Thorley took a sip of coffee, stared at the wall.
“All right. Let’s try this, pure and simple.” Peter crossed his arms across his chest. “The cops called me about those mortgage payments.”
“So?”
“So this wasn’t my discovery. It’s theirs. You think the cops are going away?”
“So?”
“You can ‘so’ me all you like,” Peter said, pointing at Thorley. “If you want to ignore me, your privilege. But the cops are not going away. Someone suddenly paid your mortgage, sir. You were in foreclosure. Now you’re not.”
“I don’t live there,” Thorley said. He knocked back the last of the coffee, crumpled the cup, looked for somewhere to throw it. No wastebaskets in the meeting rooms, Peter knew. Nothing an angry inmate could use as a weapon.
The crumpled cup stayed on the table. Thorley began to pick at its seam, peeling away a soggy layer of paper.
“I know you don’t live there,” Peter said. “But your family does.”
“So?” Gordon sneered out the word. “You saw the place, right? You see she’s not that desperate for cash, right? That big TV. She hired you, right? So Mr. Lawyer, why don’t you-and the cops-ask her who paid the mortgage?”
“But-,” Peter began. Doreen had seemed desperate. And she didn’t seem to know about the rescued mortgage.
“Guard!” Thorley called out.
A face appeared at the door, the same cop who’d told Peter day before yesterday they called Thorley “the Confessor.” “Yeah?”
“I’m done,” Thorley said. “Get me outta here.”
“They’re all like this? The foreclosed houses?”
Jane stood, hands on hips, across the street from 310 Bentonville Street, pretending to be looking at the scenery with TJ. This split-level, with its two scrawny trees and sagging iron porch railing, was on the list of the foreclosed houses owned by Atlantic & Anchor bank, the REOs that she’d sent her photographer to scout.
If people were getting murdered in empty bank-owned homes, maybe there was something to be learned from the homes themselves. Who’d owned them, what they looked like inside, if there was some kind of connection. What if the bad guys-Aaron? Hardin McDivitt?-were renting out empty homes for use as, what, drug-dealing hideouts? Manufacturing meth? Prostitution? Jane’s reporter brain could concoct a million ideas. What TJ had discovered wasn’t any of those things.
What he discovered was-
“Yup, not empty,” TJ said. “I didn’t go up to the doors, but look. Cars, mail. Bikes. Curtains. People are living there. I got shots of all of the exteriors. Made a list. Like, ten of ’em. So far.”
“You rock, Teege, thanks.” Jane contemplated the house, the neighborhood, the puzzle. Pushing five in the afternoon, some kids played up the block, tossing a ball across the narrow street, playing Keep Away from a bounding black Newfie, their laughter and teasing half-comprehensible. A mom, or babysitter, maybe, sat on the porch steps watching, coffee mug in hand. Your typical neighborhood. Where people lived in houses that were supposed to be empty.
“On Waverly Road, where Shandra Newbury was found-just thinking out loud here,” Jane said. “That house was empty. The deputies were cleaning it. And that first house, on Springvale Street, where Emily-Sue Ordway fell. Empty. Treesa Caramona, empty.”
“Yeah,” TJ said. “But Emily-Sue, that was an accident. The place was under renovation. Something broke.”
“Yeah, okay. But Caramona. That wasn’t an Atlantic & Anchor Bank house.” Jane pursed her lips, calculating. “And where Liz McDivitt was-found. Not A &A either. But the ones I had you look up-”
“Are,” TJ said.
“Are. So Emily-Sue and Shandra are connected. Maybe. And Liz and Caramona. Maybe.”
“Maybe,” TJ said. “Listen, is there anything else? If you’re not going to solve three murders any time soon, I’m off at five.”
“Oh, sorry Teege. I’m spacing,” Jane said. “No, listen, go. Thanks. Download your video. I’ll look at it when…” Her phone buzzed in her tote bag.
“Okay,” TJ said. “See you back at the barn tomorrow.”
She dug for her phone with one hand, waved TJ good-bye with the other. “Jane Ryland,” she said.
“Miss Ryland? Colin Ackerman, from the bank?”
“Oh. Hi.” What’d he want? Jane had given him her card, of course, but-
“You’re looking for Aaron Gianelli? Might I ask why?”
Shoot. Naturally, the damn PR guy was gonna interfere.
“You know no one from the bank is allowed to speak to the media”-Ackerman drew out the word-“without getting permission from me. You’re aware of that, correct?”
“Well, sure. But in this case-” This was no biggie, she’d only wanted a reaction to Liz’s death. Kind of. But that was her story now, and she was sticking to it. “You know he was friends with Elizabeth McDivitt,” Jane went on.
“We are not commenting on that matter,” Ackerman said. “The family has requested privacy. As you know.”
“I only wanted a comment from him about-”
“As I said. Any comments come through me. Mr. Gianelli is not available. Anything else?”
Jane could picture Ackerman, that gelled hair and just-too-expensive tie. Weren’t public relations people supposed to help the public relate? “There is, actually,” Jane said. “Weirdest question of the day, I bet.”
Jane took a last look at the house, headed for her car. Coda would be glad to see her, even though the cat always pretended Jane didn’t exist. Peter had said he’d call about dinner. An intriguing prospect. Wonder what Jake was doing? She didn’t care, if he didn’t care what she was doing. And he didn’t seem to.
“Weirdest? I doubt that,” Ackerman said. “But try me.”
Jane clicked open her car door, slid behind the wheel. “Okay. I’m wondering about the banks REOs,” she said. She stared ahead, imagining she could see Ackerman’s face.
Silence. Then, “What about them?”
“Do you ever rent them?”
“Do I-”
“You know what I mean. Does the bank ever rent them?”
“Why?”
Jane let the phone fall into her lap, annoyed. He didn’t have to be so nasty about it. She picked it up again.
“We’re looking into…” She paused, trying to figure out how to phrase it.
“No,” he said. “We don’t rent them.”
Jane paused, calculating her next move. “So what would it mean if we’ve discovered-”
“We have a real estate agency, however, that does. Short term, of course. They do it for several banks. Why leave the homes empty? It’s simply efficient business.”
Jane’s shoulders sagged. Not as exciting as drug-dealing meth-making prostitutes. But way more likely.
“Which agency?” Jane asked, because that’s what a reporter would do. She saw her exciting exclusive evaporate in front of her. The agency was probably Mornay and Weldon, the company Shandra Newbury had worked for. Which is why she’d been at the house. Bye-bye story.
Silence.
“Mr. Ackerman?” It didn’t matter, she guessed, but now she wanted to know.
“I can get that information for you in the morning, if you’ll call me then,” he finally said. “It’s after five. We’re closed.”
And he hung up.
“Don’t say a word.” Ackerman’s voice came through Aaron’s cell phone. “Don’t react, don’t yell, don’t freak out.”
What the hell now? Aaron had spent at least half an hour walking the sweltering streets of Boston, finally winding up at the Pidge, a rathole of a bar down by the waterfront. A couple of construction workers, all canvas and sunburn, gave him the snake-eyed once-over-outsider-as he pulled up a bar stool. Some hockey game filled one big screen, and a black-and-white replay of a Celtics win on another.