The Neighbor Read Online Free Page A

it through. These first few hours, when you had a call out, but not yet a crime, were always a critical time in an investigation. They had suspicions, but not yet probable cause; a person of interest, but not yet a prime suspect. From a legal perspective, they had just enough rope to hang themselves.
    D.D. sighed, realized she wasn’t going home any time soon, and made her choice.

| CHAPTER THREE |
    I’ve always been good at spotting cops. Other guys, they can bluff with a pair of deuces in poker. Me, I’m not that lucky. But I can spot cops.
    I noticed the first plainclothes officer over breakfast. I’d just poured myself a bowl of Rice Crispies, and was leaning against the dull Formica counter to take a bite. I glanced out the tiny window above the kitchen sink, and there he was, framed neatly in Battenberg lace: white male subject; approximately five ten, five eleven; dark hair; dark eyes, striding south down the far sidewalk. He wore plain-front chinos, tweedish-looking sports jacket, and button-up blue collar shirt. Shoes were buffed dark brown with thick black rubber soles. His right hand held a small spiralbound notebook.
    Cop.
    I took a bite of cereal, chewed, swallowed, and repeated.
    Second guy appeared approximately a minute and a half after the first. Bigger—six one, six two, with short-cropped blond hair and the kind of meaty jaw scrawny guys like me automatically want to punch. He wore similar tan pants, different sports jacket, and a white-collared shirt. Officer Number Two was working the right side of the street, my side of the street.
    Thirty seconds later, he banged on my front door.
    I took a bite of cereal, chewed, swallowed, and repeated.
    My alarm goes off at 6:05 A.M. every morning, Monday through Friday. I get up, shower, shave, and change into a pair of old jeans and an old T-shirt. I’m a tighty-whities kind of guy. I also prefer knee-high white athletic socks with three navy blue bands around the top. Always have, always will.
    Six thirty-five A.M. , I eat a bowl of Rice Crispies, then rinse my bowl and spoon and leave them to dry on the faded green dish towel spread flat next to the stainless steel sink. Six fifty A.M. , I walk to work at the local garage, where I will pull on a pair of oil-stained blue coveralls and take my place beneath the hood of a car. I’m good with my hands, meaning I’ll always have a job. But I’ll always be the guy under the hood, never the guy out front with the customers. I’ll never have that kind of job.
    I work until six P.M. , with an hour off at lunch. It’s a long day, but OT is the closest to real money I’ll ever get, and again, I’m good with my hands and I don’t talk much, meaning bosses don’t mind having me around. After work, I walk home. Probably heat up ravioli for dinner. Watch Seinfeld on TV. Go to bed by ten.
    I don’t go out. I don’t visit bars, I never catch a movie with friends. I sleep, I eat, I work. Every single day pretty much the same as the day before. It’s not really living. More like existing.
    The shrinks have a term for it: pretend normal.
    It’s the only way I know how to live.
    I take another bite of cereal, chew, swallow, and repeat.
    More knocking on the front door.
    Lights are out. My landlord, Mrs. H., is in Florida visiting her grandkids, and it doesn’t make sense to waste electricity on just me.
    I set down the bowl of soggy cereal and the cop chooses that moment to turn on his heel and walk back down the front steps. I move to the other side of the kitchen, where I can monitor his progress as he moves on to my neighbor’s and bangs on the door.
    Canvassing. The cops are canvassing the street. And they came from the north. So something happened, probably on this street, immediately to the north.
    It comes to me, what I didn’t really want to think about, but whathas been floating around in the back of my mind since the instant the alarm went off and I went to the bathroom and stared at my own reflection