The Wrong Girl (Jane Ryland) Page 12

  “What was that all about?” DeLuca muttered as they walked toward the cruiser. “His sound system?”

  A curtain moved in a window across the street. A face appeared briefly in the glass, then vanished. The streetlights had come on, the ones that still had bulbs making splotches of yellow in the graying snow.

  “It was about bullshit.” Jake tucked his cell back into a side pocket. “Needed him to think I was making a call while I snapped a photo of that cell in the ice water. Who’d do that if they’re not hiding something? It’s consciousness of guilt, no question. Mr. Ricker has given us some fine ammunition for our search warrant application.”

  30

  “Do people really talk like that, Alex? Except in the movies?”

  Jane sat on the city editor’s bumpy old couch, stacks of manila file folders crowding her into one corner. She’d parked her car in the Register’s dank basement garage, looking over her shoulder, wondering why no one replaced the broken bulbs, imagining footsteps in the shadows and picturing bad guys behind every row of cars. By the time the molasses-slow elevator finally arrived in the corridor outside Alex’s office, she’d invented a whole spectrum of explanations for her threatening phone call. None of which was reassuring.

  Should she be freaked out? Or dismiss it? She could make a good case either way. She’d gotten her share of nasty calls as investigative reporter at Channel 11, but none before at the Register. She could hear Professor Kindell back in Ethics 101, telling her j-school class “a good reporter comes to town and stays until everyone hates them.” If you weren’t making people angry, he’d said, you weren’t doing your job.

  Still, she had to tell Alex. Now. She’d trudged to his office, frowning. Following another j-school rule, she’d keep no secrets from her editor. Except for the Jake thing. Which wasn’t really a thing.

  Alex had stayed behind his desk, listening, as she demonstrated how she’d tried and failed to scope out whether the caller was someone she could identify.

  “It seems so Hollywood cliché,” she went on. “Talking like they’d think a bad guy would talk. It sounded so phony I almost didn’t tell you. On the other hand, it wasn’t random. So, here I am.”

  Alex started spinning his iPhone on the flat of his battered old desk, watching the black case pinwheel on the polished wood. It stopped, and Alex pointed it at her. “I’m supposed to call Tay Reidy, you know, when these things happen. And he’ll certainly call the cops. No question about that. But this close to deadline, I’ve also got to think about another question: Do we go with the story?”

  “Well, of course we do.” Was he kidding? Kill her scoop? Jane dragged her voice back to a lower register.

  “What if we make the phone call part of the story? You have to admit it’s compelling, someone threatening us. Now it’s not just a—Well, I don’t mean just a murder. But it’s possible that the killer called me. And I’m not sure that’s ever happened to me. Has it happened to you?”

  “It could be some nutcase, Jane.” Alex spun his phone again like a toy top, the plastic case clicking against the wood. “Someone with an agenda we know nothing about. It’ll be impossible to characterize it in a story.”

  “Then we won’t characterize. We’ll write the facts.” Jane stood, then turned toward Alex’s power wall. Yale diploma. One from Columbia J-School. A couple of Polk Awards. A blank place where she remembered seeing his wife’s photo. Ex-wife now.

  Deep breath. “We can say I got a call, the caller said x, y, z, we let our readers draw their own conclusions. I’ll try to confirm the victim’s name with the police. Then we’ll go with what we got. That’s what they taught you at Columbia, right?”

  Alex took off his glasses, polished them on the tail of his flannel shirt. He seemed very interested in the glasses.

  She had him. She knew it. One more push should clinch it.

  “How long do you want the story?” She’d assume her victory. Ten column inches would be a nice chunk, guarantee good placement on the front of the Metro section. She stood, ticking off her points on her fingers. “After I call the cop shop, I’ll start with the news about the victim’s name, then see what else I can come up with. I have a whole hour or so to write it. I have the info on the foster care system. We can use some of that, a tease of what’s to come. Once we break this, the other newsrooms won’t touch it. We’ll own the story.”

  Alex, glasses back in place, swiveled his chair toward her.

  She didn’t like his expression. What did Jake say his Grandpa Brogan always told him? A good cop doesn’t need easy? A good reporter didn’t, either. But it looked like this was about to get tough.

