Say No More

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  Maybe. Because more important, Jane couldn’t possibly know about her “Someday” file. And she never would. The video had once been on YouTube, Isabel reminded herself. Maybe they could retrieve it anyway. Jane was so nice, and seemed like she was really trying to help her.

  “There’s kind of a video,” Isabel began. And from Jane’s expression, Fiola’s, too, she knew this was a good thing. Maybe if she could help them, they could help her. Somehow.

  “I, um, haven’t really looked at it,” she said. “It was, like, in May.”

  “Kind of a video?” Fiola said. “Can we see it?”

  “Great,” Jane said. She gave her producer a funny look, then reached out, spreading her palms as if to smooth out wrinkles in the air. “Whatever, okay? No pressure. But would you mind showing it to us? Forgive me.”

  For what? Isabel thought. But kept silent.

  “Because, you know, we’re TV.” Jane looked apologetic, tilting her head as if she wasn’t quite sure she should say this. “And if there are no pictures, there’s no television. We could alter it however you want, blur faces. Not say where it came from, not ever, since absolutely everything between us is confidential. In every way, until you say it isn’t.”

  That was an easy one.

  “I’ll never say it isn’t,” Isabel said.

  “Done,” Jane said. “It’ll always be confidential, one hundred percent. So, the video?”

  Isabel had to decide. Her apartment was so silent, she could almost hear Fish swimming through the ferns, layered with the sound of the three women breathing, and all the traffic below filtering through her open balcony window. Yes. Show it. It existed, and pretending it didn’t was like hiding her head in the sand.

  “It was a fun event, kind of a rehearsal,” Isabel began. “We were just practicing for another show we were putting together. We did one in April, and…”

  “Okay, terrific.” Jane was nodding, looking appreciative. Isabel tried to remember exactly what was on the video. Probably, maybe, she shouldn’t have mentioned it until she’d looked at it again, but now Jane and Fiola were here, and being so nice … She kept saying the word “nice”—she had to get out more! Talking to real people. It was such a relief.

  “I’ll get it for you.” She couldn’t very well take it back now, or make up some excuse about how she couldn’t find it. It took two seconds to boot her laptop, bring up the file, click it open. “I haven’t watched it for … a while,” she said. “But I know Professor Morgan is on it.”

  She almost burst into tears as she saw it, hadn’t expected that gut-chilling reaction, hadn’t known what to expect, really. That soft May night, lanterns twinkling in the leafy trees, yellow and red plastic cups, and everyone in shorts and T-shirts, long floaty skirts. A little night music, Isabel thought, as she watched the people she used to know laughing and chatting.

  “That’s Avery Morgan,” she said, pointing. Professor Morgan was smiling, talking to someone Isabel couldn’t see. She narrowed her eyes. That weasel Tarrant, the creep, keeping off camera. He’d acted like he owned the place, and owned Avery, though he probably thought he was being discreet. You had to be a better actor than that to fool Isabel.

  “So thin,” Fiola said. “Pretty, like a movie star.”

  “She came from Hollywood, did something in films.” Isabel knew this from class and Google. “Yes, she is. Was.” Hard to believe she was gone, she commanded the screen so completely. Life changed so quickly, so irrevocably. Haunting, now, to see the past captured: the sounds and the gaiety, the twinkling lights and the carefree faces. No one knew that so many lives were about to change.

  “Who took the video?” Jane asked, eyes still on the screen.

  “Oh, I—don’t remember.” A lie, a big one, but there she would not go.

  “Uh-huh,” Jane said. Seemed to believe her.

  The students began to line up. Neesha, and Claire. She missed them, so much. The kick line started. She must have been up in the bathroom when it began.

  Avery Morgan stood, her hair thrown back, plastic cup in hand. Tarrant was never shown in the video, Isabel noticed. Weasel.

  “Over here!” Avery-on-tape called out. “Isabel!”

  Every cell in Isabel’s body froze. The hair on the back of her neck prickled. Her heart sank to her toes. She’d forgotten this part. And there was no way, now, to prevent it. If she reached out and bashed the mouse, making it stop? What good would that do? It was too late.

  “Isabel!” Avery Morgan was waving. At her. Now she remembered that, remembered it all. There she was, looking happy and free and—Avery had flung one arm around her. Kissed her on both cheeks, like she always did. They both turned, waving at the camera, Isabel picking up her red cup, toasting the night.

