The First to Lie

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  “Who?” Ellie asked. “Might they have taken the album?”

  “Why would they do that?” Armistead asked.

  She paused. “Allow me a strange question, Mr. Armistead. Did you ever have a break-in? I mean, recently?”

  “Oh,” Meg said. “You mean the same way you—”

  Ellie glared at her again.

  “Not that I know of,” he said. “Not for sure. The front door was open the other day when I came home from the office, but I figured it was me forgetting to lock it. I’m not myself these days.”

  “Did you report it?”

  He shook his head. “Nothing was taken. No proof it wasn’t me.”

  Here was her opening.

  “Kids?” she asked. “Maybe they—”

  “They’re with their mother,” he said. “My ex. In Albany.”

  So much for that suspicion. Kaitlyn had been telling the truth. About that.

  Armistead stood, glanced toward the door. Ellie’s time was running out. The break-in thing could be a coincidence, but what could she say to find out?

  “Mr. Armistead, do you know a Lydia Frost?” Ellie asked.

  He shook his head. “No.”

  “Gabriel Hoyt?”

  “No.” His tone had hardened. He stepped toward the front door. Meg gathered her stuff, as if accepting the interview was over.

  “Dettalinda Fiddler?” Ellie persisted.

  “Miss … Berensen, is there a point? I thought you were asking about Kaitlyn’s last—you damn reporters. Liars, every damn one of you. You told me you wanted me to warn people about—” His voice broke, and he pulled open the storm door, then the front door, revealing the empty stoop and the night beyond.

  Why did those names seem to create such a dramatic reaction? If her possibly impetuous questions sent him directly to the telephone, ratting her out to—someone—she might be in trouble. She scrambled to explain. “Sir? Those people are connected to a company that—”

  “You people.” He cut her off. “Never should have let you start. My wife is dead.”

  He stood and looked away, a silent statue, waiting for them to leave.

  CHAPTER 47

  ELLIE

  Feeling almost propelled by the force of the slamming door, Ellie hurried down the front walk, defeated, Meg close behind. The night felt heavy with cold, dense with the sharp fragrant fog of impending snow. Had they learned anything?

  She clicked open the door of her car, and watched Meg picking her way over the bumpy space between the sidewalk and the passenger side. Got here by Uber, huh? Made sense, Ellie supposed.

  Meg opened her door, tossed her tote bag onto the floor and plopped onto the passenger seat. “Go,” she said.

  “What?”

  Meg yanked on her seat belt. “Really. Ellie. Go!”

  Ellie looked back to Armistead’s front door. “Is he coming out with a gun or something?”

  “El—” Meg jabbed one forefinger at the windshield. “Let’s leave. Hurry. I’ll explain in a minute. Trust me on this.”

  The lights from inside the Armistead house hadn’t changed, and Ellie couldn’t see anyone at the window. She imagined James Armistead already on the phone. She wondered who he would call.

  “El-lie.” Meg’s eyes were wide, pleading.

  Ellie hit the ignition, shifted into reverse, and pulled onto Valentine Way.

  Meg yanked her tote bag onto her lap and started pawing through it.

  “What’re you looking for?” Ellie glanced at her, curious. Meg seemed spooked, almost frantic to depart.

  “You know when he dumped out Kaitlyn’s briefcase?” Meg’s attention was still on the bag, both hands inside it.

  “Yeah.”

  “And a couple of things fell on the floor?”

  “Yeah. Purse junk.”

  “Pencils,” Meg said. “Specific pencils and a specific sticky pad. I picked them up real fast and stashed them in my bag.”

  Ellie pulled onto the main street, out of the Holiday Hills subdivision. The road expanded to a crowded four-lane highway, with cars honking, swerving, jockeying for position and skating through yellow lights, everyone in a hurry to get where they were going before the snow started. “What’s a specific pencil?” she asked.

  “Look.” Meg held two yellow pencils, points up, her fingers curled around the eraser ends.

  “Meg. I’m trying to drive. What pencils?”

  Meg turned the pencils sideways, briefly held them in Ellie’s line of vision. “Pharminex pencils.”

  “Pharmin—what?” Like any good reporter, Ellie’s mind raced to come up with explanations other than the ones they were hoping for. “Kaitlyn had them? She could have gotten them at Dr. McGinty’s office.”

