Truth Be Told (Jane Ryland) (6 page)

“They had nothing to hold you, that was why they let you go.”

“I
confessed
. What the hell else do they need?”

Peter’s phone rang, the bell making Thorley flinch. He let it go to voice mail. “Mr. Thorley? I have all the time in the world. But you? You don’t. How about you tell me what’s really going on?”

*   *   *

“They let him go?” Jake took a deep breath, considering. Paused at a blinking yellow light, just long enough to be legal. Hit the gas. D had just gotten off the phone with Bing Sherrey. “They let him
go
?”

“Yeah,” D said. “That guy we saw in the interrogation room before they cut the mic? He was a lawyer. ’Parently he convinced Bing there wasn’t enough to hold him.” D shrugged. “I mighta gone the other way.”

“Yeah,” Jake said. “I remember Grampa—I mean, the commissioner—saying ‘it’s got to be someone we haven’t questioned yet, Jake.’ Maybe he was right. He knew this case, start to finish. Wish I could ask him about it.”

Jake hit the remote, waited to see if the often-stubborn cop shop garage door would open this time.

“There’s no DNA test results,” Jake said as they finally drove inside, the door clanking down behind them. He pulled into a space marked
HOM SQD
. “It was too long ago. Thorley was inside before they pulled samples from every convicted felon like they do now. If there’s even anything to compare his sample to. She wasn’t sexually assaulted.”

“That we know of.”

“True. But that’s all there is, right? What’s in the evidence file?” Jake shook his head as he turned off the ignition. “Wouldn’t that be a helluva thing? If we closed Lilac Sunday, after all this time? Especially now.”

“You think he did it?” DeLuca opened his door.

“Doesn’t matter what I think,” Jake said. “Only matters what’s true.”

Jake punched the button for the ancient elevator. The gears ground into place, the cables whirring.

“You handle the lab,” Jake said. “Okay? See what they make of that two-by-four you found in the closet. Good thing the news conference was over by then, right? I can imagine the headline if—well, we lucked out on that one. And check the bank records. See who owned that house.”

The elevator door slid open. The inside walls were plastered with taped-up handwritten posters for a retirement thing at Doyle’s—someone had magic-markered pointy black devil horns on the short-timer’s face—a pitch for supplemental health insurance, and a union meeting at the post in Southie.

“Never a dull moment,” Jake said.

“You wish,” D said. “One of these days that retirement poster’s gonna be for me. Then you’ll be sorry.”

“No doubt,” Jake said. He pushed 4. Nothing. He pushed again, then jabbed the close button. “I’ll call on Mornay and Weldon. See if they’re missing an agent. I don’t want to e-mail them a crime scene photo—there’s no shot where she doesn’t look dead. It’s after five, so maybe someone hasn’t come back to the office who should have.”

Jake’s cell trilled from his jacket pocket.

“Brogan.” He paused, smiling. “Well, you too, Nate. Here I thought you’d gone all big-shot doctor on me. Not calling back. Or maybe you’re afraid I’ll have a case you can’t—damn it.” Jake looked at his phone. The line was dead. “This freaking elevator.”

He hit
REDIAL
. Nothing. “I’ll call when we get upstairs.”

“Who is this guy, anyway?” D said. “Nate Frasca?”

The doors opened onto the gray and steel hallway. “Institutional neutral,” Jane always called it. A rank of closed doors. At the end of the hall, an ell of double-tall windows fronted the Homicide squad offices. Jake could smell the coffee.

“Nate Frasca? He’s gonna tell me if Gordon Thorley is Lilac Sunday,” Jake said.

11

“See, Jane? I told you it would work out. It’s all about trust, right? I’d never steer you wrong.” Victoria Marcotte took a sip from a sleek white china mug, leaving behind a faint trace of her trademark red lipstick. She wiped away the color with a manicured thumb. “Jane? You have—someone has to tell you—a smudge on your face.”

The city editor touched her own sculpted cheek, illustrating where Jane’s was dirty. Marcotte was only ten years older than she was, but the editor had developed a kind of destabilization technique. If an employee was uncomfortable, they were vulnerable. Jane tried not to let it get to her.

She wiped at her face with two fingers. “Off?”

“You can fix it later.” Marcotte crossed her legs, leaned back in her swivel chair. The screensaver photo of fireworks on her desktop computer monitor clicked to black. “At least you’re not on TV. Anyway, Jane. Sit sit sit. What’ve you got for me?”

