Truth Be Told

46

Reporters don’t cry, not ever, not in public at least, that was a sacrosanct tenet of objective journalism. Jane had never felt so close to breaking the rules.

“Are you sure?” was all she could come up with. She’d felt the blood drain from her face as Jake related the details, the row of onlookers across the narrow street now a sea of colors blurred by her welling tears. The crickets had started, a raggedy underscore of chirping, accompanied by the low buzz of the crowd and the hum of the idling ambulance. Jake hadn’t been inside yet, but too impatient to wait any longer, Jane had come to the porch, pressing for details. Now she almost wished she didn’t know. “Elizabeth McDivitt? Is-was-her name?”

“You know her?”

Jake was frowning at her. She didn’t blame him. This whole thing was suddenly even more out of control than it had been five minutes before, when she secretly was convinced it was Peter Hardesty inside.

“Jane? I said Elizabeth McDivitt. Might have worked at A &A Bank?”

“Yeah.” Jane stared at the house, almost unseeing, trying to make heads or tails or anything that made sense. She’d been with Liz McDivitt this morning. Liz McDivitt. A conservatively blue-suited bank executive, fast-tracked, office and secretary, a job she seemed to enjoy. A person with some scruples-she’d tried to keep her customers’ names private. A person with a heart. She’d shown Jane that picture of her boyfriend. Jane let out a sigh. Now someone would have to tell him what happened, too. Whatever that was. But what was Liz McDivitt doing in a-the neighbor guy had said the house was vacant.

“Who lived here?” Jane said. TJ was still at her side, camera on his shoulder. “Do you know the”-how would she say this if the victim was a stranger?-“cause of death?”

“You didn’t answer me, Jane. Did you know her? Pretty intriguing that you’d show up at the scene of a-of someone you know. And turn off that camera. You can’t go with that name. Understand? Like I said. We’re still checking next of kin.”

Jake’s face had gone hard. She could tell he was deciding how to deal with her. She knew him well enough. How his chin came up when he was thinking, how his eyes narrowed, even how he took a step away from her. This wasn’t Jake and Jane. This was cop and reporter.

“Yes,” she said. “Well, ‘knew,’ maybe that’s not exactly the word.”

She signaled TJ with one finger again, cut the camera, adding a shrug and an eye roll to signal “it’s okay.” She knew TJ would never stop simply because a cop told him to, quite the opposite. Only Jane could give that order. But now it was more important to get information than to try to get Jake on camera. According to protocol, he wasn’t supposed to be talking to her, anyway. Possibly she shouldn’t be talking to him, either. They’d stepped up to the line so many times it was becoming harder and harder to gauge what was acceptable.

“I interviewed her,” Jane continued. “Met her for the first time, this morning. I was asking-”

“What? About what?” Jake was in full investigative mode, thumbing in notes on his BlackBerry. “Did she seem-worried? Did she say where she was going this evening? Did she say she was-”

“Sir?” A young cop tapped Jake on the arm, ripped a page from her little spiral notebook, handed it to him. “Um. NOK information, sir. I thought you’d want to-”

Next of kin, Jane knew. Liz’s family.

Jake took the paper, and Jane watched his expression change as he read whatever was there. “You sure?” Jake said. “This info is direct from the Supe?”

He steered the officer away from Jane, turning their backs, the two of them, heads together, conferring. Jane gave eavesdropping a valiant try, but failed.

Her phone buzzed in her back pocket, and she reached to grab it. Damn. Probably the city desk asking for updates. Which she should have already called in. Poor Liz McDivitt. What the hell was Liz doing here in the first place?

“We have company,” TJ said, pointing. Jane looked across the street as the Channel 3 news van pulled in.

“Damn,” Jane said. She hadn’t called the desk, and now their exclusive was about to disappear. She ignored the incoming call, figuring she’d pretend to be calling them first. She punched in the speed dial for the city desk, and all business, fed them the rundown in bullet points. Possible homicide, name, location. No ambulance or EMTs had emerged from the house yet, pretty clear indication someone was dead. Investigation underway.

“They haven’t notified her next of kin yet, so we can’t go with that name,” Jane told the desk guy. Ha. She’d done her job, called before they could call her. Another employment obstacle successfully avoided. “We can say-well, you know what to say. Channel 3 just showed up, more’s the pity, so if you want to post what we can on our breaking news site, that’d be good. More to come. ’Kay?”

