Authors: Hank Phillippi Ryan
Jane grimaced, embarrassed at how she’d forgotten what this was actually about. Compassion fatigue, they called it. She was so fearful of it, the emotional carapace that hardened journalists, caused them to compartmentalize disaster, make grim jokes about reality. A college student, a boy, really, she’d met yesterday was now dead, under suspicious circumstances. Should she have paid more attention to him? Was there anything she could have done?
Jane shifted her weight to the other foot, flapped the notebook against her palm, fidgeted in the open doorway of Tyson’s office, pretending to watch the video monitors lined up on the opposite wall.
She pursed her lips, frowning. Why didn’t the police know Land’s next of kin? Hadn’t Jake taken him to the station? But Land hadn’t been a suspect, he’d been a victim. Maybe he’d lied?
Marsh hung up the receiver, picked up Land’s business card. Waved it at her.
“No use calling this, I suppose,” he said, giving it back. “But we’ve got to regroup. Our source who’s tight with the cop shop just told me they’ve got a lead on the Curley Park victim. The stabbed guy? Might be the husband of a City Hall bigwig.”
“Really?” Jane said. In the relentless hierarchy of TV journalism, this was an interesting call. Was the murder of the husband of a city official bigger news than a mugging victim killed steps away from the police station? They’d have to decide in time for the six o’clock news. “Who?”
She raced through her mental Rolodex, trying to recollect the names of women who held high positions at City Hall. The city corporation counsel, Kelli Riordan. The new press secretary, Wadelle Tran. The mayor’s chief of staff, Catherine Siskel. There must be more. Marsh Tyson had quite the source. But someone was always ready to spill a secret. Jane’s own career relied on it.
“They didn’t say.” Marsh focused on the flickering TV screens.
Jane heard Marsh selecting his words, pluralizing the pronoun. That usually meant it was a woman. She didn’t change her expression, as if she hadn’t noticed.
“Forget the Land story, Jane. We’ll give it to another reporter.” Marsh gestured at the monitors. “See? Unit three’s at the cop shop already. You take the City Hall lead. You have sources there, right? And we’ll get Mary in HR to handle your per diem. We don’t expect you to work free.”
“Deal.” And there it was. When the time came, she hadn’t even hesitated. She was back in TV. With all its faults.
Forget Bobby Land,
Marsh had said. Easier to say than do. She tried to yank her brain away from regret and sorrow. Land was no longer her story. Still, she couldn’t help thinking about him.
“Great,” Marsh said. “Welcome aboard.”
“Thanks.”
Onward.
She checked her watch. Seven thirty. “So, City Hall’s still closed, but that doesn’t mean no one’s inside. I’ll head over and see who’s there. Plus, the mayor’s going to have to face the cameras at some point, right?” She smiled. “Once someone tells him what to say.”
Marsh pointed a forefinger at her. “Right. Make sure the desk has your cell number.”
“Got it.” Jane flipped her notebook closed, ready to head out, then stopped. She should have thought of this before. “Marsh. Surveillance video of Curley Park. Think City Hall has any?”
* * *
There was no way this could get worse. Jake had been about to call for backup so he could head to City Hall, but then the white-coated Dr. Piva emerged from the hospital elevator. He’d told Piva to alert him if Bobby Land’s condition changed. Looking at the doc’s grim expression, Jake didn’t have to ask what happened.
You sure?
The words almost came out of Jake’s mouth again. But of course Piva was sure. Bobby Land was dead.
Damn.
Land might have been a crucial witness.
Jake leaned against the tiles of the hospital wall, regrouping. Times like this, being a cop sucked. When you almost forgot you were supposed to be a human being first. Jake took a moment, remembering Land had been a real person, a kid, not simply a cog in the justice system.
The photo from Siskel pinged onto his phone.
And now Catherine Siskel—alive and powerful—was demanding attention. There was no by-the-book here.
He tapped the photo, enlarging. Catherine, two young girls—he recognized Lanna—and a man. Which answered one question. He glanced into the hospital room, confirming. The missing Greg Siskel was not the comatose maybe-tattooed stabber in the hospital bed. No way. Greg was big, taller than his wife, not exactly a hulk but certainly not the graying mug now wired and tubed to the medical devices.
