Say No More

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  Jake had never been at this particular home, though. A cast-iron plaque named it The Morgan House, and a cornerstone carved 1893 gave it a birthday.

  He knocked again. Nothing. Keyed his radio. “This is Brogan and DeLuca,” he said. “On-site at the address.” Static.

  He let go of the radio button. “How about getting someone to let us the hell in?” he said out loud, though no one else but D could hear him. Budget cuts had ripped the understaffed dispatch, like everyplace else at the department.

  “Try asking for Kearney himself,” DeLuca said. “The new supe’s always saying how we’re in this together. Except, in real life, he’s in his office, and we’re out in murderland. Getting nowhere.”

  Jake looked up, saw three brownstone stories, polished windows, a flutter of curtains, slate roof, sky still bright with the last of the summer sunlight. No faces, though, no sounds from inside. Outside, no traffic, no horns honking, no tinkling ice cream truck music, no kids on bikes or laughter from backyards. A few silhouettes down the block, inquisitive neighbors, probably. And that dog. Jake held down the radio button again. “Requesting entry, please.”

  “The dog’s gotta go.” D leaned forward, balanced one hand on the brownstone wall, and pushed the branches of a spiky shrub away from the multipaned front window with the other, trying to get a look inside. He stood, defeated, brushed off his hands. “Can’t see a thing.”

  The front door creaked open, Jake dismissing a brief imaginary vision of a black-coated butler bearing a silver tray. A uniformed cop stood in the entryway. Finally, some good news.

  “Hey, Shom,” Jake said. T’shombe Pereira was stand-up, and as close to making detective as anyone on the force.

  “Right this way, Detectives,” Pereira said, gesturing them into a shadowy entryway, black-and-white tiles, gilt-edged mirror hanging over a marble table. “She’s in the back.”

  Jake stepped over the threshold, his eyes adjusting. He cased a twinkling chandelier, lights glowing. To the left, the living room, fresh flowers, fireplace, books open on a coffee table. A stairway to the right. Jane would call the carpet jewel-toned. A two-story wall galleried with photos. A long hall led to daylight at the end.

  “You solved this yet, Shom?” he asked, mostly giving him grief. “Got a confession, cause of death? Signs of a break-in?”

  “Not that we can tell. Front door was locked.” Pereira pointed, then gestured down the hall. “No other way into the back.”

  “Who called nine-one-one?” Jake asked. Carpet continued down the hallway. No footprints in the center of the deep pile. Shom had kept to the edges, doing it by the book. The three filed toward the back of the house. The barking got louder.

  “Can’t you shut that dog up?” DeLuca was scanning, assessing, same as Jake was.

  “Looking into it,” Pereira said. “Nine-one-one, I mean. The dog’s above my pay grade, Detectives.”

  As the wallpapered hallway ended, Jake took it all in—décor, atmosphere, light levels, air conditioner humming somewhere, clean smell. Didn’t smell like dog. Hmm. You never knew what might be evidence. As for the house itself, Jake realized he was “assessing” in an additional way. He and Jane had looked at a few brownstones together, pretending their venture into Realtors’ open houses was simply a lark. An outing. Just for fun. It wasn’t. Though Jane wouldn’t wear Gramma’s diamond ring in public—they’d talked about it again only the night before—their house-shopping was for real. Life was short, Jake thought, entering a pristinely white-cupboarded kitchen.

  “Back there.” Shom Pereira pointed toward sliding glass doors now opened to a flagstone patio and swimming pool, turquoise water glittering.

  And next to the pool, the unmistakable juxtaposition he’d seen again and again over the past ten years on street corners, in blood-soaked living rooms, in a rain-sodden suburban woodland, even once, years ago, on a klieg-lighted high school football field. A dark shape on the ground, motionless, still, as if waiting for answers the victim would never hear. The attending shape of the medical examiner crouched over the body, ministerial, intent.

  This scene—one like it unfolding every ten days or so in Boston, Jake and the other homicide detectives could recite the stats—was the beginning of a possible murder story. Soon that story would simultaneously move backward to the past and forward to the future, and eventually some diligent law enforcement official would close the book on it. If they were lucky.

  Often the scene was silent, whether reverent, or sorrowful, or tense, or all of the above. In this backyard, though, it was all about the dog. A white button-eyed cotton ball—still yapping, one paw clamped on a yellow rubber toy—was tied to the leg of a black wrought-iron poolside chair with a strip of something pink and green.

