Truth Be Told

12

“I am so sorry for your loss,” Jake said. “Let me assure you, sir, we’re focused on finding who killed Shandra. As much as you are.” Jake had shown his gold badge and creds to Brian Turiello, the office manager of Mornay and Weldon Realty, at the door of their South Boston office. It had taken Jake about thirty seconds on the M &W website to pick out the postage-stamp-sized business portrait of a much more alive Shandra Newbury. At least Jake didn’t have to show the guy the crime scene photos. That was never pleasant. Not that murder was ever pleasant.

They were in Turiello’s corner office, the walls patchworked with engraved plaques and awards and photos of Turiello smiling next to other white guys in suits. A gold shovel, attached to the wall by two metal brackets, had the place of honor. A man who knew his place in the world. On the golf course, if Jake read it right. Now his world had been shaken a little. More than a little.

“She was an up-and-comer.” Turiello lowered himself into a padded swivel chair, his navy blazer flapping open, elbows on the glass-topped desk. He wore a lapel pin like Shandra’s. He looked over Jake’s shoulder, narrowing his eyes at the open doorway to his office. Jake had seen it a million times, the victim’s acquaintances not really believing the person was dead. Almost expecting them to come through the door. “Such a talented agent. Aggressive. But smart-aggressive. Always out getting new listings. She loves-loved-the business.”

Jake nodded, allowing Turiello to process the bad news. The problem with law enforcement, there was no time for grief. Jake’s job was about moving fast. Carefully, but fast. Grief took time. It was a balance.

Jake waited. Sometimes you had to wait. The air conditioner kicked on.

“Where did it happen?” Turiello finally asked.

“Forty-two Waverly Road.” Did Turiello know the place? Jake could imagine it, this semi-good-looking-Jake checked the man’s ring finger-not married, real estate mogul type, meets the up-and-coming wannabe, they tangle, she refuses, he lets her have it. An accident, maybe. It could happen.

Jake waited.

“It was my fault.” Turiello looked out the window at a T bus chugging by.

“Fault?” Jake had grabbed a little spiral notebook from his desk at HQ. He often used his cell phone to take notes, but here it seemed disrespectful. Now, while Turiello wasn’t looking, he flipped the notebook open, found a blank page. “Fault” was an odd word. This was a big day for confessions. “Sir?”

“I’d put her in charge of our foreclosures. That’s why she was there.” Turiello talked out the widow, shrugging. Turned back to Jake. “Not my fault, I suppose. Not really. There was nothing that should have been… untoward about that site visit. Standard.”

“Anyone go with her?” Jake asked.

“Not that I know of.”

“Was she meeting someone?” Jake stood, pointed toward a bullpen of desks and telephones in the front of the office space, empty. He checked his watch. After six. No employees or colleagues here to give him any answers. “Which was her desk? Does she have a computer? We’ll need to look at that. And sir? Do you recognize the name Sandoval? Elliot Sandoval?”

Turiello stood, running two fingers down the front of his elaborate tie, a grid of red houses on a navy background. “She does have a computer, but it’s password protected. Has to be, all that personal information we gather and process. Financials, mortgage application, credit referrals. We’ll have to get our IT guy get into it.”

“Thanks,” Jake said. Easy. They’d find her clients, find who she’d planned to meet this morning, or last night-and case closed. He could get back to Nate Frasca and Lilac Sunday. “Her appointment book as well, sir.”

Turiello still fidgeted with his tie, opened the collar button. “Detective? I’m a branch. The big guys at headquarters call the shots.” He scratched at his neck, making thin red lines across this throat. “To give you open season on Shandra’s computer data and paper files? I’m not authorized to do that.”

Jake had a few choices. Push, which might be futile. Get a warrant, which would certainly take a while. Negotiate. Or a little of all three.

“I understand.” Jake waved his notebook at the phone. “Make your phone call, get the show on the road. Meanwhile, show me the details on the house at forty-two Waverly. That, at least, is public. Correct?”

Turiello didn’t look happy. But hey. It wasn’t a happy time. It was murder.

Time for the push. “I can get a warrant, of course. And will.” Jake smiled, barely. “But what if I were in the market for a house?”

He could almost see the office manger weighing the options. Looking out the window. Clearing his throat. Probably wishing all of this, including Jake, would vanish.

