Could Phoebe and Phillip be Ricker’s children? Could he know about the baby? The Lussier name was a snag, but one step at a time. There had been no father’s name on the foster paperwork, but Gunnison had explained that was often murky.
Jake envisioned a boozy quarrel, or some beef about money. Whatever it was wound up with one dead wife on the kitchen floor and two kids in another room playing with teddy bears. And maybe a third kid.
“Dependents?” Ricker said.
Jake imagined the rest of the Callaberry scenario. In one ironic burst of fatherly instinct, Ricker had used his cell phone to call nine-one-one, anonymously reporting his own crime but protecting his children. Had he also grabbed Brianna’s purse and paperwork? Only someone familiar with her would know where she kept it.
Everything fit. If they could link Ricker to Brianna through the children, they’d have their domestic, exactly as he and DeLuca predicted. Ricker’s fingerprints were in the probation records. If the medical examiner or the crime scene techs came up with latents, they could compare them. They could order a paternity test and subpoena the cell phone, easy enough. They could compare Ricker’s blood with what Kat McMahan found on the kitchen floor. When they got it, this guy could go away for a long time.
But first they’d need probable cause. Jake checked Ricker for Band-Aids. None visible. They needed more evidence before they could call in the lab techs and order the noose-tightening tests.
“Yeah, dependents,” Jake said. “Children who might rely on you for support.”
Ricker seemed to be contemplating.
“Not that tough a question,” DeLuca said.
“No,” Ricker said. “No dependents.”
“Ah,” DeLuca said, sounding as disappointed as Jake felt.
Finding the truth is never easy, his Grandpa Brogan had warned him. But a good cop doesn’t need easy.
“One more thing, sir,” Jake said. “We have you as previously married to a Brianna Tillson. Who at one point filed a 209a against you?”
“Restraining order,” DeLuca said.
“Old news,” Ricker said. “Does that make a difference in-?”
“Last time you saw her was?” Jake risked pushing him a bit.
“Man, I don’t even remember. Listen, I gotta take a leak,” Ricker said, cocking his head toward the back. “Mind? You guys want some water or something?”
“No, thanks,” Jake said. “We’ll wait right here.” This guy was still expecting a windfall. He wasn’t going to bolt. Even though he’d made a quick exit after the mention of Brianna Tillson. As he left the room, Jake saw the outline of the cell phone in Ricker’s back pocket.
DeLuca jerked a thumb at it. “Bummer,” he muttered.
“You’re not half as bummed as this guy’s gonna be,” Jake said.
Curtis Ricker’s day was about to crash and burn.
Jane’s fingers were ice. But things were definitely looking up. Her hamburger had still been hot when she’d returned to the pub, and now, down the block, she could see there was no ticket on her car. Best of all, star-struck Finn had given Jane the victim’s name, Brianna Tillson. Of course he thought she already knew it. With that knowledge, any good reporter could dig up background, come up with a revealing personal profile and a headline story. Take that, layoffs.
Her cell buzzed somewhere deep in her purse.
Tuck?
Or Alex, wondering where she was. Giving him the scoop on Tillson would be fun.
She paused on the sidewalk, hunching her shoulders in the cold, rooted for her buzzing phone. Caller ID was blocked. She punched the green square with a bare finger.
“Hello?”
“Don’t even think about Brianna Tillson,” the voice said. “Let alone put her name in the paper. You saw what happened to her? You see the blood on the floor? Pretty terrible, huh? She didn’t know enough to shut up. You? I bet you do.”
“Who is this?” This was a pretty stupid move. The caller’s number would be right in her cell now. Findable. Traceable. Unless he-he?-had a burner phone. “Who are you calling?”
“Right.” The voice-a man? Finn? But he didn’t have her cell phone number-was hollow, muffled. “Forget about the murder. Got me? Say yes, and we’re done.”
A chill went up Jane’s back, colder than the darkening afternoon. She looked around, up into the fogged office windows, across the street at a silhouette in the front seat of an idling car, over at the straggle of pedestrians hurrying down Cambridge Street.
Every person she saw was on a cell phone.
Was one of them talking to her? Was there a way to tell? Here she had a-killer, maybe-on the phone. Area A-1 police station a block away. A slew of cops almost within yelling distance. Yet it didn’t make a bit of difference. The guy hangs up, the guy disappears.
“You know you’re talking to a reporter, right?” Her voice came out more confident than she felt. “Is there something you can tell me? I can keep it confidential. You know I can.”
“Confidential I don’t need. Quiet’s what I need. You. Keeping quiet.”
“Listen, I can help you make a deal.” Dammit. This was someone who knew about Brianna Tillson’s murder. How would he know to call her? Well, she’d written the bylined story for this morning’s paper. That narrowed it down to everyone who read the newspaper. Wonderful. “I know people in the po-”
“Police department?” A derisive laugh. “I. Don’t. Think. So. This is call number one, Jane. You don’t want me to call you twice.”
29
Kellianne stopped in the doorway, her Tyvek suit snapped up to her neck, her blue mask dangling around her neck, gloves on, taking it all in. Kevin always made them suit up for the first entrance-she supposed that was logical, in case the person had died of, like, swine flu or something and was still contagious. Or if there was still a lot of… whatever… all over everything. Dead bodies had a kind of smell, she couldn’t really describe it. If there was blood and stuff, it was really hard to clean up. But that’s why they were here.
And easy to see, this house or condo or whatever was a complete gold mine. Enough stuff in this lady’s living room alone to-
“You coming, princess?” Kevin took a ring of keys from an envelope in the mailbox and jangled it at her like he was trying to wake her up. “Or are you going to stand there like a doof while we check this place out?”
Kevin looked like a snowman, wearing his white suit and booties in the middle of the plushy living room. Talk about a doof. Keefer, too. Doofs from Doof City. She couldn’t wait until… Funny how what was bad sometimes turned into what was good.
“Coming, jerk.” She snapped the blue mask over her mouth and nose and followed her brothers into the apartment, tried to remember to breathe the right way so her glasses wouldn’t fog up. She’d get contacts, too, when this was over. Green ones, maybe.
They padded down a thickly carpeted hallway, Kellianne checking out the floor-to-ceiling rows of baby pictures on the white walls. Kevin, nonstop talking, halted in an open doorway.
“Suffocated, with a pillow.” Kevin read from his stupid clipboard. Talking to Keefer, not to her. Per usual. Why didn’t he have to wear his stupid mask? “Somebody used tape and stuff to hold the pillow on. Or, maybe she did it herself.”
“Sick,” Keef said.
“Dead, right? Either way?” Kevin pointed his clipboard toward a big four-poster bed, the kind that seemed like it should have a canopy thing on top. But it didn’t. The bare mattress was showing, one of the shiny blue ones with silver stripes. “Happened in that bed, I guess. According to this, the cops took the sheets, and the pillow. Big time smell of death, right? So I say we’re gonna need-”