Say No More

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  “Talk about a code of silence,” Jake said. “What if it wasn’t someone in The Reserve who Avery Morgan ratted out? What if it was someone in Hollywood?”

  “Avery Morgan?” Sasha Vogelby appeared in her doorway, holding a white ceramic mug in each hand.

  “You know her?” Jake stood. Now was as good a time as any. He took the offered mug of coffee, signaled D to do the same. Best not to give someone bad news when they could scald themselves in reaction.

  “Well, who doesn’t?” Big smile from Vogelby, opened arms. “She’s a joy, a complete joy. Her students adore her.”

  “She a professor here?” DeLuca was playing dumb, Jake knew. They were well aware she was a visiting adjunct. The two of them had instantly found her on the college’s summer program site.

  “Visiting. An adjunct.” Vogelby, smiling, raised a correcting finger. “I’m the head of the Drama Department. As you can see.”

  She walked toward her desk, gestured at the engraved nameplate, and then at a row of framed movie posters along a red-painted wall. “Yes, that’s me. Ah, I know, once an actor, always an actor. But, alas, when the parts became, shall we say, fewer and farther between? I devoted my life to teaching the ‘younger’ generation. Acting, and costuming, and stagecraft.”

  “Terrific,” Jake said.

  “Yeah,” DeLuca said. Took a sip of coffee. They both put their cups on the low table in front of the couch.

  Vogelby blinked at them, silent. Then her eyes narrowed. “Why were you talking about Avery?” Her hand flew to her lips. “Oh. You’re homicide detectives.”

  She lowered herself into her chair, then instantly stood again. The chair rolled back, banging against the metal bookcase behind her, its motion teetering some slender glass figurines lined up in front of the books. One crashed to the floor and rolled out of sight under the desk.

  Vogelby did not go after it, but stared at the two of them.

  “Is she…?” The woman’s voice had dropped to a whisper. “Was she…?”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” Jake said. In all the years, he’d never come up with a better response than the now-cliché. “I’m sorry” wasn’t personal enough, “it’s terrible” was too emotional, a simple “yes” could sound insensitive.

  Plus, this stage of an investigation was always tricky. The ME had deemed Morgan’s death a drowning, but not homicide—yet—which meant there weren’t really “suspects.” But some tests were still pending, including for drugs, so homicide was still on the table. Which meant everyone was a suspect.

  Sasha Vogelby had covered her mouth with both hands, as if to prevent herself from saying something, or maybe to keep her emotions in. She sank into her chair, staring into the middle distance, past Jake and D and past the open office door.

  “It was my idea, inviting her to Adams Bay.” Vogelby sighed, rested her forehead on splayed fingers. Looked up at them through an array of knobby silver rings. “How? Did she die? Where? When?”

  “We’re investigating,” Jake said. “Please be assured—”

  “Are the rest of us in danger?” Vogelby’s eyes widened. She sat up straighter, reached for her phone. “I need to alert—”

  “We’ll do the alerting, thank you, ma’am,” Jake said.

  “That’s why we need to talk to the dean.” DeLuca looked at his watch.

  “If that’s who you’re about to call, feel free,” Jake added. “If it isn’t, please wait.”

  “I feel so guilty.” Vogelby took her hand away from the phone, was almost talking to herself.

  “Ma’am?”

  “It was supposed to be a fabulous experience. And now it’s a tragedy.” Vogelby took a deep breath, as if pulling it all in, the sorrow and the surprise. “All the students adored her. They were always coming to her house for parties, and gatherings. Script readings. Rehearsals. She gets that lovely home, and the pool.” She stopped. “Got, I mean.”

  “So you’ve been there,” Jake said. “When were you last at her house?”

  “You certainly can’t think…” Vogelby stood, her head dropped back and her eyes raised to the ceiling. Then she fluffed her silver curls and touched the glasses on top of her head, adjusting. Cleared her throat. “I’m sorry. I know you must ask, officers.”

  “‘Detectives.’” DeLuca could never resist the correction, even in times like this. Jake ignored him, as always.

  “So when were you last there?” Jake persisted.

