It skittered across the parking lot, spiraling over the snow-slicked pavement.
Jake jabbed a knee into the middle of Munson’s back, grabbed one hand, then the other. Clamped them together with the same handcuffs he’d worn minutes earlier. He hoped the concrete was hard and cold and wet and filthy.
“You okay, D?” Jake called. “Collins Munson, you’re under arrest for the murder of Lillian Finch.”
“Now I am.” DeLuca brushed the grit from his legs as he ushered Ardith upright from her cover. He took out his own cuffs and pulled Ardith Brannigan’s hands behind her back. “Ardith Brannigan, you’re under arrest as an accessory to murder.”
“But I didn’t—he only—I never—it was his idea to kill her,” Ardith sputtered, twisting against the restraints. “Lillian had discovered the footprints. She was about to—”
“Shut up, Ardith,” Munson’s voice came from beneath Jake.
“Such a happy couple,” DeLuca said.
“We’d be pleased to hear your story, Mrs. Brannigan. Might cut a decade or so off your sentence.” Jake couldn’t help but adjust his knee. Munson cursed, his cheek crushed against the pavement. “Oh sorry, Munson.”
He thought about yanking Munson to his feet, then heard the sirens. Fine. He could stay like this for two minutes more. About time Jake had the upper hand. “You have the right to remain silent.…”
It was the most fun he’d had all day. The sirens drew closer as he finished the Miranda.
“Hear that?” Jake said. “Say your good-byes. You two are done.”
“This is going be some freakin’ police report,” DeLuca said. “Jake, how’d you get—?”
“Long story,” Jake said.
80
“You sure you’re okay? Both of you?”
Jane handed DeLuca his radio, and looked Jake up and down in the Brannigan parking lot. A squadron of cop cars had swooped in, sirens wailing. Jake explained that Ardith Brannigan was on her way downtown and Collins Munson en route to a hospital.
Funny that the sky was so blue. Funny that the cold sun was glowing in the winter sky. Funny that a couple of sparrows flittered into the warmth of the evergreens. Like nothing bizarre had happened. Jane looped her arm through Jake’s, ignoring DeLuca’s knowing smile. He was a pal. She couldn’t believe she’d suspected him, even briefly.
“Our Jake here’s the hero of the day, Jane,” DeLuca said. “I’m fine. The good news? I heard Ardith Brannigan start talking the moment she hit the backseat of the cruiser. Her lawyer’s gonna be pissed, but that’s not our problem. Apparently Lillian Finch discovered some footprint scheme Munson was using to—” He shook his head. “Must have been a big deal. Anyway, I’ll give you two a moment. I’m going inside to make the necessary phone calls.”
“Kat,” Jake said.
DeLuca looked at the pavement, then nodded. “Yeah. And then I’ll inform the Supe you’re on your way to fill him in on what happened.”
“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” Jane almost stamped her foot in impatience as D walked away. “Ardith talked about footprints?”
Jake gave her arm a squeeze, then stepped away from her. “Jane? What do you know about them? That’s the question.”
*
“Remember the fire?” Jane said.
Jake rolled his eyes. Jane always had to tell every detail. There was no such thing as long-story-short with her. He loved her for it.
“Okay, fine. You remember. Anyway, Ella gave me a piece of paper, apparently one of the things she found in Lillian Finch’s house before—” She paused. “Okay, fine, fast forward. It’s a footprint. They were—”
“They?” Jake said.
“You want me to tell you this?”
Jake shrugged. Her ears were turning red and her hair was tousled and she’d run out without gloves. He wished he could grab her hands, grab all of her. Maybe he was simply feeling relieved. And alive. “Sorry.”
“Anyway, someone—now I guess it was Munson, or Ardith and Munson—was taking the footprints, the baby footprints, out of adoption files,” Jane said. “I can’t figure out why, except that’s the only thing in the documents that would absolutely clinch the identities of the children. Chief Monahan told me Ella was trying to carry out a pile of documents, but they all burned in the fire. Except this one.”
She zipped open her tote bag.
