Authors: Hank Phillippi Ryan
“Let me look,” Brogan said. And he
was
looking. At the screen.
“My name is Brileen Finnerty,” they heard her say. Brileen planted both hands on the back of the flowered couch. Leaned toward Dahlstrom. “Mean anything to you?”
Dahlstrom didn’t budge, his back to the laptop’s eye. “Should it?”
“Wish we could see the guy’s face,” Catherine murmured.
Brileen shook her head, as if impatient. “Look. Don’t screw with me. I’m Tenley’s ‘friend’ now. As you well know. But Siskel’s got the police out there, I assume you know that, too.”
“Does she know you’re in here?”
“Are you kidding me? She
sent
me here. Just like she sent you! She’d do anything to protect her reputation. You of all people know that. She’s trying to keep us both out of the cop’s way because
I
know about the thumb drives, and
you
know about that murder video.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking abou—”
Catherine thought she detected a quaver in Dahlstrom’s voice. A hesitation. So frustrating not to be able to see his face.
“But they
don’t
know we know each other!” Brileen interrupted, insistent. “And they don’t know about Hugh. And that’s what makes this perfect.”
Who’s
… Detective Brogan wrote.
“Don’t you see?” Brileen went on, persuading. “Catherine Siskel has the thumb drives. Both of them. They were in her dead husband’s pocket. The cops gave them to her. Both of them.”
Both? Not true,
Brogan wrote.
Catherine nodded.
Exactly.
“But here’s the thing,” Brileen went on. “The cops didn’t watch the videos. And Catherine didn’t either. But Lanna told me about you, Ward.
All
about you.”
“Lanna who?” Dahlstrom said.
“Lanna
who
?” Brileen voice was a mocking echo. She smoothed a hand along the back of the couch, then pointed at Dahlstrom. “Oh. I get it. You think I’m—”
Catherine held up crossed fingers. Brogan nodded.
“—wearing a wire?” Brileen stepped around the side of the couch, came toward him. Arms outstretched. Offering herself. “Are you kidding me? Please.
Fine.
You want to check?”
Dahlstrom turned away. And as he did, his glance flickered to the upper left, exactly where Catherine found the hidden camera.
He knows,
Brogan wrote.
Yup.
Catherine wrote. “Is there anything else you need, Detective?” she said out loud.
Brileen had grabbed him by the arm. “Don’t you see?”
“It’s not gonna work,” Tenley whispered.
“Shh,” Catherine said. Though she agreed. Maybe Dahlstrom was too cagey. But Brileen was giving it all she had.
“When they figure out it’s you on the thumb drive video,” Brileen said, still holding Dahlstrom’s arm, “they’re gonna nail you for the murder of Greg Siskel.”
Brileen pointed to her chest, then gestured, wide, with both hands. “And then—like you’re gonna protect me? I’m in as deep as you. But listen. I can get those thumb drives from Siskel,” Brileen said. “I know I can. And I’ll destroy them.”
Silence. Dahlstrom’s back was still to the camera.
Catherine saw the determination on Brileen’s face.
“Dahlstrom, hear me,” the girl said. “I am your only. Frigging. Way out.”
Dahlstrom looked at his cell phone. “I need to make a call.”
Catherine looked at the detective, triumphant. She could almost, almost, make out the numbers he was dialing. But she’d be able to look again. Because even though Ward Dahlstrom’s back was to the computer’s hidden camera, he was holding his phone directly in its view.
Tenley mimed applause. Catherine put her arm around her daughter. They’d won.
Then Brogan’s phone rang.
Jake flinched at the sound. Catherine Siskel turned to him, questioning. He waved her off. Clearly Dahlstrom wasn’t calling
him.
It was DeLuca.
“Hey, D,” he kept his voice low. “Hang on.”
On the computer screen, Dahlstrom had turned away from Brileen as he talked. Jake saw Brileen touch her ear and shake her head.
“She can’t hear what he’s saying,” Tenley whispered.
“It’s okay,” Jake reassured her, his voice low. “I can take his phone.”
“Whose phone?” DeLuca asked.
“Later,” Jake said. “What’s up, D?”
“John Doe 2 has the tattoo we saw in the bystander’s photo,” DeLuca said.
“Awesome.” Jake kept his eyes on the screen. Dahlstrom was still on the phone. “Did he tell you what happened? Why he killed Greg Siskel?”
“Killed who?” DeLuca said. “Greg—?”
Right. DeLuca had no idea about any of this yet.
