The Wrong Girl (Jane Ryland) Read online

  Too late now. “Hey, Alex. What’s up? We’re—”

  “You set for the news conference?” Alex was talking before she finished. “You probably got this, but the BPD flack called. Says the body’s on the third floor, cops are coming outside with a statement. That’ll be a new top for your story.”

  A silhouette appeared behind the crime scene tape at the open front door of the murder house.

  She’d recognize that shape anywhere.

  “On it, Alex,” she said.

  10

  Kellianne Sessions wished for the billionth time for some way to avoid looking like the Pillsbury Doughboy. It was completely freezing out, so she’d layered tights and a long-sleeved leotard under her jeans and T-shirt, zipped herself into the required white Tyvek, then put her white puffer jacket over that. Why she had to wear the moon suit now, before they even started, was totally ridiculous. But Kevin said the clients bought into it, said it made their Afterwards crew look “professional.” Her brother, the big shot.

  If Kev was such a big shot, how come they always, always, got to the murder scenes too early? She was sick of it, sick of waiting, sick of this stupid job and sick of the whole gross idea.

  But that’s what the Sessions family did. Kevin, Keefer, and Kellianne. And their mother, Karen, who kept the books and made the appointments and got their hazmat certifications and made sure their dad ordered enough cleaning stuff. If it was good enough for your father … Her brain gagged at her mother’s perpetual chant. If she never heard it again, it’d be too soon. Talk about soon. Soon she’d finish her classes, pay off her tuition bills, buy a one-way ticket to someplace warm with palm trees and water and no freaking snow and no freaking dead people to clean up after.

  Someday.

  Right now, she was cramped into the incredibly hot back seat of the Afterwards truck, Keefer in the front seat zoned out with his ear buds, Kevin inside the triple-decker. She’d bet ten billion dollars they were too early again. She wiped a place on the car window with her fingers to see out. The news people were still here, for crap sake, she recognized that hooker-looking girl from Channel 5. And that was absolutely the ME’s white van parked by the hydrant. Long as the ME was still here, they couldn’t go in and start. Even she knew that.

  “Yo, team.” Kevin opened the driver’s side door, blasting her with cold air.

  Team. What a full-blown moron. Who died and put him in charge? She winced, remembering the morning’s visit to the hospital. Well, their father hadn’t died yet.

  Keefer looked up, his head still moving in time to whatever played on his iPod.

  “We’re in, we’re golden.” Kevin cranked the heat up even higher. “Gotta wait till the news conference ends, then the ME’s guys are coming to take the body. Maybe an hour or two. Then us. So we’ll stand by. Ten-four?”

  Kellianne rested her forehead against the chilly glass, staring at nothing. Ten-four? What a moron. They were so screwed. And Keefer and Kevin never seemed to care.

  She was counting the days.

  *

  Ella stood, motionless, waiting. Listening. That had been a sound, she was sure. But now, standing with fingertips barely touching her boss’s desk, she had second thoughts. Maybe she was a little jumpy. Well, okay, guilty, because how could she explain why she was going through papers in her boss’s office?

  Well, she could, but the explanation would not be a good one. She was supposed to go through channels, Mr. Brannigan always said. Snooping through files on a Sunday was not channels.

  She counted to ten, silently, then to ten again. Listening.

  Ella, you’re losing it, girl. She tried a tiny smile, wondering if she could smile her fear away. Whistling a happy tune would make noise. The silly thought made her smile again.

  She nodded, convincing herself. She was alone. There was no one outside.

  Should she go look?

  Easing herself back into Lillian’s leather chair, she leaned down and gathered the spilled papers back into the manila file. What she could also do, of course, was copy it all. Then, from home, she could call this not-Audrey-Rose-Beerman, this (she checked the file) Tucker Cameron. See what she could find out.

  Who would know?

  *

  Niall Brannigan stood, silent, in the muted light of the carpeted hallway, watching the glow of light under Lillian Finch’s office door. He’d checked the parking lot. No cars. A few taps on his office computer confirmed Ella Gavin’s pass card had been swiped two hours before. Naturally, he hadn’t announced to the staff that he could monitor their pass card use. Why offer his employees knowledge they didn’t need?

