The Wrong Girl (21 page)

Why? That she did not know. But she was sure of who was driving. That was a slam dunk. Now she would prove it. Time to take control.

“Listen, Tuck,” Jane said. “Remember, before, I wanted you to do me a favor?”

“Oh, right. What?”

Jane grabbed her cell phone, handed it across the seat.

“Punch in ‘recent contacts.’ See it says DFS?”

“Yeah. Who’s DFS? You want me to call him?”

“Nope. Don’t call from my phone. I really want to leave it open in case Neena calls. Just get the number.”

Tuck thumbed in, following Jane’s instructions, then scrolled through the contacts. “Okay, got it.”

“Now, call from your phone. Okay? If they have caller ID it won’t matter. It’s a state office.”

Tuck was already tapping in numbers. “What state office? It’s ringing. Now what?’

“Ask for Finn Eberhardt,” Jane said. “I want to find out if he’s there. See what they say when you ask for him.”

“Finn Eberhardt? Who’s he?” Tuck had the cell phone pressed to her ear. “Oh, I get it. DFS. Family Services. Is it good if he’s there, or good if he’s not there? It’s still ringing.”

Jane imagined the voluptuous Vee, remembering her laissez-faire attitude toward her receptionist duties. “Yeah. I’m not surprised. Ask for him. If he answers, say oh, sorry, wrong number. I’ll tell you about it after.”

“Very myster—Oh, hello, may I speak to—”

She looked at Jane, grimacing, wriggled her fingers in a “give it to me again” gesture.

“Finn Eberhardt,” Jane mouthed the name.

“Finn Eberhardt?” Tuck said to the operator.

Twelve miles to Boston. The signs pointed them to Fenway Park, then the new tunnel to the lofty Prudential Center and Boston Public Library. An electronic billboard flashed lighted block letters:
SNOW EMERGENCY CANCELED
.

Tuck punched her phone onto speaker. Jane heard the crackly buzz, then a voice.

“This is Finn Eberhardt.”

Jane felt the warmth drain from her face.
What?
He was there? If Finn Eberhardt was at the Department of Family Services, in his office in Boston, he could not possibly have been in that Dodge truck on the Mass Pike. And could not have just been at her apartment. Could he? Had she been completely wrong? If so, who was in the truck?

Hang up!
She pantomimed the action, as if Tuck held an old-fashioned receiver. Then she whispered, making sure Tuck would understand, “Hang up!”

Tuck clicked the button and stuffed her phone back into a pocket.

“What was that?” she said. “Finn-whoever answered. Is that good? Or bad?”

“I have to get home,” Jane said. That was first on the agenda.

Then she would start demanding answers.

“Jake?”

“Yeah, D?” Jake looked up from his phone filing system, then went back to it. Photo Joe and Nguyen still puttered around the Lexus, measuring and marking tread marks. Kat had packed up and called for transport. Not a reporter in sight. Maybe, finally, things were going their way. Unless Jane showed up to cover the story again. That might be complicated. But not such a bad thing. Life was short. Maybe they should—He yanked himself back to the present.

The Brannigan scene was almost clear. Until there were cause-of-death updates on Lillian Finch and her boss, he could focus on the already-confirmed murder of Brianna Tillson.
That
case was bugging the hell out of him.

“Jake?” DeLuca said again. “We’ve got a situation.”

“Yo, Jake?” Officer Hennessey came around from behind the Lexus, flipping through a grimy spiral notebook. “Supe’s orders. He says Kurtz and I are supposed to—”

DeLuca interrupted. “Need a word in private, Jake.”

Hennessey put up both hands in mock surrender, backing away. “Don’t mind me,” he said. “I’m sure you two detectives have big secret
detective
stuff to discuss.”

“Stuff it, Hennessey,” DeLuca said. “Jake?”

DeLuca’s voice had an edge to it. Maybe he’d picked up some intel. They could use it.

“Just heard a call on the radio,” DeLuca continued. “On the third channel. Response to a nine-one-one. They’re sending two units to Corey Road. Three-forty-seven Corey Road.”

Jake’s blood froze. Three-forty-seven? “
Jane’s
apartment? Nine-one-one? What the hell for?”

“Detectives?” Kat McMahan trotted toward them, picking her way through the freezing slush, her boots crunching on the pavement. She paused, looked at DeLuca, then at Jake, then back at DeLuca. “Am I interrupting something?”

