Truth Be Told (Jane Ryland) (21 page)

“This is Jane Ryland,” Hardesty was saying. “She’s—”

“She’s a—” The cadet pointed to her clipboard.

“A reporter.” Jake interrupted. “Thanks, Cadet. Miss Ryland, I’m afraid you’ll have to—”

Oh, crap.
That’s why she’d had the funny look. Jane thought he was in D.C.

Jake started over.

“Let me say, first, ah, I was just
unexpectedly
called back from Washington, D.C.” Jake telegraphed a look at Jane he hoped would clarify that he wasn’t a jerk or a liar.

“Unexpectedly,” he repeated. That was about all the time he had for personal communications. “But, Mr. Hardesty, under no circumstances can a reporter—”

“She’s not here as a reporter,” Hardesty said. “She’s a victim.”

“A victim?”
Jane?
He looked her up and down, almost reached out to her.
Victim?
The mud. And her hair was kind of—was she hurt?
Victim?
“Of what? What happened?”

“I’m okay. Really.” Jane took a step forward, held out both palms, as if to prove she was fine.

How could she be “okay”? Whatever happened had brought them all to the police station at eleven at night. No way that was okay. He never wanted to hear “Jane” and “victim” in the same sentence, let alone in reality.

“Of what? Victim of what?” Jake’s throat tightened, he could hear what it did to his voice. Hardesty was looking at him, then Jane, then him again, obviously detecting some sort of subtext. So what. Let the guy look.

“I’m okay,” Jane said again. “Really.”

“That’s why we’re here, Detective,” Hardesty was saying. “About what happened this evening.”

“The Moulten Road incident,” Jake said. “Correct?”

He saw Jane narrow her eyes, give that look she got whenever she’d done the mental math and gotten a curious result. “What Moulten Road incident?” she asked.

Jake winced.
Damn.
Said nothing, trying to regroup.

“What Moulten Road incident?” Jane looked at Hardesty, looked at Thorley, then back at him. “Detective? What Moulten Road incident?”

Damn.
He’d assumed Jane would be up-to-date on Moulten Road, somehow, same way she’d been on Waverly Road with Shandra Newbury’s murder. Maybe gotten a tip. Apparently he was wrong. She seemed to be unaware the police had found a woman strangled on Moulten Road, a block from the Arboretum. Now he’d said too much.

“Moulten Road? That’s out by the—” Jane stopped. Tilted her head slowly to one side, then back the other way. Jake could almost see the click-click-click as the slot machine sevens lined up in her brain. “Out by the Arboretum?”

Why had Jane said that? Picked up on the Arboretum connection?

If Hardesty had told her, there’d be another homicide in the works. Jake himself would kill the guy.

*   *   *

Did she want to go inside with Aaron? The last time he’d taken her to such a place … Lizzie sighed, looked out the windshield of Aaron’s car at the apartment building, feeling her hopes evaporate. Maybe tonight hadn’t been a good idea after all.

“No, thanks.” Lizzie fussed with her seat belt, running a thumb up and down between the black webbing and the front of her navy bank blazer. Aaron had parked in a dark patch, out of the glow of the orange security lights. She was grateful he couldn’t see the indecision and disappointment on her face. “If you’ll only be gone a minute or two? It’s okay. I’ll wait in the car.”

She wasn’t handling this well, whatever this was. She needed to be clever and winning, feminine and desirable. She had to be the confident one. This wasn’t high school.

“I’ll babysit the lovely champagne until you come out.” She tried to toss her hair, but then stopped, mid-gesture, embarrassed.
Trying too hard.
“And the Cinzano’s box. Do what you need to do inside. I’ll be fine.” Big smile.

Aaron now stood outside the open car window, both palms on the roof, leaning in over the driver’s seat. She could see down the front of his unbuttoned shirt. He didn’t wear an undershirt, she saw, and then tried not to look anymore.

“Ah, Lizzie, Miss Lizzie,” Aaron said. “You kill me.”

He paused, staring at her so intently she fidgeted in the seat, wondering how anyone ever was comfortable with another person, wondering why she was so attracted to him, although that wasn’t difficult to explain, he was so handsome, and could be so sweet, even though some of his activities weren’t the most … whatever. And some of his lines were laughable. But it wasn’t like she was going to
marry
him, right? It was just tonight. One random Tuesday in May. No one else but them even knew.