It wouldn’t.

“Yeah,” Jake said. “I know. So show me. For Shandra Newbury’s sake.”

“Bless you,” Jane said. She stopped at the opening to her cubicle, watching the woman at the other desk inside yank a tissue out of a flowered box and then sneeze again. “Are you sick?”

If Chrystal Peralta had a cold, Jane was seriously not going to sit down at her own desk. The fabric-walled cubicle they shared was crowded enough without adding cold germs. On a regular day Chrystal took up more than half the space, and it wasn’t just her hair. Chrystal’s side of the cube was practically a yard sale, a mishmash of promotional loot snagged from various feature stories she’d covered. Coffee mugs with bank logos, mouse pads with inspirational slogans. Access passes from junkets, meetings, and trade shows, each encased in shiny plastic and dangling from a slogan-bearing lanyard, dangled like holiday decorations from her half of the bulletin board. Every pen in her A &A Bank holder probably had someone’s company’s phone number on it.

Jane’s “half” of the bulletin board had a snapshot of a sunset in Nantucket, a souvenir from a political scandal she’d uncovered, and a goofy-toothed school picture of a little boy, now happily adopted, from her investigation on foster care. She’d saved a space for a new picture of a pink-sanded beach. A photo not yet taken.

Chrystal sneezed again.

“Sick? Big time.” Chrystal wadded a shredded mass of tissues and tossed them toward the tissue-filled wastebasket. Jane cringed, dodging. “I’m not contagious, though. Probably.”

If Chrystal was sick, Jane was bailing. She absolutely could not afford to be sick this weekend. No sneezing, no runny nose, no puffy eyes, no-she smiled at the mental picture-snoring. Jane backed into the hall. “I’ll work down in the conference room, okay? I only have fifteen minutes-fewer now, actually-to bang out this story.”

“It’s probably allergies,” Chrystal went on as if Jane hadn’t said anything.

“No, really. You stay here. Feel better.” Twelve minutes. Jane almost ran down the hall, yanked open the heavy glass conference room door, hit the mouse to wake up the computer on the mahogany table. Nothing. Tried it again. Nothing. On the fritz. Again?

Eleven minutes. Damn. She raced back to her own desk, swiveled into her chair, hit her own mouse. “Hey Chrystal, I’m back, gotta do this.”

Chrystal sneezed.

Maybe Jane could avoid breathing for the next ten minutes. She pulled up her story page, typed almost without thinking. Former owners of a now-foreclosed home in Hyde Park were shocked this afternoon when they were told police had discovered the body of a potential homicide victim in a second-floor bedroom.

The cursor blinked at her, taunting, as she tried to figure out what to say next. Victoria was insisting on a story about the Sandovals’ reaction, but they really hadn’t reacted. Two paragraphs, she told herself. Everything doesn’t have to be Pulitzer material. She dug into her bag, pulled out her notebook, flipped the pages.

“Damn,” she said.

“What?” Chrystal’s chair squeaked as she turned to her.

“Marcotte wants quotes, I got nothing.”

“Make something up,” Chrystal said.

“Right, great idea,” Jane said, cocked an eyebrow. “Sure would make life easier.” Back to the keyboard.

The Sandovals’ eviction was finalized last week, according to Suffolk County Registry of Deeds documents.

At least she had those.

Police say they have not identified the victim, nor has the medical examiner determined the cause of death.

The cursor blinked, silently demanding, as Jane struggled. Seconds ticked by. She grabbed her cell phone. Punched in a number. Prayed.

“Mr. Sandoval? This is Jane Ryland at the Register.” Thank goodness. He was home. She paused, knowing she had to be polite. She was on deadline, but she was asking about a murder. “Fine, and I’m so sorry to bother you, but I have to write my story about what happened this afternoon at your… on Waverly Road. And I wonder-”

Elliot Sandoval interrupted, talking faster than she’d ever heard him.

“What?” Jane said. “When? Then what?”

Sandoval answered, still at top speed.

“Mr. Sandoval? Sir?” Jane tucked the phone between her shoulder and cheek, and turned back to her computer keyboard. Sandoval barely took a breath between words. “Excuse me? Sir? Did they give you a name?”

Five minutes.

Plenty of time.