Truth Be Told (Jane Ryland) (30 page)

“I see you.” She sat down again, preparing her defenses.
It’s never a good thing when the copy desk calls.
She hoped Nick needed some advice, or a phone number, and was not thinking of sending her on some story. She was off the clock, technically, dammit. No way, this time of night, she was going to—

She paused, regrouping, finding her team player voice. No need to be upset about an imaginary assignment. “Yeah, I’m here. What’s up?”

“We’ve got a possible homicide,” Nick said. “Over on Kenilworth? You know? Over by where the Southeast Expressway comes into Albany? Half a mile from here.”

Jane pictured it, the highway ramp with its craggy overpass, graffiti-emblazoned with indecipherable gang tags and farfetched cartoon faces, the entryway to the iffy neighborhood on the outskirts of Boston. Peter had just been driving on the Southeast Expressway. Must have been.

Could he have—stopped somewhere? On the way here? That’s why he was late? And now, what if Peter was—she swallowed, reconnoitering. She glanced at her cell. No messages. If the phone had rung, she’d have awakened before now. Where was Peter?
Possible homicide? Peter?

“Any details?” She was almost afraid of the answer. But whatever happened had already happened. “Do we know anything?”

“That’s why we’re sending you.” Nick’s tone allowed no room to argue. “Right now. TJ will meet you there. Let us know, soon as you can. We’re holding the front page.”

44

Footsteps on the basement stairs.
Footsteps?
Fourth step from the top always creaked.
There it was.

Jake stopped, tucked the file under one arm, listened. His mother was still out, so who—? He hovered his right hand over his weapon. Diva came to all fours, woofed.

“Oh hush, dog.” Gramma Brogan’s voice floated down the stairs, followed by chunky black shoes, then black yoga pants, then an oversized white shirt and a cropped bob of silver hair. One of Grandpa’s shirts, Jake knew. She still wore them, at least on her casual days. “Jake, are you still down there, dear?”

Jake took his hand away from the Glock.
Shooting Gramma Brogan.
All he needed.

“Yes, Gramma. I’m here.” Jake watched her take the last of the steps, hand on the banister, a suddenly dutiful Diva trotting over to prove she was on the case. Jake gave his grandmother a quick hug, a careful hug, felt like she was getting smaller every time he put his arms around her. She still smelled sweetly powdery, same as she had as long as Jake could remember. What was she doing here? This late?

“I didn’t know you were—,” Jake began.

“Your mother called.” She scratched Diva behind the ears. “Good dog. Now shoo.”

“Mother called you at this time of night?”

“She knows I don’t sleep, dear. It’s only nine thirty. I’ll be home in time for
CSI.
But she told me, in no uncertain terms, I was to derail your ‘obsession’ with Ewan’s files.”

Jake shook his head as Gramma went on, pointing and gesturing in a perfect imitation of her daughter-in-law.

“‘Get him away from Lilac Sunday,’ your mother said to me. ‘It’s haunted this family long enough.’” Gramma stood on tiptoe, holding on to Jake’s arm, pecked him on the cheek.

The Carley Marie case file was under his other arm, plain sight. There was no hiding from Gramma: Jake first learned that during the cigarette episode of 1992. And then the beer thing. He’d have to come clean and hope she wasn’t upset.

“I’m happy to see you, Gram,” Jake started again. “But—”

“But what, dear? I never told your mother I would stop you. In fact, I came to help, if I can.” She waved a hand, dismissive. “As if she could make Lilac Sunday go away by
ignoring
it.”

She took a deep breath, fingered the white collar of her shirt. “That’s why Ewan kept these files, you know? For someone exactly like you. Your grandfather told me, again and again, there was something he must have missed. Some truth that escaped him. That’s why I insisted we keep them, even after he … well, he never got over it.”

She stopped, her expression softening as she gestured toward the basement stairs. “Sometimes, before he got sick? He’d sit on that bottom step for hours, right there, turning and turning the pages in some file. Broke my heart.”

She paused, looked up at Jake. “And his.”

“I know, Gram.”

The air conditioner kicked on, a low hum cutting through the silence. Diva growled, then went back to sleep.

Gramma poked at the file under his arm. “So,
Detective.
The Brogans are on the case again.”

“Both of us now, I guess.” Jake held out the paperwork. “Is this the same file?”

