The First to Lie

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  Gabe pulled out two couch cushions as he answered. “Nope,” he said, peering behind them. He puffed them, one at a time, as if feeling for something hidden inside, them put them back. “We were invited in. We’re nosy. Rude. Impolite.” He slid a hand into the opening behind the cushions, pulled out a quarter. Put it on the coffee table. “But we’re not criminals.” He unzipped his parka. “Her office?”

  “Bedroom.” Ellie dumped her coat on the couch and brushed past him, on a mission. If Lacey was on the run, there was no way for them to find her. But if she’d left something incriminating behind, they could probably find that. “Wait. Kitchen. I’ll do it. You keep looking in here.”

  Gabe stooped, looking under a flowered club chair as Ellie headed to the kitchen.

  She opened the white-painted cabinets, one by one, running her hands under the empty shelves and behind the doors. Under the sink, nothing. Where pots and pans might be stored—nothing. She yanked open the narrow clattering drawers. Two forks, two knives, a corkscrew, ice pick, a few mismatched spoons. Could Meg have used the corkscrew to stab the tires? Ellie reached out to examine it for rubber. Stopped herself. Plus, no one would be dumb enough to keep such a suspicious item.

  “Anything?” she called out.

  “Lint,” Gabe called back. “I’m going into her office.” She heard him trot down the hall. Inside the white fridge, Ellie saw only a deflating plastic bottle of water and a twist-tied package of English muffins. Freezer? She yanked at the door, letting out a puff of cold. The freezer, domed with opaque frost, sat empty. Frost, Ellie thought. Poor Lydia.

  “Nothing, nothing,” Ellie muttered as she hustled down the hall to the office, where Gabe was taking out the desk drawer. “Kitchen is nothing,” she told him. “Bedroom.”

  “Where was she, all these years? Lacey, I mean.” Gabe peered under the wooden desk, patted his hand along the frame. Wiped it on his jeans.

  Ellie shook her head. “There’s not much online. No one seemed to care. The Vanderwalds—well, to them, who was she but their son’s wife? Without him, she was nobody. And after he—Trevor—” She stopped midsentence, picturing it, the sailboat, the bay where Trevor Vanderwald had died, fallen off the boat putting up a spinnaker, an accident, everyone had said so, every article and report she’d seen online. The photo of Trevor Vanderwald she’d seen, the one they’d put on display at his memorial service, with that orange spinnaker billowing behind him, his grin, his eyes gazing somewhere out to sea. “He was a champion sailor, did you know that?” Ellie asked.

  “I read that, yeah.” Gabe flipped a spindly desk chair upside down, looked underneath. “But what happened to Lacey? Nothing in here, that I can find anyway.”

  They paused in the open bedroom doorway. “She probably took her big bucks and set off to snare another rich husband. But she’s here now. If you were Lacey Vanderwald, where would you hide something? Bedroom?”

  “Under the bed?” Ellie stepped into the room, determined, and lifted the fringe of the thick white bedspread, then crouched to peer underneath. She reached out an arm and patted the thin blue pile of the carpet. Nothing. She aimed her cell phone screen at the lattice of wooden slats that held the mattress. Nothing.

  She heard the closet door open. She backed away from under the bed, brushed off her pants legs as she stood, then yanked open each of the three dresser drawers. Empty, aside from a vague floral scent. “Gabe? Anything?”

  She checked her phone as she took the few steps to the open closet. Nothing from Monteiro. Had he found anything in Meg’s apartment? What would that even be? She had a fleeting thought of Blinker, alone and clueless. He’d be fine.

  “Nothing,” Gabe said.

  “And that’s the proof, right?” Ellie said. “There’s nothing because this whole place, it’s not ‘Abigail’s apartment.’ It’s phony. Phony as Meg is.” Her phone pinged. Monteiro. “M-I-A, Monteiro says.”

  “Damn it. Where’d she go?”

  “She’s Lacey Vanderwald,” Ellie said. “A scheming widow with a bottomless bank account. She could be anywhere. Question is, what’s she scheming about?”

  * * *

  “We just got in.” Monteiro, stationed in front of Meg’s—Lacey’s?—apartment, had greeted them on the landing, the door of 3-B open behind him. After finding nothing in “Abigail’s” place, Ellie and Gabe had messaged Monteiro, and he’d summoned them back to Ellie’s. Gabe had insisted on staying with her. We’re in this together now, he’d said. Ellie hoped that was a good thing. Whatever “this” meant.

