The Other Woman (22 page)

“Sure, boss.” Pam picked up Jake’s phone. “Homicide.”

She plucked a pencil out of Jake’s BPD-issue mug, held the phone against her cheek, and pulled a white notepad toward her. “Well, he’s in a meeting right now.…”

Jake made a “score one” in the air. But Pam was holding the notepad in front of him. On it she’d printed,
Tucker Cameron.
Register
. Front desk. Urgent
.

Doomed,
as Jane would say. Tuck had blatantly circumvented the required PR protocol. Why had Tuck risked calling him directly? Maybe she knew something. He pointed a finger-gun at his temple, pulled the trigger.

“Fine, bring her up,” Jake whispered. He held out splayed fingers. “Ten minutes. Then call me.”

Tuck appeared at his door two minutes later, tight jeans, knee boots, black puffy vest. Laminated visitor’s pass clipped to one pocket. Notebook sticking out of the other. Pencil through her ponytail.
A regular Lois Lane
. Without the experience.

“You’re working some big OT,” Jake said. He kept one finger on the report he was reading, signaling he planned to return to it as soon as possible. “What can I do for you?”

Tuck pulled out the notebook, yanked the pencil from her hair. “Hey, Jake. I’m a twenty-four–seven kinda gal. But it’s what you can do for
you
that brings me to your neck of the woods.”

Jake gestured to her,
go on
. He didn’t offer her a seat.

Tuck sat in the frayed swivel chair across from his desk. Planted her feet. “Okeydokey. Here’s the scoop: We’re putting together a big takeout on the Bridge Killer investigation. You know, the search for—”

“There is no Bridge Killer, Tuck. No matter how big the
Register
makes the font on your headlines.”

“Yeah yeah, as you keep saying. But I just came from talking to Arthur Vick, and he told me—”

“Why’d you do that? Talk to him?”

“Well, hey. Victim three? Gotta start somewhere interviewing friends and family. Vick knew Sellica Darden, right? Talked to his wife, too. Anyway, Vick says you guys think he’s the Bridge Killer. Whoa, Jake. That’s huge. I would think you might have wanted to warn the frightened citizens of Boston about that. But, since you have not seen fit to do so, we at the
Register
are happy to take care of that little item for you. That’s why I’m here.”

“‘You at the
Register
’? Will ‘take care’ of it?” Jake assessed his options for dealing with this potential nightmare. He arched an eyebrow and took a chance. “You sure you’re comfortable putting Arthur Vick’s name in your paper as a suspect? You’re going to call him a serial killer suspect?”

“It’s true, isn’t it? Are you denying it? Is that an on-the-record denial?”

Jake gave an elaborate shrug. “It’s an on-the-record nothing, Tuck. But you might want to think back a bit, think about what happened to Jane Ryland when she accused Mr. Vick of hiring a prostitute. Not a happy occasion. For anyone involved.”

Tuck blinked at him.

“You might want to leave the police work to the police,” Jake continued. “We’ll determine what the truth is. And when we’re ready to tell you, you can print it. Without fear of a million-dollar lawsuit.”

“Well, you’re not doing a very good job of it,” Tuck said. Almost pouting. “Police work.”

Jake smiled, benign. “How do you know?”

Tuck consulted her notebook. “Is one of the victims a Kenna Wilkes?”

Jake frowned. Then he stood up, fingertips on his desk. “Kenna—? Miss Cameron, is there something you care to tell me? As you are no doubt aware, if you have information about an ongoing case, you’re required by law to tell us.”

“Bullshit I am.” She crossed her legs, leaned back in the chair. “As you are no doubt aware. So. Nothing on Wilkes?”

“Let me clarify. You’re asking me to comment on some name you pull out of the blue, but you’re not gonna tell me why you’re asking? I don’t think so.” Jake looked at his watch. “Anything else before we say good-bye?”

“Actually, yeah. Let me float another name. Amaryllis Roldan.”

Jane?
Had she told Tuck? She was the only one outside of the cops who— Well, no, she wasn’t. Arthur Vick knew that name. And Patti Vick knew it. And Jane wouldn’t have … or would she?
Was I wrong to have told her? I can’t think about it now
. Whatever the source, Tuck was figuring Roldan as a victim. And yesterday the supe had said to keep that under wraps until next of kin was notified. Which, as yet, had not happened.

Tuck prints that name, and I’m fricking toast.

