What You See

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  “I mean … That’s kind of strange, isn’t it?”

  Where was Bri going with this question? She couldn’t read her new friend’s face and didn’t want to look like she was staring at her. She stirred her own coffee, considering. Maybe “What happened?” was a normal question. Polite, even. “What happened” was what life is about.

  Plus, no matter what Tenley did or didn’t tell her, Brileen could pull out her cell phone and Google the whole thing.

  She and Bri had dodged elbows and trays of spilly drinks to claim the last empty booth, but the place, fragrant with beer and fried stuff, was so wall-to-wall crowded it was somehow easy to feel alone. The kids from Emerson and Suffolk and Boston City congregated at the Purple for free popcorn and multiscreen sports and eddying swirls of conversation. A couple of times some guys—one, Tenley thought, pretty cute—had stopped by the table. Tenley felt a little flutter of interest from their attention. But one dismissive look from Brileen had sent them packing.

  So chitchat, and school stuff, they both went to Boston City College, both on summer vacay, Tenley a sophomore and Bri in grad school, so they both knew the downtown campus and the brownstone dorms over by the Public Garden. And, yes, it was the graphic arts building, Bri agreed, where she’d seen Tenley. That made sense. Tenley told about her City Hall job, describing the cameras and what she could see down on the street from her vantage point above. But then Bri brought up family, and what was Tenley supposed to do? Pretend Lanna had never existed?

  She told the short version, short as she could. Omitting the part about keeping Lanna’s secret. She could barely face that herself. And now Bri was asking what happened.

  Her new friend picked up her mug, a coffee-colored ring on the white paper napkin beneath it showing as Bri took an experimental sip, then looked at Tenley from under her lashes.

  Bri waited. Tenley was supposed to answer. Say what happened.

  “No, they never really found out,” Tenley said, trying to sound like a normal person having a normal conversation. “The police investigated, you know? Took her computer, all that. Interviewed us. But there was just no real … evidence, whatever. They decided she tripped on a branch. The case is closed now.”

  Bri dumped more sugar into her mug, a tumbling cascade of white grains. “Police lie, you know. They do it all the time.”

  Why would Bri say that? Tenley took a little sip of her water, the nubby plastic glass slick with condensation, stalling.

  “Lie?” Tenley said. Her voice came out as a little croak, and she cleared her throat to hide it. Try, Lie, Bri, she thought. Silly.

  “Sure.” Brileen leaned across the table, closer to Tenley, her elbows on the slick surface, chin on her hands, revealing another little pink star tattooed just under her left wristbone. “Let me ask you this. Are your parents, like, extra careful of you? Always wanting you to be home at a certain time?”

  “Well, sure.” Tenley frowned, a little, couldn’t help it, couldn’t figure out where this was going.

  “Your mom and dad know where you are now?” Bri looked at Tenley.

  A pang of unease prickled Tenley’s neck and behind her eyes. Her mom did and didn’t know, a little of each. She hadn’t told her exactly, why would she? Come to think of it, yes, her mother was maybe overinterested recently with her whereabouts. Her father, too, the times he was home, at least, which was less and less, which made it all worse and even more impossible.

  Brileen’s soft laughter floated across to her. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t mean anything, I was just, you know. Asking.”

  Tenley felt the flush come up over her cheeks. Brileen had just been making conversation, of course she had.

  “Oh, it’s okay.” Tenley mustered all the bravado she could. Maybe change the subject? “My mother works at City Hall, too,” she said. Brileen had asked about her family, after all. Maybe that would impress her.

  “Cool. It’s just that…” Brileen sat back, rested her shoulder blades against the booth’s black leather padding, the tips of her fingers splayed on the table, nails on both forefingers bitten to the nubs but polished, shiny, the color of eggplants. “You know. If the police don’t really know what happened to your sister, how do they know the same thing, whatever it was, won’t happen to you?”

  20

  For a case that started out with too many witnesses, how come there suddenly weren’t enough? Jake ignored the elevator, yanked open the stairway door, and raced down the five flights to the hospital lobby.