  “Oh my goodness, I could check.” She selected a stack of papers on one corner of the desk, flipped through the pages. “I’m sure there’s a record of…” She looked at the two detectives with an apologetic half-smile. “I’m so sorry, I’m not trying to be difficult. I simply am—devastated. Upset. Concerned. And … a little, discombobulated, I’m afraid. Forgive me.”

  “Did she have any students who were special friends?” DeLuca asked.

  “Or any she complained about?” Jake added. Discombobulation was the perfect time to ask questions. The less a subject or witness was focused, the more off balance and uncalculating, the more honest and uncrafted an answer they might give.

  She looked up from her papers, frowning.

  “What?”

  “Who would go visit her? Is that typical, for a professor to have parties?”

  “Adjunct,” Vogelby said, glancing at DeLuca.

  “Adjunct.” Jake smiled, oh-so-patient. “So, you said parties? How did students get invited, do you know? Which ones?”

  Vogelby’s back stiffened. “We’re meticulous about privacy here at Adams Bay.” She put down her papers. “I’d certainly need to ask for parental permission before we released any student’s name.”

  “Not if they’re over eighteen,” Jake said. Not threatening, simply providing a fact. “And certainly not if they’re over twenty-one.”

  “I’ll have to think about that,” Vogelby said.

  “We’ll wait,” DeLuca said.

  Her shoulders dropped, her mouth twisting in thought, the red lipstick changing shape. After a beat, she picked up the phone, waited, poked three numbers. Waited. “Mr. Tarrant?” she asked, her voice blank and emotionless. “Are you free?”

  She paused, listening, nodding, at one point glancing at Jake and D. She put down the phone without saying goodbye. “Mr. Tarrant knows about Avery,” she said. “There are—things to take care of, as you might imagine,” she added. “Family.”

  Jake raised his eyebrows, couldn’t hold back his skepticism. Who’d told Tarrant? But he’d honestly been surprised the buzz had been contained even this long. Though reporters had to wait for next of kin and Kat’s determination whether suicide was the cause of death, the spreading rumors about Avery Morgan would be impossible to prevent. Problem was, if it was murder, the killer would now be regrouping, creating alibis and getting stories straight. Exactly what Jake could not allow to happen.

  “We don’t need to ‘imagine.’” He stood. Enough of her stalling. “And you’ll need to give us her family information.”

  “As a result,” Vogelby went on, as if Jake hadn’t said a word, “Mr. Tarrant says, please leave a card, and he’ll contact you. As soon as possible.”

  “When?” D asked, draping one arm across the back of the couch, signaling he wasn’t planning to leave.

  “How about now?” Jake said. “Now is better.”

  24

  JANE RYLAND

  “Do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth…”

  Jane couldn’t take her eyes off the court clerk, diminutive in a navy dress and mismatched jacket, her right hand raised, palm forward, just as she’d instructed Jane to do. Jane felt the seat of the witness chair against the back of her legs, knew that in thirty seconds she’d be asked to—

  “Please be seated.” The clerk gave Jane a fleeting smile. Maybe she’d recognized her? And then turned back to her own seat in front of the judge’s bench.

  Jane had covered many a trial in this very courtroom, 206 of Boston
Municipal. But now she was the center of attention in the raised witness box. On this side, the dark wood was scuffed and dented, damaged by the restless feet of countless fidgeting witnesses and defendants.

  Judge Francesca Scapicchio looked down from her higher vantage point. The Scap, as whispers called her, was carefully lipsticked, perfectly postured, hair in a gray chignon, the fluted edges of a pale green scarf showing under her black robe. Red nail polish.

  “Let’s wait one moment, Ms. Ryland,” Scapicchio said, her voice low, then rustled through some papers on her bench. A tyrannical, no-nonsense judicial veteran, The Scap had once telephoned a newspaper reporter and yelled at him for calling her “feisty.”

  Jane was happy to wait. Take all the time you want, she thought. She could wait forever, if need be.

  Half an hour ago, she’d shown the “SAY NO MORE” letter to ADA McCusker, who’d examined it at his desk, frowning.

