40
“So much for that.” Jane poked the elevator button for emphasis, having been summarily dismissed from Liz McDivitt’s office right when things were going so nicely. What had stopped the woman, so abruptly? The texts she’d received? Jane shook her head, frowning at the thin gray pile of the bank’s carpeting. Jabbed the down button again. No question, this story completely stunk, stunk from moment one.
The elevator doors swished open, and Jane stepped forward, trying to plan her next move. “Oof.” She backed up, surprised by a near collision with a suit.
“Jane Ryland?” he said.
Was she supposed to know him? She didn’t, she was pretty sure. Pinstripe suit, tie, shiny shoes. At least he didn’t have a knife.
“I’m Colin Ackerman. I handle PR for the A&A.” He gestured Jane out of the elevator and back into the hall. “Liz McDivitt just called me.”
Disaster. Or lucky break? Here was someone Jane might negotiate with, someone who could make decisions, someone with the access to get what she needed. Or someone who could get her ejected from the building.
“Terrific,” Jane said, choosing the optimist’s view. She didn’t want to get Liz in trouble, so she’d couch her request carefully, not mentioning customer names quite yet. “Liz and I were talking about the bank’s customer service department. As I’m sure she told you, the Register is doing a little consumer story on it. I was hoping—”
Ackerman raised an eyebrow, interrupting her request.
“A ‘little consumer story’?” he said.
“Yes, we’re—”
“Not what you usually do, if I remember correctly, Jane.”
Ackerman still looked pleasant enough, his muted plaid jacket open, his yellow tie appropriate for relating to the public. “Right? I mean, you’re usually on the trail of some nefariousness. Corruption? Malfeasance? You certainly understand why that’d be pinging my news radar.”
“True.” Jane did understand. She’d been guilty in the past, like any good reporter, of journalism “downplay,” soft-pedaling a story to get in the door. If this guy was suspicious because she usually did investigative stuff, it was ironic that this time she was actually telling the truth. Funny to be caught in her own trap for a consumer puff piece.
“The other reporter, Chrystal Peralta? Has the flu. I’m here as designated hitter while she’s on the injured list.” This day was a teetering house of cards. The story probably wouldn’t matter that much, but always better to succeed, no matter what the assignment. “The story has to run Sunday, so the deadline is…” Jane paused. He didn’t need to know the real deadline. “Today.”
Wait. Idea. “Hey,” she said. She glanced at Stephanie, caught her brazenly listening. Suddenly Stephanie had to flip through some very important papers on her desk. She was probably passing along everything they said to her boss, maybe even had the intercom open. If so, it was an opportune moment for Jane to let Liz know she was trustworthy. “I’d asked Liz to do a quick on-camera interview with us about customer service, but she was reluctant. Maybe because that’s your bailiwick?”
Jane tried adding an encouraging smile. This might be the perfect solution, or at least a solution. “My photog is downstairs right now. How about if we bring him to your office? I can ask you a few quick questions about—”
“Not about specific customers,” Ackerman said.
“Nope, nope, no specific customers, that’s exactly what Liz said, too.” Jane raised her voice, just a little, in case Liz was listening. “Customer service, that’s all. Really. Five minutes, ten, and we’re gone.”
Ackerman nodded, seemed to be considering. He checked his iPhone, typed in something.
Jane crossed her fingers. Come on.
“Sure,” he said. He smoothed his tie with one hand, clicked off his phone with the other. “Can you meet me on the fifth floor? My assistant will point you to the conference room. You may have to wait a bit, I need to make a few phone calls first. And Miss Ryland? You promised ten minutes. That’s all you get.”
“That’s all I need,” she said.
* * *
“We always hoped things would change for him, but they never did.”
Peter had listened for half an hour, listened with the patience he’d learned to rely on in his years as a lawyer. People would tell you everything, if you let them. Sometimes they didn’t even realize they were doing it. Gordon Thorley’s sister—a brittle forty-something with fuchsia-painted fingernails and ill-fitting jeans—sat across from him at her kitchen table in the village of Sagamore, her home a cookie-cutter two-story just off Williston Road. A row of fluttering lace-curtained windows let in the late-afternoon sun and the sight of a couple of sea gulls dive-bombing toward the Cape Cod canal, a blue sliver in the distance. Crazy hot for May, but here the breeze kept tempers down and early-bird Cape tourists happy on the beach.
