Truth Be Told

67

“I kept wondering, where was Peter?” Jane watched out the windshield of Jake’s cruiser, relieved to be a pretend-cop in the front seat, now that she was safe. And Jake was safe. “Sandoval had told me Peter would be there, but he wasn’t. I knew there was something off. And then-MaryLou. She’s the one who clinched it for me. Brian? Paying the legal bills? Why? She knew, huh? That her husband had killed Shandra?”

Jake stopped at the light, no emergency now, and she tried to read his expression. Relief? Surprise? Affection? Maybe all of those.

She reached over and took his hand. “Hope there’s no surveillance cam in your cruiser,” she said.

She felt him squeeze her hand, let go to adjust the rearview mirror. “We’ve got a guy out here now, at the sister’s,” Jake said. “But I suspect MaryLou knew something. About Emily-Sue Ordway, too. Apparently that wasn’t an accident. We’ll find out. Turiello must have been in on that cover-up, too. Makes it easy if you’re also the one hiring the cleanup guys.”

“She’s pregnant,” Jane said. She clutched her tote bag, none the worse for its adventure. Still, might be time to retire the thing. Those memories she could do without.

They made the turn onto Mass Ave., heading back to retrieve her car at the cop shop. She’d broken every speed limit on the planet to get there, ecstatic to see DeLuca back on the job. He’d let her explain on the way. Now he was back handling the mess at the Rawson house with the rest of the cops who’d swarmed in to help.

Jake shook his head. “We’ll do the best we can for her.”

“Yeah. Whatever that is. Peter will-” Peter. Sandoval was his client. He had no idea of this. They’d promised to work on this story together, though it hadn’t turned out the way either of them predicted. Still, justice had been done. Or was on the way to being done. She had to call him.

She dug into the tote bag, trying to ignore where it had just been. Found her phone, checked the messages.

“You called me?” she asked Jake.

“Yeah, to warn you to stay away from Sandoval. For what good that did.”

“He couldn’t have killed Liz McDivitt, though, you know?” Jane said, as she punched in numbers on the cell. “Because he was in custody when Liz was killed.”

What was that look on Jake’s face?

“What?”

“Jane?” Jake said. He paused. “You should know that-”

Jane put up a palm, listening to the phone ring. “Hang on.”

“What?” Peter clenched his phone, listening to Jane, kept his eyes on the front porch of the Walsh house. Nothing. Wondered if Walsh maybe wasn’t coming home. This was Friday night, after all. Wondered if that was the universe, telling him to go home, too. Leave this stuff to the police. He was the justice end of it, not the enforcer. He couldn’t believe what Jane just told him. “Sandoval?”

“I know. Shot in the shoulder, apparently. Looked worse than it was. They’re taking him to the hospital now.” Jane’s voice came over the speaker, sounded like she was in a car, too. “He’d told me you’d be there, too, and when you weren’t-well, I didn’t call you to check, and then later-I couldn’t. Since…”

“Yeah,” Peter imagined it, Sandoval, shot by the cops as he threatened Brogan and his partner. “But why did-huh?”

Jane told him to hang on, clearly talking to someone else, muffled, like she was covering the phone.

“Peter?” Her voice crackled over the speaker. “I’m with Jake Brogan. And he says to ask you-did your guy say anything more? Whatever that means? And he says, where are you?”

“Can he hear me?” Peter said.

Jake pulled his cruiser behind Peter’s jeep. The Walsh house was freshly landscaped, hedges trimmed judiciously so a burglar couldn’t hide. Probably had motion-detector lighting, meaning he’d be blasted with light the instant he approached. Front windows were dark, garage door closed. Impossible to tell if anyone was home.

He opened the car door, put a foot onto the curb. Turned to Jane. “I’ll be back,” he said.

“But I want to-,” Jane began.

Headlights. A high-beam glow swept around the corner, hesitated as it hit the two cars, then a black Lincoln pulled into the driveway. The automatic lights popped on, spotting the front door, the garage, a stand of hedge to the right. The left side of the two-car garage slowly began to move, the Lincoln idling as the door lifted.

“Police business,” Jake said. “Stay here, Jane.”

“Be careful,” she said.

He closed the car door, leaving her inside.

Hardesty was getting out of his Jeep. Two steps, and he’d stopped him, too. “No,” Jake said. “My job.”

