Truth Be Told (Jane Ryland) (7 page)

Jake waited. Sometimes you had to wait. The air conditioner kicked on.

“Where did it happen?” Turiello finally asked.

“Forty-two Waverly Road.” Did Turiello know the place? Jake could imagine it, this semi-good-looking—Jake checked the man’s ring finger—not married, real estate mogul type, meets the up-and-coming wannabe, they tangle, she refuses, he lets her have it. An accident, maybe. It could happen.

Jake waited.

“It was my fault.” Turiello looked out the window at a T bus chugging by.

“Fault?” Jake had grabbed a little spiral notebook from his desk at HQ. He often used his cell phone to take notes, but here it seemed disrespectful. Now, while Turiello wasn’t looking, he flipped the notebook open, found a blank page. “Fault” was an odd word. This was a big day for confessions. “Sir?”

“I’d put her in charge of our foreclosures. That’s why she was there.” Turiello talked out the widow, shrugging. Turned back to Jake. “Not my
fault,
I suppose. Not really. There was nothing that should have been … untoward about that site visit. Standard.”

“Anyone go with her?” Jake asked.

“Not that I know of.”

“Was she meeting someone?” Jake stood, pointed toward a bullpen of desks and telephones in the front of the office space, empty. He checked his watch. After six. No employees or colleagues here to give him any answers. “Which was her desk? Does she have a computer? We’ll need to look at that. And sir? Do you recognize the name Sandoval? Elliot Sandoval?”

Turiello stood, running two fingers down the front of his elaborate tie, a grid of red houses on a navy background. “She does have a computer, but it’s password protected. Has to be, all that personal information we gather and process. Financials, mortgage application, credit referrals. We’ll have to get our IT guy get into it.”

“Thanks,” Jake said. Easy. They’d find her clients, find who she’d planned to meet this morning, or last night—and case closed. He could get back to Nate Frasca and Lilac Sunday. “Her appointment book as well, sir.”

Turiello still fidgeted with his tie, opened the collar button. “Detective? I’m a branch. The big guys at headquarters call the shots.” He scratched at his neck, making thin red lines across this throat. “To give you open season on Shandra’s computer data and paper files? I’m not authorized to do that.”

Jake had a few choices. Push, which might be futile. Get a warrant, which would certainly take a while. Negotiate. Or a little of all three.

“I understand.” Jake waved his notebook at the phone. “Make your phone call, get the show on the road. Meanwhile, show me the details on the house at forty-two Waverly. That, at least, is public. Correct?”

Turiello didn’t look happy. But hey. It wasn’t a happy time. It was murder.

Time for the push. “I can get a warrant, of course. And will.” Jake smiled, barely. “But what if I were in the market for a house?”

He could almost see the office manger weighing the options. Looking out the window. Clearing his throat. Probably wishing all of this, including Jake, would vanish.

It wouldn’t.

“Yeah,” Jake said. “I know. So show me. For Shandra Newbury’s sake.”

*   *   *

“Bless you,” Jane said. She stopped at the opening to her cubicle, watching the woman at the other desk inside yank a tissue out of a flowered box and then sneeze again. “Are you sick?”

If Chrystal Peralta had a cold, Jane was seriously not going to sit down at her own desk. The fabric-walled cubicle they shared was crowded enough without adding cold germs. On a regular day Chrystal took up more than half the space, and it wasn’t just her hair. Chrystal’s side of the cube was practically a yard sale, a mishmash of promotional loot snagged from various feature stories she’d covered. Coffee mugs with bank logos, mouse pads with inspirational slogans. Access passes from junkets, meetings, and trade shows, each encased in shiny plastic and dangling from a slogan-bearing lanyard, dangled like holiday decorations from her half of the bulletin board. Every pen in her A&A Bank holder probably had someone’s company’s phone number on it.

Jane’s “half” of the bulletin board had a snapshot of a sunset in Nantucket, a souvenir from a political scandal she’d uncovered, and a goofy-toothed school picture of a little boy, now happily adopted, from her investigation on foster care. She’d saved a space for a new picture of a pink-sanded beach. A photo not yet taken.

Chrystal sneezed again.

“Sick? Big time.” Chrystal wadded a shredded mass of tissues and tossed them toward the tissue-filled wastebasket. Jane cringed, dodging. “I’m not contagious, though. Probably.”

