The Murder List

by Hank Phillippi Ryan

  “Do you think the police think she was targeted? Specifically?” Rachel pulled off her gloves, then swiped under each eye with a bare forefinger. Her eyes were deeply gray, he saw, the darkest gray. “Or do they think she had the terrible misfortune to be…” She shook her head slowly, as she talked.

  She looked at him, her face beginning to crumble again. She grabbed his arm. Held it. “This is so not me. I mean, I keep wondering if there was anything I should have done, you know? And now I’m so afraid. I know I have to go to the statehouse, and I have to think about it, but I can’t, I can’t even think about it.”

  They stood on the corner, silent, eye-to-eye.

  “I’m so sorry,” she said. And took a step into the street.

  “Do you know anything that might have happened?” Following her, he had to ask, the lawyer in him. “Even … well, you tell me. I’m your lawyer, after all.”

  “It’s horrible.” He heard the outrage or hurt or fear in her voice. “But I … I feel so afraid. I feel so helpless.”

  “You’re not helpless,” he said. “You have me.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  RACHEL NORTH

  A thwacking TV helicopter hovered over Beacon Hill as we passed the open wrought-iron gates at the east wing of the statehouse and walked through the statue garden toward the lower entrance. Looking up, shading my eyes from the superwattage crime-scene lights, I envisioned an insatiable photographer leaning out the chopper’s curved plastic windows, zooming in, scanning, trying to locate the dumpster. The parking lot now probably looked like the photos Martha Gardiner showed us of Dr. Oreoso’s ATM, wreathed in yellow police tape. Protected from intruders on the ground but not the relentless snoops in the air.

  “That’s where the parking lot is, right below that chopper.” I pointed. “Where the lights are.” On the way here, I’d filled Jack in on everything Rafferty and Millin told me. Dani Zander, the obliging newcomer. Dumpster, body, murder. I stopped, my stomach recoiling again. I felt such guilt. I didn’t like her. But this was unbearable.

  How should I deal with Jack Kirkland? So inappropriate for me to collapse onto him, right there on Boylston Street. He’d been sympathetic, even kind about it, but I bet he still wanted to dissect my role in the Deacon Davis jury verdict. It won’t matter, I silently assured myself. I’d get through this, right now, and then I’d say goodbye. For now, though, I had to admit, it was comforting to be with someone who could protect me. Someone who knew the rules.

  “They’re shooting video for the six o’clock news,” Jack said as we neared the entrance. “I know a reporter who—well, never mind. You okay?”

  “She’s not still in the parking lot, do you think?” It was difficult for me to say her name out loud.

  “Don’t worry.” Jack reached out, maybe to pat me on the back, then took his hand away as if he’d crossed a line. “You can handle this. One step at a time.”

  I supposed so. He let me revolve through the employee entrance door first. Inside the statehouse, I predicted, the political gossip machine would be revving into high gear. Even now, pushing five in the evening, I imagined the buzz of staffers and politicos, conversation as intrusive and persistent as that helicopter. Equally on the prowl for answers.

  “Did you hear? About the … the dumpster?” The goggle-eyed guard, pale even for him, waved us both around the metal detector. Ervin had seen me countless times, but he didn’t know Jack, and I wondered where we got these guys. Ervin, recently named head of the security team, such as it was, peered over his wire-rimmed glasses and apparently realized there was a visitor with me and that he ought to appear to do his job. He jabbed an accusatory finger at Jack. “Wait. He with you?”

  “He’s my—he’s good,” I said. “I’ll take responsibility. We’re going up. Scary, huh?”

  “Yeah.” Ervin touched his radio, then peered out the revolving door. “Cops are everywhere,” he said. “Press, too.”

  I saw what he meant as the elevator door creaked open on two. Every reporter in the world, it seemed, was gathered inside the open door of the senator’s Communications Office. The Arbella and the Mayflower now sailed in front of a reception area crowded with a barricade of tripods and cameras.

  “Rachel! You have a statement?” One reporter almost yelled her question, demanding, and the others advanced toward us. We were about to be swarmed.

