What You See

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  14

  If Jane’s phone didn’t stop buzzing, she was going to crush it to tiny phone smithereens. Still crouched in the alley by the droning air conditioner, she tried to ignore her cell, the nasty little creature, the insistent piece of technology that connected her, relentlessly, to anyone who decided their life was more important than hers. She could hardly remember life before cell phones, when everyone on the planet couldn’t electronically demand attention every minute of every day. Jane had understood she was over the edge on the phone thing the day she’d walked down the back hall of the Register, talking, gone into the bathroom, listening, and tried to figure out how to pull her tights down while she asked her source one more question. At that exact moment, she’d realized she was addicted, hooked, inalterably chained to it.

  Was it Jake calling? Checking on her? Only three minutes ago, maybe less, he’d ordered her to leave the alley. She didn’t want to admit she hadn’t.

  Jake was one of the city’s top homicide cops, and this was a homicide. So where Jake was, that’s where the story would be. Here she would stay until she discovered exactly what the story was. She couldn’t hear a thing from way back there, but they had to come out sometime. She’d be ready.

  The phone buzzed again. Maybe it was the assignment desk. Maybe they had updated information.

  She dug out the phone, punched the button. Private caller. “Yes?” she whispered.

  “Jane?”

  Jane narrowed her eyes, trying to focus. The voice was familiar but off somehow.

  “It’s Melissa.”

  “Hey, Sis,” Jane whispered. “You okay? I’m right in the midst of a—”

  “I might need you,” Melissa said. “Maybe. About the Gracie thing.”

  Jane took the phone away from her ear, looked at it in brief bewilderment, as if looking through it to her sister.

  “But you said—” Jane began.

  “I know what I said.” Melissa sounded worried, her voice tight, cutting Jane off. “But I’m kind of freaking. How can I be a good mother if I can’t even handle this? Daniel’s not arriving until tonight—and … Anyway. That husband of Robyn’s. He’s—hang on a second.”

  Jane lifted her eyes skyward, pleading with the universe for one tiny break. Melissa was telling her to hang on? Hang on?

  Jane peeked around the edge of the thrumming air conditioner. Saw shadows moving, the light changing, down where the turn began. Heard voices, then footsteps. Jake and DeLuca must be on the move. With Bobby. And whoever else was back there.

  She had to get her camera. This story was about to break.

  * * *

  “Does your family live in Boston?”

  Figures. Brileen was asking the one question Tenley hoped to avoid. Now she’d have to decide what to tell her. Reality was too complicated. Who her mother was. Who her father was. Who her sister was. Or wasn’t.

  The two girls had skirted the walkways of Curley Park, headed away toward the Purple, watching as bystanders, dismissed by the police, drifted back to wherever. Tenley had seen the first ambulance pull away, siren screaming, then another one come out of Franklin Alley. Now cars were being let through, as usual. Seemed like normal was back.

  Tenley knew she had less than ten minutes more with this girl, this Brileen. That would be barely long enough to grab a coffee. Not enough for the story of her family.

  Maybe she should change the subject. Or find out more about Brileen, because in ten minutes, she’d have to say good-bye, and that would be too bad.

  “Do you?” Tenley asked. “Have family in Boston?”

  “Sure,” Brileen said. “Doesn’t mean I like ’em.” She yanked the leather shoulder strap of a black laptop bag over her head, carried it cross-body.

  “Tell me about it,” Tenley said.

  She looked down as they walked, watched how her steps matched Brileen’s. Bri’s feet in chunky Maddens, all thick laces and blocky soles. Tenley’s were in black flats, which she used to love, just this morning she’d loved them. Now they looked like loser shoes. Why did everything always change?

  “Hang on a second.” Brileen tilted her head toward the alley. “Hear that? See that? Somebody’s coming out,” she whispered. She flattened herself against the bank’s stone façade, gestured Tenley to do the same. “We should be careful. What if the bad guy is still—you know. Out there.”

  Tenley leaned out, just a fraction so she could see around Brileen.

  “Hey!” Brileen whispered. “They’ve got someone in handcuffs? See him?”