“Later,” Jake said. “But that’s great.” This was all coming together. Though it had only been, what, not yet forty-eight hours? But if tattoo guy was talking, case closed. Jake could almost envision his own apartment. A beer. A pillow. “What’d he say? About what happened?”
“Nothing,” DeLuca said. “He’s dead.”
In an instant, in his mental video, Jake saw Curley Park, Greg Siskel—trying to protect his daughter from humiliation—with a knife in his back. Saw what happened in Franklin Alley. Finally Jake had enough to make his move.
“Get a warrant for Calvin Hewlitt for the murder of … call him a John Doe,” Jake said. “Bring that asshole in. I’ve got one more thing to do here.”
Jake clicked off, stashed the cell in his pocket.
“Ready?” Jake asked. One more asshole to go.
“Totally.” Tenley brandished her cell. “Say when.”
Jake turned to the greenroom door. Yanked it open. Before Dahlstrom could react, Jake snatched the phone from the man’s hand. Put it to his own ear.
“Hey!” Dahlstrom yelled, waved his arms as he grabbed for his cell. “Hang up!” he called out. “Hang up!”
Jake stood, smiling, holding the now-buzzing phone. Whoever was on the other end had followed directions, leaving only a dial tone.
“You trying to hide something, Mr. Dahlstrom?” Jake said.
Dahlstrom’s face reddened, a lock of hair falling over his forehead. A muscle in his neck twitched. “You can’t take my phone,” he insisted. “Not without a warrant.”
Jake tilted his head left, then right, pretended to think about it. “Possibly,” he said. “But it won’t save you. We’ve got the whole thing on tape.”
“On tape? That girl?” Dahlstrom waved toward the greenroom. “She said she wasn’t wired—I could have looked!”
“She wasn’t,” Jake said. This was almost fun. “The room was.”
He signaled Catherine, who reached out and swiveled the monitor, turning it so Dahlstrom could see it.
Brileen, on her cell with Tenley, waved at the camera. “Hi, Ward,” her voice came over the speaker.
“You can’t record my voice without my knowledge!” Dahlstrom swept his hair from his forehead, then sneered at Jake, hands on hips. “It’s illegal, even for the cops,
Detective.
I’d have thought you’d know that.”
“Oh, I do,” Jake said. “Massachusetts General Laws chapter two seven-two, section ninety-nine requires all parties to know they’re being recorded.” Jake paused, savoring the moment. Saw Catherine draw a deep breath, take her daughter’s hand. Saw Tenley almost smile. “However.”
Jake held up the thumb drive.
Dahlstrom flinched, his eyes narrowing. He tried, too late, to hide his reaction.
“Yeah,” Jake said. “Because in fact, you
did
know. Right? You set up a taping yourself. Up in the smoke alarm.” He tucked the drive back in his jacket pocket. “So it’s all legal and admissible. Now, tell us about all this. Or you’re going down. Alone.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dahlstrom said. “I want a lawyer.”
“Noted.” Jake examined Dahlstrom’s cell phone. The keypad was still illuminated, black numbers encircled in black. “But meantime, why don’t I just give your partner in crime a call?”
He tapped the button for Recents. Clicked on the top listing. And hit Send.
* * *
Jane winced as her phone rang. The sign in the police waiting room said
NO CELL PHONES
, but she had ignored it. The black-uniformed guard stationed at the metal reception desk glared at her.
“Sorry!” Jane said, trying to look sorry. Robyn Wilhoite had been taken to some interrogation room. Jane was parked here and ordered to wait. For what? she’d asked.
But the cop, an icily chic detective named Bartoneri, had declined to elaborate, saying she’d be back “at the appropriate time.” Jane remembered Bartoneri—she’d been in the supply room with DeLuca for Robyn Wilhoite’s questioning. Jane especially remembered the eyebrows
.
The heels on her black boots. And that body. She couldn’t wait to ask Jake for the scoop about her.
It had been half an hour now, at least, that Jane had waited on this lumpy sofa for word on Robyn, distracted only by the local news broadcast on the TV monitor mounted high on the plaster wall. The sound was muted, but she recognized the story—the exterior of the University Inn, the blue lights of the ambulance that she knew carried Lewis Wilhoite, and silent talking heads identified only as “hotel guests.” The graphic, a target superimposed over the University Inn logo, was accompanied by the headline “Downtown Drama.”
What you see on TV is only part of the story,
Jane thought
.
That had never been clearer, how little of reality could be revealed in the brief snippets of video and supposedly catchy headlines.
When the guard went back to her paperwork, Jane surreptitiously checked her cell. Melissa had texted that she and Daniel had taken Gracie for ice cream—and the girl seemed fine. She’d have a difficult road ahead. But lucky to have Melissa and Daniel.
