Say No More

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  What if it was the police?

  The bottom dropped out of his gut. He’d been in such a control-freak panic—that’s what Avery had always called him, he remembered, control freak, although she’d meant it in a very different way—he’d been in such a control-freak panic that he’d missed the key to all of this.

  There was absolutely nothing on Avery’s computer that would implicate him in any way about what happened to her. How could there be?

  He paused. Could there be?

  And then he realized the real danger of intruders or cops or investigations into Avery’s death. They’d interview everyone, everyone she knew, look up calendars and e-mails, track phone calls and visitors and memos and meetings and appointments. “They” were cops. It wasn’t like “they” were the public, or even snooping reporters, limited by the confidentiality rules protecting Adams Bay, a privately funded school that had no government requirement to hand over any documents or records. Cops could get anything. Anything that existed. Edward was savvy enough to know that even data one attempted to delete was still there, somehow, in the teeming maw of cyberspace. Everything existed.

  The shadow appeared outside the door. Paused.

  Edward marshaled his excuses, his explanations, and put on his welcoming administrative face. Well, good evening, he’d say. What can I do for you?

  As if he didn’t know what had happened to Avery. As if this were just another night. As if he weren’t surreptitiously and probably illegally breaking into Avery’s computer.

  Because in truth? It wasn’t only her computer he should be worrying about.

  It was his.

  JAKE BROGAN

  “Send in the clowns,” Jake muttered. The blocky news vans, three of them, now overlapped on the curb in front of the Morgan House. Nobody’d answered at the last door knock, and he’d promised D they’d wrap it up. And now? This?

  Ever since he and Jane had begun their late night philosophical debates over the public’s right to know versus the cops’ right to investigate, and how each of them was only doing their jobs, he’d tried to temper his annoyance with “The Media.” But those words still appeared, with capital letters, in his mind’s eye. A cop’s brain was a cop’s brain, and not even Jane could debate that away.

  First Amendment rights or not, press at a crime scene meant questions. Questions meant the circus was under way, with Jake forced to be the juggler. Balancing his silence. And his attitude. Because it wasn’t that the police didn’t know anything, it was that they simply weren’t planning on telling any of it. But with cameras rolling, which was worse—cops sounding clueless, or as if they were keeping secrets?

  Jake and D slowed their footsteps as they approached, but too late. The coiffed figures leaning against the logoed trucks bolted to attention and beelined toward the detectives.

  “Freaking reporters,” D said. “Anyone you know?”

  “Hope not,” Jake said. With any luck, Jane was at her condo or at his. When he had one second, he’d check his personal texts. Funny how that pressure was off, though, with Jane not covering crime anymore. She’d have pounced on this story: gorgeous dead woman in a ritzy neighborhood, connections with a local college, puppy as witness. Now he could tell her all about it. No more pretending, no more covering up, no more questioning himself about what to say and what not to say. They’d made the right decision. This would work.

  “Jake!” A woman’s voice, punctuated by her footsteps clacking toward them. Her photographer, trotting behind her, fussed with the camera balanced on his shoulder. They were still on the move when the reporter made the one-finger spiral for roll tape.

  “Open season,” Jake said.

  “For bullshit,” D said.

  “Jake!” A guy in khakis elbowed in, and pointed his logoed wireless mic in Jake’s face before the woman could. Another photographer lumbered behind him, eye plastered to the viewfinder. “Sean Callahan, from Channel—”

  “I’m Roberta Spencer. Ten News.” The woman caught up, stuck her mic beside Sean’s, shot her competitor a withering look. “Jake! Can you start over?”

  Within seconds there were four of them, then five, jockeying for position on the narrow sidewalk, the molded logos encircling their microphones clicking together as they tried to get them closer.

  “Do you mind?” one complained.

  “Gimme a break,” the woman said.

  “Trying to do my job, you know?”

  Jake raised his palm to stop their bickering, hoping his expression telegraphed Shut up without him having to say it.

  “Guys?” he said. “Ready?”