  “Whoa.” Tenley edged away from the shelter of the building, wanting to get a better look. In about two minutes she was going to be late for work, which would be difficult to explain. If Dahlstrom even gave her a chance to explain.

  But this was kind of like a movie. How could she leave now?

  * * *

  Jane was shooting the hell out of this, whatever this turned out to be. Jane’s job now was to get everything on video. Shoot first, one journalism school professor had instructed, ask questions later. The whole class had lost it, laughing.

  But that’s exactly what she was doing.

  Melissa had hung up on her—or maybe their cell phone connection had gotten dropped, Jane wasn’t sure. But when Jane had heard voices, then seen shadows, then heard feet crunching across the grit of the alley cobblestones, she’d tucked herself behind the air conditioner again—seemed like she’d spent a lot of time there—knowing the next face she saw might be Jake’s, and wondering how, exactly, she’d deal with that.

  Jake would not be happy. And she did not have a good explanation for why she’d ignored his orders to leave. Not that she was obligated to do what he told her.

  But it was a stranger’s face she saw first, a blustering, muttering, muscle-bound guy in a sweat-soaked oxford shirt and ripped khakis, his hands cuffed behind him, being marched out of the alley by a scowling Paul DeLuca. Was this the killer?

  Jane instantly pointed her Quik-Shot, checking that the camera was recording, making sure the sound was up, feeling the heart-swelling rise of news instinct, the hope that maybe, because she’d held her ground, she was now documenting the arrest of the guy she’d mentally headlined the Curley Park Killer. It was breaking news, it was exclusive, and it was a potentially career-clinching moment.

  “Get her outta here,” the man yelled. “I told you no photographs! I’m going to sue the hell out of…”

  Jane let out a steadying spiral of breath. Stay calm. Do this. If the man didn’t want his photo taken, Channel 2’s legal people would decide whether to put it on the air. But in her book, a handcuffed man in police custody was a suspect and fair broadcast game.

  She felt the warm flush of adrenaline as she panned the camera to follow DeLuca and the man out of the alley, the suspect’s voice diminishing as DeLuca led him away.

  Behind DeLuca was the kid, Bobby Land. His hands, not cuffed, were jammed into his pockets, his shoulders sagged, and a smear of dirt swiped across his face. The hipster-wannabe camo hat he’d worn so jauntily was jammed into the waistband of his jeans. He’d approached Jane all confident and conspiratorial. Now he was just an angry-looking kid, stomping down the alley in grimy scuffed sneakers, the untied laces dragging on the pavement.

  And behind him was Jake. Jake had one hand on Bobby’s shoulder, but didn’t look as if he had the boy in custody. In his other hand, Jake carried what looked like a clear plastic bag of … Jane couldn’t tell.

  Just keep shooting, her reporter brain instructed. Then follow them out.

  Through the viewfinder, Jane watched that plan go down the tubes. Jake stopped and turned back to look at her. She saw his face in the camera first, then looked past the viewfinder to see him in reality as well. She’d seen Jake laughing and crying, she’d seen him perplexed, amused, and concerned, and, a couple of times, irate. She wasn’t quite sure how to label his current expression.

  “Jane?” As if he didn’t know who she was. Or couldn’t believe it.
“Why the hell are you—”

  “Hey, Detective.” She tried a conciliatory smile, all innocence and obedience. Two professional acquaintances meeting by chance. In an alley. After a murder. “Yeah, I was about to leave, just as you suggested, but then—”

  “My camera is wrecked, Jane!” Bobby wrenched himself away from Jake, glowering, and took a step toward her. “Where’d you go? I had everything, like I told you, all the photographs of the stabbing, but then this moron—I can’t even believe it. Broke it. All that’s left is in that stupid plastic bag. Look!”

  He pointed to the bag in Jake’s hand with one accusatory finger. Jane backed up—partly to get a better shot of the bag, partly because she wasn’t quite sure about the look on the kid’s face. He was about nineteen or twenty, hadn’t he told her he was in college? And though he obviously cultivated a kind of urban-hip streetwise vibe, he had a jittery quality, edgy as an abused pup trying to decide whether a newcomer was ally or enemy. A pup who had chosen incorrectly before.