  “You’ve seen these?”

  Nora has, Ellie wanted to say. She’d distributed them every day. “Yeah,” she said. “Around.”

  Meg thrust a pad of off-white stickies directly into Ellie’s line of sight. “I took these too.”

  Ellie recognized it instantly. A preprinted prescription pad for Monifan.

  “That was in her briefcase?” She moved the pad so she could see the road again. The predicted snow had started in earnest, a thick-flaked promise of more to come. She turned on the wipers, wishing she were home.

  “Yup.” She heard Meg flipping the edges of the pad, making a soft riffle. “Do you think Pharminex had something to do with Kaitlyn’s death?”

  Ellie punched the heater to high, and someone behind them honked, though the light was still red. The windshield wipers clacked and swiped, back and forth, fighting a persistent but losing battle with the increasing snow.

  “She had Pharminex things. Monifan things,” Meg went on. “See? Connection.”

  “You took them, though. You can’t steal stuff.”

  “I thought you’d be happy. Because now we know—”

  “We don’t, though, do we?” Ellie tried not to be angry as she edged into traffic. “Let’s say they turn out to matter. We’re going to tell Warren and the police how we got them? That you took them? What if Armistead says they weren’t in her briefcase? There’s no way for us to prove they were. It’s called chain of custody. Now it’s broken.”

  “What should I have done?” Meg asked.

  “Left everything where it was.”

  “But—”

  “Or you could have simply shown them to me, right?”

  “Guess so, but then we wouldn’t have them. You and your rules.”

  “Rules are how we get this story on the air. Without getting sued.”

  “Never gonna happen.” Meg sounded like a petulant teenager. “Stupid.”

  In silence, Ellie navigated the cloverleaf entrance onto the Mass Pike back to Boston, feeling a brooding sulk emanating from her passenger. Ellie caught a glimpse of her, her chin buried in the puff of her jacket, eyes downcast. No question the woman should not have stolen from Armistead’s home.

  But why would Kaitlyn have prescription forms?

  She heard Meg pawing in her purse again. Kidding me? What else had she swiped?

  Meg had pulled out a plastic container, dumped three caplets into her hand and palmed them into her mouth. Chewed, puffing out a blast of peppermint. “Look. I get why you’re—whatever. I’m new, and I didn’t have the guts to tell you about my potential job at Channel Eleven that night we first met. You must have been so mad when you saw me in Warren’s office.” She reached over, touched Ellie on the arm. “Guess I’ve been trying to make up for that since then. With, you know, cookies and cat toys. And now with a prescription pad and pencils.”

  “Specific pencils,” Ellie teased, trying to be empathetic. “Okay. But…” How should she handle this? “We have to assume, or hope, that Armistead is not going to call me or you or Warren and complain about stolen pencils and a pad. Maybe he won’t notice.” She shook her head. “Maybe.”

  “Maybe they fell out of the briefcase and into my bag. And we didn’t realize it.”

/>   “Let’s hope we don’t have to go with that explanation,” Ellie said.

  They approached the Seaport District exit, and Ellie steered into the proper lane. A ridge of white snow lined the top of the green highway sign, and the lighted crawl spelled out DANGEROUS WEATHER CONDITIONS. SPEED REDUCED. WATCH FOR SNOWPLOWS.

  “I’m so sorry,” Meg said. “I was only trying to—”

  “Listen, it’s late,” Ellie interrupted. “The driving is horrible. I don’t have to go back to the station. Do you?”

  “No. I—”

  “Want to come over?” She should give the woman a chance. Be a good colleague. “Maybe have a glass of wine. Brainstorm the story.”

  “Sure.” Meg had turned in her seat, seat belt straining as she faced Ellie. “But it’s my turn. Wine at my place instead? I have cookies.”

  “Sure,” Ellie said. “Wine and cookies. Basic food groups. I’ll dump my stuff, feed Blinker and then come right over. What fun.”

  CHAPTER 48

  ELLIE

  From her parking spot half a block away, Ellie recognized his shape. Gabe stood on the top step of the front stoop of her apartment building. The porch light revealed his black jacket and black watch cap were dotted with snowflakes. His hands were stuffed into his pockets.

