The Wrong Girl

28

“Finn!” No use. The wind and the honking cars and the hiss of the traffic carried her voice away from him. Jane plowed across the plaza, grateful for her chunky black turtleneck, even though it was quickly becoming a wet black turtleneck.

“Finn!” Her ankle twisted under her, the heel of her boot stuck in a now-invisible crack in the uneven concrete. She caught herself, one-handed, on the freezing metal of a bright blue mailbox. She paused, throat dry from the cold.

“Finn!”

He turned her way-yes-but didn’t seem to see her. She pushed off the mailbox and sprinted, as carefully as she could, toward the retreating figure. He was almost to the T entrance. Now or never. She stopped, made her hands into a megaphone, and gathered her voice. “Finn!”

He stopped. He turned.

She waved and trotted toward him, like it was perfectly natural for her to be outside at City Hall Plaza at three in the afternoon in a gathering snowstorm with no coat.

“I thought that was you.” She dragged in a ragged breath. “I was in the Kinsale, saw you through the window.”

“Jane Ryland?” Finn’s eyebrows approached his hat’s plastic band. “Whoa. I told everyone you were in our office today, talking to Maggie, so cool. They all wished they could have seen you in person. They said you work at the paper now, cool. Hey. Where’s your coat?”

“Oh, Finn. You are a lifesaver.” She hated to lie to him, or to anyone, but she needed this info. This was going to be a total seat-of-the-pants fast-talking fabrication. “I was calling my story in to the paper, the Callaberry Street incident? I was sitting at the counter, dictating to the news desk, and I realized-I never got the correct spelling of Bree’s last name. Maggie’s long gone to Anguilla, lucky girl, but that meant I had no one to call. I was going to be in so much trouble with my boss! Then I saw you, and I was so psyched to see you, I forgot my coat.”

She paused, wrapping her arms around herself, feeling the snow stacking up on her hair and shoulders. Her nose was probably bright red, and she could no longer feel the tips of her fingers.

“I bet you’re on your way to the train, Finn, I’m so sorry. But you’re the only one I can turn to. Is it B-r-e-e or B-r-i-e? And how do you spell her last name?”

“This oughta be good.” Jake and D tramped up the snow-sodden wooden steps of the Allston duplex. A narrow front porch displayed a collection of soggy newspapers, some still in their plastic bags, and a teetering stack of abandoned yellow phone books. Two battered metal mailboxes, open and empty, one with a peeling label that said CKER. Left side, 343A Edgeworth Street, was vacant, according to Sergeant Hirahara in Records. Right side, 343B Edgeworth Street, was occupied by a Curtis James Ricker. Who was right now expecting the prize patrol. Not realizing that he was the prize.

“Almost feel sorry for the guy.” DeLuca poked the grimy doorbell with one finger. “Almost.”

A muffled thumping came from inside, like feet hurrying down the steps from a second floor. Someone was playing music, loud.

“Almost,” Jake said. “Be great to get his cell phone, you know? We could find out if he used it to call 911.”

“I’ll snatch it,” D said. “You distract him.”

“Good plan. Then we’ll figure out who’s gonna distract the judge from the Fourth Amendment.”

The inside door, white, pockmarked, pulled open, and a lug of a guy appeared behind the cracked glass of the storm door. Flannel shirt, worn jeans, face creased and puffy, like an aging pale walnut wearing a baseball cap. No shoes.

Sex offender, Jake thought. Though he knew the guy wasn’t.

“Curtis James Ricker?” Jake used the voice he’d perfected in the phone call. He raised his voice over the music.

“Who’s asking?” The guy looked him up and down, assessing. “You Mr. Emerson?”

“Mr. Ricker?” Jake said, avoiding the question. Greed. The great convincer. “We do have something for you.”

“But we can’t hear you that well,” DeLuca said. “May we come in? Maybe turn down the, uh, Allmans?”

The living room smelled like beer and cat piss. This guy probably wouldn’t open a window till spring. An open can of Mountain Dew balanced on a stack of magazines next to a full ashtray. The biggest flat-screen TV Jake had seen in a long time flickered a muted hockey game. Ricker aimed a remote at a box of blinking lights and the decibel level went down, marginally. No place like home.

“So?” Ricker held out a wide flat palm, then stuffed his hand into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a thin leather wallet. He extracted a plastic card, held it in Jake’s direction. “I mean, here’s the photo ID you asked for. Take a seat, if you want.”

“No, thanks.” Jake took the ID, confirming that DOB and vital stats matched those in the probation records. Then he got an idea. Shit. A good idea.

“Mr. Ricker. One more question,” Jake said. “You have any… dependents? Or children?”

Ricker’s face hardened, assessing. “Why?”

“You do or you don’t,” DeLuca said.

“Forgive my colleague,” Jake said. “He’s binary.”

“Bi-?” Ricker looked at DeLuca.

DeLuca shrugged.

“Anyway, Mr. Ricker, I should have mentioned on the phone. If you have dependents, and we can locate them, your benefits might be increased.”

