The Other Woman (29 page)

“Oh, bull. Don’t insult me with that BS about your search for ‘the truth.’” Maitland rolled his eyes, making air quotes around the words. “You’re only about the scandal, all of you media types. The dirt. Poking into the past, digging for something where there’s nothing. Some news that when it turns out to be wrong, you’ll run some pitiful correction, if you even bother to do that, while someone’s reputation goes down the tubes. But you’ve got to get your story. Make yourselves the new Woodward and Bernstein.”

“Mr. Maitland?” Jane kept her voice even, as if calming a five-year-old in the midst of a temper tantrum. “What about Owen Lassiter’s first wife?”

“What about her?” Maitland shot back.

“Is she hiding for some reason? Are you hiding her?”

“Hiding her?”

“Where is she?” Jane continued.

“Where is she?” Maitland echoed.

Jane struggled not to laugh out loud. Maitland was clearly losing it, repeating her questions like that. She was about to win this round. What would happen when she pushed him about the mysterious Kenna?

“Yes, Mr. Maitland, where is she?”

“I’ll tell you exactly where she is.” Rory’s eyes did not match his smile. “Where she’s been for the past two years. Cambridge, Massachusetts.”

“She’s in—”

“She’s a resident of Poplar Grove Cemetery.”

49

Today had not gone as planned. Ten minutes to go, but Jake could see the news conference was already packed. The media clumped together outside the post office, microphones, tape recorders, cameras. Coffee. Klieg lights. Soon would come the inevitable questions. Jake had zero answers.

Today was supposed to have been a big score for the good guys. The headlines were supposed to have been Kylie Howarth. Now that her parents had identified their daughter, the supe planned to call the press to the BPD media room, disclose the victim’s identity, reveal she was a suicide, reassure the public, and stop the manufactured clamor to catch some mythical Bridge Killer.

Then they’d found the fourth victim. Now they were out in the miserable windy cold, getting ready to deliver bad news in a damn parking lot. The Kylie story would be buried. The vulture patrol would care only about Jake’s failures, and about stampeding people into thinking some serial killer was on the loose.
There must be a better way to sell newspapers.

A tap on his shoulder. “Detective? Supe wanted me to show you this.”

Pam, the homicide office clerk, held up a manila envelope.

“Hey, Pam.” He gestured at the still-growing crowd. “Quite the turnout, huh? Whatcha got?”

The clerk reopened the metal-pronged closure and drew out a piece of paper. “It’s the sketch of the—”

“Come over here for a sec.” Jake could tell the Channel 5 reporter was edging closer. Trying to eavesdrop, see over his shoulder.
Vulture.
He turned his back, motioned Pam to do the same. “So what’ve we got?”

“Sketch guy just finished,” Pam said. “Supe called me in to hand these out. Also, DeLuca’s at the Suffolk County Jail. He says there may be a collar in the Roldan case. Says he’ll call you.”

Jake took the sketch. And there she was.
Fort Point
. Jake stared at the postcard-sized drawing, mesmerized. A bulleted description was typed in the lower right:
Hair: light brown. Eyes: blue. Distinguishing marks or tattoos: none. Age: approx. 25.

What the bullet points didn’t say was—she had been beautiful. The colored-pencil sketch was something more suited to a magazine than a morgue. Long curly hair, model cheekbones, full lips. Some sort of little necklace. Young, gorgeous, and dead.

Did she die because I suck at my job? Did she die because I refused to believe her killer existed? Is she as much my victim as the Bridge Killer’s?

He thought about Arthur Vick. About Vick’s connection with Amaryllis Roldan, and with Sellica. And Kylie. Kylie Howarth, the confirmed suicide who ruined the whole case. Or solved it.

“Thanks, Pam,” he said. He slid two copies of the sketch into his jacket’s inside pocket. Then he had an idea. “Hold one up for me, okay?”

Jake took out his BlackBerry and snapped a picture of the picture.

A flurry of activity—a siren, a car crunching through the gravel, a door slamming. Lights flicked on; photographers scrambled to their cameras.

“Supe’s here,” Pam said.

Jake slid his BlackBerry back into his jeans pocket. “Showtime.”

*   *   *

“Okay, okay, okay, I just have to get into this parking space.”

