Truth Be Told (Jane Ryland)

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  Officer Vierra in Records had discovered that a home deeded to a Gordon Thorley, someplace down the Cape, had been in the final stages of foreclosure. But, she told him, it seemed like now the foreclosure had been halted. Someone here at the bank would know why, and Jake now had the warrant requiring A&A to tell him all about it.

  He whooshed through the revolving door, out of the heat and into the marble chill of the bank’s lobby. Up the elevator to five, where he’d requested the bank’s public relations guy, a Colin Ackerman, help him get the documents he needed. Bank president Hardin McDivitt, Jake had been informed by the Supe, was unavailable. He wasn’t needed at this point, anyway.

  It was risky to come here, but Jake was in plain clothes. And if buzz started that the cops were around, maybe not such a bad thing. Liz McDivitt’s identity had just been made public, the Supe’s call on the timing. It’d be interesting if anyone here brought up her name. Jake sure wasn’t going to.

  “I’m afraid you came all this way for nothing, Detective.” Colin Ackerman, right out of Banker’s Monthly Magazine, if there was such a thing, greeted him at the elevator, no doubt alerted by the hyper-vigilant security guard at the lobby desk.

  Inside his office, Ackerman handed Jake a manila envelope. “Here’s all we have.” He shook his head. “The mortgage was brought up to date, as you saw from the public documents, but with these money orders, bought at the post office. Someone paid cash, as you can see from the copies, and there’s no way, as you are well aware, to trace those.”

  Jake took the envelope by one corner, wondering if that were true. Slid it into his briefcase. There could be surveillance video at a post office. Another item for the to-do list.

  “Which post office?” Jake asked.

  Ackerman looked at the ceiling. Then back at Jake. “I’m afraid I have no idea. If there’s anything else?”

  “There is,” Jake said. “When did the payments start?”

  * * *

  Liz McDivitt’s clients—three of them!—were telling Jane the identical story.

  And Jane had no idea what that story meant.

  Sitting on a plaid sofa in Cole Gantry’s living room, interview number three of the afternoon, Jane pushed a snuffling cocker spaniel away from her knee, seeing with dismay a trail of drool he’d deposited on her black pants. The Gantry house, sparse and prefab, seemed held together with plastic tape and rubber bands, duct tape repairing the upholstery of a wing chair. Even the TV remote control had a rubber band holding it together.

  The cops had released Liz McDivitt’s name for the noon newscasts, leaving the Register, newsasaurus, to catch up with its online edition. She’d arrived at the Gantrys’, same as the Rutherford and the Detwyler houses, to elicit a simple sympathetic reaction, figured it would be more respectful if she came in person instead of broaching such a sensitive topic over the phone. Apparently Liz hadn’t contacted them prior to Jane’s call—but with Liz gone, Jane felt better about approaching them. The couples hadn’t even questioned how Jane knew about them, whew, and gave her the “we’re so sorry” quotes she requested for an obituary-type story.

  But seemed as if grief had made them talkative. And as they reminisced, they revealed more about their discussions with Liz McDivitt. Now Cole Gantry—fading jeans and a Patriots T-shirt—was relating, pretty much word for word, the same experience as the Rutherfords. And the Detwylers.

  First, that they’d been on the verge of losing their home to foreclosure.

  Liz McDivitt had called them to A&A Bank. They’d expected bad news.

  Then Liz revealed the bank had made some kind of error. An error that meant they’d paid too much on their mortgage in the past, and as a result, were up to date. They would not lose their homes.

  “That’s it,” Gantry said. “I don’t really get it, but I don’t care. It was good news.”

  “So no more foreclosure?” Jane tried to understand. The bank had made a mistake? It was interesting when she’d heard it from the Rutherfords. Intriguing when she’d heard the same thing from the Detwylers. Now, in the Gantrys’ living room, it was downright bizarre. Of course, the families didn’t know she’d heard the same story from anyone else. “A bank mistake?”

  “I know, right? Ms. McDivitt wasn’t really clear how the mistake happened but hell, we dodged that bullet.” Cole Gantry took a sip of water from a red Solo cup, replaced it on the coffee table. Then he picked it up, wiped the wet ring with one finger, and set it on a do-it-yourself magazine. “’Bout time we had some luck.”