“What’s this about, Tuck?”

“Say we ignore the Arthur Vick thing for the moment,” she said. “We’re definitely going with the name Amaryllis Roldan as a victim—”

Jake gave her two thumbs up, nodding. “Do that. Really, do. But if it turns out she’s actually a suspect, wouldn’t that be a mess for you? Of course, I’m sure you’re sure of your story. You don’t put stuff in the paper if you’re not sure. So, hey, no comment from me. On this. Or on anything. But I’m sure you know best.”

Jake watched the emotions evolve over Tuck’s face. Doubt. Caution. Fear.

Time to seal the deal.

“I mean, just saying—and this is one hundred percent off the record, background of background. Consider whether perhaps we want Arthur Vick to
help
us. If he knows her, and maybe she hates him, who knows, and maybe has some kind of a motive your little brain has never even considered. What if she’s the bad guy?”

This was complete idiocy, Jake making it up on the fly, but he could see Tuck weighing it all. She was smart, no doubt, and a good reporter. But at some point a new kid simply doesn’t have the stuff to keep up. He hoped.

Tuck yanked off her Red Sox cap, relooped her ponytail, jammed the cap back on. She stood up, batting her notebook against one palm.

“Keep your seat, if you need a moment,” Jake said. Magnanimous. He sat down again at his desk, tried a sip of coffee. “Otherwise? I have work.”

Jake’s BlackBerry rang. It would be Pam, right on time. “See?”

He waited for Tuck’s reply.

“I’ll call you,” she said.

“Contact Laney Driscoll in PR,” Jake said. His cell rang again. “As you are no doubt aware. And Tuck? I’ll forget to tell him you showed up today ignoring protocol. He hates when that happens. Tends to forget to return calls. We done?”

Now Tuck’s pout was full blown. “You—”

“And don’t forget to return that visitor’s pass.” The phone rang again. “Brogan, Homicide.”

He watched Tuck turn to leave. Walking ever so slowly.

“Cameron,” he called. “Close the door.”

She did.

“Perfect timing, Mrs. Augusto,” he said into the phone.

“Mrs. Augusto who?” DeLuca said. “What aren’t you telling me, Harvard?”

Now Jake’s desk phone was ringing. Pam’s extension number on caller ID. He pushed the speaker button.

“Thanks, Pam,” he said. He clicked off, went back to DeLuca on the cell. “Hey, dropout. What up?

“We may have an ID on the Longfellow victim,” DeLuca said. “Not confirmed. But a solid lead.”

Jake’s stomach lurched. He’d just tossed Tuck from his office. Could she have known the Longfellow victim’s name? Before he did? How could that happen? Maybe she was more connected to the story than he’d given her credit for. If that was true, this was going to suck.

“Is her name Kenna—” He grabbed his coffee, gulped, tried again. “—Kenna Wilkes?”

37

Matt yanked the black watch cap down over his forehead, though it was unlikely anyone would recognize him later, even if they did see him in this parking lot outside Holly’s building. Only one person in Boston would know his name, anyway—well, two—but say Holly Neff walked right up to his rental car window. So what, really? He would play it by ear.

Wonder why she’d left Springfield at ten o’clock last night?

She had a nice spot here, by the harbor. Boats and stuff. Seagulls. He’d driven all the way to Springfield, finally gotten to the hotel, bullshit bullshit, then had to drive all the way back. Tailing her, keeping a couple of cars between them. Once he’d even passed her. Luckily it was dark. Luckily she hadn’t seemed to notice. Now, she was inside. All he had to do was wait.

If he didn’t die of starvation. Last thing he’d eaten were two bites of that apple at the hotel. And maybe he could take a piss in the bushes or something.

He’d kill for a—

And there she was.

She had her hair stuffed under some sort of stretchy cap, and some black tracksuit with red stripes down the legs. Running shoes. A pair of iPod buds in her ears, the white wires trailing into a pocket in her jacket. A brown mailing envelope or something under her arm.

Shit. If she was going running, she’d be hard to follow. He could get out of his car and kind of stroll behind her. Follow her on foot. If he was lucky, she wouldn’t notice. But she was such a wack, or used to be at least, maybe it wouldn’t matter if she did see him.

She’d see him soon enough.

But Holly was reaching into a pocket and pulling out—keys.
Sweet.
He watched her walk to her car, that Honda Accord, get in, and back out of her space.