  “No one’s talking, Rachel. No one’s saying anything. Where were you? Where’s Rafferty?” And then they all piled on, a barrage of logoed microphones aimed at me like the enemy’s bayonets as they fired questions. At me. “Is he back in his office? Can we have a photo of the victim? Did you know her? We need a statement. Come on, Rachel.”

  “Shoot,” I muttered toward Jack. He was media savvy, too. A cluster like this encircled him after the Deacon Davis verdict, I saw it on the news, and that probably wasn’t the first time. The Communications Office’s antique furniture was now draped with coats and mufflers, the oriental rugs dotted with open equipment cases and snaked with a tangle of thick orange wires. These people were encamped. For the duration.

  “Go on past them,” Jack instructed. “Ignore them.”

  But they knew it wasn’t my job to ignore them. I knew it, too. Here, on my territory, there were rules. Times like now, I set them.

  “Guys?” I held up both hands, simultaneously signaling shut up, stay back, and hang on. “This is a very sad occasion, tragic, and we’re trying to get a handle on what’s happened. You can ask me all you want—but I don’t know anything. Not anything. If you’d be patient, and let me through, I promise I’ll come back with something.”

  “Did you know her? Can you confirm it’s Danielle Zander?”

  Who the hell was telling them this stuff? My cell pinged a text. And then another one and another one. Rafferty, for sure, or Lewis Millin or both, but I couldn’t take the time to tell them I was here. Jack had melted into the background. The reporters hadn’t taken their eyes off me as they moved closer, not relenting for one second.

  “Are the police with the senator? How well did he know her? Do they think he’s a suspect? Do they know when she was killed?”

  “See, that’s exactly what I’m trying to tell you. I have nothing for you.” I wish I knew those answers, too, I didn’t say. “I’m willing to stand here as long as you want and repeat ‘I don’t know what they know,’ but wouldn’t it be better if you let me go and find out?”

  The elevator door opened again. Two more camera lenses headed toward me, and behind them another pack of bodies carrying notebooks. The reporters hadn’t budged, and every one of them was frowning. Another text pinged my phone.

  “The cops won’t let us into the parking lot. Or let us see anything,” one TV guy complained. “It’s after five. We need something for the six. Give us a break, Rachel.”

  There was a change in the light, somehow, and in a display of pack mentality, the reporters, row by row, all turned their backs on me and faced the opening door that was behind them. Every tripod-mounted camera swiveled in a 180. Senator Tom Rafferty, hair almost in place, yellow tie almost in place, and eyes possibly red-rimmed, stood in front of the Massachusetts flags that flanked his outer office door. A battery of still cameras whirred and flashed.

  Rafferty put up both palms in a stop gesture that mirrored mine. Him, the reporters obeyed. The cameras all flashed again, capturing his motion.

  Edging myself behind the crowd, I planned to inch closer to the front. Jack was already stationed along the wall to the senator’s right, the only place there was any room. Trapped, I joined him there, wondering why I’d agreed to let him accompany me. Rafferty looked at the floor, head bowed, apparently composing himself. The reporters stayed quiet. They were about to get what they wanted.

  “What’s he gonna say?” Jack whispered.

  I shrugged. “Who knows,” I whispered back. Thoughts and prayers, I predicted, but that was too cynical to say out loud.

  The senator looked
up, scanned the room, briefly caught my eye. Scowled. But I wasn’t the problem now.

  “I have a statement,” Rafferty began. “When you’re ready?” Every camera flashed again, and videographers adjusted their tripods, jockeying for position.

  When I felt someone come up behind me, I took a step closer to Jack to give whoever it was room. This was voyeurism, masquerading as news. Everyone wanted to get closer. Capture a close-up of the grief and sorrow. Elicit a headline-worthy quote. Cash in on a murder. “A beautiful innocent harmless young woman,” they’d probably call Dani. When tears came to my eyes again I blinked them away and pressed my lips together, hard, to keep my composure. The person behind me took another step closer.

  “My, my.” I heard the words murmured almost in my ear. I smelled—flowers?

