The Wrong Girl

52

“Is Carlyn Beerman related to Snow White?” Jane buzzed down her window, looking at the shingled cottage with the white gingerbread shutters. She’d parked on the side of the winding road near the white-posted mailbox marked 4102 North Ritter Lane. A wreath of greenery entwined with tiny red berries decorated the bright yellow front door, and a redwood birdfeeder on a metal pole twittered with starlings and fluttering sparrows.

“I know. Kind of Disney,” Tuck said. “She didn’t seem so-whatever this is-when we met at that hotel. I’d pictured a condo. Maybe a cat. Oh. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.”

“Thanks. Least she’s not, you know, the evil one. Not in a middle-of-nowhere Hallmark card like this. But there’s no car in the driveway.”

“So what? There’s a garage.”

“Hey.” Jane pointed to one of the curtained front windows. “Curtain moved. Second from the left. Someone’s inside.”

As they watched, the curtain was pulled pack, and a woman’s face, barely visible, peeked out.

“That’s her.” Tuck unsnapped her seat belt, clicked open the car door. “You ready? We’re doing this.”

“I don’t care that your computer went down last night.” Jake couldn’t believe they were giving him such a hard time. “You’re the assessor’s office. I did mention this is Detective Brogan, Boston PD, correct? Happy to send a couple of uniforms over to pull the info, of course, but I figured you might prefer to do it this way… Sure. Delighted to hold.”

D had swerved the cruiser into a no-standing spot in front of All Saints Church, where Niall Brannigan’s funeral was scheduled to begin in fifteen minutes. Their neighborhood canvass resulted in absolute zero. Lots of nobody-homes. Nobody admitted to recognizing Niall Brannigan. A few were maybes on the green car. “I might have seen it” was about as specific as anyone got. No times or dates.

According to Kurtz, who alleged she had asked but “forgot to write it down,” Brannigan’s wife, Ardith, had no idea why her husband would have been on Margolin Street Monday night.

“She told me her husband was always off somewhere, that he never told her where,” Kurtz had reported when Jake called. “Said she’d ‘given up’ asking.”

“You set?” DeLuca unclicked his seat belt, drained the last of his coffee, tossed the empty cup onto the floor of the backseat.

“I’m still on hold with City Hall,” Jake said. “But what about the wife? Do we maybe like her for it? What she told Kurtz sounds like there was trouble in the Brannigan marriage. Right? ‘Always off somewhere’ and ‘given up asking’ is pretty much wife shorthand for a lying husband. Maybe Ardith killed Lillian.”

DeLuca nodded, considering. “I hear ya.”

“Okay. Say Brannigan is having an affair with Lillian Finch. The wife suspects.”

“So Ardith kills Lillian. Then, after Brannigan himself has a fortuitous heart attack, somewhere, the wife drives her dead husband to the love shack and leaves the body. And takes his keys. And where does she go, then?” D spun out a theory. “Pretty elaborate. I’ve seen weirder, sure. Still. Unlikely.”

“Yeah. But Brannigan had to be going there.” Jake heard the sound change on the cell phone, and raised a palm to put D on hold. “Yes, I’ll keep waiting. Okay, D, how about-what?”

“Well, maybe it’s not suicide. Maybe Brannigan offed Lillian Finch. For some reason? Even-an affair gone sour.” DeLuca pointed at Jake. “Hey. What if he was going to retrieve evidence? Then discovered the place was sealed, thwarting his plans, and then he had a heart attack.”

“Thwarting,” Jake said. “Good one. That works, except for the mud thing. And the missing key thing. Sure would be helpful to know how Lillian Finch died. Confirm it’s a suicide or not. Can’t you push your Kat on those tox screens?”

“She’s not ‘my’ Kat,” DeLuca said. “Tox screens take weeks, you know that.”

“Okay, yes, I’m here.” Jake told the voice on the phone. “And have been, for-Yes, I have a pen.”

Jake listened as the clerk at City Hall read him the ownership information for 343 Edgeworth Street, Curtis Ricker’s house.

“Well, now.” Jake clicked off the phone. Things were looking up.

“Funeral’s about to start.” D opened his door, looked at Jake. “What?”

“D? Guess who owns the duplex Curtis Ricker’s renting?”

“What is this, Jeopardy!?”

“Leonard Perl.”

“Leonard-”

“Perl. The absentee landlord who also owns Brianna Tillson’s building. The one who never called us back. The one from Fort Something, Florida, according to the crime scene cleanup-”

Jake stopped, mid-sentence. He stared out the windshield.

“Earth to Jake?”