Jane perched on the edge of her boss’s nubby navy sofa, sinking so low into the cushions she had to look up at Marcotte. Jane shifted, sat up as straight as she could. Marcotte probably had a low couch on purpose, another technique to make visitors feel small. Small, and with a dirty face.

Jane cleared her throat, regrouping. “‘Possible homicide.’ Luckily for us.”

“Luckily?” Marcotte raised an eyebrow.

Why even try.
“Anyway. Cops say they don’t have an ID yet. I’ll stay on it. Thing is—”

The cell on Marcotte’s desk pinged, and she sneaked a look at it. Then back at Jane. “Sorry. You were saying?”

“Thing is,” Jane went on, “I called the Sandovals—they’re the ones who owned the house before the foreclosure. Remember? They were both out doing errands, they told me, all morning. Weren’t at the house, hadn’t been at the house. It isn’t their house anymore, after all.”

Marcotte stood, smoothing her black suit jacket over a narrow black leather skirt. “You could put them in your story, though, Jane. I mean, it’s good headline, a murder in their house, it’s—” She nodded, seeming to agree with herself. “It’s buzzable. It’s water cooler. It’s multimedia. Did you ask if they knew the victim?”

“Knew the victim?” Jane didn’t mean to be an echo, but no, she hadn’t. Could the Sandovals know the victim? “Ah, no. I didn’t ask.”

Jane suddenly felt itchy in her ratty T-shirt and possibly too-short skirt. Her feet were grimy in her flats. Maybe she should have checked on that. But how?

“We don’t know the person’s name, remember, and—”

“Did they say
anything
quotable?”

“Well, I wrote down a phrase or two. They had no idea, they said, about any of it. The police hadn’t called them.”

“So we broke the story to the grieving family. Fabulous.”

“Grieving?”
Fabulous
?

“Yes. Grieving.” Marcotte held up her hands, as if bracketing a headline. “
Register
reporter breaks news of real housing crisis—murder in their own home. Hang on, let me think.”

Marcotte sat at her desk, lips clamped shut, eyes narrowing.

“Ah,” Jane began. That was outrageous. Not to mention incorrect. “Let me call the police, okay? See if they have anything new? And we can go from there.”

“That’s old school, Jane,” Marcotte said. “We have an online edition. We go with it as we get it. When you get more details later, terrific. We’ll use that, too. Figure out something the—what did you say their name was? Samovar?”

“Sando—”

“Figure out
something
they said. Make it work. We only need a paragraph or two. You gave them the news? That’s hot.”

Jane stood in the doorway, hearing the rumble of the
Register
’s rattletrap elevator down the hall, the clatter of the air-conditioning system struggling to cool off a newsroom of overworked—and over-worried—reporters and editors. The
Register
had laid off more than its share in recent days, staffers fearing more cuts at any moment. Newspapers were endangered. Worse than endangered. Jane privately thought editors like Marcotte were the reason why.

“Suburban—no. Neighborhood Nightmare, we’ll call it,” Marcotte said. “Go. Write. You have fifteen minutes. Then we’re going to press.”

*   *   *

“It’s early for dinner,” Aaron was saying. He’d convinced her—Lizzie still couldn’t believe it—to leave the bank early and join him for a stroll across the Public Garden.

She’d actually done it. Told Stephanie she had a meeting, and just—left her linen jacket over her chair back. In her sleeveless dress and little patent heels, she walked through the revolving door and into the May sunshine, out Tremont Street and past the Parker House and the cemetery where Mother Goose was buried.

Free. And off the radar.

Aaron was waiting for her, as he’d promised, by the pushcarts outside the Park Street T stop. He’d handed her a big twisty pretzel, salt crumbling from its warm edges. They’d shared it, walking along the winding paths, the sun gleaming on the gold dome of the State House; the trees, some from hundreds of years ago, in full leaf above them. The last of the tulips, gasping in the heat, spread yellow and crimson across the green.

“Pretty, huh?” she’d said.

“Yes, you are,” Aaron had said.

And then, on the lacquered park bench, he’d draped his arm across her shoulders. She felt the starched oxford cloth of his shirt against her bare arm.

Aaron threw a pretzel piece, landed it at the edge of the pond. Two fat mallards lurched out of the water to get it, ruffling their feathers, green heads and purple-slashed wings shiny in the last of the late afternoon sunshine.