  “This is why I asked if your suspect’s lawyers knew it was me who’s testifying,” Jane said.

  “Huh.” McCusker had turned the letter over, then the envelope. “No markings, postmarked Boston, nothing traceable. No way to know if it’s connected, Jane.”

  They’d sat in silence, McCusker staring at the letter, Jane’s toe tapping the office’s thin carpeting.

  “You worried about this?” he finally asked.

  “No. Well, maybe. I don’t know.” How was she supposed to answer that? “I get weird mail all the time. But…”

  “Okay.” McCusker put the letter back into the envelope. “Never mind then. You go home. We’ll take the guy’s confession. Santora’s cracking down on hit-and-runs, but this one’s not a biggie. We’ll go with what we’ve got, see what the judge says.”

  “But you might have the wrong guy.” Jane had tried to follow his reasoning. “You’d accept his confession, knowing that?”

  McCusker shrugged. “Up to the judge. I could compel you to testify, of course. Your lawyers could fight it. We could make it a big public deal. But, hey. I’m the good guy. If you feel you’re in danger, I’ll make it your call.”

  He stood, handed her the letter.

  She didn’t take it. She stood, too, looking him eye to eye. “You’d let an innocent person be convicted?”

  “If you don’t testify, we got nothin’.” McCusker put the letter on his desk. “Guy confessed. Why would he do that? Maybe you’re wrong.”

  “I’m not wrong.”

  “Your call,” McCusker said.

  Now, in the witness box, she tried reassure herself. McCusker’s “your call” was an impossible decision, but she couldn’t let an innocent person be convicted. And McCusker was right. Why would he confess?

  But she had a more immediate dilemma: Soon she’d be asked to look at each person in the courtroom and, maybe, point out someone. A guilty person. Her hands clenched in her lap, the bottom of one thumb rubbing against the top of the other, her feet planted flat like she was a kid called to the principal’s office. An ancient air conditioner struggled in a casement window, once-blue velvet curtains optimistically drawn aside, giving the relic some room to combat Boston’s relentless August.

  “All you have to do is tell the truth,” the news director had assured her. “And show that letter to the DA. You’ll be fine.”

  She’d be fine? As if they could know. ADA McCusker was now seated at one of the lawyers’ tables, turning pages in a loose-leaf notebook.

  She stared at her hands again, couldn’t seem to unclench them. How many witnesses had she watched in this very box? How many personal Rubicons had been crossed from this very spot, how many bridges burned, how many lives forever changed? Now, with the rows of audience members in front of her, the gravity of her words to come weighed heavy. She might be about to accuse someone of a crime.

  Strange, though. As a reporter she did that all the time. She did her research, produced her investigations, put her story in the paper or on TV. Naming names. She didn’t need to swear to tell the truth for television—she simply did it. Why did this feel so different?

  Also strange, now that she thought about it, telling the truth was exactly what she was asking Tosca to do. She’d pressured the young woman a bit, she had to admit, and was thrilled when Tosca had agreed to be interviewed tomorrow.

  Jane hadn’t told her anything that wasn’t true, of course. Tosca’s disclosures could certainly make a big difference, would change lives and reveal some frightening realities of college life.

  But now, as the one who had to answer questions instead of asking them, Jane felt a twinge of regret for her manipulation. You’ll be fine—she’d actually said those words to Tosca.

  Turnabout was fair play, she guessed. Still, with the lawyers waiting at their identical tables, court officers guarding the doors, the American and Massachusetts flags side by side and the darkly oil-painted portraits of John Jay and James Madison staring at her, it felt like—

  “Miss Ryland?” Judge Scapicchio asked, her voice low but now amplified by the courtroom sound system. “Are you ready?”

  ISABEL RUSSO

  Who would be calling her? Isabel, startled by the ringing phone, lost a pink flip-flop as she scrambled back through the window, one foot poking through first, the other keeping her balanced on the ribbed metal floor of the balcony. She’d left her lunch, half a tuna sandwich on a paper plate, on the table outside, next to the flapped-open book she was reading, a biography of Maria Callas. The phone rang again. Her landline. That’s what made her skin crawl.

