Truth Be Told (Jane Ryland)

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  “It’s Lilac Sunday, coming up, less than a week. Seeing the poor girl’s parents again. It’s so—so very sad.” She handed the file back. “Yes, this is it. Did you find something?”

  “Possibly, Gram,” Jake said. “I hope so. Listen—the name Gary Lee Smith? Does it ring a bell?” He risked it. “Or Gordon Thorley?”

  Gramma thought, fingers to her chin, then shook her head. “I’m sorry, honey. It doesn’t. I don’t really know anything, except that you need to keep looking. For Carley Marie’s family, of course. And for your grandfather. He’d be so proud of—”

  Her voice caught, and she pressed her lips together. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I love you, Jakey. He did, too.”

  “I love you, too, Gram,” Jake said. He hugged her again, remembering, with the clarity of a photograph, the two of them together, his steely-haired grandfather in that uniform, his white-gloved wife standing beside him. Grampa had let Jake try on his—way too big—navy blue police hat. “Now, go home. You’ve done your duty, right? I’ll tell Mom you tried to convince me. And you’ll be the first to know if we find something. I promise.”

  “She means well, you know,” Gramma said, patting his arm. “She just wants you to have a life. Outside of the BPD.”

  “I do have a life,” Jake said. Would Jane ever meet Gramma? How could that happen? “Right now, though, she’s—it’s somewhat complicated.”

  Gramma put a hand on the banister, took the first step up. Turned to him. “Don’t ‘complicate’ your life away, Jakey,” she said. “Grampa would want you to be happy. With whoever ‘she’ is.”

  Jake shook his head. “Complicated” was an understatement. “Bye, Grams.”

  He heard the fourth step creak, then the footsteps stopped. He looked up to see Gramma’s face peering over the wooden railing, a silhouette edged with the dim light of the stairwell.

  “Don’t you give up,” she said. “It’s never too late for the truth.”

  * * *

  Jane saw the blue lights glaring off the houses and parked cars, making spidery shadow patterns with the darkened branches of the trees along Kenilworth Street. Heard the sirens screaming, even before she saw the cop cars careen around the corner and onto the narrow one-lane street. Two black-and-whites landed with their front wheels up and onto the sidewalk, apparently the first on the scene. A uniformed officer hopped out of one cruiser, siren still wailing, posted herself at the open front door of 16 Kenilworth. Three more cops went though the open door, weapons pointed ahead.

  “Police!” one called. No answer. They disappeared from view.

  As Jane ran closer, she saw lights flip on inside, moving, somehow. Flashlights, maybe. Silhouettes flickered through sheer curtains covering the front windows. No cars in the paved driveway, no furniture on the porch. No ambulance.

  “Hey, TJ,” she said. He must have just gotten here, too. She waved at the house. “Anything? You get that? The cops all rushing in?”

  “Nada.” TJ let out a sigh. “Sorry, Jane. I got here fast as I could, but missed that. Can’t win ’em all.”

  “No worries,” she said. Her TV instinct craved the action video of police arriving, but it didn’t matter in her new life. A newspaper story—even multimedia—still relied on words.

  TJ’s denim work shirt, unbuttoned, was open in the front, Red Sox T-shirt showing, tossed over jeans and his running shoes. Baseball cap backward, his little camera on his shoulder. “I’ll roll off some shots of the house, exteriors, then come back, see what we can piece together.”

  He stepped toward the yellow police tape, then turned back to Jane, gesturing down the sidewalk. One after the other, front doors were opening, people coming outside. They trotted down their front walks, and clustered at the curb, gawking. Speculating. Whispering to each other. “Unless you wanna do a man-on-the-street?”

  Bystanders were out in force, Jane saw. A perfect selection of men on the street. MOS, they called it. And not just men. It was a sidewalk full of the curious, answering the siren song of the sirens, dressed in whatever they’d been wearing at nine thirty on a May night, teenagers in T-shirts and flip-flops, one guy in a suit, a woman with a trench coat belted over the lacy hem of an obvious nightgown.

  Maybe one of them knew what’d happened. Knew who lived there, or—or something. Anything.

  She looked back at the house. The front door was closed now. No gunfire, no more yelling. Sirens off. Whatever happened was over.