“Ah, Kat?” DeLuca wiped an invisible smudge from one sleeve. “Give us a sec.”

“Will do. But I wanted to ask you, Jake.” The ME smiled at D, but otherwise ignored him. “When you first saw Mr. Brannigan—”

“When I first saw Brannigan?” He could focus only half his brain on the body in the Lexus. The other half was on Corey Road.
Jane’s apartment? Nine-one-one?
“I didn’t know it was Brannigan.”

The ME waved him off. “Right. Not the point. When you arrived, did you open the car door?”

“What? No. No one did. That I know of. Seems pretty obvious. Why?”

What was she getting at? He hadn’t touched the car. Neither had Mrs. Richards. Any fingerprints would show instantly in the icy frost of the car’s exterior. There were none.
Jane. He had to find out—

“That’s the dilemma.” Kat McMahan tilted her head, staring at the Lexus. “Our victim was in his car. You say it’s registered to Niall Brannigan, and we did find that name on the driver’s license in his pocket. Prelim, my take on it, at least, seems to be a heart attack. So there’s your ID, gentlemen. And a likely cause.”

Jane.
What was going on at her apartment? Jake drew the two-way from his back pocket, clicked on “send.” “Brogan to Dispatch. Do you copy?”

“Jake?” The ME turned to him, frowning. “Are you with me here?”

“Copy, Detective,” the radio crackled back.

“The Corey Road call. Can you give me a status?”

“Thanks, Kat,” DeLuca stepped in front of Jake. “If it’s natural causes, score one for the team. We’re outta here. Hennessey and Kurtz can do the next-of-kin thing, Jake and I have some other fish to—”

She held up a hand, stopping D mid-sentence. “Thing is. There’s an issue.”

Jake clutched his two-way, straining to hear an answer in the staticky silence.

“Stand by one, Detective Brogan,” dispatch said.

Jake had to leave. Check on Jane.
Now.
Niall Brannigan was dead, Kat McMahan’s medical inquiry was under way, Kurtz and Hennessey would babysit. Some things were bigger than his police responsibility. His grandfather always told him,
Family first. You’ll never regret the family time.
Now the advice from the past moved front and center. How could he have let her go?

“The issue being,” the ME was saying, “our victim has no car keys.”

“No keys?” Jake thought back. He hadn’t tried the car door. “Not in the ignition?”

“Negative. We tried the glove compartment, see if there was a registration, some identification info. That was locked. So we went to the ignition to get the keys. But nothing. No keys in the ignition.”

“In his pocket, then,” DeLuca said. “Or the floor. You look there?”

The ME shot herself in the head with a forefinger. “Oh, no. We for
got.
” She paused. “Of course, we did, Detective. Hennessey and Kurtz checked the entire car.”

“Dispatch?” Jake tried the radio again.

“Stand by one, Detective,” the radio voice crackled. “Units are still en route.”

The radio went silent. Jake focused his attention back to the ME, thinking out loud. “So that means the vic got into his car without using the keys. And clearly didn’t plan to drive anywhere. Because he didn’t bring the keys.”

“He could have been visiting,” DeLuca said. “Left the car open, it’s a nice enough neighborhood. Forgot something, came back to get it, opened the already unlocked door, sat down, had a heart attack. Bingo. In the car, dead, no keys.”

“In some reality, yeah, I suppose.” Jake played out D’s scenario. “But no one’s looking for him, you know?”

Jake’s cell phone rang. He jumped.
Jane?
Maybe it was Jane, thank God, telling him she was okay. Man. She really got to him.

But the display showed “caller blocked.” Still, it might be her. Who knows what phone she might be using.

“Brogan.” He heard the hope in his own voice.

“Detective?”

Not Jane.
Damn.
Whoever it was, he didn’t have time.

“Yes?” He tried to telegraph “leave me alone” into that one word.

“It’s Bethany Sibbach,” the voice said. “Phillip and Phoebe’s—”

“Yes, Bethany,” Jake said to the therapist. “Can you hold a second?”

“Sure, but—”

“D?” Jake turned to DeLuca. “I’m going to check on that
thing,
okay?”

“Ten-four, Jake. I’ll follow up on the key situation. Keep me posted.”

Jake trotted toward the cruiser, phone clamped to his ear.

“Detective Brogan? Are you there?” Bethany Sibbach’s voice interrupted his thoughts.

“Sorry, yeah,” he said. He’d head to Jane’s, see what was up. Try to call her. As soon as Bethany got off the line.

