Truth Be Told

38

“You look terrible.”

“Thanks, Mom. Always a treat to see you, too.” Jake leaned in and gave his mother a quick kiss as she let him into the foyer of their Back Bay brownstone. Two-forty-three Marlborough Street, circa 1860, where Jake grew up, was an elegant sliver of history fronted by an ancient dogwood and a tiny emerald patch of front lawn. He heard a woof from somewhere in the back of the house, Diva probably so comfortable on the elaborate dog bed Mom kept in the mud room that the pooch decided it wasn’t necessary to get up. Jake had half an hour before he was due at Arsenault’s house in Southie. Just enough time to check in on Diva-and on Grandpa’s files in the basement.

“Coffee?” she said. “Did you have breakfast? I can get Mrs. Bailey to make-”

“I’m great, Mom.” Diva finally deigned to greet him, her plumy tail signaling her affection. A great dog, but how the hell had he figured he could take care of her with his unpredictable schedule? Diva turned her attention to his mother, snuffling at the pockets of her turquoise linen tunic.

“Are you giving her treats?” Jake asked. Diva had clearly worked some kind of magic on his usually fastidious mother. A few years ago at the animal shelter, the golden pup used the same tactics on him.

“It’s our house,” his mother said. Diva chomped, devouring some sort of dog treat in two retriever bites, then turned to Jake, luminous eyes begging for more. “I can do what I want for our guests. And Diva can stay as long as she likes. Now. To what do I owe this visit, kiddo?”

“Business. Grandpa’s files, downstairs.” Jake scratched Diva behind her ears. “Stay here, pooch.”

“What files?” His mother followed him to the basement door, Diva right behind.

“Lilac Sunday,” Jake said. He put his hand on the light switch at the top of the stairs. “If I can find them.”

His mother frowned. “Sweetheart, is that really necessary? You know how your grandfather-”

“It’s a cop thing, Mom.” He leaned in, kissed her on the cheek. And a Brogan thing. “Don’t worry.”

Jake flipped on the light and closed the door behind him, down the splintery wooden stairs, smelling the dank earth and cool brick walls. Even when the day was blazing hot, the basement was always like another world. Jake had taken books and flashlights down here as a kid, hidden in his special dark corner reading Justice League of America comics, or pretended to be tracking down clues to the escaped bad guys, who were often found-after Jake’s superpower detective skills were unleashed-hiding behind the washing machine.

Now the basement served as a cedar closet for Jake’s mother’s out-of-season clothing, one rack of clear-boxed shoes lining a side wall. Skis, golf clubs, and tennis rackets were stacked along another, but the back corner stayed pristine, reserved for a pair of battered black file cabinets, full of folders Jake’s grandfather brought from the old police station on Clarendon Street. That building was now a chic hotel, housing a hip restaurant called Verdict.

While he was alive, Grandpa kept the file cabinet locked. Years after his funeral, newly-minted cop Jake decided he could look inside. He’d taken the oath, after all, so there could be no more secrets. Although Jake never articulated it to anyone, looking at the files, just looking at them, seemed a way to connect with his grandfather. The commissioner never got to see Jake awarded his badge or receive his ticket to the Homicide squad. Jake always regretted that.

Jake pulled out the rickety file drawers once again, this time with a purpose. He heard the faintest of squeaks, felt a tug of hesitation from the seldom-disturbed metal. Grandpa’s rows of manila file folders appeared, the paper now softened by the damp, edges fluting. The labels on each one, handwritten in fountain pen, had blurred with the passage of time, faded into the otherworldliness of forgotten paperwork. These were Grandpa’s personal case notes and newspaper clippings, the equivalent of a scrapbook, Jake realized.

Jake kept notes, too, on his BlackBerry. His clippings existed only in the newspaper’s online archive, where Jake could click on them if he wanted to, though he never had. If Jake’s own son, someday, were to wonder what his father thought, or did, or how he solved his cases-there’d be no basement files to visit.

He drew in a breath, the fragrance of old paper, onionskin, and carbon copies. He recognized his grandfather’s handwriting. Damn. The files had case numbers or some kind of numerical designation, not the names of defendants or victims.

Jake stared at the rows of numbers, fighting impatience. The system had to be decipherable, maybe even easily so. Case numbers, he knew, began with dates.

The Lilac Sunday killing was 1994, twenty years ago. Jake looked for a label number beginning with “94,” but there were none. So they weren’t filed by the official police case designation. Grandpa retired soon after, so maybe the case file would be near the front. One of the more recent ones.

“Or maybe all the way at the back,” Jake said out loud.