  Jane waited, not wanting push him, hoping he’d reveal more without her asking. If this was true? A huge scandal. The bank making mistakes on mortgage payments? One, maybe. Two, even. But all three customers Jane picked—at random—from Lizzie’s client list?

  She thought of another possibility. Was Liz working on a massive cover-up? Had she been assigned to handle the bank’s mistakes? By her father the bank president? Maybe? And been told to make it work?

  Was she killed because of that?

  Cole Gantry got to his feet, took a step or two toward the door. “Anything else, Miss—?”

  “Ryland.” Jane stood, brain in overdrive, pulled a business card from her wallet. Liz’s death—murder—had taken a complicated turn. Could Liz’s own father be involved? Had Liz gotten in over her head? Had she even known what was going on? Whatever it was. Empty foreclosed houses. Mistakes on mortgages. Liz McDivitt’s murder, and Shandra Newbury’s, too, were all about the bank, Jane was sure. But what about homeless Treesa Caramona?

  She needed evidence. But bank records, people’s personal finances, were beyond confidential. “Did she give you any paperwork about the mistake?”

  “Uh, no, actually. The bills simply stopped coming.” The floppy cocker spaniel followed Gantry to the front door. “But Ms. Ryland, now the wife and I are worried. You know? Can you find out for us? With Miss McDivitt gone, will we lose our home?”

  53

  “Tell me again?” What Ackerman was saying had to be the last thing Aaron Gianelli expected. Ack arrived at their meeting place in the park with tuna melts in brown bags, oozing oil through their paper wrappings. Aaron couldn’t face food, not now, not in the heat and the fear and the uncertainty. He put his soggy packet on the heat-baked top of a red plastic news box. His ruined lunch would be the least of his worries. His ruined life was more like it. But now he was hearing Ackerman insisting he had no involvement in Lizzie’s death.

  “That’s bull, Ackerman. Don’t try to weasel out of this. You’re in it, up to your frigging neck.”

  “I’m serious.” Ackerman took a swig of some energy drink, tossed the can into an overflowing trash bin. “I’m as relieved as you are to hear she was out of the picture. But there you have it. Not us.”

  “But I thought—you said—we’d—” Aaron kept his voice down, watching every person, every movement, expecting at any minute the cops and humiliation and the end of life as he knew it. It was so goddamn hot, the sun searing his head, his shirt about to melt.

  “I know, I hear you.” Ackerman sat on the wooden park bench, avoiding a white glob of bird shit. Crossed his legs, yanked down his tie. “But then—last minute thing, I guess—they didn’t do it. Decided to deal with her later. Another day, another way. But then—”

  “So what the hell happened to her?” Aaron would be suspect number one, no doubt about that. Someone’d seen them at the Ritz. At the bank. Who knows who she’d told. That secretary Stephanie sure knew he’d been around.

  His tie was strangling him. Why’d they have to be out in this heat? Why’d he ever agree to be involved in this? How much money did anyone actually need?

  He flopped onto the bench, as far away as he could get from Ackerman, head in hands. “Shit. Shit. This is gonna be on me, I know it.”

  “Aaron. Chill. Listen. Look at me. You’re out of control. You’re not hearing me.” Ackerman stood, facing him, hands on hips. “Don’t you see?”

  Aaron looked up.
Ackerman, in silhouette, Liberty Street behind him, people rushing around with brown bags. People who weren’t about to get nailed by the frigging cops.

  “See what?”

  “Christ. You are such a—it’s good. It’s a good thing. It gets us off the hook, we’re not even connected. I mean, thing is, it’s actually true. No one knows she was gonna meet you. Right? Right?”

  Aaron nodded, stalling, calculating. He heard Ackerman’s words, but still wasn’t sure what they meant.

  “This is great for us.” Ackerman’s voice was almost a whisper. He sat on the bench again, his leg almost touching Aaron’s, arm across the back, face so close Aaron could smell the starch in his shirt, see the glint of the gel in his hair. “We’ll keep the rentals on the down-low, back off for a while, keep it status quo. But about everything else? Just tell the truth—except the part about you setting it up to meet her there. We clear?”

  “But who killed her?”

