The Wrong Girl (Jane Ryland)

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  “I thought that was you.” She dragged in a ragged breath. “I was in the Kinsale, saw you through the window.”

  “Jane Ryland?” Finn’s eyebrows approached his hat’s plastic band. “Whoa. I told everyone you were in our office today, talking to Maggie, so cool. They all wished they could have seen you in person. They said you work at the paper now, cool. Hey. Where’s your coat?”

  “Oh, Finn. You are a lifesaver.” She hated to lie to him, or to anyone, but she needed this info. This was going to be a total seat-of-the-pants fast-talking fabrication. “I was calling my story in to the paper, the Callaberry Street incident? I was sitting at the counter, dictating to the news desk, and I realized—I never got the correct spelling of Bree’s last name. Maggie’s long gone to Anguilla, lucky girl, but that meant I had no one to call. I was going to be in so much trouble with my boss! Then I saw you, and I was so psyched to see you, I forgot my coat.”

  She paused, wrapping her arms around herself, feeling the snow stacking up on her hair and shoulders. Her nose was probably bright red, and she could no longer feel the tips of her fingers.

  “I bet you’re on your way to the train, Finn, I’m so sorry. But you’re the only one I can turn to. Is it B-r-e-e or B-r-i-e? And how do you spell her last name?”

  *

  “This oughta be good.” Jake and D tramped up the snow-sodden wooden steps of the Allston duplex. A narrow front porch displayed a collection of soggy newspapers, some still in their plastic bags, and a teetering stack of abandoned yellow phone books. Two battered metal mailboxes, open and empty, one with a peeling label that said CKER. Left side, 343A Edgeworth Street, was vacant, according to Sergeant Hirahara in Records. Right side, 343B Edgeworth Street, was occupied by a Curtis James Ricker. Who was right now expecting the prize patrol. Not realizing that he was the prize.

  “Almost feel sorry for the guy.” DeLuca poked the grimy doorbell with one finger. “Almost.”

  A muffled thumping came from inside, like feet hurrying down the steps from a second floor. Someone was playing music, loud.

  “Almost,” Jake said. “Be great to get his cell phone, you know? We could find out if he used it to call 911.”

  “I’ll snatch it,” D said. “You distract him.”

  “Good plan. Then we’ll figure out who’s gonna distract the judge from the Fourth Amendment.”

  The inside door, white, pockmarked, pulled open, and a lug of a guy appeared behind the cracked glass of the storm door. Flannel shirt, worn jeans, face creased and puffy, like an aging pale walnut wearing a baseball cap. No shoes.

  Sex offender, Jake thought. Though he knew the guy wasn’t.

  “Curtis James Ricker?” Jake used the voice he’d perfected in the phone call. He raised his voice over the music.

  “Who’s asking?” The guy looked him up and down, assessing. “You Mr. Emerson?”

  “Mr. Ricker?” Jake said, avoiding the question. Greed. The great convincer. “We do have something for you.”

  “But we can’t hear you that well,” DeLuca said. “May we come in? Maybe turn down the, uh, Allmans?”

  The living room smelled like beer and cat piss. This guy probably wouldn’t open a window till spring. An open can of Mountain Dew balanced on a stack of magazines next to a full ashtray. The biggest flat-screen TV Jake had seen in a long time flickered a muted hockey game. Ricker aimed a remote at a box of blinking lights and the decibel level went down, marginally. No place like home.

  “So?” Ricker held out a wide flat palm, then stuffed his hand into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a thin leather wallet. He extracted a plastic card, held it in Jake’s direction. “I mean, here’s the photo ID you asked for. Take a seat, if you want.”

  “No, thanks.” Jake took the ID, confirming that DOB and vital stats matched those in the probation records. Then he got an idea. Shit. A good idea.

  “Mr. Ricker. One more question,” Jake said. “You have any … dependents? Or children?”

  Ricker’s face hardened, assessing. “Why?”

  “You do or you don’t,” DeLuca said.

  “Forgive my colleague,” Jake said. “He’s binary.”

  “Bi-?” Ricker looked at DeLuca.

  DeLuca shrugged.

  “Anyway, Mr. Ricker, I should have mentioned on the phone. If you have dependents, and we can locate them, your benefits might be increased.”

