Face Time

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  She paused. Lawyer, banker, bean counter, she predicted. For A&A Bank? Or the Sandovals? The Sandovals had already told her, on camera, how Elliot Sandoval had lost his construction job, and they were struggling on pregnant MaryLou’s day care salary. Struggling and failing.

  “I don’t care who you are.” The man crossed his arms over his chest, a chunky watch glinting, tortoiseshell sunglasses hiding his expression. “This is none of your business. You don’t tell your friend to shut off that camera, I’m telling the cops to stop you.”

  You kidding me? “Feel free, Mr.—?” Jane took her hand away. Felt a trickle of sweat down her back. Boston was baking in the throes of an unexpected May heat wave. Everyone was cranky. It was almost too hot to argue. “You’ll find we’re within our rights.”

  The guy pulled out a phone. All she needed. And stupid, because the cops were right there. TJ kept shooting, good for him. Brand new at the Boston Register, videographer TJ Foy was hire number one in the paper’s fledgling online video news department. Jane was the first—and so far, only—reporter assigned.

  “It’s a chance to show off your years of TV experience,” the Register’s new city editor had explained. Pretending Jane had a choice. “Make it work.”

  Pleasing the new boss was never a bad thing, and truth be told, Jane could use a little employment security. She still suffered pangs from her unfair firing from Channel 11 last year, but at least it didn’t haunt her every day. This was her new normal, especially now that newspapering was more like TV. “Multimedia,” her new editor called it.

  “We’re doing a story on the housing crisis.” Jane smiled, trying again. “Remember the teenager who got killed last week on Springvale Street? Emily-Sue Ordway? Fell from a window, trying to get back into her parents’ foreclosed home? We’re trying to show—it’s not about the houses so much as it is the people.”

  “‘The people’ should pay their mortgage.” The man pointed to the clapboard two-story with his cell phone. “Then ‘the cops’ wouldn’t have to ‘remove’ their possessions.”

  Okay, so not a lawyer for the Sandovals. But at least this jerk wasn’t dialing.

  “Are you with A&A? With the bank?” Might as well be direct.

  “That’s not any of—”

  “Vitucci! Callum!” The deputy appeared in the open front door, one hand on each side of the doorjamb as if to keep himself upright. He held the screen door open with his foot. His smirk had vanished. The two cops on the driveway alerted, inquiring.

  “Huh? What’s up?” one asked.

  “You getting this?” Jane whispered. She didn’t want to ruin TJ’s audio with her voice, but something was happening. Something the eviction squad hadn’t expected.

  “Second floor.” The deputy pulled a radio from his belt pouch. Looked at it. Looked back at the cops. His shoulders sagged. “Better get in here.”

  Copyright © 2014 by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  2

  “Why would he confess if he didn’t do it?” Detective Jake Brogan peered through the smoky one-way glass at the guy slumped in the folding chair of Boston Police Department’s interrogation room E. What Jane would probably call “skeevy”—too-long hair scraggling over one ear, ratty jacket, black T-shirt, tired tan pants. Thin. Late thirties, at least, more like forty. How old would Gordon Thorley have been in 1994, when Carley Marie Schaefer was killed? Late teens, at most. Around the same age as Carley. “This guy Thorley just shows up here at HQ and insists he’s guilty? You ever seen that? Heard of that?”

  “Let’s get some lunch. Ask questions later.” DeLuca jammed his empty paper coffee cup into the overflowing metal trash bin in the hall outside the interrogation room. “Sherrey will get all we need, give us his intake notes after. Could be a bird in the hand.”

  “Not exactly ‘in the hand,’” Jake said. “If he’s a whack job. There’s also that old ‘innocent till proven guilty’ thing.”

  Jake flipped through the manila case file, a disorganized jumble of flimsy-paged police records, scrawled judge’s orders, and blurry prison logs. Who was this Gordon Thorley, anyway? Seemed like no one—not the cops, not the DA’s office—had ever heard of him in connection with Carley Marie Schaefer. In connection with an armed robbery back in the 1990s, sure; in connection with a chunk of prison time, sure. He’d been out on parole almost five years now. Record since then looked clean.

  “Mr. Thorley?” Investigator Branford “Bing” Sherrey’s voice crackled over the speaker. “Let’s do this one more time. Start with Carley Marie Schaefer. What was your relationship with her? Why’d you come forward now? Why not before?”

  The man picked up the can of diet ginger ale from the table in front of him. He examined the label, then, from the looks of it, slugged down the whole thing. He paused, swallowing. Then shrugged. “I get why you don’t believe me. I know I should have owned up. But I was just a—okay. Again. Carley and me, we met in high school. We … had a thing. We kept it secret. I was older. She lived with her parents, out in Attleboro. Then she tried to break it off. I didn’t want that. We went to our special place in the…”

  “Whack job,” D said. “Why do you want to hear this again?”

  “Maybe it’s true,” Jake said. “And we’ll clear this case. Finally. My grandfather was still on the job when Carley Marie was killed. I was maybe fourteen. Boston went crazy, I still remember it. Girl’s body discovered by a family on a picnic. The Lilac Sunday killer.” Jake blew out a breath, picturing those thick black headlines in the Register and the Record. “Grandpa would talk about it, nights. It was a huge deal. Weighed on him. How Carley’s family was so distraught. He ‘went to his grave,’ Grandma Brogan still says, regretting his squad of murder cops never caught the Lilac Sunday killer.”

  “You think this is him?” D scratched his nose, looked unconvinced.

  “Lilac Sunday’s only a week away. We could do with a big solve,” Jake said. “Even one that falls into our laps.”

  Behind the window, Thorley was talking with his hands, illustrating the heavy coil of rope he’d stashed in the trunk of his green Celica, the circumference of the tree trunk in Boston’s Arnold Arboretum, the tight twist of the knots he’d made to hold Carley Schaefer in place. Thorley jabbed the heel of his palm toward the window. Jake flinched. Carley’s neck had been snapped. Huh. Thorley seemed like too much of a wimp for that.

  “And gimme a break, D,” Jake added. “If we’re getting this guy’s case, we need to hear his story. Sucks that the Supe didn’t call us till now. We should have been doing the questioning. Not Bing.”

  “Won’t matter. The guy’s prolly a wannabe. A nut.” DeLuca shook his head. “It’s like, he read some old newspapers or whatever and now he’s making himself into a scary killer. He wants a TV movie, who knows. Lifetime presents the Lilac Sunday Killer. Crap. We’re supposed to spend time on this sucker when Homicide’s working on three open cases? New ones?”

  Jake stared through the glass. Gordon Thorley—hands now clasped on the pitted metal table, looked straight ahead, eyes not quite focused. Third time through the Carley Marie story, Jake caught the same inflection, the same word choice. Had Thorley practiced? Contemplated his confession so often that it set in stone?

  “It’s as if he’s been told what to say.” Jake closed his file, took out his cell phone.

  DeLuca rolled his eyes. Pointed to Thorley. “Oh, yeah. Why didn’t I think of that? This is why I’m proud to be your partner. Basking in the glory.”

  “Stuff it, D.” Jake tried to talk and dial his cell at the same time. D was a good guy and a solid partner, but like the entire Homicide squad, overworked and under-successful. Boston had too many murders, not enough arrests. Only a fourth-year detective, Jake was low man in seniority, which meant high man on the Supe’s dreaded blame list. It didn’t help to be grandson of a former police commissioner. Jake’s blue-line “legacy” admittedly provided a leg up at entry level, but not job security or acceptance by his colleagues. D, t
en years his senior, and in the “from the ranks” club, didn’t always feel the pressure to go the extra mile. If D could close a case, faster was better. Jake still thought “right” was better.

  He held up a palm, putting his partner on hold so he could hear his phone call. “Hello? This is Jake Brogan, Boston Police. Not an emergency, but I need talk to Dr. Nathaniel Frasca. He around? Yes, I’ll hang on.”

  “Who’s that?” DeLuca narrowed his eyes. “Doctor who?”

  “You’ll see,” Jake said. “And maybe I’ll let you bask in the glory.”

  3

  “Go. Go. Get closer.” Jane almost pushed TJ forward, guiding him across the short driveway and toward the postage-stamp front porch. The Boston cops had dashed inside, radios crackling. Suit guy had slammed himself into the front seat of his fancy Lexus, punching buttons on his cell phone the whole way. “You’re rolling, right?”

  “On it,” TJ said. He held the camera steady, targeting the door, but glanced over at her. “And I got this, you know, Ryland? Chill. I’m white-balanced, I got batteries, I’m up on sound. You don’t have to keep checking.”

  “Sorry,” she said. “Ignore me.”

  Would she ever lose her fear of failure? Her mom used to tease her—probably half tease, half worry—each time Jane predicted certain disaster. She’d fail the test, miss the cut, come in second, lose the story. It never happened. Hardly ever. Maybe fear was good. Maybe fear’s what kept her in the game.

  Now, the game was clearly on. The cops were freaking. Whatever that deputy found inside 42 Waverly Road was more than some broken piece of furniture. No other reporters were here—as far as the TV stations were concerned, this was just another eviction. Probably not even on their daybook radar. Jane was only here because of her story on foreclosures. Now, whatever this was felt like a headline. And an exclusive.

  Jane hovered behind TJ’s shoulder, on tiptoe in her flats, trying to balance without touching him. She shoved her sunglasses onto the top of her head, stabbed her pen through her almost-long-enough ponytail, wished she could look through his viewfinder.

  “Anything?”

  “Nope. Jane, listen. I’ll tell you. Soon as there’s something.”

  TJ’s once-pressed cotton shirt was limp with the heat, his own Ray-Bans perched on his dark hair, the Register’s Nextel clipped to a belt loop on his jeans. A talented guy, her age, a couple years of experience. Seemed tight with the new city editor.

  It was a pain, Jane knew, for TJ to keep rolling on nothing. But the minute they stopped down, whatever was going to happen would happen.

  The front door was open, but the screen door closed. No matter how much she squinted, Jane couldn’t see inside. “Can you make out anything? Maybe we can get closer.”

  “Nope,” TJ said. “Screen door’s messing with the video, and—”

  “Hear that?” Sirens. “Somebody’s called the cavalry.”

  “Ambulance. Or more cops.” TJ’s camera lens stayed on the front door. “You want me to switch to the arrival?”

  “Quick shot of whoever shows up, then back to the door,” Jane instructed him. The story was inside.

  Two car doors slammed. Jane risked a look behind her, saw the ambulance. Two EMTs, navy shirts, black Nikes, ran past her toward the front door. One carried a bright orange box—defibrillator. The other a black medical bag.

  “Someone’s hurt,” she whispered.

  “Duh,” TJ whispered back.

  The screen door opened, then slammed.

  “They’re in,” TJ said. “Rolling. But can’t see a damn thing.”

  “Clock’s ticking now,” Jane said. “They come out running, we’ll know it’s bad.”

  The door stayed closed.

  The house had been empty when the deputies arrived, Jane knew that. She and TJ’d gotten shots of the two of them clicking open the padlock on the front door. No one had come out. She’d only seen water bottle guy since.

  The deputies’ job was to clear out the stuff the Sandovals had to leave behind. With no place to store it—and no money to do so—their leftover possessions were so much trash. This was the third eviction Jane had witnessed in the last three days. At Fawndale Street, one deputy had let her and TJ get some shots inside. She’d watched the blue-shirts—as she mentally called them—sweep through the rooms without a moment’s hesitation, scooping clothing from forsaken closets, emptying drawers into plastic bags, dragging furniture across the floors, gouging the wood and bashing the painted walls and then sweeping piles of dust and litter out the door with a huge push broom.

  Now she counted her blessings every time she returned to her Brookline condo. She’d tried to explain to Jake—she smiled, remembering their last clandestine meeting at his apartment—how it’d changed her whole appreciation for “home.” Her little place, and her little mortgage, and all her stuff, saved and collected from high school and j-school, her Emmys, and Gram’s pearls and handed-down Limoges dinner plates, her mother’s last quilt, and even the always-hungry Coda, the now-adolescent stray calico who had selected Jane’s apartment as her new domain.

  That night Jane had sipped her wine, fearing her happiness could evaporate any second. “What would I do if someone tried to take Corey Road from me?” she’d asked.

  “You’ll never have to worry about that,” Jake assured her.

  “That’s what the Sandovals probably thought, too,” Jane said. Jake’s snuffly Diva placed a clammy golden retriever nose on her bare arm. “Then the bottom fell out of their lives.”

  “Yo, Ryland.” TJ interrupted her thoughts, pointing to the front door with his chin. “You seeing this?”

  Read on for a preview of the next thrilling charlotte McNally mystery

  AIR TIME

  Available June 2016 from Forge Books

  The unfamiliar airport blurs into a collage of gate numbers, flashing lights and rolling suitcases as I snake my way past luggage-toting passengers, blue-uniformed flight crews, maintenance carts and posses of stern-faced TSA officers. I’m focused on finding gate C-47. My cell phone is clamped to my ear, the line open to Channel 3, but no one is on the other end yet. I’m waiting for more updates from Roger. So far all I know is I’m supposed to meet the Baltimore station’s crew—a camera-person and a live satellite van—from our local network affiliate. We’ll go live as soon as the uplink is set. And as soon as someone tells me what’s happened.

  No one in the terminal is running, which seems strange. I don’t see any emergency crews. That’s strange, too. Maybe because it’s all happening in a different terminal. They don’t want to scare anyone.

  I wonder if anyone is hurt. I wonder what went wrong. I wonder if there’s a fire. I think about survivors. I think about families. I’ve covered too many plane crashes over the past twenty years. And part of me knows that’s why I’m so unhappy about flying. I try not to admit it, because an investigative reporter is supposed to be tough and fearless. When it comes to air travel, I pretend a lot.

  “Yup, I’m here,” I answer the staticky voice now crackling in my ear. The block-lettered signs for Terminal C are pointing me to the left. Following the arrows, I trot through the crowded corridor, listening to Roger tell me the latest. I stop, suddenly, realizing what he’s saying. A Disney-clad family divides in half to get by, throwing annoyed looks as they swarm back together in front of me. I barely notice.

  “So, you’re telling me there’s nothing?” I reply. “You’re telling me—no big collision? No casualties? No fire?”

  “Yep. Nope,” Roger says. “Apparently one wing tip of a regional jet just touched a 737. On the ground. No passengers in the smaller plane. But the pilot panicked, Maydayed the tower, they sent the alarm, fire crews powered in. Every pilot on the tarmac picked up the radio traffic—guess that’s how your flight attendant got wind of it. And the Associated Press, of course. It was a close call. But no biggie.”

  “So…” My adrenaline is fading as I face reality. I plop into a leatherette seat
along the wall, stare at my toes, and try to make journalism lemonade. “So, listen. Should we do a story about the close call? Should we do an investigation about crowded runways? Is there a pattern of collisions at the Baltimore airport?”

  “Charlie, that’s why we love you,” Roger says with a chuckle. “Always looking for a good story. Does your brain ever turn off? Come home, kiddo. Thanks for being a team player.”

  It’s the best possible outcome, of course, I tell myself as I slowly click my phone closed and tuck it back into my bag. And it’s certainly proof of how a reporter’s perspective gets warped by the quest for airtime. How can anyone be sorry there’s not a plane crash? I smile, acknowledging journalism’s ugliest secret. A huge fire? A string of victims? A multimillion dollar scam? Bad news is big news. Only a reporter can feel disappointed when the news is good.

  But actually, there is good news that I’m happy about. Now I can go home. To Josh. My energy revs as I race to the nearest flight information screen and devour the numbers displayed on the televisions flickering above me. Arrivals. Departures. If I’m lucky, my plane is still hooked to that jetway, doors open. I can get back on board, into 18A, and get home for a late and luscious dinner with Josh. I imagine his welcoming arms swooping me off the floor in a swirling hug. Our “don’t stay-away-this-long-ever-again” kisses. I imagine skipping dinner.

  I find what I’m looking for. Boston, Flight 632. I find what I’m not looking for. Status: Departed.

  I drop my tote bag to the tiled floor. Then pick it up again so the airport police don’t whisk it away as an unattended bag. There are no more flights to Boston tonight. I’m trapped in Baltimore.

  Wandering back down the corridor and into the ladies’ room, I’m trying to plan. I twist my hair up with a scrunchie. Take out my contacts. Put on my glasses. No one knows me here. Might as well be comfortable.