The Wrong Girl

51

Yes. She’d simply get in her car, and go.

Maybe.

Ella sat at her desk, her old desk, not ready to move her possessions into Lillian’s quite yet. It was unnerving that Lillian’s body was still at the Medical Examiner’s. Morgue. Ella closed her eyes to make the thought go away. According to office scuttlebutt, the police hadn’t decided if she’d committed suicide, or if her death was suspicious.

When Ella arrived at the Brannigan this morning, Wednesday, Lillian’s desk had been cleaned out. Nothing on the top, nothing in the drawers. The desk surface, gleaming, held a faint fragrance of lemon oil. Ella had predicted they’d take everything, and they had. The roses. The photos.

Knowing Lillian was dead was hard enough to accept. Seeing her possessions gone made it final.

She’d never be invited to tea at Lillian’s again. Never go inside that beautiful home. Wonder what would happen to all of Lillian’s crystal and china? Her silver? She had no family Ella knew of.

She stirred her pink ceramic mug of English Breakfast, then dunked the tea bag up and down. Up and down. Deciding. Should she go?

Her computer monitor showed a map, a green line highlighting the suggested route from the Brannigan to Norrisville, Connecticut. A red teardrop labeled “destination” marked 4102 North Ritter Lane. Carlyn Beerman’s house.

Driving time: two hours.

Collins Munson had offered her the day off, so if anyone asked she could say she came in and tried to work, but Munson was right, it was difficult and she needed more time. Yes. She’d go.

She hit “print,” listened to the whir as the map emerged from the printer along the wall. It was just after nine. Maybe she should…

Ella eyed her desk phone, then the manila file open on her desk. She chewed her bottom lip, considering.

Before she could decide not to, she dialed, listened as the phone rang. The Brannigan’s phones all had caller-ID blocked, of course, no problem there.

“Carlyn Beerman,” a voice said.

The woman sounded annoyed. Snippy. Maybe Carlyn was having a bad day.

“Who is this?” the voice said. “Why do you keep calling me?”

“Oh.” Ella had forgotten she was going to hang up. “Uh, wrong number.”

She clicked the receiver back into place. The map lay in the printer bin. All she had to do was…

A knock at her door, and before she could say anything, it swung open. Grace O’Connor, dressed up in a black suit with a ruffled blouse, kept one hand on the doorknob.

“I saw you were here,” she said. “I thought you might-”

Ella stood up so quickly her desk chair tipped backward. It paused a fraction of a second, then crashed onto the floor.

“Oh, gosh.” Grace hurried across the room, helping Ella right it. “Are you okay?”

“Oh, sure, yes.” Ella tried to think. “It always does that.”

“Shall I get your printing?” Grace gestured a hand toward the printer.

“No, no, it’s fine,” Ella brushed past her, grabbed the map to Carlyn Beerman’s home and folded it in half, hiding the directions. Whew. “You look nice.”

“Well, the funeral. Mr. Brannigan’s. That’s why I came in. I thought you might need a ride.” Grace eyed Ella’s everyday skirt and cardigan, then pushed back the silky ruffle at her wrist and checked her watch. “Didn’t anyone tell you? Ardith Brannigan set it for today. Ten thirty. At All Saints.”

Ella slid two fingers along the fold of the map, then creased it again.

“I’m going to run home and change, that’s what I planned,” Ella lied. There would be no trip to Connecticut today. Her questions for Carlyn Beerman would have to wait. She smiled, trying to convey sorrow and authority. “I’ll see you there.”

“He wouldn’t have been coming here, that’s the one thing we know.” Jake ran a finger down the strip of the yellow tape sealing the perimeter of Lillian Finch’s front door. “Lillian Finch was dead, been dead for about two days when Niall Brannigan arrived. The back door’s taped up now, too. So no way was he inside this house.”

“True,” DeLuca said. “Seems like.”

Jake turned, looked out over the tree-lined Margolin Street, mostly empty front porches and empty driveways, each house with one blue and one green plastic trash bin wheeled to the sidewalk, waiting for the morning pickup. Each house with a shoveled front walk, concrete or flagstone or pavers, lined with browned grass and muddy flowerbeds. Was Niall Brannigan dragged down along one of them? Which one? “So. Police 101. His car was parked across the street. Who saw it?”

“The what’s-her-name woman, funny hat, remember? Any leads there?”

Jake pulled out his BlackBerry, following DeLuca’s gaze. “Dolly Richards. Hennessey and Kurtz say not. Their report says they hit every door half a block up, half a block back, and got zippo. According to their canvass yesterday P.M, no residents knew Niall Brannigan, no one’s positive they’d ever seen his car here before. So if you believe the Kurtz and Hennessey version of the world, we’re-”

“Screwed.”

“Yeah.” Jake ran the zipper of his jacket up and down, thinking. “The only logical reason Niall Brannigan would have come to Margolin Street is to see Lillian Finch-someone he knew wasn’t home. And to go inside a place he couldn’t possibly enter.”

“Even if for some reason he had a key, right? The place is sealed.”

Keys. Which only reminded Jake of the arrest of Curtis Ricker and the woodshed meeting in the Supe’s office that morning. First Jake had to admit he was iffy on the Ricker arrest, not the best beginning to an already inauspicious morning. After that, the Supe read them the riot act about the Brannigan thing, wondering why he and D hadn’t spotted the telltale mud pattern on the vic’s pants. A damn good question, and Jake didn’t exactly want to face the answer. What’s more, the mud evidence turned a natural into a potential homicide, and made Jake’s workload nearly impossible. Tillson. Finch. Brannigan. The baby. Even though no one else thought there was a baby.

And Jane.

Jake didn’t need easy. But he wouldn’t mind trying it about now.

“Yeah. The whole thing sucks.” Keys. “Okay. The keys. Niall Brannigan didn’t have any keys. No car keys, no house keys. Those keys are somewhere. Wherever he’d been. We have to canvass again.”

D took out his spiral notebook, flipped to a new page. “I live for door to doors, you know that.”

“You take this side, I’ll take that side.” Jake ignored D’s sarcasm, pointing his BlackBerry toward the cul de sac, then toward the cross street. They had no time. “You got a photo? There’s an hour before Brannigan’s funeral. That’s one hour to find out where the hell Niall Brannigan was going, and why. And some kind of a lead on who dragged him to his car.”

“That’s why we get the big police bucks,” DeLuca said. “Just another morning in paradise, redoing what Frick and Frack allegedly did already. Followed by a funeral.”

“Hang on.” Jake scanned the case notes Kurtz and Hennessey compiled, searching for a question and answer he’d realized was not there.

“You got to be kidding me,” Jake said. “Did those two bozos ever think to just ask Brannigan’s wife where he was going?”