The Wrong Girl

55

“Is this day almost over?”

Jake needed another coffee, a couple thousand aspirin, a beer. And a vacation. Instead, he and DeLuca once again trudged up the front path of 343B Edgeworth Street, where Curtis Ricker used to live, trying to clean up someone else’s mess. Or maybe it was Jake’s own mess. Jake arrested Ricker for murder, and less than twenty-four hours later, Ricker was dead. Jake couldn’t shake the guilt.

“He must have done something, you know?” DeLuca crumpled his coffee cup, looked around as they walked, stuffed it into his jacket pocket. “An innocent guy doesn’t do what he did. Set himself up to get shot.”

He must have done something. Jake hated that. A cop’s excuse for a bad collar. But in this case, he had to agree. Or was he rationalizing? Letting himself off the hook for what happened in the garage? Hennessey. What an asshole.

Kurtz had been given compassionate leave, and was already on her way to her mother’s on the South Shore. Covered in grease and soggy with basement grit, she’d clamped on her filthy hat and insisted to the Supe that she was fine, all set to go back on duty. The Supe ordered the rookie home, accompanied by an officer from Human Resources. They’d investigate her botched handling of the prisoner transport later.

Hennessey, all bluster and conquest, was in the hands of Internal Affairs. His weapon confiscated. His life on hold while IA investigated the shooting. “Moron deserved it,” Hennessey’d bellowed as two blue-suited IAs escorted him from the basement. “It was righteous.”

Curtis Ricker was in the morgue. But Kat McMahan didn’t have to make any decisions about his cause of death. Ten cops had watched him die.

“Jake.” DeLuca clamped a hand on Jake’s shoulder, stopping him just before they got to the front steps. Withdrew it, as if caught in a too-emotional gesture.

Jake had to smile. D was a good guy. Trying to help.

“Yeah?”

“It wasn’t your fault. Ricker. Hennessey lost it, no question, he’ll fry. Deserves it. The asshole. But you held it together. You did good. Ricker’d grabbed Kurtz. That’s a life sentence. He could have killed her. Would have. You saved her.”

Jake saw it again, the moment Kurtz ducked and rolled, the flash of relief, this worked. And then, from behind him, the shot. He’d looked at his own weapon for a weird twist of a second, wondering, Did I…? But he knew he hadn’t. The whole thing should never have happened.

“I appreciate it, D. Thanks. Now let’s see if we can find some next-of-kin information and get the hell out of here,” Jake said. “The DA’s deciding what to do about the Tillson murder case now that the guy we arrested for it is dead. We arrest someone else? Defense attorney’ll have a field day. Talk about reasonable doubt. No way anyone’ll be convicted of it. We better hope Ricker was guilty.”

“Or that someone confesses,” D said.

“Oh, yeah. That’s gonna happen.” This sucked beyond belief. Jake hadn’t been certain of Ricker’s guilt. As it turned out, the arrest had been Ricker’s death sentence. What’s more, if the real killer-the real killer?-was still out there, he was gonna walk.

They climbed the front steps to the wooden porch. No one had moved the soggy phone books. Water-soaked newspapers in yellow plastic bags still lay scattered in wet patches across the double-wide porch, like someone had gone on vacation and forgotten to stop delivery. Two rusty rectangular mailboxes, lids open, were attached to the dirt-streaked siding.

“He’s got mail,” DeLuca said. “Huh. Some in the ‘A’ mailbox, too.”

Jake shrugged, patted his pockets for the key to 343B. All of Ricker’s effects were in lockup, so they’d signed out the key. They still didn’t have the damn cell phone. Why had Ricker dunked it into the water? Not that it mattered at this point.

Jake slid the key into the front door, twisted it. D lagged behind.

“Ah,” D said.

“What?” Jake paused in the open door. “Hey. You can’t look at the mail, bro. It’s a federal-”

DeLuca handed him a white envelope.

“So arrest me,” D said. “But first, look at this. Electric bill. From the other side’s mailbox. Not Ricker’s.”

“Even worse,” Jake said.

“Jake.” DeLuca gave him a full-out eye roll. “Look at the damn letter. The letter to the empty side of the house.”

Jake took the envelope. Whatever. Addressed to-“Leonard Perl?”

“How about them apples,” DeLuca said.

“So what? Maybe he gets the bills. He’s the landlord. We know th-” Jake stopped. Held up a hand. “D. You hear that?”

He stared at the closed front door of the vacant apartment A. Looked at the open door of Ricker’s unoccupied apartment B. Late afternoon in a seedy neighborhood, darkness just beginning to gather. Streetlights not on yet, evening gloom creeping into the day. Not a car on the street. Not a light in a neighboring window. Deserted.

“Hear what?”

“Shh. Listen.”

The silence was so profound, the very air was buzzing with it. With Ricker gone, there was no more Allman Brothers, no more pounding bass guitars. Maybe Jake had been mistaken. Maybe the sound had come from a neighbor’s radio. Or someone’s TV. Now, there was quiet.

“Never m-” Jake took a step into the apartment. And then, he heard it again.

D’s head came up, his eyes wide. “Shit.”

Jake nodded, trying to keep his balance. His phone rang, the sharp trill breaking the silence. He slammed it off.

“It’s a…,” DeLuca whispered.

“Baby.” Jake pointed to the vacant apartment. “In there.”

Dammit, Jake, where are you? Jane heard her call go to voice mail. What was she supposed to do now?

She propped her elbows on Carlyn’s pristine kitchen counter, rested her head in her hands. Trying to think. Another phone call. “Tuck, tell Carlyn about it, okay? I have to decide what to do.”

Jane vaguely heard Tuck’s explanation-phone call, tailgating pickup truck, open apartment door, missing cat-watched Carlyn open the refrigerator, felt Tuck’s hand on her back.

“You okay, Jane? That was Jake you just called, I hope,” Tuck murmured.

There was no time to be coy. Jake was the police. And she needed the police. “Yeah. It went to voice mail.”

Jane stared out the window. Not another house in sight. The rutted road, twisty and remote. Just three women in a little cottage. Had someone followed her here? Someone in a pickup truck?

Where were they waiting? And why?