  Through Meg’s open door, Ellie saw what she figured were camera flashes, had a sense of white-clothed people moving through the place. She heard a low mutter of quiet almost-conversation, the monosyllabic back-and-forth of a search. Yes, no, over here.

  “Super opened the door, Ms. Berensen. After the warrant.” Monteiro, wearing a thin black quilted vest over a tweed jacket and with sleek sunglasses propped on his head, held a silver cell phone in one hand and a folded piece of paper in the other. “If you don’t mind waiting out here a bit, Ms. Berensen? We’ll need to check your place too.”

  “For what?” Ellie had a flashback of hiding-Nora PTSD. But that charade was over. Her Nora clothes were integrated into her regular wardrobe, her blond-bob Ellie wigs necessary for the on-camera needs as a television journalist. “I mean, sure. You think she’s inside?”

  Ellie heard Blinker meow, inquisitive, from inside her apartment. The cat had probably heard Ellie’s voice and decided it was mealtime. She remembered the crocheted dead bird toy Meg had left. Her scrutiny of Ellie’s comings and goings. Remembered the non-break-in. Meg’s clingy prying. Her confession about her “brother.” And the fancy blonde he’d married. The sailing accident.

  “I’m—” Gabe began.

  “Oh. This is Gabe Hoyt,” Ellie said. Then winced. Then hoped her expression hadn’t revealed her discomfort. She’d asked Monteiro to check Gabe out. And he’d given Gabe the all clear. Was this the first time they’d met? They were sure acting like it. Plus, she’d promised to connect Monteiro with Nora Quinn. She worried again, remembering that he’d never followed up. Which made this face-to-face either embarrassing or perplexing or reassuring. She’d let Monteiro make the first move. At least she was still Ellie Berensen to him. “This is Detective Lieutenant Monteiro. State Police.”

  Monteiro raised an eyebrow, acknowledging. “So, Ms. Berensen. Besides in your place, which seems improbable, any idea where Lacey Vanderwald might be? We’ve got someone at your TV station checking with management about how she happened to show up while you were investigating her dead husband’s family—any idea about that? And to let those people know to contact us—confidentially—if she shows up there. We figure that’s also unlikely. We told your news director you were okay, by the way.”

  Ellie figured Warren was the least of her worries. “So you do think she’s Lacey Vanderwald?”

  “Yup.”

  “Why?” Ellie and Gabe said the word at the same time.

  “It’s her white car.” Monteiro had leaned against the hallway wall, crossed his black-booted ankles. “Right age, right everything. She looks different from the photos we’ve collected, but you know, women and money. Hard to tell from exteriors. Give ’em a new hairstyle and a new nose, maybe some glasses—you know.”

  Ellie fought the urge to adjust her bangs. “Might she be at James Armistead’s? Did he have anything to do with her past?” Ellie remembered the “specific” pencil and P-X pad that came out of Kaitlyn’s briefcase.

  “Swears he has no idea who she is. Thought she was ‘some damn reporter.’ His words. Even wanted to know whether he could keep her car. We’re taking prints from it now. And from inside the apartment.” He cocked his head toward the open doorway. “I’m hoping it’ll be easy to confirm her identity. Homeland Security says she’s got Global Entry, so that puts her prints on file. She can’t leave the country again. Not easily. You’re the one who’s closest to her, that we know
of, at least. Any thoughts? Ideas? Suggestions?”

  Ellie draped her coat over the newel post of the apartment stairway. A ray of afternoon sun, carrying motes of glittering dust, beamed through the four-paned landing window. It seemed like an eternity since this morning and Meg’s sudden switch of directions to the Uber driver—though it was possible it wasn’t sudden. Maybe Meg had wanted to get Ellie to that Braintree apartment. A place where no one would know to look for her. What had been Meg’s—she still thought of her as Meg—what had been her true goal? If there was no real Abigail, that meant only the two of them had been there.

  “You think she killed Trevor Vanderwald?” Ellie had to ask. “I thought it was an accident.”

  “Why are you investigating now?” Gabe unzipped his parka and hung it over Ellie’s coat on the newel post. “After all these years?”

  Monteiro scratched his cheek, turned to look inside Meg’s apartment, seemed to be considering.