“Thing is,” the caseworker continued. “Phillip has said something that—”

Jake stopped, keys in hand.

“I’m listening,” Jake said. “What did Phillip say?”

“Well, Phillip is finally napping now, but we were all on my living room floor, Phillip and Phoebe and I, and we had Phoebe’s dolls out, and a little dollhouse my grandmother gave me as a child, lots of miniature doll furniture, a dresser, and a cradle, and, you know, I had them acting out a happy—”

“Heya, Jake.” A voice beside him.

Jake turned. A camera flashed in his face.

Some photographer. Three cameras looped around his neck. A fourth pointed right at him. It flashed again.

“Bethany? Hold on one more second.” He squinted at the man, put up a palm to protect his eyes from another flash. “Hey. Who the hell are you?”

“Hec Underhill from the
Register.
” He held out the hand without the Nikon, keeping the camera in front of his face as he clicked the shutter. “Whatcha got? Our sources say there’s another body.”

Jake pointed to his cell. “Look. I’m on the phone. As you can see. You’ve got a big media pass on that lanyard, right? You should know the drill. See those two officers, up by the crime scene van? Ask for Hennessey. He’s handling press.”

“Gotcha.” The photographer took off his cap, tipped it, then replaced it with the bill in the back as he headed toward the van.

“Go Celtics,” Jake muttered after him. He
had
to get to Jane. “Bethany? Sorry.”

“That’s okay. But I think you should know. Phillip was putting one of the dolls into a little white wooden cradle, and burst into tears. He’s not sleeping well, and the poor thing has been removed from the environment he’s used to. Still, in my assessment, that reaction was not quite normal.”

Jake aimed his keys at the cruiser door. Clicked. “But you told me ‘said’—”

“Exactly, Jake. When I asked him, ‘What’s wrong, honey?’ Phillip said, clear as day, he said, ‘Baby. Where baby?’”

Jake stopped, hand poised on the door handle. “
Where baby?
Are you sure?”

“Where baby,” she said. “I’m sure.”

Kellianne’s dad called this the Afterwards “office,” even though it was only a corner of their old pine-paneled basement. Her mom had insisted on staying at the hospital with him, wouldn’t be home until whenever. Kev and Keefer were somewhere, who knew. Kellianne had privacy. Sitting at the battered desk, she stared at her reflection in the computer monitor.

She could see her hair, still all sucky, her skin, still sucky, her T-shirt with the same logo and title as the one on the computer screen. She’d sent for the “Ladies’ large short-sleeved black” a few weeks ago to see if the company she was interested in was a real place or a rip-off. She could risk ten bucks to find out.

A few days later, the T-shirt arrived. She’d been wearing it under her regular clothes so no one could see. She knew what it meant. It meant she could win.

Kellianne rested her cheeks on her fists and sounded out, silently, the name of the company she was about to e-mail. Mur-der-a-bi-li-a.

It was a funny name, but she’d typed
souveneers from murders
into her search thing, panicking she’d be stuck with a bunch of stuff she couldn’t get rid of. It turned out to be “souvenirs,” so she’d spelled it wrong, but the Internet found it. As she scrolled through page after online page, she realized she not only wouldn’t be stuck, but that she was sitting on a gold mine.

Murderabilia.
She whispered it, trying the word out loud. It seemed like there was a market for what she had. People were buying, like, the weirdest stuff. She leaned into the screen, clicking on the photos. That Unabomber guy’s letters. A lock of Charles Manson’s hair. Gross.

She looked at the teddy bears in the cardboard box at her feet. Next to them, the little rabbit bowl. Thing was, those didn’t belong to the “murderers.” What she had belonged to the
victims.
Would people buy
those
things?

She clicked through more photos. A drawing by the Son of Sam. A clown outfit worn by some guy in …

Shit, if people wanted stuff from murder cases, if they were that crazy sick, wouldn’t they just as likely—
Souvenirs from murder victims,
she typed it right this time. “Victims” was the important part. She clicked.
She was right.

“From the
New York Post,
” said the first article on the list. The headline was, Murder Victim Relics Suddenly Hot.

Then in little letters, “Survivors powerless to stop commerce in notorious…”

She clicked through, trying to get the gist of the article, skipping some of the long words and what looked like boring parts. “The more personal the better,” someone said. “Despicable,” someone else said. Her eyes skidded to a stop at the word: legal.