  “Sorry about the dog.” The medical examiner looked up from the victim beside her, Kat McMahan raising a lavender-gloved hand in greeting as they approached, her back to the rectangular swimming pool. Under her white lab coat, Jake saw the ME’s T-shirt of the day—this one more loose-fitting than usual. Above the logo of a nail-impaled tongue, a slogan read, “I Missed the Stones—Fenway 2011.” Jake knew that T-shirt belonged to DeLuca. Decided not to mention it.

  “She was going crazy,” Kat continued, cocking her head at the dog. “Yelping and racing in circles. Her collar says ‘Popcorn.’ I sacrificed my scarf so she wouldn’t bolt for the street.”

  “Be good riddance,” DeLuca muttered, looking at the sun-dotted water. “Wonder if it can swim.”

  “What you got, Kat?” Jake pitched his voice louder than the dog’s as he stepped closer to the body by the pool. The dead woman looked for all the world like a sunbather, sleeping prone, one hand just touching the edge of one of the blue tiles surrounding the pool. Not young, not old, dark hair splayed behind her. A hot pink, Jake guessed you’d call it, bathing suit, modest. Bare feet, painted toenails matching the suit. One flip-flop on, the other in the water. No blood, no gun, no signs of a struggle.

  “Kat? Who pulled her out of the pool?” Would there be any reason not to?

  The dog—Popcorn—kept up her side of the conversation as Jake took in the scene. He shrugged, bent down, untied Kat’s scarf, and picked up the dog. Its yellow toy ball rolled away, and Popcorn quieted, blinked, looked into his eyes. Then she started yapping like a canine maniac. Her tiny pointed teeth snapped at him, her ears flattened. The dog squirmed, a writhing ball of white fur, flailing legs, and thrashing paws, trying to escape.

  “You kidding me, dog?” Jake held Popcorn out in front of him, trying to keep her sharp claws away from his face. Maybe she smelled Diva. Diva’d eat this thing with one golden retriever chomp. Kat was trying not to laugh, not succeeding. Good thing the public didn’t see this side of law enforcement.

  “Gimme that dog. She’s only protecting—” DeLuca grabbed it, looking like a scarecrow holding a tiny lamb. The dog was instantly silent.

  “How’d you—” Jake began.

  “Do not—” Kat glanced at the pool.

  “Dog’s a witness, right?” DeLuca said. “Go on, Doc. Give us the scoop. Cause of death?”

  Kat stood, eyeing DeLuca and the dog, then turned her attention to the woman on the pavement. The dog’s owner, presumably. And D was right, the dog probably was a witness. If this was murder, some defense attorney’d figure out a way to use that. But that was down the road. Plus, if someone had a defense attorney, it meant there was a defendant. And that would be a good thing.

  “Well.” Kat took a deep breath, as she always did when making a prelim. “Too early to say. But she’s wet, and she was in the pool. Her cell phone was, too. Anyone who’s watched Dragnet knows the ME can tell if a person drowned.”

  “Dragnet?” Jake asked.

  “Whatever,” Kat said. “Drowning is an easy diagnosis. You can’t get away with a fake drowning. So we have to ask—why was she dead in the pool?”

  Jake thought about it. Fell? Pushed?

  Kat kept talking. “Hard to dress a wet
person in a bathing suit. Hard to dress a dead person in a bathing suit. Hard to—well, we can safely assume this is what she was wearing when she died. White, female, forty-ish, maybe younger, maybe older—have to look for plastic surgery. No ligature marks, no blunt trauma, no stabs or bullet wounds. So. We shall see.”

  “Drugs? Alcohol?” Jake looked around. No glasses, no bottle. “Suicide?”

  “Too soon to say,” Kat replied. “Tell me if you find a note.”

  “ID?” Jake said. If the dog had a name tag, maybe it had a license. Which meant the dog-witness could be valuable after all. It could tell them her owner’s name.

  “That’s why you get the big bucks,” Kat was saying. “I’ve got the ambulance on the way. So. More to come.”

  “We’ll check the house. Name’ll be the least of our problems,” Jake said.

