The Wrong Girl

26

Jane watched the elevator doors close, wiping away the last glimpse of Jake-he might have winked, but she couldn’t be sure. He’d acted out text me, though. Of that she was certain.

Still.

“Grrr.” She said it aloud. Jake was upstairs getting all those confidential files from Maggie, exactly the ones Jane needed, exactly the ones Jane would never have access to. Even if she made a formal public records request, Family Services legally had ten days to answer her. Even then, they’d deny the request. Kids were kids, foster care was confidential, and the privacy exemption to the Public Records Law ensured the records were beyond sealed. To her. Not to the cops. Not to Jake. Grr.

She should call Alex. Give him an update. Jane scrabbled in her tote bag for her phone, resolving, again, to return it to the special phone pocket so it didn’t always get swallowed in the black hole.

One message, the green indicator said: 1:04 P.M. No wonder she was starving again. No wonder the lobby was full. Lunch hour must be over. A clump of slush-covered workers waited in the ragged security line, peeling off dripping parkas and snow-flecked mufflers, stuffing them into beige bins on a puddled conveyor belt.

She pressed play, held the phone to her ear, clamping it between her cheek and shoulder while she tied her belted coat. The ceiling-high plate glass windows in the front lobby of the DFS building misted with damp, and in the swirl of snowflakes outside on the concrete plaza, a bronze statue of Alexander Graham Bell wore a blanket of Boston white. Grim, gray, and brutally cold. Gloves. She yanked one from each coat pocket.

The message clicked on.

“Jane? It’s me, Tuck. Call me. Right now. I’m serious.”

Tuck. She felt guilty, sort of, about running out on their meeting. Holding one glove, she pulled on the other with her teeth so she could still hold her cell and hit “call back” with her bare thumb. Tuck answered before the phone even finished ringing.

“Listen, Jane. I got a call from Ella Gavin. She’s completely freaking out. She says the police were at the Brannigan today, because-”

Jane stopped in her tracks, the other glove dropping to the floor. A businessman in a soggy trench coat almost ran into her, banging his heavy black briefcase against her leg.

“Oh, sorry,” she said. Ow. She picked up the now water-stained glove from the damp stone. The police? Were at the Brannigan? “But what do-?”

Tuck interrupted. “Listen, okay? Ella says the police were at the Brannigan because someone there died.”

“Died?” Was this why Jake looked so dumbfounded when she mentioned the Brannigan? Only one thing “died” meant in Jake’s world. “What do you mean, died?”

“Ella Gavin says her boss, Lillian Fitch, I think, turned up dead. And here’s the thing. She’s the one who told Ella I was Audrey Rose Beerman. She’s the one who told Ella to send me to Carlyn Beerman. She’s the one who wrecked my life.”

Jane stared at the floor. Trying to process. Tuck only cared about Tuck, what else is new. But Jake cared about…

“So now we’re never gonna know what happened,” Tuck was saying. “Ella was going to help me try to figure it all out, but this Fitch person is the only one who-”

“Tuck, what do you mean, died? Did she have a heart attack? A car accident?”

Tuck was silent for a beat. “Well, shit. I don’t know,” she said. “Ella didn’t say, and I didn’t ask. Some reporter I am. Was.”

“Was Detective Brogan one of the cops who came to the Brannigan?”

“Why would Jake go to the-?” Tuck stopped, mid-question. “Oh.”

“Yeah,” Jane said.

A murder at the Brannigan. At the Brannigan? Well, at least of a Brannigan employee. The one who’d possibly made a potentially embarrassing and reputation-ruining mistake. Still, who would commit murder over that?

“Tuck? Does Carlyn Beerman know they sent her the wrong girl?”

DeLuca, on maybe the day’s fifth cup of coffee, leaned against the pitted concrete wall of the courthouse lobby while Jake punched in numbers on his cell phone. The closed double doors to Courtroom 1 towered on one side of them, on the other were doors marked Courtroom 2, propped open with a phone book. A couple of guys, witnesses awaiting call probably, fidgeted in their new-looking suits on a pockmarked wooden bench. The rent-a-cop manning the metal detector leaned against a stack of black plastic bins, reading a magazine.

“Curtis James Ricker?” Jake said into the phone. He’d gotten Brianna Tillson’s sleazeball ex-husband’s address easily enough from his probation officer here at Dorchester District Court, a dismal scumbag magnet known as the Dot. The Dot’s offices were closing early on account of snow. But Jake and D still had time to make the call before the place went dark.