  “Gianelli, for chrissake, who the hell knows?” Ackerman moved away, gesturing his dismissal. “Who the hell cares? Some crackhead, or homeless guy, some squatter in that house. The gods are smiling on us, right? What we needed to happen happened. And we didn’t even have to get it done.”

  “I suppose,” Aaron said.

  “Frigging right. Sit tight. And hey, the cops were at the bank. Some detective, asking about—someone completely different. Didn’t even bring up the Liz thing.”

  “The cops?” Aaron’s fleeting moment of reassurance vanished. Cops. Exactly what he worried about. “At the bank?”

  “Are you deaf? That’s my point. The cop didn’t even mention her. Listen. Erase the whole thing from your memory. It never happened. It. Never. Happened. At best, you’re the grieving boyfriend. Maybe her father will take you under his wing. Pretty nice wing, right? Now get back to work, bro.”

  Pretty nice wing. Aaron stayed on the bench, thought about this, calculating, as Ackerman walked away.

  Maybe he was worrying for nothing?

  Maybe.

  A pigeon landed at his feet, pecking. Aaron watched the gray feathers, how they separated around the bird’s pudgy neck, how his pointy bill kept pecking pecking pecking. Aaron couldn’t even see any crumbs on the sidewalk. Bird was delusional. Maybe he was, too.

  Because.

  Because maybe Ackerman was lying to him. Maybe Ackerman was about to—Aaron leaned back on the bench, his shoulder blades hitting the hard wooden slats. Of freaking course. How could he be such a moron?

  His head was about to explode, the people on the sidewalk blurred as his brain focused, holy crap, on the trap he’d almost fallen into. He stood, pacing, crossed the street, leaned against the narrow concrete edging outside a men’s store window, registering the foulard ties and Italian suit jackets but mostly his future, passing before his eyes.

  How Ackerman, the asshole—from the beginning an asshole, right?—had once again steered him into a bad decision. The incredible jerk. Probably going back now, crowing that he’d duped old Aaron again, no one’d have to worry about him, all we had to do was wait.

  Didn’t know who killed Liz McDivitt? Who was he trying to fool? He planned to throw him, Aaron, right under a moving train. And right now was setting him up for the fall.

  Aaron straightened, feeling the sun on his face, feeling his head clear, seeing the future unfolding in a new way. Smiling for the first time in he didn’t know how long.

  Aaron Gianelli was not about to be fooled. Aaron Gianelli was not the fall guy.

  Tell the truth, Ackerman had instructed.

  Exactly.

  The freaking 100 percent truth. That’s exactly what he would tell.

  * * *

  “I’m so sorry for your loss,” Jane said. Stephanie, Liz McDivitt’s secretary, knew Jane from yesterday’s interview, so now they were old pals. “You must have worried when Miss McDivitt didn’t come in this morning.”

  Stephanie shook her head. “Not really, you know? She’d been late before, we really didn’t have a system.” She glanced over her shoulder at the closed door to Liz’s office. “She was new, you know. Her poor father.”

  “I know,” Jane said. “Is he…?”

  “New York,” Stephanie told her. “I hear.”

  “Must have been wonderful for her, working with her father.” Jane could hardly ask whether they were involved in some kind of scheme. Time to simply fish and see what she caught. She was a reporter, after all. She’d report. She’d already sent TJ out on a little reconnaissance mission of his own. Might be a goose chase, might not.

  Stephanie blinked. “I guess,” she said. “He called her, I know, sometimes. But…”

  Jane had a thought. “Have the police been here? Checked her office or anything?”

  “Not that I know of.” Stephanie seemed to be considering this. “Maybe they came before I got here this morning, though.”

  “Have you talked to her boyfriend?” Jane was happy to ask questions as long as this woman would answer. Maybe she could get her to tell the guy’s name. “He must be devastated. Poor…”

  “Yeah. Poor Aaron,” Stephanie said. “They worked together on the REO stuff. He manages the empty houses, you know?”

  Aaron. “Great guy, seemed like,” Jane said, as if she knew it all along. She pulled out her notebook, studiously looking at a blank page. REOs, the properties the bank owned, the ones they’d foreclosed on. Jane knew all that from her foreclosure research. That’s what Liz had told her, too, though it hadn’t seemed significant at the time. “Aaron. I’m not sure I got the last name right.”