If Chrystal was sick, Jane was bailing. She absolutely could not afford to be sick this weekend. No sneezing, no runny nose, no puffy eyes, no—she smiled at the mental picture—snoring. Jane backed into the hall. “I’ll work down in the conference room, okay? I only have fifteen minutes—fewer now, actually—to bang out this story.”

“It’s probably allergies,” Chrystal went on as if Jane hadn’t said anything.

“No, really. You stay here. Feel better.”
Twelve minutes.
Jane almost ran down the hall, yanked open the heavy glass conference room door, hit the mouse to wake up the computer on the mahogany table. Nothing. Tried it again. Nothing. On the fritz. Again?

Eleven minutes.
Damn. She raced back to her own desk, swiveled into her chair, hit her own mouse. “Hey Chrystal, I’m back, gotta do this.”

Chrystal sneezed.

Maybe Jane could avoid breathing for the next ten minutes. She pulled up her story page, typed almost without thinking.
Former owners of a now-foreclosed home in Hyde Park were shocked this afternoon when they were told police had discovered the body of a potential homicide victim in a second-floor bedroom.

The cursor blinked at her, taunting, as she tried to figure out what to say next. Victoria was insisting on a story about the Sandovals’ reaction, but they really hadn’t reacted.
Two paragraphs,
she told herself.
Everything doesn’t have to be Pulitzer material.
She dug into her bag, pulled out her notebook, flipped the pages.

“Damn,” she said.

“What?” Chrystal’s chair squeaked as she turned to her.

“Marcotte wants quotes, I got nothing.”

“Make something up,” Chrystal said.

“Right, great idea,” Jane said, cocked an eyebrow. “Sure would make life easier.” Back to the keyboard.

The Sandovals’ eviction was finalized last week, according to Suffolk County Registry of Deeds documents.

At least she had those.

Police say they have not identified the victim, nor has the medical examiner determined the cause of death.

The cursor blinked, silently demanding, as Jane struggled. Seconds ticked by. She grabbed her cell phone. Punched in a number. Prayed.

“Mr. Sandoval? This is Jane Ryland at the
Register.
” Thank goodness. He was home. She paused, knowing she had to be polite. She was on deadline, but she was asking about a murder. “Fine, and I’m so sorry to bother you, but I have to write my story about what happened this afternoon at your … on Waverly Road. And I wonder—”

Elliot Sandoval interrupted, talking faster than she’d ever heard him.

“What?” Jane said. “When? Then what?”

Sandoval answered, still at top speed.

“Mr. Sandoval? Sir?” Jane tucked the phone between her shoulder and cheek, and turned back to her computer keyboard. Sandoval barely took a breath between words. “Excuse me? Sir? Did they give you a name?”

Five minutes.

Plenty of time.

13

The phone rang just as Peter stepped toward his office door. Five o’clock. Officially, the law firm was closed for the day. But the phone on Nicole’s reception desk rang again, insistent. Thorley didn’t have that number. This was someone else.

Through his tenth-floor window Peter could see happy people, normal people, a couple feeding the ducks, throwing bread crumbs or something at the mallards gathered in the pond. A sunset swan boat glided by, full of tourists, probably, and people who didn’t have to think about cold-case murders of high school girls and the misguided men who were inexplicably confessing to the crimes.

Why would Thorley confess? One easy answer. He was guilty. Fine with Peter—he’d represented worse. Even the guilty ones needed lawyers. Especially the guilty ones.

The phone rang again.

Peter blew out a breath, remembering the lawyer’s prayer. This phone call might bring him his case-of-all-cases. Tobacco, or lead paint, or a new Dalkon Shield. Some hideously widespread but provable injustice, or a victim with a stash of incriminating e-mails, finally ready to blow the whistle on some big-bucks government corruption. If Peter ignored the phone, the desperate plaintiff would call someone else, and someone else would get the glory. And the 30 percent.

His assistant, Nicole, was long gone, headed out at close of business to do whatever paralegal slash secretaries did on a Boston spring evening, sail or skateboard or dance or drink a pink cocktail with friends. Defeated, Peter picked up the phone.

“Hardesty and Colaneri,” he said. Too late to turn back now. “This is Peter Hardesty.”

He paused, listening to the person on the other end.

“Yes,” he said. He put down his briefcase. Lowered himself into his desk chair. Grabbed a yellow pad. Clicked open a pen. Still listening. “Yes.”