  Could Phoebe and Phillip be Ricker’s children? Could he know about the baby? The Lussier name was a snag, but one step at a time. There had been no father’s name on the foster paperwork, but Gunnison had explained that was often murky.

  Jake envisioned a boozy quarrel, or some beef about money. Whatever it was wound up with one dead wife on the kitchen floor and two kids in another room playing with teddy bears. And maybe a third kid.

  “Dependents?” Ricker said.

  Jake imagined the rest of the Callaberry scenario. In one ironic burst of fatherly instinct, Ricker had used his cell phone to call nine-one-one, anonymously reporting his own crime but protecting his children. Had he also grabbed Brianna’s purse and paperwork? Only someone familiar with her would know where she kept it.

  Everything fit. If they could link Ricker to Brianna through the children, they’d have their domestic, exactly as he and DeLuca predicted. Ricker’s fingerprints were in the probation records. If the medical examiner or the crime scene techs came up with latents, they could compare them. They could order a paternity test and subpoena the cell phone, easy enough. They could compare Ricker’s blood with what Kat McMahan found on the kitchen floor. When they got it, this guy could go away for a long time.

  But first they’d need probable cause. Jake checked Ricker for Band-Aids. None visible. They needed more evidence before they could call in the lab techs and order the noose-tightening tests.

  “Yeah, dependents,” Jake said. “Children who might rely on you for support.”

  Ricker seemed to be contemplating.

  “Not that tough a question,” DeLuca said.

  “No,” Ricker said. “No dependents.”

  “Ah,” DeLuca said, sounding as disappointed as Jake felt.

  Finding the truth is never easy, his Grandpa Brogan had warned him. But a good cop doesn’t need easy.

  “One more thing, sir,” Jake said. “We have you as previously married to a Brianna Tillson. Who at one point filed a 209a against you?”

  “Restraining order,” DeLuca said.

  “Old news,” Ricker said. “Does that make a difference in—?”

  “Last time you saw her was?” Jake risked pushing him a bit.

  “Man, I don’t even remember. Listen, I gotta take a leak,” Ricker said, cocking his head toward the back. “Mind? You guys want some water or something?”

  “No, thanks,” Jake said. “We’ll wait right here.” This guy was still expecting a windfall. He wasn’t going to bolt. Even though he’d made a quick exit after the mention of Brianna Tillson. As he left the room, Jake saw the outline of the cell phone in Ricker’s back pocket.

  DeLuca jerked a thumb at it. “Bummer,” he muttered.

  “You’re not half as bummed as this guy’s gonna be,” Jake said.

  Curtis Ricker’s day was about to crash and burn.

  *

  Jane’s fingers were ice. But things were definitely looking up. Her hamburger had still been hot when she’d returned to the pub, and now, down the block, she could see there was no ticket on her car. Best of all, star-struck Finn had given Jane the victim’s name, Brianna Tillson. Of course he thought she already knew it. With that knowledge, any good reporter could dig up background, come up with a revealing personal profile and a headline story. Take that, layoffs.

  Her cell buzzed somewhere deep in her purse.

  Tuck?

  Or Alex, wondering where she was. Giving him the scoop on Tillson would be fun.

  She paused on the sidewalk, hunching her shoulders in the cold, rooted for her buzzing phone.
Caller ID was blocked. She punched the green square with a bare finger.

  “Hello?”

  “Don’t even think about Brianna Tillson,” the voice said. “Let alone put her name in the paper. You saw what happened to her? You see the blood on the floor? Pretty terrible, huh? She didn’t know enough to shut up. You? I bet you do.”

  “Who is this?” This was a pretty stupid move. The caller’s number would be right in her cell now. Findable. Traceable. Unless he—he?—had a burner phone. “Who are you calling?”

  “Right.” The voice—a man? Finn? But he didn’t have her cell phone number—was hollow, muffled. “Forget about the murder. Got me? Say yes, and we’re done.”

  A chill went up Jane’s back, colder than the darkening afternoon. She looked around, up into the fogged office windows, across the street at a silhouette in the front seat of an idling car, over at the straggle of pedestrians hurrying down Cambridge Street.

  Every person she saw was on a cell phone.