  “Wait, who broke it?” Jane asked. Had Jake smashed the kid’s camera? Why? The other perplexing thing was that Bobby had never told her he had photos of the murder. He’d only said he might. She pointed her Quik-Shot at Jake. “Ja—Detective Brogan?”

  “Enough. From both of you.” Jake clamped his free hand on the kid’s right arm and yanked Bobby away from her. “Anything else you need, you get from headquarters, Ms. Ryland.”

  He pivoted, leading a still-complaining Bobby toward the sunlit street.

  Two hours since she’d gotten this assignment, and now Jane had about three seconds before the only thing in her viewfinder would be an empty alley. DeLuca and whoever that was in handcuffs were already at the sidewalk. She had a camera full of something, but no idea what the video meant. She had to find out. And quickly.

  “Detective Brogan? Can you at least identify the man in handcuffs?” she called after them. “Is he a person of interest in the Curley Park stabbing?”

  Jake had turned his back on her and was leading Bobby out of the alley. He took another step, then stopped, and Jane saw the back of his leather jacket rise, then fall. Still holding Bobby’s arm, Jake turned toward her, slowly. She saw his eyes narrow, his mouth in a taut line. She adored that mouth, knew every centimeter of it. She adored those dark eyes, and the laugh lines around them, had seen them as closely as anyone could see another human being.

  “‘Person of interest’?” Jake drew out the words as he looked her up and down, making her feel as if he’d never seen her before. Sometimes he acted like a stranger. Did he think about her that way, too? “Where did you hear that phrase, Ms. Ryland? On the cops and robbers channel?”

  And then her phone buzzed again.

  15

  Jane sat on Marsh Tyson’s black leather couch, waiting for the news director to return. Thinking about her long journey to get here. A few years ago, a college journalism student had interviewed Jane for a school project. You’re my role model, the girl had told her. Jane, still such a shining newbie that she’d believed that was reasonable, had answered the student thoughtfully, trying for passion and principle and optimism.

  What would be the title of your autobiography? The girl promised Jane it would be the last question. And that was a toughie. At age—what was Jane then, thirty?—the story of her life as a journalist was still unfolding. How could she label it? How could she know?

  The Best Is Yet to Come. She’d contemplated that title, but it seemed ungrateful. She’d been happy, and why dismiss what she’d already accomplished? Just Do It seemed derivative. Never Give Up? Just as clichéd. She’d felt compelled to give a good answer, an honest one. One that would give some insight into her soul. Even to herself.

  Back then she’d just been assigned to the stress-inducing ratings-driven agenda of the investigative unit. She was negotiating the mortgage on her Corey Road condo. Her sister triumphantly finished law school. Mom got her terrible diagnosis. Her father was still chief of surgery at Oak Park Hospital. Jane still had her tortoiseshell cat Murrow, and she’d been almost engaged to a cerulean-eyed doctor, whose hours at Mass General had been equally unpredictable as her reporter hours but whose profession was the one thing in Jane’s life her father couldn’t criticize.

  The Juggler. Jane had finally chosen that title, laughing and tossing imaginary balls in the air. The student paper had used it for the headline, much to her mother’s delight and her father’s disdain. Soon after, and then later, her dreams and plans had exploded and reassembled at light speed, altered with the whims of the universe. She’d begun to realize there was no use in planning and no percentage in predicting, and she’d learned that dreams sometimes had to change, even vanish.

  Now Mom was dead. Murrow, too. After winning several investigative-reporter Emmys, Jane was fired from Channel 11 for protecting a source, though that’s not how the bigwigs would have described it almost two years ago. The ex–almost fiancé was still lording it at the hospital, she guessed. She hadn’t seen him since their fight. Her father, now emeritus, still asked her about him, but Jane would change the subject. Her Corey Road condo was still home, and new arrival Coda, now almost a year old, had expected Jane to adapt to her particular feline demands.