*
And stopped, mid-zip. Jane looked up as she heard the beep-beep of a car’s horn, the crunch of tires on the salted pavement. A black SUV rounded the corner into the parking lot.
“What now?” Jake’s hand hovered over his gun.
“Don’t worry.” Jane knew that car.
“Huh?” Jake said.
“It’s Tuck,” Jane said. “She’s how this whole thing started. Anyway. Look at this paper.”
*
Baby Girl Beerman. Jake read the typed description on the creased and wrinkled paper Jane handed him. It smelled like fire. A tiny baby footprint, impossibly small. So what?
He looked up as Tuck slammed the car door. A woman he didn’t recognize was getting out of the passenger seat.
“Hey, comrades,” Tuck called. “What’re you all doing here?
*
By the time Jane neared the end of the story, her hands were frozen and her ears would never be the same. She tried to tell the whole story, fast as she could, since they were still out in the parking lot.
“So if this is your footprint, Tuck,” Jane said, “you really are baby girl Beerman. If it isn’t—well, that’s why we came to see you, Carlyn.”
She handed the paper to Tuck and Carlyn. They examined it together, shoulders touching. Judging by their expressions, the two women didn’t seem to understand.
“Get what I’m saying?” Jane said. “If this footprint doesn’t match, that proves Tuck is the wrong girl.”
*
“The wrong girl?” After hearing Jane’s explanation, Jake worried about fingerprints on the document, about Ella Gavin’s potential testimony, about the documents destroyed in the fire, and how to link it all to their growing case against Munson and possibly Ardith Brannigan. Was it fraud? Deception? The wrong girl?
“Tuck? We can take a print of your foot downtown,” Jake said. “Take it to our lab.”
*
“Great,” Jane said. “Can we do it today? Tuck? What’s wrong?”
She’d have thought Tuck would be eager to take Jake up on his offer. Carlyn, too. The footprint could instantly answer the questions that plagued Tuck. But Tuck had a funny look on her face.
Carlyn, holding the footprint, had a funny look, too.
Maybe Jane couldn’t fully understand the depth of the emotions. The past and the future. Right here, right now. Revealed.
“I’m sorry.” Was she being insensitive? Disrespectful? So interested in the story that she’d lost sight of the real people involved? “Do you two want to talk privately? Without—” She waved a hand at Jake, and the parking lot, at the Brannigan’s brick walls. “All this?”
“Jane, we’re so grateful.” Carlyn began.
Tuck had pulled the charm bracelet from her pocket.
“Jane? My mother—my adoptive mother—is dying. You know that. The nurse called this morning. To let my mother say—well, I’m flying down there tonight.”
“I’m so sorry.” No wonder Tuck’s voice had sounded strange.
Tuck held up the bracelet. Carlyn moved behind her, draped an arm across her shoulders. “She told me that she’d made this bracelet. She’d written the note. To prevent me from finding my birth mother. Remember I told you she’d hate that I was looking? So this morning she said…”
Jane watched Tuck struggle for words. Her eyes welled with tears and Carlyn comforted her.
“Go ahead, honey,” Carlyn said. “We understand she did it out of love, sweetheart. Out of thinking you’d be happier.”
Tuck took a deep breath. “She said she couldn’t face me, but had to tell
me the truth. Let go of the guilt. All these years, she wanted me to feel loved by her. That she was my only ‘real’ mother. That she and Dad were my real family. She knew if anyone tried to say otherwise, I’d use the bracelet and note to prove they were wrong.”
“Which she almost did. Right, honey?” Carlyn handed the footprint back to Jane. “But that’s why we don’t need the footprint, Jane. I’m so happy to introduce you to—”
“Audrey Rose Beerman.” Tuck blinked away the tears. The bracelet twinkled in the milky sun. “The right girl. The rightest girl in the world.”
81
Jane stabbed the elevator button, again and again. If the Register people didn’t fix this, she was going to—Damn. No time.
She yanked open the stairwell door, raced up the three flights, down the hall, and toward Alex’s office. She stood in the hallway, catching her breath.
