Authors: Hank Phillippi Ryan
Bobby Land was now under the watchful eye of a frowning and fretful Detective Angie Bartoneri. She’d been sprung from HQ after the truncated Hewlitt questioning only to be reassigned here as babysitter. Apparently she’d taken her sweet time getting here. Jake recognized her current expression from countless quarrels and ridiculous spats. She was feeling “pissed and dismissed,” as she always put it.
“Did I find anything in his pockets?” Angie didn’t even rise from her folding chair as she repeated Jake’s question. She’d propped her not-exactly-regulation black boots on the metal tubing lining one side of Land’s portable bed. Swung the boots down as Jake entered, not quite in time to hide the attitude. She crossed her legs, tossed her hair. “Like what?”
“Like whatever is in his pockets,” Jake said. When Angie was annoyed, it was like talking to a five-year-old. The more they realized they’d gotten under your skin, the more manipulative they’d be. Now was she also trying to be … sexy? Jake had to stay professional.
Angie didn’t answer.
Screw it.
He’d treated her like an adult. She’d have to get over it.
“That his stuff?” Jake pointed to a pair of Levi’s folded over the back of a chair in the corner, the Red Sux T-shirt folded on the chair. The kid’s stupid camo hat was nowhere to be seen. “This looks like what he was wearing when I last saw him. Did he have a wallet in his jeans?”
“I just got here,” Angie said. “Perhaps DeLuca knows. Perhaps he’ll tell you when he shows up with that coffee. You’re lucky to have him for a partner. Instead of me.”
“Detective Bartoneri. Angie. Give me a freaking—” Jake said. “It’s not my fault.”
The boy on the bed stirred. Jake heard a tiny plaintive sound, almost a sigh. Land’s eyes fluttered, then went still. Jake checked the square black screen of the wall-mounted monitor. Heartbeat, fine. No alarm beeps or flatline, just the steady, jagged digital rhythms of sedated sleep. An IV drip was taped inside the crook of his left arm. No tattoos, Jake noticed. That would have been interesting, if Land and John Doe upstairs had matching tattoos. But real life wasn’t like
Law & Order.
TV cops solved their crimes in fifty-two minutes.
Jake waited until Land’s breathing calmed, then took four steps to the Levi’s on the chair. Picked them up, started to check the pockets.
“Ahem.” Angie stood, twisted her hair onto the top of her head, then let it fall back over her shoulders.
“Ahem?” Jake stopped, midsearch.
“Aren’t you worried about the legality of that search, Detective? You have a warrant to go through Mr. Land’s apparel?”
“Mr. Land is not a suspect,” Jake said. “As you well know. Or perhaps you don’t. Nevertheless.”
Nevertheless?
Jake couldn’t believe he’d said that.
“Mr. Land is a victim of a violent assault,” he went on. “If we can ascertain a motive for such an assault, then—”
Ascertain a motive?
Why did she persist in baiting him? “Anyway, Ang, you know this is by the book.”
“Knock yourself out,” Angie said.
Jake held back from rolling his eyes. This whole night was a disaster. He felt inside the left front pocket of Land’s Levi’s, nothing. Right front pocket, nothing. Back left pocket, nothing. Back right pocket, nothing.
He picked up the T-shirt. And underneath, on the chair, was a wallet.
“Hey,” he said.
“They found it in the bushes,” Angie said. “But who knows if it’s his, right? You sure you don’t need a warrant?”
Jake gritted back his inappropriately nasty response, dumped the pants on the chair, and pulled apart the wallet’s black strip of Velcro, opening a flap of silver-and-white Tyvek. Angie raised an eyebrow at the ripping sounds, then stared at the wall again, actively ignoring him. Three slots for credit cards and ID. All empty. Jake knew the kid’s name was Bobby Land, but that was all. DeLuca had HQ tracking down the next of kin. No T passes, though, no college ID. Nothing. He opened the long pocket where bills should be. No money.
“Empty,” he said.
“Surprise surprise,” Angie said.
Then he noticed what seemed like another compartment, secured by another bit of Velcro. Angie turned her head toward him at the sound as he opened it. Inside, a piece of paper, folded in thirds. Jake tucked the empty wallet under his arm and opened the paper. A cashier’s check, from Bay State Bank. The name “Bobby Land” was written in felt-tip pen, on the “pay to” line. Today’s date. And the signature was—Jake squinted at the name. No matter how he looked at it, an illegible scrawl.
