Truth Be Told (Jane Ryland)

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  Spindly masts of the two microwave vans extended skyward, section by section, poking up through the sidewalk trees, snowing crabapple blossoms to the pavement. Both stations would be broadcasting live at eleven, and at that journalism Rubicon, so much for the Register’s exclusive. After eleven, anything Jane wrote for the paper was instantly outdated and stale. All she had in her arsenal, the only thing that could make headlines, was to dig up something exclusive. Something the electronic media didn’t know. Something like that list of names. And the knowledge that Liz had a boyfriend. It was a start.

  Her phone buzzed again, reminding her she’d ignored the last call. But that was from the desk, so there was no message. It had to be Peter, who, of course, was not dead but simply late. When she had a brain cell available, she’d have to examine that episode. She’d escalated her panic about Peter to the point she truly envisioned him dead, murdered, in this house on Kenilworth Street. When, truth be told, nothing was more unlikely. Where had all that anxiety come from? And why?

  The caller ID said private. She hit ANSWER, smiling. Ready to hear what Peter—not dead—had to say for himself.

  “Jane Ryland.”

  “Jane. Nick at the desk.”

  Calls from the Register were ID blocked, in case reporters wanted to surprise whoever was on the other end. Which served, sometimes, to surprise the reporters as well.

  “Hey, Nick at the desk,” Jane said. Okay, not Peter. Where the heck was he? “Listen, I got nothing more, so far. The cops are—”

  “Jane? You listen. You said the vic’s name is Elizabeth McDivitt? And you said she was with A&A Bank?”

  “Yeah. Like I said we can’t use that yet, because—”

  “You know who she is? Was?” Nick interrupted.

  Jane frowned, confused. “I told you who she was,” Jane said. “What d’you mean, ‘who’?”

  “We think she’s the bank president’s daughter,” Nick said. “We were looking for her photo and title on the bank website, and did a search, you know? She’s not on it, for some reason. But Hardin McDivitt? Is the bank president. Didn’t you interview her? Marcotte just told me you interviewed her. How come you didn’t know that?”

  Marcotte was in the newsroom. Overseeing. Lovely.

  “I would have found out at some point,” Jane began. “I mean, no, she didn’t tell me who her father was. I didn’t know she was going to be—” Jane stopped, lowering her voice, her shoulders dropping. “Killed.”

  “So here’s the scoop,” Nick said, stepping on her words. “We’ll put together whatever story we can from here. Marcotte says you should head to Hardin McDivitt’s house. It’s in Newton, by the reservoir. I’ll send you the deets. Stake it out, see if you can get a statement.”

  Fifty thousand reasons why this was a terrible idea battled to the forefront. “It’s after ten at night.” Jane began with the most obvious and least whiny, but the other reasons insisted on being included. “They have no idea their daughter has just been—it’s such an invasion of—they’ll never agree to an interview, and we’ll look like—I mean, can’t we just call and ask for a statement? What’s the point of sending me and TJ to show up at the house of a—”

  Nick cleared his throat, waiting as Jane’s rant wound down. Vulture patrol was part of the reporter deal. She might as well not even argue.

  “We’re on it,” she said. A job was a job. Victoria Marcotte was there, in charge. No doubt monitoring Jane’s every move. Mortgage, health insurance, food.

  She waved at TJ, gesturing him to follow her, gave him the quick explanation. She’d ride with him, they’d pick up her car after.

  “Vulture patrol,” he said. “Sucks.”

  “Yeah,” Jane said. “It’s why people hate reporters.”

  “But they still read the paper, right? Watch TV?” TJ opened the hatchback of his van, stashed his camera in its molded plastic holder. “If they hate it, why do they watch it?”

  “To reassure themselves it’s not them, I guess,” Jane said, making sure her car was locked. When she was focused on chasing a story, sometimes she forgot. “That bad things happen to someone else.”

  She tried to look at the bright side. If she were still on TV, they’d have wanted a live shot during the eleven. With her standing in front of the McDivitt home. Morbid. Invasive. Not to mention meaningless. As a newspaper reporter, she’d probably still get a door slammed in her face tonight, but at least it wouldn’t be on TV. And she wouldn’t be raking through someone’s private grief with klieg lights and a microwave mast.