Nor could Greg Siskel be the John Doe in the morgue. Catherine Siskel had described her husband to Angie. Bartoneri had seen the victim at Curley Park and would have snagged that solve for herself.
Siskel had probably called Angie because she’d known her from the Lanna Siskel investigation. Missing Persons clearly made Angie transfer the case to him because Catherine Siskel was a VIP.
But he’d transfer it right back. Missing could handle this just fine. He had two dead people.
Two dead people killed in public places. And if the chief of staff’s husband was really missing, marital misunderstanding or not, that would amp up the news coverage volume considerably, even if no connection existed. A total public relations debacle. The supe would probably have already called Mayor Holbrooke to coordinate the public response to the Curley Park incident. Cases connected to City Hall always had their own procedures and sensitivities.
He should get DeLuca, hit City Hall together. D would still be asleep at this hour, since their usual shift didn’t start till ten. Jake himself was pretty damn tired right now. Been a long time since he’d pulled an all-nighter, but he’d get coffee, power through it, visit the disturbingly double-talking Catherine Siskel, then take a nap—somehow—this afternoon.
Jake rubbed his eyes, then flipped the Siskel photo back to normal size, but his phone defaulted to the camera roll and all his saved pictures.
Damn.
He scrolled through, trying to retrieve the Greg photo. Then he stopped, pausing, even though he was in a hurry. He’d looked at this one photo so many times it would be tattered and flimsy by now if it had been printed on paper. Jane had called it a Diva-dog photo bomb. She’d been trying to get a selfie of her and Jake, and his golden retriever Diva had shoved her nose in between them. Jake could have sworn the darn dog had a grin on her face.
Jane.
He hadn’t returned her call.
Jane weighed her options as she trotted down the concrete steps of Channel 2’s employee exit.
Jake hadn’t returned her call. Good news? He was on to something and she’d soon find out. Or bad news? He was on to something and she’d soon find out. Should she call Melissa? But Melissa hadn’t called again either, so obviously there was no news on that front.
She passed the edit booths and the always mysterious engineering department with its coils of cords and byzantine contraptions, and then pushed open the station’s heavy rear door, blasting the interior air-conditioned gloom with morning sunlight. Only Boston had June days like this, flat blue sky, briny wind off the harbor carrying the scent of salt and seaweed, the skirl of cranky shore birds arguing over the shards of garbage left behind by Haymarket fruit and vegetable vendors. Jane could walk the two blocks to City Hall. She took a deep breath, centering herself in the day.
Gracie, Jake, Bobby Land, and a mysterious City Hall employee. A whole list of unanswered questions. At some point, maybe soon, she’d know something. She’d learned to be challenged by uncertainty, not daunted by it. You never knew the end of the story until you got there.
Passing the JFK Federal Building and trotting down the expanse of steps, Jane crossed the concrete tundra in front of City Hall. They called the building’s architecture Brutalist. Not just a description of the exterior, with its massive concrete teeth and stacked narrow windows, Jane thought. It was brutally difficult to find your way around inside the illogical structure. Boston City Hall was a pain, an inconvenient marble-floored disaster for anyone in heels. Maybe it was designed deliberately to keep people out.
Not her, not today. She yanked at the glass side door on the plaza level. Locked. She checked her watch. Seven fifty-eight. She’d try another entrance.
Down a set of steep steps, up Congress Street, toward the ground-level door. Maybe a guard would be there, let her in. She had no press credentials, she realized. Hoped that wouldn’t put a snag in her plans.
Pausing a beat, she stared across the street at Curley Park. Crime scene tape still garlanded the circular bricked area where the stabbing occurred. No police officers were on duty guarding it. Did they think there was still evidence there? Or had no one bothered to take the yellow plastic down?
She’d forgotten to ask Marsh Tyson about her Quik-Shot video from yesterday. Bobby Land might be on the tape, which could be helpful for the story. Would they broadcast his picture, asking if anyone recognized him? She shook her head, answering herself. No. They’d have to wait until police confirmed an identification. Or asked for help.
She bracketed her face with her hands, peering through the smoky glass of the door. Inside she could see the guard’s desk and chair, empty. Lights on, but no one home. Eight o’clock now. Where was everyone?
