The Wrong Girl

9

Jane’s voice. Downstairs. Though Jake couldn’t make out the words, he recognized it. Arguing with Hennessey-that much he could make out through the open apartment door, probably trying to convince him to let her upstairs to the crime scene. Which she knew, and Hennessey knew she knew, wouldn’t happen. Though that would never stop Jane from giving it her best shot.

Jake smiled, imagining that tilt of her hips in those ratty jeans she loved, the way she planted her fists on her waist when she was trying to make a point, how she was just the right amount shorter than he was. How terrific she smelled. What was she doing here? He yanked on his jacket zipper, then tried to focus on what Kat McMahan was saying.

“In summary, preliminary findings pending autopsy indicate subdural hematoma, suggesting intracranial bleeding, severe concentric damage to the right occipital cranium originating in a stellate fracture.” McMahan held a tiny silver recorder to her lips. She’d unbuttoned her white lab coat, revealing a black I HEART L.A. T-shirt underneath. “Suspected massive blunt trauma. Severe lacerations to the upper right forehead, evidence of protracted external bleeding. Why? No obvious defensive wounds, fingers are…”

McMahan stopped, crouched, then encircled one of the woman’s wrists with a gloved thumb and forefinger, leaving the victim’s pale hand dangling. “… undamaged. No bleeding of the cuticles, no broken fingernails. Place of death, kitchen, is heated and all windows are closed.”

She looked up at DeLuca, narrowing her eyes. “Hey. You guys didn’t close the…”

“No, sir. Ma’am. Doctor,” DeLuca said.

“Kat,” she said.

“We didn’t touch a thing,” DeLuca continued. “It’s exactly like it was when we arrived. Kat.”

Jake couldn’t believe it. Jane downstairs. DeLuca up here. Never a dull moment. He should have gone into finance with his dad, or law school, like his mother always pressured him to. Did Jane know he was here? Jake half-listened for her footsteps on the stairs.

“Time of death approximately one P.M.” McMahan sniffed, nostrils flaring. “Odor of-unknown. No signs of other injury, no broken bones, no external sign of drug use, no…” She hesitated, tilting her head, staring. She seemed to forget anyone was in the room except for her and the dead woman.

DeLuca, on the other hand, seemed to forget about the dead woman, his eyes only on the ME.

“You two see anything? Find anything?” McMahan stood, holding her latex-gloved thumb over a red button on the recorder, pausing it and her examination. “Murder weapon, I mean? Like a…” Using the recorder like a pointer, she traced the shape of the wound, as if reminding herself. “Maybe a…”

DeLuca cleared his throat. “Oh, no, ma’am. Not SOP. We were waiting for you before we-”

“Like maybe a what?” Jake interrupted. Jeez. A dead woman on the floor and DeLuca was sucking up.

McMahan shrugged and buttoned the recorder into a side pocket of her lab coat. “I want to say… frying pan, but that’s too cliché. No one has a rolling pin anymore, right? I mean, for what?”

“Detectives?” A voice from the hallway. Not Hennessey. Not Jane.

“Headquarters to Brogan, do you copy?” Jake’s beeping radio interrupted whoever spoke from the hall. He gestured DeLuca to the door, check it out, then thumbed the talk button. “Dispatch? This is Brogan, I copy.”

“Supe requesting a call, please, Detective,” the dispatcher said.

Kat McMahan crouched again, examining the woman’s bare feet.

“Jake?” DeLuca was already back. “Afterwards is here.”

McMahan looked up from the feet. “Afterwards?”

“Crime scene cleanup company,” Jake explained.

“Detective Brogan, do you copy?” The dispatcher’s voice crackled through the room. “Superintendent Rivera is standing by for your call.”

“That’s efficient,” McMahan said. “Too efficient. They always show up like this? Kinda soon. Kinda crowded in here about now.”

“Copy,” Jake said into his radio. “Will do. And-”

“They’re telling me the landlord called, Jake,” DeLuca said. “Says he told ’em to start with-”

“Negative. Big time,” McMahan interrupted, talking over him. “My crime scene guys aren’t even here yet.”

Jake held up a hand. “Tell Afterwards to go the frick away. Someone will alert them when they’re needed. And tell them-wait a sec. They say the landlord gave them the go-ahead? Great. Ask the Afterwards people who the hell the landlord is. Get his number, then call and find out who this tenant is. Mystery solved, right?”

That had been a pitiful waste of time. The cop, Hennessey, hadn’t given Jane the time of day, no matter what she tried. Worse, she already knew the time of day, which grew later and later as she learned less and less about whatever happened upstairs.

She trudged toward the Explorer, feet freezing, fingers freezing, regrouping. Jake was upstairs. With numbing fingers, she found the cell phone in the pocket of her black parka, flipping it over and over in the silky lining. She was a reporter, he was a cop. Should she text him?

If they weren’t trying to keep up appearances she’d have called him, probably a couple of times by now, as she would any other source. But now, she couldn’t. The wages of deception.

Now, she had nothing. Usually there were neighbors, onlookers, sniffing around, some spotlight-seekers hoping to be interviewed. At this point, she’d be happy with a victim’s name and a couple of those generic “seemed like a quiet family” or “they loved their kids” pseudo-comments. Today all the easy pickings were probably peering out their front windows, curious, but staying warm. Inside.

Jane sighed. Time to knock on some doors. Never the best idea, especially not after dark in an unfamiliar neighborhood. Sure, knocking on the right door could get her some info. Knocking on the wrong door could get her in trouble. But a deadline was a deadline, and hers was a quickly evaporating one hour away.

“Whatcha got?” Hec leaned against the car, waiting for her, arms crossed over his array of cameras. “I shot a couple exteriors, nothing exciting. That cop at the door, wide, medium. Nothing that’ll win us a Pulitzer. Or get us a front page. Any ideas?”

The ME’s white van was parked in front of a fire hydrant a few yards away. That at least confirmed there was a victim, one who was probably dead. Someone had cleared the snow from the hydrant, but whoever got out of the van on the passenger side had stepped right into a knee-high pile of slush.

“Let’s look for a person with wet shoes,” Jane said. “Hey. Check out the vans.”

One after the other, the side doors of the multicolored news vans clanged open, the vans looking like circus clown cars as they disgorged neon-jacketed reporters, photographers lugging cameras with unwieldy tripods, and engineers with clackety metal light stands tucked under their arms and rolls of cable coiled over their shoulders.

“Grab your stuff, Hec.” Jane pointed to the vans, all doors now flapping open, their glaring spotlights aimed at 56 Callaberry. “They’re raising their microwave antennas. Reporters are actually coming outside. Damn. Something’s up. Why didn’t we know whatever this is?”

Her cell phone trilled. Was it Jake? Maybe that Hennessey cop had ratted her out, not knowing he’d actually be telling Jake she was here. She dug for the phone. Not Jake. Alex. He’d better be giving her info, not asking what was going on. Because she had no idea. This would have been a good day to stay home.

Too late now. “Hey, Alex. What’s up? We’re-”

“You set for the news conference?” Alex was talking before she finished. “You probably got this, but the BPD flack called. Says the body’s on the third floor, cops are coming outside with a statement. That’ll be a new top for your story.”

A silhouette appeared behind the crime scene tape at the open front door of the murder house.

She’d recognize that shape anywhere.

“On it, Alex,” she said.