  “Can you hear me? I’m in the stairs,” he told DeLuca. He’d left a swaddled John Doe No. 2 under the care of Ronald Verrio, instructing him to use that contraband cell phone to snap a few legal photos of the guy’s right arm the second it came into view. One picture could clinch that evidence, no need for Jake to take the time now to see it in person. Though after what DeLuca was now telling him, hurrying back to Headquarters seemed pointless. Before he could get there, everyone he cared about would be gone.

  “Freaking lawyers,” DeLuca was saying. “Hewlitt called some bigwig chick, who showed up all briefcase and fast talk, and somehow made a deal to pay off Bobby Land and spring the both of them.”

  “Somehow?” Jake was at the third floor, a gloomy mustard-painted expanse of concrete blocks and taped-up laminated No Smoking posters. He grabbed the slick banister, swung himself around to the next level. Looked at his watch. Pushing seven. “Somehow how? Courts are closed.”

  “Not if you have the cash, my guess.” DeLuca’s voice was ripe with disdain. “Hewlitt’s convinced a judge to make it all go away. A hundred bucks, released on condition he show up for arraignment ‘at some later date.’ The judge also ordered Hewlitt to ‘make it right’ with Land.”

  Jake, now on the second-floor landing, tried to make sense of it. Now they had no cause to hold Hewlitt. Lawyers, story of his life. “What does ‘make it right’ mean?”

  “What do you think, Harvard?” DeLuca said. “Bucks, I’d say.”

  Right. “So, Land? Where is he now?”

  “Hang on, lemme check. You wanna hold?”

  “Will do.” Jake would drive to HQ, try to whip this case back under control before it all went to hell. He knew DeLuca was following up with the on-scene officers about other images they’d taken from cell phones, and scouring witness reports. Angie Bartoneri had requested the surveillance video from surrounding buildings. She’d let them know as soon as she got it. And Calvin Hewlitt’s background.

  Hewlitt. His story was bullshit, bet the ranch. How did he and John Doe No. 2 get into the alley? The camera thing? Lawyer or no, that guy was guilty. Now Jake would have to fight through a battalion of legal gatekeepers if he wanted to get anywhere near him.

  Crap. Too much to do.

  Through the middle revolving door—why were they all so damn slow?—out to the curb. Cruiser door open, ignition, liftoff.

  He had a dead John Doe in the morgue. A possible suspect swaddled in the hospital. If Jake could uncover a solid connection between the two of them, the rest would fall into place.

  Hewlitt was involved. Or—not.

  Land was a potential eyewitness.

  As for John Doe 2? If he had a tattoo, pizza for everyone and justice prevails, because that meant the killer was safely in custody at Mass General Hospital. If there was no tattoo? Back to square one.

  The light at Congress turned red. Of course. He watched out the cruiser’s broad windshield, seeing his future instead of the pedestrians.

  He was supposed to meet Jane and her family an hour from now. Crappy timing. He was angry with her. But, whatever. They’d argued before. She was still Jane. He hoped, for everything’s sake, he could still make it.

  All he could do was keep the show on the road. Police work was all about step by step, solving one element at a time. You can’t reach the end of the road until you begin the journey, his grandfather used to say. It was all good.

  And the light turned green.

  * * *


  The scene in Robyn and Lewis Wilhoite’s living room was now a full-fledged drama. Robyn, sobbing, sat on the couch. Melissa was barricaded behind the wing chair. Jane stood by the desk. All stared at the black mesh of the speakerphone, hearing the buzzing dial tone. Whoever had called had hung up.

  “I’m calling Ja—a police detective I know,” Jane said. “Right now.”

  Time to bring in the big guns. Big gun Jake, or whoever Jake told her to call. Jake, who she’d last seen, fuming, in Franklin Alley. Jake, who they were all supposed to meet in about an hour. Ridiculous timing, but he was still her Jake. He’d find out about this tonight anyway. Why not now?

  No one had heard from Gracie or Lewis since the first phone call three hours earlier. Back then, Lewis assured Robyn they were on an adventure, and they’d believed him. Now, at almost seven o’clock, no one was sure. Robyn said she’d called friends and hospitals. Nothing. The longer the daughter and stepfather were whereabouts unknown, the more the potential for disaster.

  Melissa stopped the dial tone, then picked up the receiver. “I’m dialing star six-nine,” she said. “That’ll connect us with whoever called.”

