What You See
Page 9
“Let us know.” Marsh pointed at her. “Now you better get ready.”
“I’m always ready,” Beverly said. She didn’t exactly strut away, but she came close.
Maybe Jane didn’t miss TV, after all. Her phone rang, buzzing and vibrating against the news director’s glass coffee table.
“Cop shop, dollars to doughnuts,” Tyson said. “Go ahead, Jane. Then give us the deets.”
Jane crossed mental fingers it would be the police, providing her information to wrap this story. Better info than Bev got.
“Hello?”
“Jane, it’s Lissa. Melissa. I had to hang up before because—well, listen. Seems like Lewis and Gracie have taken off. On an ‘adventure.’” Melissa paused, took a deep breath. “Lewis apparently is ‘impetuous.’ Whatever Robyn means by that. Where are you, Janey? Because…”
Jane stood, hearing the uncertainty in her sister’s voice.
“Cops? Something?” Tyson asked.
“Lissa?” Jane held up a hand, signaling Tyson no, not the cops. She was beginning to hate her phone even more. But for all their squabbles, she and Melissa were sisters. And that tone in Lissa’s voice—one Jane had never heard. Melissa and Gracie had bonded, Jane knew. Even with Melissa’s rigid view of the world, somehow the little girl had gotten through. Touched her heart, she’d said. But again, it was Lissa’s—Melissa’s—wedding. So, hard to tell.
“Melissa?” she said again.
Jane heard voices in the background, the hushed murmurs of someone else talking.
“She’s nine years old,” Melissa whispered. “Jane, I’m so worried, and Daniel’s not here to help and—could you come? I need you. I really do. Please?”
“One second,” Jane told her. Please? “Ah, Mr. Tyson? I—”
“So?” Tyson,was aiming his remote at the bank of TV monitors, goosing up the volume, one screen after the next. “Ready to write it up nice and juicy for the six? Lead story, sister.”
Jane felt the warmth go out of her face, pressed her lips together.
“I can’t,” she said.
Tyson turned to her, his arm still pointed at the screens. It slowly lowered, and Jane’s shoulders seemed to sink along with it.
“Can’t.” Tyson made it a statement. A bullet. He nodded, silently, considering. Then turned back to the monitors. “I see.”
Jane waited a heartbeat. The day had started with an opening door. Now it was apparently slamming in her face.
“I have a family emergency,” she said.
16
No way could he be in four places at once, so Jake had chosen the one that could clinch the case. Mass General. He jabbed the elevator button, waiting for the numbered lights above to make their agonizingly slow journey down to where he waited on L. Five o’clock. Shift change. Every elevator in the hospital would be stopping on every floor. It wouldn’t help to be impatient, even though he was. He felt so close to case closed he could taste the celebratory beer.
Bobby Land would have to wait. Jake had stashed him in an office on the third level of Headquarters with a can of Sprite and a couple of sports magazines. Fortunately, the kid hadn’t called for a lawyer or his parents, and, after admitting that he was over eighteen, thank you so much, had agreed to stand by until Jake got back. The memory card from Land’s camera was a total loss, according to the techs in IT, so whatever photos he had taken were crushed out of existence. Jake had promised Bobby they’d investigate the shattered camera incident, so Land was probably happily planning his revenge—or lawsuit—against Calvin Hewlitt.
Hewlitt himself, not such a happy camper, was parked in interrogation room C with Paul DeLuca. In a cold blast of law enforcement irony, DeLuca had been partnered for the preliminary questioning with Angie Bartoneri, once Jake relieved her here at the hospital. Question one for Hewlitt: Why had he smashed that memory card? Just to keep his handcuffed picture out of the papers? Seemed more like an obvious move by a guilt-ridden person worried by something incriminating on it. Still, if Bobby Land had seen whatever that something was, his eyewitness evidence was almost as probative as that caught on camera. Almost.