Scrabbling her hair into place and clutching Ella’s bag of documents—Alex was gonna love the footprint thing—she headed toward his office, marshaling her pitch. She’d have the scoop on the arrest for the Lillian Finch murder. No conflict of interest there. They couldn’t lay her off now.
A flutter in her chest as she approached Alex’s office. Calm down, Jane.
She would dig up the whole deal on what happened at the Brannigan, too. The Tuck thing—well, that was a happy ending. Happy-ish. But what documents had burned in the fire? Had other families been sent the wrong children? It could be a huge story. But she’d need time to research it. And write it. She’d need a job to make that happen.
Alex was there, she saw him through the window in his jeans and starched oxford shirt, standing behind his desk, sorting manila folders. Not on the phone.
She knocked, twice, didn’t wait for an okay.
“Alex, listen to this!” She was smiling, big time, but hey, this was a big scoop. “I’ve got a hell of a story.”
Alex did not return her smile.
“Yeah, Jane.” He gestured her toward the couch. Which was empty. No piles of files, no documents, no clutter. Just couch.
“Sit down, okay?” he said.
Her face went cold. Her heart weighed a million pounds. The layoffs. What Hec—whoever—had warned her about. This was it. She was being laid off.
“What, Alex?” She stayed in the doorway, struggled to hide her emotions.
“You know we’ve had some … difficulties, here at the Register,” Alex said. “I wanted to tell you face-to-face. That’s why I haven’t been answering your calls. Really. Please sit.”
Jane lowered herself to the couch, then stood again.
“Am I—,” she began. She could take it. “Just tell me.”
“You’re fine,” Alex said. “The fifth floor is impressed. You’re tough, and determined, and a real team player. Now that Leonard Perl’s arrested—the whole Hec Underhill thing—you’re clear to come back.”
“So why did—?”
“It’s me they’re letting go, Jane. Someone had to take the hit for hiring Hec. And that was me.”
Jane sat down. Stared at her knees for a silent moment.
“I’m so sorry.” She wasn’t fired. It was Alex. That’s why no one had told her.
“I’ll be fine, Jane. I’ve got a lead on a new job in Washington, D.C. Your pal Amy still there? Maybe we can all have dinner. Sometime. Now that I’m not … your boss anymore.”
“But that’s so unfair.” Getting blamed for something he couldn’t have known. He’d gotten her this job. Backed her. Trusted her. Now he was leaving.
“Life’s not fair. It’s only short.” Finally he smiled. “My last day isn’t until tomorrow. Tell me about your story.”
*
Jake would never feel comfortable holding an infant. Little Diane had a death grip on his forefinger. Her tiny fingers barely made it around. He shifted on Bethany’s living room couch, worrying.
“You’re a natural,” Bethany Sibbach said. “Look how she’s cuddling into you. You ever thought about having kids, Detective?”
He had, of course. And someday, maybe soon, he’d want to talk about it, with Jane. But it was this little girl whose future he was interested in now. He’d promised Maggie Gunnison he’d make sure Diane Marie was taken care of. He’d been haunted by that. Now they were onto the whole scheme, and the DA had taken over.
But why should the baby be an innocent victim? He’d called Bethany to see if there was anything he could do. Instead of answering, she’d asked him to come over.
“Me and kids? That’s a story for another day,” Jake said. “But this particular kid—”
“—is staying with me,” Bethany said. “We knew her birth mother is deceased, and her father—unknown. So. I wanted to tell you in person. I got the okay from the DFS director. She pulled some strings. Special circumstances. Paperwork’s making its way through the system. She’ll be Diane Marie Sibbach. I’ll be her mom.”
Bethany tickled the little girl gently under her chin, scooped her out of Jake’s arms. “Right, sweetie? Right?”
“Phillip and Phoebe?” Jake asked. They were both upstairs, naptime. Bethany told him Phillip had seemed to recognize Diane, but wasn’t particularly interested.
“Off the record? We have a wonderful family all set to adopt them.” Bethany’s eyes were on Diane, swaddled in pink fleece, only her pudgy face showing. “I’ll keep special watch on them, extra close. We can’t control everyone’s lives, Detective. In foster care families, as in any family, we can’t make certain everything works out for every child. All we can do is love them. And do our best.”
