“Another disaster successfully averted. Let’s go get my car,” Jane said. “Geez. I hate this stuff.”
She sighed, pulling on her seat belt as TJ eased his van around the wide asphalt driveway, past a stand of lofty poplars and banks of pale hydrangeas subtly spotlighted by hidden fixtures. The Liz situation haunted her. Cop or not, she would call Jake tomorrow. This had to be connected to the death of Shandra Newbury. Jake must know it, too.
From inside the depths of her tote bag, her phone beeped.
“Like I said.” TJ pointed. “Someone wants you.”
Two messages, according to the little green 2. Jane looked at the phone number of the first one, not a Boston area code, not a number she recognized. She punched the message. Hit play.
“Jane, it’s Peter Hardesty,” he said. “Tonight did not go as plan-huh?”
Jane listened to the rest of the message, Peter explaining about the Cape and obviously talking to someone else at the same time. Okay, then. At least he was fine.
She hit the second message, from a different number, this one a Boston area code.
“It’s Peter,” the voice buzzed, and this time Jane could hear honking in the background. “It’s uh, late, long story, I just left the Cape and-hang on.”
Jane laughed, envisioning it. He was driving? Still on the Cape? At this hour? She could stop worrying, about that at least, and this ridiculous night was almost over.
“What’s funny?” TJ said. “You laughed.”
“Did I?” Jane held up a palm, putting TJ on hold as she listened to the rest of Peter’s message.
“I got your message, thanks, looks like both of us have had unexpectedly complicated nights. Anyway. I’m in traffic again,” Peter was saying. “I’ll explain tomorrow, okay? And just to prove I’m-well, the Sandoval arraignment is tomorrow at ten. Suffolk Superior.”
Peter’s voice paused again, and Jane stared out the windshield into the glare of the streetlights and the dark storefronts along Route 9. Poor Liz McDivitt.
“And I owe you dinner, Jane, okay?” Peter said. “On me.”
A buzz and a click. The message was over.
Jane stashed the phone in her bag and watched the streetlights and shadows play over TJ’s face. It was easy to forget, in the hustle and the deadlines and the competition, that news stories were about real people. She half-smiled, hearing the voices of every j-school teacher and news director repeating the same thing. The truth was not always easy, and not always pleasant, and not always fair, but it was her job to tell it, no matter what. No matter whose life had intersected with hers-Liz McDivitt’s, or Peter Hardesty’s, or Elliot Sandoval’s.
Even Jake’s. Nothing mattered except what was true.
Jake stared at the streaked hardwood floor of the empty living room, the last to leave 16 Kenilworth, imagining it.
Elizabeth McDivitt, the bank president’s daughter. Jake tried to put together the pieces of what happened, and decide what his own next moves might be. Liz McDivitt was gone, the ambulance was gone, and the press was gone, thankfully, without bugging him any further. The rest of the cops had packed up their crime scene stuff and headed out. The Supe had set a strategy session for the investigating officers-him, and Sherrey, Roslynne Canfield as backup, and someone from the bank to give them an all-access pass-to begin at 0900.
The Sandoval arraignment was still set for ten, Suffolk Superior Court, newbie judge Mavis Rockland presiding over what had now become quite the legal balancing act. The Supe was conferring with the DA right now, Jake had been told, and they were all on standby until given the plans.
He walked toward his cruiser, through the now-silent neighborhood, past darkened windows and drawn curtains, not even the bark of a restless dog, as if nothing had happened, the glimmer of red alarm lights in parked cars and the occasional glow from a television screen the only indication anyone even lived here.
Television. Jane.
He stopped, closed his eyes for a fraction of a second, imagining their next encounter. What would he say about the Peter thing? She had a perfect right to see whoever she wanted, he was simply surprised it happened so fast. Don’t complicate your life away, Gram had said. Too late.
Six hours till the Supe’s meeting. He slid behind the wheel of his cruiser. A few triangles of white paper stuck out from inside the center console, Grandpa’s Lilac Sunday file from the basement of 243. Because of Lilac Sunday, he had to make one quick stop in the morning before that shit show began. It would all work. Had to.
50
Too early to call. Wasn’t eight in the morning too early to call?
Jane hadn’t been able to sleep, restless half-dreams crowded with images of Liz McDivitt, and Gordon Thorley’s knife, and Elliot Sandoval in jail, and that teenager, Emily-Sue Ordway, the girl who’d started Jane’s whole foreclosure story, lying dead on the grass outside her family’s foreclosed house. Jake, standing on the front porch of Kenilworth Street. Saying exactly nothing.
Giving up on sleep, Jane had fed a demanding Coda, added a pat and a hug and a promise of more, and left the calico snarfing down the world’s stinkiest cat food as she hustled to the newsroom. The morning paper, printed version, offered only an inside brief on the Kenilworth Street situation. “Family spokesman asks for privacy,” it said. Jane had given the desk that nothing tidbit, though she hadn’t used the word “family.”
Anyway, that meant the overnight crew hadn’t been able to get any more info. Or confirm the victim’s name. Or that she was the bank president’s daughter. Why hadn’t Liz mentioned that? She’d talked about her mother. Anyway, that meant when it came to breaking the story, Jane was still in the hunt. Somehow she felt responsible for finding out what happened to Liz, making sure she was properly remembered. Calling her clients might help. And the boyfriend, as soon as she could dig up his name.
She spun a pencil on her desk, watching the yellow blur, speculating about why it was even part of journalism culture to call people for reactions to the deaths of others. Obituaries were history, exactly like news stories. They had to be properly written, with care and respect. That’s what Jane would do for Liz McDivitt. Tell her story.
Jane stopped the pencil. Got up from her desk, clicked the monitor closed, and scrabbled in her tote bag for dollar bills pristinely flat enough to satisfy the basement’s finicky vending machines. Sugar and caffeine would help. Twizzlers and Diet Coke.
When she got back from vending city it’d be eight-thirty. That was a civilized time to call strangers. She’d tell them she was doing a story on bank customer service, because that’s what she’d promised Liz. Just a littlest white lie. If the reality were revealed, well, she’d handle that when the time came.
Too impatient to wait for the reliably unreliable elevator, Jane yanked open the battered metal door leading to the stairwell. By ten, she’d have to dash to the Sandoval arraignment, which promised to be a hell of a story. The prosecution was required to tell the judge what the DA’s office knew about the case, elaborate on what evidence they had, and why they wanted Sandoval to be held in jail-without bail-awaiting trial. Peter Hardesty would argue to let him out. Since the DA’s office generally got what it wanted, she expected Elliot Sandoval would be behind bars for a while. Poor Elliot. Poor MaryLou. All this because they’d hit some rough economic seas and lost their house. And the dominoes crashed on their heads.
Foreclosure claims another victim.
Footsteps on the Register stairs, someone a few floors above clattering their way downstairs as Jake walked back up, stashing the fresh copies of news clippings he’d just been given into his folder. He rounded the landing of the newspaper’s back stairwell, keeping his head down, all business. The guy in Archives had warned him about the elevator, and he didn’t have time to wait for it, anyway. Already dressed for court, Jake had enough time to get back to police HQ, read the newspaper stories, and make it to the Supe’s strategy session.