The First to Lie

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

The lunch hour foot traffic instantly tripled as the Custom Tower clock hit noon. Down the block, some Pharminex employees—who else would they be, since the company had the entire twelve stories?—were escaping into the day. If Nora spotted someone she knew, all the better. As Nora, she could ask if they’d heard anything.

  She revolved into the building lobby, scouting for signs that something was amiss. She waved her ID at the rent-a-guard receptionist, ready to dive into collegial sympathy or condolences or intel, but the woman waved her through, barely looking up from her cell phone.

  On to the elevator, then she headed for the ninth-floor lockers, where she would scout for people she knew. And hope none of her sales rep colleagues were aware she’d been fired and then unfired. She checked her reflection in the shiny elevator doors, remembering it was business as usual and she was Nora. She made her brain Nora’s brain, made her physicality Nora’s physicality. Her motives, though, were Ellie’s.

  She heard the murmurs as soon as she clicked her ID through the locked door into the ninth-floor corridors. Conversations, whispered and subdued.

  Turned out the apex of the noise was in front of her own locker. Jenn Wahl was halfway down the carpeted corridor, still wearing her coat and outdoor boots, apparently deep in conversation with two other women in coats. Nora recognized the bespectacled brunette Gerri Munroe, and the blond-chignoned Christine O’Shea.

  “Oh, Nora!” Jenn’s red-rimmed eyes opened wider as she rushed at her for an embrace. “We hadn’t seen you recently. We were worried that it was you.” A smudge of Jenn’s mascara darkened one of her cheeks. All three of the women’s faces were pale under careful makeup.

  Nora made herself look perplexed and worried. “That it was me what?”

  “Stupid snow, I bet.” Gerri, scowling, jammed her hands into her coat pockets. Her black suede boots were rimmed with road salt, and her usually artful silk muffler was twisted out of place. “Could have been any of us. It’s disgusting. Probably illegal. They shouldn’t make us drive in this kind of weather.”

  “Worried it was me that what?” Nora repeated.

  “In a car accident,” Jenn said. “I can’t believe it.”

  “Believe it, honey.” Christine draped one arm around Jenn’s shoulders, then rested her head against her colleague’s. “She’s dead, Nora.”

  The women’s inner light seemed to vanish, their features softening to sorrow and their physical presence diminished. The fluorescent lamps buzzed above them all, flickering the too-bright hallway with intermittent shadows.

  “Who? Dead?” Nora asked, unbuttoning her coat and leaning in, a newcomer to the mourning.

  “Lydia.” Christine flattened a palm against the locker beside her, the one with a stiff cardboard name tag that read L. Frost. A tribute or a caress. “We were just all here, together. How can it be that she’s gone?”

  Nora gulped, trying to balance her sincere distress and sorrow with her reporter’s duty to get the facts. She was used to such compartmentalization, but here she was in her role as human being, Lydia’s colleague, almost a friend. She’d just seen her. In the elevator. With Gabe. Who had seen her too. And Ellie had told him her name.

  She put her fingers to her lips, sincerely disturbed. “Oh, no. Do they know what happened?”

  All three women shook their heads, a unison of grief and the unknown.

  “The state police are doing whatever they do,” Jenn said. “Reconstructing. Allessandra sent an email two seconds before you got here, but it didn’t say much, except they’re investigating and we’re all sad.”

  The four women stood in the empty hallway, encased by wallpaper and overhead lighting and rows of louvered beige storage lockers, now silent and solitary in their loss.

  Nora spoke first, her voice still low, not wanting to ignore their sorrow but needing information. “State police? So it happened on a highway?”

  “Route Nine exit, somewhere,” Jenn said.

  “You got the email, Nora, right?” Gerri asked.

  Nora dug out her cell. There it was.

  She mentally slowed her stampeding brain. Route Nine. Could that be near where Kaitlyn had crashed?

  Nora knew which state police were probably investigating Lydia’s death. The same ones who’d investigated Kaitlyn Armistead’s.

  “Was Lydia by herself?” she asked.

  All three women looked up at her, then tilted their heads the same way, like curious parakeets. “I … guess so,” Jenn finally said. “She was on her way to some appointment, I assume. And there’s nothing in the email about anybody else.”