“Be great not to have to work, wouldn’t it?” Aaron tossed another piece at the ducks. “Sit in the sun and do nothing? Have someone feed you? To be that rich.”

“Mmm,” Lizzie said. She’d never thought about it, being rich. Growing up the way she had, her father and all. “I suppose I’m just as interested in helping other people with their finances.”

“Like the Iantoscas?” Aaron said. “Guess they got lucky.”

Lizzie’s heart flipped, just for a second, wondering. Was Aaron checking on her? Had someone gotten wind of what she was doing? She shook her head, trying to dismiss her silly fear. No way. She’d been careful.

“What?” Aaron said. “Why are you shaking your head?”

“Oh, nothing.” She hadn’t realized she’d actually done it. “Work.”

“So, the Iantoscas? I’m only asking because their house was in my portfolio.” He shrugged. “Although it won’t be there anymore.”

“Less work for you, right?” The last of her pretzel devoured, Lizzie didn’t exactly know what to do with her hands. She folded them in her lap, pretended the parade of ducks was fascinating.

“Any other accounts suddenly come into cash, that you know of?” Aaron turned toward her. Taking his arm away.

It felt like the sun had gone behind a cloud. She looked up. It hadn’t.

“You know, Aaron, we’re not supposed to talk about this.”

“You goofball.” Aaron poked her in the arm. “We’re both bank employees. It’s not like you’re chitchatting with someone in a bar. Right?”

He was right. She supposed. “Um…”

“If I came to your office, made an appointment, sat in one of these fancy new chairs, you could tell me all about it, right?” He raised one eyebrow, challenging. Then shrugged. “Listen, the spreadsheets’ll get to me sooner or later. I was hoping it wouldn’t be later. But I’ll be fine. I can handle it.”

He stood, wiping the seat of his pants. He seemed disappointed with her. She could tell.

She didn’t want this to be over. Didn’t want to overanalyze, like she always did, make too much of it. Besides, he’d seemed interested in her even before all this Iantosca stuff. He hadn’t known about it when he approached her by the vault that day. Or when he came to her office this afternoon. He’d come to see
her.
Given her his photo, a strange—but nice—surprise. But now, if he was suspicious of her bookkeeping—he probably wasn’t, but
if
—it might be revealing to see where he was going with this. To be safe. To be careful.

“Wait, Aaron?” If he was playing a game, she could do that, too. She could find out what she wanted, and all the while letting him think he was finding what
he
wanted. Aaron clearly wanted something. What?

He stopped, turned to her.

Sometimes people were exactly like numbers. You just had to understand them to control them. With great risk comes great reward. Her father used to tell her that.

She stood, wiping the pretzel salt from her hands. The ducks, startled, plopped back into the pond and paddled furiously away from shore. She smoothed her dress, and smiled. “Aaron? What is it you want to know?”

12

“I am so sorry for your loss,” Jake said. “Let me assure you, sir, we’re focused on finding who killed Shandra. As much as you are.” Jake had shown his gold badge and creds to Brian Turiello, the office manager of Mornay and Weldon Realty, at the door of their South Boston office. It had taken Jake about thirty seconds on the M&W website to pick out the postage-stamp-sized business portrait of a much more alive Shandra Newbury. At least Jake didn’t have to show the guy the crime scene photos. That was never pleasant. Not that murder was ever pleasant.

They were in Turiello’s corner office, the walls patchworked with engraved plaques and awards and photos of Turiello smiling next to other white guys in suits. A gold shovel, attached to the wall by two metal brackets, had the place of honor. A man who knew his place in the world. On the golf course, if Jake read it right. Now his world had been shaken a little. More than a little.

“She was an up-and-comer.” Turiello lowered himself into a padded swivel chair, his navy blazer flapping open, elbows on the glass-topped desk. He wore a lapel pin like Shandra’s. He looked over Jake’s shoulder, narrowing his eyes at the open doorway to his office. Jake had seen it a million times, the victim’s acquaintances not really believing the person was dead. Almost expecting them to come through the door. “Such a talented agent. Aggressive. But smart-aggressive. Always out getting new listings. She loves—loved—the business.”

Jake nodded, allowing Turiello to process the bad news. The problem with law enforcement, there was no time for grief. Jake’s job was about moving fast. Carefully, but fast. Grief took time. It was a balance.