Jane tried to keep her phone between her cheek and her shoulder while she backed into a too-small almost-space near the post office. The parking lot was crammed with trucks and vans and news cars, staffed by reporters who’d answered their phones in time to arrive
before
the news conference started. How was she supposed to know it had been Alex on the phone? How was she supposed to know there was another Bridge Killer victim?

Plus, she’d had to run out of Maitland’s office before she could ask about Kenna.

Damn
. After this morning’s unpleasantly contentious encounter, it would be a real challenge to even get near Maitland again.

She inched as close as she could to the gigantic pickup mooching too much space in front of her. She tapped its fender, wincing. “Yeah, yeah, Alex, I’m here. I’ll let you know when Tuck arrives. Where is she, anyway? She owes me, big-time.”

She was talking to air. Alex had hung up.

A hulking black Crown Vic four-door blurped its siren at her in warning, turning across her path as it slid into the post office parking lot. A BPD decal on the side of the car said
SUPERINTENDENT
.

Thank goodness
. Jane, out of breath, reached the pack of reporters before Rivera stepped to the lectern’s bristling bouquet of microphones. Jane eyed her colleagues—ex-colleagues, some of them. Maybe it was good she was late. She wouldn’t have to chitchat, pretend to like them. She pulled out her spiral notebook, wrote
11:45
A.M.
at the top of a clean page.

A gaggle of cops surrounded the podium. Superintendent Rivera, wearing dress blues and his hat yanked down over his forehead, towered over the rest. Laney Driscoll, the PR guy, hovered next to him, clutching a thick manila envelope. A few uniforms stood stationed along the fence, eyes hidden behind identical dark Ray-Bans.

Jake.

In those jeans and leather jacket, almost with his back to the crowd, talking to some woman in a black police-issue pullover.
Poor Jake. Another victim. He must be …

The woman was holding up a piece of paper, and Jake seemed to be snapping a photo of it. As the woman walked away, Jake turned around, now facing the reporters but not making eye contact.

Jane shifted position, willing him to see her.
Come on, Jakey.
She sent him ESP messages.
I’m here.

But everyone’s attention was on the superintendent. He marched toward the podium, face grim.

“Jane Ryland?” A voice behind her.

Someone wanted to talk to her.
Who?
The news conference was about to start.

The man stepped closer. Not someone she recognized, not a reporter, no notebook in hand. Not a cop. Maybe some young business exec on a day off, wandered by the news conference, got curious. Good-enough looking, mid-twenties, athletic-ish, hair mussed and a hint of stubble. Running shoes. Water bottle.

“Yes?” she said. She glanced deliberately at the podium, to make sure this guy knew she had no time for interruptions.

“Jane Ryland from the
Register
? Who had that front-page article in yesterday’s paper?”

Jane nodded, needing him to hurry up. But he’d asked about her article. Maybe he knew something about the rally?

“My name is Matt. Uh, let’s leave it at that for now,” he said. “I think I have a story for you.”

“About the rally?”

“Rally?” Matt said. He gave a little shrug. “No, it’s … well, it’s really a long story.”

She smiled back, trying not to be one of those pretend-reporters who weren’t open to possibilities. You never knew where the next big story would come from. Still, it probably wasn’t from here. She gestured to the podium, where Laney Driscoll was adjusting the microphones.

“I’m assigned to cover this,” she said. “Can I give you my card?”

Then she realized she didn’t have a
Register
business card yet. “I’ll give you my private number at the paper,” she said. She scrawled it on a page of her notebook, ripped it out, and handed it to him. “Call me later today.”

“Ladies and gentlemen,” Driscoll was saying. “The superintendent will have a brief statement, then take a few questions. There’s a handout which we’ll distribute. No one-on-one interviews, no live shots, nothing more today. We clear?”

“I want to hear this, too,” Matt said. Jane saw him stash her number into the pocket of his jacket. “I’m gonna get closer. I’ll call you later.”

“Great,” Jane said, giving him her best pretend-sincere smile.
Adios.

The man squeezed past the camera in front of him, threading through the journalists until Jane could see only the top of his head and a jacketed broad shoulder. He stopped at the edge of the group, toward the front.

I should have at least taken his phone number,
Jane scolded herself.
Maybe I’ll get it after.