  It never got any easier. Jane hoped it never would. She was rattled, she had to admit, because Liz McDivitt was someone she knew. But every victim was someone’s acquaintance or friend, or lover, or loved one. Jane’s job, any reporter’s job, was to tell the story of what happened, as clearly and purely and objectively as possible. To care, because a storyteller has to care. To tell it, whether the public cared to hear it or not. Every news story becomes the fabric of history, the record of motives and failures and outcomes and successes. Jane would be careful with her contribution.

  TJ cranked the ignition, pressed the clutch, and shifted into reverse. Jane tried to change the direction of her own weary-brained over-analysis. This was only a news story, she decided. In the paper one day—and what did her father always say? Fish wrap the next.

  Another car turned the corner onto the side street, probably a resident, strafing Jane with blue-bright headlights. In the glare, Jane punched McDivitt’s address into TJ’s GPS, and they pulled out into the night, toward the front door of a grieving family. If she was writing history, she had a million questions.

  Why was Jake keeping secrets? Where was Peter Hardesty? And why was the bank president’s daughter—Lizzie McDivitt—in a stranger’s vacant house?

  The traffic lights turned green as they headed east, for the first time in her memory every one of them blinking “go” when they arrived at an intersection, as if the universe wanted her to get to the McDivitts’ home as quickly as possible. Exactly what she didn’t want. One eye on the GPS, they wound their way through the impossibly random streets of Jamaica Plain, around the treacherous Pond Street rotary, and onto the Jamaicaway, the winding too-narrow boulevard that lined the deserted and no-longer-safe jogging paths of Jamaica Pond, dark shapelets of stubby mallards and long-necked geese drifting in the tentative moonlight.

  48

  Nothing. Nothing. Not a bar, not a flicker, not a glimmer of power as Peter clicked the flat white button on his cell. Once. Twice. Not only had he left his phone at Doreen Rinker’s house, he’d left it on. As he’d blithely powered up to Boston, the phone had powered down into a useless brick. Still, at least he had it. He could charge up again in the car.

  Peter’d arrived at the Rinker home for the second time that day—night—relieved the porch light was on, and the blue glow of a big screen TV visible through the lacy living room curtains. The front door was open, the screen closed, the porch guarded by a dark green Adirondack chair. At least he hadn’t had to bang on the front door of a house with a sleeping family, sheepishly admitting he’d been so eager to get to Boston—and Jane—that he’d forgotten his lifeline to the world.

  And then he discovered it was dead.

  He’d used Doreen’s landline to call the Register, got Jane’s cell number from some cooperative guy at the news desk, and now after all that, Jane wasn’t answering.

  He shook his head, smiling, signaling no as Doreen held up a glass carafe of coffee. Listened to the phone ringing. And then, the click and the pause. Right to voice mail. Jane was probably—he looked at his watch, grimacing—ignoring him. Now that it was ten fifty. He couldn’t blame her. Leave a message after the beep.

  He wouldn’t be back in Boston until just after one. If he was lucky.

  “Jane, it’s Peter Hardesty,” he said. “Tonight did not go as plan—huh?”

  Doreen Rinker was back, this time holding up a piece of paper, showing him something.
>
  “Sorry, Jane, ah, I’ll call you. Or you call me. Whenever. Traffic was ridiculous, and, sorry to be such a—” He held up a finger to Doreen. One second. “Anyway, again, sorry. I’ll make it up to you.”

  He clicked off, distracted, half-annoyed and half-confused. What was Doreen trying to show him?

  She’d pulled her graying hair back in a pink plastic clip, and added a pale blue sweatshirt over her jeans. Its faded lettering promised Fun in the Sun 2001.

  “You have a second? Now that you’re here? I felt bad about the note.” She pulled out a kitchen chair, waved him to the other one. Back where they’d started. “I was just—frightened, I guess. And so—well, this.”

  Doreen handed the piece of paper across the table, a copy of a newspaper article, Jake saw, skewed on the page, half blurred. From the Register. The date—April 2010—written in tiny red ball point printing across the upper left.

