The Wrong Girl (31 page)

“Don’t even think about closing that frigging garage door.” Ricker spit out the words.

“Ricker.” Jake kept the weapon pointed at him. Kept his voice as calm as he could. Focused. “Where do you think this is gonna go, right? You’ve made a decision, now unmake it. Let her go, we can talk.”

“Talk about what?” Ricker said. Two more steps.

Kurtz had pressed her lips together, the tears still coming. Jake saw her eyes close, then open, looking at Ricker in panic.

“Jan, stay strong. You’re doing great.” Jake nodded at her, as if he believed it. Actually she was, given the situation. She certainly realized she was a split second from … “Curtis, listen to me. Look at me. We can talk about it.”

Jake knew Ricker could almost touch the van door. He made his arm into steel, his weapon an extension of his hand. The rest of the garage disappeared as Jake focused on one man. One moment. Waiting for his one chance.

“Last time we ‘talked,’ you arrested me for—who cares. We’re done.” Ricker yanked Kurtz another step toward the open van door. “We’re outta here.”

He’ll have to put Kurtz inside. There’ll be a moment when Ricker’s alone. His plan isn’t going to work. He’ll see that. And that’s when I’ll take the shot.

“Let her go, and I’ll drive you,” Jake said. “This is between you and me, Ricker. She’s a girl. You gonna take a girl? You don’t need this. Let her go.
I’ll
drive. I’ll drive you right out of here. Then we can talk.”

Ricker blinked. Jake saw the gun hand waver, just a fraction.

Almost enough.

“Ricker. This ain’t gonna work. You can’t get her into the car. You see that, right? You’re done.” Jake kept his weapon pointed at Ricker’s center mass. Steady. If Ricker freaked, didn’t mean Jake had to kill him. One more try. “Give her up. I’ll protect you.”

“Shit,” Ricker said.

“Yeah,” Jake said. Okay. This was going to be okay. Ricker was in deep trouble. But he wouldn’t be dead. And they could go from there. “Good call, Curtis. Now let her go.”

Jake saw Ricker’s arm drop—and in that fraction of a second, Kurtz leaped away, rolled across the grimy concrete floor, and disappeared under a parked crime scene van.

At the same instant, a blast of light and sound. Ricker buckled to the floor, a burst of bright red blooming in his chest. Jake heard the clunk of skull on concrete. Saw the red spill onto the gray.

“What the
hell
?” Jake whirled, lowering his weapon. “Who the…”

Behind him, Hennessey, red-faced and breathing like he’d just had a heart attack, still clenched his gun, now pointed at nothing. Behind him, a dozen cops rose to watch, like startled prairie dogs popping from their holes.

“Son of a bitch had it coming.” Hennessey’s chest rose and fell. “He can’t do that to my partner.”

*

“Did you get the feeling Ella was going rogue? By calling you and arranging the meeting?” Carlyn Beerman stabbed the dwindling fire with a metal poker, then added another split log. She’d listened as Tuck and Jane described their coffee shop discussion with Ella Gavin. An ember cracked, then popped in a flash of orange. Carlyn jumped back, then poked again. “Did you get the impression the Brannigan people knew about it? Maybe they sent her. To assess your reaction. See if you’d be angry.”

Jane shook her head, no, looked at Tuck for confirmation.

“Not at all,” Tuck said. She pushed the sleeves of her turtleneck up to her elbows, then pulled them down again. “That’s what was so … I don’t know. She’s a mouse of a girl, and seemed devoted to the Brannigan. But this was unauthorized. I thought, at least. She was nervous. She flipped out over the bracelet. Right, Jane?”

“Well, yeah. I didn’t stay the whole time, but when Tuck showed the bracelet, she freaked. All I can say. She had a whole pile of—Hey. Carlyn? Do you have a set of documents from the Brannigan? Wait, though.” Jane interrupted her own question. “Why’d you ask about Ella Gavin in the first place?”

“She called me. Today. This morning.” Carlyn looked at a shiny brass clock on the end table. “Gosh, a couple hours ago. She left a message.”

“Really?” Had Ella discovered something on her own? “So you know her? Did you keep the message?”

“Yes, but it won’t matter.” Carlyn set the metal fire screen back into place. “And no, I don’t know her. She didn’t say where she’s calling from. Or anything about the Brannigan. That’s why I was so surprised when you said her name.”

“Can you play the message for us?” Jane had to interrupt. Lillian Finch was dead. Niall Brannigan was dead. And clearly she and Tuck were right in the middle of whatever it was. Carlyn, too.

Had Ella been calling to warn Carlyn? Or to threaten her?

“On speaker? So we can all hear?” Tuck said.

“If you think it’ll help. I suppose. Phone’s in the kitchen.” Carlyn pointed. “That way.”

She led them through a chintz-draped dining room, billowing curtains, circular table covered in a muted scarlet cloth, a pot of spidery white chrysanthemums in the center. Into the kitchen, rubbed copper pans on cast-iron hooks, glass-fronted cabinets, seafoam green walls. In one corner, a bookshelf haphazardly stuffed with cookbooks, a to-do list tacked to a mini-bulletin board, and a tiny desk with a silver wall phone.

