What You See (3 page)

Lacing her fingers under her chin, Tenley stared at the computer screen.

Would she get yelled at for missing whatever happened down here? She was following protocol, and she couldn’t oversee every little place every little minute. She wasn’t even supposed to. This was streaming video, live, and only archived if a viewer pushed the Record button to put twenty seconds into what they called the “video cache.” But she hadn’t pushed Record, because she hadn’t seen anything. Not her fault.

The ambulance doors were open, and it was parked. She could see the dark outfits of the EMTs scurrying around. It had definitely been longer than twenty seconds since whatever happened began.

Her therapist promised that telling the truth could never hurt you. Was that really right? She’d only been following the rules, changing screens, it took a certain amount of time to look at seven cameras, the powers that be had to understand that. If she failed, at whatever, it was because the rules had made her fail. It seemed like she couldn’t stop making the wrong decisions.

She leaned forward, narrowing her eyes. The shape of the crowd was changing. What was going on down there?

3

“Down that way—in the alley!” The cadet grabbed Jake’s arm, and Jake followed the kid’s pointing finger toward the narrow curved passage between the bank and the liquor store. “Some guy’s apparently hiding in a Dumpster. Down there. Or put something in the Dumpster. Something like that.” The cadet gulped for air, trying to get the words out. “A girl—I mean, a woman—told me. Anyway, what if it’s the—”

“Who told you? Where’d she come from?” Jake needed specifics. “Where is she now? This girl-woman? What’d she say?”

“Ah, I don’t know, she just said—what I said. The Dumpster. We were all taking names and addresses, see, they’re still doing that, like you wanted, and she came up to me and—” The cadet’s black plastic name tag said
BRAD LONNERGAN
. Lonnergan pointed again, jabbing the air. “Down
there.
What if it’s the guy who—”

“You kidding me? Do you see her? Find her.” This Lonnergan kid was not clear on the law enforcement concept. “Hold her. Do not let her leave. Understand? D!”

Jake signaled DeLuca with one finger.
Me. You. That way. Let’s go.

They couldn’t afford to spook the crowd. All he needed, a mob following them into Franklin Alley, hooting like medieval peasants while they dragged some poor jerk from a Dumpster. Jake, checking to make sure D was behind him, snaked behind the spectators, dodging and weaving. Only one or two seemed to notice they were on the move. He and D didn’t look like cops, after all. Just two guys wearing jeans and leather jackets. Walking fast.

Jake glanced over his shoulder again. Most eyes focused on Kat McMahon, the ME now kneeling over the victim. For once, better to keep it that way. Cadets—the ones with brains—were taking names and addresses. Asking if anyone saw anything. Asking spectators with cameras and cell phones to stand by. The whole thing was already verging on out of control. And now this.

But maybe this would solve the whole damn case and they all could go home.

Ahead of them, the alley. Cracked pavement, cobblestones scattered with gravel. Framed on the right by the bank’s brand-new red brick, on the left by the pockmarked brownstone of Jodi’s Liquors and the University Inn. With its twists and turns, only the first ten feet or so of Franklin were visible from the street. Jake knew it was a dead end. If someone was in there, like Lonnergan’s “girl-woman” said, there’d be no way out except toward him and DeLuca. A bad guy who planned where he was going, or was at least familiar with this part of the city, would never have chosen this as an escape route. Unless he was panicking. Or hurt. Or trying to hide, waiting it out.

Or luring them in? Trapping them?

At the curb, Jake stopped, put up a hand, assessing. DeLuca skidded to a halt, almost slamming into Jake’s back. Broad daylight, not like anyone could surprise them. The quiet hubbub of Curley Park softened into background.

One second, two.

Jake felt for his Glock, drew it, felt the sun on his face. A seagull squawked, swooping, headed for the harbor.
Lured into a dead-end alley?
Windows above. Rooftops. Where was the woman who’d sent them down here? Who was she? Whose side was she on? What if—well, there were too many what-ifs to consider right now.

“You ready?” he said.

“Ready,” DeLuca said.

“On my three.” Jake began, “One.”

“Help!” A voice, from down the alley. “Help me!”

“Three,” Jake said.

