Truth Be Told (Jane Ryland) (2 page)

“Let’s get some lunch. Ask questions later.” DeLuca jammed his empty paper coffee cup into the overflowing metal trash bin in the hall outside the interrogation room. “Sherrey will get all we need, give us his intake notes after. Could be a bird in the hand.”

“Not exactly ‘in the hand,’” Jake said. “If he’s a whack job. There’s also that old ‘innocent till proven guilty’ thing.”

Jake flipped through the manila case file, a disorganized jumble of flimsy-paged police records, scrawled judge’s orders, and blurry prison logs. Who was this Gordon Thorley, anyway? Seemed like no one—not the cops, not the DA’s office—had ever heard of him in connection with Carley Marie Schaefer. In connection with an armed robbery back in the 1990s, sure; in connection with a chunk of prison time, sure. He’d been out on parole almost five years now. Record since then looked clean.

“Mr. Thorley?” Investigator Branford “Bing” Sherrey’s voice crackled over the speaker. “Let’s do this one more time. Start with Carley Marie Schaefer. What was your relationship with her? Why’d you come forward now? Why not before?”

The man picked up the can of diet ginger ale from the table in front of him. He examined the label, then, from the looks of it, slugged down the whole thing. He paused, swallowing. Then shrugged. “I get why you don’t believe me. I know I should have owned up. But I was just a—okay. Again. Carley and me, we met in high school. We … had a thing. We kept it secret. I was older. She lived with her parents, out in Attleboro. Then she tried to break it off. I didn’t want that. We went to our special place in the…”

“Whack job,” D said. “Why do you want to hear this again?”

“Maybe it’s true,” Jake said. “And we’ll clear this case. Finally. My grandfather was still on the job when Carley Marie was killed. I was maybe fourteen. Boston went crazy, I still remember it. Girl’s body discovered by a family on a picnic. The Lilac Sunday killer.” Jake blew out a breath, picturing those thick black headlines in the
Register
and the
Record.
“Grandpa would talk about it, nights. It was a huge deal. Weighed on him. How Carley’s family was so distraught. He ‘went to his grave,’ Grandma Brogan still says, regretting his squad of murder cops never caught the Lilac Sunday killer.”

“You think this is him?” D scratched his nose, looked unconvinced.

“Lilac Sunday’s only a week away. We could do with a big solve,” Jake said. “Even one that falls into our laps.”

Behind the window, Thorley was talking with his hands, illustrating the heavy coil of rope he’d stashed in the trunk of his green Celica, the circumference of the tree trunk in Boston’s Arnold Arboretum, the tight twist of the knots he’d made to hold Carley Schaefer in place. Thorley jabbed the heel of his palm toward the window. Jake flinched. Carley’s neck had been snapped.
Huh.
Thorley seemed like too much of a wimp for that.

“And gimme a break, D,” Jake added. “If we’re getting this guy’s case, we need to hear his story. Sucks that the Supe didn’t call us till now. We should have been doing the questioning. Not Bing.”

“Won’t matter. The guy’s prolly a wannabe. A nut.” DeLuca shook his head. “It’s like, he read some old newspapers or whatever and now he’s making himself into a scary killer. He wants a TV movie, who knows. Lifetime presents the Lilac Sunday Killer.
Crap.
We’re supposed to spend time on this sucker when Homicide’s working on three open cases? New ones?”

Jake stared through the glass. Gordon Thorley—hands now clasped on the pitted metal table, looked straight ahead, eyes not quite focused. Third time through the Carley Marie story, Jake caught the same inflection, the same word choice. Had Thorley practiced? Contemplated his confession so often that it set in stone?

“It’s as if he’s been told what to say.” Jake closed his file, took out his cell phone.

DeLuca rolled his eyes. Pointed to Thorley. “Oh, yeah. Why didn’t I think of that? This is why I’m proud to be your partner. Basking in the glory.”

“Stuff it, D.” Jake tried to talk and dial his cell at the same time. D was a good guy and a solid partner, but like the entire Homicide squad, overworked and under-successful. Boston had too many murders, not enough arrests. Only a fourth-year detective, Jake was low man in seniority, which meant high man on the Supe’s dreaded blame list. It didn’t help to be grandson of a former police commissioner. Jake’s blue-line “legacy” admittedly provided a leg up at entry level, but not job security or acceptance by his colleagues. D, ten years his senior, and in the “from the ranks” club, didn’t always feel the pressure to go the extra mile. If D could close a case, faster was better. Jake still thought “right” was better.

