Truth Be Told (Jane Ryland)

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  She cranked the ignition.

  If Jake was blowing her off, have a nice life? Did that release her from their “I won’t tell if you won’t” deal? Talk about starting over. Did the truth ever trump off-the-record? This was the story of the century.

  * * *

  He had two hours, Jake calculated as he turned off the Pike at Exit 17, before the next session at the police station. The Supe was playing it close to the vest, but clearly there’d been a break. That was the phone call that had taken him from Jane last night. Not what they’d expected, not at all, but certainly good enough. The guy they had in the Superintendent’s side office meant the Liz McDivitt case was about to blow wide open. But nothing Jake could do, right now, to make it happen any faster. He turned right, sneaking through the yellow light, wished DeLuca was back in town. He’d love this. Now Jake could use this time to work on the Thorley case.

  He rolled down the cruiser window, assessing the tiny brick one-story on a side street in Newtonville. The street’s centerline was painted green, white, and red instead of yellow, a testament to the passionate Italian heritage of this neighborhood, called the Lake.

  Tramping up the front walk to Chrystal Peralta’s house, he realized he could have simply called her, but he wanted to show her the articles in person. The Peraltas were a big name in the Lake, another of those random facts in Jake’s head. A ceramic doorplate, green vines and purple grapes, promised BENVENUTO. The paper’d told him she was out sick, so fifty-fifty she was at home.

  “Who is it?” A voice came through the dark green front door, female.

  “Chrystal Peralta? Jake Brogan. Boston Police.” He felt like a salesman, trapped on the front stoop. A salesman holding out a badge wallet.

  She pulled open the door, one hand on the doorjamb, didn’t invite him in. Gave him an up-and-down, frowning. She didn’t look that sick, except for that wild hair and faded orange tracksuit.

  “Yeah, I see who you are, Detective. Is something wrong?”

  “No, no, nothing,” Jake said. “Don’t mean to upset you, and I know you’re—”

  Peralta sneezed, and Jake took a step back. Maybe he didn’t want to go in, after all.

  “Bless you,” he said. “Anyway, if you have a minute? I’d like to ask you about these articles from the Register.” He flapped open his leather portfolio, showed her the top copy, one of her Carley Marie Schaefer stories. “For instance, in this story—”

  “Are you kidding me?” she said. “That was twenty years ago.”

  “I know. But we’re following up now.” Jake pointed to the names as he talked. “I’m looking for these people, this one, and this one, all the ones you interviewed at the scene. The ones who were there when the body was found. I can’t track them down, not any of them. Do you—and I know it’s a long shot—possibly still have their contact information?”

  Chrystal’s laughter stopped only when she had a coughing fit, doubling over, somewhat over-dramatically, Jake decided. She straightened, wiping her red-rimmed eyes. Her hair had gotten even crazier.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. She clamped a be-ringed hand to her chest. “Best laugh I’ve had all day. That was twenty—freakin’—sorry, officer, darn.” She rolled her eyes, apparently making sure Jake understood she was being sarcastic. “Twenty years ago. Even if I wanted to help you—which, I must say in the interest of journalism, I don’t, since I don’t really appreciate being questioned by a cop. Forgive me, police detective. But even if I wanted to help you, no way I have those notes. Now can I go back to my VapoRub?”

  Jake waited. Let the sarcasm fade. “We’re investigating a death,” he said.

  She took a deep breath, shook her head. “Poor Carley Marie. Okay?” she said. “Now if you’ll excuse me—”

  “I saw you wrote the Gordon Thorley parole stories, too,” he said.

  She eyed him again, up and down. He held his ground, hoping she didn’t sneeze again. She took a step closer.

  “Carley Marie. Lilac Sunday. Hey. Two and two together, you’re saying you like Gordon Thorley for Lilac Sunday?” she said. “There’s a lot of that going around, Detective. If you wanna talk about that, well, come on in. Benvenuto.”

  Jake stayed where he was. Of course she’d ask, but time to call a halt to this line of questioning. “Miss Peralta? We’ve arrested Thorley for Treesa Caramona, as you know.”

  “Oh, right.” Her head tilted. “Detective? What’s going on?”