  “Ah, it’s a no,” Alex said, shaking his head. “Sorry, Jane. Good job, good hustle. I like your perseverance. But it’s only a murder victim’s name, you know? Not worth the risk. We can afford to back off this time. Okay?”

  “You’re kidding me,” Jane said. She leaned over his desk, palms flat, trying to keep her tone light. She took a step back, semiretreating. He was still her boss, even though he was wrong. “If you were still on the street you’d have pushed your editor to run with it. You know that.”

  “And he’d have told me the same thing, Ryland. I’ve got to go by the book, and that means talk to the publisher first. If Mr. Reidy wants us to report that phone call to the cops, we’ll do that. If he wants us to run the story, I’ll let you know that, too.”

  Alex stood. In two steps, he was next to her. He touched her, briefly, on one shoulder, then leaned on his desk, his dark eyes level with hers. “But Jane…”

  Hot Alex, her brain said. She took a step back, out of his force field.

  “Jane,” Alex said again, his voice softening. “What’s important is—whoever it was, whatever the motive, he threatened you. Flat-out threatened you. No story is worth that. You see what I’m saying?”

  She tore her eyes away from his gaze. She did see what he was saying. And she didn’t like it. He was spiking her scoop.

  “What if he’s calling everyone? What if it’s not only me? What if he called all the TV stations? And said the same thing? What if they go with it? Listen, all we have to do is bang it out for the online edition, and we win.”

  Ha. She got him with that one. Holding a story was one thing. Getting scooped was another. Especially when the Register’s circulation was verging on abysmal. Breaking big news was the paper’s only ammunition.

  “But you’re the only reporter who knows the name Brianna Tillson, right? That’s how you sold me the story, remember?” Alex raised one eyebrow, his eyes almost twinkling behind his wire rims. He had laugh lines, too. The beginnings.

  Her shoulders sagged. Alex was right.

  “So that’s that,” Alex said. “But I do have one question. How’d the caller know your cell phone number?”

  Jane blinked at him, silent for a moment. She hadn’t thought about that. She plopped back down on the couch, considering the possibilities. Oh.

  Her eyes widened as she talked, realizing the implication of what might have happened. “I handed out my business card to all the neighbors I interviewed yesterday. Remember?” She looked at her watch. Pushing seven. Outside Alex’s window, the night sky bloomed with snow-filled clouds, making it seem much later.

  “It must have been someone on Callaberry Street. Someone I already talked to. One of them lied to me. Someone I interviewed knows what happened to Brianna Tillson. Whoa. Now I have to go figure out who.”

  “No. Jane. Do not even think about going there.” Alex made the time-out sign. “It’s dark, and it’s dangerous. Go home. Be careful. I’m sure Mr. Reidy will want to call the police. You and I will talk about this tomorrow.”

  “Hec,” Jane said.

  “Heck?” Alex smiled, looking perplexed. “Is that expression left over from your on-air TV days? I mean, saying ‘hell’ is okay. It’s just us.”

  “Not h-e-c-k. H-e-c. Hec Underhill.” This day was becoming a lot more interesting. “Remember, Alex. Hec got
photos of everyone we interviewed. I have their names. That means we may have an actual, identifiable photo of the murderer. Right downstairs in our very own photo lab. All we have to do is get Hec to show us his pictures and figure out which one is the bad guy.”

  Alex narrowed his eyes, considering. “But I need to call—”

  “But nothing.” Jane opened her tote bag. “I’ve got my notebook right here. All the names. Calling Tay Reidy can wait. You coming with me?”

  *

  Niall Brannigan didn’t care about the crime scene tape draped over Lillian’s front walk. That was for outsiders, and he was the opposite of an outsider. The key Lillian had given him at the beginning of what she insisted on calling their “relationship” gave him the right to be here. Now it was necessary that he get inside.

  His gloved hands clenched his steering wheel. Poor Lillian. He hoped her death had not been painful. He hoped—Oh well.

