Jane did know what being fired felt like. It happened to her last summer and the sting hadn’t quite gone away. So if Tuck needed her for something? She held out the glass and sat cross-legged on the couch. Least she could do was pour some wine and listen. “Okay, all ears.”
With Coda’s purr a rumbling underscore, Tuck spilled the details.
Jane’s reporter training switched into gear, assessing what could be wrong, or a coincidence, or a mistake. She ticked off her questions, finger to finger, as she did with every story she covered.
“So back at the beginning. You called the agency. Your mother told you which one?”
“Yes. ‘The Brannigan,’ they call it. Brannigan Family and Children Services. Ten years ago, when I first called, they told me all the records were sealed until my birth mother gave the okay to open them. A closed adoption, you know? Then I guess I tried to forget about it. I mean, I was eighteen, she might have been dead. Plus, I knew my mom-adoptive mother-wouldn’t love that I was looking.”
Tuck paused, rolled her eyes… “She’d have said, in that snarky voice she uses, ‘Why do you need another mother, Tucker dear? Am I not enough for you?’” She shrugged. “She’d probably still say that, even in her… condition. But she lives in Florida, she stayed in their condo thing after Dad died. So she’ll never know.”
“Condition? She’s…?” Jane searched for a way to ask. She missed her own mother every day. Poor Tuck.
“Yeah. Doctors say it won’t be long, and ah, I don’t know. I’m trying to deal with that, too. It’s hard.” She puffed out a breath, shook her head. “Anyway. Last week, after all that time, the Brannigan called to say they’d found my birth mother. It felt perfect, you know? With me and Laney serious, thinking of kids, and the last of my adoptive family almost gone? But now…” Tuck pulled the stretchy band from her ponytail, then twisted it back on. Took a sip of wine, carefully replaced her glass on the coaster.
She looked at Jane. “But now, even though I’m not at the paper anymore, I think I may be on to the story of my life.”
2
“Kurtz got here first. She’s got the two of ’em in her cruiser. See ’em? Parked out on the street?” The beat cop, a grizzled veteran Jake didn’t recognize, cocked his head toward the Roslindale triple-decker’s inside stairway. “Lucky my new partner likes kids. Looks pretty bad upstairs, gotta warn you, Detective Brogan. DeLuca’s already up there. Back room on the left, second floor. Crime Scene’s on the way. The ME. And family services. Snow enough for you?”
“It’s Boston, right?” Jake’s words puffed in the chill. He brushed now-melting flakes from his police-issue leather jacket, pulled out his BlackBerry for taking notes. He looked to the top of the stairs, scanning. Sniffed. Nothing. The entry door behind him was open, letting in the cold. Any smell was long frozen away.
“Door open when you got here, Officer Hennessey?” That’s what the cop’s badge said, R. Hennessey. Looked old enough to be a lifer, still on the beat.
Hennessey nodded. “They’re canvassing, seeing if anyone saw anybody leaving. So far, no.”
“And there are two kids? Whoever called nine-one-one wasn’t clear. We know who that is yet? I have the kids as last name-” Jake checked his BlackBerry shorthand. His phone always ridiculously auto-corrected. “Is it Lussier?”
“So says the nine-one-one caller.” Hennessey, a stocky fire hydrant zipped into foul-weather gear, flapped his leather gloves against his BPD navy parka. “Wish we could close the damn door.”
At least Hennessey knew enough not to touch the scarred wooden doorknob of 56 Callaberry Street. There was barely room for the two of them in the cramped square of dark-paneled foyer. The dusty bare light bulb overhead didn’t cut it, and the one on the first landing was out.
“So, the kids? Don’t they know their mother’s name?”
“We asked. ‘Mama,’ the boy said. Their own names, he knew. Phillip and Phoebe. What kind of a name is Phoebe?”
“Hennessey?” Commentary, he didn’t need. “How many kids? The nine-one-one call indicated-”
“Apparently two. Maybe the caller meant three people resided here, ya know?” Hennessey shrugged. “We found a boy and a girl, approximately one and three years of age. Weren’t crying or anything when Kurtz brought them down. Guess maybe they don’t know. Victim’s their mother, looks like, white female, age approximately thirty. Checking her ID now. Cause of death, looks like blunt trauma. No weapon so far. Like I said. Ugly. Frying pan, something like that.”
“So says-?” Jake raised an eyebrow. It wouldn’t have been Kurtz, the officer who had the kids in her cruiser. She was new on the street, just promoted from cadet, now evidently partnered with Hennessey. The ME was still on the way.
“So says your partner, DeLuca.” Hennessey lifted his plastic-covered cap with one hand, propping it while he scratched a bristle of gray hair. “Guess he’d know. You two the big-time detectives and all.”
Here we go. All he needed. Yes, his grandfather, Grandpa Brogan, had been police commissioner. Yes, Jake got his gold badge at thirty, three years ago. Jake had aced the academy, probably gotten higher scores than this guy. Still, even cracking last fall’s Bridge Killer case, getting the commendation from Superintendent Rivera, hadn’t stopped the sneers from the old-timers. “The Supe’s fair-haired boy,” they called him. Whatever.
Jake ignored the bait. “So the nine-one-one caller? Any ID? I know we’ll have it on tape, but anything else I should know?”
“Yo, Harvard, that you?” Paul DeLuca’s voice boomed down the stairwell. “You planning on coming up here anytime soon?”
“Chill,” Jake yelled back. Jake’s college history and Brahmin mother were a constant source of amused derision for his partner, though after a few close calls together and a couple of massacres on the basketball court, their relationship had matured into respect and good-natured banter. Jake held two thumbs over his phone keyboard. “So, Officer Hennessey? Anything? Sign of forced entry? Anyone else live in the apartment? Husband, boyfriend, the nine-one-one caller?”
“Nope. Nobody’s owning up. Neighbors all say it wasn’t them. Mighta been a blocked cell, ya know?”
Calling from a cell phone, Jake knew, didn’t give dispatchers a GPS location. Enhanced 911 often worked only from a landline.
“Cell phone nine-one-ones are a bitch,” Jake said. “Keep at the canvass, though, right?”
Hennessey’s eyes went past him and out to Callaberry Street, where a gray-and-blue cruiser idled, plumes of exhaust darker gray than the darkening afternoon.
“Poor kids,” the beat cop said. “They’re screwed.”
3
“The woman from the agency said my name is Audrey Rose Beerman, can you believe it?” Tuck laced her fingers together, clamped them on top of her head. “It’s an okay name. But I don’t feel like an Audrey Rose Beerman.”
Jane took a sip of her Diet Coke, not quite sure how to react. What did Tuck want her to do?
“Maybe it’s all about what we’re used to. How we see ourselves.” Plain Jane, Jane the Pain-the nicknames Jane’d been saddled with as a bookish kid in the relentless social hierarchy of Oak Park Junior High had sent her to name-fantasy world. Anything but Jane. For a while she’d wished to be Evangeline, courageous girl of the forest. Then Hyacinth, all flowy skirts and poetry. Her mother chose “Janey” when affectionate, “Jane Elizabeth” when making one of her pronouncements. As in “Jane Elizabeth Ryland is a perfectly good name. Evangeline is ridiculous.”