  Never one to rush a decision, he imagined—in fact savored—what would happen if he simply opened the door of Lillian’s office and confronted the girl. She was a girl to him, no matter what he was supposed to call her.

  One other option was to do nothing. Give her enough rope to hang herself. She’d have to walk out at some point, use her pass card to leave. He could check the time remotely from his home. On Monday, he could ask this young lady exactly what she thought she was doing.

  Enough rope, he decided.

  He spun the gold links of his watchband around his wrist, feeling their slickly solid weight, remembering the same watch on his father’s wrist. What would his father have done with such an impertinent employee? One who disregarded protocol and thumbed her nose at procedure? One who was clearly snooping where she didn’t belong?

  His smile broadened. Who cared what his father would’ve done?

  Niall was in charge at the Brannigan now.

  11

  “I’m Detective Jake Brogan, this is my partner, Detective Paul DeLuca, and with us is Dr. Katharine McMahan, medical examiner.”

  Standing on the wood-slatted front porch of 56 Callaberry, Officer Hennessey’s uniformed bulk blocking the open door of the triple-decker behind him, Jake spoke into the bouquet of microphones TV crews had duct-taped to a metal light stand. He squinted into the battery of too-bright lights, wondering yet again what was so damn newsworthy about a poor woman’s death. Crime Scene was inside, getting photos and fingerprints, so at least the investigation was underway. He put a shading hand above his eyes, pretending to scan the clump of reporters and photographers organizing themselves five steps below on the scraggly snow-patched front lawn. A couple of neighborhood types, lookies, lurked on the fringe. He was actually scouting for Jane.

  “You guys ready?”

  There. Black parka, that little stretchy hat. Some photographer stood beside her, snapping away. Still weird to see Jane without a TV camera.

  “Jake!” a woman’s voice called from the pack. “Lynne Squires, Channel Five. Can you give us an identification of the victim?

  “Can you confirm there’s a victim?” came another voice.

  “We hear there are kids.” A man’s voice. “This is Reuben Seltzer, from Channel Two. We’re broadcasting live now, Detective, so can you confirm—”

  “I have a brief statement,” Jake interrupted, “we’ll take a few questions, then we’re done. It’s late, it’s cold, we’re still investigating. You want more, you know to call Tom O’Day at headquarters.” He paused. They were doing their jobs. Like he was trying to. “I’m here so you’ll all go away and leave the neighbors in peace.”

  “Detective Brogan? Jane Ryland from the Register.” Jane’s voice. From the back. “The medical examiner doesn’t usually come in person. Can you tell us—”

  Katharine McMahan stepped forward, leading with her chin toward the bank of microphones, but Jake put out a hand, stopping her. “Ms. Ryland, as I said, I have a statement, it will come directly from me, and only from me.”

  “But Jake, she’s got a point,” another voice piped up. “Why is Dr. McMahan—”

  “You guys want the statement?” Jake wasn’t happy with this. It wasn’t SOP for him to be in front of the microphones. But the new PR flack, Tom O’Day, was out-of-pocket somewhere, the Supe said. So Jake was “volunte
ered” for the short straw. Sundays. He should be inside with the crime scene techs, checking evidence, not out here babysitting the media.

  “Ready? At approximately four forty-seven this afternoon Boston Police nine-one-one dispatch received a call reporting an incident at fifty-six Callaberry Street, Roslindale.”

  “It’s a triple-decker, what floor?”

  Jake ignored the question. They’d already checked the usual resources—registry records, resident list, even the phone book and Google. So far, nothing was showing for a resident at 56 Callaberry, apartment C. Interesting. As soon as he wrapped up this circus, he could go back to looking for answers.

  “Units from Area B responded to the address in question, found the body of a deceased white female, approximately thirty years old, in a third-floor kitchen. Police also found two juveniles, both now in police protective custody awaiting results of our investigation. We are asking the public for help in this matter, and hope that anyone who saw or heard anything, or who may have some evidence or information about what happened or may have happened, or who is acquainted with the victim, please call the Boston Police tip line at…”

  “We know the tip line number, Jake,” a reporter’s voice called out. “So is this a homicide? A domestic? Give us something, okay?”

