The Wrong Girl (Jane Ryland)

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  “He must have done something, you know?” DeLuca crumpled his coffee cup, looked around as they walked, stuffed it into his jacket pocket. “An innocent guy doesn’t do what he did. Set himself up to get shot.”

  He must have done something. Jake hated that. A cop’s excuse for a bad collar. But in this case, he had to agree. Or was he rationalizing? Letting himself off the hook for what happened in the garage? Hennessey. What an asshole.

  Kurtz had been given compassionate leave, and was already on her way to her mother’s on the South Shore. Covered in grease and soggy with basement grit, she’d clamped on her filthy hat and insisted to the Supe that she was fine, all set to go back on duty. The Supe ordered the rookie home, accompanied by an officer from Human Resources. They’d investigate her botched handling of the prisoner transport later.

  Hennessey, all bluster and conquest, was in the hands of Internal Affairs. His weapon confiscated. His life on hold while IA investigated the shooting. “Moron deserved it,” Hennessey’d bellowed as two blue-suited IAs escorted him from the basement. “It was righteous.”

  Curtis Ricker was in the morgue. But Kat McMahan didn’t have to make any decisions about his cause of death. Ten cops had watched him die.

  “Jake.” DeLuca clamped a hand on Jake’s shoulder, stopping him just before they got to the front steps. Withdrew it, as if caught in a too-emotional gesture.

  Jake had to smile. D was a good guy. Trying to help.

  “Yeah?”

  “It wasn’t your fault. Ricker. Hennessey lost it, no question, he’ll fry. Deserves it. The asshole. But you held it together. You did good. Ricker’d grabbed Kurtz. That’s a life sentence. He could have killed her. Would have. You saved her.”

  Jake saw it again, the moment Kurtz ducked and rolled, the flash of relief, this worked. And then, from behind him, the shot. He’d looked at his own weapon for a weird twist of a second, wondering, Did I…? But he knew he hadn’t. The whole thing should never have happened.

  “I appreciate it, D. Thanks. Now let’s see if we can find some next-of-kin information and get the hell out of here,” Jake said. “The DA’s deciding what to do about the Tillson murder case now that the guy we arrested for it is dead. We arrest someone else? Defense attorney’ll have a field day. Talk about reasonable doubt. No way anyone’ll be convicted of it. We better hope Ricker was guilty.”

  “Or that someone confesses,” D said.

  “Oh, yeah. That’s gonna happen.” This sucked beyond belief. Jake hadn’t been certain of Ricker’s guilt. As it turned out, the arrest had been Ricker’s death sentence. What’s more, if the real killer—the real killer?—was still out there, he was gonna walk.

  They climbed the front steps to the wooden porch. No one had moved the soggy phone books. Water-soaked newspapers in yellow plastic bags still lay scattered in wet patches across the double-wide porch, like someone had gone on vacation and forgotten to stop delivery. Two rusty rectangular mailboxes, lids open, were attached to the dirt-streaked siding.

  “He’s got mail,” DeLuca said. “Huh. Some in the ‘A’ mailbox, too.”

  Jake shrugged, patted his pockets for the key to 343B. All of Ricker’s effects were in lockup, so they’d signed out the key. They still didn’t have the damn cell phone. Why had Ricker dunked it into the water? Not that it mattered at this point.

  Jake slid the key into the front door, twisted it. D lagged behind.

  “Ah,” D said.

  “What?” Jake paused in the open door. “Hey. You can’t look at the mail, bro. It’s a federal—”

  DeLuca handed him a white envelope.

  “So arrest me,” D said. “But first, look at this. Electric bill. From the other side’s mailbox. Not Ricker’s.”

  “Even worse,” Jake said.

  “Jake.” DeLuca gave him a full-out eye roll. “Look at the damn letter. The letter to the empty side of the house.”

  Jake took the envelope. Whatever. Addressed to—“Leonard Perl?”

  “How about them apples,” DeLuca said.

  “So what? Maybe he gets the bills. He’s the landlord. We know th—” Jake stopped. Held up a hand. “D. You hear that?”