  “You wrote about Gary Lee Smith.” Jake flipped the pages of the articles, ignoring her question. “The parole officer? Who testified at Thorley’s hearing?”

  Chrystal moved her hand to the knob and began closing the door. “I see now. Cops. All alike. If you’ll excuse me? We’re done here.”

  Jake put his foot in the door.

  “I can get a warrant,” he lied. Whatever Chrystal thought he was asking, she knew something she wasn’t telling. Something she was unhappy about. He’d been a cop long enough to read that, and take advantage of it. “But look. As you like to say. Off the record. Between us.”

  He paused. “And I’ll owe you.”

  Chrystal chewed her bottom lip, holding the door tight against his foot. “I cannot believe you’d ask me about this, about Gary Smith,” she said. “You’re telling me you never had a ‘relationship’ with a source?”

  Did she know? Jane would never—even if she’d dumped him for Hardesty?—this woman had to be fishing. He called her bluff, ignored the question. Waited.

  “Okay, we had an aff—well, a thing,” Chrystal finally said. “I spent forever covering those damn parole hearings, we got to know each other. What can I say? He was a pal of Eddie Walsh, and I used to get some juicy stuff from him. We all have sources, right? Some closer than others?”

  “And?” Bluffing. Chrystal and Smith. Another puzzle piece. Edward Walsh was the parole board chairman, the one some said was scapegoated in the criticism over Thorley’s parole.

  “And nothing. Gary’s dead. Car accident. I last saw him—a couple of months ago, maybe six? And yes, he’d kept up with Gordon Thorley, that what you’re asking? They’d, I don’t know, their lives were connected. Eddie’d got the axe over Thorley, but remember, Gary had argued to let him out. Kinda like Gary and Thorley were a team. They’d bonded over the release, and sports, baseball, something like that. Thorley’d been out for a while, when—well, it was a shock. The cancer diagnosis. We used to talk about it—before Gary, well. Died.”

  “Gordon Thorley? Has cancer?” That was the headline from this. As Jane would say.

  “Bad,” Chrystal said. “Sucks, doesn’t it? You get a reprieve from the parole board, then a couple of years later, you get a death sentence from mother nature. And you still owe me, Detective. Don’t think I’ll forget.”

  She shut the door, the click of the lock closing the case. And there it was.

  Thorley is gravely ill.

  He confesses to a cold case murder.

  His family’s mortgage is suddenly paid.

  A reason for a false confession Jake never considered. A reason he hadn’t read in any of Nate Frasca’s files.

  A bribed one. Had Liz McDivitt—or her father—made that happen? Why?

  Jake slid into the driver’s seat, plugging possible candidates into the bad guy role as the real Lilac Sunday killer. Gary Lee Smith? That could be.

  Or maybe Liz McDivitt’s father? Someone else at the bank? Someone had strong-armed Gordon Thorley. Someone who had the inside track on Thorley’s family finances. Question was who.

  Was that person waiting, right now, in the Superintendent’s office?

  58

  The phone. Jane was so immersed in the articles Archive Gus gave her—the exact ones Jake had requested, thank you so much—she’d lost track of everything. Two in the afternoon. Starving.

  Even though she was mad at him, Jake had sworn her to secrecy about Lilac Sunday. Even though he was obviously pissed at her, and as a result she wasn’t the
happiest person herself, there was no way she could break that promise.

  However.

  “Off the record” didn’t stop Jane from doing some research on her own, and what if she came to the same conclusion? Trying to finagle a way to get the Thorley story without involving Jake, she’d pitched Marcotte a Lilac Sunday update, a retrospective. She would follow up on Chrystal’s original reporting, she’d told Marcotte, find some of the witnesses she’d talked to back then. And Marcotte was all for it.

  Jane had to give Chrystal credit—she’d done a great job on the coverage, all those exclusive interviews. Jane knew the Carley Marie murder was a big deal, but hadn’t realized how big. Jake’s grandfather, the commissioner, seemed like a sincerely devoted guy.

  The phone rang again. Starving.

  “Jane Ryland.” She opened her desk drawer, searched for her stash of crackers.

  “Miss Ryland? This is Brian Turiello.”

  Jane racked her mental Rolodex. Brian Turi—who? No idea.

  “Brian—?” Ah. Wheat Thins. But she needed two hands to open the box.