Matt ducked as she went by him. He counted to five, slowly brought his head up, and peered out the window. She was waiting at the stop sign. He turned on the ignition. Maybe she was going to a coffee shop or something? He played that one out. Lots of possible scenarios there. She was clearly not going to church in that getup.

All could have been settled so long ago. My life would be so different. I miss my mother. I miss my family. I miss the life I should have had.

Holly was on the move.

He watched her turn left, blinker on, into the sparse Sunday-morning traffic. Her white car showed through the railings of a rusting metal bridge. Matt shifted hard, banged out of his space, semi-ignored the stop sign, and eased into the flow a couple of cars behind her. She was easy to spot, putting on her turn signals way before she needed to. She turned left, and so did he. Waterfront, more harbor, more boats. He focused on her, but tried to keep his bearings. She turned left, then right again into a parking lot. He slammed on the brakes, hard. Waited, even as his light turned green. The parking lot didn’t look that big.

Some jerk behind him honked. Matt flipped him off.

Then, creeping his car forward, he turned into the lot. South Station Post Office, open twenty-four hours, seven days a week, the sign said. Meters not in effect on Sunday. Why did Holly need a post office?

She parked in a metered spot along the fence by the water. Matt hung back, watching.

Holly got out of the car, crossed the alley, stepped up on the sidewalk. No one else in sight. Lots of empty parking places. She pulled the package from under her arm, stared at it. Touched the front. Turned it over, then turned it over again. Checked something on the outside. He was so close, he could see her frown.

She turned, as if going back to her car. Stopped. Tossed her head. Then, with a long stride and hips swinging, she marched through the glass doors of the building.

Ten minutes later she came out. Without the package.

By then, Matt had a plan.

38

Jane couldn’t stop looking at the front page of the online Sunday
Register,
her story front and center. Sitting cross-legged on her bed at the New Englander Hotel, laptop balanced on her knees, she had to admit it looked great.

Nothing about the Bridge Killer, she noted. Take that, roomie.
Jake,
she thought. She needed to talk to him about Amaryllis Roldan. Whoever that was.

She zoomed in on the article. Her byline. Her name on the cutline under the photo. A pretty good photo, too, showing a chaos of blurry arms and heads, features mostly blasted out by the flash, but you could see one woman who seemed to be in tears, and someone else who seemed to be laughing. A red, white, and blue Lassiter banner was somehow in perfect focus in the background, though you could read only
LASS
.

She needed to show Alex the other shots, the ones with Kenna Wilkes. She could do that when she got back. They showed the same person as in Archive Gus’s photos, anyway, so no biggie. They were good backup, though. Evidence. Proof.

She read her article one more time. It had the hotel’s mealymouthed “we’re investigating” statement. And quotes from a couple of eyewitnesses she’d found in the lobby. In the newspaper’s version of “balance,” she used one guy criticizing the Lassiter campaign for its “lack of preparation and inability to organize a simple event” and another saying “it was a prank or a mistake, who cared, no one was hurt and it all had a happy ending.”

The Lassiter statement was a study in political rope-a-dope, essentially meaningless, about the “fog of campaigning in these exciting times leading up to election day” and “enthusiasm and understanding of the Lassiter supporters” in his “increasingly successful campaign.”

Jane had pushed a reluctant Trevor about the possibility of a dirty trick, some kind of ploy by the Gable campaign. Sanctioned by them, or some renegade trickster. But he’d clammed up. She put that in her story, too. “Lassiter campaign staff refuses to speculate on questions about opposition sabotage, saying, ‘The lights went out. It could happen to anyone.’”

And Alex had headlined it
LASSITER RALLY DISRUPTED
. Not Lightgate.

She saved the story to her laptop’s hard drive. Jane Ryland, newspaper reporter. She still had the right stuff. Now, time to go home.

Jane jumped into the shower, then, wrapped in the hotel’s fluffy white terry cloth robe, brushed her teeth with the toiletries she’d gotten from the front desk. She scrabbled her hair dry and checked her reflection in the mirror. Tired. But curious. Curious about Kenna Wilkes.

Jane had flat-out lied to Moira Lassiter the night before. She turned away from the mirror, leaning on the marble bathroom counter, replaying that episode. What was she supposed to say?
Yes, Mrs. Lassiter, I did see a bombshell woman, she checked in at the same time as your husband, and I saw them together at the rally, cooing double entrendres at each other. I even took their photos.