What You See (11 page)

Back then she’d just been assigned to the stress-inducing ratings-driven agenda of the investigative unit. She was negotiating the mortgage on her Corey Road condo. Her sister triumphantly finished law school. Mom got her terrible diagnosis. Her father was still chief of surgery at Oak Park Hospital. Jane still had her tortoiseshell cat Murrow, and she’d been almost engaged to a cerulean-eyed doctor, whose hours at Mass General had been equally unpredictable as her reporter hours but whose profession was the one thing in Jane’s life her father couldn’t criticize.

The Juggler.
Jane had finally chosen that title, laughing and tossing imaginary balls in the air. The student paper had used it for the headline, much to her mother’s delight and her father’s disdain. Soon after, and then later, her dreams and plans had exploded and reassembled at light speed, altered with the whims of the universe. She’d begun to realize there was no use in planning and no percentage in predicting, and she’d learned that dreams sometimes had to change, even vanish.

Now Mom was dead. Murrow, too. After winning several investigative-reporter Emmys, Jane was fired from Channel 11 for protecting a source, though that’s not how the bigwigs would have described it almost two years ago. The ex–almost fiancé was still lording it at the hospital, she guessed. She hadn’t seen him since their fight. Her father, now emeritus, still asked her about him, but Jane would change the subject. Her Corey Road condo was still home, and new arrival Coda, now almost a year old, had expected Jane to adapt to her particular feline demands.

She’d met Jake. Not the best romantic choice, with her as rising star reporter and him as rising star detective. It created a clandestine relationship doomed from the start by police department and newsroom edicts prohibiting conflicts of interest. Last month, in one poignant moment at the end of a particularly emotional murder case, Jake had broached the idea of marriage and a future together. Over long dinners and longer after-dinners, they’d contemplated going for it, starting again, someone changing careers, maybe both of them. No pressure, plenty of time, just maybe. When, in a heart-pumping fit of indignation, Jane quit her job at the
Register,
with the
Register
’s lawyers warning her about the severe personal and financial ramifications of even the hint of a leak about the fabricated news she’d uncovered, it appeared new doors might be opening.

Now she was juggling again.

Jake was not talking to her. He’d turned his back in the alley earlier, striding away, Bobby Land in tow. Nor was he answering her texts.

Lissa, oops, Melissa, wasn’t answering her texts, either.

She was juggling Marsh Tyson, too. And the possibility of a freelance gig at Channel 2, especially if the Curley Park story panned out. They’d told her to hang on to the Quik-Shot, just in case, but they’d made a copy of her video, from the opening shots of the crime scene to the person-on-the-street interviews to the mysterious ambulance in the alley, ending with Jake walking away. Possibly the first time the potential end of a romance had been caught on camera. Talk about cinema verité.

Just keep swimming.
She could hear her mother quoting one of their favorite hospital-bedside movies.
Miss you, Mom.
She’d try. She had no choice.

Marsh yanked open his glass door, letting in the chaos of the newsroom. Phones trilled, computers pinged, someone yelled “five minutes!” One wall of Tyson’s office displayed a massive bank of flickering TV monitors, their audio clashing and incomprehensible, the volume of each set turned just loud enough to muffle the others. Jane looked at the white-lighted, six-digit readout above the door: 3:55:15. The four o’clock news was about to begin.

“Hey, Jane.” Tyson closed the door, and it all went silent. He loosened his tie, rolled up his shirtsleeves. Jane had done her homework with a few Internet searches, knew a younger Tyson had once anchored weekends in Raleigh. Handsome local boy made semi-good, his mother the mayor of some North Carolina town, his father a big civil rights activist. Now he moved behind the scenes. More job security in management, Jane guessed, than being on-air talent. Almost anything was more secure than “talent.”

“So. How’d you like it? Being out in the fray, tracking down clues, following leads?” Tyson still embraced his anchorman voice. Listing clichés was a skill he seemed to have perfected. “You rocked this one, Jane. Your video’ll be all over the six. Exclusive.”

Jane shrugged, accepting the compliment. “Thanks. I called the cop shop’s new PR flack to get the deets on the victim and the guy in cuffs,” she said. She almost laughed, hearing herself using that kind of phony jargon. She held up her cell. “But she hasn’t called back.”

