Truth Be Told (Jane Ryland) (32 page)

He steered the officer away from Jane, turning their backs, the two of them, heads together, conferring. Jane gave eavesdropping a valiant try, but failed.

Her phone buzzed in her back pocket, and she reached to grab it. Damn. Probably the city desk asking for updates. Which she should have already called in.
Poor Liz McDivitt.
What the hell was Liz doing here in the first place?

“We have company,” TJ said, pointing. Jane looked across the street as the Channel 3 news van pulled in.

“Damn,” Jane said. She hadn’t called the desk, and now their exclusive was about to disappear. She ignored the incoming call, figuring she’d pretend to be calling them first. She punched in the speed dial for the city desk, and all business, fed them the rundown in bullet points. Possible homicide, name, location. No ambulance or EMTs had emerged from the house yet, pretty clear indication someone was dead. Investigation underway.

“They haven’t notified her next of kin yet, so we can’t go with that name,” Jane told the desk guy.
Ha.
She’d done her job, called before they could call her. Another employment obstacle successfully avoided. “We can say—well, you know what to say. Channel 3 just showed up, more’s the pity, so if you want to post what we can on our breaking news site, that’d be good. More to come. ’Kay?”

She clicked off, watched some notebook-toting reporter she didn’t recognize lead her lumbering photographer to scout the bystanders. Jane would’ve worn flats to a scene like this, but that girl would learn. She didn’t miss TV.
Not at all.
Jane watched the blonde at work, almost unseeing, as she tried to sort out all she knew, tried to separate her sorrow and surprise from the rest of the story. Tried to stay objective. Tried to see the big picture.

Liz McDivitt. Bank employee, found in an empty house. Shandra Newbury, real estate broker, found dead in an empty house. Did the two victims know each other? Elliot Sandoval was under arrest for killing Shandra Newbury—but he sure as hell had an alibi for Liz McDivitt.

Did that matter? Did it mean the two were not connected? Did it prove—somehow—that Elliot Sandoval was innocent?

Jane grabbed her phone, punched in the website for the county registry of deeds, looked up the records for the house where Liz was found. And there it was—proof the neighbor she’d interviewed had it right. Sixteen Kenilworth was sold in foreclosure. Just like the house on Waverly Road. It was impossible to read the entire series of ownership transfer documents on her phone. Blurred images of already blurred copies partially displayed on a tiny cell phone screen were making her eyes cross—but she’d make a printout as soon as she got back to the
Register.

If it mattered. Lots of houses were in foreclosure. But in the past week, police found murder victims inside two of them.

Different banks, though. Did that matter? Maybe it had nothing to do with foreclosure. Maybe they were simply empty houses. After all, what better place to kill someone?

Jane stood on the flagstone path, staring at the vacant home. A trio of moths fluttered around the glass panels of the brass porch lamp, frantic, unable to resist the lure of the light. Their tiny shadows danced on the white vinyl siding.

She tried to lose herself in the story, envision what might have happened, make a mental movie of it, watch it unfold. Liz walking up the path to the porch. Arriving at the door, the porch light—had it been on then? Translucent curtains cover the window. Liz can’t see inside, even hours earlier in daylight. Was someone already there, waiting? For her? The door opens.

Why would Liz have gone in? Was she meeting someone? Who? Who had the key? Liz? Or the “someone”? Liz was in love, that was clear at the interview. But murders weren’t about love. They were about hate. Or fear. Or power.

Did someone hate Liz McDivitt? Or fear her? Or need to control her? Or was she in simply the wrong place at the wrong time?

The front door of the house opened, Jake came back onto the porch. The young officer, arms folded in front of her chest, appeared a shoulder width behind him. Jane signaled TJ
, finally,
twirled a finger in the “roll tape” sign.

But Jake went back inside. What the hell was going on? Jane shrugged, waved TJ off. The TV blonde was still working the crowd, hadn’t even approached the porch to check with the cops. Poor thing. The eleven o’clock news was looming. Jane felt that deadline, after all these years, without even checking her watch.

But for Jane, this night was about Liz McDivitt.

Jane sighed, trapped where she was until Jake emerged again. It wasn’t her job to solve this crime, of course, but she couldn’t resist. This was more than a news story. Liz McDivitt was someone she knew. It felt almost like her
responsibility.