He held up a palm, putting his partner on hold so he could hear his phone call. “Hello? This is Jake Brogan, Boston Police. Not an emergency, but I need talk to Dr. Nathaniel Frasca. He around? Yes, I’ll hang on.”

“Who’s that?” DeLuca narrowed his eyes. “Doctor who?”

“You’ll see,” Jake said. “And maybe I’ll let you bask in the glory.”

3

“Go.
Go.
Get closer.” Jane almost pushed TJ forward, guiding him across the short driveway and toward the postage-stamp front porch. The Boston cops had dashed inside, radios crackling. Suit guy had slammed himself into the front seat of his fancy Lexus, punching buttons on his cell phone the whole way. “You’re rolling, right?”

“On it,” TJ said. He held the camera steady, targeting the door, but glanced over at her. “And I got this, you know, Ryland? Chill. I’m white-balanced, I got batteries, I’m up on sound. You don’t have to keep checking.”

“Sorry,” she said. “Ignore me.”

Would she ever lose her fear of failure? Her mom used to tease her—probably half tease, half worry—each time Jane predicted certain disaster. She’d fail the test, miss the cut, come in second, lose the story. It never happened. Hardly ever. Maybe fear was good. Maybe fear’s what kept her in the game.

Now, the game was clearly on. The cops were freaking. Whatever that deputy found inside 42 Waverly Road was more than some broken piece of furniture. No other reporters were here—as far as the TV stations were concerned, this was just another eviction. Probably not even on their daybook radar. Jane was only here because of her story on foreclosures. Now, whatever this was felt like a headline. And an exclusive.

Jane hovered behind TJ’s shoulder, on tiptoe in her flats, trying to balance without touching him. She shoved her sunglasses onto the top of her head, stabbed her pen through her almost-long-enough ponytail, wished she could look through his viewfinder.

“Anything?”

“Nope. Jane, listen. I’ll tell you. Soon as there’s something.”

TJ’s once-pressed cotton shirt was limp with the heat, his own RayBans perched on his dark hair, the
Register
’s Nextel clipped to a belt loop on his jeans. A talented guy, her age, a couple years of experience. Seemed tight with the new city editor.

It was a pain, Jane knew, for TJ to keep rolling on nothing. But the minute they stopped down, whatever was going to happen would happen.

The front door was open, but the screen door closed. No matter how much she squinted, Jane couldn’t see inside. “Can you make out anything? Maybe we can get closer.”

“Nope,” TJ said. “Screen door’s messing with the video, and—”

“Hear that?”
Sirens.
“Somebody’s called the cavalry.”

“Ambulance. Or more cops.” TJ’s camera lens stayed on the front door. “You want me to switch to the arrival?”

“Quick shot of whoever shows up, then back to the door,” Jane instructed him. The story was inside.

Two car doors slammed. Jane risked a look behind her, saw the ambulance. Two EMTs, navy shirts, black Nikes, ran past her toward the front door. One carried a bright orange box—defibrillator. The other a black medical bag.

“Someone’s hurt,” she whispered.

“Duh,” TJ whispered back.

The screen door opened, then slammed.

“They’re in,” TJ said. “Rolling. But can’t see a damn thing.”

“Clock’s ticking now,” Jane said. “They come out running, we’ll know it’s bad.”

The door stayed closed.

The house had been empty when the deputies arrived, Jane knew that. She and TJ’d gotten shots of the two of them clicking open the padlock on the front door. No one had come out. She’d only seen water bottle guy since.

The deputies’ job was to clear out the stuff the Sandovals had to leave behind. With no place to store it—and no money to do so—their leftover possessions were so much trash. This was the third eviction Jane had witnessed in the last three days. At Fawndale Street, one deputy had let her and TJ get some shots inside. She’d watched the blue-shirts—as she mentally called them—sweep through the rooms without a moment’s hesitation, scooping clothing from forsaken closets, emptying drawers into plastic bags, dragging furniture across the floors, gouging the wood and bashing the painted walls and then sweeping piles of dust and litter out the door with a huge push broom.