  “Gianelli? With a G?”

  “Right.” Bingo. Aaron Gianelli. Got you. Maybe he knew what Liz had been up to. Not that Jane would ask him directly. But the “mistakes” she’d heard about from Liz’s clients—maybe Gianelli was involved in it, too. Whatever “it” was. Maybe Liz had told him about the bank’s mistakes? Or maybe Aaron had told her. Did her father know?

  “I’d love to talk with Aaron,” Jane said. “About poor Liz. Is he here today?”

  “He is, I think. Want me to bring you to—?” Stephanie stood, lifting a pink cardigan from the back of her chair and wrapping it across her shoulders. Then she sat down again, the chair squeaking in protest. “I need to call him first. But it should be okay. Because it’s Liz, after all.”

  Right, Jane didn’t say. Because it’s Liz.

  Jane watched her punch buttons on the phone, waited as she navigated through explanations and inquiries.

  “Okay, Mandy, I’ll let her know he’s out and that you’ll give him the message. Like I said, Jane Ryland. From the Register. Her number is…?” Stephanie looked up, eyebrows raised.

  Jane gave her the cell number, instead of the Register, to make sure she didn’t miss the call.

  This Aaron Gianelli was about to be her new ally—or perhaps her new enemy. She’d needed to find out which.

  * * *

  Should he stop at Liz McDivitt’s office before he left the bank? Just for show? Jake pushed the elevator button for floor 3. The cops were looking for a killer, after all, and it was reasonable there’d be evidence, clues, of some kind there. Maybe he should send in Crime Scene with a roll of yellow tape to seal the place.

  But whatever was in Liz’s office was already taken care of, the Supe’s strategy session had assigned someone else to all that. Officer Canfield was also on the job, handling Liz’s apartment. Even Bing Sherrey had an assignment. Jake’s instructions would come soon, depending.

  So while the McDivitt case progressed elsewhere, step by step, Jake was at the bank only to look into Gordon Thorley. He’d spent the last hour reading the mortgage records a harried PR flak, Colin Ackerman, finally agreed to provide—the same public paperwork available at the Registry of Deeds, Jake had insisted. He’d pulled out the old “I could get a warrant, but do you really want that?” routine.

  Ackerman finally agreed, and all the better for Jake, even seemed in a big hurry to get out of the place.
He’d left Jake in an opulent conference room, in the care of some prepped-out intern-looking kid who zoned out to whatever was on his earbuds the minute Jake tucked into the file. The documents had told the story. Part of it, at least.

  Gordon Thorley’s house in Sagamore was deeded to him and his sister, Doreen Thorley Rinker, the sister who’d hired the lawyer. It had tumbled into arrears, then foreclosure. But a few months ago, the checks started arriving, paid back in full and currently on time, and they’d bailed themselves out. Gordon Thorley’s family had suddenly come into money. That was worth some investigation. Problem was, he couldn’t question Gordon Thorley about it without alerting Peter Hardesty. Lawyers.

  When the elevator doors opened on the third floor, he pushed the close button again. No need to scope out Liz McDivitt’s office. But with an inch of space between the closing doors, he caught a glimpse of a desk in the hallway and a woman’s back.

  Jane. Jane?

  The doors closed.

  What was Jane doing at the bank? He stabbed the open button, almost without thinking, stabbed it again. But the elevator was already moving.

  The doors opened, but at the bank’s echoing lobby. Almost three thirty, a few tellers snapping rubber bands around wads of counted cash, one helping a white-haired woman who’d deposited three, no four, lumpy shopping bags on the tile floor and was shoveling rolls of paper-wrapped coins into a fabric pocketbook.

  Jane was outside Liz McDivitt’s office. Well, of course. She was covering this. They’d made McDivitt’s name public a few hours ago.

  Jake stood in the lobby, watching the customer lug her bags out the door, watching the tellers behind their cages, but thinking of Jane, and their crisscrossing lives. How they kept showing up at the same place, but never together. This time, if he waited, they could be together. There was only one row of elevators. Eventually Jane would have to appear. They could get everything out in the open.