  “Do you have any suspects? Jake, should people in this neighborhood be afraid? Take extra precautions?”

  Jake should have known this was coming. The no-win question. If he said people shouldn’t be afraid, reporters would assume it meant they had a suspect and a motive, but weren’t making it public. That would be the headline. If he said people should be afraid, reporters would decide a crazed unknown mother-killer was on the loose, and that’d be the headline.

  As well as the end of his career as a cop.

  “Our team is doing knock-and-talks now,” Jake said, floating a non-answer, “to assess—”

  “Any witnesses?” a voice interrupted.

  “Is this the victim’s home? Or whose?”

  Porch lights flicked on at the house across the street, then the one next to it, and then the one next to that one. The Channel 2 guy had said they were broadcasting live. Talk about a ghoul magnet. People watching TV were now seeing their own neighborhood, live, on the air. They’d all be coming outside now, unable to resist the lure of disaster. Get their faces on the air, participate in tragedy, maybe record it all inside so they could watch the whole thing again later over a beer. Time to get this thing over with.

  “The incident is now under investigation,” Jake read the final line of the statement the Supe had e-mailed to his phone. “And we’re done.”

  “Jake, Jake, one more question!”

  *

  Another reason why television sucked.

  Jane hid a smile, remembering the not-so-old days when this frigid deadline-pushing news conference would have been a stress-inducing nightmare. “Going live” meant you had to ask the first question, make sure your news director saw you were the front-line big gun. Working for the Register, though, Jane kind of enjoyed watching it all play out, especially the TV types fighting for the spotlight. She’d make her deadline, piece of cake, and not have to worry about whether her hair frizzed in the misty snow. Leaving TV felt terrific. It did.

  She watched Jake, squinting against the lights, field the barrage of questions. Dr. McMahan looked like a slinky version of one of those little Russian dolls-in-a-doll, all big eyes and dark hair and red lips. FrankenDoc’s replacement was even hotter than the gossip that already surrounded her. Dr. McMahan whispered close to Jake’s ear, then went back into the apartment.

  So why was the ME here? Jake hadn’t answered that.

  Or much of anything else, for that matter. Jane had already used her phone to check resident listings for number 56, top floor, but nothing. No names. The cops had no ID. She didn’t, either.

  Jane listened with half an ear, suspecting Jake wouldn’t reveal much more, and composed her story, scrawling it in pencil on her snow-dampened notebook. Police are soliciting the public’s help in finding the identity of a young woman found dead in her Roslindale triple-decker apartment Sunday afternoon. Officials revealed there are two children …

  Jane paused, mid-sentence. Poor things. Jake hadn’t said their ages. But, really, there were three victims here, not only the mother. Life as those kids knew it—whatever it was—was certainly over. What would happen to them? Would relatives swoop them up? Maybe this marked their entrance into the bureaucratic morass of the foster care system. Maybe that’s a good follow-up? Maybe she could talk with Alex about—but that was for later. She had less than an hour to bang out today’s story.

  Police admit they have no leads on the possible homicide at 56 Callaberry St., but say they were called to the scene by a—

  Huh.

  “Detective Brogan!” All the other reporters called him Jake in public. She didn’t. They had to be careful. But she had one more question.

  “Detective Brogan, Jane Ryland with a follow-up. You said you have no witnesses and no information. So who called nine-one-one?”

  *

  “Miss Ryland, any further information will have to come from Tom O’Day, media relations, at headquarters.” Jake was answering Jane’s question, hiding a smile, of course she would pick up on the crux of this thing, but suddenly Jane wasn’t listening to him. She’d picked up a cell phone call in the middle of a news conference? Who’d be so important? “That’s it, folks. Thank you.”