D had promised to let Jake know if Hewlitt said anything useful or instructive. Not likely, since the only word out of his mouth so far, according to D, was “lawyer.” They couldn’t hold him forever—eight hours, according to case law, until they had to cut bait. “Malicious destruction of property” would legally keep him at HQ for a while, but a good lawyer would get him sprung pretty damn fast. Hewlitt was trouble, Jake knew it. He just didn’t know how. Yet.
John Doe No. 1 was in the morgue. Identification team was hot on his case, but so far, the stabbed guy—Caucasian male, middle-aged—was still nameless. Why wasn’t he carrying ID? Everyone had ID. How’d he get to Curley Park? Victim and potential suspect both arrived at the park with no ID?
Jane would soon be pushing to get pictures of them both. She’d already texted him a few times, most likely about exactly that. He hadn’t decided how to handle the Jane situation, so he was ignoring it for now. Jake hadn’t seen a photo of the dead guy’s face yet, so all in all, at this point, it was hard to come up with any theories. And maybe theorizing was a waste of time. This case might be solved in the next five minutes.
That’s why Jake was headed to the guarded bedside of John Doe No. 2.
What was that guy doing in that alley? Why had Calvin Hewlitt jumped him? So far, according to the watch, John Doe No. 2 was so doped up he was out of it. Jake wanted to see for himself. Maybe hear for himself. Try to get some idea of what had gone down in Franklin Alley.
Jake texted himself a reminder—Dumpster.
On the way to HQ, he’d dispatched a crime scene team to check it out. They’d soon reported there was nothing inside, e-mailed him their photos of the empty bin. Jake used a thumb to scroll his cell phone through their wide shots and close-ups; grimy dented metal walls, peeling paint, streaks of black and bird shit, puddled floor.
Empty.
That’s what worried Jake. Be a bad break if whatever had been in the Dumpster was now covered by layers of trash and detritus in the municipal landfill. He’d asked a cadet to get the pickup schedule. It was unlikely—Jake hoped this wasn’t wishful thinking—there’d be a Waste Management pickup at noon on a Monday. Maybe the Dumpster was empty. Maybe the tipster had been wrong. Maybe it wouldn’t matter.
He jabbed the elevator button again. Jane would have teased him about the futility of that. The alley. Who was the girl-woman who’d sent the cadet back there in the first place? He’d ordered him to find her.
Finally. Entering the elevator, he stepped to the side, getting out of the way as a frazzle-haired mom maneuvered a double-wide stroller into all the available space.
The good news, and the reason Jake was here? Though cadets were still looking through photos from bystanders’ cameras and cells, they’d discovered one kick-ass lead. Jake pulled out the folded copy of the digital color snapshot DeLuca had handed him half an hour ago.
“Check it out,” D had said. “Note the time stamp. Eleven fifty-nine A.M. Guy who took it’s around if we need him.”
They’d printed it out on letter-size paper. Not the best quality, but good enough. A medium close-up of someone’s back, someone wearing a once-white shirt. Jake could tell it was a man, could tell he was facedown on the sidewalk, and could see a bit of Mayor Curley’s bronze knee. Also in the photo was the clear image of the hilt of a knife, clutched in someone’s hand. Someone plunging the blade into the man’s back.
“Too bad you can’t see the stabber’s face,” Jake had said to D.
“True,” DeLuca said. “Thing is, we don’t need to see it.” He pointed to the stabber’s forearm. The arm with the knife. “Look closer.”
Jake looked. “Tattoo.”
“Yup.”
Jake had examined it again, close up, and then from farther away, holding it up to the light, as if that would reveal something. “Some fancy defense attorney’l
l probably try to argue the stabber was being a good Samaritan, trying to pull the knife out.”
“Love to be there when he tries that,” DeLuca said. “We’d hear the jury laughing all the way to the Cape.”
“Yup,” Jake said.
“So, my man. If our John Doe 2 at MGH has a tattoo? What you see is what you get. Another life drama successfully solved,” DeLuca had said. “And in less than six hours. A new record, Harvard, even for us.”
Jake put the photo back into his jacket pocket. Reaching past the stroller, he pushed the button for 6.