  Was one of them talking to her? Was there a way to tell? Here she had a—killer, maybe—on the phone. Area A-1 police station a block away. A slew of cops almost within yelling distance. Yet it didn’t make a bit of difference. The guy hangs up, the guy disappears.

  “You know you’re talking to a reporter, right?” Her voice came out more confident than she felt. “Is there something you can tell me? I can keep it confidential. You know I can.”

  “Confidential I don’t need. Quiet’s what I need. You. Keeping quiet.”

  “Listen, I can help you make a deal.” Dammit. This was someone who knew about Brianna Tillson’s murder. How would he know to call her? Well, she’d written the bylined story for this morning’s paper. That narrowed it down to everyone who read the newspaper. Wonderful. “I know people in the po—”

  “Police department?” A derisive laugh. “I. Don’t. Think. So. This is call number one, Jane. You don’t want me to call you twice.”

  29

  Kellianne stopped in the doorway, her Tyvek suit snapped up to her neck, her blue mask dangling around her neck, gloves on, taking it all in. Kevin always made them suit up for the first entrance—she supposed that was logical, in case the person had died of, like, swine flu or something and was still contagious. Or if there was still a lot of … whatever … all over everything. Dead bodies had a kind of smell, she couldn’t really describe it. If there was blood and stuff, it was really hard to clean up. But that’s why they were here.

  And easy to see, this house or condo or whatever was a complete gold mine. Enough stuff in this lady’s living room alone to—

  “You coming, princess?” Kevin took a ring of keys from an envelope in the mailbox and jangled it at her like he was trying to wake her up. “Or are you going to stand there like a doof while we check this place out?”

  Kevin looked like a snowman, wearing his white suit and booties in the middle of the plushy living room. Talk about a doof. Keefer, too. Doofs from Doof City. She couldn’t wait until … Funny how what was bad sometimes turned into what was good.

  “Coming, jerk.” She snapped the blue mask over her mouth and nose and followed her brothers into the apartment, tried to remember to breathe the right way so her glasses wouldn’t fog up. She’d get contacts, too, when this was over. Green ones, maybe.

  They padded down a thickly carpeted hallway, Kellianne checking out the floor-to-ceiling rows of baby pictures on the white walls. Kevin, nonstop talking, halted in an open doorway.

  “Suffocated, with a pillow.” Kevin read from his stupid clipboard. Talking to Keefer, not to her. Per usual. Why didn’t he have to wear his stupid mask? “Somebody used tape and stuff to hold the pillow on. Or, maybe she did it herself.”

  “Sick,” Keef said.

  “Dead, right? Either way?” Kevin pointed his clipboard toward a big four-poster bed, the kind that seemed like it should have a canopy thing on top. But it didn’t. The bare mattress was showing, one of the shiny blue ones with silver stripes. “Happened in that bed, I guess. According to this, the cops took the sheets, and the pillow. Big time smell of death, right? So I say we’re gonna need—”

  Kevin droned on as she surveyed the room. The dresser had a big mirror with a bunch of curling photos tucked around the edges. Baby pictures, all looked alike. A million little cat figurines, all colors, crowded onto the dresser. Little cats on the nightstand, too.

  Kevin, still ignoring her, made check marks on his list of supplies. He always told customers they needed to clean the “death room,” and other rooms that touched it, and the bathrooms, including all the ceilings. They always ripped up all the carpeting, cut it up, and hauled it away. It was pretty expensive, and Kellianne always thought a lot of it was kind of not necessary. People didn’t seem to notice. Once Kev started talking about the “smell of death,” seemed like people began to smell it everywhere.

  Looking at the little cat statues again, Kellianne smiled and smoothed her Tyvek suit. “You want me to…” She paused, reconsidering.

  “Huh?” Kevin looked at her, eyes mocking. “You saying something?”

  “I’m not gonna do the inventory,” she said. She flipped up her mask and planted her hands on her hips to make sure he knew she was totally serious. “Look at all this. There’s way too much stuff. It’ll take for freakin’ ever. I’ll start in the other room.”

  Kevin pulled his mask off his face, stretching the white elastic way up over his head, then letting it snap back down so it landed like a hat. “Look who’s giving orders, Keef.”