  He stared at the closed front door of the vacant apartment A. Looked at the open door of Ricker’s unoccupied apartment B. Late afternoon in a seedy neighborhood, darkness just beginning to gather. Streetlights not on yet, evening gloom creeping into the day. Not a car on the street. Not a light in a neighboring window. Deserted.

  “Hear what?”

  “Shh. Listen.”

  The silence was so profound, the very air was buzzing with it. With Ricker gone, there was no more Allman Brothers, no more pounding bass guitars. Maybe Jake had been mistaken. Maybe the sound had come from a neighbor’s radio. Or someone’s TV. Now, there was quiet.

  “Never m—” Jake took a step into the apartment. And then, he heard it again.

  D’s head came up, his eyes wide. “Shit.”

  Jake nodded, trying to keep his balance. His phone rang, the sharp trill breaking the silence. He slammed it off.

  “It’s a…,” DeLuca whispered.

  “Baby.” Jake pointed to the vacant apartment. “In there.”

  *

  Dammit, Jake, where are you? Jane heard her call go to voice mail. What was she supposed to do now?

  She propped her elbows on Carlyn’s pristine kitchen counter, rested her head in her hands. Trying to think. Another phone call. “Tuck, tell Carlyn about it, okay? I have to decide what to do.”

  Jane vaguely heard Tuck’s explanation—phone call, tailgating pickup truck, open apartment door, missing cat—watched Carlyn open the refrigerator, felt Tuck’s hand on her back.

  “You okay, Jane? That was Jake you just called, I hope,” Tuck murmured.

  There was no time to be coy. Jake was the police. And she needed the police. “Yeah. It went to voice mail.”

  Jane stared out the window. Not another house in sight. The rutted road, twisty and remote. Just three women in a little cottage. Had someone followed her here? Someone in a pickup truck?

  Where were they waiting? And why?

  56

  Jake stared at the front door. Alvarez in Records had reported 343A as vacant, but Jake hadn’t had time to check that. Perl owned this house, and the Callaberry triple-decker. Perl would have access. Perl would have keys. Maybe the ones Jake found in Ricker’s kitchen drawer belonged to Perl. Maybe Ricker had been telling the truth? Maybe he’d kept the music loud to drown out the—

  A lone car hissed by in the slush. The streetlights came on, buzzing gradually into a somber glow. A couple of porch lights clicked on across the street, probably on timers. February in Boston, afternoons almost telescoped into nonexistence.

  “Let’s check the side. Check the rear.” Jake motioned for DeLuca to follow. In less than a minute they’d gotten the lay of the land. Side door, out to the driveway, locked. Fenced backyard, no rear exit.

  Returning to the front porch, Jake took two steps, pulled open the screen to unit A, knocked on the scarred white paint of the front door. Sounds hollow. That’s good.

  “We’re going in. Community safekeeping,” Jake decided. “A baby crying from inside a supposedly vacant apartment? I don’t think so. Meets the guidelines for me.”

  “Gotcha.” DeLuca, behind him, had one hand on his weapon. “Lock looks pretty old, if it comes to that.”

  Jake banged on the door again, using the heel of his fist. He angled his body away, out of the line of fire. Just in case. They were in the right here. The community safekeeping rule let them enter without a warrant where they thought someone might be in danger. Ever since that grisly killing in Westchester, where police had waited for permission to check on the mother and baby—then found them murdered—cops had been given some leeway in potentially dicey situations. Leeway was exactly what they needed right now.

  If he was wrong, the paperwork would be massive.

  Jake’s phone rang inside h
is pocket. Damn. Not now. It rang again. One hand by his weapon, one for the door. He let it go to voice mail. If it was HQ, they’d radio.

  The baby cried again.

  Jake checked the door’s rusty hinges. The door opened in, away from them. Good. Small favors.

  “You set?” Jake said. “On my three.”

  *

  “You need to contact the police,” Tuck was saying. “And Alex. I’m not kidding.” She and Carlyn were making sandwiches, blotting pieces of romaine lettuce, adding mayonnaise. It smelled like tuna. Jane, perched on a wicker kitchen stool, pretended to listen.

  She frowned, fussed with a ceramic pot of tarragon on the counter, running her hand along the feathery leaves. Contact the police? She couldn’t even prove the call had happened. There’d be no record of it. Jane picked up her cell to check her call history. “Blocked call” was all it said.