She clicked off, watched some notebook-toting reporter she didn’t recognize lead her lumbering photographer to scout the bystanders. Jane would’ve worn flats to a scene like this, but that girl would learn. She didn’t miss TV. Not at all. Jane watched the blonde at work, almost unseeing, as she tried to sort out all she knew, tried to separate her sorrow and surprise from the rest of the story. Tried to stay objective. Tried to see the big picture.

Liz McDivitt. Bank employee, found in an empty house. Shandra Newbury, real estate broker, found dead in an empty house. Did the two victims know each other? Elliot Sandoval was under arrest for killing Shandra Newbury-but he sure as hell had an alibi for Liz McDivitt.

Did that matter? Did it mean the two were not connected? Did it prove-somehow-that Elliot Sandoval was innocent?

Jane grabbed her phone, punched in the website for the county registry of deeds, looked up the records for the house where Liz was found. And there it was-proof the neighbor she’d interviewed had it right. Sixteen Kenilworth was sold in foreclosure. Just like the house on Waverly Road. It was impossible to read the entire series of ownership transfer documents on her phone. Blurred images of already blurred copies partially displayed on a tiny cell phone screen were making her eyes cross-but she’d make a printout as soon as she got back to the Register.

If it mattered. Lots of houses were in foreclosure. But in the past week, police found murder victims inside two of them.

Different banks, though. Did that matter? Maybe it had nothing to do with foreclosure. Maybe they were simply empty houses. After all, what better place to kill someone?

Jane stood on the flagstone path, staring at the vacant home. A trio of moths fluttered around the glass panels of the brass porch lamp, frantic, unable to resist the lure of the light. Their tiny shadows danced on the white vinyl siding.

She tried to lose herself in the story, envision what might have happened, make a mental movie of it, watch it unfold. Liz walking up the path to the porch. Arriving at the door, the porch light-had it been on then? Translucent curtains cover the window. Liz can’t see inside, even hours earlier in daylight. Was someone already there, waiting? For her? The door opens.

Why would Liz have gone in? Was she meeting someone? Who? Who had the key? Liz? Or the “someone”? Liz was in love, that was clear at the interview. But murders weren’t about love. They were about hate. Or fear. Or power.

Did someone hate Liz McDivitt? Or fear her? Or need to control her? Or was she in simply the wrong place at the wrong time?

The front door of the house opened, Jake came back onto the porch. The young officer, arms folded in front of her chest, appeared a shoulder width behind him. Jane signaled TJ, finally, twirled a finger in the “roll tape” sign.

But Jake went back inside. What the hell was going on? Jane shrugged, waved TJ off. The TV blonde was still working the crowd, hadn’t even approached the porch to check with the cops. Poor thing. The eleven o’clock news was looming. Jane felt that deadline, after all these years, without even checking her watch.

But for Jane, this night was about Liz McDivitt.

Jane sighed, trapped where she was until Jake emerged again. It wasn’t her job to solve this crime, of course, but she couldn’t resist. This was more than a news story. Liz McDivitt was someone she knew. It felt almost like her responsibility.

More frustrating, if she told Victoria Marcotte about the connection, would she be yanked from this story, too? But Liz had been Chrystal Peralta’s source.

Maybe Liz hadn’t been killed here. Maybe that happened somewhere else, and the bad guy stashed her in this empty house, figuring no one would ever go inside. How would they know that? Who would have a key? Maybe no one had a key. Maybe, realizing the house was vacant, they’d broken in. Broken in? She nodded, envisioning how that could have worked, and all the evidence it would’ve left behind. Jake would know. And he could tell her.

Jane flipped through her notebook, checking for anything, anything, from Liz she might have missed.

Then she saw them.

The names of McDivitt’s clients, the names Liz had tried so diligently to protect, the names that Jane had already matched to phone numbers. And addresses. She ran a finger down the list, wondering if-no. None of them matched Kenilworth. Or Waverly. So much for that idea.

Still. Maybe the list was not worthless. If she were doing a story on Liz McDivitt, these names now provided instant interview prospects. Too late to call them now, but tomorrow she’d have a head start on everyone.

The door opened again. She watched Jake survey the street in front of him, one hand shading his eyes. He batted something away, probably one of the moths, its mothy plans disturbed by the lights and the people and the intrusion.

“I’m with you, moth,” Jane muttered. Not how she’d envisioned this evening, either.

Jake’s eyes locked on hers. He raised a palm, beckoned her toward him.

Finally. Now she’d get some answers.