Footsteps behind her. A haggard middle-aged man in a checkered shirt who looked like he hadn’t slept much tapped a white pass card against a metal box attached to the door. With a mechanical click, the door unlocked.
She smiled, as if she and the guy were best friends. “Hi,” she said. “Gorgeous day, huh?”
He looked at her, semi-quizzical, then adjusted the sheaf of papers under his arm, juggled a Starbucks venti with foam oozing from the plastic lid. Pulled open the door. Paused. And that was all she needed. It was a public building, after all. And she was the public.
“Thanks,” she said. Big smile.
And she was inside.
* * *
Catherine stared at the photo of her husband, her dead husband, wondering how long it would take the police to figure it all out. Wondering how long it would take
her
to figure it out. Wondering why her life had crashed and toppled off the cliff into sorrow and tragedy. She pressed her fingers to her temples, tried to hold back her tears.
Although the cop would be expecting her to be sad, right? Her husband was missing? Was it suspicious if she was
too
sad? Was it ridiculous to be protecting the mayor, and the city, instead of running to the police, screaming,
Someone killed my husband
?
How do you know? They’d ask.
“What the hell,” she whispered, and dropped her forehead onto her crossed arms. Maybe if she just went to sleep, this whole thing would disappear, evaporate into the past. Or have never happened. Maybe it wasn’t Greg.
But what she saw was all on tape, right here, right in front of her eyes. She could watch it again and again. Had she been nasty to Greg, the last time they talked? Had it mattered? Had they been arguing over something meaningful? It was over Tenley, she remembered. Whether Tenley could stay out. Mundane. Ordinary. What if she had known that was the very last time they’d ever talk? Would she have handled it differently, forgiven him, forgiven everything, decided not to sweat the small stuff?
Now there was no small stuff. All the stuff was huge and hulking and relentless. What had Greg been doing at Curley Park? It must have been just after they’d talked on the phone. Had he been on the way to see her, maybe to apologize? Had he been in the wrong place at the wrong time? Who had killed him, for God’s sake? And why?
And that cop was on the way.
She punched the intercom to Ward’s extension. He and Kelli Riordan were supposed to meet with her at eight fifteen so they could strategize. So much for that idea. Now she had strategy of her own to handle first. She’d have to stall them. She should have arranged to meet the cop somewhere else. She wasn’t thinking straight. How could she?
A knock at the door disoriented her even more. Ward? Kelli? The cop? He couldn’t have gotten there by now. Could he?
Dammit
. She was panicking, and this was not the time for that. It was certainly Kelli and Ward, just as planned. But she wasn’t ready for them, not yet. She’d make some excuse, send them away.
Another knock. “Catherine?”
“Come in,” she called. She touched her hair, her cheeks, tried to pull herself together. She’d take Kelli’s research and say she had to study it, which was true. The mayor wouldn’t arrive for an hour, probably two. At this point, it was all about stalling, as long as she could. If the police identified the victim—
Greg
—in Curley Park, they wouldn’t need to tell anyone about the video.
Would they?
The door opened.
“Hi,” a voice said.
A woman took two steps into her office. Not Kelli. Younger, prettyish, with a black T-shirt, black jeans, a gray scarf around her neck.
“Mrs. Siskel? I’m Jane Ryland. From Channel 2? You have a moment?”
“Do you have an appointment?” Jane Ryland. A reporter. No wonder she looked familiar. What the holy hell she was doing here? To show up unannounced at Catherine’s office was a surprising breach of protocol. And security.
“Jane? All press inquiries must go through public relations.”
She looked at her watch. It was eight o’clock, maybe three minutes after. That cop was supposed to be here any second. If Jane saw that police officer coming into her office, she’d put two and two together. No matter what answer she came up with, the result would be disaster. Catherine knew about Jane Ryland, knew her reputation perfectly well. If this tragedy magnet so much as smelled a story, she’d never let go. “You know the rules.”
The reporter took another step into the room. Then another.
Catherine stood. This had gone far enough.
“I can’t help you,” she said.
“But you don’t even know what—” The reporter stopped, midsentence. Turned to look in the hall behind her.