* * *
So that was cool. The afternoon had raced by, even though it usually seemed like time went by slower if you wanted the day to go fast, not today. Brileen had asked her if she wanted to get coffee after work, since lunch got too rushed.
Tenley had gone back to her desk, and time had completely flown.
She logged off, watched the screen dip to black, waved at the second shifters arriving to take the day team’s place, and even smiled at the slobby red-haired guy who always took her spot. He looked kind of, like, surprised, so she guessed she’d never smiled at him before. Dahlstrom was nowhere to be seen, even better, as Tenley punched the ticking metal time clock. She usually hated that—who still had a punch clock?—but this time the little good-bye ding made her happy. She’d realized she’d seen Bri on the T in the mornings, must have, they just hadn’t connected. And turned out Bri went to the same college. Now she was meeting a college friend for coffee. Cool.
Tenley made a quick pit stop, assessed herself in the ladies’ room mirror as she rolled up her skirt’s waistband. Once, twice, patted it into place. Wonder if Brileen knew Lanna? Brileen seemed a little older—but old enough to know Lanna?
Anyway. Dr. Maddux would be happy she was “getting out in the world,” right? Should she text her mom, saying she was meeting a friend for coffee—wouldn’t that be a surprise?—and not to worry, she’d be home? She could just go tell her in person.
Tenley stuck her earrings back in, felt the golden curves slip through the pierces in her ears. She felt like her old self, a feeling she hadn’t had in however long she could remember. There was a Tenley she used to know, the one who laughed and read vampire books, who kind of liked math and computers and puzzles, who listened to music and secretly read movie star blogs. It had all soured, turned worthless, and gross and shallow, after Lanna. Died.
“After Lanna died,” she whispered. She had to face it. And live with it.
She was only eighteen. And she was, she had to admit, kind of tired of feeling sad. Was it being unfaithful to be happy? She would never understand what happened to Lanna. She could never imagine forgiving herself for it. And she would always miss Lanna. Always, always, always.
But that didn’t mean she had to give up her whole life. Lanna would want her to be happy.
She hardly remembered waiting for the elevator, hardly remembered waving to the snoozing security guard at the Congress Street side exit, hardly remembered poking the flat metal button to get the Walk sign. She’d started crossing before it even changed, because how could she wait? Because there was her friend Brileen Finnerty, across the street, sitting on the green bench. Exactly as she’d promised.
It was almost as if Lanna had given her a gift.
17
“My fault? My fault?” Catherine Siskel said it out loud to her empty kitchen, knew if she threw the framed photo of Lanna across the room it would serve only to shatter the glass, thereby destroying another part of their lives. Early this morning, her husband called to inform her that he’d “again” “unexpectedly” been “called” to meet with a client. And he “might be” “very delayed” coming home. So her photo-throwing drama would be wasted. What’s more, she’d have to clean up all that broken glass.
Seemed she was always cleaning up something. The most internecine messes at City Hall were easier to manage than her own life.
It wasn’t just Greg, she had to admit. Often she herself stayed late at the office, an explainable side effect of her job, but recently more an excuse to keep from having to go home to their daughter Lanna’s forever-empty bedroom and her husband’s empty eyes. What was he caring about these last months? Not her.
Now she was by herself, in their empty house. Tenley wasn’t home yet, and if Greg found out, somehow he’d make even that her fault. In this morning’s call, he’d insisted, as always, she make sure their daughter was home that night. Because of Lanna, he always said.
What else was new?
She was always concerned about Tenley. Greg hardly had to remind her of that. But Tenley had to live in the real world. She and her husband could not protect her from imaginary dangers. She’d be home soon.
“The girl is eighteen,” she’d reminded Greg, unnecessarily, this morning. Now she shoved a bottle of sauvignon blanc into the fridge. At least it could be cold, even though she’d have to open it alone. She slammed the stainless steel door. Taking her hostilities out on the fridge. Helpful.
“She has a job at City Hall, a job I managed to finagle for her,” Catherine had said. “Why is it my responsibility to make sure she’s home at some random time you happen to select? No. Just, no. We need to let her have a life.”