  It made her sick now, to see it.

  Jane reached over, clicked the mouse. The scene froze, an unmistakable and irrefutable tableau. “Should I—we—pretend we didn’t hear that, Tosca?” Jane whispered, touching, briefly, a gentle hand to Isabel’s shoulder. “It’s okay, you know. You can trust me. Us.”

  See? She knew Jane was good, knew she would protect her. They were in it together. One hundred percent, Jane had said. The three of them stood there, bearing the weight of their new knowledge, Fiola looking at the computer screen, Jane looking at Isabel.

  “Yes. No,” Isabel said. “Yes.”

  JANE RYLAND

  “Yes.” Tosca said it again.

  This was astonishing. Why had the girl shown that video if it revealed her real name? She’d told Jane and Fee she hadn’t watched it for a while. Why not, if it was such a treasured memory? But then, these days, that was typical, standard, everyone took photos of their every move. How many photos were in Jane’s phone right now, snapped and then never looked at again? People documented everything these days, but that didn’t mean they ever referred to any of it again. So, yeah, believable.

  “That’s me,” Tosca was saying. She was looking at the floor, or at her bare feet, or at the woven sisal rug. “I’m Isabel. Isabel Russo. A senior. I graduate next year. I guess you’d find out eventually. Not that it actually matters, right? Because you’ll never use it, or tell anyone.”

  Fiola extended her hand to shake Isabel’s. “You’re a rock star, Isabel,” Fiola said. “We appreciate this.”

  Isabel took her hand, silent. Then nodded, as if making a decision. “Thank you,” she said. “If I can help even one person, it matters.”

  “Exactly,” Fiola said. She glanced at Jane. “I understand.”

  “Thank you, um, Isabel,” Jane said. “And of course. One hundred percent confidential.”

  Jane watched as Tosc—Isabel. It’d be hard to think of her as that right away—clicked the mouse again, and the video resumed. Dancing, now, a kick line of smiles and enthusiasm. Jane recognized the summer’s top video, re-created, gesture for gesture, in this Boston backyard. The hostess—teacher, professor, mentor—was now dead. And one of the students in it, smiling and singing for the camera, was now a victim of sexual assault and afraid to give her real name. Life, Jane thought.

  The camera panned across the dancers. Avery Morgan, all in white, waved at the lens. So happy, Jane thought. Life is so short.

  In the background, someone else entered the shot. A young man, clearly the delivery guy. Three pizza boxes, a brown paper bag balanced on top.

  “Oh,” Isabel said. Jane felt her energy change.

  “What?” Jane asked. Isabel had put her fingers to her mouth. She hadn’t taken her eyes off the screen.

  “Nothing,” Isabel replied. “Nothing.”

  “Pizza,” Fiola said.

  “Yeah. Beer and pizza.”

  Pizza. Which reminded Jane she was starving, which reminded her of dinner, which reminded her of Jake.

  Jake. Who was working on Avery Morgan’s possible murder. The video continued for a few more moments, faces Jane didn’t recognize, probably would never see again. But what would Jake see? A video full of possible s
uspects, or at least people who knew the victim. Clearly he’d want to watch it—it might even help him solve the case. Could she tell him about it? Somehow? He could have found it on his own.

  And then she had another thought. Why would Isabel keep it?

  “Isabel,” Jane began. She had to ask, even though it was iffy, and problematic, and every other thing that made journalism a constant battle. Campus sexual assault, insidious and pervasive, the unspoken but shared lifelong trauma of so many young women. A crime that, unlike many of the punishable-by-twenty-years-in-prison rapes that occurred off campus, was too often covered up, papered over, dealt with by silence and fear.

  Another difference made it more terrifying. Often, so often, the women knew their attackers. Had to go to class with them, see them in the hallways, watch them laugh with other people. It was a crime where the criminal was known.

  Where the criminal was free. Like nothing ever happened.

  But Isabel “didn’t like” to go outside.

  Jane took a deep breath, trying to balance propriety and curiosity and urgency and compassion. “Isabel? Is he … in this video? Was this the night … it happened?”