*   *   *

“I’m telling you, Jake, it’s a slam dunk.” D was still trying to convince him, had not stopped trying for the past few miles, that the person they were about to go visit was Shandra Newbury’s killer. Jake stopped at a red light, almost tuning D out. Sure, that would create a certain symmetry about the whole thing. Irony, too, since the suspect was right out of Mornay and Weldon’s own real estate listings.

“Do me a favor, D.” Jake turned onto Olivet Street, then onto Champlain. “Look for number four-twenty-five. Then try to stay a little objective. Maybe the guy’s innocent, that ever cross your mind?”

“Oh, mos’ def,” D said. “He’s innocent, and so is Gordon Thorley. Everybody’s innocent. It’s a wonder we still have our jobs, with all those innocent people out there.”

“It’s only one day until your vacation, D.” Jake pretended to be sympathetic. “Once you and Kat hit one of those sandy beaches, all your pent-up hostility will vanish. You’ll be better when you get back.”

“There it is.” D pointed. “Tan siding, dead grass. Crappy pickup truck in the driveway. Bad guy inside.”

“We’ll see.” Jake eased the unmarked cruiser to the curb, slid into a just-barely-legal spot north of the fire hydrant. A few random kids sauntered up the sidewalk, baseball caps backward, shapeless T-shirts, skateboards under their arms. Most driveways had cars, nothing fancy. Middle class, lower, seemed like. Struggling strips of gardens, homeowners clearly losing the battle with their yellowing lawns. Someone was grilling out, Jake could smell the charcoal. “He didn’t bolt after you called. That’s a not-guilty, right there.”

“Maybe it’s the wife.” D opened his door, eased onto the sidewalk.

Just past seven, and it was still as sweltering as it had been this noon on Waverly Road.
Jane,
he thought. He’d see her again in less than two hours, if all went as planned. This time, by themselves. They could talk without using code.

“Doesn’t take much to clobber someone with a two-by-four,” D was saying. They crossed the narrow empty street, dodged a couple of potholes, headed for the modest ranch house. Curtains hid the small front windows. They couldn’t see inside, only that at least one light was on. “I might not have left it there, just saying. But who said killers are smart. We’ll know more soon as Crime Scene takes over.”

“And the wife’s motive would be what?” Jake asked. “Buyer’s remorse? Or how about jealousy? Because her husband and Shandra Newbury were—”

“Hey, check out the truck,” D interrupted. “There in the back.”

Jake took two steps. Saw what D was talking about. A stack of two-by-fours. “We just called him, you know? Ten minutes ago. Not enough time to get rid of them.”

They stopped, looked at each other.

“Plain sight,” Jake said.

“Am I right, or am I right?” D said.

*   *   *

Aaron would pay for this dinner, probably in more ways than one. The Ritz Café was a splurge, all white napkins and shiny glass plates. It was the Taj now, whatever. Question was, what would be the return on his investment?

As Lizzie talked nonstop, he watched her lift the circles of red onions from her overpriced hamburger, then ferry them with a fork to her empty bread plate. Then she removed her hamburger from the sesame-seeded bun, and put the bun on the side plate, too. Lizzie sure seemed at home here, handing the waiter her scorned onions and rejected bun. Aaron took a bite of his well-done with cheddar, pretending to listen to whatever she was talking about.

At least she was drinking her wine.

The Iantosca situation churned though his mind as Lizzie continued her life saga. She was into her college business classes now, her “epiphany” from some econ professor about “banking for the people” and how the “balance of the economy” needed to be “reset” and “recalculated” to include customer service. All Aaron could think about was how to make his deal work. He had to find a solution.

“That’s cool,” he replied. Whatever she’d said. He dunked a seasoned fry into his pool of ketchup, watched Lizzie finally take a bite of burger—with her fork—and pulled out a phrase he’d heard Ack use. “Did your class discuss ‘informational silos of customer data’?”

Lizzie’s eyes widened. “It
did,
how amazing you know about it, yes, it did, and…” And she was off again.

It was shortsighted of him to worry about the Iantoscas. So what if their house was off the foreclosure list? Maybe he could even convince Ackerman to be happy about that info. They rarely talked, of course, and never e-mailed or texted, that was way too risky. But next time they connected, Aaron could easily make it seem like he had the scoop on the incoming properties. The real inside dope.