Gramma took it, wrapped both arms around it, held it to her chest. Closed her eyes, briefly. Jake watched the manila rise, then fall. She wore her gold wedding band, still, on her left hand. Grandpa’s matching ring hung from a thin gold chain around her neck. Jake saw it first at his funeral, back in 2000. Since then, in sweats or in sapphires, Gramma wore that necklace.

“It’s Lilac Sunday, coming up, less than a week. Seeing the poor girl’s parents again. It’s so—so very sad.” She handed the file back. “Yes, this is it. Did you find something?”

“Possibly, Gram,” Jake said. “I hope so. Listen—the name Gary Lee Smith? Does it ring a bell?” He risked it. “Or Gordon Thorley?”

Gramma thought, fingers to her chin, then shook her head. “I’m sorry, honey. It doesn’t. I don’t really know anything, except that you need to keep looking. For Carley Marie’s family, of course. And for your grandfather. He’d be so proud of—”

Her voice caught, and she pressed her lips together. “Sorry,” she whispered. “I love you, Jakey. He did, too.”

“I love you, too, Gram,” Jake said. He hugged her again, remembering, with the clarity of a photograph, the two of them together, his steely-haired grandfather in that uniform, his white-gloved wife standing beside him. Grampa had let Jake try on his—way too big—navy blue police hat. “Now, go home. You’ve done your duty, right? I’ll tell Mom you tried to convince me. And you’ll be the first to know if we find something. I promise.”

“She means well, you know,” Gramma said, patting his arm. “She just wants you to have a life. Outside of the BPD.”

“I do have a life,” Jake said. Would Jane ever meet Gramma? How could that happen? “Right now, though, she’s—it’s somewhat complicated.”

Gramma put a hand on the banister, took the first step up. Turned to him. “Don’t ‘complicate’ your life away, Jakey,” she said. “Grampa would want you to be happy. With whoever ‘she’ is.”

Jake shook his head. “Complicated” was an understatement. “Bye, Grams.”

He heard the fourth step creak, then the footsteps stopped. He looked up to see Gramma’s face peering over the wooden railing, a silhouette edged with the dim light of the stairwell.

“Don’t you give up,” she said. “It’s never too late for the truth.”

*   *   *

Jane saw the blue lights glaring off the houses and parked cars, making spidery shadow patterns with the darkened branches of the trees along Kenilworth Street. Heard the sirens screaming, even before she saw the cop cars careen around the corner and onto the narrow one-lane street. Two black-and-whites landed with their front wheels up and onto the sidewalk, apparently the first on the scene. A uniformed officer hopped out of one cruiser, siren still wailing, posted herself at the open front door of 16 Kenilworth. Three more cops went though the open door, weapons pointed ahead.

“Police!” one called. No answer. They disappeared from view.

As Jane ran closer, she saw lights flip on inside, moving, somehow. Flashlights, maybe. Silhouettes flickered through sheer curtains covering the front windows. No cars in the paved driveway, no furniture on the porch. No ambulance.

“Hey, TJ,” she said. He must have just gotten here, too. She waved at the house. “Anything? You get that? The cops all rushing in?”

“Nada.” TJ let out a sigh. “Sorry, Jane. I got here fast as I could, but missed that. Can’t win ’em all.”

“No worries,” she said. Her TV instinct craved the action video of police arriving, but it didn’t matter in her new life. A newspaper story—even multimedia—still relied on words.

TJ’s denim work shirt, unbuttoned, was open in the front, Red Sox T-shirt showing, tossed over jeans and his running shoes. Baseball cap backward, his little camera on his shoulder. “I’ll roll off some shots of the house, exteriors, then come back, see what we can piece together.”

He stepped toward the yellow police tape, then turned back to Jane, gesturing down the sidewalk. One after the other, front doors were opening, people coming outside. They trotted down their front walks, and clustered at the curb, gawking. Speculating. Whispering to each other. “Unless you wanna do a man-on-the-street?”

Bystanders were out in force, Jane saw. A perfect selection of men on the street. MOS, they called it. And not just men. It was a sidewalk full of the curious, answering the siren song of the sirens, dressed in whatever they’d been wearing at nine thirty on a May night, teenagers in T-shirts and flip-flops, one guy in a suit, a woman with a trench coat belted over the lacy hem of an obvious nightgown.

Maybe one of them knew what’d happened. Knew who lived there, or—or something. Anything.