“Miss Ryland?”
Jane looked up at her name. The desk clerk was now pointing to Detective Bartoneri, who’d just arrived and stood at the waiting room door, a cell phone to her ear.
Finally.
Jane tried to read Bartoneri’s expression. Something must be going on in that phone call, it was obvious from the woman’s frown and her downcast eyes. Jane stood, worrying, yanked her tote bag to her shoulder. Took a step toward the door.
Bartoneri’s expression changed again. Surprise? Concern? Fear? The detective took the phone away from her ear, narrowing her eyes at the screen.
Then the detective’s face paled. She took a step back. And hung up.
“Something wrong?” Jane had to ask. Clearly there was. Maybe—Lewis? If Robyn had succeeded in killing him, they’d never know the real story. And poor Gracie …
Detective Bartoneri had slipped her cell phone into a pocket of her black blazer. Jane saw the gold badge clipped to her belt and the edge of a black leather holster.
“Not at all.” Bartoneri squared her shoulders, looked Jane up and down. “I’m here regarding Mrs. Wilhoite,” she said. “She’s asked for an attorney. We’ll be holding her until he arrives. As a result, there’s no reason for you to remain, since—”
Bartoneri’s phone rang. The three-tone trill came clearly though the detective’s jacket. The woman’s eyes widened. She yanked out the cell, looked at the screen. Seemed to make a decision.
“Hello?” she said.
“Off the record?” Jake leaned back against the pile of pillows on Jane’s leather couch, his shoes kicked off, his legs stretched the full length. Coda, as always, had curled herself on his lap, tail wrapped to her pink nose. Jake was not a cat person, but Jane’s calico aggressively refused to accept that. “Yeah. It was Angie.”
Jane plopped a wooden bowl of twisty pretzels on the coffee table, then handed him an IPA, the icy brown bottle wrapped in a napkin. She took her usual spot, leaning back at the opposite end of the couch. Her legs, in those somehow sexy black sweatpants, paralleled his, her toes against his thigh.
“Everything on the couch is off the record.” Jane kneaded her toes into his jeans. “Especially after midnight. But I can’t believe I was right there when you called Angela Bartoneri. Rats. Wish I had known what was going on.”
Jake tried to calculate how long he’d been awake. It was risky to collapse on Jane’s couch, but they were both flying on adrenaline right now. Jane already knew Robyn Wilhoite was under arrest for attempted murder. And Angie Bartoneri was in custody as a co-conspirator in the secret City Hall taping and extortion. “I’ll tell you the rest—if you keep it secret.”
“Who am I gonna tell?” Jane toasted him with her glass of red wine. “I’m unemployed, and probably without prospects, since I blew off Marsh Tyson to take care of the Gracie thing.”
He saw her face fall.
“I know, honey.” Jake shifted, pressing the weight of his leg against the length of hers. “We’ll all take care of Gracie, right? However it turns out? Lewis will be fine. We know Gracie loves him, and he loves her. She’s lucky, you know, to have Melissa and Daniel. And you.”
“And you.” Jane took a sip of her wine, closed her eyes briefly. “We can’t control the universe,” she said. “We can only do the best we can.”
They sat, silent, for a moment, Coda’s purr vibrating against Jake’s chest. As peaceful and domestic as a scene could be—for a cop and a reporter after forty straight hours of deception and murder. And two families struggling with a new reality.
“Curley Park,” Jane said.
“Just what I was thinking,” Jake admitted.
“You’re such a romantic.” Jane poked him with a toe. “But yeah, off the record. Tell me. You grabbed that Ward Dahlstrom’s phone and hit Redial—very cool. Legally iffy, right? But cool. And that’s when you reached Angela Bartoneri?”
“Former Detective Angie Bartoneri—who’s now in custody for extortion and conspiracy and a shitload of other stuff,” Jake said. “Along with her partner in crime, Ward Dahlstrom. Apparently he’s hated Catherine Siskel ever since she got named chief of staff instead of him. Decided to use her daughters to get revenge.”
Dahlstrom, the weak link, had ratted out Angie the second he’d had the option. Once Jake had heard Bartoneri answer Dahlstrom’s phone—he’d recognized her voice instantly this time—their scheme had begun to disintegrate. Angie in turn had ratted out Calvin Hewlitt, who she said used his security systems for an extortion scheme, threatening to leak embarrassing security videos unless victims paid them off. Apparently the University Inn was a prime source. Jake had already subpoenaed every bit of video from Hewlitt Security.