  “When did this happen? Today, right, but what time?”

  “Why does that matter?” said Christine, annoyed.

  “The police will find out,” Gerri said at the same time, and they all nodded. “It’s so sad,” she added. “We were right here the other day, laughing and talking. Like we’d always be together and had all the time in the world.”

  “Talking about that cute doctor, right?” Jenn added, wiping a tear from under one mascaraed eye. “And, like, corporate spies.”

  CHAPTER 36

  ELLIE

  This had to be an identity-changing record. Nora become Ellie again, this time switching identities in the back seat of an Uber. The driver of the ridiculously pinewoods-scented black SUV glanced at her once in his rearview mirror, and she saw confusion cross his face as she tucked the last of her auburn hair underneath Ellie’s blond-bob wig.

  “I’m an actor,” she explained, settling the wig into place, yanking the elastic down over her ears and finger-combing her bangs straight. “I have an audition.”

  “Cool,” the driver said. “Are you famous? I always wanted to be an actor. When I was in college, everyone said I looked like—”

  “Great.” Ellie tried to give him a genuine-looking smile—she was an actor, after all. “I’m so sorry, though? I have to concentrate. I know you’ll understand.”

  “Cool.” The driver nodded, checking his own reflection in the rearview—black watch cap, one silver stud earring—as they stopped for a red light. “I still think it might be an awesome—”

  “Yeah,” Ellie said. “Don’t mind me not chatting, okay? Got to focus. Get ready.”

  “Cool,” he said.

  She balanced a slim silver compact in the pouch on the back of the front seat, popped out the contacts that made her eyes forest green and deposited them in a plastic container, spilling most of the lens solution on her black coat. “Fine,” she muttered. She replaced the lenses with her red-rimmed glasses, then attempted to blot off Nora’s red lipstick without leaving a brown smudge around her mouth. A swipe with a spit-dampened Q-tip removed the eyeliner and the taupe eyeshadow, and she tissued off most of her face makeup, depositing the blush-covered Kleenex in her tote bag.

  She had seen the driver surreptitiously eyeing her again in the rearview mirror. This round-faced twentysomething—Remmie, his picture ID on the app had disclosed—was the only one on the planet besides Blinker who’d witnessed this particular transformation. She tried to remember whether there was any way this guy could find her again, through the app or something, but that was probably over-the-top paranoid. She decided to poll him for his reaction at the next stop sign.

  “So?” She leaned forward, gesturing to her face, as if to present the transformation.

  “Cool,” Remmie said. “You look like a different person.”

  “Awesome. Okay, this is it.”

  “Your audition is here?” Remmie twisted his body as he approached the front entrance of the state police headquarters, questioning her over the seat back.

  “I just show up where they say, right?” She shrugged, simpatico, then jumped out and closed the door behind her.

  She paused in the parking lot as the car pulled away. It had been about a week ago that the hyper-suspicious statie Lieutenant Monteiro had questioned Nora. He’d let her go, saying he’d be back in touch if there was anything more he needed. She hadn’t he
ard from him.

  The murky sun had given up on the afternoon, and charcoal skies almost matched the parking lot’s asphalt. The shaded windows of the state police building made white squares in the redbrick edifice. Ellie pulled open the glass doors of the entrance, reminding herself this was Ellie’s first time here.

  The cadet at the front desk, barricaded behind thick yellowing plastic in her pale blue uniform shirt and navy pants, seemed reluctant to look up from her computer screen as Ellie approached.

  The cadet finally slid open a hinged plexiglass window, which stuck halfway. She banged it with the heel of her hand. “Help you?”

  The mustard-brown wall behind her was papered with thumbtacked Wanted posters, some more tattered than others, a few with a red X markered over the faces.

  “Ellie Berensen.” She dug into her tote bag, then held up a spiral notebook the way a cop would proffer a badge, adding a helpful smile. “From Channel Eleven?”

  The cadet kept one hand on her computer mouse, her dour expression telegraphing so what?

  Ellie read the wooden nameplate on the desk. Tried the use-the-person’s-name method. “Cadet Vela? I’m here about the fatal on Route Nine.”