  Four spotlights, then five, clicked on, illuminating Jake and D in a pool of orange incandescence. Reporters’ voices clamored against each other, vying for Jake’s attention.

  “Is she dead? Avery Morgan?”

  “Can you confirm she’s a visiting professor at Adams Bay?”

  “We have not contacted next of kin.” Jake could tell them that, try to keep her identity out of it as long as he could. “So we will not be confirming any names.”

  “We heard she was wet. Did she drown? Is it a possible homicide? Is that why you guys are here?”

  “Homicide cops come to every unattended death, murder or no. Right, Jake? Is that the only reason you’re here?”

  “Is it suicide? If it’s suicide, we’re screwed.”

  “Yeah, we don’t air suicides. Especially not the name. So, Jake, is it suicide?”

  “Can you just let me talk? Jake? Was she having one of her student gatherings? Can you confirm she held student gatherings?”

  Jake tried to hold back a smile, listening to the reporters think they were asking questions when in truth, like the residents he and D had just interviewed, they were giving him one potential lead after another. If he’d asked them for help? They’d have clammed up like … clams. He waited, hoping for another morsel.

  “She was from California, we’re told. Can you confirm that?”

  Sean, he remembered. Khaki boy. Thank you, Sean.

  “Where’d you hear that, Sean?” Jake asked.

  “Can you confirm it?” Sean persisted.

  “Can you?” Jake said.

  “Can you?” The reporters moved in closer, cutting off the clearly unproductive exchange.

  “Do you think The Reserve is in danger?”

  “What would you tell the residents here?”

  Fricking always, Jake thought, some jerk asks the impossible question. If we say no, there’s no danger, that means there’s got to be a reason why we think that, which means we know something. If we say we don’t know, then there’s a serial killer on the loose.

  “Listen, guys?” Jake shook his head. “You can ask all the questions you want—delighted to stand here all night—but I’ve got nothing for you. And you’re impeding our investigation. But word: If you use someone’s name, or call it a homicide, that’d be a problem. We cannot confirm any of that. All information has to come from downtown, from the PIO, you know that. Call Karen Warseck, she’ll be thrilled to help you.”

  “She’s not there,” a voice whined.

  “Leave a message,” DeLuca said.

  “Okay. I can tell you one more thing,” Jake said.

  The reporters went silent, stabbing their mics even closer.

  Jake stepped back. “We’re eager for any information the public has about this, so as always, call the tip line,” he said.

  “Screw the tip line,” one reporter replied.

  “Yeah,” D muttered. “And you stay classy.”

  “And we’re done,” Jake said.

  By the time the reporters gave up, squabbling their way back to their vans, lights clicking off, Jake and D had managed to climb the front steps to the Morgan House, the cast-iron safety railings now yellowed off with crime scene tape.

  “How’d they know she was wet?” Jake asked DeLuca as T’shombe Pereira let them inside. They still hadn’t talked to the cop who’d pulled Avery Morgan from the
pool. She was already dead, so he’d told Kat McMahan. “Maybe they saw Reddington, right? Wet? And figured?”

  “Maybe. He’s at HQ, writing his report, so says the text I got.” DeLuca once again scanned the black-and-white tiled entryway. “We’ll get him a-sap.”

  “Check it out. Crime Scene was here,” Jake said, pointing to the living room. Fingerprint dust blackened the coffee table, the textbooks, the glass of the lithograph landscape framed over the fireplace. CS would have taken photos, too. Jake clicked off some of his own, adding to his personal backup collection.

  DeLuca was texting again. “They’re upstairs now,” D said. “Nine thirty-five. I’m out of here in ten minutes, Harvard.”

  Jake started toward the stairs, then heard the sound from down the hall. From the kitchen.

  “The dog,” Jake said. “The dog. Is still in that crate. What do we do with the dog?”

  “We’re not gonna solve this tonight,” DeLuca said. “Plus we got no next of kin.”