  The speaker, her notebook out and her coat over one arm, had a look on her face I couldn’t read. Clearly a TV type, all makeup and Burberry scarf, her red-brown hair cut to frame her face. She looked famil—Oh. From the morning news. And Gallery. Right. When she was trying to sweet-talk the senator.

  Right. She’d been sitting with Jack. “I know a reporter,” he’d said a few minutes ago. Of course he did.

  JACK KIRKLAND

  Why did he even come to the statehouse with Rachel? To be honest, there was no good reason, and Jack knew the help-a-damsel-in-distress thing was a pathetic explanation. But a combination of strength and vulnerability drew Rachel to him. Seduced him. All the more because she kept her distance. Except when she’d fallen into his arms. She’d even smelled good.

  Which was a mess, frankly, in the midst of his jury investigation. She potentially held some cards in his appeal of Deacon Davis’s case. But maybe he could make things work to his advantage. Win-win. His favorite situation.

  He stood next to her, by the wall, trying to become invisible. He should have realized the place would be crawling with reporters and cameras. If they recognized him, it would raise questions. But he’d cross that bridge if it presented itself. Rafferty, he saw, was like all of them—wanting a victory.

  He watched the politician manipulate the silence. Focus the attention on himself. He knew how to hold a crowd’s interest.

  Even Rachel, he saw, could not take her eyes off her employer as he spoke. Rafferty’s voice was modulated, and filled with sorrow. He’d thrown Rachel a birthday party, Jack hadn’t forgotten that. At Gallery. Which was certainly unusual. Might there be something between them? More than business?

  He mulled that over, and for the briefest of moments, pictured it. Imagined it. Way too specifically. He yanked himself back to reality. Fine. It was possible. But not if Rachel North had a brain. Which, in his assessment, she did. Plus, Rafferty was supposed to be happily married.

  That meant Rachel was potentially available. And maybe, if he could make her feel comfortable and safe with him—and clearly, he’d already made progress—he could find out more than his court-sanctioned “boundaries” might allow. He watched her watching her boss, thinking about the relationship of power to obligation. Rachel, reliable and responsible, would do whatever her boss said.

  She was vulnerable and curious. And upset. Murder would do that, especially to someone so exposed, to someone personally involved. She’d collapsed, for crap’s sake. And then she’d invited him here to her safe place.

  All good.

  He’d melted into the background, letting Rachel do her job, be the dominant one. But eventually she’d joined him, sneaking behind the reporters, trying to be casual but clearly trying to get near him when the pressure increased and her boss was about to perform.

  If Jack were the boss, he could convince Rachel to reveal the jury deliberations. Prove they’d been tainted. And then he’d nail Gardiner, to the freaking wall, by forcing another trial. And this time Jack would be totally prepared.

  Did Deacon Davis kill Georgina Oreoso? Jack wasn’t sure, not totally, but he more than suspected not. And if Deacon Davis was innocent, Jack had blown it. And would never forgive himself. But if he could prove the jury acted improperly, he could win on appeal. Justice could prevail. Martha Gardiner would lose. He’d do anything to make that happen.

  “My, my.”

  He heard the words then, a sinuous whisper, encircled by a fragrance he recognized perfectly well. Recognized because he’d presented it to her, to Clea, back in the days when things were simpler. Seemed like her employers at the TV station had asked her to stay for her two final weeks. And here she was.

  His stomach turned, thinking about that vending-machine encounter. Her attempts to manipulate him with her new job. Her threats to investigate him. He refused to notice her. Refused to look at her.

  He’d done a lot for her. Given her stories, and leads. Leaks, even, in downright circumventions of the rules.

  He’d helped make her career. And then she’d done the damn story, using him, and assumed he wouldn’t care. It would be fun, satisfying, to see her try to go it alone in Chicago. Knowing Clea, she’d find another meal ticket.

