The Other Woman

48

Jake stared at the crime scene. Sun glint on the water, rocky shoreline, office buildings, bridge. No footprints, no evidence, no nothing. Murk and obscurity. Just like this case. Silent ripples lapped close to his boots, then slid away into the depths of Fort Point Channel. The ME’s office had long since taken away her body, whoever she was. Victim four. “Fort Point,” Jake would call her, until she had a name. He patted his pockets for his gloves. Cold by the water. Colder in it.

He swiveled his head, scouting. Perhaps not the wisest move, strategically, for him and DeLuca to leave Vick and company mid-interview, but there was no alternative. And if Patti was telling the truth, Vick had a pretty damn good alibi for this killing. A birthday party, for chrissake. Someone else had killed victim four. Whoever she was.

If she worked at Beacon Market, though, all bets were off.

The yellow crime-scene tape cordoned off the Monday-morning lookies who pointed, gawking, over the railing from the bridge above. The post office parking lot was already filled with side-by-side news vans and satellite trucks and hovering reporters. He’d nearly decked that Channel 11 chick who ventured down here, ducking in under the tape in those rubber boots, all hairspray and lipstick and ridiculous questions. Jane would never have… He checked his watch. Half an hour till the damn news conference. Why the supe decided to hold it at the post office-

“Harvard, you there?” DeLuca’s voice came over his two-way radio.

“I hear you,” Jake said, punching the Talk button. “Whatcha got? You up in the parking lot?”

“Ten-four. Supe just got the sketch of number four. Wants you to see it before he hands it out.”

“Copy that,” Jake said. So now she would have a face. It was his job to find the someone, somewhere, who would recognize her. He looked again at the water, at the shoreline, at the buildings lining both sides of the channel. Hotels, offices, the museum, studios in the boho-chic Fort Point Channel artists district. Studios. He blinked in the late-morning sunshine, a memory punching its way to the surface.

Where is Patti Vick’s studio? In Fort Point? Could be Arthur Vick’s alibi wasn’t so airtight. His wife kept insisting he was “with me,” but had she said they were at home? Not last night. Jake clicked on his BlackBerry, checking his notes.

Exactly. She’d said-the birthday party was at the studio. What’s more, Sellica’s body had been found, what, three blocks closer to the harbor from here? Down by the Federal Courthouse. What if Patti Vick’s studio was around here? What if Vick used it to shoot those commercials, luring in women, then killing them?

Okay, seemed like he hadn’t killed Kylie Howarth. But maybe she, the first victim, was the outlier. Maybe Vick killed Amaryllis Roldan, and Sellica, and now this one. What if there was a Bridge Killer? Dammit. What if it was Arthur Vick? What if he had three victims, not four?

And Jake and DeLuca had just left Vick in some lawyer’s office.

“Shit,” he said.

“You ever been married, Miss Ryland? Divorced?” Maitland reared back in his chair, crossing one ankle over a knee. The hem of his jacket, still draped over his chair, touched the coffee-spotted carpeting.

Jane blinked, taken aback. “What difference does that make?”

Maitland scratched his head, as if pondering a baffling dilemma. “Precisely my point. Maybe I should know that about you, your past, your marital status, before I go talking to you. Maybe it makes you-I don’t know. Biased. You think?”

“Don’t be silly, Mr. Maitland.” Jane smiled, humoring him. “That’s irrelevant. But it is relevant for Owen Lassiter. Will it matter to voters? Who knows. But they need to decide. Not you.”

“And I suppose you’re the one anointed to tell ’em? You and your newspaper?”

“Why not just tell me the truth?” Jane said. “If you don’t, you certainly must be aware, it’s going to appear there’s some big secret.”

She leaned forward, half-serious. “Is there some big secret?”

“You reporters are all alike, you know that?” Maitland clanked his chair to the floor, got to his feet. Stabbed a forefinger toward the office door. “You see some ex-wife beating down my door to make trouble for the governor? When Owen announced, it got big national coverage. Everybody and his brother knew about it, the entire country. Don’t you think if there was something ‘unacceptable’ in Owen’s past, some mistake, some skeleton, some ex-wife wouldn’t have already made that pretty darn public?”

“I’m looking for the truth,” Jane said. She watched Maitland’s face harden, his ears turn red. Good. The higher the bluster, the more possibility of a big story. In her tote bag, her phone was ringing again. Damn. Not now.

“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.”