  Jane had called Peter’s cell from the car on her way here, but no answer. The disembodied voice mail freaked her out a little, her imagination so out-of-control disconcerting she almost clicked it off before she left a message.

  “Checking in,” she’d said, keeping her voice calm. No use to panic. It was just as likely he’d stopped for gas, or even pulled over for coffee and then fallen asleep. She’d done that, after all. There was utterly no reason to believe this victim was Peter, except for her own too-vivid imagination.

  “Hoping everything is okay,” she allowed herself to say, because anyone would. “Call me, okay? I got sent on a story. I’m on my cell.”

  She shook her head as she hung up, her concern spiraling as the time ticked by. Why hadn’t Peter called? She was incredibly worried, exhausted, and discombobulated—and now she had to cover a story.

  “Yeah, let’s do that,” Jane said to TJ. “MOS, good idea.”

  She scanned for faces that looked interested, or engaged. She wanted someone who actually knew something, not just some blowhard showoff trying to get their name in the paper. She chose the thirty-something man wearing a Nantucket cap and what looked like hospital scrubs. He’d made eye contact with her, and hadn’t grimaced at the camera. And his cap was bill forward, so he wasn’t a kid.

  “Sir? I’m Jane Ryland from the Register,” she began as she and TJ approached. “Do you know who lives over there? Any idea what happened?”

  The man frowned. “I’d prefer not to give my name.”

  “Great, fine,” Jane said. It didn’t matter, for this interview, who he was, and it was often better to ask for names afterward, anyway, after the subject understood her questions were benign. “So, sir? Any idea who lives in that house?”

  She cocked her head toward it, although there was clearly only one house anyone cared about. The one with the yellow tape and the cops in the front.

  “Now, you mean?” the man said.

  “Now?” Jane was tired, she knew that, but now as opposed to when? Of course now. “Uh, yeah. Now.”

  “No one,” the man said.

  * * *

  “DeLuca’s still off, Sherrey’s out of pocket somewhere, everyone else would be double time.” Superintendent Rivera himself on the phone, calling Jake, was cop shorthand for don’t even think about complaining. “That puts you in the driver’s seat,” Rivera had told him.

  Which was precisely where Jake was now—Grandpa’s files in the console of his cruiser—speeding to primary a DOA on Kenilworth. Not where you’d expect to find a murder victim, Jake thought, careening around the corner onto Huntington. He’d take the shortcut over the T tracks by Diva’s old digs, the MSPCA, and then get to the little collection of narrow streets behind the VA hospital. Not much ever hit the cops’ radar in that peaceful neighborhood, maybe an occasional wintertime battle when a visitor, clueless to local rules, usurped a shoveled-out parking place. This time of year the disputes sputtered over loose dogs, or kids playing Frisbee in the street. The occasional package swiped from a front porch, or a student whose parents panicked when little Jimmy didn’t show up at school. Usually they discovered the lure of a spring day had been too irresistible, and little Jimmy was found someplace like the Arboretum, or hanging out at the CVS, pilfering candy bars.

  Jake blasted lights and sirens, just in case, but if anyone had died, it’d be natural causes, he predicted. Some of the houses there had been owned by the same folks for years. Other homes had turned over, like everywhere, old-timers dying and being replac
ed by yuppies and boomers, or sometimes losing their homes in the foreclosure blight that had fingered every part of the city.

  He snapped off the siren, turned onto Kenilworth. Realized with dismay he wasn’t even close to the first to arrive. Place was crawling with cop cars. Why was the Supe so hot on him being there, too? Maybe the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing. Wouldn’t be the first time.

  Someone had unspooled crime scene tape across the yard of number 16, one uniform, a woman, stationed at the edge of the wood-railed porch. He hoped someone was canvasing door to door. Crime Scene was here, too, but no ME vehicle, and no ambulance. Not exactly by the book.

  On the sidewalk, another surprise. A clutch of onlookers in various stages of dress—or not—and right in the middle, under that street lamp, the unmistakable silhouette of Jane Ryland. How’d she get here before he did?

  He clenched his fingers around the steering wheel, stalling, even though there was no way to stall and no way to avoid any of what was ahead. Slamming the car door harder than was probably warranted, he kept his head down and headed toward the house and the uniform who could give him the lowdown on the scene.