  Robyn took her hands from her eyes. “But we know who called,” she whispered. “Lewis.”

  “Or someone using Lewis’s phone,” Jane said.

  At that, Robyn’s sobs grew louder. Jane hadn’t meant to upset her, but the truth was the truth. The sooner they faced it, the sooner they could resolve this.

  For the first time, maybe ever, Melissa seemed flustered. She shook her head, adjusted her pearls. “Oh, right,” she said. “Just trying to hel—never mind.”

  “That’s why we have to call the police.” Jane punched up her own phone’s Internet as she talked. She typed in AMBE. The AMBER Alert website appeared. “Okay, so,” Jane went on, scanning, figuring the family and ex-family and family-to-be dynamics would be sorted out as soon as Gracie was safely home. And Lewis, too. “The site says an AMBER Alert may be issued if … let me see … okay, a couple of other things, but mainly, if an abduction has taken place, or the child is at risk of serious injury or death.”

  Jane stopped, all eyes now on her. The implied question wasn’t pleasant, but neither was Gracie’s situation. Jane looked at Melissa, hoping for an alliance. Melissa dealt with cases like this as a prosecutor, at least from time to time. When a potential abduction—if that’s what it was, she kept reminding herself—was this close to home, would it cloud her judgment?

  “Jane’s right.” Melissa stood a little taller, Jane noticed, straightened her shoulders. “Robyn, do you think Lewis has taken Gracie?”

  “Certainly not,” Robyn said. “I mean—”

  “Wait,” Jane interrupted. She’d been replaying the day in her mind, realized what they’d forgotten. “Lewis’s phone is obviously working again. He called you. Try calling him now, see what happens.”

  Robyn clicked numbers, using both thumbs. She stopped, deleted, started over. “I’m too nervous to dial,” she whispered.

  “Even if the cops traced the call,” Melissa said, “it would only tell us where the phone is, not where Lewis is. That might not be the same place.”

  Robyn made a whimpering sound, then sighed, then started dialing again.

  “Leave a message if no one answers,” Jane said.

  “But why would he call”—Robyn clamped the phone to her cheek, looked at Melissa with pleading eyes—“and not say anything?”

  “It could have been a—” Melissa seemed to be searching for a word. “You know, he sat on the phone, it hit speed dial. Could be they’re fine. Maybe he didn’t say anything because he didn’t even know he had called.”

  Possibly, Jane had to admit. But it didn’t explain where the two were.

  “I’m calling the police.” Jane hit 22, Jake’s speed dial. Forget about asking permission. If she was wrong, Jane thought, fine. Happy to be wrong.

  “Jake?” Hurray, no voice mail beep. Imagine, a phone call actually going through. “It’s me.”

  * * *

  Jane.

  “Hey.” Jake turned off the ignition and opened his cruiser door, holding the phone against his shoulder. He’d parked in the police garage, a dankly crowded basement full of cruisers and memories. Just a few months ago, a bad guy had held a cadet hostage here. Another cop shot and killed him as Jake tried to defuse the standoff. The supe had called it a success, but to Jake, death never felt like success. He couldn’t step onto the oil-soaked concrete without thinking of it, wondering what he might have done differently.

  “Hang on, just parking,” he said. Stalling.

  Jane. He was supposed to meet her, and her family, at the restaurant in forty-five minutes.

  He slammed the cruiser door. “One more second,” he said.

  He hadn’t answered her texts. Here it comes. He grimaced as he walked toward the stairs. He had been kind of a jerk.

  “What’s up?” he asked, trying to erase the past with a conciliatory tone. Might as well let bygones be. He and Jane would figure it out. “We still on for tonight?”

  His frown deepened as he heard the story. Jane’s calls from her sister, and the distraught mother Robyn Fasullo Wilhoite, and the nine-year-old Gracie Fasullo, potentially missing, along with, perhaps, her stepfather Lewis Wilhoite. Or not.

  None of the names pinged. Jake had the city’s “most wanteds” in his head, and a top twenty list of local sex offenders, as well as a roster of usual suspects, the gang members and losers and ex-cons and low-life local scumbags considered bad pennies at HQ and in the district courts. There was no Lewis Wilhoite.