Now she counted her blessings every time she returned to her Brookline condo. She’d tried to explain to Jake—she smiled, remembering their last clandestine meeting at his apartment—how it’d changed her whole appreciation for “home.” Her little place, and her little mortgage, and all her stuff, saved and collected from high school and j-school, her Emmys, and Gram’s pearls and handed-down Limoges dinner plates, her mother’s last quilt, and even the always-hungry Coda, the now-adolescent stray calico who had selected Jane’s apartment as her new domain.

That night Jane had sipped her wine, fearing her happiness could evaporate any second. “What would I do if someone tried to take Corey Road from me?” she’d asked.

“You’ll never have to worry about that,” Jake assured her.

“That’s what the Sandovals probably thought, too,” Jane said. Jake’s snuffly Diva placed a clammy golden retriever nose on her bare arm. “Then the bottom fell out of their lives.”

“Yo, Ryland.” TJ interrupted her thoughts, pointing to the front door with his chin. “You seeing this?”

4

Lizzie McDivitt typed her name, letter by letter, on her new computer. Trying it out. Elizabeth McDivitt. Elizabeth Halloran McDivitt. Elizabeth H. McDivitt. The admin types needed the wording of the nameplate on her new office door, and she had to choose. First impression and all that.

Would her bank customers be more comfortable with her as the crisp and competent Liz? Or the elegant and experienced Elizabeth? Maybe this was the time to become Beth, the friendly-but-competent Beth. The motherly Bess?

Lizzie stared at the computer screen, the cursor blinking at her.
Decide.

“Lizzie,” at least, that was a definite no. “Lizzie” was fine for her parents, and even for Aaron, but not here at the bank. “Lizzie” sounded like the new kid, eager to please. Semi-true, of course, but not the image she needed. She needed … compassionate. Understanding. Her clients would be the needy ones, the out-of-work ones, the down-and outers who’d once had the assets to get a mortgage from A&A—but now had to scramble for refinancing and loan modifications.

“If you say it, if you portray it, they will believe it,” her father’d always told her. Seemed to work for him. His black fountain pen alone could probably take care of the monthly mortgage tab for a few of her clients. Father was always losing his fancy pens, misplacing them, forgetting them, one after the other. He never flinched at purchasing a new one.

She clicked her plastic ball point.

The bank had so much money. Her new customers had so little.

Click. Click.

What would be the bad thing, she wondered, about making it a little more fair?

Click. Click.

Aaron was still out for lunch, she guessed. She thought of him, his curls, and that smile, and what he’d actually said to her that first day back by the old vault. Their “tryst” last night, which ended—way too late—with her finally saying no and cabbing it home. She shook her head, remembering her girlfriends’ advice.
You have to stop being so picky or you’ll be alone forever.
True, Aaron was more than cute. True, he had a good job. So, okay,
maybe.
Even though he wasn’t
exactly …

“Miss McDivitt? You ready for your one-thirty? Mr. and Mrs. Iantosca are here.”

Lizzie jumped, startled at the sound of her own name buzzing through her intercom. She’d started behind the cages in the teller pool, then got promoted to a loan officer’s desk in the lobby, visible every single moment of every single day, like a zoo animal. She’d tried to offer suggestions, how to make customers happier, how to streamline the process, how to dump a lot of the ridiculously complicated paperwork and incomprehensible bank jargon.

Now, finally, she’d been named the bank’s first customer affairs liaison. With her own private office. It was lovely to have a door that closed. And an assistant, Stephanie Weaver, who stayed outside unless invited in.

“Thanks, Stephanie,” she said. She punched up the Iantoscas’ mortgage loan documents: a series of spreadsheets, tiny-fonted agreements, and the decisive flurry of letters stored on the bank’s in-house software. The green numbers that were entered several years ago had gone red last summer, then bold red in the fall, then starting around the holidays, black-bordered bold red. By now, mid-May, Christian and Colleen Iantosca were underwater and in trouble.

So they thought.

Lizzie clicked a few keys on her computer keyboard. Examined the figures she’d typed in. She leaned closer, calculating. Numbers worked for her. Numbers were—obedient. Predictable. Reliable. Plus, she could always change them back.

“I’m set, Stephanie,” she told the intercom. Time to meet the Iantoscas.

She took off her black-rimmed glasses, considered, put them on again. Slicked her hair back, tucking a stray wisp into place. She checked her reflection on the computer monitor. Lipstick, fine. Portrait of a happy magna cum laude MBA. Good job, her own apartment, a potential boyfriend—she clasped her hands under her chin, thanking the universe and embracing her karma. Math geek no more. Future so bright, she ought to wear shades.