If asked, Jane would have sworn she didn’t miss TV. Didn’t miss the relentless deadlines, the too-short video stories, the nature-of-the-beast shallow coverage. But all she could think about was how to break some new ground for the next show.

What’s the most important newscast of the day?
one journalism teacher had asked.
Trick question,
Professor Burke had said, holding up one finger, shushing them before the class could even guess.
The most important newscast is the next one.

“I’ve got our desk people on it, too,” Tyson said. “Plenty of time to write your story. Do a minute-thirty for the anchor. Beverly can voice it.”

A knock on the glass door.

“Yo,” Tyson said, gesturing the woman in. “Speak of the devil. What you got, Bev?”

Beverly Chorbajian, the station’s new marquee anchor, her face on every billboard in Boston. Jane didn’t remember when anchor clothes had become so revealing, but something was certainly working for glamorous and exotic Beverly. She had a steady job, at least. More than Jane did.

“Cop shop PR flack shot me a text, Marsh,” Beverly said, waving her phone. “Oh, hi, Jane. Anyway, still no ID or fingerprints on the Curley Park vic. Still no ID or fingerprints on the Franklin Alley suspect.”

“The police called him a suspect?” Jane asked. Would have been nice if the PR flack had returned
her
call, instead of Beverly’s. Would have been helpful if
she
could have provided this fingerprint news. Such as it was.

“Nope, but that’s what
I’d
call him.” Beverly raised an eyebrow. “He was in handcuffs
,
right?”

“Whatever,” Tyson said. “And?”

“That’s it.” Beverly tucked a strand of blonded hair behind one ear. “Flack said she’d ping when there was more.”

“Let us know.” Marsh pointed at her. “Now you better get ready.”

“I’m always ready,” Beverly said. She didn’t exactly strut away, but she came close.

Maybe Jane didn’t miss TV, after all. Her phone rang, buzzing and vibrating against the news director’s glass coffee table.

“Cop shop, dollars to doughnuts,” Tyson said. “Go ahead, Jane. Then give us the deets.”

Jane crossed mental fingers it would be the police, providing her information to wrap this story. Better info than Bev got.

“Hello?”

“Jane, it’s Lissa. Melissa. I had to hang up before because—well, listen. Seems like Lewis and Gracie have taken off. On an ‘adventure.’” Melissa paused, took a deep breath. “Lewis apparently is ‘impetuous.’ Whatever Robyn means by that. Where are you, Janey? Because…”

Jane stood, hearing the uncertainty in her sister’s voice.

“Cops? Something?” Tyson asked.

“Lissa?” Jane held up a hand, signaling Tyson
no,
not the cops. She was beginning to hate her phone even more. But for all their squabbles, she and Melissa were sisters. And that tone in Lissa’s voice—one Jane had never heard. Melissa and Gracie had bonded, Jane knew. Even with Melissa’s rigid view of the world, somehow the little girl had gotten through. Touched her heart, she’d said. But again, it was Lissa’s—Melissa’s—wedding. So, hard to tell.

“Melissa?” she said again.

Jane heard voices in the background, the hushed murmurs of someone else talking.

“She’s nine years old,” Melissa whispered. “Jane, I’m so worried, and Daniel’s not here to help and—could you come? I need you. I really do. Please?”

“One second,” Jane told her.
Please?
“Ah, Mr. Tyson? I—”

“So?” Tyson,was aiming his remote at the bank of TV monitors, goosing up the volume, one screen after the next. “Ready to write it up nice and juicy for the six? Lead story, sister.”

Jane felt the warmth go out of her face, pressed her lips together.

“I can’t,” she said.

Tyson turned to her, his arm still pointed at the screens. It slowly lowered, and Jane’s shoulders seemed to sink along with it.

“Can’t.” Tyson made it a statement. A bullet. He nodded, silently, considering. Then turned back to the monitors. “I see.”

Jane waited a heartbeat. The day had started with an opening door. Now it was apparently slamming in her face.

“I have a family emergency,” she said.

16

No way could he be in four places at once, so Jake had chosen the one that could clinch the case. Mass General. He jabbed the elevator button, waiting for the numbered lights above to make their agonizingly slow journey down to where he waited on L. Five o’clock. Shift change. Every elevator in the hospital would be stopping on every floor. It wouldn’t help to be impatient, even though he was. He felt so close to
case closed
he could taste the celebratory beer.