  She and Meg approached, tramping through the snowy slush on the sidewalk. At least Gabe knew all about her relationship with Meg, so that made this easier.

  No. No, it didn’t. Ellie almost stopped in her tracks. Meg had talked to Gabe at the Pharminex reception area this morning and he’d told her his name was Will Faraday. Meg was now seeing Pharminex employee Will Faraday on her stoop.

  “Hey,” Ellie said, raising her hand in greeting as they approached. She’d leave his name out of it for now. “What’s up? This is my colleague Meg Weest. Meg, this is—”

  “Will Faraday?”

  Ellie wished she could read Meg’s mind as well as she could read the surprise on her face, even in the gloom of this March evening. Plus, what was Gabe doing here? Not smart of him to show up unannounced. And somewhat disconcerting.

  Who’d make the next move in this game without rules? She would.

  “Such a surprise, Will,” she said. “Why’re you standing on my doorstep? Did I forget we had an appointment? And hey, Will, you know Meg? How?”

  “Ellie?” Meg’s white wool cap was drawn low over her forehead, her ponytail peeking out the back. Her eyelashes were flecked with white and her eyes seemed wary. “Um, Will works for Pharminex. I met him because—” She winced. “You’re gonna kill me,” she said. “I went to Pharminex to apply for a job.”

  Ellie burst out laughing, figuring that was the most destabilizing thing she could do. “Kill you? That’s close to the truth, Meg.” She dropped her shoulders, as if in defeat. “We’re not supposed to be deceptive, Will,” she pretended to explain. “Or omit the fact that we’re journalists.”

  “Whoa.” Gabe—Will—pretended to be surprised. Then concerned. “A journalist? You told me you wanted a job. Are you allowed to lie? Ellie, did you know about this?”

  A car sluiced through the icy street behind them, the snow falling in earnest, drifting through the streetlight beams as the early evening darkened into night. A blue glow flickered in some of the apartment windows of the brownstones lining the street; in others, orange shapes revealed who had working fireplaces. Normal people were making dinner now, correcting homework, watching TV, Netflix and chilling.

  Ellie’s toes were growing colder by the second. She picked up on Gabe’s reaction and improvised her next lines, hoping he would understand their roles. “Of course not, Will. And I am so sorry. I’m just hearing about it now.”

  She turned to Meg. “Listen. We’ll deal with your deception at some point, but here’s the deal. You can’t ever tell anyone you saw Will here. Ever. Will’s a good guy. Trying to help. But if anyone discovered what he was really doing—giving me—well, us—guidance, he’d lose his livelihood at Pharminex. And he’s got a wife and kids at home. Right, Will?”

  “Right. Three. Going on four.”

  Meg looked back and forth between the two of them, as if trying to gauge the weight of her predicament. “Sure. Of course. And I’m really sorry. We only just met in the reception area and—”

  “Anyone else cold? And getting colder?” Ellie gestured toward the entryway. “I’ve got to feed my poor starving cat. And Will, Meg and I have plans. So I don’t have much time.”

  “I love cats,” he said.

  “Perfect,” Ellie said. “You come meet Blinker while Meg hides all the stuff she doesn’t want me to see.”

  “There’s nothing—”

  “Kidding!” Ellie pulled open the outer front door, and the three of them crowded into the tiny vestibule, where a scatter of mail was strewn on a marble ledge under a line of locked metal mailboxes. Gabe’s tortoiseshell glasses fogged up, and so did Ellie’s red ones. Simultaneously they each took them off, inspected them and, laughing, put them back on.

  “Hey! Why don’t you come too, Will?” Meg looked at him, then Ellie, for approval. “So we can make sure we’re on the same page? Wine and cookies. Ten minutes-ish?”

  “Ah…” Ellie began. This seemed unnecessarily complicated. Gabe was here for some reason, and it wasn’t cookies.

  “Sure,” he said.

  “Ten minutes,” Ellie said. By the time the elevators deposited them on three, the building’s blasting steam heat had them all unzipping their coats and unwrapping scarves.

  “Ten minutes,” Meg called out, as she opened her door, and disappeared behind 3-B.