*   *   *

A dead body, a stabbing in Curley Park. And Jane was on the way.

It wasn’t funny, not one bit of apparent murder was funny—Jane zoomed her Audi around the curve and onto Atlantic Ave.—but the fact that she, Jane Elizabeth Ryland, who two hours ago had been out of work was now on the way to cover a homicide, clearly proved the universe had a droll sense of humor.

She was simply to “gather facts,” Marsh Tyson had instructed, and phone them in to the assignment desk. If it turned out to be big breaking news, she certainly
could
go on camera, since she’d dolled up in a black suit, black patent heels, and Gram’s pearls for the non-job non-interview. She hadn’t done a live shot for almost a year, but she had to admit the idea of live TV felt like home.

She shifted into third, open road ahead, past the Coast Guard building. Life was strange. She’d given the
Register
blockbuster stories—political corruption, an adoption scandal, mortgage fraud. And what did she get? Unemployment. But now, Jane Ryland was back. Freelance, sure, but with a lovely per diem. Take that, mortgage payment.

Only one snag. When Lissa arrived in Boston this afternoon, Jane might have to work. Lissa—who, Jane always forgot, demanded to be called “Melissa” after all these years—and her fiancé were coming to pick up their flower girl, Gracie Fasullo, Daniel’s nine-year-old daughter who lived in Boston with his ex-wife and her new husband. Thanks to Daniel’s previous marriage, Melissa was becoming Gracie’s instant stepmother. The whole complicated thing sounded like the guilty-pleasure soap operas she and best friend Amy used to watch in college. In real life, what soap opera role was Jane playing? Older sister, living alone with a cat?

No
, Jane decided. I’ll be the successful reporter, determined and unstoppable, who breaks big stories and needs help from no one. I’ll even call her Melissa.

“La-di-da,” she said out loud. “Bring it on.”
Jane Ryland, reporting for Channel 2,
she thought, trying it out.
Can do.

She snapped the radio to all-news, listened through the crowd predictions for the Fourth of July concert on the Esplanade, the Chamber of Commerce estimate of tourist dollars for the summer, stories about the drunken antics of a state senator caught on a hotel surveillance camera, another runaway college girl, some kind of lobster shortage. Nothing about a stabbing.

Shortcut through the Greenway, into the glare of the noontime sun. Right turn on North Street. Definitely something going on. The red light from an ambulance flared over the cluster of onlookers, a zigzag backlit silhouette of heads and shoulders. Usually Jane would be able to see the tree-lined edge of Curley Park from this vantage point, but now the circle of grass and sculpture was blocked by the array of T-shirts and backpacks and shopping bags. A scowling cadet, too-big hat and orange webbed bandolier, was pointing oncoming traffic to turn left, away from the crime scene. So what? Jane was different. Jane was TV news. Jane was turning right.

She downshifted, touched her brakes, buzzed down her window, and leaned out, smiling. The sun hit her square in the face and glinted from the car’s side mirror as the driver behind her honked, twice, then swerved to the left.

“Jane Ryland,” she told the newbie cop. She’d done this a million times. She tried to stop herself from tossing her hair, because know what? This felt good.

“Channel 2 News,” she added. Big smile.

The cop lifted his wire-rimmed Ray-Bans, narrowed his eyes at her.

Probably recognizing me, Jane decided. Next thing, he’ll be waving me past the police lines and into the center of the action. She was back.

“Let’s see some ID,” the cop said.

4

“
Now
we’re talking,” Bobby Land whispered to himself, nodding, as he watched the woman in the black Audi argue with the cop. He recognized her, all right. That was Jane Ryland, the reporter, the one who had been fired or whatever, but she was still a hotshot, and hot, too, for someone her age. Was she his ticket to a new life?

He couldn’t hear her, or the cop, but their bodies showed they were all about arguing. It was like watching one of those old silent movies, where you knew what was going on just from how they were acting. Jane had pulled up to the crime scene tape in front of the University Inn and was leaning out the driver’s-side window, pointing toward the park. The cop was taking off his sunglasses, giving her grief, waving her off. She showed him something from her wallet, sticking it out the window. The guy shook his head again, pushed it away with both hands, turned to the other cars.