But the amount was easy enough to read. A five, then three zeros, a decimal point, two more zeros. Someone—clearly Hewlitt and his lawyer—had paid off Bobby Land with this five thousand bucks. The check they’d prepared—in advance—to “make it right.” Seemed like they hadn’t planned any negotiating.
Why was that the only thing left in the wallet? Muggers didn’t take checks? Or maybe the check was so well-hidden they didn’t find it. Identity thieves were only interested in cash and IDs—was that the motive? Or maybe they were tracking down where the kid lived.
“Find something?” Angie deigned to look at him.
“Maybe,” Jake said. “Maybe a fat check to Bobby Land from Calvin Hewlitt.”
“Ca—Who?” she said.
“Who what?” DeLuca stood at the doorway, holding a tray with two coffees.
* * *
Jane deposited her tote bag on her dining room table. Ridiculous name, since no one ever dined there. The walnut expanse served as a handy extension of Jane’s filing system, holding her research, stacks of usually meaningless mail, and accumulating magazines.
“Hey, cat.” Jane grabbed the tiny calico, who had padded into the room and hopped on the table. Another reason why no one ate there. Coda loved to curl up on the magazines. It all worked.
Coda writhed out of Jane’s arms and scampered into the kitchen, hoping for food. Jane was starving, too. She should have brought the uneaten swordfish home for the cat. It was almost eleven o’clock. Time for the news.
She took a few quick steps down the hall to the study, grabbed the remote and clicked to Channel 2. Beverly Chorbajian, fashionably tousled and dressed more for cocktails than news, faced the camera with practiced grim concern. Behind her, a hard-edged red-and-black graphic warned of “Curley Park Chaos.” “And at this hour,” Beverly was saying, “police have not yet released his identity. Let’s go now live to the scene, where Roberta Gibson has the latest…”
Curley Park was dark at this hour—the reporter illuminated by a portable Klieg, dim streetlamps, and the occasional flare of car headlights. A few windows glowed, yellow rectangles in the monolithic City Hall.
Remote in hand, Jane watched the story go by. They’d used her video of the first ambulance, then the second ambulance, then a couple of the eyewitness sound bites. “I was getting lunch at the cor-nah,” the woman said. Still no photo or drawing of the victim. And no explanation of the second ambulance, or what had happened in that alleyway. That kid. Bobby Land? He had given her a card, right? She should call him. See what had happened at the police station.
Jane shrugged, staring at the shifting colors on her TV screen. Did it matter? She wasn’t covering the story. She quickly scanned through the other stations to see if anyone had any new info. Far as she could tell, they didn’t. And no victim pictures, either.
Why did she care about this? After today’s crazy freelance afternoon, she wasn’t even a reporter anymore. She should leave the crimes to Jake, be relieved about Gracie, and think about making a new life for herself. And feed the cat.
Laser focus on the bright side, Jane.
Okay. She was no longer required to stand in front of an empty building or in a deserted park after eleven at night to illustrate where an event had taken place twelve hours earlier. Right? She didn’t miss TV, not really, not at all. If Marsh Tyson never called her again, good riddance. She could get a job as a—well, she’d figure that out.
* * *
“This is all about Calvin Hewlitt. Gotta be.” Jake kept his voice low as he talked with D, though Bobby Land was still dead to the world. They’d released Angie Bartoneri to HQ, even though she’d insisted she wanted to stay here with Land at the hospital. Probably trying to convince DeLuca she was a team player. But Jake didn’t need her attitude.
Bobby Land hadn’t moved. His breathing was shallow but steady. A couple of nurses in flowery scrubs had stopped by, checking and rearranging and tucking, then left, promising to return. A real hospital room was allegedly in the works, but with no next of kin and no insurance, things were not moving very quickly.
Jake showed D the wallet and the check. “This has gotta be from Hewlitt. You think it’s authentic?”
DeLuca tilted his head back and forth, examining the check, rubbing it between his fingers, then handed it to Jake. He leaned against the wall, took a slug of his coffee. Winced. “Six of one,” he said. “Who knows what a bad guy would do.”
The pulsing of the monitor, a series of steady soft beeps, underscored their conversation. Bobby Land, eyes closed, was motionless, resting on two white-cased pillows.
“Maybe the check isn’t the point.” Jake pictured that Vernon Street crime scene, not far from HQ. A crumbling curb, scraggly trees and battered chain-link fence surrounding a vacant lot, a trash-littered expanse soon to be cleaned up for additional police parking. It was just out of HQ’s surveillance camera range and not quite to the cameras of the nearby Ruggles T stop. Who could have known that?