  So what? again. “You need to call media relations, ma’am.”

  Ellie winced. “I know,” she pretended to confess, “but I was in the area, and my phone battery is dying, and since my news director is freaking out over the—”

  “Stop.” The cadet pointed to a narrow plastic bench along the lobby wall. “Take a seat. I’ll see what I can do. No promises. And ma’am? There’s a plug. Charge your phone.”

  “Oh, thank you so—”

  The cadet slammed the sliding window. This time it worked.

  Ellie sat, plugged in her phone, then stared at wet footprints crisscrossing the gritty linoleum floor. A siren wailed outside, then another. She would never hear a siren again without thinking of Kaitlyn. How she—as Nora—had tried to stop her from driving. Had tried to get to her. Had failed.

  But as Ellie, she’d heard about Kaitlyn’s crash from Gabe. Why would he have cared about that? Why would that have been on his radar?

  Gabe couldn’t have caused Lydia’s crash, could he? He’d been with her—Nora—all morning.

  Kaitlyn and Lydia. Two young women. One taking Monifan, one selling it. But what else connected them?

  “Miz Burnson?”

  She got to her feet, startled, and then was startled again. She tried to keep the recognition off her face. Ellie had never seen Detective Lieutenant Rafael Monteiro before. The spit-shined square-cornered Monteiro, whose face hitched one degree off movie star and whose pale blue shirt looked tailored to a sleek fit, was not a member of the media relations team. He was, Nora knew, head of accident reconstruction.

  She touched her red glasses to draw attention to them and smoothed her blond hair, setting her Ellie persona in place in the trooper’s mind.

  “Berensen,” she corrected, using a hint of a TV voice. And then asked a question she knew the answer to. “Are you media relations?”

  “Media sent me,” he said. He pointed to himself with the manila folder he held. “Detective Lieutenant Rafael Monteiro. Come with me, Ms. Berensen.”

  “Call me Ellie.” She looked him square in the eye, giving him the opportunity to recognize her. But he didn’t react. Not a twitch or a pause or a narrowed eye. Some cop.

  So that bullet was dodged. She wrapped the power cord around her phone and stashed it into her tote bag as she trotted after Monteiro through a number-pad locked door and down a familiar corridor. Not familiar, she reminded herself.

  “Have a seat,” he said. She’d sat on the same beige folding chair the last time. And seen the same blank flip-over bulletin board the last time, too. But there was no last time.

  Ellie radiated reporter vibes: all business, rushed, brusque. Her coat was unbuttoned, but she kept it on to indicate she didn’t plan to hang around. Get in, get out, get the news story on the air.

  “Lieutenant? Can you confirm the victim is Lydia Frost?” She clicked her ballpoint. Might as well try to take control of the discussion. “What’s the status of your investigation?”

  She knew, with a nagging subtext, that this wasn’t standard operating procedure—she’d covered her share of car accidents, and no trooper had ever taken her, solo, into a private back room.

  She pushed her concerns away, and looked at Monteiro, your turn, ready to take notes.

  “What’s your interest in this, Ms. Berensen?” Monteiro put his manila folder on a side table, crossed his arms. Leaned against the wall across from her. The blank bulletin board beside him was dotted with blue and red pushpins, as if someone had removed everything it displayed. “Why’d you come all the way out here instead of simply calling?”

  “I’m a reporter,” she said.

  “For Channel Eleven.”

  “Yes.” She nodded, all-in-a-day’s-work.

  Monteiro scratched his forehead—dramatically, if you asked her—then shifted position. “Ma’am? Media relations tells me he never heard of you. You have no media credentials. Hell, your station doesn’t hit air for, what, weeks? So why do you care about a car accident?”

  “Because it’s my job to—”

  “Don’t bullshit me.” He put up a stop-sign palm. “We called your station, asked for you, got a Meg something, a producer? She was perfectly happy to tell us you’re the big-time investigative reporter.”

  He said investigative as if it meant toxic waste or swine flu.