“My name is Francis Rivera.” The voice came from the podium. “I’m Superintendent of the Boston Police Department. We’re here today to…”

Jane tried to focus her attention on Rivera, but where the heck was Tuck? This was
her
deal, and Alex promised she’d show up. Now it was looking like Jane would have to handle this herself. Which was a drag, since she was hot on the trail of the other women in Owen Lassiter’s life.

She’d track down Katharine, maybe with records from Poplar Grove Cemetery. As for Kenna Wilkes? Jane smiled.
Woodward and Bernstein, huh?
As if breaking big political news were a bad thing.

“Hey, roomie.” Tuck, ponytail bobbing, trotted up beside her. “Thanks for covering for me. Supe say anything major yet?”

“Hey, Tuck,” Jane said. “Nope, just started.” Up at the podium, the PR flack was dumping papers out of a big manila envelope.

“Great,” Tuck said. “You’re clear from this location, Alex says, just check in later. I’ve got this now. There’s more big news about to break.”

“Yeah, I know. Great.” Jane flapped her empty notebook closed. Tuck could have this story. Jane had her sights set on Katharine, whatever her last name was, and Kenna Wilkes.

Kenna Wilkes.
The other woman
. No mistake about that.

*   *   *

So what if she was a little late getting to campaign headquarters today. It’s not like there was any big deal. Kenna Wilkes parked her stupid rented hybrid and strolled up the manicured front walk of Owen Lassiter’s ritzy house. Owen, she knew, was off at a conference, some union thing. But it was not Owen she was here to see.

She flipped her hair out from under the collar of her white wool coat. Extravagant, yes, and ridiculous in the Boston grime. But it looked so good with her hair. And, according to the article in
House Beautiful
, Moira loved white.

The doorbell binged. The door swung open. Moira herself,
imagine that
.

Kenna switched her stack of brown envelopes and file folders from one arm to the other, held out her hand, polite as could be.

“Mrs. Lassiter? I’m Kenna Wilkes, from the governor’s campaign office? They did call to tell you I was coming, right? Mr. Maitland sent me with some photos for you to sign?”

Not exactly true, but close enough. She could fix it all later, get everyone’s stories straight. She saw the woman’s famously elegant face twitch for a moment, in fear. Or anger? Or defeat? Didn’t really matter. This was merely Kenna’s inaugural get-to-know-you visit.

“They didn’t, no.” Moira didn’t budge from the doorway.

“I’m so sorry, ma’am,” Kenna said.
Ma’am.
She almost burst out laughing. She’d said it on purpose, as if Moira hadn’t noticed the difference in their ages. It had been a long time since they’d last crossed paths. A long, long time. Not that Moira could possibly realize that. “Could you autograph these? Then I’ll get back to the campaign. You know how busy we are now!”

She smiled, so enthusiastic, handed Moira the envelope. Inside were a stack of eight-by-ten photographs she’d snagged from Sheila King’s press office.

Moira took the envelope in one manicured hand, clearly reluctant.

“What a lovely home you have,” Kenna said, peering around Moira’s shoulder. Kenna patted her hair, reprising the same gesture she’d used the day before in her little driveway drama. She gestured to her own white coat. “I love the all white. As you can see. Would you like me to wait outside while you sign the photos?”

“Oh, no, no, of course not.” Moira seemed to remember where she was. “Come in. Of course. Miss—?”

Kenna stepped into the foyer, taking in the flowers and the affluence and the ease and the privilege. “Kenna Wilkes,” she said. “Please call me Kenna. Everyone does. I’m new.”

“Ah,” Moira said.

“It must be so difficult that your husband is so rarely home these days,” Kenna went on.
That’ll get her
. “I only mean, you know, the campaign and all. I’m sure Owen—I mean the governor—misses you out on the campaign trail. Of course, he’s always surrounded by fans and voters and staff. He’s so charming.”

“I’ll only be a moment, signing these,” Moira said. “Who sent you here with these, by the way?”

“Wasn’t that terrible about that rally thing in Springfield?” Kenna continued, ignoring her question. “It’s lucky you weren’t there, you know? And then we had to stay overnight in Worcester, gosh, not exactly the garden spot. Although the hotel was lovely.”

“I’ll get a pen,” Moira said. She patted the pockets of her tailored wool slacks and, finding nothing, pulled out a drawer in an ivory-glazed Parsons table.