  “Turiello,” he said. “Colin Ackerman from the bank asked me to call you. I’m with Mornay and Weldon, the real estate company that handles the REO rentals for the bank. He said you had a question?”

  Mornay and Weldon. Mornay and Weldon. Why did that sound familiar? Jane put down the cracker box, willed her brain to retrieve the reason. Oh. Shandra Newbury. Shandra Newbury, found dead in a foreclosed house. She’d worked for Mornay and Weldon, the agency that rented it. Did that matter?

  “Oh, yes, thank you so much,” Jane stalled. She’d asked Ackerman about that in passing. But now that she had this real estate guy on the phone, might there be a story here? Maybe about the Sandoval case?

  “I’m so sorry for your loss of Shandra Newbury,” Jane began. “You worked with her?”

  Turyellow—was that right? she should have written it down—didn’t answer. Oops. Maybe she shouldn’t have brought up his murdered colleague.

  “I’m sorry,” she went on, regretting she’d upset him. She put down the Wheat Thins, focusing. “How do you spell your name?”

  Where was her notebook? She wrote “Turiello” on her desk calendar as he spelled it.

  “We continue to mourn the loss of Miss Newbury,” Turiello said. “But back to the foreclosed homes. If you’re interested in that, as a story, it’s really quite fascinating. A win-win, you know? People who need homes can live in them until they’re sold. As a result, they’re maintained, and property values are not affected. Happy to chat with you about it in person, if you’re interested.”

  Not so win-win for the foreclosed people, Jane didn’t say.

  “Do you deal with Aaron Gianelli at the bank?” Jane went on. Actually, this was all fitting together nicely. Maybe she could still get a quote from Aaron, maybe she could meet him through this—she checked her note—Turiello.

  “Ah,” Turiello seemed to be pondering her question. “I see you’re researching this.”

  Might as well try to impress him. “Yes, we have a list of all the bank’s REOs. We’re looking now to see how many of them have been rented, and who lives there, and how that all works. For a possible story.”

  She’d made it up on the fly, but now she’d convinced herself. Not a bad idea. “So yes, Mr. Turiello, I’ve love to come interview you about this. When is convenient?”

  She could hear murmuring on his end of the line, papers rustling.

  “Surprising about Elliot Sandoval,” Jane said, thinking of foreclosures. “Being released.”

  “Indeed.”

  Everything Jane brought up, this guy sounded annoyed. Should she apologize?

  “I was only—,” she began.

  “Maybe we could meet. Perhaps at one of our available empty homes, Miss Ryland,” Turiello interrupted. “We could show you around, let you get the whole picture.”

  Jane almost burst out laughing. Not a chance on the planet. After what happened to Shandra Newbury, and Liz McDivitt? Going into an empty foreclosed house? No matter who was escorting her, that was so not going to happen.

  “Thanks,” Jane said. “But I don’t want to inconvenience you. And certainly, if the story progresses, maybe then?”

  She had another thought. One which might make it safe. Safer. “When the time comes, I could bring my photographer?”

  A reporter’s best weapon, the photographer. The one with the camera. If it looks like someone’s coming to haul off and hit me, Jane had always instructed, make sure you’re rolling. And lies on video were preserved forever.

  Turiello was conferring with someone else again. “Miss Ryland?” he said. “What if you simply came to our office this evening? No photographer. What time is good for you?”

  * * *

  Peter arrived at the jail in record time. Jake Brogan had called, saying they had to talk about Gordon Thorley.

  “Had to talk” was often police shorthand for “make a deal.” Maybe Brogan had been assigned to feel him out.

  Ironic that Peter’s career success, and Jake Brogan’s career success, depended on exactly the same question: was Gordon Thorley telling the truth about Lilac Sunday? There was only one truth. Both their jobs required they find it.

  It took half a frustrating hour to battle through security to sign in, and an uncomfortable stint in a hotbox of a waiting room before he got to see his client.

  Gordon Thorley sat like a handcuffed shadow in his metal chair, two empty coffee cups and a can of ginger ale in front of him and a scowl on his face. Could he have gotten even thinner? His dank hair plastered to his narrow skull, his cheekbones even more hollow than Peter’d remembered. If he were here much longer, Peter would get him sent to the infirmary. Petition the court if he had to. Thorley was not thriving in lockup. Who would?