More frustrating, if she told Victoria Marcotte about the connection, would she be yanked from this story, too? But Liz had been Chrystal Peralta’s source.

Maybe Liz hadn’t been killed here. Maybe that happened somewhere else, and the bad guy stashed her in this empty house, figuring no one would ever go inside. How would they know that? Who would have a key? Maybe no one had a key. Maybe, realizing the house was vacant, they’d broken in. Broken in? She nodded, envisioning how that could have worked, and all the evidence it would’ve left behind. Jake would know. And he could tell her.

Jane flipped through her notebook, checking for anything,
anything,
from Liz she might have missed.

Then she saw them.

The names of McDivitt’s clients, the names Liz had tried so diligently to protect, the names that Jane had already matched to phone numbers. And addresses. She ran a finger down the list, wondering if—no. None of them matched Kenilworth. Or Waverly. So much for that idea.

Still. Maybe the list was not worthless. If she were doing a story on Liz McDivitt, these names now provided instant interview prospects. Too late to call them now, but tomorrow she’d have a head start on everyone.

The door opened again. She watched Jake survey the street in front of him, one hand shading his eyes. He batted something away, probably one of the moths, its mothy plans disturbed by the lights and the people and the intrusion.

“I’m with you, moth,” Jane muttered. Not how she’d envisioned this evening, either.

Jake’s eyes locked on hers. He raised a palm, beckoned her toward him.

Finally. Now she’d get some answers.

47

What the hell was Jane’s phone number? Peter could instantly recite the number from his childhood home in Ithaca, which his mom insisted on calling Melrose 6-5175, and the number from his first apartment at Stanford, (312) 551-0104. Dianna’s, he’d never forget. Sometimes he still thought about calling her. But cell phones made it unnecessary to remember current numbers. There was no reason to remember, because they all were stored in the handy dandy phone. He hardly remembered his own.

As the green highway signs flashed by,
VISIT HISTORIC PLYMOUTH,
then
NEXT EXIT PEMBROKE,
he could picture his cell phone, right now, on Doreen Rinker’s scarred kitchen table. Where he—
idiot
—had left it more than an hour ago. He hadn’t even thought about the damn phone, had decided to zone out to NPR and give his brain a break on the way back to Boston. Eventually, mired in the as-promised hellish traffic, he realized he’d be amazingly late. Even later than he’d already warned Jane when he talked to her from Rinker’s house. He reached for his phone, in full denial as he patted every one of his pockets, anger growing as he kept the Jeep in the center lane by steering with one elbow, then, finally, accepting his loss. Jane’d be fuming. Or worried. Or both. There was no way to contact her.

Okay, not quite true. He could stop at a Burger King, or whatever joint was off the closest exit, and use the pay phone—did they still have those? He’d call 411—did they still have
that
?—get the number for the
Register,
and call her there. But that would make the whole ordeal take even longer, half an hour, no matter how efficiently it all happened. Maybe he should just try to get to Boston faster. He hit the accelerator and froggered into the fast lane, inciting a symphony of angry honking.

“Sorry, sorry,” he muttered, apologizing to the universe in general. Thing was, he needed the damn phone. Not only was Jane’s number stored in it, but Thorley’s, and the police lockup, and Sandoval’s, and Jake Brogan’s.
Technology.
He reconsidered. The technology worked okay, he had to admit. It was his brain that was failing.

The traffic parted, because the universe runs on irony, and the concrete barriers strobed by, highway signs taunting him with the geographical reality.
Boston, thirty miles.
That meant now it would take about as long to get to Boston as it would to get back to the Cape. Point of no return.

He could turn around, go back, get the phone, and then call Jane. Maybe cancel the whole thing, since it’d be far too late for dinner—or anything—by the time he went back across the bridge to Sagamore and retrieved the phone—if Doreen Rinker was even home!—and drove back to Boston.

He was an idiot. Jane would never forgive him. Well, she would, of course, to her it was only dinner. The real source of his frustration, he admitted, he’d hoped this dinner might lead to more than business. So much for that idea. He needed the damn phone.

