Authors: Hank Phillippi Ryan
The leather-jacket guy had stopped by the desk closest to the door. Nancie Alvarez, the department’s assistant manager, sat there, skinny and skittish as a baby spider. He was talking to her, his voice too low to overhear. Tenley saw him point at the bank of real-time video monitors displayed across the wall.
She pressed her lips together, holding back tears, trying to focus on her screen and not the guy. Mom had promised to come get her at lunchtime. They’d talk, she promised. Right now Tenley was drained. She’d cried and cried in the greenroom, so hard her whole face hurt. Now there were almost no tears left. Weirdly, she also felt—how would Dr. Maddux put it?—remorseful, maybe. Because she was so self-absorbed. She’d been so focused on herself, she hadn’t thought enough about how her mom must feel.
She was totally relieved her mother didn’t know about last night, her sneaking out to Brileen’s, and she would never tell her.
That
secret it was okay for Tenley to keep.
The atmosphere of the room changed. Tenley looked up.
Nancie Alvarez was standing. She turned toward the back of the room and pointed. Not at the screens, but at Tenley.
At her!
Now the guy was coming her way. Holy frigging crap, was she in trouble now?
“I’m Detective Jake Brogan,” the man said, stopping in front of her.
OMG.
OMG.
A detective. A detective! Was he here about her father? Her mother told her not to say anything. Tenley’s throat closed, her voice disappeared. What if he asked about the video from yesterday? She flinched as the detective flapped open one of those police things at her, like a wallet, with a gold badge inside.
“Miss Alvarez says your computer monitor is set to observe the Curley Park area,” he said. “Can you show me that, please? Show me what’s happening right now?”
Could she? His voice was really calm, not like she’d done anything wrong, and he didn’t look mean, but she still felt her eyes widen and a clench of fear and uncertainty twist her stomach. Of all the stupid times for stupid Dahlstrom not to be here. Why did
she
have to decide this? She was only a kid.
“I’m not sure I’m allowed,” she said. This guy was a cop, though, and for sure he hadn’t gotten up to the surveillance room without some kind of permission. She looked across the room, hoping for help, or guidance, or advice. Nothing. Everyone else was at their own computers, pretending not to look at her at all. They probably thought she was in trouble for not being here on time this morning. Even though she’d been with her mother. Should she call her mom now?
“Boston Police, miss,” the detective said, like reminding her. Like she could forget.
If she said no to the police, would she get in even more trouble? Or would she be a hero? Crap. When was the last time refusing to do what the police said made you a hero?
She gave up. She simply, totally, gave up.
“Here.” Tenley stood and gestured to her chair, letting him take her place at the monitor.
Fine.
Let them yell at her. Nancie had sent this police officer her way. She was in charge when Dahlstrom was gone, so Tenley was only following orders. Her life was already ruined, anyway. One more mistake wouldn’t make one bit of difference. Whatever. Nothing mattered. She leaned forward and clicked her mouse so he could see the Curley Park screen.
“Is this what you wanted?” Tenley said.
* * *
Jake hadn’t wanted to push this girl. If she balked, or if the woman at the front decided to call security, this surveillance opportunity would vanish, obliterated by a shit pile of bureaucracy. It wasn’t exactly kosher. He guessed he should have gotten a warrant, but he wasn’t taping or looking at private documents or removing any paperwork.
He was simply getting a better vantage point.
It would be legal to look out a City Hall window, no question. This was exactly the same thing, except he was now sitting in front of an exceptionally well-placed window. Couldn’t argue with that. And there wasn’t much time.
There was
no
time, in fact. It had been risky to leave his lookout and race up here. The plan was simple. D would raise his arm if there was action, or give a radio call. So far no updates, which meant Hewlitt wasn’t on the move. Strange. Lucky, but strange.
Did Tenley—maybe eighteen? nineteen?—know her father was “missing”? She had the same haunted look around her eyes as her mother. The same sleek dark hair, the same angular jaw. A sad life, that family. Be interesting to find out what, if anything, Catherine had told her. He’d add that to the to-do list.
There it was.
Hewlitt’s black Isuzu. The roof, part of the hood, and the clearest possible shot of the passenger-side door. The driver’s side was partly obscured by trees, but once Hewlitt emerged, he’d be in clear view.