  35

  JAKE BROGAN

  “Two dead women? In suburban homes?” Jake frowned as they approached the Sholtos’ house, thinking of Avery Morgan. “What if Violet Sholto drowned, too?”

  “Oh, good one. You’re thinking suburban serial drowner?” D rapped his knuckles on the door, an ostentatious slab of dark green with a roaring lion on the knocker. “Alert the media.”

  “Just being prepared for all eventualities.” Alert the media. DeLuca’s shorthand to remind Jake he was aware of Jane. Good thing they were going public soon. D’s needling was getting old.

  D knocked again.

  This time, Jake heard muffled footsteps from inside. He did a quick scan, corner to corner, wondering if the Sholto place was wired with surveillance cameras. If it was—and if they worked—that’d help. Hadn’t helped Avery Morgan, though. The door opened.

  “Jake. D.” T’shombe Pereira cocked his head back toward the interior. All the lights were on, a long hallway stretched behind him. An ostentatiously elaborate chandelier glowed above, too big even for this gaudy entryway.

  “This is the Sholto, right?” Jake had to confirm.

  “Yup. King of plumbing. And better get in here,” Pereira said.

  In thirty seconds they were inside the world of Clooney and Violet Sholto, a knickknack-filled chaos of stuff, too much leather furniture, too many chairs, too many paintings and vases and flowers. On a lace-pillowed expanse of navy-blue plush sat a tiny woman in black pants and black blouse, red-eyed and trembling, a white apron, smeared with red, still tied around her waist. Officer Something—Winnick—sat next to her on the couch, half-babysitter, half-cop.

  “This is Rissa Murphy,” Winnick said. “Housekeeper. She found her employer, Mrs. Violet Sholto, in a bathtub full of water.”

  Jake glanced at D, eyebrow raised. Ha.

  “Why would she kill herself?” The weepy young woman looked up at Jake and D with beseeching eyes, whispering. “She had everything.”

  “I am so sorry for your loss,” Jake began. “Officer Winnick? Could you get Ms. Murphy something to drink?”

  Taking the officer’s place on the couch, Jake turned to Rissa Murphy, introduced himself. He saw her knuckles whiten as she clenched her hands in her lap. She’d crossed her legs, tucking one black canvas shoe behind an ankle.

  “Miss Murphy. I know you’re upset.”

  “What will happen to her? Why would she do this?”

  “Ma’am? Miss? ‘Why would she do this?’ Are you saying you think it was suicide?”

  The woman looked at her apron, the red smears, pulled it away from herself with two fingers. “Her … she … upstairs.” Her voice was barely audible. She pointed to a curving carpeted stairway, the one they’d passed to enter the living room. Pereira had stationed himself at the bottom step. “I have Sunday and Monday off, so—”

  “I’ll go up,” D said.

  “Be there in a few,” Jake said. He turned to the woman again. “I see. I need to ask. Where’s Mr. Sholto?”

  “New York.” The woman clapped her hands over her mouth, her eyes widening. “Oh. How will I tell him?”

  “We’ll take care of that,” Jake said. “And the medical examiner is on the way, and she’ll be able to help us with the—other things. But, miss? Mr. Sholto. Do you know where to find him? How long has he been gone?”

  “In New York. Since Friday. Last Friday,” the housekeeper said. She accepted a tall glass of water from Winnick, took a sip. “I haven’t seen him since then.”

  “And Mrs. Sholto was alone?”

  “I—yes. I mean, I have Sunday and Monday off. Tuesday I do shopping, and so I didn’t get here until, uh, three, and then I do the kitchen, and I don’t see Mrs. Sholto, but maybe she’s not home, she goes—I don’t know. Luncheons, things like that. So then I do the kitchen, like I said, and I go upstairs, and, and and…”

  Jake wrote it all down as Winnick hovered. Victim VS is suburban wife, shopping, luncheons. Phone calls. Mother, Nuala O’Baron, age 73, comes to visit. Sometimes victim goes to her. VS enemies, none. VS drug use, none.

  Rissa Murphy had looked baffled at the very questions.

  “Money problems?”

  Rissa waved her hand, encompassing the possession-filled room. “No,” she whispered. “Not that I know.”

  “Lots of money in plumbing, I guess,” Jake said, keeping a straight face. “So did Mr. Sholto call over the weekend? Do you have a number for him?”