She realized, in a tumbling wisp of a thought, no one knew where she was.

“Okay. My bad.” Aaron slapped both palms on the roof, from the sound of it, and got back into the car, slid behind the wheel, yanked his seat belt across his chest—then stopped, holding the buckle in front of him. “I confess. I just—I could use your advice.”

“Advice?” She tried to read the look on his face. Tried to keep her own face composed. Tried to predict—advice about what? Could he know she’d talked to Maddie Kate Wendell and Mo Heedles? If so, what would he make of that? What would she tell him?

“I know you understand the bank, like I do,” Aaron was saying. “It’s in your blood, in a way, right?”

She supposed it was. With her dad and all. But where was this going? “Sure, yes, I—why?”

“So I was wondering if you might be able to help me. With a kind of project I’m working on. It’s secret, though, so you’d have to promise it’s just between us for now.” He let the seat belt go, and it snapped back into place. He turned to her, touching her shoulder again for the briefest of seconds. She felt the exact place, even through her jacket, even after he took his hand away.

“Kind of—a surprise for you,” he said.

Sitting in a car, in an empty parking lot, in the middle of the—well, not exactly the middle of the night. She wanted him to like her, she admitted, she did, but her brain was full and confused and—what did he mean by “surprise”?

“And thing is”—Aaron was still talking—“I had hoped … you’d come upstairs and come see it. You’ll be the first, you know? Because I trust your judgment, and I trust your skills. You’re my soul mate, Miss Lizzie. I feel it—” He touched his chest. “Right here.”

Despite her misgivings, she could feel herself melting. Soul mate? No one had ever—
ever
—said that to her before. Maybe it was bull. One of his lines. But what if it wasn’t?

“So, okay?” he said.

“I admit you have me curious,” she said.

“As long as I have you.” Aaron smiled at her, that smile.

She heard the whir as her seat belt retracted, watched Aaron reach into the back seat for the champagne and Cinzano’s box, felt the car shift as he opened the door and got out, waiting for her in the quiet parking lot. A soft breeze rustled the leaves of a big maple above them, the lowest branches tangling against her hair as she got out of the car.

Taking the champagne inside? Why not. She was trying a new life now, her new life, and the lovely wine would seal the deal.

34

“Gotta say. That’s the first guy I’ve ever seen who’s happy to take that walk,” Jake said. He and Peter Hardesty watched Gordon Thorley, escorted by a gloating Bing Sherrey, head off to lockup. No one should be thrilled to be confined by three walls of gray concrete and one wall of bars, but Jake could’ve sworn Thorley smiled.

“Who knows what he’s thinking.” Hardesty shrugged. “Or what he’s smiling about.”

Jake understood the lawyer was only doing his job with Thorley. But his deal with Jane?
That
Jake did not understand. At Hardesty’s apartment? That time of night? Taking a shower?
In a towel?
Hardesty, separated from his client, had related the whole story before they sent Jane home in a cab. Jane hadn’t even seemed embarrassed. What the hell?

He and Hardesty had just finished two additional hours of question and answer, bracketed by confessions, including Thorley’s recitation of the events of that Lilac Sunday long ago and his acknowledgment that he’d bagged his parole check-in call. He’d refused to discuss exactly what had happened on Moulten Road.

Even so, Thorley knew the victim’s name, Treesa Caramona, rehab-needy and a longtime parolee, now a person well-known to Southie’s notorious Harvest House Shelter, a seedy brick almost-tenement that was hardly home and barely shelter to ex-cons and transients. Thorley knew she’d been strangled from behind with an electrical cord. Told them where they’d find her backpack. Exactly where they already found it. None of that had been made public.

“Did you know her?” Jake had asked.

“Yeah, sure, all us parolees know each other,” Thorley said. “Everyone else thinks we’re invisible.”

“How’d you get her to Moulten Road?”

“Bus.”

“How’d you get in?”

“Front window. Easy.”

“Why’d you kill her?”

“Why does anyone do anything?” Thorley said. “She pissed me off.”

“And you just happened to have an electrical cord?”

“Found it in the trash,” Thorley said. “Where she belonged, too. No one will miss her.”

Jake paused, staring at the guy. The Lilac Sunday killer.

“Now do you believe me?” Thorley had said. “You should have stopped me when you could.”