Doreen Thorley Rinker was not a tourist. And right now, she was not happy.
Peter had to tell her about the Treesa Caramona murder, explaining it was in the early stages, her brother innocent till proven guilty, trying to be reassuring. There were rules about dealing with defendants, all carefully spelled out in the canons. Dealing with families was different. Their agendas, their prejudices, and even their birth order, dictated how a lawyer would most effectively present the facts, as well as the possibilities. Doreen was Gordon Thorley’s big sister, maybe ten years older. Now she was still taking care of him, either from devotion or from duty.
“When he left the note, we just didn’t know what to do.” She looked at him, ran her fingers through both sides of her not-completely-gray hair, fluffed it back into place. “He was confessing for the family? Did he mean—Carley Marie Schaffer’s family? Why would he care about them?”
“Did he know her? Carley Marie? Or her family?”
“God knows,” Doreen said. She stared at her coffee mug as if searching for answers in the fading flowers on the china pattern, then looked at him again, frowning. “I’m not trying to be evasive. I really don’t know.”
“Maybe he meant—for your family,” Peter said. “Could that be?”
“My family? The family is me and this house and my kids—they’re out at the beach now since they both work nights—and a cousin or two, who knows where. Our parents bought this house, some years ago, and left it half to me and my husband, half to Gordon, when they passed. Then my husband passed, too. So much for the dream house on the Cape. A lot of the time, Gordon was—well.”
“In prison.” Might as well lay the cards on the table.
She nodded, maybe not wanting to say the word. “Not that he was ever here much. He was what, nineteen? And I was twenty-nine. Nothing in common, you know, at those ages. I was always told he got in with the wrong crowd. But we were willing—happy—to bring him home after all that time. We were so relieved he was paroled. I mean, he’d just been duped into that robbery, had no idea that—anyway, like I said, we were willing to help him start over. He’d actually been a pretty good kid in high school. Played baseball, the whole bit. But he wanted his own place. Insisted he wanted to start over on his own.”
She shrugged one shoulder, a thin strap showing under her sleeveless blouse. “Who were we to say? Who knows what he even does. That’s why this is so upsetting, you know? What if he—”
She took a deep breath. “Maybe it was better he wasn’t living here. You think? Hard to believe he could kill any—”
“I saw his apartment.” Peter saw she was spiraling herself into fear and panic, worrying about imaginary terrors. “He’s a talented photographer.”
“Really?” Doreen seemed surprised. She settled her shoulders. “Anyway. That note he left. I mean—the Lilac Sunday killer? Gordon? The Lilac Sunday killer? And was going to confess? I just saw my whole life, everything I always believed—I don’t know. Crumbling. Like everything I ever thought suddenly wasn’t true anymore.”
She looked at Peter, as if he could provide some explanation.
“My little brother. Maybe I never really knew him? But family is family. We don’t have much, as you can see. And the house payments are—well. We may not be able to keep the place. Who knows? The bank knows, I guess. We’ll survive. Anyway, least I could do was hire my brother a lawyer. Who else would do it? I found you online, under criminal defense. Now you’ve gotten more than you bargained for.”
She examined her coffee cup again. “I have, too. I’m sorry you came all the way out here. We can’t afford you.”
Peter’d heard every sob story in the book, he figured, the down-and-outers, the misfits, the misunderstood. The people who had made wrong decisions, or had wrong decisions made for them. How did people wind up where they were? Could they ever change? He couldn’t help but be fascinated by it, even knowing the slices of life he heard in his cases were, by dint of his profession, going to be the oddities, the outliers, and the mistakes. A criminal defense attorney hardly ever heard a story of joy or success or redemption. Well, sometimes redemption.
