Truth Be Told (Jane Ryland)

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  Jake sighed, smiling, as if he could feel his grandfather challenging him to solve a personal mystery. If worse came to worst, he could pull out each file, one at a time. A pain, but eventually he would succeed. He looked at his watch—no time right now, Gramps. Gotta go see a guy about a guy.

  Jake closed the file drawers, the slam echoing off the brick walls and the mechanism clicking back into place. He’d come back tonight. He wasn’t even certain there’d be anything revealed in the files. But a good detective doesn’t need to be certain at the beginning. He just needs to be certain at the end.

  * * *

  Jane Ryland seemed nice enough, Lizzie decided, watching the woman take careful notes in a spiral notebook, checking and rechecking the spellings of the names Lizzie gave her. Iantosca, Rutherford, Detwyler. Of course her “customers” would talk only about the personal service they were getting at A&A, never about the “problems” at the bank, or the “mistakes” in their mortgages. Liz had warned them on day one never to discuss the particulars of their mortgage situations. Hadn’t she? Maybe not, not specifically, now that she thought of it. Watching Jane and gauging the reporter’s intent, warning them again began to seem prudent.

  “Jane? Before you contact these people, I’ll need to notify them,” Lizzie said. “Reassure them the bank isn’t giving out personal information. I know you’re exclusively interviewing them about customer service—” She paused. She wasn’t used to dealing with reporters, but had so enjoyed her time with Chrystal, maybe she’d forgotten to be wary. Of course the bank PR guy had approved the interview. Colin Ackerman was always out to get good press for A&A, but he’d warned her not to divulge confidential information. Were the names themselves confidential? Maybe she should check.

  “Please don’t ask them about their personal financial situations, Jane. I’m trusting you here, right?”

  “Sure,” Jane said.

  The reporter smiled, again, she seemed agreeable, but then Lizzie had heard about reporters, and how a good reporter could also be a good liar. That’s how they got stories, her father had warned her as a kid. Half the time they make stuff up. She could almost hear him say it. “Never trust a reporter.”

  “I understand about the privacy thing,” Jane was saying, turned a page in her notebook, continued to write. “Iantosca. O-S-C-A? Correct? But no problem. I get the parameters.”

  Lizzie felt a little creep of regret march up her spine, hand in hand with suspicions about Jane and her reporter ilk. She’d already given names to Chrystal, so she couldn’t ungive them, and now she’d confirmed them with Jane, but she had a growing uncomfortable feeling. What if they told her more than they should?

  “Jane? Sorry to do this to you, but let’s hold off.”

  “Off?” Jane stopped writing, the red ball point poised over her notebook.

  “Yeah. Off.” Lizzie stood, fingertips on her desk, then sat down again. In her haste to make the bank look good, and honestly, in her desire to make a name for herself and prove her “customer service” position was valuable and necessary, she might have crossed a line that could get her in trouble. Her in trouble, and the bank in trouble, in ways her father would never believe. Or understand. Now she had to make this go away. She wished life had an “undo” button, like her spreadsheets did.

  “Under section four-oh-one point two of the in-house procedures section of the state-chartered banking regulations, I cannot give you access to bank customers without their direct and written permission,” Lizzie lied. There was no such regulation, but Jane would never know.

  “The what?” Jane said.

  “Yeah,” Lizzie said. “I forgot about that. Sorry. So how about this? If you’ll hold off until I give you a call tomorrow, I’ll—”

  “Maybe you could do an on-camera interview instead?” Jane’s face changed, her initial obvious annoyance vanishing as she made the request. “Today? I hoped to follow up with the customers and all, but if you could see your way to an on-camera interview, maybe I wouldn’t have to call them at all.”

  Did she trust Jane? “I’d have to get permission for that,” Lizzie said. This whole thing might be so out of control it couldn’t be reversed. And it was Lizzie’s fault.

  This had all been designed to engender good publicity for the bank. It was part of her job to reach out to the public, so she had to reach. When Ackerman called her to set up the Chrystal interview, how could she say no? How had it gone so wrong so quickly? That was an easy one. Because Lizzie had a secret. Or two.