  “Someone coulda gotten through the shrubs, I guess.” DeLuca held the dog in his arms as he scanned, doing a three-sixty. “Or jumped the fence. Gotta love mulch. Sucks for footprints.”

  “Who got her out of the pool?” Jake asked.

  “Officer Reddington was the first here,” Kat said. “Kevin. Came over the fence. Jumped in, pulled her out. She might have been alive. But she wasn’t.”

  “Where’s—” Jake began.

  “He’s outside. Still wet.” Kat pointed toward the street. “He’s got the phone, though it’ll have to dry out. Told him to wait so you could talk to him. He’s keeping the lookies away, too. College kid, a few neighbors.”

  “Detectives?” T’shombe Pereira stood in the frame of the open sliding glass door. A siren wailed in the far distance. So much for the neighborhood’s afternoon of peace and security. Death had come to The Reserve.

  “Dispatch traced the nine-one-one to a cell that pinged a tower serving this neighborhood,” the officer said. “They’re working on it. So far, door-to-door’s got nothing. Except. Our victim is apparently named Avery Morgan. That’s the same person who receives the mail here. And there’s an open checkbook, her name, this address, with those textbooks on the coffee table.”

  “Thanks, Shom,” Jake said. “Stay on it.”

  He turned to D and Kat, then to the body on the smooth poolside stones. Now she had a name, Avery Morgan. Morgan House, the place was called, and that could not be a coincidence. That meant their victim had an easily discoverable history. Connections. And discoverable enemies. Maybe this wouldn’t be a tough one. It could happen.

  “Too bad your townie informant has no pals in The Reserve.” DeLuca’s canine witness had fallen dead asleep in his arms, two back paws tucked under D’s belt, a furry chin on D’s forearm. “We could use some intel.”

  “Every group has a code of silence,” Jake said. “It’s a question of finding the weak link.”

  “Maybe the weak link was Avery Morgan,” DeLuca said. “Sure wish this dog could talk.”

  5

  WILLOW GALT

  Was calling the police my first mistake? Willow tried to gauge whether anyone in Avery’s backyard who looked up and across two rows of hedges would be able to spot her in the upstairs bedroom window, framed by ancient ivy and a ruffle of brand-new white curtains. She’d cross that bridge when she came to it. She’d done it enough, crossing bridges when she came to them, to stay in practice. But what she’d seen in Avery’s yard was so disturbing. How could she not report it?

  She examined the cell phone she’d used to call 911, one of her secret stash of prepaids. Even Tom didn’t know she had them. But she was not about to cut herself off from the entire world, no matter what the two of them had promised or what deal they’d made. No one could erase the fact that she existed.

  She existed. But in a different way now. “It’ll be fine,” Tom had reassured her. She could not imagine “fine.” She wanted a pill. But she’d resist.

  The phone rang, the jangle from their landline making her realize she’d been lost in thought. She let it ring. If it was Tom, he’d leave a message. If it was the police, they’d say so. Not answering it now would give her time to think.

  Third ring. To get away from the phone, she went through the open bedroom door, down the carpeted hall, and into the “guest” room. As if they’d ever have guests. She tucked her hair behind her ears—she’d never worn it this long before!—and pressed her forehead against the window, feeling the cool glass. Two more people, maybe three, had arrived at Avery’s.

  So funny it was named “Morgan House” and Avery’s name is—was—Morgan. They’d laughed about the coincidence.

  “Fate,” Avery had pronounced, and lifted a glass of prosecco, her Hollywood voice dramatic. “I was destined to be here. And you were, too, darling Willow!” She hadn’t told Tom about their talks, and worried the chitchatty Avery might let it slip someday. Now that worry was over.

  Others were beginning.

  She and Avery had met just two months ago, after Willow saw a flash of dark hair though the backyard forsythia. She’d heard a voice call out, “Hello? Who’s over there?”

  The voice had parted the slender branches with one hand and peered through the greening leaves. Willow saw a woman about her size with a little white dog tucked under one arm. Pretty, Willow thought. Theatrical, in white pants and a paisley tunic.

  “I’m Avery,” she’d said.

  “I’m Willow.” She’d taken a step, one, or maybe two, toward the forsythia. The visitor might have thought it strange if she’d run away. Or worse, gossip-worthy. Safe enough to talk, just this once. She hadn’t even stumbled over introducing herself as “Willow.”

