foliage. Overripe. Stone houses hunkered under the shadows of leafy branches; the ground was dotted with moss and freckles of light that penetrated the shade. The people here were racially and economically mixed, an eclectic population of all professions, educational levels, religions and cultures. There were even some authentic hippies, still around from the sixties, still running a food coop. My father hadn’t selected the community; he’d landed here by chance. After his gambling binges had finally left us broke, his grandmother died and left him the house in her will.

As a child, I’d thought the house immense. Now, though, I realized that its formality, not its size, was what had made it seem formidable. Corinthian pillars lined the porch running along the sides of the house. On the south side, a wide, once flawless lawn sloped down to a wooded creek. I knew the terrain well, remembered darting among those pillars as a child, pretending; as a teenager, escaping from life. I’d climbed up and dashed down the hill, splashed on slippery rocks. Now the pillars were chipped and cracked, the porch sagging, the garden overgrown. The wood on the shutters was rotting and the lawn neglected, bursting with weeds. My father had completely let the place go. I wondered if he’d cut me out of his will. Or if someday all this—the massive decaying house, the large untended property and the responsibility to care for it—would be mine. I shook my head, dismissing the thought.

Where the hell was he? What was taking him so long? I’d called the day before to confirm the visit. I was sure I’d made the time clear. Mentally, I replayed the phone conversation.

“It’s Zoe.”

“Zoe?” He’d sounded hoarse and baffled. Well, it had been years.

“Yes.”

Silence. Apparently he hadn’t been any more thrilled to hear from me than I’d been to call.

“What can I do for you?”

What could he do for me? As if I’d want anything from him. “I thought I’d stop by and see you tomorrow.”

No response.

“How’s the morning?” I suggested. “About eleven?”

A pause. “Eleven o’clock?” I could hear him breathing. “Okay.”

And that had been the extent of it. No “How are you?” No “What’s new?” Not a word of happiness or shock or horror that, after years of silence, I’d suddenly called. Just a casual okay, agreeing to see me at eleven o’clock. So, it was ten past eleven. If he was expecting me, where was he?

I stepped off the porch into the untrimmed hedges and peered through smudged front windows. No sign of movement.

What was going on? Maybe he hadn’t heard the bell. Or maybe he was outside, in the back. Or on the phone. Or lying dead in the bathtub, or on the bathroom floor, paralyzed from a stroke. I’d once heard of a woman who’d lain like that for days until someone found her. By then, she’d died of dehydration, not of the stroke. Stop it, I told myself. Dad is perfectly fine. Okay, I argued back, if he’s so fine, why isn’t he answering the door? Obviously, something was wrong. Besides, Molly was running out of patience. We couldn’t stand there waiting indefinitely. It was time to move.