  As soon as she and Gabe got inside, Ellie turned to face him. “Well, that was a moment. What the—?”

  “How was I supposed to know you two were coming here together?” he asked. Blinker, in high affection mode, was already curling around his legs. The cat purred so enthusiastically that Ellie was almost embarrassed.

  “Hey, wait,” she said. “You told me you were allergic to cats.”

  “Guy is allergic,” he said. “He was trying to make sure you didn’t invite him over.”

  Ellie waved him off. “Stop. No more Guy. So—okay. Why’re you here?”

  “Really, ah, nothing.” Gabe looked sheepish and had stooped down to pet the cat. Talked at Blinker instead of to Ellie. “Just wondered, ah, if you might want to grab a bite. Talk about our project.”

  She toed off her heavy boots and switched them for the flats she’d left by the door, then took off her coat and tossed it onto the couch. He was asking her out? What kind of ploy was this? “Another first date?”

  “Huh?” Gabe shrugged off his jacket, folded it over his arm.

  “We’ve gone out as Nora and Guy. But never as Ellie and Gabe. So—yeah. Sure.” She had to smile, despite her nagging uncertainty about him. “Maybe that’s a plan. But now we’re doomed to go to Meg’s. Some date. Give me a second to feed the cat.”

  She headed for the kitchen and opened the swivel cabinet where she kept the cat food. Blinker scampered after her the moment the door squeaked open. “Don’t come in here, Gabe. Cat food smells hideous.”

  “Where’ve you been today, anyway?” Gabe called out.

  “So yeah, pretty interesting.” She couldn’t say—yeah, the state police asked me to find Nora Quinn for them, which I agreed to do if they’d find out who you really are. She’d stick to safer ground. The truth but not the whole truth. “We went to Kaitlyn Armistead’s house—well, I did, at any rate,” she called across the room to him. “And guess who—she lives in 3-B—was already there? Much to my surprise.”

  She twisted open the flat can with a handheld opener, lifted the lid and wrinkled her nose, Blinker mewing insistently at her feet. “This is gross, Blink,” she said. “You cats are nuts.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing, talking to the cat.” She spooned out the lamb and rice, rinsed the can, tossed it into recycling. Refilled the water dish. Blinker was already off, revelin
g in food world.

  “We met James Armistead, who didn’t appear to be the nasty, wife-shaming bad guy Kaitlyn described.”

  “Described to Nora, you mean.” Gabe still stood just inside her front door. “But you went there as Ellie.”

  “Well, yeah, luckily.” Ellie washed her hands, then joined Gabe by the door, tossing a crumpled paper towel in a wastebasket on the way. “When I saw him, listened to him, I kept thinking of how Nora was the last person his wife had ever talked to. How that conversation might have caused her death. What if he’d known Nora was me? That I pretty much killed his wife?”

  She heard the stress in her own voice, surprised by the sound of it. “I’m sorry. It’s just—”

  Gabe grabbed Ellie with both hands, one resting on each of her shoulders, not a caress, not a threat, just enough to get her attention.

  “Look,” he said, his face close to hers. “Like I said in the car. You have to stop thinking this. You did not have anything to do with her death. It’s terrible, I can only imagine, to have been through that. But it’s not cause and effect. Something else, even someone else, caused her death. Or nothing did, it was an accident. But not you.”

  Ellie didn’t move away from him. The air in the room felt cold and still, the rising wind now rattling the windowpanes in the wall behind them. No matter what Gabe said, or how often, nothing could erase her guilt. But she could use that guilt, that responsibility, as fuel to work even harder. Pharminex had killed Kaitlyn Armistead—whether on a snowy highway, or by giving her a dangerous drug, or by breaking her heart.

  She lifted her chin to look up at him, his eyes sincere under those glasses. Then she turned, ending the moment. If this man turned out to be a con artist, compassion was probably part of his repertoire.

  “Thanks,” she said, moving away from him and back to business. She zipped open her tote bag, looking for her cell phone. “I was hoping Armistead would reveal something about Kaitlyn. But he didn’t.”

  She tapped through her phone, pulled up a photo and turned the screen so he could see it. “This is where she lived, the front of their house. And look, do you think he got a new car? The white one. Because she had a white car, but this can’t be that one.”