“Well, now.” Jake clicked off the phone. Things were looking up.
“Funeral’s about to start.” D opened his door, looked at Jake. “What?”
“D? Guess who owns the duplex Curtis Ricker’s renting?”
“What is this, Jeopardy!?”
“Leonard Perl.”
“Leonard-”
“Perl. The absentee landlord who also owns Brianna Tillson’s building. The one who never called us back. The one from Fort Something, Florida, according to the crime scene cleanup-”
Jake stopped, mid-sentence. He stared out the windshield.
“Earth to Jake?”
“Hang on,” Jake held up a palm. “Hang on. I’ve gotta think for a minute.”
Jake watched the line of mourners, heads down, bundled in hats and scarves and heavy coats, filing along the sidewalk and up the broad front steps of All Saints. The winter sun glistened on the damp sidewalks and curbs, clumps of snow blowing down from tree branches once lined with white. All Saints’ celebrated carillon invited the mourners to “Abide with Me.”
A young woman, frizzy red hair, hunched into her coat and walking by herself. A tweed-coated tall guy in horn rims, escorting an elegant white-haired woman wrapped in a black fringed shawl and wearing a black veil. Could she be Ardith Brannigan, the wife? Jake didn’t relish approaching her.
The parade of mourners blurred as Jake stared past it all, now almost unseeing, envisioning the kitchen floor of Callaberry Street, the voice in the hallway, the request for the Afterwards crew to start their crime scene cleanup. And the puzzle pieces fell into place.
“Close your door,” Jake said. “Start the car. We’re gonna miss this funeral. Because someone else is about to get-”
“Detective Brogan, this is base,” a voice crackled over Jake’s radio. “Do you copy? What’s your twenty?”
“Copy.” Jake looked at D, inquiring. D shrugged. “Twenty” was shorthand leftover from the old days of police ten codes. A new dispatcher would have said, What’s your location? Jake imagined he could hear some kind of stress in dispatch’s voice, though they were trained to hide it.
“Harrison Street, two blocks from HQ,” Jake said.
“You’re needed at this location, Detective,” the dispatcher said. “Now.”
“At Lillian Finch’s house?” Ella struggled to understand what Wendy Nunziatta was telling her. Seated next to each other in one of All Saints’ carved wooden pews, the two had piled their coats and scarves beside them. Ella had barely made it home in time, racing into the shower, throwing on a black dress with only a little bit of cat hair on it. She pulled her cardigan close. No one would care how she looked.
Wendy worked in Collins Munson’s office at the Brannigan, and Ella was glad to have someone to sit with. Wendy was a yakker, kind of a gossip, everyone knew that, but in this case, what she was saying sounded interesting. In the front pew, Ardith Brannigan-Ella could see only the back of her black suit jacket, the black lace veil covering her silvery hair, and a white-gloved hand-accepted the condolences of a line of mourners.
Ella kept her voice low. Watched to make sure no one else was listening. “The police found Mr. Brannigan’s body at Ms. Finch’s house?”
“Yes.” Wendy covered her mouth with one hand, and leaned in closer to Ella, whispering. “Well, not in her house, of course, it was all locked up by the cops. But he was in his car. Outside her house. Across the street. And now, according to-well, anyway-now, the police are trying to figure out why he was there.”
“He was there, really?” Ella was having a hard time processing this. Niall Brannigan at Lillian Finch’s house? She was dead. Ella murmured, so only Wendy could hear. “But he had a heart attack, right? Oh, sorry.”
A couple Ella didn’t recognize edged in front of them in the pew, the woman’s paisley shawl dragging over Ella’s lap. Ella scooched against the back of the pew, pressing her knees to one side, until the couple finally settled in their seats.
“Well, he was there. That’s all I know. Can you believe it?” Wendy pulled a Kleenex from a little woven pouch, then unwrapped a yellow hard candy and popped it into her mouth. “So sad.”
Ella thought about how devoted Ms. Finch was to Mr. Brannigan. But after she died, he’d asked for the records on her last round of calls. Why? Ella, of course, had never actually delivered them because of-what happened. What if Mr. B. suspected Ms. Finch was sending people the wrong children? And feared she was putting his agency in legal jeopardy?
Or, wait. Ella picked up a leather-bound prayer book from the back of the pew in front of her and pretended to study a random page. She’d pretty much convinced herself Lillian Finch had committed suicide after she realized she’d made a mistake. But what if Mr. Brannigan had been the one in the wrong? And Ms. Finch threatened to tell what he had done?
“Do they know how Ms. Finch died?” Ella had to ask.
“No.” Wendy leaned in again, so close that Ella could smell butterscotch. “How weird is this, you know? Mr. Brannigan. Before that, just two days before, Ms. Finch. I actually think it’s a little scary.”
“Do you know if the police think they’re…” Ella began.
“Shh.” Wendy put a finger to her lips, frowning. “It’s starting. Hey. Sit down. Where’re you going?”
“I’ll be right back.” Ella put the prayer book on the pew to save her spot. She might regret this, but she might regret it more if she didn’t. “I have to make a phone call.”
53
“No, I’ve never seen that, either.” Carlyn Beerman was staring at the bracelet Tuck dangled between them. They sat side by side on a flowery couch, Jane in the wing chair. “It has your name on it? Tucker? And you say it was with you? When you were-given up?”
Crackling logs in a redbrick fireplace turned the scene fairy-tale perfect, but Jane knew what Tuck had just revealed was hardly the stuff of happy endings. Carlyn’s delighted greeting of Tuck, and her instant welcome to the sunlight-filled cottage, brought tears to Jane’s eyes.
She should have stayed out of it. Why was she always so compelled to help?
“Yes. The bracelet and note were attached to my blanket. That’s what my…” Tuck paused, and Jane could almost hear her selecting words. “… adoptive mother told me.”
Jane cradled her hot tea-chamomile, in a chunky earthenware mug-wishing she could be anywhere but a chintz chair in the Connecticut countryside hearing someone’s dreams get crushed. Carlyn had first been bewildered by the note Tuck described, and now the bracelet provided the coup de grace.
“I see.” Carlyn didn’t reach for the bracelet, kept her hands folded in her lap. “You’re sure.”
Tuck slid it back into the velvet drawstring bag. Tied the braided cord. Zipped it into her tote. Case closed. “I’m sure.”
Strange, watching the two of them, identical profiles, really, each with exactly the same arched eyebrows. Even the way they crossed their legs seemed similar, though Carlyn was all soft edges in a filmy lavender scarf and a crinkly ankle-length skirt, and Tuck her opposite in tight jeans tucked into sleek black boots. Carlyn’s graying hair, short and spiky, might have once been as dark as Tuck’s, even though Tuck’s was now that funny auburn. They certainly looked related. On the other hand, Jane hadn’t resembled her own mother at all.
“So that’s why we’re here, Carlyn.” Tuck’s voice wavered only a little. “The bracelet. And the note. I’m sorry to just show up. I didn’t want to tell you over the phone because it seemed so-I don’t know.”