“Sit.” Carlyn gestured Jane and Tuck toward wicker stools beside the counter. She punched some buttons on the phone. “I’d been getting strange hang-ups today. Annoying. Probably telemarketers.”

Jane fired a look at Tuck behind Carlyn’s back,
told you so.

Tuck shrugged, waved her off.

“But this one, it didn’t sound like a telemarketer call. Frankly, I didn’t know what to make of it. And hadn’t deleted it yet.”

There was an amplified beep, then a whisper, and then a woman’s voice.

“Mrs., um. Miss, Beerman? I’m so sorry to bother you, I, this is Ella Gavin? I’m at the, well, um. I wonder if we might—If you have a chance, could you—”

Jane strained toward the phone, struggling not only to hear, but to understand what Ella was trying to say. Jane’s own phone rang, from somewhere deep in her tote bag, but she ignored it. Ella, her voice muffled and hesitant, seemed unable to finish a sentence. Jane thought she heard—music? And someone else’s voice?

“Oh, I’m so sorry. Yes, I know it’s starting. Mrs. Beerman, I guess this is not the time to—”

And then Ella hung up.

Carlyn punched a button on the phone console, and it went silent. “So you see. Or—hear. That’s why I probably looked like I’d seen a ghost when you mentioned the name,” she said. “So she’s from the Brannigan.”

“Sounds like she wanted to tell you something,” Jane said.

“Then didn’t,” Tuck said.

“It sounds as if she were interrupted.” Carlyn leaned against the kitchen counter, eyelet lace curtains covering the window behind her. The window framed lofty pine trees piercing a cloudless blue sky. “She calls, then you two show up. Is there something you want to tell me?”

“Well, no. I mean, yes,” Tuck said. “But it was just the—you know. Bracelet. So maybe that’s what Ella Gavin was calling about, too. To tell you they sent the wrong girl.”

“Or not.” Carlyn unlooped her filmy scarf, draped it around her shoulders. “I still have difficulty believing that. Even though I know the truth.”

“Question is, what did
she
know?” Tuck said. “Ella. And if it was all a mistake—which is really the only explanation, isn’t it?—did she know why it happened?”

“And now,” Jane said, “both people who brought you two together are dead.” Jane had driven here with Tuck only to support her in this uncomfortable situation. Now, “uncomfortable” seemed an understatement. “I mean, were Brannigan and Finch allies? Or antagonists? Or is it all simply coincidence?”

Carlyn fussed with the scarf again, this time winding it around her neck, then tying the fringed ends. “Tuck? Should we join forces? See if we can get to the bottom of this? Your real birth mother is out there, somewhere.”

Tuck nodded. “Yes, and I—”

“And my daughter, too.” Carlyn went on. “Somewhere. Maybe waiting for me.”

A flock of sparrows wheeled outside the kitchen window, fluttering the snow from the pine branches. In the silence, Jane couldn’t think of what to say. Both women had such a loose end in their lives. A missing connection.
Mom,
she thought.
Now that you’re gone, there’s a hole in the fabric of the universe. But at least we had our lives together.

“I may not be your mother, Tuck, but I can still be your friend,” Carlyn was saying. “How about a little surprise visit to the Brannigan? Together? And let’s just see who sent me the wrong girl.”

“And why.” Tuck nodded, almost smiling. “And yes. Together.”

Another riff of marimbas came from Jane’s tote bag. “Oh, sorry. I should probably take this call.”

Maybe it was Alex. She’d been feeling guilty, away from the office. Even though Alex had sent her away, she didn’t want him to think she was neglecting her job. Maybe he had a story assignment. Something she could be doing from home.
Ugh.
She should have thought of that.

But it wasn’t his photo on the screen. “Blocked,” it said.

“This is Jane.” She smiled, held up a palm at Carlyn and Tuck. Silly to answer the phone, but there it was. She could feel her smile fade as she listened.

“What?” Tuck leaned toward her, frowning as she watched. “You look like you’ve seen a—”

“Kind of dumb for you to leave home again,” the voice was saying. The same disturbing voice she’d heard two days ago on Cambridge Street after she’d left the Kinsale. Ominous. Hard. “Thought I made it clear you were to keep back from the Callaberry Street thing. Thought I told you I needed quiet. Okay, then,
Miss
Ryland. Are you all having fun out there in Connecticut? This is call number two.”

Jane stared at the now-silent phone.

“Who was that?” Tuck asked.

“Jane, are you all right?” Carlyn crossed to her, put a hand on her arm.

“I don’t know.” Jane answered both questions at once. She clenched the phone, white-knuckled, staring at the blank screen. The cat collar in her car. Her open door. The noise in the night. The phone calls.
Jake.
She had to call Jake.

“Is this day almost over?”

Jake needed another coffee, a couple thousand aspirin, a beer. And a vacation. Instead, he and DeLuca once again trudged up the front path of 343B Edgeworth Street, where Curtis Ricker used to live, trying to clean up someone else’s mess. Or maybe it was Jake’s own mess. Jake arrested Ricker for murder, and less than twenty-four hours later, Ricker was dead. Jake couldn’t shake the guilt.

“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.