  Aaron had already texted her, three times, just saying “lata,” the signal they’d agreed on last night to confirm they’d see each other later. Maybe tonight she should talk to him about this. Maybe not. She’d have to decide.

  “Like I said…” Lizzie sat down, trying to use her body language to illustrate the decision was final. Decided it would look more final if she stood. “Please hold off on calling any of those customers until I give permission. As for the on-camera interview, I’ll let you know.”

  “But—” Jane was standing now, too. She didn’t look happy, or as personable as she did before.

  Lizzie leaned to her intercom, buzzed for Stephanie. What were secretaries for, after all, but to get rid of people you didn’t want to talk to? “Stephanie? Can you show Miss Ryland to the elevator?”

  39

  Peter Hardesty leaned against his parked Jeep, staring past the loops of yellow crime scene tape sealing the front door and the one boarded-up window of 2002 Moulten Road. According to the unenthusiastic beat cop assigned the low-rung job of guarding the place and now pacing the front walk, that smashed window was how his client Gordon Thorley and Thorley’s supposed victim, Treesa Caramona, had gotten into the vacant house, a seedy and deserted white vinyl ranch on a melancholy cul-de-sac.

  Wrong side of the tracks, Peter thought. The desirable homes are on the other side of the Arboretum. This one, a remnant from the GI Bill, felt left behind and forgotten. Two city blocks from here, under the cool verdant branches of the Arboretum woods where diligent gardeners cultivated and pruned and families picnicked away their afternoons, Carley Marie Schaffer had been killed.

  Here on Moulten Road, not a tree had survived the years or the heat or the housing crash. The city had apparently given up the fight. Peter felt the hot sidewalk through the soles of his shoes. The sun, relentless, baked the red paint on his Jeep. At the Arboretum, he knew, there were already lilacs, with Lilac Sunday a few days away. No lilacs here.

  This case. There was more to it. Or maybe less to it.

  The whole thing was a crock of shit. “Crock of shit,” Peter said out loud.

  “Sir?” the cop said.

  “Nothing,” he said. He’d left messages for Brogan and Sherrey, hoping to meet them here this morning. He’d come on his own, before he heard back from them, planning to get the lay of the land before the two detectives or their cohorts tried to fast-talk him out of coming. “You hear back from HQ? About when I can go in? They going to send someone?”

  She pointed to the cigarette-pack radio velcroed to her right epaulet. “Negative, sir,” she said. “Sorry.”

  Peter wiped the sweat from his forehead, lifted the limp oxford cloth shirt away from his chest, peeled his pants from the toasting Jeep. Standing out here in the heat was a waste of time. Thorley was in lockup, awaiting “further investigation” as the cops put it. Sandoval was in lockup, awaiting arraignment, which still could come this afternoon. Would the judge grant bail for his client? Often they’d allow defendants to post a bond, but the Sandovals had already lost their home to foreclosure. Could the couple ask relatives to put up their houses to get him released? A tough call for all involved.

  Might Elliot Sandoval have to stay in jail because he had no home to offer as collateral? The whole thing stunk.

  Peter snapped some photos of the exterior of this crime scene with this cell phone, just in case. He dug out a business card, handed it to the cop.

  “I’m headed to ano
ther appointment,” he said. “If Brogan or Sherrey contact you, can you tell them to call me? No matter when?”

  “Will do,” the cop said. He saw her put his card into the pocket of her uniform pants, wondered if it’d see the light of day again.

  What stunk even more, Peter thought as he opened his car door, the heat inside blasting him, Gordon Thorley simply didn’t feel guilty to him.

  If a client said he was guilty, confessed he was guilty, wanted the justice system to agree he was guilty, what were Peter’s responsibilities?

  Peter cranked the ignition, felt the welcome blast of AC. If Thorley was simply a good liar, for whatever reason, then someone else killed Carley Marie twenty years ago. And in that case, someone else, the same person, or maybe someone totally else, killed Treesa Caramona early this morning. Maybe.

  Some lawyers, he figured, would do nothing. Take the fee, accept a plea, get the best deal they could, be done with it.

  Peter pulled his car away from the curb, and edged into the potholed asphalt of Moulten Road, considering. What if Thorley was—crazy? Or coerced?

  Or lying on purpose? Why would someone do that?