  “We’ve got to call Animal Control.” Jake scratched his forehead, calculating. Even though the dog hated him, they couldn’t simply leave the poor critter. Animal Control, though. He’d been to the city’s animal shelter, rescued his own Diva three years ago from its dank concrete floors and bleak fluorescents. Though she wasn’t Jake’s favorite dog in the world, this sucked for Popcorn.

  DeLuca shouldered by Jake in the narrow hallway, headed toward the kitchen. “I’m taking the dog,” he called over his shoulder.

  “You can’t!” Jake followed him. That wasn’t by the book. But hell. Did everything have to be by the book?

  DeLuca lifted the metal latch on the crate, swung open the mesh door. The white ball of fur bounded out of the enclosure, almost leaping into DeLuca’s arms. Barked once, a yip of triumph or fear. Or maybe relief.

  “About time, I know,” DeLuca was saying. “You’ll be fine, buddy.”

  Jake had never heard that voice come out of his partner’s mouth before, decided not to mention it. He opened the tall white cabinet closest to the crate, found a clipped-closed shiny paper bag with a smiling black Lab pictured on the front. He pulled it out. Half empty. Or, from Popcorn’s point of view, half full.

  “Food,” Jake said. “Dog’s probably hungry.”

  “Aren’t we all,” DeLuca said. Popcorn blinked her black-marble eyes at Jake, wary, but thankfully silent.

  “We writing this up?” Jake asked.

  “Writing what up?” D replied. “It’s just for the night.”

  “True,” Jake said. “And maybe Popcorn will talk to you.”

  15

  WILLOW GALT

  “I’m so glad you’re home.” Willow buried her face in Tom’s shoulder, clutching his arm, breathing in his citrus and coffee fragrance, feeling the damp skin of his neck on her cheek. They’d be fine. They would. She’d done the right thing. The police were gone. She’d explained it all the moment Tom walked in the door. By the time they were climbing the stairs to their bedroom, together, her voice following him, she’d told him the whole story. Most of it. And now she was safe, safe in his arms.

  “They hardly stayed ten minutes.” Her words—fudging on the time just the smallest bit, but how could that matter—went into the wilting collar of Tom’s pale blue shirt. She felt the knot of his loosened tie against her throat. He was home, and everything would be all right.

  “Willow.” Tom’s voice had a knife-edge, her name a slash as he took one step away from her. “Why in hell would you do that?”

  She felt his words, cutting through her very being. She couldn’t move.

  “Honey? I’m sorry.” Tom came closer again, put his hands on her, one on each bare shoulder.

  She could feel his heat as if he were the sun, her private sun. As long as he kept touching her, she’d be fine.

  “I know it’s nerve-racking for you,” he said. “But why would you call the cops? It’s the last thing … You allowed the cops into our house?”

  “What else could I do?” She would float off the floor without those hands grounding her.

  But Tom had turned away again, back to the window, flattening his palms on the pane, peering out.

  Willow tried to look through his eyes, see the tree, Avery’s backyard, the forsythia hedge, that dark blue watery corner of the pool. Her brain revved with anxiety. She needed another pill. Maybe she hadn’t really seen it? But she had. Popcorn barking and barking. The dark shape in the water, and someone leaving. Maybe.

  It was wrong, and awful, and she, a human being, could not ignore that.

  “No one’s down there now,” Tom said, talking to the window. “Are you sure? What you saw? What time was it? What time did the police come?”

  He turned to her, raking one hand through his hair. “Never mind. It doesn’t matter. Because you called the police. Now we’re on their radar. The person who calls is always a suspect, Willow. Haven’t you learned anything?”

  She felt her resolve failing, her knees unreliable. Should she have turned her back on Avery?

  “I had to call, didn’t I?” She needed to explain. “I had no idea she was dead. What if she wasn’t dead? What if there was a burglar? The dog was so upset, and I’m here by myself, and—”

  Tom touched one finger to her lips. “Shhh,” he said. “You’ll be fine.”

  He kissed her palm, then lowered her arm to her side. She stood, still feeling the ghost of his kiss as he moved away from her and went back to the window. He looked out again, his chest rising, then falling. With a quick motion, he pulled down the tawny raffia shade. The room dimmed, their personal night falling, as the raffia lowered inch by inch.