“Mrs. Rinker? Let’s talk about the money some other time, okay? I’m involved now, and we’ll see where it goes. So confirming what you told me—you never heard Gordon speak of Carley Marie Schaefer. Or Treesa Caramona.”
Doreen nodded. “Yes. I mean—no. He never said those names. To me.”
“To anyone? Anyone you know?” Sometimes specificity was a good thing. Other times it sounded like evasion.
“No, not to anyone I know.”
“The note was a surprise to you.”
Doreen nodded again. “On the kitchen table.” She pointed with one finger. “Right there.”
“How’d Gordon get in to leave it?”
Doreen smiled, just barely, and seemed to look over his shoulder and out into the past. “There’s been a key in the third pansy pot from the end of the front walk ever since we were kids. At our old house. I did the same thing here. Guess he remembered.”
“I’ll need to see the note, of course. Things are not always what they seem on the surface. It may hold some clue or meaning we didn’t understand initially. Even a fingerprint, you know? Could be someone else’s. Happy to make a copy, certainly, and you’ll get the original back as soon as we find out what’s really going on here.”
Doreen blinked at him, looked at the ceiling.
“I burned it,” she said.
* * *
Maybe Jane was trustworthy. Lizzie’s back complained from the ten minutes she’d spent leaning into the intercom speaker, getting her ear as close as she could. She’d told Stephanie to leave the switch open. And, listening, she learned Jane hadn’t divulged that Liz had given her any customer names.
What did it mean? Lizzie leaned back in her chair, crossed her arms over her chest, considering. Maybe you could trust reporters after all. Jane Ryland, at least. If Ackerman would do the interview she’d heard Jane request, Lizzie’d be off the hook and she could go back to her real life.
A life which was getting more complicated by the second.
She’d be seeing Aaron “lata.” He hadn’t called yet to give her specifics. What might he want to do? What might he be thinking?
She plucked at her navy blazer, imagined she saw a crumb or two of sugar from that chocolate chip pastry. He had completely knocked her out.
That’s what worried her.
She popped her research back to full screen on her computer monitor. That chocolate pastry. She’d been woozy. Had trouble remembering what happened, exactly. Sort of. She’d attributed it to—well, lust. But thinking about it later, in a clinical moment at the bathroom mirror, she admitted it didn’t add up. It didn’t.
She’d searched “date rape drugs.” And checked off the symptoms, yes, yes, yes, one by one. She still had the headache. Could he possibly have drugged her? Why?
But he’d told her about the rentals. Why?
Well, easy one. Because she already knew. And he was trying to find out how much.
Her office suddenly seemed perfectly silent. As if the world had stopped, and time had stopped, and her brain was the only thing working.
She pulled the metal handle of her desk’s top drawer, hearing the whisk of the metal runners, the click as the drawer opened all the way. She pulled out those leases he’d created, one, then the next, on the triple folded white paper. Saw those college kids, paying Aaron to living illicitly in the bank’s houses. Saw the words in black and white. Saw Aaron’s double-dealing and downright theft.
What he was doing was wrong. There was no way around that. It was bank robbery.
He didn’t care about her. How could she ever have thought he did?
He was using her. To get access to bank records. Her files. Her connections.
Rohypnol, her monitor said. A colorless, tasteless …
The intercom buzzed.
“They’re gone,” Stephanie’s voice crackled though the metal mesh. “You heard?”
“I did,” Lizzie said. “Great job on the speaker thing.”
“And your appointment is here, early,” Stephanie said. “The Gantrys.”
Cole and Donna. Deep in debt, after Cole’s once-thriving company’d lost a government contract, but about to enjoy a financial surprise. Their mortgage numbers had gotten the Liz treatment. The bank’s “mistake.” They would keep their home.
Elbows on her desk, Liz clasped her hands in front of her mouth, fingers intertwined. Aaron was using her. Of course. She was an incredible dupe.
“Give me a moment,” Liz said into the intercom.
And what about her own system? Doing the wrong thing for the right reason still made her a liar. Grateful customers or not. What she was doing was just as—immoral—as what Aaron was doing.