“Hang on,” Jake held up a palm. “Hang on. I’ve gotta think for a minute.”

Jake watched the line of mourners, heads down, bundled in hats and scarves and heavy coats, filing along the sidewalk and up the broad front steps of All Saints. The winter sun glistened on the damp sidewalks and curbs, clumps of snow blowing down from tree branches once lined with white. All Saints’ celebrated carillon invited the mourners to “Abide with Me.”

A young woman, frizzy red hair, hunched into her coat and walking by herself. A tweed-coated tall guy in horn rims, escorting an elegant white-haired woman wrapped in a black fringed shawl and wearing a black veil. Could she be Ardith Brannigan, the wife? Jake didn’t relish approaching her.

The parade of mourners blurred as Jake stared past it all, now almost unseeing, envisioning the kitchen floor of Callaberry Street, the voice in the hallway, the request for the Afterwards crew to start their crime scene cleanup. And the puzzle pieces fell into place.

“Close your door,” Jake said. “Start the car. We’re gonna miss this funeral. Because someone else is about to get-”

“Detective Brogan, this is base,” a voice crackled over Jake’s radio. “Do you copy? What’s your twenty?”

“Copy.” Jake looked at D, inquiring. D shrugged. “Twenty” was shorthand leftover from the old days of police ten codes. A new dispatcher would have said, What’s your location? Jake imagined he could hear some kind of stress in dispatch’s voice, though they were trained to hide it.

“Harrison Street, two blocks from HQ,” Jake said.

“You’re needed at this location, Detective,” the dispatcher said. “Now.”

“At Lillian Finch’s house?” Ella struggled to understand what Wendy Nunziatta was telling her. Seated next to each other in one of All Saints’ carved wooden pews, the two had piled their coats and scarves beside them. Ella had barely made it home in time, racing into the shower, throwing on a black dress with only a little bit of cat hair on it. She pulled her cardigan close. No one would care how she looked.

Wendy worked in Collins Munson’s office at the Brannigan, and Ella was glad to have someone to sit with. Wendy was a yakker, kind of a gossip, everyone knew that, but in this case, what she was saying sounded interesting. In the front pew, Ardith Brannigan-Ella could see only the back of her black suit jacket, the black lace veil covering her silvery hair, and a white-gloved hand-accepted the condolences of a line of mourners.

Ella kept her voice low. Watched to make sure no one else was listening. “The police found Mr. Brannigan’s body at Ms. Finch’s house?”

“Yes.” Wendy covered her mouth with one hand, and leaned in closer to Ella, whispering. “Well, not in her house, of course, it was all locked up by the cops. But he was in his car. Outside her house. Across the street. And now, according to-well, anyway-now, the police are trying to figure out why he was there.”

“He was there, really?” Ella was having a hard time processing this. Niall Brannigan at Lillian Finch’s house? She was dead. Ella murmured, so only Wendy could hear. “But he had a heart attack, right? Oh, sorry.”

A couple Ella didn’t recognize edged in front of them in the pew, the woman’s paisley shawl dragging over Ella’s lap. Ella scooched against the back of the pew, pressing her knees to one side, until the couple finally settled in their seats.

“Well, he was there. That’s all I know. Can you believe it?” Wendy pulled a Kleenex from a little woven pouch, then unwrapped a yellow hard candy and popped it into her mouth. “So sad.”

Ella thought about how devoted Ms. Finch was to Mr. Brannigan. But after she died, he’d asked for the records on her last round of calls. Why? Ella, of course, had never actually delivered them because of-what happened. What if Mr. B. suspected Ms. Finch was sending people the wrong children? And feared she was putting his agency in legal jeopardy?

Or, wait. Ella picked up a leather-bound prayer book from the back of the pew in front of her and pretended to study a random page. She’d pretty much convinced herself Lillian Finch had committed suicide after she realized she’d made a mistake. But what if Mr. Brannigan had been the one in the wrong? And Ms. Finch threatened to tell what he had done?

“Do they know how Ms. Finch died?” Ella had to ask.

“No.” Wendy leaned in again, so close that Ella could smell butterscotch. “How weird is this, you know? Mr. Brannigan. Before that, just two days before, Ms. Finch. I actually think it’s a little scary.”

“Do you know if the police think they’re…” Ella began.

“Shh.” Wendy put a finger to her lips, frowning. “It’s starting. Hey. Sit down. Where’re you going?”

“I’ll be right back.” Ella put the prayer book on the pew to save her spot. She might regret this, but she might regret it more if she didn’t. “I have to make a phone call.”