  He’d deal with Jane later.

  * * *

  Jane looked up at the sound of a car door slamming. She’d heard the siren, figured more cops were on the way, wondered who’d show up. The instant she saw the silhouette, she knew.

  Jake.

  She tried to focus on what the man she was interviewing had just said. Tried to ignore the continuing worry about Jake. And that she hadn’t heard from Peter. This wasn’t a car accident, so that fear was unfounded. There’d be no reason for Peter to be in some random house in this random neighborhood. Would there?

  “Ah, excuse me, you said ‘no one’ lives there? I mean—I’m talking about sixteen Kenilworth? Where they apparently found—”

  “Yup, nope, no one,” the man said. He adjusted his cap, put the bill in the back, then back to the front. “That’s why we’re all out here, you know?”

  “Did anyone ever live—?” Jane began.

  “Evicted,” the man said.

  TJ lowered his camera, then quickly put it back up. “Evicted?” he said. “Whoa.”

  “Evicted?” Jane tried to process this. If the eviction was by Atlantic & Anchor Bank, that’d be interesting. “Do you know what bank? I mean, where the people had their mortgage?”

  “Colonial,” the man said. “Colonial Bank. I know because we have ours there, too. And the Gerritys, they lived there, used to complain about what hardasses they were about paying.” He shrugged. “What are you gonna do, though, right?”

  “Right,” Jane said, just to keep the guy happy and talking. She looked at TJ, raising her eyebrows. “So, Mr.—?”

  “Doctor. Dr. Alvin Wander.”

  “Dr. Wander. So they moved out—”

  “Not happily,” Wander said.

  “Got you,” Jane said. “When was that?”

  “Month ago, I’d say.”

  “And—”

  “And there’ve been, I don’t know, people, hanging around since then, time to time. Suits. And some women, too. Don’t get me wrong—real estate, bank types, I figured. Wanting to sell it.” He frowned. “Going to create a serious property value situation now, isn’t it? If someone’s dead inside?”

  45

  “And you are?” Jake said.

  The young officer saluted, looking him square in the eye. “Rosie Canfield,” she said. “I mean, Officer Roslynne—”

  “No need to salute, Officer Canfield,” Jake said. It hadn’t been that long since he was the new kid. He pulled out his BlackBerry, opened a new file to take notes. “So what’ve we got here?”

  “At approximately nine twenty-seven P.M., dispatch received a nine-one-one call for an open front door at this address, sixteen Kenilworth,” Canfield said. She kept her hands at her sides, fists clenched. A strand of brown hair escaped from under her billed cap, and she puffed it away out of one side of her mouth as she continued her recitation. “Two units responded to the scene, and upon entering through the open door, discovered a—”

  “Detective Brogan? This is dispatch,” Jake’s radio squawked from his jacket pocket.

  “Excuse me, Officer,” Jake said. He stashed his BlackBerry, pushed the talk button. “This is Brogan.”

  “Are you ten-eight, sir?” Dispatch’s voice, measured and careful.

  What the hell? Jake bit back a curt response. Why were they checking on him?

  “Superintendent Rivera is inquiring,” dispatch said, her voice telegraphing it wasn’t my idea, but I’m following orders.

  “Gotcha,” Jake replied. He rolled his eyes at the young officer, bringing Rosie onto his team, can you believe the big shots? “Yes, Dispatch, I’m at the address.”

  “Superintendent said please report on the situation ASAP.”

  “Will do in five,” Jake said.

  “Copy that, thank you, Detective.”

  A siren wailed in the distance, the high-pitched howl of Boston Medical Center’s go team. About time. Although since whoever was inside was apparently DOA, it wouldn’t matter when they arrived. To the victim, at least.

  In this case, Jake thought as he pulled out his phone, the bad guy couldn’t have been Elliot Sandoval or Gordon Thorley. Both of them were in custody. “Okay, then,” Jake said. “You heard the dispatcher, Officer Canfield. The Supe himself is standing by to hear the latest. What’ve we got?”

  * * *

  The house was empty? Foreclosed? Maybe Jane had chosen the perfect person to interview, proving man-on-the-street sound bites could be more than filler.