  No one ever used this phone, an old-fashioned brick-red wall phone left over from the tenant before. Her mother had insisted she keep the hardwired system. “In case of emergency, for heaven’s sake, Isabella!” Had something happened to her mother?

  She trotted the two steps to the wall, her mind racing, every possibility dire. Maybe it was some Adams Bay thing—a change, or demand, or calamity. The school’s admin office had this number, and it was the one in the student handbook, not that any student ever called her. No student called anyone, for that matter. They were all about texting. What if the caller was Edward Tarrant, telling her—her brain clamped down at the thought, and her fingers touched the red plastic.

  “Hello?” Her kitchen reeked of tuna fish, disgusting, suddenly, and she was off balance in one flip-flop and one bare foot. “Hello?”

  No one on the other end. Only a crackling, staticky sputter, then a muffled murmur of “hold music,” as if she had called someone and they’d put her on hold. She frowned, studying the flat red receiver. Then smiled, rolled her eyes at her own ridiculousness.

  The one thing her paranoid self hadn’t considered. The one thing that made sense. Wrong number. Or sales pitch. Didn’t matter. Someone she didn’t care about.

  She hung up, embracing the sound of the handset settling into place. She’d clean up the tuna fish stuff—not really so disgusting—go back outside, and live inside her book. It was for opera history class, happily, so she was actually studying. She was up to the part about—

  But as she closed the dishwasher door, the phone rang again. Maybe a salesperson? And since she’d answered the phone the first time, now they knew they’d reached someone. That meant there’d be a human on the other end.

  She grabbed the receiver, ready to order them to leave her alone. She didn’t want to buy anything. Unless they were offering freedom. In which case she’d pay anything.

  “Hello?” The music, volume up a little louder this time, was all she heard. So insane. As if she had nothing else to do but answer the phone. “Hey,” she said, hearing her annoyance over the muted music, “you have the wrong number. Okay? Don’t call anymore.”

  She slammed the phone back into place. At least it wasn’t her mother, or anything about her mother. And it wasn’t Tarrant, or anyone from Adams Bay.

  “Geez,” she said out loud. The sound in the empty kitchen made her think about how long it had been since she’d had a real conversation. With a real person, face–to-fac
e. The Gormay delivery guy didn’t count, even though she had to admit she looked forward, in a way, to his arrival. It wasn’t always the same person, but often it was. The young man with the red hair and the kind of seen-it-all face. He knew her only as “Isabel with the grilled chicken or lasagna.” But she knew his whole name, Grady McWhirter Houlihan.

  She’d gotten up the courage to ask his name the night he forgot her salad dressing. She’d told him it was okay, but he’d made a special trip back to bring it to her. And after that, they’d chatted each time, about music, and the weather, nothing big, just … being themselves. She’d even invited him in, once, her insides fluttering. He’d stayed at the door, seemed to recognize, somehow, how skittish she was. Isabel and Grady, she thought. But there would never again be a man in her life. Never, ever, ever.

  “Are you kidding me?” She said it out loud as the phone rang again, almost as if it were making fun of her.

  “Good luck with that,” she told it. She stood, hands on hips, staring it down. Waited one ring, then two, then three. She had the power, she realized. Just don’t answer. Take that, whoever.

  The ringing stopped, the message system taking over. Fish swam in a frantic circle, acting like the phone upset him, too. “Could that be?” she wondered aloud. “Do fish think?” She grimaced, embarrassed by her thoughts, and by her talking to herself out loud. Clearly she was losing it.

  Maybe she really was. What if? She sat in her lone kitchen chair, thinking about solitude, hearing the rush of the Kenmore Square traffic through her open window, the hum of the fridge and the drone of her brain. She was … This was …

  A tear laced down her cheek. She felt it before she even knew she was crying. She feared the world, and feared the time, and feared whatever would happen to her next. She talked to a fish, for Lordy’s sake. She was Isabel, talented and even pretty, and now, she was like a lost child, defeated by one adversity. One huge adversity, yes, but others had survived, hadn’t they? She wished she hadn’t promised to stay silent, but Tarrant had assured her silence was the prudent thing. Prudent.