  “Lovely name,” Avery replied, using the entire musical scale for the three syllables. Willow listened to things like that. She’d thought about changing her own voice, just a little, in case. But that was difficult. As difficult as remembering you were someone else.

  Willow had tried to smile and be neighborly, knowing she couldn’t go any further. Risky enough having this encounter. Still, she longed for contact, for connection, for friends. They hadn’t warned her it’d be like this, so lonely. Or maybe they had.

  The next time she’d glimpsed Avery’s dark hair, Willow had come back out, pretending she’d been planning to sit in her backyard anyway. Avery had slipped through the bushes, and they’d talked. Then had drinks by Avery’s pool.

  Now this.

  Tom would kill her for calling the police.

  The phone stopped ringing. Good. Willow listened for a message—but there was no voice. Good. They’d given up. Maybe it was a wrong number. Maybe she’d spooked herself again. Maybe.

  Thing was. Someone, she honestly did not know who, had—Willow shook her head, envisioning it. Even now she could feel the memory changing. Fading. Good.

  She wished she could un-remember all of it. The shape that came into the backyard earlier this afternoon. And the other shape, motionless, wrong, in the pool. Popcorn, barking incessantly, racing back and forth along the pool’s edge. What would happen to the dog now? Willow still had a heart, and a conscience. They could not take that away.

  But now the police were there, and they’d figure it out. They didn’t need her. She’d watched an officer scale the back fence, hoist himself over the weathered wood, and pull Avery out, dripping and motionless. She’d try to forget that, too.

  The sounds of the house surrounded her, the dull nothing of emptiness, the melancholy sweet fragrance of still-unpacked cardboard moving boxes. The last of the afternoon sun through the window made rectangular shapes on the off-white carpeting, like the hopscotch squares she and her sister had drawn on their suburban sidewalks so many years ago. Now here she was, in hiding. Not even Millie knew where she was or if she was alive. Instead of following directions and staying uninvolved, unconnected, and unremarkable, Willow had called the police.

  She laughed out loud, her own rueful bark surprising her as it seemed to echo through the room. Of all things. She’d called the police!

  Willow quieted. Listening. But no, there was only silence. She
closed her eyes, weary and defeated. Tom would kill her. No. No. He’d understand. He’d have to.

  When she opened her eyes, the shadows had moved, the hopscotch squares gone.

  This time, she heard it clearly.

  The knock on her front door.

  6

  ISABEL RUSSO

  Isabel looked at the checkerboard of days on her August calendar, the one she’d found online and printed on the portable device set up by the coffeemaker on her kitchen counter. It was a high point of her day, she had to admit, when she got to obliterate another square, making a big black X to reassure herself she was one step closer to graduation. One day closer to leaving Adams Bay College, leaving Boston, leaving her old life behind and going somewhere, anywhere, anyplace no one knew her. Where no one knew what had happened to her. And where they never ever ever would. She would never say a word.

  She stared at the remaining calendar squares. So many of them. Nine months to go. Every day at six P.M. she crossed off that day. If she did it in the morning, the day wasn’t truly over yet, so the moment wasn’t as meaningful.

  Twenty years old, she thought, as she poised the thick black Sharpie over the square marked “Monday.” And I am counting the days until I can leave this apartment.

  Apartment. She looked around the little place she’d called home since she came to Boston going on four years ago, full of hope and excitement, full of her future as a performer or teacher or both. She’d gotten good news on the very first day, when she’d won the school’s freshman housing lottery and was allowed to opt out of Adams Bay’s notoriously crowded dorms. Her mother, to her wild delight, had agreed to pay the extra it would cost.

  At first, Isabel adored her new home base. She painted most of it pale blue, one wall pristine china white. Hand-stitched—because who has a sewing machine?—curtains from yards of blue-striped linen, installed with expandable rods from CVS. As inspiration, she arranged her framed posters of Maria Callas singing Tosca and Mirella Freni as Mimi, and in a fit of do-it-yourself fervor, successfully installed her little corner-mounted speakers. She put two potted scheffleras and a folding chair on her tiny wrought-iron balcony, a fire escape, really, overlooking Kenmore Square. She invited classmates to visit, and they’d drunk Nebbiolo and listened to her vinyl and compared, well, notes. The whole scene was cool, proof she was independent and free and grown-up and on her own.