Decided, then. Peter swerved off the highway, veered right onto the off-ramp, made the loop past the deserted BK, where a forlorn sign promised Two-fer Tuesdays, decided against the seedy gas station Dunkins’, and headed back toward Sagamore. He needed his phone. No faster way to get it than to retrieve it himself.

The glowing numerals on the dashboard clock clicked forward, underscoring his defeat. Gordon Thorley was in custody. Elliot Sandoval was in custody. The only good thing that had happened to Peter in years was about to be disappointed in him.

What else could go wrong?

*   *   *

“I’ve got nothing more for you.” Jake needed to go back inside the Kenilworth house, get his own eyes on the situation. What Canfield had described was the definition of a frigging can of worms, but he was trapped on the porch. Like some kind of news target, with him the center mass.

Jane had commandeered the top step of the porch, manning the front lines, stationed against the spindly wrought-iron railing. TJ, whose shouldered camera might as well be his weapon, hovered behind her on the closest flagstone, and that new reporter from Channel 3, Kimberly something, led the charge of the new arrivals. The picture of high-heeled determination, microphone in hand, camera guy keeping up, hot to score whatever news tidbit Jake could be convinced to offer. If it’d been just Jane on the story, he might be able to slip her something—how could he not? But two reporters, that changed the equation. What he told one, he’d have to tell the other. And the answer to that, now, was absolute zero.

“Nothing,” he repeated. Jane would never accept this, but protocol was protocol. Especially since they were not alone. “You’ll have to call headquarters.”

“Jake, are you kidding me? Nothing?” Jane clamped her hands to her hips, giving him that look. She paused, and for a moment, her voice softened. “Did I—are we—is there something—?”

“For
either
of you,” Jake cut her off, pointing to the other reporter. She had to understand this wasn’t personal, even though she apparently—wisely—suspected he was annoyed over Peter. But this was only business. “See what I mean? Looks like you’ve got some competition. Two reporters makes a news conference. News conferences are handled by HQ.”

“Listen. Jake.” Jane’s voice was low, and she took one step toward him, grabbed his arm, just for an instant. The TV crew was almost upon them. “Listen. I get what you’re doing, and okay. It’s business. But you know this must be connected to Waverly Road, right? Two empty houses? Doesn’t it have to be? You know?”

“That’s one conclusion.” Jake shook his head. What Officer Canfield had told him about Elizabeth McDivitt’s death was a disaster in the making, if you asked him, and no way he could tell Jane about it. Besides the other reporter would potentially hear everything he said. “I’m not sure I’d draw the same one, but I’m sure you know best.”

He paused, making sure both reporters were paying attention. Two camera lenses aimed at him, but he could see the red tally lights were off. For now, they were all playing by the rules.

“Ladies and gentlemen, we’re done here,” Jake announced. “You know the phone number for downtown.”

Jake put his hand on the wooden doorknob. The questioning beams of Crime Scene’s flashlights crisscrossed the empty room inside, scanning for whatever secrets might be left behind. Maybe Liz McDivitt could give him some answers.

*   *   *

If Jake was going to be such a pill, Jane thought, she’d have to handle this another way. She understood he was constrained by the rules, especially since yet another TV crew had pulled in, onlookers shifting and elbowing and whispering, the local-celebrity news crews just as fascinating as the story they’d arrived to cover.

Spindly masts of the two microwave vans extended skyward, section by section, poking up through the sidewalk trees, snowing crabapple blossoms to the pavement. Both stations would be broadcasting live at eleven, and at that journalism Rubicon, so much for the
Register
’s exclusive. After eleven, anything Jane wrote for the paper was instantly outdated and stale. All she had in her arsenal, the only thing that could make headlines, was to dig up something exclusive. Something the electronic media didn’t know. Something like that list of names. And the knowledge that Liz had a boyfriend. It was a start.

Her phone buzzed again, reminding her she’d ignored the last call. But that was from the desk, so there was no message. It had to be Peter, who, of course, was not dead but simply late. When she had a brain cell available, she’d have to examine that episode. She’d escalated her panic about Peter to the point she truly envisioned him dead, murdered, in this house on Kenilworth Street. When, truth be told, nothing was more unlikely. Where had all that anxiety come from? And why?