“Hewlitt’s a surveillance guy, remember?” Jake answered his own question, keeping his eyes on Bobby Land.
“He could have known the camera’s scope,” Jake went on. “Picked that very spot on purpose. Waited there. He knew the kid was leaving HQ, might have even asked if he was taking the T. The kid is … a kid, after all. He’s not going to be suspicious. Plus, they’d just handed him five thousand bucks. And who else would have known Bobby was even there?”
DeLuca shrugged. “Maybe he called someone.”
“From what phone?” Jake thought back. Had he seen Land with a phone at Curley Park? When he’d brought him in? Shit. No idea. Land wasn’t a suspect, so no one had searched him or inventoried property. Now he appeared to be a robbery victim, but they had no idea if anything was missing.
The beeps continued, punctuating Jake’s thoughts. The incident might have been random, sure. Some mugger, seeing a skinny white kid alone after dark, decides to take advantage of a vulnerable victim and just see what he—or she, fine, but most likely not—could get.
“But why?” DeLuca said. “Why would Hewlitt give him a check, then beat him up?”
“Think about it, D. True or not, Hewlitt thinks Bobby Land saw what happened in Curley Park. And does not want him to tell. That’s the key to this whole thing. Hewlitt crushed the camera’s memory card, but he couldn’t wipe out Bobby Land’s real memory. See where I’m going with this?”
DeLuca shook his head, disagreeing. “Land’ll be able to ID his attacker. Narrow it down, at least. If it was Hewlitt? He’d have
some
idea. Maybe it was someone Hewlitt called in?”
“You watch too much TV,” Jake said. TV.
Jane.
He needed to—
they
needed to—
A series of high-pitched demanding beeps. An alarm. Jake stood, turned to the stack of monitors, three beige metal boxes scaffolded to the wall on a floor-to-ceiling aluminum rod. Each had wires and tubes connecting to the body on the bed.
“Damn,” Jake said. “Go get a doc—”
“On it,” D said.
The beeps stopped, their sound coalescing into a piercing one-note tone. Jake, now alone with the victim in his curtained cubicle, watched the jagged electronic line of Bobby Land’s heartbeat plummet to the bottom of the screen.
Tenley shoved one more gray T-shirt into her nylon gym bag, a black shoulder-strapped tote with mesh pockets on the sides and zippered pouches at each end.
If you don’t have time to take everything,
the thought had crossed her mind,
it’s almost better to take nothing.
She had to move ahead. Start over. Maybe Brileen could help. She closed her eyes, regrouping, shaking off the residual anger from the fight with her mom. Her stupid mother would be happier with her gone, no freaking question about that. She was a little bummed she wouldn’t be seeing Dr. Maddux anymore, he’d done his best to help. He never told her what to do, or criticized her, or even brought up Lanna, unless she did it on her own. She was also pretty much burning her bridges with the work thing, but she wouldn’t miss Ward Dahlstrom. And it wasn’t like that was her life ambition, to sit in front of a computer. So.
She paused. Hearing the silence. Feeling like—
good-bye.
So many memories in this room. She’d grown up here, sleeping in this twin bed, which once had a flouncy pink princess bedspread and ruffled pillows. She’d dumped the fluff for plain white sheets when she turned fifteen, since her mom wouldn’t let her get black ones. Her once-treasured collection of stuffed animals was relegated to plastic bags on the upper shelf of the closet, the latest incarnations of music and movie posters thumb-tacked to the blue speckled wallpaper. Kurt, for vintage. Katy, for power. Keanu in the old
Matrix.
She’d gotten in big trouble for the thumb tacks, but then her father realized it was easier to leave the posters up than to rip them down and repair the wallpaper. Now her parents could do whatever they wanted with the room. She was done with it.
A knock at her bedroom door startled her. Tenley lifted her chin and turned away. She’d locked her door, of course. Locking her mother out of her room, locking her mother out of everything, locking herself in until she wanted to get out. That would be soon. Very very soon.
Another knock. Louder. “Tenley?”
Tenley pictured her mom, all freaking out. Upset. Too much wine made her face all puffy, though she was always fine by morning. Now she probably wanted to say she was sorry. But Tenley wasn’t sorry, and she wasn’t about to let her mother off the hook. Her mother wanted her gone. Her dad did, too. She only reminded them of their darling Lanna.