Never Tell

Chapter Forty-Seven

Thank you, Nelson. Send him up.”

Ramona propped the apartment door open, the way she always did after telling the doorman to send someone upstairs. But then she thought better of it and walked out to the hallway. She wanted to see Casey as soon as possible.

When he’d finally been released from jail the previous evening, he had called her immediately. But she had to be with her mother. That awful box. Cleaning up the mess. Helping Mom pack for the trip to Long Island. By the time she finished, the curfew at Promises had passed, and Casey couldn’t leave.

The least she could do was wait in the hallway.

She was surprised by her own reaction when he stepped from the elevator. This had been the worst week of her life, worse than anything she ever could have imagined. Julia was gone. Her mother was being stalked. The police had falsely accused Casey of doing something he could never do.

But the minute she saw Casey in person, she felt herself smile for the first time since she’d heard about Julia’s death. It was a big smile, the kind that moved through your entire body. And before she knew it, she was hugging Casey. They had never hugged before. Sure, they’d done the hand-on-shoulder, peck on the cheek style of greeting, but now they were really holding on to each other. To her surprise, she found herself burrowing her face into the crook of his neck before quickly pulling away. She hoped he didn’t sense the guilt in her movement.

“I’m so glad they finally realized they were wrong about you,” she said, shepherding him into the apartment. “Are you doing okay back at Promises?”

“You know you’ve had a bad week when you’re ecstatic to be sleeping at a homeless shelter.”

“Maybe you can stay here for a while. I can talk to my dad tonight—”

He waved a hand. “I wasn’t dropping hints for a place to stay. Ms. Ri is trying to get me to see the bright side in all this. My lawyer thinks I might have a lawsuit against Julia’s dad and those security guards, but I don’t really know whether I want to do that or not. Julia’s mom feels so horrible she actually offered to let me stay at their house with her until I get my act together. Plus, the group that got me my lawyer is going to help me find a job. They even asked me about starting college classes. I feel like I might be able to turn this into something positive.”

“That’s great, Casey.”

“Not like Columbia or anything like that. Community college, but whatever. We’ll see what happens. I don’t want to get my hopes up.”

“Maybe you deserve to get your hopes up, after what you went through.”

She saw a hunger in his eyes, and then looked away. More guilt.

They were interrupted by the telephone. It was Nelson from downstairs. Detectives Hatcher and Rogan from the NYPD were here to see her mother.

“Send them up,” she said. “Speaking of last week, I think a couple of detectives owe you a serious apology.”

Ellie was used to dealing with attitude. That was pretty much a typical day in the life of a cop—dealing with attitude. But sixteen-year-old girls had a certain brand of attitude that she found especially trying.

“My mother is out at the beach. She’s working on her book. And hiding from some nutjob who’s stalking her. But at least Casey’s here—now that he’s finally out of jail.”

Apparently Rogan wasn’t in the mood to sit through the tirade. “You done venting, Ramona?”

“No, not really. I told you that Julia would never threaten my mom. I told you that Casey was innocent. And I told you that I was scared for my mother. I practically begged you to listen. I trusted you.”

Ellie wanted to write the girl off as a spoiled brat, but that last remark—that the girl had trusted them, and they had failed her—hit too close to home to ignore. “Is that why your mother filed the police report with the 19th Precinct instead of with us?”

Ramona looked at her feet. “We didn’t think you’d listen. We thought someone else might take it more seriously.”

“We’re taking it seriously. I already cashed in some chips with the lab to get them to rush the analysis of the shoe box. But you’re right. We got waylaid there for a few days. We made some mistakes.”

Ramona started to argue, but Casey interrupted. “No, it’s okay. They did what they thought was right under the circumstances.”

“But that’s because—”

“I know. Trust me—I know what those asshole security guards did to me. Not to mention Brandon and Vonda.”

Ellie groaned at the mention of their names. “If we find those two idiots, I’ll escort them to jail personally.”

“I don’t think they’ll be back. You know, Brandon had the audacity to send me an e-mail this morning, apologizing?”

The news gave Ramona a new direction for her anger. “Right. Because an apology makes up for trying to frame you for murder. Oops. My bad.”

“He said it was Vonda’s idea, which I absolutely believe. Plus, Vonda took off in the middle of the night with all the cash they got from the Whitmires, stranding him in Idaho. Now Brandon’s in Portland. No money. No Ms. Ri.”

“Any chance you can make them come back here?” Ramona asked.

Ellie shook her head. There was already a warrant out for both Brandon and Vonda for obstruction of justice and defrauding the Whitmires out of the reward money, but they’d probably never be extradited to New York.

“Stupid idiot actually thought Promises might take him back in,” Casey said. “He was all, I can’t believe how bad I messed things up. We had a good thing going with Promises and people like Julia and Ramona trying to help us. Way to show your gratitude. Send the police off on some wild goose chase when they should’ve been finding out what really happened to Julia.”

“We do regret the way things have played out. But we’re here now to try to help your mom, Ramona. That’s what we all want, right?” She could tell Ramona wanted to show some more fight, but the girl eventually nodded. “Is your mother out in East Hampton alone?”

“Yeah. My dad’s working.”

“Is that typical—for her to go there alone?”

She shrugged. “Not typical, but, you know, my dad works pretty hard, trying to get his own firm off the ground. So she and I do our own thing sometimes. And lately she’s been more on her own. I didn’t know why until I found out how important this blog thing is to her. All these months, she’s been sneaking off to write.”

Ellie hadn’t thought of it when they’d been talking to George’s secretary about the alpacas, but she didn’t have the Langstons pegged as wealthy enough to own so much property. “Do you guys also have a place up in the country?” Ellie asked.