  Plus, even if the police could trace it using the SIM card, it would just go to a burner phone. The caller had made that clear the first time. There was no one to help her. She was at a dead end. She didn’t like the sound of the word “dead.”

  “Jane?” Tuck, now holding a plate of whole-wheat triangles, interrupted her thoughts, gesturing toward the dining room. “You want a—?”

  “Go ahead, you two,” Jane said. “Be there in a minute.”

  She had to figure this out. Even dismissing the probably-nothing black pickup and the couldn’t-have-happened breakin, the phone calls were indisputably real. Someone wanted her to stop—something.

  But it couldn’t be following up on Tillson. There’d already been an arrest for Brianna Tillson’s murder. That case was closed. Everyone knew it. What else might someone think she was investigating?

  She shifted on the stool, the ridges of wicker digging into her rear. If the caller wasn’t warning her away from Brianna Tillson’s killer, what were they warning her away from?

  Who would think she was “poking around” in the Tillson case?

  The Callaberry Street neighbors she and Hec interviewed, certainly. She flipped the collar of her black turtleneck up over her mouth, then flipped it down again. She could hear Tuck and Carlyn in the other room, talking in low voices.

  Closing her eyes, Jane mentally replayed the phone call. And then again.

  Well. Odd. The caller hadn’t actually mentioned Brianna Tillson. He’d said, “Keep back from the Callaberry Street thing.” The Callaberry Street thing? Was it something about Phillip and Phoebe?

  Yanking open her tote bag, she scrabbled for a pencil and her notepad. She hooked her heels over the rungs of the stool and used the kitchen counter as a desk. Who would know she was asking about the children? Alex. Jake. DeLuca. Hec Underhill. They didn’t count. She twisted open the mechanical pencil. Who else?

  Margaret Gunnison at DFS, she wrote. Then: in Anguilla. But not during the murder.

  Finn Eberhardt. Then: in office so not driving pickup.

  Person at DFS Finn told??

  Other caseworkers. Whoever they were.

  Vee at the DFS reception desk. Unlikely.

  Who else? Jane tapped her pencil on the Formica. Point, eraser. Point, eraser. Point—Oh.

  Bethany Sibbach.

  Jake had interviewed Bethany. She had to talk to Jake.

  She put down her pad, hit redial on her cell. His voice mail again. Damn. She punched up the contact list. Alex. Tuck was right about that, too. She had to tell him about the call and discuss what to do. He was her editor. She needed him.

  “Alex Wyatt.” He answered on the first ring.

  “Alex, it’s Jane. I’m in…” Damn. She was losing it. She should have called home first. “Listen, Alex, sorry. I know this is strange, but can I call you right back?”

  “Jane. You listen. I’ve been trying to reach you. Did you have your phone off? Where are you?”

  She knew it. She should never have ignored her job. “Ah, well—”

  “Jane? There’s been a shooting at Boston police HQ. Like, two hours ago. Apparently it’s bad. But all we can find out is it’s something to do with Curtis Ricker.”

  “Who’s that?” Was this someone Jane was supposed to know? Why did Alex’s voice sound so strange?

  “Curtis Ricker? You kidding me? The guy who was arrested for the Tillson murder. Don’t you read the paper?”

  Jane stood, slowly, then sat down again. Her pad tumbled to the floor, her pencil rolled after it. Jake hadn’t answered his phone.

  “Jake?” She cleared her throat. The word hadn’t come out properly. She tried again. “Jake?”

  “That’s the thing,” Alex said. “Police aren’t confirming or denying. Not till a four o’clock news conference. We’ve got a reporter there. But right now? We don’t know. I need you to call your cop sources and find out.”

  57

  “Three!” With DeLuca holding open the screen storm door, Jake slammed his left heel at the wooden door, aiming to hit right beside the crummy-looking lock, the door’s weakest spot. Shattered chips of white paint rained down. Jake could feel the wood begin to splinter and crack. Luckily old doors like this were hollow, and the deadbolt mechanisms cheap, this one probably extending only an inch into the flimsy doorframe. It could work.

  He paused, taking a breath. He’d seen enough rookies dislocate their shoulders. Kicking was the only way to go, especially with an already-neglected door like this one.