  He turned away from the mics and the lights and the still-clamoring reporters. That was over, at least. With no exploding land mines. It’d be worth some brownie points with the Supe, too, who’d probably monitored the whole thing on that ancient TV in his office. Now on to—he turned to check, couldn’t help it. Jane still had her back to the house, hand cupped over her phone. Who was she talking to so intently?

  “Leonard Perl,” DeLuca interrupted his thoughts.

  “Huh?” Jake said, turning back to him. “Pearl?”

  “P-E-R-L. He’s the landlord, according to the Afterwards dude,” DeLuca said. “Lives in Florida. ‘Fort Something,’ the genius told me. So, case closed. We find this Leonard Perl, get the four-one-one on his tenant, track down her ex-husband or whatever, read ’im his rights, go home, and watch Law and Order. DeLuca and Brogan score again.”

  “Detectives?” Kat McMahan trotted across the first floor landing and down the stairway, white lab coat flapping over her T-shirt and scrubs, her latex gloves not touching the walls or the banister. “Can you come upstairs again? I need to show you something.”

  12

  “Can we go now? Please?” Kellianne Sessions gripped both hands over the back of the front seat, pleading with her older brother as he got into their van. Kev had joined the group of neighbors who arrived to check out the reporters while Keefer had stayed in the front seat, obliv, glued to his iPod. She’d sat through the whole news conference, sulking, sinking into her parka. Trapped, totally, by this whole thing. People had to die for them to get paid. How sick was that?

  She’d probably wind up with some disease from all the junk they had to use to clean up after somebody who died. Whatever got rid of the stench and the crud, had to, like, eat away at your lungs and blood when you breathed it in. Sometimes the death smell stuck in her nose no matter what she did. She knew people looked at her funny. The smell was always part of her.

  “What’s the prob, Kel?” Kevin slammed the driver’s side door. “You got a big date or something? He can wait. Then you can tell him all about your latest cleanup job. Bet the guys go nuts over that. You’re the queen-a-death.”

  Jerk. She kicked the front seat with her boot for punctuation.

  “Huh?” Keefer turned around, eyes wide, yanking out one earbud.

  “Ignore her,” Kevin told him. “Here’s the drill. We’ll wait till the cops leave, then go in and scope out the place. The landlord’s guy got a key for us. We gotta see what there is, what we need to bring. We g
otta call the landlord and give him the estimate—he’s got insurance, so we’re golden.”

  “Oh, right.” Kellianne rolled her eyes. The estimate. Like that was reality.

  “Then we’ll book. And you can head off to meet Prince Charming.”

  Kellianne ignored him, counting the minutes. All the reporters were leaving, the news trucks pulling out of their parking spaces and heading off to their cool jobs at the TV stations. Funny, though, they had to show up for death, too. The cops, the really cute one in the leather jacket and the geeky tall one, were going back inside. Weird, now that she thought about it. Cops also had to show up for dead people.

  She pulled out her phone, punched up her favorite game app, Killerwatt. Fun with death, right? That was her whole life.

  *

  Ella Gavin stared at the phone she’d dropped beside her on her living room couch. She had to think. She’d already called Miss Cameron, no taking that back. They’d arranged a meeting for tomorrow morning, Monday, before work. What could she do now? Probably stay up the whole night worrying. But it would be okay. Whatever was true was good.

  She’d moved her knitting bag off the coffee table to make room for the stack of paperwork. It made her stomach twist to look at the sort-of-stolen documents. Was there a way the Brannigan people could discover who’d made copies?

  Whiskers chose that moment to jump onto her lap, purring and nudging.

  “I know, kitty. Maybe I shouldn’t have done it. But it’s my responsibility to help make sure things are all in order. These are people’s lives, after all. And if Miss Finch made a mistake, somehow, and sent … poof.”

  The cat had brushed her tail across Ella’s mouth. She plucked the cat hair from her lips, then cuddled her pet closer, comforted by the rumbling purr. “We’re happy, right, Whiskey-roo? Everyone should be happy, and with those they love. That’s what we do. And … and…”

  A peculiar beep from the phone beside her startled them both. The cat jumped off Ella’s lap onto the twisty brown throw rug.