  Now it was refreshing, even reassuring, to meet a woman with no ulterior motives. Rachel wasn’t asking for favors or leaks. She wasn’t asking for anything. He’d be happy—when was the last time he’d used that word?—to help her.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  RACHEL NORTH

  The ghost of Danielle Zander haunted our office. I felt it as I opened the reception-room door. The chill and the loss and specter of a threat. Something missing. Something disturbed. A news crew had left an equipment case on the floor, the only tangible remnant of Monday’s clamor. Rafferty had publicly confirmed Dani’s name, which surprised me. Then he’d given the news crews “thoughts and prayers.” And “personally devastated.” Then, nothing more.

  This morning I’d awakened to the ping of breaking news on my cell phone. But it was nothing about Dani, only a warning about another March snowstorm. Awake anyway, semi–crack of dawn, I’d checked all the other headlines, too. Dani was the top story again, but there wasn’t much new or of substance. Mystery, murder, shocking, statehouse, dedicated detectives, cops on the case, call the tip line. No “persons of interest.” No arrests. Tom’s thoughts and prayers were quoted again. Danielle Zander didn’t appear to have a family, at least none was mentioned.

  At my desk now, I slugged down more coffee and opened my computer, forced myself to do my ordinary tasks on what could not feel like an ordinary day. The senator had me issue a warning to our office crew—don’t go anywhere alone, have a buddy, get a guard to walk you to your car. Last night, staffers had again traveled en masse to the T stop. This morning I took another cab to work, but it didn’t stop my jitters. No one knew what happened, so no one knew how to handle it, emotionally or physically. Who, everyone wondered, could have done such a thing? All of us were in fear. Fear for our lives.

  The morning paper and TV newscasts were also full of nothing, I saw as I scrolled through my accumulated email. No motive. No suspect. No comment. I stared at the computer screen, the words and pictures blurring. The office TV volume was low, but loud enough to hear.

  There’s a killer out there, they were saying. Some hideous bad guy. Got to be. “And where is he now?” the TV reporter speculated, voice dramatic, scaring everyone. Police certainly weren’t telling me anything about the investigation, and Rafferty shut down whenever I broached the subject.

  “Leave it to the police,” he’d muttered. “It’s a nightmare.”

  After the reporters left Monday evening, Lewis Millin remained. Jack stayed, too. He and Millin and Rafferty, three alpha dogs circling one another. I felt the thin veneer of civilization protecting me from a snarling confrontation, but then Rafferty retreated to his office, without saying a word to me. The other two seemed to agree, silently, on a truce.

  That left me as the center of attention.

  “Did you know Danielle Zander?” Millin had eventually asked me. We sat in the finally empty reception area, outer door closed, inner door closed, by that time pu
shing eight at night. It was chilly, since after close of business, the maintenance people turned the heat way down. I’d picked up a fringed throw pillow from the damask couch, held it in my lap to keep warm.

  Millin opened a spiral notebook, right out of a vintage cop novel. I’d almost expected him to lick the tip of his pencil. He wore an Irish fisherman’s sweater under a tweed jacket, and even his hair was tweedy. Congenial, like someone’s favorite professor. Not at all as Jack had described. No pit bull growl. No predatory menace.

  When Jack pulled up a ladder-back chair beside me, the detective didn’t protest. Not exactly. He focused on me instead.

  “You need this lawyer guy, Miz North?” Congenial. With a dash of curious. “Tell me about that.”

  “I’m simply a friend.” Jack’s voice was equally congenial. “That a problem?”

  “Not until you make it a problem,” Millin said.

  Still congenial. So congenial it began to sound unnatural. Maybe Jack was being sarcastic. Maybe to show me that was Millin’s technique.

  “So? Miz North. How well did you know Miz Zander?”

  Huh. I knew Dani, but I didn’t know anything about her. Beyond my own personal nosiness, her history hadn’t seemed to matter. Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe it did. Maybe I should have checked further. Professor or pit bull, this guy made me feel guilty.

  “Well, she worked here. She was promoted when I was. Right before I went on—” I looked at Jack.

  Jack nodded. Gestured me to go ahead.

  “Jury duty,” I finished the sentence. “But she’d been in the office before that. Already hired.”

  “By who?”

  “Must have been—” I stopped, then thought again about the Deacon Davis trial. The witnesses were instructed to answer the specific question asked, and not to offer anything more. “I don’t know,” I said.