  “It’s been almost seven years, in fact,” Monteiro said. “Since Trevor Vanderwald’s death. The big gala, the family thing, is in his honor. I’m sure you know about that.”

  “Tomorrow,” Ellie said.

  “Tomorrow,” Gabe said at the same time.

  “After seven years, the family knew, would come the legal declaration of death. Since there was no…” Monteiro paused, seemed to be choosing his words. “Since no body was recovered, the legal procedures for that declaration had to proceed. They gathered all the paperwork, medical records, all that.”

  “Which meant Lacey would get all the money from her husband’s estate fund, I’m guessing,” Gabe said, nodding. “Once her husband was officially declared—well, wait. That doesn’t make sense. She’d have more money if he was alive. So why—”

  “Rafe? Lieutenant?” A lanky woman wearing white paper coveralls stepped into the doorway, holding an ice pick and a corkscrew in her lavender-gloved hands. “Marking these? FYI.”

  “Can’t hurt,” Monteiro said. “Thanks, Lisa.”

  “Ice pick?” Ellie had one too, in her apartment, courtesy of the furnishings Channel 11 provided. “Corkscrew? You think she caused those accidents? Crashes? Kaitlyn Armistead and Lydia Frost?”

  “Off the record?”

  “Sure,” Ellie said.

  “Yes. We do.”

  It all came back, washed over her yet again, how she’d heard—as Nora—the gaspingly unmistakable sound of Kaitlyn Armistead’s last moments on earth, the fear and the metal and how Ellie had been unable to save her. And Lydia, her colleague, and almost friend, who’d worried about corporate spies and someone watching her.

  “A Pharminex patient.” Ellie touched one forefinger to the other, counting off. “A Pharminex employee. And—her husband? About to be a Pharminex big shot. But how did you connect that to Meg?”

  “She’d Bluetoothed her phone to her car,” Monteiro said. “I suppose we can tell you that. Did you know your car’s computer saves all your searches? Like it does on your desktop. Once we took her car from Armistead’s, we downloaded that thing and—well, there it was. Gotta love technology. How to disable a tire. A roster of Pharminex salespeople. Several searches for Lydia Frost. And one for Kaitlyn Armistead. Not sure how she knew that name—but we’ll wait for her to tell us. Once we find her.”

  “The car’s computer saves it? Like a search history?”

  “Yup. GPS destinations too.” Monteiro seemed almost proud. “Don’t tell the bad guys, okay?”

  “Sir?” The white-coveralled investigator was back. She leaned close to Monteiro.

  Ellie watched the lieutenant’s face change. Change again.

  “Can you come with us? Both of you?” Monteiro made his request in a way that did not sound as if there was a choice. “Trooper Quinlivan wants to show you something. Let me know if you’re aware of it. Don’t touch anything. Ready? Show us, Lisa.” The four trooped into Meg’s apartment. Quinlivan led them toward a door along the hall. The second bedroom. In Ellie’s apartment, she’d made it her office.

  They stood in the open doorway, Monteiro and Quinlivan behind, Ellie and Gabe in front.

  “What?” Ellie tried to comprehend. “But she doesn’t…”

  “A crib?” Gabe said. “But there’s no—”

  “You’ve never seen this before?” Monteiro’s gesture encompassed the room. A white wooden crib with a mobile of crocheted birds, each with cross-stitched eyes, barely swaying above it. A shelf of plushy stuffed animals, bears and unicorns. Puffy white letters attached to the wall, spelling out LOVE. A box of disposable diapers. A music box, open, with the figure of a smiling snowman. The room smelled of pink baby lotion.

  “What’s—?” There couldn’t possibly be a baby. Ellie knew, in one racing moment of analysis, there was simply no way that could be.

  Quinlivan pointed. “Inside the crib.”

  Ellie felt the blood drain from her face. She’d never heard a baby. There was a baby? Did Meg have a baby? Had she adopted a baby? Taken a baby?

  Monteiro took a step forward, paused, then motioned to Ellie. “If you will, please,” he said.

  Ellie moved closer to the crib, fearing … fearing everything. What had Meg done?

  And there on the blue-striped flannel sheet of the crib, swaddled in a fuzzy blue blanket, was a baby doll, timeworn and translucent-skinned, pink cheeks faded, but ice-blue eyes open and staring at the ceiling.

  The four stood for a moment in silence.

  “A doll,” Ellie said.

  “A doll?” Gabe echoed.

  “You don’t know about this, I take it?” Monteiro said.