  “Thanks, Dr. Wander,” Jane said. She gestured to TJ, drew a fast finger across her throat. Cut. Was this guy making stuff up to get his name and face in the paper? Didn’t seem like it. It was all easy enough to confirm, and if true—pretty darn interesting. “Give me a wave if you hear anything more, okay?”

  Jane sneaked a look at the now-closed front door of the house. Jake stood, right under the porch light, the screen of his BlackBerry catching the glow. Typing notes, as always, in his usual black T-shirt and those jeans, talking to the uniform stationed near the door.

  That was the frustrating part. How she knew the Jake thing would have to change. Any other crime scene, any other detective, Jane’d be right up there on the front lines, not pushing, but persistent, probing, making her presence known, asking questions and trying to get the story. Nothing on the record came from inquiries like that, cops and reporters tacitly—well, openly—agreeing that attributable stuff came only from the PR flak. But a little judicial pointing-in-the-right-direction was the currency of those relationships.

  Cops would give reporters a bit of juicy takeaway, something exclusive, and reporters would make sure the cop shop looked good, if they could. Mutual trust bred mutual benefit.

  But with Jake, there was baggage. He had to be careful not to treat her any differently, she knew that, and as a result, he treated her completely differently. No scoops, no exclusives, no insider info. Good for him, bad for Jane. And she knew she often might do the same with him—holding back, being one level less insistent. Also good for him, bad for Jane.

  Their whole existence was out of balance. And even more now, she realized, that Jake’s going-to-Washington story cast a shadow of mistrust between them. He had been called to D.C. “unexpectedly.” Then came home “unexpectedly.” What was “unexpectedly,” except an excuse to do whatever he wanted?

  “Now what?” TJ asked. “Siren.”

  The wail got closer, screaming onto Kenilworth, the crowd, as one, stepping away from the street, as if the high-speed arrival of the ambulance might mean the driver would skid out of control. The swirling red lights slid across each bystander’s face, glowing each one red for a fraction of a second. Soon as the ambulance stopped, the crowd inched forward again, closer to the action. The streetlights made amber pools on the sidewalks; the red ambulance lights,
silent now, continued to spiral; the stars were full out in the expanse of velvet night sky. The neighborhood light show, Jane thought, all illuminating tragedy.

  “Let’s see what’s going on.” Jane pointed to the jumpsuited EMTs emerging from the red and white van. The phone in her jeans pocket had stayed silent. Where the hell was Peter? If he was in this house—but, she silently repeated her mantra as she and TJ headed across the street. Whatever happened, happened. Nothing she could do about it now but wait and see. And ask questions.

  She was a reporter, no matter what detective was in charge at the crime scene. She’d do her job. She’d ask the professional questions now. The personal ones later.

  * * *

  Jane. A few steps away, down the front walk, behind the crime scene tape. In the shadows from the streetlights, Jake couldn’t read her face.

  “Hey, Jane,” he said. Sure, they usually used their full names on the job, elaborately careful, but at ten at night at a crime scene, he figured he could ditch the formality. Who were they trying to fool, anyway?

  “Detective Brogan.” She gave half a wave. “You remember TJ Foy.”

  Jake nodded. He hadn’t finished talking to the officer at the door, and until he did, he had nothing for Jane. He’d give her the lowdown, he figured, then make her call the cop’s PR flak to confirm before she went with the story. He’d do the same for any reliable reporter, he reassured himself, so why not for her?

  Although they each sought the same information, right now, the balance was on Jake’s end. He had access, she didn’t. He could go inside, she couldn’t. The flimsy yellow crime scene tape was the inviolable barrier, the delineation of the information battle lines. She’d have to wait for him. This time. She recognized it, too. She’d called him “detective.”

  “Give me five minutes, Jane,” he said, holding up a palm, five fingers. He pointed to himself, then to her, pantomiming, then I’ll talk.

  He saw her agree, nodding, then whisper to her photographer. The crowd across the street stood three deep now. Where had all these people come from, giving up their TV shows and their families and their sleep to get a close-up look at someone else’s disaster? He’d never understand that. As a detective, his job wasn’t to prevent crime—by the time he was called in, the bad thing already happened. That was his whole life, now that he thought of it, dealing with one bad thing after another. Was he drawn to that, same way the bystanders were?