  He started climbing the stairs from the basement garage, rounded the landing to the lobby floor, still listening. Jane’s voice was guarded, he could tell. Stating the facts, without her usual appraising commentary or revealing inflection.

  “Am I on speaker?” he asked. “Everyone in the room?”

  “Nope.” She cleared her throat. “But yes, they’re here.”

  “There has to be a potential abduction for an AMBER Alert,” Jake said. “Or a—”

  Jane interrupted. “Yeah, I know. But no one is, uh…” She paused, as if choosing her words carefully. “No one is exactly saying that’s what happened. Apparently he takes her on ‘adventures.’”

  “Well, yeah. So, problem. Although we don’t need a formal alert to be on the lookout for a missing kid, you know? We just like to be pretty sure the kid is actually missing,” he said. “Has—what’s her name, Robyn? Has she called everyone she knows?”

  “She said so,” Jane said. “Hang on for a sec.”

  Jake tapped his wallet against the flat black security pad designed to keep the stairwell free of intruders and opened the door in to the lobby of police headquarters. Built twenty years ago, it was still dismissed by the veterans as “new.” The marble-floored great room, which was designed to be intimidating and welcoming at the same time, failed at both. The ceilings were too high, the chairs too uncomfortable. Two-story windows let in all the light, so much that in summer it was glaring orange and hot, in winter freezing and gloomy gray.

  “Jake,” Jane said. “They’re okay.”

  He could hear hesitation in her voice. She didn’t sound quite right.

  “Who’s okay? Wilhoite and the little girl? Are they there? With you?” If she was seeing them, case closed. Another family emergency resolved. Happened all the time. Panicked parents, missed connections, mixed signals, easy explanations.

  “No,” Jane said. “Robyn has the stepfather—Lewis—on the phone, though. They—hang on. Sorry to keep doing this, Jake. Just hearing this now.”

  “Sure.” Jake waited, watching the beams from the illuminating streetlights outside HQ on Schroeder Place create bands of light and shadow on the dust-streaked marble floor. Every passing footfall echoed in the cavernous lobby, whether the clack of high heels or the thud of the cops’ regulation black boots. The squeak of a rubber-soled running shoe distracted him. Jake look
ed up to follow the sound.

  Bobby Land. Head down, walking fast. Almost to the revolving door.

  “Hey, Bobby. Land.” Jake took a step toward him, then another. Jane was still away from the phone. At least now he could find out the latest. Calvin Hewlitt had been ordered to make it right with this kid. Jake still wondered what “make it right” entailed.

  Land looked up, registered Jake. Stopped. And gave him a thumbs-up.

  “Copa-cetic,” Land said.

  He’d put his camo hat on, bill to the back. Jake tried to unsee his phony-rebellious Red Sux T-shirt. The kid had probably shelled out forty bucks for that get-up, all to prove his antipathy to “the man.” Did he ever consider who profited from the forty bucks?

  “All cool, all set,” Bobby was saying. “You guys rock.”

  Jake knew the cops didn’t “rock.” If this kid was happy, it probably had something to do with money. Calvin Hewlitt’s money, presumably. Jake was eager for details. Calvin Hewlitt’s hush money might pay for the camera, but it wouldn’t quiet Jake’s questions.

  “Jake?” Jane’s voice in his ear now. “Here’s the scoop.”

  “Hang on, Jane.” If the girl and her father were okay, Jane could wait a second while he corralled Bobby Land and set up a time for an interview.

  “Is that Jane Ryland?” Bobby took a step closer, pointed to the phone.

  Okay, that was interesting. The boy knew Jane? Oh, right. Land talked with Jane as Jake led him out of the alley, so the kid knew they were connected. Land might think she was calling as a reporter. Jake’s thoughts stopped, turned a corner. Was she a reporter? Not for the Register anymore, that was for sure. But Jake remembered she’d mentioned Channel 2, a reference he still hadn’t grasped.

  “Excuse me?” Not answering the question was sometimes successful.

  “Yeah, Jane Ryland,” Bobby said. “You know. The one you were talking to in the alley today. Wondered, because I was trying to call her, and she wasn’t where she said she’d be.”

  “Which is where?” Jake asked.

  “Who are you talking to?” Jane was saying.