  There was a legal responsibility, Peter knew, not to perpetuate a fraud on the court. Rule 3.3 in the code of professional conduct: “A lawyer shall not knowingly offer evidence that the lawyer knows to be false. A lawyer may refuse to offer evidence the lawyer believes is false.”

  He had a duty to discourage his client from testifying falsely.

  He had to take “reasonable remedial measures” if a client lied.

  He had to dump Thorley as a client if he persisted in lying.

  If Thorley was lying.

  Peter flipped on his left-turn blinker, signaling his direction. Wished it were that easy for the other parts of his life—pick a direction, go there. He had one client who insisted he was guilty. The other insisted he was innocent. Who was telling the truth?

  He honked at some nut who tried to cut him off, then touched the brake, letting a Volvo get ahead of him. He’d had enough with asshole drivers. He wondered how Jane was, but decided he would call her after this next interview. She didn’t need to be there for this one—that wasn’t part of their deal.

  Traffic increased as he hit Highway 93 South. Two hours for this trip, he figured. He’d be there by three. Should he call ahead? Next time he saw a Dunkins’, he’d get iced coffee, make a phone call, and cross his fingers.

  Who was telling the truth?

  The police didn’t care. Far as they were concerned, they’d caught their bad guys. The press didn’t care—well, maybe Jane did. But guilty or innocent, she could write her story either way.

  Right now, finding the truth was up to Peter. And two people’s lives—actually, more than two—depended on it.

  * * *

  Jake hit the Bluetooth as he drove up Melnea Cass Boulevard, a crosstown shortcut to parole officer Richard Arsenault’s house. He’d told his mother he’d be back for the files, given Diva a good-bye pat, and headed for Southie. The news he just heard wasn’t the best for Elliot Sandoval, but that’s sometimes the way the cookie crumbled. The guy shouldn’t have killed Shandra Newbury if he wanted to stay out of lockup. The phone rang once, then again, then he heard the buzz and click that meant Peter Hardesty was not going to pick up. But then a live voice interrupted.

  “Hello? Hello? This is Peter Hardesty. Sorry, can you hear me? I’m in the car.”

  “Jake Brogan,” Jake said. He stopped at a light, watching cars make illegal left turns onto Mass Ave. Lucky he was on the phone or he’d have nailed them. “You called about getting into Moulten Road? Not gonna happen any time soon.”

  Jake could have been nicer about this, but right now he wasn’t a big fan of Towel Man.

  “Crime Scene’s still in there,” Jake went on. “And the Sandoval arraignment? That’s on for tomorrow. Courts are closed today, there’s some sort of judge’s meeting.”

  He paused, waiting out the unhappy reaction. Didn’t blame the guy, they were keeping him away from Moulten Road, and now he was hearing his client would stay in lockup, overnight, because judges had their little meeting. Win some, lose some, Towel Man. Life was full of disappointments.

  “Nothing you can do?” Peter’s voice cracked over the speaker. “I mean, that’s bullshit, the system of justice grinds to a halt because—”

  “Yeah, I hear you.” Jake hit the gas, turned right at the high school, and toward the intersection. “But Sandoval is first on the calendar, after the call. Best we could do, according to my guy. So. See you in court.”

  Jake clicked off before Peter could answer. He didn’t need to get beat up on the phone by a disappointed defense lawyer. The tox screen showed Sandoval with elevated steroid levels, so that’d explain the guy’s anger. His fingerprints had been all over. He’d lived there, of course, so that was arguably problematic. According to Brian Turiello, the real estate broker, Shandra Newbury had not only shown the Sandovals their home, she’d also hooked them up with her connection in the mortgage department at their bank. A connection who apparently ignored their income-to-mortgage ratio.

  The Sandovals wound up over their head, mortgage-wise. And bottom line, Shandra Newbury had arranged it. They’d lost their house. As a result, Shandra’d lost her life.

  Losing your house as a motive for murder.

  Any jury would believe that. A Sandoval guilty verdict was probably a slam dunk.

  Jake checked house numbers, slowing as he hit a narrow cul-de-sac lined by tired triple-deckers with gasping lawns and hanging plants on their last legs.

  Fifty-three was the last on the left, Arsenault had told him.