  “No,” Rissa said. “I only come here. I don’t—anything else.”

  “Jake?” DeLuca’s voice from upstairs. “You almost ready?”

  “Thank you, Miss Murphy,” Jake said. “Can you stay here briefly, please? Officer Winnick needs to get your contact information.”

  Crime Scene was on the way, but Jake, touching nothing, climbed the ruby-carpeted stairway and followed the lights, two left turns, to a floral explosion of a bathroom. Wallpapered with violets in every shade of purple and trimmed with a border of green leafy vines, it was the size of Jake’s entire college dorm room. Air-conditioning blasted. Mirrors covered the left wall, and on the right sat a lavender-tufted vanity, magnifying mirror surrounded by pink-tinted movie-star lights. Not a bathroom that was shared with a man. It had probably once smelled of perfume. Not anymore.

  “See what you get from this,” D said. “Doesn’t look like a mob hit to me, but who knows. I’ll head downstairs. She was an ‘actress,’ right?”

  “Not anymore,” Jake murmured as D left.

  He snapped cell phone photos of Violet Sholto’s final resting place, an oversized enamel bathtub with gold-clawed feet. Her head lay against the flat back at one end, her lavender-painted toes just visible under the gold fixtures at the other. Her arms could not be seen beneath the grim, dark-colored water, a translucent shroud that reached to the victim’s chin. Strands of matted dark hair made jagged lines on her vacantly expressionless face.

  Jake tried not to look in the mirrors, each of which reflected the finality of death. She’d obviously been obsessed with beauty. In the end, it didn’t matter.

  A dank pyramid of reddened towels, plopped on the floor, leaked lines of red rivulets onto the now-pink grout between the white tiles. Had someone tried to stop the bleeding? Or clean it up? Or both?

  Suicide? Or murder?

  When Medical Examiner Kat McMahan arrived—at 8:42, Jake noted—he managed to refrain from making any cracks about her clandestine relationship with D. They said their goodbyes, leaving the two officers and Kat at the scene.

  “Kat will give us the scoop, soon as she knows,” D said as he got back into the cruiser. “Nothing more for us here—no break-in, no nothing. Someone she knew. Or someone very skilled.”

  “Like Avery Morgan.” Jake cranked the ignition.

  “Like half the mur
ders in Boston, conspiracy boy,” D said. “There’s no frigging connection between Violet Sholto and Avery Morgan.”

  “Kidding me?” Jake said. They backed out onto Mishawum Street, the lights in neighborhood windows beginning to bloom behind gauzy curtains. “Of course there is.”

  ISABEL RUSSO

  So that was totally the question she’d hoped Jane wouldn’t ask, and now she had.

  Was that the night it happened?

  Yes, it was, she acknowledged to herself.

  Was “he” in the video?

  Yes, he was. Sort of. She’d saved the file as proof that he’d been there, and that she’d been there. Like a trusting, naive, stupid person, a person who thought the world was interested in honor and justice. She stood, turned away from her visitors, faced the kitchen. The video was playing again, she could hear the muffled music behind her. Jane and Fiola must be watching, but she couldn’t face another second. The memory of that night …

  Was it her fault? She’d flirted with him, that was the thing. Laughed, and shared class notes, back when her life was fun and she was a student and on her own. He’d even come to their little opera night—she saw him applauding after she sang one of her favorite arias, “Vissi d’arte.” Oh!

  “I’m so sorry.” Jane came up beside her. “I didn’t mean to upset you.”

  Isabel could see that Jane was worried, saw her exchange glances with Fiola, knew she’d failed, miserably, at keeping her secret. But Jane and Fiola didn’t know everything, not even from that video, especially not from the video. If she could only keep it together, she’d be fine.

  But “Vissi.” She’d forgotten about that little opera night, when she’d performed the beautiful aria from Tosca. When she’d been Tosca. Now she needed some time to think.

  “Could you”—she spoke in a whisper, gesturing toward the kitchen sink—“get me a little water?”

  Jane and Fiola fussed in a cabinet. Glasses clinked.

  Isabel needed to regroup. The music on that creepy phone call, the aria from the second act of Tosca. The moment Tosca understands she has no hope. He’d heard her sing it. She’d told him the story! That’s why he’d chosen that music on his call, that was why! Was it a threat? Why?