The Bitter Season (Kovac and Liska, #5)(84)

“Did anyone ask you these questions at the time?” Nikki asked.

“Not really. They asked where I was when it happened. That was about it.”

As Nikki had suspected. The detectives on the case initially had been focused on who Ted Duffy was to them: a Sex Crimes top cop with a lot of enemies in and out of jail. Their other focus had been on the love triangle theory. They had discounted the viability of the kids as witnesses to the Duffys’ relationship. The Duffy kids had seemed too young. The foster girls weren’t considered part of the family. Angie Jeager had been out that night; therefore they thought she couldn’t be useful.

“What can you tell us about the next-door neighbor, Donald Nilsen?”

“Oh, he was a horrible person,” she said without hesitation.

“Barbie Duffy told us he took a little too much interest in you and Penny. Did he approach you? Talk to you?”

She gave an almost imperceptible shudder of distaste. “He was always staring at us,” she said. “In the summer, Penny and I liked to lay out in the backyard to get a tan—and we weren’t naked or anything. We wore shorts and bikini tops, and we stayed close to the house.

“He’d be looking at us from inside the house or he’d find some excuse to be in the yard, and he’d yell at us to go put more clothes on. He’d call us sluts. He was so creepy. If he didn’t want to see us, why was he always staring at us? He was one of those: Think evil thoughts and blame the victim.”

“Did he ever do more than stare?” Nikki asked. “Did he ever lay a hand on either of you?”

“He grabbed Penny by the arm once. She went right up to him in his yard one day and called him a dirty old man. He grabbed her by the arm, hard, and started screaming in her face. It was scary.”

“What happened?”

“Penny kicked him in the shin, and he let go. We ran back home.”

“Did you tell anyone about this?”

“We told Mrs. Duffy. She told Mr. Duffy. He went over to the Nilsens’ house and had a conversation with Mr. Nilsen.”

“Did you witness this conversation?”

“No.”

Nikki sat back again and had another sip of tea as she played the scenario through her head. Was that enough reason for Donald Nilsen to plot Ted Duffy’s murder? It didn’t seem to be, but they didn’t know what Duffy had actually said or how he had put it. He could have issued a mild, vague warning, or he might have thrown his badge around and made a threat of jail time.

“What happened after that?”

“Mr. Nilsen stopped talking to us. He still looked. He still said things about us, just not to us.”

“Were there any run-ins with him in the week or two prior to Mr. Duffy’s murder?”

“There was always something,” she said. “He thought the Duffys overdecorated for Halloween. Their leaves blew onto Mr. Nilsen’s yard. He was just a horrible person.”

“Did you interact at all with Mrs. Nilsen?” Seley asked.

“No. I hardly ever saw her.”

“What about Jeremy?” Nikki asked.

“What about him?”

“What was he like?”

Again with the little one-shoulder shrug. “He was quiet. He was nice enough.”

“Not like his father?”

“He was nothing like his father.”

“Did they seem close—him and his dad?”

“It’s hard to imagine Mr. Nilsen being close to anyone. He was so angry all the time.”

“And you weren’t friends with Jeremy?” Nikki asked again.

“No, not really.”

“That’s funny,” she said, pretending confusion, “because Jennifer told me this afternoon that you and Jeremy were close.”

“I don’t know why she would have said that. But she was just a little kid. She probably just assumed. I said hello to him. I talked to him once in a while when I saw him. I’d take him something to drink when he was mowing the lawn. That kind of thing.”

“I suppose that’s possible. She seemed very matter-of-fact about it,” Nikki lied, thinking back to the questions she had asked Jennifer Duffy—or, more accurately, how Jennifer Duffy had responded. She claimed not to know if Angie and Jeremy were friends, which didn’t make sense. How could she not know? But why would she lie about it? Maybe there simply hadn’t been anything to know.

Evi smiled a sad, fond little smile. “Jenny liked stories with handsome princes who saved the day. I guess she imagined one for me and Jeremy. I never told her the world doesn’t often work that way.”

“So I guess we can assume you haven’t kept in touch with Jeremy over the years,” Nikki said.

“No.” She shook her head. “I didn’t even finish the year at that school. I got moved to a different district. It’s hard to make friends when you move around that much. It’s even harder to keep them.”

“Jeremy joined the army not long after you left,” Nikki said. “He was discharged some years ago. We’re trying to locate him, but we can’t seem to find him.”

“Sorry I can’t be of more help,” Evi said, getting up. “Would you like more tea? I’ll turn the kettle on.”

“No, thank you,” Nikki said, pushing her chair back. “We’ve taken up enough of your time. I’ll leave you my card. Please call if anything comes back to you. Anything at all.”