  Elliot Sandoval had told him he’d taken a two-hour shower, trying to wash off the memories. Now he and MaryLou’s lives were on hold. But at least they were on hold on the outside.

  “Thank you for coming on such short notice,” Jake Brogan said. He gestured Peter to a folding chair. “Mr. Thorley, with your permission, I’m going to lay out some things.”

  “I’d prefer you and I did this alone, prior to including my client,” Peter began. He could not let Thorley respond to whatever Brogan was about to say. What’s more, he’d feel a hell of a lot more comfortable if he knew what it was before this cop sprang it on his client.

  “Trust me on this, Hardesty, okay?” the detective said. “I know it’s against your nature.”

  “I reserve the right to stop you at any moment.” Peter put his briefcase, a brown canvas barrier, between them. “Mr. Thorley, I instruct you not to say a word. Detective? We clear?”

  Brogan nodded.

  “You have the floor,” Peter said.

  * * *

  I could just head for the frigging hills, Aaron thought. He’d been waiting in this office for hours now. Way too long. He eyed the door. Closed. Was he a guest? Or a prisoner? What if he tried to leave? He rose from the leather armchair, briefly wondering who’d sat there before, and what’d happened to them.

  Someone had recently vacuumed, he could tell from the stripes on the tan wall-to-wall. He went to the window, pulled back the heavy curtains, seeing the still-sunny day. People winding through the parking lot. People who knew where they were going. Unlike him.

  He’d made the first move. He’d taken control. Now he had to see what’d happen next.

  First to talk, first to walk. At least that’s what they said on the cop shows.

  He held his cell phone, his lifeline, turned it over and over in his hand. They let him keep it, admonishing him not to call or text anyone, not to answer it, to let calls go to voice mail until they got back. They were “checking on things,” they said. Checking his story most likely. They probably had the room bugged, on closed circuit, were probably watching him this very minute. Seeing if he’d call anyone. He turned, did a three-sixty, scanning t
he curved molding that edged the ceiling, looking for little cameras. Let them look. He’d do as they said. He was here to play ball.

  He paced to the door, ten steps, then back to the chair. Ten steps. What was their deal? Letting him sit here, freaking out? Not even a newspaper, or water, alone with his own racing brain and his own fraying nerves.

  His phone rang, and he reached for it. Maybe they had—but no. He closed his eyes, clenched his teeth, ignored it, as instructed. The caller ID read Ackerman.

  It rang again. He dropped into the chair, legs stretched in front of him, head against the padded upholstery, letting go. It rang again. Aaron Gianelli would win this one.

  The call went to voice mail. And the room went silent.

  59

  “Let’s start with the money,” Jake said. “Mr. Thorley—”

  “Don’t say a word, Gordon,” Hardesty interrupted. “Brogan, I’m warning you.”

  “No need,” Jake said. “Hear me out. Mr. Thorley, we know about the mortgage payments. I assume your lawyer told you that.”

  Thorley sat, motionless, in the BPD interrogation room. Blinked once, that was it.

  “I told him,” Hardesty said.

  “And, sir? We know how sick you are.”

  Hardesty stood, his metal chair screeching as it slid on the linoleum floor, almost tipped over. “How sick?”

  “I see,” Jake said. “Yeah. Mr. Hardesty, we have it confirmed, by the Department of Correction. I know this is difficult, Mr. Thorley, and I’m sorry—your client’s been diagnosed with a particularly unfortunate type of lung cancer. Diagnosed a little more than a year ago. When I talked to your new parole officer, he called Mr. Thorley ‘poor guy.’ That’s what he meant, I suppose.”

  Hardesty looked at Thorley. “True?”

  Thorley shrugged, got me. In that one defeated motion, a dismissal of Jake, and Hardesty, and the world.

  Hardesty turned away, scratching the back of his head. Paused, then turned back to Jake.

  “I’m not clear where you’re going with this, Brogan. This whole discussion is—irregular. I’m on the verge of cutting it off. Since my client did not divulge any illness, and since medical records are confidential, there was no way for me to find out. Only individual parole officers have access to the records, only they know the status of their parolees’ health, and they’re not allowed to discuss it.”