“You’re talking to him alone?”

“I’m a cop,” Jake said. He patted his chest, where he kept the Glock. “I’m never alone.” He paused, couldn’t believe he was about to say this to Hardesty. “Go get Jane, okay? Take care of her?”

Jake ignored the front walk, got to the driver’s side door as the Lincoln began to pull into the garage. He walked alongside the car, flapped open his badge wallet, held it to the closed car window.

“Edward Walsh?” Jake knew that doughy face, all chin and jowls, seen him at hearings, and on TV. Ex-sheriff, Jake remembered. As Parole Board chairman, he’d held prisoners’ lives in his hands. He’d let Gordon Thorley out-then, years later, strong-armed him to cover up his own crime. “I’m Detective Jake Brogan, Boston PD.”

The car stopped. The ignition went off. The garage door stayed open.

“May I speak to you for a moment?” Conjecture was not a standard-issue weapon in police work, but sometimes a good bluff was. This might be the time to try it.

Edward Walsh, brown plaid sport jacket, narrow brown tie, thinning hair, saluted Jake as he got out, stood in the pool of light on the driveway.

“Welcome,” he said. “Brogan, huh? Related to the commissioner, no doubt.”

“My grandfather,” Jake said.

“Knew him well,” Walsh said. “So, Detective, how can I help you? Surprised you didn’t call first. Must be important.”

“Can we go inside?” Jake scouted the neighborhood as they walked, houses two driveways apart from each other, most homes with exterior lights. Out here was no place to confront Walsh about his past.

Walsh seemed to consider. “Do I need a lawyer?”

“Do you want a lawyer?” Jake kept his voice even.

“Come in,” Walsh said. “We’ll talk.”

“So Thorley’s not the Lilac Sunday killer?” Jane sat in the front seat of Peter’s Jeep, Jake’s suggestion apparently. So that chapter must be over. She’d thanked Peter for the flowers, finally, and he’d explained he’d brought them to thank her for being so “brave” with Thorley. What, did he think she would have freaked out? Cried? But it was a sweet gesture. He was a good guy. And would make someone very happy, someday. Someone. Not her.

She told Peter, again, the story of Sandoval, what she knew of it at least. Then Peter told her-off the record, naturally-about how he and Jake had joined forces to interrogate Thorley. Absurdly, Jane’s first reaction was relief. What if she’d broken her word to Jake, and pitched the “Thorley as Lilac Sunday” story to Marcotte?

Now there was a better story, if she ever got to tell it. For a reporter, she sure was finding out a lot of stuff that wasn’t getting in the paper. In the past five days all she’d written was a feature on bank customer service. But there was still time.

“And Gary Lee Smith wasn’t Lilac Sunday, either,” Peter said. “He was in jail at the time, too.”

“So Walsh? The Parole Board chairman? Thorley told you that? For his mortgage money?” Jane paused, thinking it through. “Huh. I’d actually wondered if his mortgage was paid because-”

She stopped, the rest of her sentence hanging between them. She’d promised Jake she wouldn’t reveal the bombshell he’d just dropped about Liz McDivitt, though he’d said it would be public soon. It stunk that her newspaper had been used to disseminate lies, though this wasn’t the moment to discuss journalism ethics. Or the undertakings of the very alive Liz McDivitt. Liz. Alive. Amazing.

“Look.” Jane pointed, changing the subject. “The door.”

The carved wooden door had closed behind the two men, Walsh first unlocking it, Jake following him inside. Exterior lights clicked on, the trees making flutters of leafy shadows on the driveway and grass.

“They’re in. I’d kill to be there to hear what they say.” Jane thought back over Chrystal’s articles. “From what I read, this Walsh was never linked to Lilac Sunday.”

Peter shook his head. “He was a county sheriff, though, and according to Thorley, knew Carley Marie. Maybe they-maybe Brogan can find out. But whoever’s guilty, it’s not Gordon Thorley. He was only trying to save his family’s home.”

“Maybe Elliot Sandoval was, too. In some irrational way. That’s how the whole thing started, for me at least.” Jane looked out the window at the house, wondering who was saying what inside. “TJ and I went to that foreclosure on Waverly Road. We thought it’d be an empty house. Turned out to be a can of worms.”