  “You got this, Harvard.” D gave him a thumbs-up.

  “Anyone in there with the baby, they’re sure gonna know the cavalry is on the way.”

  “Well—”

  Jake held up a palm. “Hang on. Listen. Let’s see if anyone comes.”

  “Or goes.” DeLuca gestured toward the driveway, watching for bad guys heading out the side door. “Nada. All clear.”

  “One more time,” Jake said. “And we’re in. You set?”

  He gathered himself, grateful for his sturdy cop-issue boots. “Three!”

  With a heave and a shouted “Police!” Jake’s second kick splintered the thin veneer of the rickety door, the bar of the deadbolt breaking free from the doorjamb. Jake fell back with the force of his effort, almost landing in DeLuca’s steadying arms.

  The door—what was left of it—swung open.

  *

  Call her cop sources? Alex wanted her to call her cop sources? Jane’s “cop sources” were Jake, and calling him was exactly what she’d already tried to do. And her sources—Jake—were not answering the phone. She’d told Alex she’d call him right back if she found anything. She dialed again. Voice mail. Where was Jake?

  She called PR guy Tom O’Day at police HQ, nothing. Called Jake again. Nothing. It was two minutes to four, and she was about to lose it. Carlyn’s little television worked fine, but she didn’t have cable and they were out of the Boston viewing area. So no way could they watch a four o’clock news conference on Boston TV. No local TV stations around here had four o’clock newscasts. Jane could check the Web on her phone, of course. But it would take a little time for the news cyberjournalists to get the conference posted. She punched up another contact, hit “call.” Neena’s phone was ringing, and if she didn’t ans—

  “Neena. Oh, thank God. It’s me. I’m down in Connecticut with Tuck. But is everything—Have you heard anything about—Listen, can you go check my front door?”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Just—can you? I’ll hang on while you look. And can you—” Well, she couldn’t ask Neena to turn on her TV and look at her door at the same time. One thing at a time.

  “On my way. Eli, you watch little Sam for two seconds, okay? I’ll be right back. Okay, Jane. On the way. I’ll look over the banister. What on earth, Jane?”

  “I got another phone call. Like the other one. They didn’t say anything about—But you know, I just want to make sure—I put a tiny piece of paper in the door. If everything seems okay, can you see if—”

  She couldn’t manage to finish a sentence. There were too many
questions.

  “Well, isn’t the guy across the street still watching out for—Okay, I’m here. Looking over the railing. Hang on. Nope, nothing. Hang on, going down. Nope. Fine. Door locked, all good. And yup. I see the paper. I’ll leave it. But don’t you—”

  “Oh, thank goodness.” It was troubling, though. Both calls had come in when she was not home. Did the caller know that?

  “Jane? Don’t you think you should call the police?”

  “One more thing, I know this seems strange.” Jane ignored the question, couldn’t believe she was doing this, but she had to know about Jake first. “Are you going back upstairs now?”

  “Jane? Shouldn’t you call Jake? Isn’t it about time you—”

  “That’s exactly what this is about,” Jane interrupted. “Are you upstairs?”

  “Hang on, opening the door. Yes, I’m back in our apartment. Hey Eli, I’m here.”

  “Turn on the TV. Channel Eleven.”

  “Jane?”

  “Please.”

  Jane heard the sound of a door closing, Sam babbling, Neena babbling back at her son. Eli’s voice. A pause.

  “Okay, TV’s on and—Oh.”

  “What? Is it the news?”

  “Yeah, it’s a live shot from police headquarters, reporter is saying, hang on, it’s on mute.”

  “Neena.” Jane was dying. In one second, she’d know. And if Jake was okay, she promised, promised, they’d never be apart again. If she had to give up her job, fine. Whatever. If the universe would only make him safe, she’d agree to—

  If that’s what Jake wanted, of course. All that mattered was that he wasn’t dead.

  “Jane?”

  Jane touched her chest with the flat of one hand, certain she’d feel the pounding of her heart. She remembered to breathe.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah, okay,” Neena said. “There was a shooting … um, at police headquarters. I’m just looking at the readout thing on the screen now. Apparently the guy they arrested in the Brianna Tillson murder was holding a police officer hostage.”