  “Gotta salute,” Keefer said, demonstrating. “Guess she knows who’s boss.”

  “Abso-freaking-lutely,” Kev said. “I am. So, Miss Princess, we’ll be taking the other room. And you’ll be doing the inventory here.”

  “No way.” Kellianne pouted, big time. She knew he hated when she did that. “You always tell me you have to—”

  “Ah, life sucks, doesn’t it, sister?”

  “But—” He was such an idiot.

  “See ya, sucker,” Kev said. He snapped open his clipboard and handed her some sheets of lined inventory paper. “You should have a pen, right? Come on, Keef, you and me can check out the medicine cabinets.”

  “Someday you’re gonna get caught.” Kellianne couldn’t resist it, although she was happy to be rid of them. Talk about a sucker. She’d read some story in grade school about a rabbit and a briar patch. She was the rabbit. She looked at the blank inventory pages, trying not to smile.

  Whatever she wrote down was all there was. Kellianne could make reality.

  “Someday, you’re gonna get a brain.” Kevin shot the words over his shoulder as he strutted out the bedroom door.

  Someday? Kellianne no longer needed to hide her victory smile. That someday, dear brother, has already come. It has al-freakin’-ready come.

  *

  “All set?” Jake had dragged DeLuca away from the temptation of Curtis Ricker’s desk drawers. D was placidly “reading” Ricker’s tattered issue of Maxim when the guy shambled back into the living room. The music had flipped to some insistent bass-thumping anthem, still so loud maybe it meant Ricker had a hearing problem. But what he was about to hear would be crystal clear.

  Ricker was shoving his cell phone back into his pocket, carrying a huge glass of ice water in the other hand. Take a leak, huh? Wonder who he’d called on that phone. It wouldn’t be long before Jake found out.

  “Thanks, needed that,” Ricker hefted his water. “Sure you don’t want—”

  Jake reached into his inside jacket pocket, nodded to DeLuca to do the same. “Mr. Ricker? I’m Detective Jake Brogan, Boston PD.”

  Jake watched Ricker’s brain struggle with this new reality.

  “This is my partner, Detective Paul DeLuca.” They flopped open their badge wallets. Jake held his up a bit longer than necessary. Sometimes this part was fun.

  “But you said you were—”

  “We didn’t, actually,” Jake said.

  “You did,�
�� DeLuca said.

  “We’re here to talk to you about the death of Brianna Tillson,” Jake said, stashing his badge. “Want to take a seat?”

  “She’s dead?” Ricker lowered himself onto the plaid couch, clanking his ice water onto the coffee table. He pulled out his phone, licked his lips. “How did—?”

  If he called a lawyer, they were done. Jake talked fast. “So my first question. Where were you on the night of—?”

  Ricker, in one swift motion, took his cell phone, and plopped it into his ice water. And put his hand over the top.

  “Dammit,” Ricker said, shaking his head. “Lookit that. Musta dropped it.”

  “That’s gonna ruin—” Jake reached for the phone, but Ricker stood, hand still clamped over the top of his phone on the rocks.

  “Yeah, I guess it is,” Ricker said. “That puppy’s toast. Now I’m gonna have to call my lawyer from the kitchen landline. And you two? Are gonna have to leave.”

  “That’s destruction of evidence,” Jake said.

  “Evidence of what?” Ricker said.

  It was tempting to push him on it. They’d asked him about “dependents.” But you could have children without them being dependents. Maybe Jake’s clever questioning had actually lost them info.

  Whatever Ricker said now would get thrown out in court, now he’d mentioned his lawyer. Jake would save his questions for later.

  He pulled out his own cell phone, pretended to dial. Pretended to be pissed, which wasn’t that tough. “Guess we’re done here,” he said to DeLuca. “I’ll let our friend in the probation department know about the extravagant sound system and entertainment center Mr. Ricker is enjoying. He’ll wonder where that came from, you know? Mr. Ricker being unemployed and all. I wouldn’t leave town, Mr. Ricker. Your probation officer is about to be very concerned with your well-being. Hello? Probation? This is Detective Brogan from the…”

  “You done?” Ricker yanked open his front door. Waved an arm, showing them out. Slammed it behind them.