Jake even saw the unmistakable shape of DeLuca, now leaning against the Union Oyster House building a scant half block from Hewlitt’s car. Jake clicked his radio twice, the “I’m in place” signal. D one-clicked as reply.
Received.
“Were you here yesterday, Miss, uh, Siskel?” He pretended to stumble on her name. No reason for her to know it meant anything to him, much less that he suspected her mother of lying to him. Whatever Catherine Siskel was hiding wasn’t about the Curley Park stabbing, which was his top priority. “During the incident?”
He risked a quick glance away from the monitor. The girl was frowning, looked distressed, her face pale and dark eyes widening. She had a bunch of holes in her earlobes.
Kids.
Back to the screen. No movement at Hewlitt’s car yet, only the ebb and flow of lunchtime traffic, a scatter of jaywalkers, people strolling with shopping bags and dogs on leashes. Couldn’t see faces, not well, at least, but no matter. Jake only needed to see which direction Hewlitt walked.
“Miss? Were you here?” Not a tough question. Either she was or she wasn’t.
“Yeah,” she finally said, “I was here yesterday. But I didn’t see anything.”
“Nothing?” he asked, his eyes still on the screen.
“Um, ambulances, I guess,” she said. “I was on a different camera at first.”
He couldn’t afford the time to look at her. But she was hiding something, too, her tone was an open book. The Siskel family had a lot of secrets.
“The incident get taped?”
“Not by me,” she said.
Interesting answer. And then he saw DeLuca’s shadow change. Did his arm go up? So much for the signal idea.
Jake leaned in closer to the screen, squinting, trying to bring the video into better focus. The quality was good, clear and in color, but just far enough away to be frustrating. “Can you make this zoom in?” he asked.
“Yeah, you can.” The girl leaned toward the screen, her shoulder briefly touching his, clicked the white plastic mouse and dragged it. The scene expanded into a million blocks of unidentifiable pixels.
Shit.
“Put it back, please.” Jake tried to keep his voice calm.
She clicked and dragged again. Back in focus. D still by the building. The car door still closed. There was movement, pedestrians on the sidewalks making jagged blurs of color. Then one figure stopped near the passenger side of Hewlitt’s car. The person stood in the lee of the maple tree, only half in sun, striped by shadow.
Jake put a fist to his chin, watching. D hadn’t moved.
The figure on the sidewalk—
female?
female—took two steps toward the car. Her head turned and she looked up. If she had known the camera was there, she couldn’t have looked more directly into the lens.
Jake still couldn’t see her features, but could make out her bare arms, and bare legs under what must be a short skirt.
“Oh!” The girl next to him made a sound, a strangling gasp.
Jake turned, caught a glimpse of her face. Three words came to his mind.
Seen a ghost?
Outside the Wilhoites’ house, it was a quiet June early afternoon in a comfortable suburban neighborhood. The breeze whispered through the blossoming crabapples, the sun shimmered rainbows in the water from the irrigation systems hidden under pristine green lawns. But inside the Wilhoites’ otherwise unremarkable Cape Cod, it was crazy town. Lewis and Robyn, and Gracie, and Melissa, even the absent Daniel were all embroiled in a family drama worthy of daytime TV.
Now Jane was part of it.
As she backed her Audi away from the house and onto the narrow street, Jane could only hope she was about to play a role in the final scene. As soon as the curtains closed, with Gracie safe and the Wilhoites out of her life, she would make a grateful exit. Except for the wedding. Jane winced as the car bumped over the curb. She shifted into first, then turned toward Boston. This story better have a happy ending. She couldn’t call Jake for help, because Robyn had insisted—
implored—
no police.
“The University Inn,” Robyn had told her. A boutiquey hotel near Faneuil Hall, “the U,” everyone called it. The place where Lewis and Gracie were now supposedly swimming in the rooftop pool. Gracie, who had no idea this ugly dispute was swirling around her, was simply a little girl on a summertime adventure with her stepfather.
“He always forgets to charge his cell,” Robyn had explained. “That’s what must have happened. He didn’t hang up on you, his phone went dead. Lucky he’d told me all of it.”