  “No.” Ellie shook her head. “She’s … taking care of a doll?”

  “Seems to be,” Monteiro said.

  “Lieutenant?” Ellie had to ask. She closed her eyes for a moment, blocking out the doll, blocking out the grotesque reality that Meg had given a doll its own room.

  “You don’t think she’s hiding in my apartment, do you? I had a break-in last week, nothing was taken—long story—but we never figured out how whoever it was got in. Maybe it was Meg. Lacey. And she got in the same way this time. Maybe she’s there now.”

  CHAPTER 60

  ELLIE

  “You want me to open the door?” Ellie dug into her tote bag for her keys. “She can’t be in here, though. It’d be too risky. She knows you all are looking for her, she—”

  “Let’s not assume what anyone would do or know, Ms. Berensen.” Monteiro pulled lavender plastic gloves from his vest pocket, snapped them over his hands. “Mr. Hoyt, you stay here. We don’t need to worry about Ms. Berensen’s prints.” He pointed a purple finger at Ellie. “Okay. Go ahead. Open the door. But I’ll go in first.”

  With a click and a thunk, the deadbolt lock turned with Ellie’s key, and Monteiro entered. Gabe grabbed the white blur that was Blinker, who had apparently been poised to escape again. Standing on her own threshold, Ellie tried to sense the presence of anyone who shouldn’t be there. She still half believed in Abigail—maybe she did exist.

  “Stay here,” Monteiro ordered. Then he headed down the hall. Ellie turned to see Gabe in the hallway, Blinker still in his arms. Behind them, the sun had dimmed the hallway into gloomy shadow, as if Boston were trying to cling to the last of winter. Meg’s apartment door was still open, lights on, their glow highlighting the intensity of the ongoing search.

  Blinker had burrowed herself into Gabe’s navy-blue sweater. “You two okay?” Ellie reached out. “I’ll take her.”

  “We’re fine,” Gabe said.

  Ellie saw Monteiro open her bedroom door and go inside, heard the closet open. The bathroom door was already open, but she heard a swish as Monteiro yanked aside the shower curtain. “Kitchen,” he said, as he crossed past her. “Stay there.”

  Ellie heard cabinets opening, then drawers, then the fridge and the freezer, the way she and Gabe had done, to no avail, in the Braintree apartment. In a beat, Monteiro was back. “We’re clear. No place for a person to
hide in here, Ms. Berensen,” he said.

  “Ellie,” she said, “is fine.”

  “Sure.” Monteiro paused. “Can you come with me a moment, though?” He led her back to the kitchen, where he pulled open a narrow white drawer next to the sink. The frame rattled as the drawer rolled out. “You’d told me earlier your apartments came furnished, everything exactly the same.”

  “Seem to be,” Ellie said. “Same furniture, dishes, silverware. Same towels, even, I saw when I was at Meg’s.”

  Monteiro nodded. “Ice pick? Corkscrew?”

  “In that drawer.” Ellie frowned, analyzing where this might be going. “The ice pick? I’ve never used it, but yeah, one’s in there. And the corkscrew.” She gave half a smile. “Yeah. That I use.”

  “Can you show me?” He pointed to the drawer.

  Ellie took a step toward it, baffled. Looked in the drawer. Blinked at it. Then again. “Not there,” she said. “But—”

  Ellie kept staring at the empty slots where the corkscrew and ice pick had always been.

  “You know, Lieutenant? There was an ice pick and a corkscrew at her other—at the Braintree place. They all look alike, though.”

  “Yeah.” Monteiro pulled out his cell, snapped a few photos of the open drawer. “Maybe she took yours. She’s been in here, I assume. Maybe she was planning to blame you. Frame you. After—whatever she had in store for you in Braintree, I’m wondering if she wasn’t planning on letting you leave there alive, Ms. Berensen.”

  “Me?” Ellie sank onto one of the kitchen chairs. “Why?”

  “At this point we can only speculate. She’s a murder suspect, after all. Maybe she’d set it up so it would look like—in the aftermath—that you were full of remorse for what you did to your archrival Lydia Frost. And also what you did to the crusading victim Ms. Armistead, who was about to call in a squad of reporters to ruin the company you worked for.”

  “Remorse? For what I did?” Ellie pushed up her red glasses, as if trying to see through Monteiro’s seemingly casual statement. “Wait. The company I work for? But—”