The Wrong Girl

50

“Hector Underhill, please. Skim milk, please.” Jane held her cell phone tight to her ear, talking to the Register’s receptionist and the barista behind the Lavazza counter at the same time. The turnpike rest stop smelled like fried everything with bleach on top. Glaring fluorescents colored it floor to ceiling in unnatural blue-white. Tuck headed for the twenty-four-hour mini-mart, insisting she needed to stock up on Swedish fish and corn nuts. Disgusting. Jane was sticking with lattes. Especially this morning, running on empty. Three hours of sleep. Four, max. “Yes, please, extra-large. Yes, I’ll hold.”

The Register’s annoying hold “entertainment” played a recording of the morning’s headlines. “MBTA officials fear rate hikes as deficits mount” and “City Hall bigwigs charged with computer fraud in growing scandal.” Wonder who’d scored the City Hall story? Some lucky duck certain to stay employed. Someone who wasn’t banished.

“Also this morning, the Register reports police have made an arrest in the Sunday afternoon murder of a still-unidentified Callaberry Street resident. The woman was found dead in her kitchen on…”

“Ma’am?” The barista held out a steaming paper cup. Her fingernails were polished purple, and her black T-shirt was XS when it should have been M. “Ma’am?”

“One second,” Jane mouthed. She held up a finger, pointed to her phone, wincing. She hated to be rude, but she needed to hear. “So sorry.”

“Boston Police confirm the arrest of one Cur-,” the recording continued.

“Ma’am? You’ll need to take your drink, ma’am.” The barista’s voice grew louder, more insistent. Jane heard an elaborately weary sigh from the woman behind her in line.

“In other news,” the recorded voice went on, “the Boston Celtics…”

A human voice interrupted. “Hector Underhill is on another call right now, would you like to leave a message? Or hold?”

“Thanks. I’ll hold.” Jamming the cell phone between her cheek and shoulder, Jane accepted the almost too-hot-to-hold latte, defeated. She grabbed two napkins, wrapping the brown paper layers around the steaming cup. Maybe the newsstand past the McDonald’s still had this morning’s paper? Still, reading it would only increase her depression. The police made an arrest in Callaberry. She’d missed the whole thing.

Shit.

She headed for the newsstand, phone clamped to her ear, waiting for Hec, stewing. This sucked. It blew her scoop on the Brianna Tillson reveal, since the moment they got to court the cops would provide the name of the victim. All would be public.

So much for that.

But. On the other hand.

Jane stopped. Stood up straight, realizing her new reality. A good reality. A flame-haired woman toting a matching puppy and trailing two flame-haired kids bumped her, jostling her latte.

“Sorry, honey.” The woman gestured at her entourage in explanation. “Kids, you know?”

“Soda!” one child whined.

“Bafroom!” said the other.

Jane moved out of their way, slurping up the foam that had sloshed through the opening in the plastic lid. The hold recording began the news cycle again. Maybe this time she’d at least get the name of the suspect. See if it was someone she’d interviewed that day. Where the heck was Hec? She smiled. She must be even more tired than she thought.

Thing was. She took another sip. If they’d arrested the bad guy, then whoever was warning her to stay away from the story-that was over now. Wasn’t it? The bad guy-whoever they’d arrested and she could find out by reading the paper-was surely the one who’d threatened her.

She nodded, agreeing with herself. That meant the murder suspect wouldn’t be phoning her again, or tailgating her in a black pickup truck this morning, or breaking into her apartment. Yay, Jake.

But wait. Why hadn’t Jake told her about the arrest? Okay, easy one. Maybe, when he was reassuring her that she was under surveillance, the arrest hadn’t happened yet. She reached the newsstand. Wonder who’d written the story? If Hec ever came to the phone, he could give her the scoop.

“Hey, kiddo. Want a fish?” Tuck had her own cell phone in one hand. With the other she held out a cellophane bag of red gummies.

“Oh, hey, Tuck, no thanks, I-Oh. Hello? Hec? Yeah. It’s Jane Ryland. I’m calling about the photos. The ones we took on Callaberry Street? I was thinking-”

And like that, poof, her great idea went down the drain. Even if Hec had the digital card with the photos taken during their door-to-door, it didn’t matter. The police made an arrest. Every reporter on the planet would get shots of the suspect in a perp walk or the courtroom.

Tuck bit off a red tail, waved the rest of the gummy fish at her. “What’s wrong, Jane?”

Jane held up a hand. Hec’s voice in one ear, Tuck’s in the other, and it all ran together in a big tangle of failure. The Tillson story was over. There wouldn’t be any flashy Jane Ryland bylines. She might be safe at home, so that was a relief, but at the Register she was back to square one. That was not a good thing.

“Hec, never mind,” Jane said. “Keep the pictures, though, okay? You never know when-”

She paused as Hec interrupted her. “Well, I’m actually in the fabulous Natick rest stop, on the Mass Pike. With-did you ever meet Tucker Cameron? We’re driving out to Connecticut to-well, anyway. But about the Tillson case. Who’d the police arrest?”

“Jane?” Tuck was holding up her cell phone, shaking it back and forth. “Carlyn Beerman’s at home. We should go. Jane? I don’t like to interrupt, but-”

The flame-haired family exploded out of the bathroom door, the little girl wailing as her brother ran after the mop-tailed puppy that was now on the loose, snaking a pink leash across the rest stop’s dingy floor, yapping.

“Grab her, Allan! Grab her!” the mother shrieked.

“Sorry, Hec, I didn’t hear you.” Jane gestured to Tuck with her latte, trying to telegraph I can’t hear both of you at the same time.

“Jane.” Tuck held up her phone again, waving it at her.

Tuck’s phone was turned off, the screen obviously black, so what was Jane supposed to see? Hec was saying he had no idea about the arrest, but Tuck was so insistent she could barely understand him.

“We have to go, Jane.” Tuck stuffed the Swedish fish into her tote bag, then the phone. “Now.”

“Hec? I have to call you back. If you get the scoop, call me. Thanks, dude.” Jane clicked off, then trotted after Tuck, already headed for the door.

“What the hey, Tuck? I was on the phone.”

“I’m really sorry.” Tuck pushed through the glass door. “But I thought about what you said, about not knowing if she was home? Carlyn? So I called, and she answered.”

“What’d you say?” Jane, pushing through behind Tuck, raised her voice to be heard. They headed to Jane’s car.

“I hung up. But at least we know she’s home now, so we should hurry.”

Jane clicked open the car. “Hung up?”

“They told me she was my mother, you know?” Tuck looked at Jane over the roof of the Audi, then slid into the passenger seat.

“But you’re pretty sure she isn’t.” Jane put on her seat belt, turned the ignition, shifted into reverse.

Tuck stared straight ahead. “Right. So now I’ve got to tell her. That I’m a lie. That what she was told is not true. I suddenly-couldn’t do it. It didn’t seem right.”

Jane had to agree. “Yeah. I guess it’s not something you could say over the phone from a turnpike rest stop.”

“Exactly. I can’t explain how happy she was to see me that first time. She said she’d thought about me every day. Missed me, every day. I kept envisioning her face, looking at me with that… love. So I just hung up.” Tuck sighed. “So. Drive. Let’s go. Do this. Get this the hell over with. Then we’re going to find out exactly why this happened. To both of us.”