  She’d met Jake. Not the best romantic choice, with her as rising star reporter and him as rising star detective. It created a clandestine relationship doomed from the start by police department and newsroom edicts prohibiting conflicts of interest. Last month, in one poignant moment at the end of a particularly emotional murder case, Jake had broached the idea of marriage and a future together. Over long dinners and longer after-dinners, they’d contemplated going for it, starting again, someone changing careers, maybe both of them. No pressure, plenty of time, just maybe. When, in a heart-pumping fit of indignation, Jane quit her job at the Register, with the Register’s lawyers warning her about the severe personal and financial ramifications of even the hint of a leak about the fabricated news she’d uncovered, it appeared new doors might be opening.

  Now she was juggling again.

  Jake was not talking to her. He’d turned his back in the alley earlier, striding away, Bobby Land in tow. Nor was he answering her texts.

  Lissa, oops, Melissa, wasn’t answering her texts, either.

  She was juggling Marsh Tyson, too. And the possibility of a freelance gig at Channel 2, especially if the Curley Park story panned out. They’d told her to hang on to the Quik-Shot, just in case, but they’d made a copy of her video, from the opening shots of the crime scene to the person-on-the-street interviews to the mysterious ambulance in the alley, ending with Jake walking away. Possibly the first time the potential end of a romance had been caught on camera. Talk about cinema verité.

  Just keep swimming. She could hear her mother quoting one of their favorite hospital-bedside movies. Miss you, Mom. She’d try. She had no choice.

  Marsh yanked open his glass door, letting in the chaos of the newsroom. Phones trilled, computers pinged, someone yelled “five minutes!” One wall of Tyson’s office displayed a massive bank of flickering TV monitors, their audio clashing and incomprehensible, the volume of each set turned just loud enough to muffle the others. Jane looked at the white-lighted, six-digit readout above the door: 3:55:15. The four o’clock news was about to begin.

  “Hey, Jane.” Tyson closed the door, and it all went silent. He loosened his tie, rolled up his shirtsleeves. Jane had done her homework with a few Internet searches, knew a younger Tyson had once anchored weekends in Raleigh. Handsome local boy made semi-good, his mother the mayor of some North Carolina town, his father a big civil rights activist. Now he moved behind the scenes. More job security in management, Jane guessed, than being on-air talent. Almost anything was more secure than “talent.”

  “So. How’d you like it? Being out in the fray, tracking down clues, following leads?” Tyson still embraced his anchorman voice. Listing clichés was a skill he seemed to have perfected. “You rocked this one, Jane. Your
video’ll be all over the six. Exclusive.”

  Jane shrugged, accepting the compliment. “Thanks. I called the cop shop’s new PR flack to get the deets on the victim and the guy in cuffs,” she said. She almost laughed, hearing herself using that kind of phony jargon. She held up her cell. “But she hasn’t called back.”

  If asked, Jane would have sworn she didn’t miss TV. Didn’t miss the relentless deadlines, the too-short video stories, the nature-of-the-beast shallow coverage. But all she could think about was how to break some new ground for the next show.

  What’s the most important newscast of the day? one journalism teacher had asked. Trick question, Professor Burke had said, holding up one finger, shushing them before the class could even guess. The most important newscast is the next one.

  “I’ve got our desk people on it, too,” Tyson said. “Plenty of time to write your story. Do a minute-thirty for the anchor. Beverly can voice it.”

  A knock on the glass door.

  “Yo,” Tyson said, gesturing the woman in. “Speak of the devil. What you got, Bev?”

  Beverly Chorbajian, the station’s new marquee anchor, her face on every billboard in Boston. Jane didn’t remember when anchor clothes had become so revealing, but something was certainly working for glamorous and exotic Beverly. She had a steady job, at least. More than Jane did.

  “Cop shop PR flack shot me a text, Marsh,” Beverly said, waving her phone. “Oh, hi, Jane. Anyway, still no ID or fingerprints on the Curley Park vic. Still no ID or fingerprints on the Franklin Alley suspect.”

  “The police called him a suspect?” Jane asked. Would have been nice if the PR flack had returned her call, instead of Beverly’s. Would have been helpful if she could have provided this fingerprint news. Such as it was.

  “Nope, but that’s what I’d call him.” Beverly raised an eyebrow. “He was in handcuffs, right?”

  “Whatever,” Tyson said. “And?”

  “That’s it.” Beverly tucked a strand of blonded hair behind one ear. “Flack said she’d ping when there was more.”