Could Phoebe and Phillip be Ricker’s children? Could he know about the baby? The Lussier name was a snag, but one step at a time. There had been no father’s name on the foster paperwork, but Gunnison had explained that was often murky.

Jake envisioned a boozy quarrel, or some beef about money. Whatever it was wound up with one dead wife on the kitchen floor and two kids in another room playing with teddy bears. And maybe a third kid.

“Dependents?” Ricker said.

Jake imagined the rest of the Callaberry scenario. In one ironic burst of fatherly instinct, Ricker had used his cell phone to call nine-one-one, anonymously reporting his own crime but protecting his children. Had he also grabbed Brianna’s purse and paperwork? Only someone familiar with her would know where she kept it.

Everything fit. If they could link Ricker to Brianna through the children, they’d have their domestic, exactly as he and DeLuca predicted. Ricker’s fingerprints were in the probation records. If the medical examiner or the crime scene techs came up with latents, they could compare them. They could order a paternity test and subpoena the cell phone, easy enough. They could compare Ricker’s blood with what Kat McMahan found on the kitchen floor. When they got it, this guy could go away for a long time.

But first they’d need probable cause. Jake checked Ricker for Band-Aids. None visible. They needed more evidence before they could call in the lab techs and order the noose-tightening tests.

“Yeah, dependents,” Jake said. “Children who might rely on you for support.”

Ricker seemed to be contemplating.

“Not that tough a question,” DeLuca said.

“No,” Ricker said. “No dependents.”

“Ah,” DeLuca said, sounding as disappointed as Jake felt.

Finding the truth is never easy, his Grandpa Brogan had warned him. But a good cop doesn’t need easy.

“One more thing, sir,” Jake said. “We have you as previously married to a Brianna Tillson. Who at one point filed a 209a against you?”

“Restraining order,” DeLuca said.

“Old news,” Ricker said. “Does that make a difference in-?”

“Last time you saw her was?” Jake risked pushing him a bit.

“Man, I don’t even remember. Listen, I gotta take a leak,” Ricker said, cocking his head toward the back. “Mind? You guys want some water or something?”

“No, thanks,” Jake said. “We’ll wait right here.” This guy was still expecting a windfall. He wasn’t going to bolt. Even though he’d made a quick exit after the mention of Brianna Tillson. As he left the room, Jake saw the outline of the cell phone in Ricker’s back pocket.

DeLuca jerked a thumb at it. “Bummer,” he muttered.

“You’re not half as bummed as this guy’s gonna be,” Jake said.

Curtis Ricker’s day was about to crash and burn.

Jane’s fingers were ice. But things were definitely looking up. Her hamburger had still been hot when she’d returned to the pub, and now, down the block, she could see there was no ticket on her car. Best of all, star-struck Finn had given Jane the victim’s name, Brianna Tillson. Of course he thought she already knew it. With that knowledge, any good reporter could dig up background, come up with a revealing personal profile and a headline story. Take that, layoffs.

Her cell buzzed somewhere deep in her purse.

Tuck?

Or Alex, wondering where she was. Giving him the scoop on Tillson would be fun.

She paused on the sidewalk, hunching her shoulders in the cold, rooted for her buzzing phone. Caller ID was blocked. She punched the green square with a bare finger.

“Hello?”

“Don’t even think about Brianna Tillson,” the voice said. “Let alone put her name in the paper. You saw what happened to her? You see the blood on the floor? Pretty terrible, huh? She didn’t know enough to shut up. You? I bet you do.”

“Who is this?” This was a pretty stupid move. The caller’s number would be right in her cell now. Findable. Traceable. Unless he-he?-had a burner phone. “Who are you calling?”

“Right.” The voice-a man? Finn? But he didn’t have her cell phone number-was hollow, muffled. “Forget about the murder. Got me? Say yes, and we’re done.”

A chill went up Jane’s back, colder than the darkening afternoon. She looked around, up into the fogged office windows, across the street at a silhouette in the front seat of an idling car, over at the straggle of pedestrians hurrying down Cambridge Street.

Every person she saw was on a cell phone.

Was one of them talking to her? Was there a way to tell? Here she had a-killer, maybe-on the phone. Area A-1 police station a block away. A slew of cops almost within yelling distance. Yet it didn’t make a bit of difference. The guy hangs up, the guy disappears.

“You know you’re talking to a reporter, right?” Her voice came out more confident than she felt. “Is there something you can tell me? I can keep it confidential. You know I can.”

“Confidential I don’t need. Quiet’s what I need. You. Keeping quiet.”

“Listen, I can help you make a deal.” Dammit. This was someone who knew about Brianna Tillson’s murder. How would he know to call her? Well, she’d written the bylined story for this morning’s paper. That narrowed it down to everyone who read the newspaper. Wonderful. “I know people in the po-”

“Police department?” A derisive laugh. “I. Don’t. Think. So. This is call number one, Jane. You don’t want me to call you twice.”