  “So I was looking around, in desk drawers you know, just—I don’t know,” Doreen said. Her shoulders lifted, then fell, and she pushed the too-long sweatshirt sleeves up over her elbows. “Seeing if there was anything I could find to help you. Since you were nice enough to—you know. Even though we can’t pay you. Right?”

  “Mrs. Rinker? No worries, okay?” He’d never get back to Boston. The fates were lining up to make him miserable and tired, not to mention being saddled with two possibly guilty murder defendants and an understandably pissed-off reporter he couldn’t wait to see again. Times like these, no use in fighting it. “What did you find?”

  “We saved this newspaper story, at least. From 2010, when Gordon was paroled.”

  Peter saw the headline: “Armed Rob Accomplice Freed.” He skimmed, basically what he already knew, Gordon Thorley, age nineteen when he’d been arrested in 1995 as the getaway driver—of the orange Dodge Charger, shown below—in the armed robbery of Holsko’s Package Store. Freed on parole. Parole Board chairman Edward H. Walsh under political fire for the move, the state’s “liberal” governor taking a hit in the polls for his soft-on-crime stance. A quote from Walsh: “The goal of incarceration is rehabilitation as well as punishment. It’s up to us, as a civilized nation, to accept when a person has paid their penance and is ready to be given a second chance to join those who enjoy their freedom. We all deserve second chances.”

  Walsh himself, Peter remembered, hadn’t been given a second chance. A former county sheriff, up-and-coming political big shot, he’d been ousted not long after the controversial Thorley decision. Some said scapegoat, others said good riddance. Where was he now? Probably happy to have washed his hands of the forgiveness end of the justice business. Nobody’d forgiven him, even after Thorley had a clean record for the last four years, until he—

  Peter stopped, realizing. What if Walsh had made the biggest mistake of his life, unwittingly letting the Lilac Sunday killer go free?

  “Anything here you think is relevant?” Peter said.

  “I hoped you might find something,” Doreen said.

  He looked at the article again, hoping to discern some hidden clue. But it was just a newspaper story. “I mean, thanks so much for pulling this out. You never know what’s going to be useful, so I appreciate…”

  “What?” Rinker said.

  Peter blinked, staring at the article, thinking back, trying to remember. He looked at the name again. Had to be, he thought.

  “Nothing,” he lied. “May I take this with me?”

  * * *

  Aaron Gianelli had stopped a block or two from Kenilworth Street, parked his car in a municipal lot, clamped a baseball hat over his forehead, and pretended to yawn all the way to the sidewalk. Figuring that would cover his face. Stupid, probably, but who knew what surveillance cameras were out there.

  Talk about stupid. She had his picture on her frigging desk. He’d actually given it her!

  And now she was dead. And now the cops would come find him, and question him, and he’d have to lie the hell out of everything he said. Or at least be incredibly frigging careful. He hadn’t killed Lizzie McDivitt, of course. Not technically.

  He should have just let the phone ring. Ignored it.

  Dumb. If he hadn’t picked up? He’d have had one more night’s sleep, he guessed, but eventually he’d have to answer to reality. And there would be Ackerman’s voice, giving him the news. “Keep your head down, kid,” Ack had instructed, after the bottom line. “I don’t know how it happened.”

  “And I’m the king of freaking Spain,” he muttered to himself.

  Head down, fists jammed in the pockets of his jeans, Aaron walked as fast as he could toward the house, calculating.

  He was in this up to his ass. No doubt about that. But now he had to see. He had to. He hadn’t done anything, nothing at all, really, so there was no reason for him to stay away. No one in this measly suburb would know who he was. Which, he reassured himself, was nobody. He was nobody. And he had to see.

  Ackerman had killed her, somehow, no freaking doubt about that, he was such a freaking creep, and also no doubt about why. Because he—Aaron the moron—had been incredibly reckless enough to tell her about his—their—rental system. He’d thought it was a brilliant and strategic move, after the whole key debacle, to bring Lizzie into it. She already knew, anyway.

  She’d discovered Maddie Kate Wendell and Mo Heedles, and it was merely a hop, skip, and a jump to the bank records to find out what those two houses had in common. She knew. So hey, why not make her part of the—he paused, jabbing the button for the crosswalk, wouldn’t want to jaywalk, right? Get stopped by the cops?