Jake knew that was correct, incredibly correct, tragically correct. As he’d feared, it seemed the legal system—supposedly protecting the rights of the accused—had produced a second Lilac Sunday victim. Too late, and too disturbing, to think about that now. The handcuffs clicked on. And Thorley and Bing were gone.

He’d have to be satisfied with tomorrow’s arraignment. The judge, any judge, would certainly keep Thorley in jail awaiting trial—a trial Jake had no doubt would send the guy downstate to Cedar Junction for life. There might even be video of him and Caramona on that bus to Moulten Road, if the onboard surveillance camera was rolling.

Because of the death of Treesa Caramona, a Brogan might put the Lilac Sunday killer behind bars. Carley Marie Schaefer’s family might finally get their closure.

Gramma, too.

Jake wished his grandfather could know that.

He also wished he could’ve beat the hell out of Thorley for pulling a knife on Jane. So much for parole as rehabilitation. Crock of shit, some of the time, only you could never predict which times. Murderers weren’t like most people. Jake could catch them, but it didn’t mean he understood them. Thorley would get his just punishment soon enough.

“So. See you in court tomorrow,” Hardesty interrupted his thoughts. He hoisted a canvas briefcase over one shoulder as they walked toward the elevators.

Hardesty had argued to keep Thorley out of custody, but it was a losing battle with a client like that. Now a plea agreement—if one should happen—was in the district attorney’s hands.

“I’ll expect your call,” Hardesty went on. “The instant you hear from the DA.”

“Yeah. Sure.” But Jake had one more question. A personal one. Why was Jane at Hardesty’s apartment anyway, ten at night, or whenever? The moment he went out of town, she’d gone off with Peter freaking Hardesty. Peter Hardesty and a freaking
towel.
That’s why she hadn’t answered his phone call.

He turned to Hardesty, keeping his voice professional. “So. The Jane Ryland ‘episode.’”

“What about it?” Hardesty kept walking. Almost to the elevators.

“We’re supposed to forget all that?” Jake went on. “As if it never happened?”

“Misunderstanding.” Hardesty jabbed the lighted arrow on the down button. “She seems pretty cool, huh? She said you guys knew each other. Professionally.”

They’d talked about him? Why?
High school,
he thought, but Jake had to ask.

“Why was Ms. Ryland with you in the first place?” He couldn’t let Hardesty know why he really cared. Or, he realized, how much he cared.
A towel?

The elevator doors opened.

“You’ll have to ask Jane,” Hardesty said. “We done here?”

*   *   *

“Do I want—more?” Lizzie said.

She opened her eyes at Aaron’s question, felt his touch on her bare arm. A glow filtered in through the lace curtains of the unfamiliar bedroom—what time was it?—a pale glimmer from the streetlights licking shadows on the white walls. But he was holding a slim crystal glass. Of course, he meant champagne, did she want more champagne.

“Mmmm…” Her brain was not finding words. Her body was floating, or weightless, or something it had never been before,
strange,
the incredible pillows and the scent of Aaron,
Aaron,
next to her.

“Advice on what?” she had asked, still timid as she got out of the car, but Aaron had merely smiled, held out a hand, led her inside apartment 303. The REO—he’d explained it was one of the bank’s—was still partly furnished. “Just came to us,” he said. And after about, oh, who knows how many glasses, he confessed to her what he was doing.

Or maybe she had asked him? It was all kind of a jumble.

Exactly as she suspected, he’d been renting empty foreclosed homes to students—I know when they’ll be available, he said,
he’d unbuttoned his shirt, she barely knew where to look,
and real estate brokers can show them no matter who’s there, right? He was proud of himself, she could tell.

“Are you afraid you’ll get caught?” she dared to ask, couldn’t resist. She’d quickly calculated how much money he could make—with say, three thousand dollars per house, per month, and even with a few dozen houses? With the bank paying utilities and maintenance? It was potentially incredibly lucrative. Not to mention tax free.

“We’re not Bank of America,” he’d said, dismissing her “concerns.” “A bank like ours? When you’re a big fish in a little pond, you can do anything you want.”

Which she knew. All too well. But still …

It was wrong, it was illegal, it was—her first reaction, and her second, was to tell him to stop. He could go to jail for fraud, and embezzlement, and theft, and a million other criminal charges. If her father ever found out … She paused, smiling, imagining her father being surprised.