82
“I promise,” Jane said. Her fingers itched to push the green play button, but this was Jake’s show. He’d sent his assistant on an errand so they could be alone in his office at police HQ. Jane had banged out an exclusive front-pager for this morning’s paper about the Munson and Brannigan arrests, but she knew there was more to the story. She was about to see it.
“You cannot say I showed you this,” Jake said. “It’s strictly background. We’re on to this case because of you. I owe you. Not because it’s you, Janey. It’s only fair. And the Supe is aware. But if you reveal—”
“I promise.” Jake had Collins Munson’s confession on video. And she was about to see it.
“This is conference room B. Munson’s in a folding chair at the table. My back’s to the camera. The woman’s his lawyer,” Jake said. “She objected, but after an overnight in a Suffolk County jail cell, probably contemplating life without parole, Munson insisted. I have to admit, Jane, his defense is a new one. I forwarded the tape to the relevant part.”
“Let me. See. The video,” Jane pleaded. Geez.
Jake hit the green button.
“So how many were there, Mr. Munson?” Jake’s voice came over the tinny speakers.
“Have you heard any complaints?” Munson said.
“That’s not what I’m asking,” Jake said. “You took the footprints out of the files so the probative evidence was gone. Ms. Finch found out, obtained copies from hospitals, and threatened to expose you. So you killed her.”
“Has anyone called to say they’re unhappy?” Munson took a pocket square from his jacket, polished his glasses, examined the lenses in the fluorescent lights. He wore a tweed jacket and gray slacks. No tie or belt.
Jake made a mark on his legal pad. “Mr. Munson, your role was to reunite, on request, birth parents with the children they’d put up for adoption. But you were sending—just anyone?”
Munson flipped a palm, derisive. “Of course not. When there was a true match, marvelous. That’s our goal, after all. But for many of our clients, the birth mothers were—shall we say—uninterested. Or dead. I’ve handled these cases for many years, hundreds of them. Thousands. Many of these connections could never be made. Then I thought, if we matched basic characteristics, eye color and age and such, how would they know?”
Jane couldn’t help it. She pushed stop. “How would they know?”
�
�Yeah,” Jake said. “He realized—well, listen. We don’t have much time.”
He pushed play.
“How would they know?” Jake asked on the tape.
“Precisely,” Munson said. “The children were infants when they were left at the Brannigan. No memories, no history, no idea of their origin. The birth parents, too, had seen their child only briefly. If at all. How would they know what they’d look like as adults? I mean, who would ask for a DNA test? When the agency offers you your child? Your mother? We simply took the outliers, often the ones whose birth parents were deceased, or where the child was deceased, and put them together. It was all they ever wanted. To be a family. We could give it to them.”
“We?” Jake said.
“‘We,’ the Brannigan,” Munson said. “But I put the families together. I created them. I was the Brannigan. No matter what that pompous ass Niall thought. Or Lillian, who was about to ruin it all.”
Jane pushed pause. The screen froze.
“You didn’t tell him about Ella, right?” she asked. “That she figured it out? Because—”
“Jane,” Jake said. “Gimme a break.”
He pushed play.
“So let me get this straight,” Jake said on the video. “Every time—”
“Of course not,” Munson said. “Of course not every time. Sometimes, the request came in and the family was available and it all fit together without my … help. Sometimes, however, we had to give Mother Nature a little nudge.”
“Did they pay you?”
No answer.
“Munson?”
A woman’s voice came from off camera. “Collins, you agreed.”
“Of course they paid me,” Munson said. “I would explain they had a difficult case. The Brannigan simply did not have the resources to do extensive research in the whereabouts of birth parents who did not want to be found. Or children who did not want to be found. I explained I knew a top-notch investigator who could help them. Separately. For a fee. Of course they paid. They’d pay anything.”
“Who was that investigator?” Jake asked.
The Wrong Girl (Jane Ryland) Page 35