  He almost laughed. Almost. Around the corner, the silent blue lights, flashing on the white siding. A crowd looking on. Ambulance, parked. Cop cars. So much for making her part of his—their—operation.

  He’d agreed with Ackerman. Made the decision. Knew the score. It was him, or her. Ack put it to him, simple as yes or no. You or her. Aaron had made a mistake, and he was sorry. But her snooping and prying and interfering had put Lizzie in over her head. Right where Aaron was. It was her, or him. He knew that.

  A block to go. TV antenna things stuck up through the trees, those trucks they used for going live. So, reporters. The whole freaky deaky nine yards. Well, the murder—or whatever—of a bank president’s daughter would be big news.

  Freaking Ackerman. This was actually all his fault. Big-shot bank guy. Big talker. Telling everyone what to say and do. Where was he, anyway? Not here, this was sure as hell the last place he’d show his face. Had anyone seen him? Before?

  Aaron felt the pull of the murder scene, almost magnetic, heard an undercurrent of activity as he walked closer. Late this afternoon, he’d summoned his courage and gone to Lizzie’s office, full of the plan, but she’d been “out,” Stephanie told him. Would he like to leave a message? No frigging way. No messages.

  He’d ridden the elevator up to five, then down to the lobby, then up again, stalling. Should he forget the whole thing? But finally he’d called her cell and told Lizzie where to meet him. The front door would be open, he told her. And then he’d arrive, get her advice on the place, and then, together, they’d go someplace fabulous. He promised. If she’d take a cab, he’d drive, and she wouldn’t have to leave her car.

  It had taken all he could to get the words out. But she agreed instantly, even putting him on speaker so she could write down the address. She was so trusting, and that puppy-dog face she had. How she always looked at him, all needy. He’d marshaled his courage—if you could call it that—remembering, with the clarity of inevitability, that it was him or her. What was he supposed to do?

  Aaron insinuated himself into the pack of onlookers, back row, peering out over the heads of the curious. Baseball caps, like his, one woman in curler things. The cops were all over Kenilworth Street—where had Ackerman come up with this place, anyway? It sure wasn’t on his REO list. But made sense Ack wouldn’t choose one of their own props to … do this.

  They would stay out of it, if all went a
s planned. If it didn’t—well, it wasn’t Aaron’s fault. If he had to choose “him or me” again? Again, he’d choose himself. That was his backup plan. He had all the dirt on this deal. He would tell, if need be.

  He adjusted his baseball cap, pulling it lower, as two EMTs opened the back doors of the idling ambulance. Two girl TV reporters, side by side but ignoring each other, stood in front of the house, big lights blasting them. He could see their lipsticked mouths moving, but couldn’t hear a word they were saying.

  He didn’t need to hear. He knew exactly what happened.

  49

  Peter heard sounds from Doreen Rinker’s living room, familiar, then realized it was the almost-muted techno-frantic theme of the TV news. Already eleven?

  He could almost feel the copy of the newspaper article tucked into his pocket. The article written by Chrystal Peralta, the veteran reporter he’d met at the Register. She’d covered the Thorley parole. Interviewed the past board chairman, Sheriff Walsh. Maybe she knew something about the case, something to prove Thorley was innocent. He’d grasped at thinner straws.

  Doreen Rinker led him toward the front door, apologizing again for burning the note, offering him more coffee.

  “Maybe in a paper cup?”

  Which actually sounded like a good idea. He was zonked, and could have a two-hour drive back to Boston. “Sure, thanks.”

  “Be right back,” she said. “Have a seat. Watch the news.”

  Peter didn’t want to get comfortable, didn’t want to risk dozing off, so he stood by the door, half-interested in the flickering image on the big screen. He tried to remember. Had Chrystal Peralta mentioned Gordon Thorley when they’d talked at the Register? She hadn’t, he was sure of it. But she had talked about Lilac Sunday, explained it to Jane.

  The lights on the TV screen shifted. Peter’s peripheral vision was caught by a swirling graphic, BREAKING NEWS. Huh. Jake Brogan and a uniformed cop. On the front porch of some house.