  The plastic-coated living room inside doubled as Arsenault’s parole office, a bank of walkie-talkies and an electronic monitoring board taking up much of the space on a makeshift set of cobbled-together veneer shelving. A display screen with a line of green lights glowed like a neon sign in the lower left. Looking more closely, Jake saw each had a name on a color-coded label affixed beside it, printed in shaky felt-tip handwriting, apparently Arsenault’s jerry-built system for keeping track of his parolees. All lights green, all accounted for, Arsenault had explained. At the bottom, one light was red. G. THORLEY, the peeling label said. Red. Gone.

  Jake pointed to the red light. “Well, now at least, we know where he is.”

  “Reported it as soon as he missed his slot.” Arsenault took a slug of tea, ice cubes clattering. “Can’t understand it. Before that? He’d been clockwork, you know?”

  An ancient air conditioner struggled, wheezing, in the front window. His wife, Margy Mary—Jake had confirmed the name, twice, thinking he’d heard it wrong—brought cookies on a flowered plate, and sweetened iced tea, the icy brown liquid sweating a glass pitcher she carried on a clear plastic tray. “I know you boys have a lot to talk about,” she said. “But you’ve got to eat.”

  “Thanks, doll,” Arsenault said, dismissing her with a wave. Margy Mary bustled out of the room. Jake imagined he’d smell something baking soon. Betty Crocker meets Tommy Lee Jones.

  “So Arsenault, about Gordon Thorley.”

  “Like I said, clockwork.”

  “Right.” Jake shifted on the couch, plastic crinkling underneath him. Who were they saving the couch for, he wondered? Who would be important enough to sit on actual fabric? “But you interviewed him, right, every week? He ever indicate any problems, or anger, anything going on in his life? He ever mention a Treesa Caramona?”

  “Nope, zip,” Arsenault said.

  “Carley Marie Schaefer?”

  “The Lilac Sunday girl?” Arsenault’s eyes widened. A phone rang at his mission control setup, a light flashed red, then green, then steady green. “My two-thirtys are gonna start calling,” Arsenault explained. “Long as we hear five calls, we’re fine. It’s hooked up to a machine, they’ll click in, they’ll be recorded. Anyway, Carley Marie Schaefer? How come?”

  “Not at liberty to tell you exactly why, r
ight now,” Jake said. “You know the drill, right? Under investigation? Trying to get your take on it. He ever mention her? Anything about that?”

  “Nope,” Arsenault said. “You got me interested, though. You think he’s the—” Arsenault stopped, seemed to be calculating. “Ah. Caramona’s the one in West Rox. By the Arboretum. And I’m thinkin’ that you’re thinkin’—okay. Huh. Okay, then.”

  He nodded, conspiratorial, pretending to zip his lips.

  “Thanks,” Jake said. “So Thorley’s file, his history, you got that?” He held up a palm, heading off what he knew would come next. Arsenault had already opened his mouth in preparation to say no. “Yeah, I could get it from HQ, but you know how long that’d take?”

  Arsenault’s incoming rang again, the lights flashing, then again, with a different ring.

  “Two more to go,” Arsenault said, “then the city’s safe until four P.M., far as I’m concerned. Anyway. The files.” He pressed his lips together, drummed his fingers against the side of his nubby green glass, now filled only with melting ice. With a clink, the ice settled.

  “Yeah, the files,” Jake said. “And listen. When we talked earlier, and I mentioned Gordon Thorley, you said—‘poor guy.’ Why was that?”

  “I said poor guy?”

  “Yup.”

  Arsenault cleared his throat, swirled the ice cubes. “Well, he missed his parole call, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “That means he could go back into the slammer, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  Arsenault nodded, agreeing with himself. “So, ‘poor guy.’ Right? Or ‘stupid guy,’ if you look at it that way.”

  “I suppose,” Jake said. “So—the files?”

  The phone rang. The final green light flickered, then stayed on.

  “Life is good,” Arsenault said. “You can see the files. Sure.”

  “Great,” Jake said. “So—”

  “At headquarters,” Arsenault said. “You know the drill, right? They’d kill me if I gave ’em to you, or even told you anything that was in ’em. It’s all personal and confidential, even to you, Detective. Want some more tea?”