Robyn had also explained that Lewis wanted Jane to come to the hotel and wait in the lobby. At some point in the afternoon, he would bring Gracie to her, introduce them, and leave. Lewis would call Jane’s cell to tell her when.
Surely this was the dumbest idea anyone had ever concocted. Even though Jane was kind of a public figure, and almost a family member, and, as a result, safe, it was still dumb. Jane had almost said that out loud. But then Robyn had dissolved in tears and run upstairs, leaving Jane and Melissa staring at each other. Jane had no choice but to go as instructed.
She stopped for gas at the station just before the entrance to the Mass Turnpike, grabbed a cello-wrapped pre-fab turkey sandwich and a Diet Coke, then added some Twizzlers for Gracie, just in case. In midday traffic like this, Jane calculated it would take half an hour to get to the University Inn.
Dumb, dumb,
dumb,
she thought, as she pulled onto the Pike. And good-bye to her TV career. Marsh Tyson at Channel 2 would be crossing her off the employment list, that was for sure. Maybe she should turn this whole thing into a Lifetime TV script, get a million dollars, and run off with Jake.
She shifted into third, passed a rickety landscaping truck, then a yellow bus full of kids, goofily smiling faces plastered to the square windows. A mop-topped little girl waved at her as she passed. Jane waved back, then the bus was behind her.
She couldn’t understand it, using a child in a battle for parental power. Seemed like that’s what Lewis was doing. And who knew about Robyn, who seemed to be letting him off the hook while helping perpetuate all this. Why didn’t Lewis simply bring Gracie home?
The crime scene tape was down from Curley Park, Jane noticed. She pulled to a stop, ready to hand her car over to the maroon-jacketed valet guy at the U. She got out of her car, brushing the turkey sandwich crumbs off her black jeans and onto the potholed pavement of North Street.
“Nice to see you again, Ms. Ryland,” the valet said.
Again? Oh. The same guy who’d parked her car when she worked the Curley Park story. Just yesterday! The name above his shirt pocket read
Tim.
“Thanks,” she said. “Seems to have calmed down, huh? They arrest anyone?”
“I was about to ask
you,
” Tim said.
“No idea,” she said, thereby admitting to both of them how out of it she was.
She gave him her keys, then hitched her tote bag up over her shoulder, remembering yesterday. Remembering the distasteful reality that disaster made good television, and that she’d understood good television might mean a job for her. How could all that yesterday seem so far away?
Now she was about to camp out in a hotel lobby with a pack of Twizzlers, waiting for the delivery of a—what would TV news call it? The hostage in a custody drama? Or simply a little girl caught between two selfishly unreliable parents?
Tim held out a rubber-banded stack of pale blue numbered tickets, poised a ballpoint pen over one. “How long will you be this time?” he asked.
“Good question,” she said.
* * *
Not sixty seconds ago, Catherine Siskel’s in-house intercom had buzzed. She’d raced down the stairs as soon as Nancie Alvarez alerted her. That
cop
? Now with
Tenley
? Damn cops. Their lies and their pretense. He’d pretended he had someplace to be. And where the hell was it? Downstairs, interrogating her daughter? Why?
Now every head turned toward her as she entered the surveillance room. Workers popped up like frightened prairie dogs, then plunked down in their seats at her glowering reaction. Tenley and that detective turned to acknowledge her arrival. Nancie approached her, but Catherine held up a palm.
I’ll handle this.
“Detective Brogan? Tenley?” She waved the others back to work. “Might I ask what’s going on here?”
Her head throbbed. If the public learned that contrary to what their mayor had specifically promised, every bit of surveillance video for City Hall was being taped and stored, that’d be the end of his tenure as mayor, the end of his career, and the end of the careers of every single person who knew about it. For a moment, though, she had the advantage. The cop looked like he’d been caught with a hand in the cookie jar. Which he most assuredly had.
Catherine pressed her lips together, struggling to calm her raging blood pressure.
Politics and power run best on a need-to-know basis,
she’d learned at the Kennedy School. Sometimes, even usually, that kind of compartmentalization worked. But the unavoidable reality was right here, right now. And there were no more degrees of separation.
She’d told this cop a lie—that her husband Greg was missing, whereabouts unknown.