She looked back at the house. The front door was closed now. No gunfire, no more yelling. Sirens off. Whatever happened was over.

Jane had called Peter’s cell from the car on her way here, but no answer. The disembodied voice mail freaked her out a little, her imagination so out-of-control disconcerting she almost clicked it off before she left a message.

“Checking in,” she’d said, keeping her voice calm. No use to panic. It was just as likely he’d stopped for gas, or even pulled over for coffee and then fallen asleep. She’d done that, after all. There was utterly no reason to believe this victim was Peter, except for her own too-vivid imagination.

“Hoping everything is okay,” she allowed herself to say, because anyone would. “Call me, okay? I got sent on a story. I’m on my cell.”

She shook her head as she hung up, her concern spiraling as the time ticked by. Why hadn’t Peter called? She was incredibly worried, exhausted, and discombobulated—and now she had to cover a story.

“Yeah, let’s do that,” Jane said to TJ. “MOS, good idea.”

She scanned for faces that looked interested, or engaged. She wanted someone who actually knew something, not just some blowhard showoff trying to get their name in the paper. She chose the thirty-something man wearing a Nantucket cap and what looked like hospital scrubs. He’d made eye contact with her, and hadn’t grimaced at the camera. And his cap was bill forward, so he wasn’t a kid.

“Sir? I’m Jane Ryland from the
Register,
” she began as she and TJ approached. “Do you know who lives over there? Any idea what happened?”

The man frowned. “I’d prefer not to give my name.”

“Great, fine,” Jane said. It didn’t matter, for this interview, who he was, and it was often better to ask for names afterward, anyway, after the subject understood her questions were benign. “So, sir? Any idea who lives in that house?”

She cocked her head toward it, although there was clearly only one house anyone cared about. The one with the yellow tape and the cops in the front.

“Now, you mean?” the man said.

“Now?” Jane was tired, she knew that, but now as opposed to when? Of course now. “Uh, yeah. Now.”

“No one,” the man said.

*   *   *

“DeLuca’s still off, Sherrey’s out of pocket somewhere, everyone else would be double time.” Superintendent Rivera himself on the phone, calling Jake, was cop shorthand for
don’t even think about complaining
. “That puts you in the driver’s seat,” Rivera had told him.

Which was precisely where Jake was now—Grandpa’s files in the console of his cruiser—speeding to primary a DOA on Kenilworth. Not where you’d expect to find a murder victim, Jake thought, careening around the corner onto Huntington. He’d take the shortcut over the T tracks by Diva’s old digs, the MSPCA, and then get to the little collection of narrow streets behind the VA hospital. Not much ever hit the cops’ radar in that peaceful neighborhood, maybe an occasional wintertime battle when a visitor, clueless to local rules, usurped a shoveled-out parking place. This time of year the disputes sputtered over loose dogs, or kids playing Frisbee in the street. The occasional package swiped from a front porch, or a student whose parents panicked when little Jimmy didn’t show up at school. Usually they discovered the lure of a spring day had been too irresistible, and little Jimmy was found someplace like the Arboretum, or hanging out at the CVS, pilfering candy bars.

Jake blasted lights and sirens, just in case, but if anyone had died, it’d be natural causes, he predicted. Some of the houses there had been owned by the same folks for years. Other homes had turned over, like everywhere, old-timers dying and being replaced by yuppies and boomers, or sometimes losing their homes in the foreclosure blight that had fingered every part of the city.

He snapped off the siren, turned onto Kenilworth. Realized with dismay he wasn’t even close to the first to arrive. Place was crawling with cop cars. Why was the Supe so hot on him being there, too? Maybe the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing. Wouldn’t be the first time.

Someone had unspooled crime scene tape across the yard of number 16, one uniform, a woman, stationed at the edge of the wood-railed porch. He hoped someone was canvasing door to door. Crime Scene was here, too, but no ME vehicle, and no ambulance. Not exactly by the book.

On the sidewalk, another surprise. A clutch of onlookers in various stages of dress—or not—and right in the middle, under that street lamp, the unmistakable silhouette of Jane Ryland. How’d she get here before he did?

He clenched his fingers around the steering wheel, stalling, even though there was no way to stall and no way to avoid any of what was ahead. Slamming the car door harder than was probably warranted, he kept his head down and headed toward the house and the uniform who could give him the lowdown on the scene.