  He unclicked his seat belt, flipped up the collar of his heavy coat. Dark out. The green numbers of the dashboard clock read 7:32. Eventually, Ardith would wonder where he was. But not quite yet. Tonight was her book club night, if he remembered correctly. Or perhaps yoga again. There was always something these days. He’d be home soon enough to suit his dear wife.

  The yellow plastic tape looped around the dimly glowing cast-iron lanterns at each side of the walkway, then stretched across the flagstone path. There was no police tape sealing the door. It would take him all of two minutes. He’d go in, get what he needed, come out.

  If anyone saw him, he’d claim he needed records Lillian had taken home from her office. Better, from his office.

  He pushed open the car door, avoided the slush by the curb, and clicked the automatic lock. He heard the sharp beep of a car horn. His heart jumped, twisting in fear. What was that? He caught his breath, surprised at the clench of his chest. Then he smiled. My car door. Perhaps I’m a bit jumpier than I thought.

  He clicked his keys again, to make sure. Another beep. Yes, that’s what it was.

  The gray van parked on the street could belong to any neighbor. Happily, there were no police cars. He looked across the tree-lined street to Lillian’s house. Some lights were on, he could see that through the bay window curtains, but the police had probably left them on to fool intruders. Lillian lived alone and now everyone knew she was … gone.

  He was across the street before he knew it, lifted one leg carefully over the tape, then the other, marched up the flagstones. His heart was pounding, so silly, since there was no need to hesitate. He belonged. In and out. He felt his chest flutter in anticipation as he fingered his coat pocket for the gold knob of his keychain. Saw his breath plume white in the chill.

  Ready. And go.

  31

  This has to be it. The proof. The key. But why did Lillian—? Ella picked up the piece of paper, a skewed copy with one edge blurred and the other edge off the page. She turned it over, then looked at the front again. Her living room TV was showing a cooking show, usually her Monday night favorite, but tonight she’d muted the sound. The empty Target bag, her now-tattered document camouflage, lay beside her on the couch. The files now covered her glass coffee table. Whiskers jumped onto her lap, nosing into the paper.

  “Shoo, Whisk,” Ella whispered, and for once she obeyed. The words on this RR 103 were baffling. She’d seen a million report release forms since she started at the Brannigan, but never one as potentially life-changing as this one.

  The top copy, the white original, always went to the birth mother. The blue page went to admin, the green to finance, the yellow to the state. The pink page was the last one of the multipage form. The photocopy she was holding would have been of the pink one, since on the bottom it said: “for agency files.” The forms were notoriously blurry, from being typed through so many carbons back then. Now the forms were completed by computer, but the older files still contained the old-fashioned pull-apart kind.

  Female Baby Beerman, the fuzzy heading read. Mother: Carlyn Parker Beerman. These RR 103s had been sealed along with the rest of the files. When Carlyn called to release them, that’s when Lillian—Lillian! Ella pressed her lips together, holding back tears, trying to focus. That’s when Lillian had opened the manila envelope and started the search for Carlyn’s little girl.

  Ella ran a finger down the paper again. Addresses, phone numbers, a social. Date of birth. She skipped to the important part, rereading the typed answers.

  Line 17. Identifying marks. None.

  Line 18. Identifying indicators. None.

  Line 19. Identifying clothing, tags, or jewelry. None.

  None. No glittering charm bracelet. She could almost feel the weight of Tuck’s evidence in her hand, see it sparkle in the harsh light of the coffee shop. Tucker Cameron’s birth mother had left her with a bracelet. A bracelet that proved her name and proved her identity and proved, yes it did, that she was not Audrey Rose Beerman.

  Identifying jewelry. None. And nothing about a note.

  Ella leaned her head against the back of the couch, staring, unseeing, at the flickering screen of her television. Stretched out behind her, Whiskers lowered a comforting paw onto Ella’s shoulder.

  “I know, Whisk,” Ella said. “Seems like Lillian Finch really did send Carlyn Beerman the wrong girl. Now what do I do?”

  Her mind spun with possibilities. Lillian had either known, or she hadn’t known. If she had known—was that why she was dead? Or was it a mistake? If so, was it her only mistake? Had she taken her own life in anguish and guilt?