What was the big problem? Jane was a reporter, the real thing, every-fricking-body knew that. Obviously needed to get to the “scene of the crime.” She called out to the cop, yelling at his back. Now she’d opened the door and got out, engine running, and walked up to the cop, still talking. Chick had balls.

“Let her through, moron.” Bobby spoke out loud, since the cop couldn’t possibly hear him. This could be Bobby’s big break. He could see it now—Jane would go over to check out the dead guy. Bobby’d go up to her, tell her the deal. Say what he saw. See if she’d be interested in seeing his photos. Correction—in
buying
his photos. If they were any good.

His whole entire future might be contained in his little camera.

He must have gotten something. He didn’t actually think about what was on the other side of the lens, not while he was shooting, he just click-click-clicked and checked later for the results. In this kind of on-the-spot breaking news, the action was so fast you couldn’t take the time to think. Just point, shoot, and hope.

He watched Jane continue to negotiate with the cop. He felt like he could call her Jane, he used to see her on TV when he was still in high school, and they’d watched her online story about bad adoptions in his journalism class and—
hey.
From the corner of his eye.
Now what?

He watched two obvious cops, leather jackets dead giveaways, sidle through the crowd, moving quickly and deliberately. Where were they going? Seemed headed toward that alley by the bank. Maybe better to follow them? What if they were on the way to a big takedown, and he could get the whole thing on camera? That’d make his career, right there.
Oh, yes, I got photos of it all,
he’d say to Jane. How much will you pay me for them? Two hundred dollars, maybe. Three.

He checked his battery, fine, plenty of juice. Now Jane was handing the guy a cell phone, maybe she’d called someone to convince the cadet to let her through. Maybe she didn’t need his help and he should—where did the two plainclothes cops go? He eyed the crowd till he finally saw them, the skinny one and the preppy one, poised on the curb, focused down that alley. Someone, or some
thing,
was back there, no question. No one else seemed to care about those two, all the morbid onlookers still fascinated by the dead guy. But he, Bobby Land, had the eye. His mother always said so.

Cops? Or reporter? Which would be more useful to follow? Which would give him the faster claim to fame?

*   *   *

With the help of a credential-confirming phone call from the Channel 2 assignment desk, Jane finally negotiated her way to the perimeter of the crime scene. She’d left her car at the University Inn, given ten bucks to the hotel’s valet guy to watch over it.

She paused, taking it all in. A nothing day, early June, lunchtime. That shockingly blue sky Boston sometimes lucked into. There was always the first moment at a murder scene, always having to juggle the stress of getting the story with the realization that someone’s life was over. Her job was to report what she saw, what she heard, what she could discover. An odd career choice, really, to be the eyes and ears of the public. Observer, always, never a participant. And because it was “news,” she had to do it as quickly as she could. A constant series of assessments, decisions, choices. Perceptions. So much of reality wasn’t what it seemed at first glance.

Cadets had grouped spectators into packs of five or six, obviously taking names and info. That meant each and every one of those people was a potential eyewitness. A potential interview.

She’d record their sound on the Quik-Shot, the little video camera the station had given her. The size of a cigarette pack, unobtrusive, but wide format and surprising quality. The days of the hulking photogs lugging huge cameras were over—Jane could point and shoot and get it on the air, what they called a one-man band. The photographers’ unions weren’t happy about it. But it sometimes made things easier.

Jane pulled out the Quik-Shot, crossing mental fingers. Nothing like the first time using unfamiliar equipment. Nothing like trying it out with no practice. At a murder. If the red light was on, was that good, the universal signal for “camera rolling”? Or bad, the universal sign for “warning”? Jane would roll off a few shots, then check for audio and video quality.

They hadn’t moved the victim yet, good thing. She got as close as she could, pushing through the looky-loos, then pointed the lens, rolling off thirty seconds as close up as appropriate—no blood allowed on Channel 2 News, so medium tight was all that would air. Then a wider shot, showing all the medics, then even wider, showing the crowd. Pan across to reveal the number of people. Tight shots of a few on their cells, a few others clicking off photos.

She was taking pictures of people taking pictures. Very twenty-first century.