Jake sighed, smiling, as if he could feel his grandfather challenging him to solve a personal mystery. If worse came to worst, he could pull out each file, one at a time. A pain, but eventually he would succeed. He looked at his watch-no time right now, Gramps. Gotta go see a guy about a guy.

Jake closed the file drawers, the slam echoing off the brick walls and the mechanism clicking back into place. He’d come back tonight. He wasn’t even certain there’d be anything revealed in the files. But a good detective doesn’t need to be certain at the beginning. He just needs to be certain at the end.

Jane Ryland seemed nice enough, Lizzie decided, watching the woman take careful notes in a spiral notebook, checking and rechecking the spellings of the names Lizzie gave her. Iantosca, Rutherford, Detwyler. Of course her “customers” would talk only about the personal service they were getting at A &A, never about the “problems” at the bank, or the “mistakes” in their mortgages. Liz had warned them on day one never to discuss the particulars of their mortgage situations. Hadn’t she? Maybe not, not specifically, now that she thought of it. Watching Jane and gauging the reporter’s intent, warning them again began to seem prudent.

“Jane? Before you contact these people, I’ll need to notify them,” Lizzie said. “Reassure them the bank isn’t giving out personal information. I know you’re exclusively interviewing them about customer service-” She paused. She wasn’t used to dealing with reporters, but had so enjoyed her time with Chrystal, maybe she’d forgotten to be wary. Of course the bank PR guy had approved the interview. Colin Ackerman was always out to get good press for A &A, but he’d warned her not to divulge confidential information. Were the names themselves confidential? Maybe she should check.

“Please don’t ask them about their personal financial situations, Jane. I’m trusting you here, right?”

“Sure,” Jane said.

The reporter smiled, again, she seemed agreeable, but then Lizzie had heard about reporters, and how a good reporter could also be a good liar. That’s how they got stories, her father had warned her as a kid. Half the time they make stuff up. She could almost hear him say it. “Never trust a reporter.”

“I understand about the privacy thing,” Jane was saying, turned a page in her notebook, continued to write. “Iantosca. O-S-C-A? Correct? But no problem. I get the parameters.”

Lizzie felt a little creep of regret march up her spine, hand in hand with suspicions about Jane and her reporter ilk. She’d already given names to Chrystal, so she couldn’t ungive them, and now she’d confirmed them with Jane, but she had a growing uncomfortable feeling. What if they told her more than they should?

“Jane? Sorry to do this to you, but let’s hold off.”

“Off?” Jane stopped writing, the red ball point poised over her notebook.

“Yeah. Off.” Lizzie stood, fingertips on her desk, then sat down again. In her haste to make the bank look good, and honestly, in her desire to make a name for herself and prove her “customer service” position was valuable and necessary, she might have crossed a line that could get her in trouble. Her in trouble, and the bank in trouble, in ways her father would never believe. Or understand. Now she had to make this go away. She wished life had an “undo” button, like her spreadsheets did.

“Under section four-oh-one point two of the in-house procedures section of the state-chartered banking regulations, I cannot give you access to bank customers without their direct and written permission,” Lizzie lied. There was no such regulation, but Jane would never know.

“The what?” Jane said.

“Yeah,” Lizzie said. “I forgot about that. Sorry. So how about this? If you’ll hold off until I give you a call tomorrow, I’ll-”

“Maybe you could do an on-camera interview instead?” Jane’s face changed, her initial obvious annoyance vanishing as she made the request. “Today? I hoped to follow up with the customers and all, but if you could see your way to an on-camera interview, maybe I wouldn’t have to call them at all.”

Did she trust Jane? “I’d have to get permission for that,” Lizzie said. This whole thing might be so out of control it couldn’t be reversed. And it was Lizzie’s fault.

This had all been designed to engender good publicity for the bank. It was part of her job to reach out to the public, so she had to reach. When Ackerman called her to set up the Chrystal interview, how could she say no? How had it gone so wrong so quickly? That was an easy one. Because Lizzie had a secret. Or two.

Aaron had already texted her, three times, just saying “lata,” the signal they’d agreed on last night to confirm they’d see each other later. Maybe tonight she should talk to him about this. Maybe not. She’d have to decide.

“Like I said…” Lizzie sat down, trying to use her body language to illustrate the decision was final. Decided it would look more final if she stood. “Please hold off on calling any of those customers until I give permission. As for the on-camera interview, I’ll let you know.”

“But-” Jane was standing now, too. She didn’t look happy, or as personable as she did before.

Lizzie leaned to her intercom, buzzed for Stephanie. What were secretaries for, after all, but to get rid of people you didn’t want to talk to? “Stephanie? Can you show Miss Ryland to the elevator?”