  “Well, Lieutenant,” she tried for the same intonation, vowing to kill Meg the first chance she got, “I’m—”

  “Give me a break.” Monteiro removed a red pushpin from the bulletin board, stabbed it back into place. The board, mounted on swivel hinges, creaked with the force of his motion. “No investigative reporter is gonna be out covering a random car accident. Correct? So, let’s try again. Why do you care about this?”

  “Why do you?” The question came out before her brain even vetted it.

  “Yeah. Thing is? I don’t have to answer you.” Monteiro smiled, apparently happy to patronize her. “I can say ‘it’s under investigation.’ I can say ‘no comment.’ I can no-comment you until you hear it in your sleep. And to remind you, I can no-comment you but slip the scoop to your competitors. The ones who are actually on the air. The ones who are telling me the truth.”

  Death was too easy a solution for Meg.

  “You can’t threaten—” She stood, challenging him.

  “Sit down, Ms. Berensen. You have thirty seconds. After that, I’m the king of ‘no comment.’ Twenty-nine seconds.”

  Monteiro must suspect something or he wouldn’t be going third degree on her. She took a deep breath, ready to—maybe—cross the line. But also—maybe—to get some answers. She would kill Meg later.

  “Twenty-three.”

  She sat back down. “Do you remember that spin-out near Route Nine last week? In the snow? Kaitlyn Armistead?”

  Monteiro nodded. “Yup.”

  “Was this in the same place as that?”

  “Nineteen.” The patronizing smile again, this time accompanied by a weary shake of the head and a dramatic glance at his elaborate runner’s watch. “Eighteen. You’re going to tell me things, not ask me things.”

  “I knew her,” Ellie lied. “Kaitlyn Armistead.”

  Monteiro blinked, remaining silent, giving her a few more seconds to make sure this tactic would work.

  “Not like a friend, but professionally,” she went on, growing more confident in her explanation. “She called me, at the station, because…” Because why? She’d head that off before Monteiro asked. “Because we’d trolled on social media for women who’d had trouble with conception and were angry because they’d experienced side effects. So she replied. Called me. Us. Meg and me.”

  “And what did she tell you?”

  “She told us about her health problems, which are private, okay? She also wondered why
we were asking about it, and we explained we were looking into a certain pharmaceutical company and wondered whether doctors had prescribed certain drugs for her. And whether she might be interested in going public with her results. It’s a long story.”

  Monteiro nodded. “Pharminex,” he said.

  This was a game changer. How the hell did he know?

  “How did you hear about Lydia Frost?” Monteiro went on.

  “So you’re confirming the victim was Lydia Frost?”

  “If I remember correctly, and I do, you asked me about Lydia Frost. You’re the one who mentioned her name.”

  “Come on, Lieutenant.” Really? Ellie thought.

  “Off the record?” he asked.

  “Off the record what?”

  “I know who you are, Ms. Berensen. What you’re investigating. And since you’re not on the air for weeks—correct?—we’ll agree you won’t use what I’m about to show you until I say so. But now we need your help. Okay?”

  “Help with what? How did you know?” She reconsidered. “Or think you know?”

  Monteiro didn’t answer. He uncrossed his arms, stood and with one motion flipped over the blank bulletin board, revealing its other side.

  CHAPTER 37

  ELLIE

  It was as if Monteiro’s bulletin board was a map of Ellie’s own brain. Of her suspicions.

  Attached to the upper left corner with a blue pushpin was a rectangular snapshot of Kaitlyn Armistead. In happier days, outdoors. The photographer had captured Kaitlyn’s contented expression. Auburn hair fell loose across her shoulders, complemented by a sleeveless emerald-green blouse, shadows spackled on her tanned arms. Ellie even saw that sprinkling of freckles across her nose—they’d talked about her freckles, Ellie remembered, how Kaitlyn had disliked them. Kaitlyn was looking at something in the far distance, and behind her was the edge of a tree trunk and the sun streaming through its leafy branches. A family photo, maybe, casual and carefree.

  In the middle of the board was a Google map, the irregular circle of the Chestnut Hill reservoir in its center, the ribbon of Route Nine interrupted by two pushpins: one blue, one red. The blue one, the scene of Kaitlin’s accident, was attached by blue thread to her photo. That fragile thread connected the vibrant life in the photo to the other pin, the place that ended it.