Catherine steadied herself against the countertop. Using the toe of her left black patent pump, she pried off the heel of her right shoe, then, with bare toes, slipped off the other. She left both shoes toppled over in the middle of the kitchen floor and paced by them, fuming. Taking off her heels was always such a relief, and the cool tile felt soothing under her feet. But this was no time to relax, she couldn’t relax any part of her.
She replayed more of the morning’s conversation—if you could call it “conversation”—in her head.
“I resent this, Greg,” she’d said. “You go away, you call me from where the hell ever, you expect the world to work just the way you want and demand, and when it doesn’t, it’s everyone’s fault but yours.”
She leaned against the counter, the empty house deafening. She’d tried to be patient with her husband. He was still in mourning, still upset, relentlessly, viciously upset. Catherine knew the most effective way to handle an unhappy constituent was to listen, evaluate, and then design a solution. She did that every day at City Hall.
But finally she couldn’t listen to one more word. “You lost a daughter?” Her scorn had pinged off the shiny windows of her City Hall office, and then against the framed photos on her office wall. “I’ve lost a daughter, too, Greg. We’ve both—I mean—not a day goes by that I—”
The kitchen floor tile no longer felt cool under her tired feet. She dropped her head back and closed her eyes, remembering, searching for new meaning in this impossibly recycled and reprocessed conversation. How many times could they talk about the exact same thing in different ways? How long would the loop of sorrow and guilt continue before it destroyed them both? All three of them, she amended.
How her husband’s brain worked she could no longer fathom. Twenty-seven years ago, was it now? when she was still Kate O’Connor, they’d met and married when they both attended the Kennedy School’s public policy program. They’d cuddled in the common TV room watching the presidential elections and told each other “don’t worry, be happy” every time they had a big paper due. She rebranded herself Catherine, took her husband’s name in a fit of neofeminism, and went into local politics. He went into political consulting. They’d been the happy activist couple, making a difference in people’s lives every day. Now they lived in a nice, but fringey, part of town, the mayor insisting it would prove that every part of the City of Boston welcomed everyone. The mayor lived in the welcome of Beacon Hill. But the woods nearby had been lovely. Until Lanna.
“How about this, Greg,” she’d said, trying to use her calm-the-constituent voice though she knew he’d recognize that and be further annoyed. “How about if you come home tonight? For once?”
“I’ll try,” he’d said. “I will.”
She took a step toward the fridge and tripped over one of her shoes, stubbing a toe and almost falling against the drain board. All she needed. All! She paused, feeling her tears. Why did she always have to be the conciliatory one? She was hurting, too, and trying her best to cope. Huh. Maybe she’d even be better off without Greg. Let go of the past. Let go of him. Start over.
“Greg?” She’d finally interrupted whatever he’d been saying. “Forgive me here for the outrageous notion—but if you cannot manage to come home, how about if you pick up your phone and call Tenley yourself? Remind her you exist?”
A hang-up moment if Catherine had ever heard one, and it took every bit of her willpower not to do it.
“Tell Tenley I love her,” Greg had said. And then he was gone.
* * *
“Never? Never?”
Jane tried to remember the last time she’d seen her sister like this. Over many years, Melissa had perfected annoyed-petulant and demonstrated it whenever she didn’t get her way.
“You’re saying this has never happened before?” Melissa stood next to a striped wing chair in Robyn and Lewis Wilhoite’s living room, one hand on her navy silk hip and the other gesturing, underlining every time she said “never.” Jane could picture the identical stance in a courtroom, Melissa as prosecutor, grilling some poor defendant on the witness stand.
Melissa’s target now was suburban housewife Robyn Wilhoite, perched on the center cushion of her almost-gaudy chintz couch, alone, hands in her lap, fingers intertwined.
“Never happened that I don’t know where they are?” Robyn pouted, fussed with the black cardigan draped around her shoulders. “Well, not really. I mean, lately Lewis is trying to be, well, he calls it spontaneous. He thinks Gracie should be more … flexible. Live for today, all that. They go on adventures.”