“This is the state unemployment office, sir,” Jake lied. It was poetic justice to be conning a con artist. “We’re calling about your unclaimed benefits?”

Guys like Ricker were always on the take. The kind who’d buy lottery tickets, convinced each time it was their turn to win. Convinced the world owed them. Jake hoped Ricker’s greed would trump any potential suspicion about this call.

“We have to confirm your status, sir, from your file. You are no longer married to a Bry-anna,” Jake intentionally mispronounced the name, “Tillson? Divorced, let’s see, nine years ago? Okay, correct, that’s what our records show. And-what?”

Jake smiled as Ricker fished for details about his “benefits.” This guy was hook and line already. According to Maggie at DFS, Tillson had dumped her no-account husband years ago. The state had cleared Brianna to be a foster parent, Maggie explained, as long as he was out of the picture. Sadly-for Brianna and her foster kids-it seemed Ricker hadn’t been clear on the rules.

“Sir, your benefits are retroactive according to the regulations recently promulgated by the state legislature, as I am sure you are aware.” He read aloud Ricker’s Social Security number. “If that is your correct social, you are potentially due a considerable reimbursement resulting from the state’s miscalculations about your history. Can you describe your current employment situation?”

Ricker was buying the phony benefits story even more easily than Jake had hoped. He began a whining recitation of his “situation,” with himself as the put-upon victim of bureaucracy and mismanagement. By this time tomorrow, if he had half a brain, Ricker would be talking only to his lawyer.

It was gonna be a domestic, after all. After they collared this guy, they could refocus on Lillian Finch, whose body was now in Kat McMahan’s custody.

Officers Hennessey and Kurtz had reported no valuables had been stolen from Tillson’s or Finch’s house. They agreed no crazed killer or burglary thing was going on. Each case was individual. That meant in each case it was all about motive.

What a bitch being assigned two murders at the same time. Budget cuts, the Supe had explained. As if that made it doable.

Luckily, it was looking like Tillson would be easy.

Finch was tougher. Jake needed to get to her files, check out her house. Who’d hate a middle-aged middle-income adoption agency employee enough to kill her like that? A financial advisor, playing fast and lose with her investments? Maybe Ms. Finch had discovered it? But then Jake and D would, too. A relative disappointed with a change in the victim’s will? In that case, all the suspects’ names would be conveniently listed in probate court. Maybe it was someone unhappy about an adoption.

Tuck?

Sleeping pills pointed to a female killer. Smothering, not so much.

Not Tuck.

Shit. If the Supe wanted quicker answers, he’d have to hire more cops.

Ricker’s whine seemed to be winding down.

Jake interrupted, impatient to reel this guy in.

“Now, finally, sir? For security purposes, to prevent the possible exposure of your Social Security number and potential theft from your mailbox, we cannot use the U.S. Mail to deliver your reimbursement. You must be at home to receive it in person. You understand it’s for your security and your protection.”

Ricker knew about theft from mailboxes, since that’s what he’d been nailed for ten years ago. Gotta love it. Mr. Ricker was about to enter the criminal justice system once again. He wouldn’t get out so fast this time. First degree premeditated murder carried life without parole.

“Well, as it happens, sir, yes, we do have a courier.” Jake gave D a thumbs-up. “If you’re home, we can have the money delivered to you today. Yes? Let me double-check your address? Excellent. Mr. Emerson and Mr. Hawthorne will be at your home shortly. You’ll need to show them a photo ID. Happy to be of service.”

He clicked off the cell phone, tucked it into his pocket.

“You were a lit major, right?” DeLuca tossed his coffee cup into an overflowing metal basket. It teetered, then stayed. “Guess Mr. Ricker missed that day.”

“Yup,” Jake said.

“Moron.”

“We going there now?” DeLuca buttoned his navy pea jacket and slammed a knit cap on his head. “Snowing like a-”

“You know…” Jake started to run his jacket zipper up and down, then stopped. “Maybe Ricker called nine-one-one.”

DeLuca nodded, heading toward the front door. “Good thought.”

“Maybe he’s the one who took the baby.” Jake fell into step beside him.

DeLuca scowled. “Geez Louise. The baby thing again. I keep telling you. A person could have a cradle, a million reasons why. There’s no report of a baby, Harvard. You watch too much TV. There’s no missing baby.”

“No, I don’t. And there could be.” Jake held the heavy glass door open, gesturing his partner though. Wet snow pelted them as they headed down the broad courthouse steps, the steep concrete already accumulating a layer of slush. “And if there is, where’s that baby now?”