Ramona shook her head. “Just the apartment and the beach. Oh, and yeah, my dad has that farm up in Pound Ridge, but it’s land he bought with some friends right out of law school. It’s more of an investment.”

“A real working ranch, huh?”

“Yeah. Cattle and alpacas, even. They hire local guys to do all the work, but I think my dad likes the idea of being a weekend cowboy.”

“How about you? Are you infected with the country bug?”

“No way. My mom says I’d hate it. There’s nothing to do, and the house is barely even a house. More like a cave for my dad and his friends to play poker twice a year and pretend they’re still twenty years old. She’s only been there, like, twice. I’ve never even bothered.”

“Never?”

She shook her head.

“I hear you.” The picture of Julia in the country was taking on new meaning. Maybe a few of the secretaries at his former law firm weren’t the only girls who saw an appealing side to George. “The Hamptons sound much nicer. Hopefully, your dad at least got to take some time off work to go with you and your mom last weekend?”

“Yeah. Well, the first part, at least. He went back on Saturday night.”

Rogan gave Ellie a small nod. It was J. J. Rogan code for nicely done. They were just about done here.

“Do you mind if I use the bathroom before we head out?”

As the elevator doors closed, Ellie studied Casey and Ramona, standing side by side at the apartment entrance. Casey had that same adoring look he’d had on his face whenever he had talked about Ramona. And, contrary to what they had been told by Brandon and Vonda, Ramona no longer seemed oblivious to Casey’s attention. She leaned slightly in toward him. She seemed comfortable with his hand on her back.

Ellie found herself wishing—for their sakes—that the world was less complicated.

“You took long enough in the bathroom,” Rogan said. “I was running my mouth so long I wound up telling that Casey kid to sue the hell out of Bill Whitmire. Meanwhile, you were off violating the Fourth Amendment, weren’t you?”

“It’s not like I tore their bedroom apart or anything.” Like most police, they both knew the difference between a little shortcut and the kind of screw-up that led to evidence getting thrown out of court. “I got a list of all the incoming phone numbers on their caller ID. Way faster than the phone company.” She waved her notebook proudly.

“Damn. I hope you can read your own handwriting, because that looks like chicken scratch to me.”

“Sorry, wrong number.” She dialed while Rogan drove. “That was Duane Reade.”

“Sorry, wrong number.” She ended yet another call. “Hair salon.”

“Sorry, wrong number. Some place called Marea?” It sounded familiar.

“Restaurant,” he said. “Central Park South.”

“Ah, right.” One meal probably cost more than her entire month’s take-out budget. “Yes, hello. I’m sorry. What business did I call? . . . Attorney at law? . . . Yes, can you tell me why someone from this number may have called George Langston last Thursday?”

Rogan shook his head. They both knew there was no way a receptionist would answer that question.

“All right. Well, I assume Mr. Wiles does some kind of drug or medical malpractice type of litigation?” It wouldn’t be unusual for a lawyer to call Langston at home.

“Exclusively? Okay. Thank you very much.”

Not the pharmacist or the hair salon or a fancy-pants restaurant. Not even an adversary on a pending case.

“That was the law office of Mr. Michael Wiles, Esquire, Attorney at Law.” She mimicked the receptionist’s professionally pleasant voice.

“Esquire, Attorney at Law? Isn’t that redundant?”

“Yes, but here’s the excellent part. This particular Esquire, Attorney at Law, practices nothing but family law. We suspected Julia might have an older man in her life. Now we find out George Langston has a private little alpaca ranch—and now maybe a divorce lawyer?”

“Everyone seems to agree Julia was sexually adventurous. What did that teacher say about wanting men who were off limits? Can’t get much more forbidden than your best friend’s sort-of-handsome but rigid and inaccessible dad. It would certainly explain why Julia didn’t tell Ramona who she was dating.”

“It could also explain the threats on Adrienne’s website.”

“Well, only the first one, right? Maybe George found out about Adrienne’s blog and told Julia. In a fit of jealousy, she posts a late-night comment, just to fuck with her. But then who’s messing with Adrienne now?”

“Maybe status-conscious George doesn’t want her writing about her background—her trashy family, her abuse, the fact that she was a babysitter before she was Mrs. George Langston. He could have been the one to post the first threat, too, using Julia’s computer. He wasn’t in East Hampton that weekend, after all.”

Rogan pointed a finger at her. “Aha! You’re starting to think we’re actually on to something.”

“Maybe,” she said grudgingly. Her cell phone buzzed in her hand. “Hatcher.”

“Hey, Ellie Belly. It’s M and M.”

Michael Ma was by far the nicest analyst in the entire NYPD. He also liked nicknames. And cookies. Three Christmas Eves earlier, Ellie had passed off a dozen Bouchon Bakery nutter-butters as her own home-baked recipe to persuade Mike to stay late to compare a latent pulled from a stolen handgun to Ellie’s favorite suspect. One of these days he’d figure out that he, too, could score a handmade nutter-butter for two-twenty-five a pop at the Time Warner Center. Until then, Mike was Ellie Belly’s go-to guy for a lab rush.

“I got seven latents off that shoe box. Five of them belonged to your vic and her daughter. And two come back to the same guy: James Grisco, DOB March 13, 1972.”

“Any chance he’s the doorman who handed them the package?”

“Park Avenue address? I don’t think they hire murderers as doormen.”

“Grisco has a murder conviction?”

“Served fifteen years. Got out two months ago.”

“Cool. Anything else?”

“I’m just the print guy. You guys figure out what it all means. And bring the cookies.”

“Will do, Double-M. This Friday at the latest. I promise.” She ended the call before he could argue about the timing. “If George Langston is Adrienne’s ‘secret admirer,’ we may have found the guy who can help us prove it.”