Well, no. Not really. Aaron was benefiting from his deals. Taking the money. Stealing the money. Not doing it for the renters. Doing it for himself.
She was getting nothing from her system. Nothing. Except the justice of it.
It was doing good. But it was still wrong.
She stuffed the leases back into the drawer, closed it, locked it.
Maybe just this once more. Then she would stop. There was still time to change everything, anyway. She could help her clients in other ways.
Which left the Aaron problem.
He expected to see her tonight. She should simply call it off. Leave it alone. Problem was, Aaron knew that she knew. He would never go away.
She closed her page of research, erased the history.
She blinked at the blank screen.
Erased the history.
She had an idea. About tonight, and about the Aaron situation. It was a little risky, maybe a lot risky, but this time she had all the cards. She’d have time to think it through before this evening.
“Okay, ready,” Liz said into the speaker. She straightened the pencils on her desk, saluted the photo of Aaron, and flapped it facedown on her desk. She was ready. Ready for more than the soon-to-be surprised Gantrys. “Send them in.”
She loved her job. The realization washed over her with the glow of sunshine from her third-floor window. And she loved her life.
Things all worked out. Eventually. Even growing up with her father, and his criticism, and his focus on his precious bank. She wouldn’t be here, now, without that difficult journey of the past. She wouldn’t trade it. Her father being who he was had put her in the position to help people. Really help them. She’d had a difficult childhood, well, so what, so did lots of people. It had made her who she was today. And that was worth it.
All worth it.
41
“Just look at me, Mr. Ackerman, not at the camera, okay? I know you’ve done this before. TJ will make sure it looks good.” TJ’s portable minicam allowed them to bang out quick sound bites without white-balancing or searching for electrical outlets for the lights. “Now, tell me your name and title.”
Colin Ackerman’s assistant, all navy blazer and prep school attitude, had tapped a pass card on a black-box locking device, ushe
ring Jane and TJ through massive double-paneled doors into the conference room, an homage to sleek mahogany and cordovan leather. No wonder you needed a special escort to get to the executive floor. Customers might not be pleased to discover their fees and service charges were spent on fancy chairs and lavish conference tables. Ackerman had kept them waiting for an hour, a pitiful power play, but whatever. She needed the interview.
TJ finally placed Ackerman in front of the bank’s ubiquitous anchor logo, this one in gold, wall-mounted on a navy blue suede background. Suede and mahogany. Jane remembered the shabby vinyl of the empty house on Waverly Road.
“You set, TJ?” The recitation of the name and title wasn’t only for Jane’s reference, but to allow TJ to check audio levels and camera angles. “Great. Mr. Ackerman? Tell me about the bank’s focus on customer service,” Jane said.
“Certainly, Jane. As a mortgage customer of the bank yourself, you know Atlantic and Anchor’s primary concern is for…”
The “concern” part was bull, but was Ackerman trying to telegraph that he knew her mortgage information? Creepy, and totally inappropriate, if he’d looked her up. Jane rolled her eyes, mentally at least. Public relations guys.
Ackerman continued with canned PR prattle about customers and personal relationships, using her name in every sentence. In a usual taped interview, she’d let him say whatever he wanted, get that over with, then ask the tough questions she actually cared about. But in this case, all she needed was a perfunctory twenty or so seconds for an online sidebar. She’d gotten the video, and that would please multimedia Marcotte, and if Victoria was happy, Jane was happy. And soon she could go home and take a nap.
Sleep. Her thoughts half-wandered as Ackerman continued his boilerplate. Bed. Which reminded her of Jake. Who was in Boston, not D.C. Who hadn’t called.
She’d phone Marcotte, give her the good news about this interview, and say she’d bang out the story tomorrow, plenty of time. What she wouldn’t say was—she was not about to let cleaning up Chrystal’s journalism leftovers distract her from the potential headlines she was pursuing on her own. Sandoval. Peter Hardesty. Her foreclosure story. And, perhaps, even Gordon Thorley.
Truth Be Told (Jane Ryland) Page 21