  Or maybe Lillian was dead because she didn’t know—and someone else did. Someone who wanted to make sure Lillian never found out. Or maybe because she did find out, maybe that’s why Lillian was dead. Someone killed her to keep her quiet.

  And now, she, Ella Gavin, single, alone, and only trying to help, had discovered the same thing. What would happen to her when whoever killed Lillian discovered what Ella knew?

  *

  Jake twisted open his second IPA, tossing the cap into the white plastic wastebasket by his kitchen door. The files about Phoebe and Phillip’s past he’d gotten from Margaret Gunnison—such as they were—lay open on the round table by the kitchen’s tiny window. She’d told him she’d assigned the staffer who copied them to also “dig up” Brianna’s records from the archives. Those he’d have in a day. “Or two.” Gunnison obviously wanted to get to the airport. Skittering branches on the old silver maple outside his condo battled with the new Paul Simon CD he’d finally downloaded. Diva, as usual, curled into a golden retriever ball at his feet. She’d eaten dinner. Jake hadn’t. The beer would hold him until he got through the files.

  He turned the last pages of the caseworker’s sketchy and unrevealing notes, then started over. There must be something here about what happened. Or about a baby. Sure haven’t seen it yet.

  DeLuca had bailed the second their shift ended, elaborately insisting that medical examiner Kat McMahan was not on his social calendar. D was a shitty liar, but Jake didn’t push his partner on it. Could be it was better if Jake didn’t know the full score. DeLuca certainly suspected his relationship with Jane, but didn’t bug Jake about it. Least he could do was give his partner the same respect.

  Jake’s cell phone vibrated on the table. The number came up: blocked. Time: 8:15 P.M. Maybe it was Judge Gallagher? She’d be “out,” her clerk had said, until eight, unavailable to hear their pitch for the warrant on the Ricker residence. They’d e-mailed her their warrant application, but could be he was screwed on that, anyway. Ricker could have dumped everything incriminating by now. The “money for you” ruse had seemed like such a good idea at the time. Still, he reassured himself, the ruse had elicited valuable info from the guy. If they’d arrived chez Ricker as cops, the guy would have clammed up instantly. Roll of the dice.

  The phone vibrated again.

  “Brogan.” He took a fast swig of his beer.

  “Brianna Tillson, right?”

  It was Jane.

/>   “No, this is Jake Brogan.” Situation. If she was calling about the Tillson name—who the hell had leaked that?—it was a potential mess. That didn’t mean he wasn’t pleased to hear her voice. He only wished she was saying something else. Something soft. And promising. “You must have the wrong number.”

  “Jerk.” Jane’s voice had that smile in it.

  “So you always say.” He knew he was smiling, too.

  “Anyway, this is a professional call, Detective Brogan,” Jane told him. “I’m calling from the Register to confirm the identity of the victim of the Callaberry Street murder. Brianna Tillson. Correct? And to confirm the identities of her foster children, Phillip and Phoebe Lussier. Correct?”

  “Professional, huh? Professional reporters understand protocol, which is that only public relations spokespeople can comment on ongoing investigations. Correct, Ms. Ryland?” If Jane ran with those names, he was screwed. The Supe demanded they inform the victim’s next of kin before the names were released. So far, they hadn’t informed next of kin, because so far no one knew if there were any. For now, the identities were not public.

  Still, somehow, Jane had discovered them. That left Jake holding the bag not only on a potentially botched Ricker arrest but also on a potentially blown identity. Not the best way to impress the brass.

  “I left a message in the cop shop PR office, I really did,” she said, “but my deadline is like, now. I know I’m pushing, Jake, but—”

  “Ms. Ryland?” He hardened his voice, letting her off the hook in case her city editor or some bigwig was in earshot. Anyone else, he’d hang up the phone. Reporters were used to it. But Jane had confided she was spooked about layoffs. Maybe Alex was giving her a hard time.

  This exact situation was what they’d always struggled with. It put him in an impossible position. He couldn’t give her special treatment. But he couldn’t not. She was special. To him. That’s why the whole thing was impossible. “I’m sure you understand that I cannot confirm or deny identities of homicide victims until the next of kin have been properly notified. Tell your city editor—”