  “It’s all good.” Tom was almost a silhouette on the shade, a lock of his newly grayed hair falling across his forehead. “But, honey? We have to keep to ourselves. That’s why we moved here. That’s why we chose this. If you hadn’t gone to dinner at her house, you’d never have even known her.”

  He knew about that? She frowned, tilting her head, trying to remember.

  Tom clicked on the nightstand light. “You told me, silly one,” he said.

  Maybe she had. “I can’t cut myself off from the world, Tom,” she whispered. “No matter what happened back home.”

  “We’re not going to talk about that.” Tom straightened the lamp shade, tilting the white pleated fabric. “This is home. All the other is gone, over, in the past. No, not in the past. It never happened. It’s erased. We weren’t there. I’m Tom, you’re Willow, and so it shall be.”

  Willow. She’d bend like a willow in the wind. Whatever she had to do to survive, she’d do it. That’s why she picked the name. And maybe Tom was right. Maybe she’d been wrong to call. Maybe someone else would have called, and then the police would have gone to someone else’s house. But now she’d made her bed, their bed, and they’d both have to face the consequences.

  “The police will come again. They said so.” She felt the tears welling, tears of fear and uncertainty. “What will I tell them? What will you?”

  Tom pulled the tie from around his neck, then silently coiled the strip of fabric around his hand, pulling it, striping his hand in red-and-black silk. Willow saw his fingers flex. Then he unwrapped the tie, one loop, then another, then another. Hung it on a steel hook next to his others in his closet, smoothed it flat.

  “We’ll tell them the truth,” Tom said.

  Willow remembered that first day she’d met him at the studio, when she was auditioning, and he was visiting, and it all had moved as fast as a movie script. He’d reached out for her then, and she for him. They could never resist, they couldn’t stop touching or even standing next to each other, at the office, or at the beach, or even in the grocery, their force fields connected and braided together and they were one person. Soon after, she gave up her movie search, and he got deeper into it, and their life was happy and normal and California-fine.

  Until it wasn’t. Until they needed a new fine. And now—they’d lost it. Again. Because
of her.

  “We’ll tell them our truth.” Tom unbuttoned his shirt, one button at a time, as if it were a difficult task, important and significant. He turned to her, at last, his chest bare, tanned, the tails of his shirt loose and hanging over his khakis. “Our new truth. You were merely acquaintances. You saw the dog.”

  “Tom, I—” There was something wrong. She saw it in the set of his chin, and his stiffening shoulders. Maybe he was scared, too. And it was her fault. “Heard the dog, too,” she said.

  “‘Saw the dog,’ ‘heard the dog.’ Fine. And that I’d never met her. I didn’t know her.”

  “Okay,” she said. Because now that was true.

  “And that’s all there is, right? Willow? All?”

  “That’s right. Nothing more.”

  Willow searched for the answer that would free them. Maybe she could un-remember what she’d seen. She pushed the vision from her brain, carapacing it over. If they asked—Can you identify the person? Even tell us whether it was male or female?—she could say, No, no I can’t.

  “Maybe it was an accident?” Her other fears were unspeakable. She would not bring them up, she would bury them, and not think of them. If it was an accident, this would all go away.

  “An accident.” She repeated the words to make them real.

  “Maybe,” Tom said. “So again. When the police call, we’ll tell them the truth.”

  “I’m sorry, Tom. I wish—”

  Tom stepped toward her, across the divide of their fear, pulled her, just like he was her California husband, to the edge of their bed.

  She almost cried, with his touch, and the anxiety, and the uncertainty, and she felt breakable, not like a willow, not at all, she wanted their old lives, with sunshine and possibilities. And now Tom had his arm around her, and the night was soft, and they were together, even here, and it would all be okay.

  “We’ll tell the truth about your past connections with Avery Morgan, because they don’t exist.” Tom held her close. “Then they’ll go away and find whoever killed her.”

  “Or whatever happened,” Willow said.

  “Right. Or whatever happened.”