Bobby Land would have to wait. Jake had stashed him in an office on the third level of Headquarters with a can of Sprite and a couple of sports magazines. Fortunately, the kid hadn’t called for a lawyer or his parents, and, after admitting that he was over eighteen, thank you so much, had agreed to stand by until Jake got back. The memory card from Land’s camera was a total loss, according to the techs in IT, so whatever photos he had taken were crushed out of existence. Jake had promised Bobby they’d investigate the shattered camera incident, so Land was probably happily planning his revenge—or lawsuit—against Calvin Hewlitt.

Hewlitt himself, not such a happy camper, was parked in interrogation room C with Paul DeLuca. In a cold blast of law enforcement irony, DeLuca had been partnered for the preliminary questioning with Angie Bartoneri, once Jake relieved her here at the hospital. Question one for Hewlitt: Why had he smashed that memory card? Just to keep his handcuffed picture out of the papers? Seemed more like an obvious move by a guilt-ridden person worried by something incriminating on it. Still, if Bobby Land had seen whatever that something was, his eyewitness evidence was almost as probative as that caught on camera. Almost.

D had promised to let Jake know if Hewlitt said anything useful or instructive. Not likely, since the only word out of his mouth so far, according to D, was “lawyer.” They couldn’t hold him forever—eight hours, according to case law, until they had to cut bait. “Malicious destruction of property” would legally keep him at HQ for a while, but a good lawyer would get him sprung pretty damn fast. Hewlitt was trouble, Jake knew it. He just didn’t know how. Yet.

John Doe No. 1 was in the morgue. Identification team was hot on his case, but so far, the stabbed guy—Caucasian male, middle-aged—was still nameless. Why wasn’t he carrying ID? Everyone had ID. How’d he get to Curley Park? Victim and potential suspect both arrived at the park with no ID?

Jane would soon be pushing to get pictures of them both. She’d already texted him a few times, most likely about exactly that. He hadn’t decided how to handle the Jane situation, so he was ignoring it for now. Jake hadn’t seen a photo of the dead guy’s face yet, so all in all, at this point, it was hard to come up with any theories. And maybe theorizing was a waste of time. This case might be solved in the next five minutes.

That’s why Jake was headed to the guarded bedside of John Doe No. 2.

What was that guy doing in that alley? Why had Calvin Hewlitt jumped him? So far, according to the watch, John Doe No. 2 was so doped up he was out of it. Jake wanted to see for himself. Maybe hear for himself. Try to get some idea of what had gone down in Franklin Alley.

Jake texted himself a reminder—
Dumpster.

On the way to HQ, he’d dispatched a crime scene team to check it out. They’d soon reported there was nothing inside, e-mailed him their photos of the empty bin. Jake used a thumb to scroll his cell phone through their wide shots and close-ups; grimy dented metal walls, peeling paint, streaks of black and bird shit, puddled floor.

Empty.

That’s what worried Jake. Be a bad break if whatever had been in the Dumpster was now covered by layers of trash and detritus in the municipal landfill. He’d asked a cadet to get the pickup schedule. It was unlikely—Jake hoped this wasn’t wishful thinking—there’d be a Waste Management pickup at noon on a Monday. Maybe the Dumpster was empty. Maybe the tipster had been wrong. Maybe it wouldn’t matter.

He jabbed the elevator button again. Jane would have teased him about the futility of that. The alley. Who was the girl-woman who’d sent the cadet back there in the first place? He’d ordered him to find her.

Finally.
Entering the elevator, he stepped to the side, getting out of the way as a frazzle-haired mom maneuvered a double-wide stroller into all the available space.

The good news, and the reason Jake was here? Though cadets were still looking through photos from bystanders’ cameras and cells, they’d discovered one kick-ass lead. Jake pulled out the folded copy of the digital color snapshot DeLuca had handed him half an hour ago.

“Check it out,” D had said. “Note the time stamp. Eleven fifty-nine
A.M
. Guy who took it’s around if we need him.”

They’d printed it out on letter-size paper. Not the best quality, but good enough. A medium close-up of someone’s back, someone wearing a once-white shirt. Jake could tell it was a man, could tell he was facedown on the sidewalk, and could see a bit of Mayor Curley’s bronze knee. Also in the photo was the clear image of the hilt of a knife, clutched in someone’s hand. Someone plunging the blade into the man’s back.