“I have a-” Jane always hated to tell people she had a cat. She loved Coda, and had loved Murrow. But did it sound spinsterish? Single woman with cat. Still, possibly that was her own issue. “Not allergic,” she said.
Peter headed up Dorchester Ave., turned onto the Southeast Expressway, instantly hitting the left lane, passing whenever he could, weaving through the snarl of traffic more aggressively than Jane might have. There was never a moment, even on a Tuesday afternoon, when 93 South wasn’t teeming with cars, headed to the South Shore, or the Cape. Boston had gone crazy over the hot weather, celebrating the ending of another gloomy winter, and anywhere there was water became a magnet to hooky players. Jane bet half the cars on the road were workers who’d banged in sick. Who’d return in a day or so suspiciously sunburned, telling stories of “food poisoning.”
The speed limit was fifty-five, but as the highway passed the JFK Library, the traffic braked to a crawl. The Jeep’s digital speedometer flirted with twenty, and lost. That gave Jane time to find out what the heck was going on.
“Peter? What secret?” She smiled, trying to encourage him to talk. “Did you lure me into the car under false pretenses? I have a cell phone, you know. Or the way this traffic is going, I could easily hop out and walk back to the Register.”
“Sorry, Jane.” Peter edged into the left lane again, swerved back into the middle, sneaked between a minivan and a Subaru with a ponytailed woman texting at the wheel. “I’m trying to decide how much I can tell you. It’s tricky.”
He punched on the radio, AM 1030, the all-news station. Traffic on the threes, it was saying. “Heavy and slow on the Southeast…” He changed lanes again, swerving.
“Hey!” Jane grabbed the strap, steadied her coffee. She never liked being the one along for the ride. “The deal is, you tell me everything. This is the way to Sandoval’s sister-in-law’s house. We weren’t going to talk to them again until there was an arrest. So was there an-”
Jane stopped, mid-sentence. Another possibility. Peter had questioned Chrystal about the woman’s body found in the Arboretum. They could get there this way, too. “Hey. Are we going to the Arboretum? Why?”
Jane turned down the radio. Why was he making her guess? “Peter? You think Elliot Sandoval had something to do with this murder? The new murder?”
Two crazies on motorcycles zoomed past them, weaving flamboyantly though the sluggish traffic.
Peter swore at them, then punched the radio back on. “Listen, I need to see if the cops are-well, let me hear the news, okay? Since you won’t get me the details from your editor, I have to hear it somehow.”
Jane took the elastic out of her stubby ponytail, shook out her hair, opened the window, letting in a puff of crazy-hot May air. This wasn’t how she’d imagined this day. She’d imagined going to the drug store, buying sunscreen. Imagined pink sand and turquoise water and no deadlines. Now she was zero for three.
She waited, twisting her hair back into semi-place, letting Peter hear the newscaster’s voice describing a house fire in Brighton, a state legislator forced to resign after some graphic tweets, and then, a body in Jamaica Plain. A woman, no identification as yet, police say no suspects. Jane saw Peter’s grip change on the steering wheel, saw him flinch, even though he probably didn’t realize it.
“What’s the deal, Peter?” Jane was done speculating. “You get me out here asking if I can keep a secret, then you don’t tell me anything. Now you’re listening to the radio as if someone’s life depends on it. And I’m wondering-whose?”
“Would you confess to a murder you didn’t commit?” Peter asked.
“Confess? To a-?” Jane shifted in her seat, holding on again as Peter accelerated through an obviously too-small gap in the traffic. “Confess?”
This was either a ridiculous coincidence, or a potential disaster. Or both. This is exactly what Jake had mentioned the night before. Jake-Jake-had clammed up when she’d pushed him on it.
For a million reasons, she couldn’t tell Peter what Jake had told her. