The Wrong Girl (25 page)

“Thank you, Mr. Ricker.” Jake matched his sarcasm and raised him one. “We appreciate your hospitality. But we have a warrant, and that means we don’t need your permission. Usually we’d ask you to wait outside, but it’s somewhat cold for that. So if you would just wait here in the living room with Officer Hennessey—Hennessey, you set?”

Hennessey managed to drag his attention from the screen of his cell phone and gestured toward the grubby couch, the Bluetooth in his ear hanging precariously. “Mr., ah, Ricker? Care to take a seat?”

“First, we’ll need that cell phone,” Jake said. Big smile. “The wet one. Please.”

Ricker did not smile back.

“Not a frickin’ chance.” He leaned against the front door jamb, arms clamped in front of his chest. One leg of his jeans was tucked into his boot, the other wasn’t. His plaid shirt flapped open, unbuttoned, over a once-white T-shirt, and a ring of keys dangled on a chain from a front belt loop. “I’m calling my lawyer. Right, fricking, now.”

“Do that. But on what phone?” DeLuca was already pulling out a thin drawer in one of the end tables. He gave the knob a yank and the drawer slid all the way off the runners, spilling a clutter of pencil stubs and scraps of paper and match flaps onto the floor.

“Mr. Ricker?” Jake held out a hand, waiting.

“Oh, gee.” DeLuca shook his head, full of the deepest woe. “Drawer’s broken, I guess.”

“I frickin’ mean it.” Ricker extended a middle finger for the briefest of seconds.

Jake decided to let that go. Sticks and stones.

“I’m calling my lawyer, now, so you have to—”

Jake interrupted him. “Like my partner said. Be our guest. But we are here pursuant to that warrant we showed you. Plain English? That trumps your lawyer. There’s no more magic ‘lawyer’ word. We’re legally sanctioned to search these premises, lawyer or no, and to confiscate—well, I’m sure you plan to read the document in question yourself.”

“I can help you with the big words, if you want,” DeLuca said.

“You’re both complete a—”

“So we’ve often been told,” Jake said, so agreeable. “However, the longer we stand here and chit-chat, the longer it’s gonna take.”

Ricker drew out a pack of Marlboro Reds, snapped one out with the side of his hand. Looked around, then picked up a matchbook from the floor, waved it at them. “You gonna ‘confiscate’ this? Is it legal if I smoke?”

“Knock yourself out.” DeLuca was pawing through the scraps of paper now scattered on the rug. “Nothing here.”

He reached for the drawer on the other side. “This one broken, too?”

Ricker’s stream of smoke headed for the ceiling as Jake ran a flattened hand under the scarred dining room table. Lots of times people taped stuff there, thinking no one would ever check. He patted, feeling only splintery wood. Not this time.

One after the other, he turned over the dining room chairs, rickety, mismatched, wood, each with fabric stapled over its seat cushion. One after the other, a cushion fell out of place and tumbled to the floor, leaving an empty rectangle where the seat had been.

Would someone think to hide whatever it was that would connect him with Brianna Tillson—
birth certificates? money? the cell phone
?—in a seat cushion? Jake refused to focus on what haunted him. That his own shitty police work and that “prize patrol” visit had given Ricker enough time and warning to dump or stash anything he didn’t want Jake and the cops to see. But maybe Ricker was arrogant enough to think he could get away with it.

They’d gotten the warrant, so might as well search. He’d skip the cushions for now. Come back if the rest of the house turned up nothing.

Closet. Jake turned the white plastic knob, pulled open the door. Two coats.
Pockets?
Nothing. Empty black metal hangers rattled against each other as Jake leaned in, aiming his flashlight at the wooden floor. Cleaner than he would have predicted, and deeper, but whatever. Ratty running shoes, an umbrella leaning in the corner. A lot of nothing.

Kitchen next. Jake opened a series of greasy-knobbed drawers, each haphazardly lined with tattered paper. It might have been bright green, say, ten years ago. Knives, forks, nothing under the liner. Next, junk drawer. Matches, corks, keys.

Keys.

Jake hooked a set of keys with one finger. It wasn’t like there were gonna be fingerprints. Six keys, maybe seven. A silvery ring, no dangling tag to designate what any key opened. He’d wondered how the killer had gotten into Brianna Tillson’s apartment. There had been no sign of forced entry. So whatever asshole killed Brianna might have used a key. And the same key to lock the door behind him.

Jake could see Ricker through the archway from the kitchen. He had that bunch of keys on his belt loop. These were other keys.

Seven keys. Looped through a steel ring attached to a thin square of aluminum. No logo, no decoration, no designation. Clearly not car keys, and not the flat ones, not for a drawer or jewelry box. Door keys, plain and simple.

Jake didn’t need easy, of course. Problem was, “keys” weren’t listed on Judge Gallagher’s warrant. “Evidence in the killing of Brianna Tillson” was. He could argue they were a plain-sight exception to the search warrant—the perpetrator potentially used keys, here were keys. They hadn’t, however, exactly been in plain sight. Jake marshaled his arguments. He’d opened the drawer pursuant to the warrant, which clearly allowed him to look for the cell phone. As a result, the keys were in plain sight. As long as the drawer was legally opened.

Iffy.

Very, very iffy.

And if any of these were the keys to Callaberry Street, and if they got thrown out because Jake had seized them illegally, he was screwed.

“What’re these to, Mr. Ricker?” Jake held the key ring between two fingers as he took the few steps back from the kitchen. Ricker, still lounging against the front door, tapped his cigarette ash into a can of A&W root beer. The room was so quiet, as Jake waited for the answer, that he heard the hiss of the ember hitting the liquid.

“No idea.” Ricker didn’t look up, swirled the can. “Never saw them before. That I can remember.”

“Okay, no problem.” Interesting response. “You’re sure they’re not yours?”

“Lawyer,” Ricker said. “Right now.”

Hennessey looked up from his phone screen, put a hand on the black plastic baton hooked to his belt. “Jake? You need me to—?”

“Mr. Ricker has a right to remain silent,” Jake said. Good cop. “However. We do not need his permission to try these keys in his front door.”

Which might actually be true.

“Jake?” DeLuca had taken the slipcovers off the couch cushions and held a limp piece of zippered corduroy. A rectangle of foam rubber lay at his feet. He cocked his head at the front door, cleared his throat. “Ya think…”

He paused, not finishing the question.

Jake could predict what DeLuca was thinking:
Plain sight? Scope of the warrant? Inadmissible evidence? You sure about this?

As answer, Jake held up the keys. He was sure. As sure as anyone would be, faced with an uncooperative suspect and potential evidence in a murder case, his only weapon the power of a search warrant.

Which he hoped would cover his ass.

“Let’s do this.” Jake started toward the door. “We don’t have all day.”

*

Jane locked her door,
absolutely,
and started down the stairs to the street and her car. She’d read Coda the riot act about escaping, asked Neena to call a locksmith, and in one computer search and two phone calls had found Bethany Sibbach, who’d agreed to talk with her in person. “Off the record,” naturally.

Feeling the chill of the gray afternoon, she tucked the tails of her plaid muffler into her black parka and patted her pockets. Gloves, where was her other glove? Damn. Had she left it in the car?

She paused on the front steps of her brownstone, looking up through the bare branches of the municipal maples that lined Corey Road.
False alarm,
the cops had insisted. Nicer to think so. Maybe. Still, was it better she was leaving?

Her shoulders sagged briefly. Was she afraid? No.
Yes.
No.
Of what?
And if she were, what should she do? Call the police? They’d think she was the girl who cried wolf.

Scanning the mid-century brick and brownstone buildings across the street, she wondered if the cop’s brother or whatever he was with the surveillance camera was still on the lookout. Was he watching her right now? She raised both arms, waving, then pointed to her car. Half-serious.

“I’m leaving,” she mouthed the words.

Jake took the seventh key from the front door. “Not this one, either, Mr. Ricker.”

“So the hell what?” Curtis Ricker’s contempt for the situation, for the cops, for Jake, apparently knew no bounds.

Jake couldn’t care less. “You sure you can’t tell me what door these keys
do
open?”

“I told you, I never saw them before.”

“They’re in your kitchen drawer,” DeLuca said. “Sir. You don’t open your kitchen drawer?”

“I never—that’s—you can’t just—”

“Inventory.” Jake interrupted Ricker’s bluster, signaling Hennessey, who unclicked the snaps of a hard-sided leather briefcase and pulled out a glassine bag and a legal pad.

“Yup.” Hennessey patted his pockets, found a pen. Clicked it open. “All set. Item one?”

“Inventory item one, subsequent to the Ricker warrant, number thirteen dash nine-forty-four, at,” Jake looked at his watch, “approximately three twenty-six
P.M
. Tuesday. One set of keys, one Schlage, one Yale, five blanks. One key ring, metal, no identification.”

“That’s the most idiotic—I’m gonna call—”

Jake ignored Ricker, who, judging by his sudden rigid posture and deepening frown, seemed finally to realize this visit was not a game.

“Officer DeLuca, you’ll stay here with Mr. Ricker. Officer Hennessey, you’ll come with me. Officer DeLuca will take over the inventory.”

This was a tough one. Jake’d rather have D with him when he tested the keys, but he sure as hell wasn’t going to leave loose-cannon Hennessey here with the bad guy. They’d probably wind up in a contest to see which moron would convince the other to flee to Vegas. Hennessey would have to be his witness. Sad but necessary. “We’ll return in approximately thirty minutes.”

“Where’re we—?” Hennessey couldn’t have looked more befuddled.

How’d this guy make it, all these years?

By the time Jake got back from Callaberry Street, six more butts crowded Ricker’s ashtray, and the suspect apparently hadn’t moved from his post at the front door. DeLuca was counting a lineup of amber plastic prescription containers he’d arranged on the coffee table. A cast-iron frying pan was bagged on the couch. So was what looked like a bowling trophy and a stack of ratty-edged papers. No cell phone.

“Only took us two tries with the keys,” Jake announced. “One opened the door to 56 Callaberry Street, and another the front door of apartment C. Why’d you have Brianna Tillson’s keys, Mr. Ricker?”

“Are you fricking—” Ricker took two steps backward, toward the now-closed front door. DeLuca was at his side before the second step ended.

“You said you didn’t remember when you’d last seen her,” Jake said. “So why’d you have her keys?”

“Hey, I never … ow!
Shit.
”

He saw DeLuca unclick the cuffs, heard them ratchet over Ricker’s scrawny wrists. Hennessey breathed through his mouth, slack-jawed, as if he’d never seen an arrest. Had Ricker been the one who called the Callaberry Street 911? Soon the voice-forensics guys would find that out.

Jake thought about Brianna Tillson’s ragdoll body, her spotless kitchen, the awkwardly wrong splay of her long legs, and those bare feet, somehow all the more heartbreaking. ME Kat McMahan had confirmed her cause of death as blunt trauma. No accident. Murder. Jake was a murder cop. Times like this were what made him happy. Happy as you could be when an innocent person got bludgeoned to death with a frying pan.

What happened to set Ricker off like that? To murder that woman? With Phillip and Phoebe probably in the next room?

Those two kids—
maybe three, that was next on his list
—had lost another mother. He couldn’t bring her back, no one could. But he’d made a promise to Brianna Tillson, as he did to all his victims. Right now, this minute, in this smoke-stained sorry excuse for an apartment, he got to keep that promise. Case closed.

“Curtis Ricker? You’re under arrest for the murder of Brianna Tillson.”

*

Jane clicked her remote, trotted the last few steps to her car door. Yes, fine, she was looking around to see if anyone was …
no.
No one was watching her; no one was even in the street, or in a car, or pretending to be casually walking down the sidewalk. She couldn’t be spooked for the rest of her life.

She slammed the car door, slipped her keys into the ignition. Bethany Sibbach lived on Hinshaw Street, about twenty minutes away. She opened the center console, got out her GPS. It would be so much easier if there were a GPS for everything in life. A magic gizmo that would give you exact directions, alternate routes. So you could never be lost.

The Audi’s engine hummed to life. She needed to find Hec Underhill. But first, Bethany Sibbach. It would be so rewarding to power back into the newsroom with a big scoop. Then, no way they could lay her off.

Jane glanced in her rearview. Nothing. No one. She was on the way to her story, and, she promised herself, leaving her fear behind. She was not,
not,
going to allow her own possibly overdramatizing brain to scare her with shadows of terrors that did not exist.

And there appeared the first good omen. She spotted it on the floor of the passenger side. Her missing glove.

“Thank you, universe,” she said out loud. “About time.”

Leaning across the center console, she stretched full out to reach, and patted her hand across the floor, blindly feeling for the glove. She scooped it up, then felt something … else? She stared, uncomprehendingly, at what items now lay in her hand. Her no-longer-missing black leather glove.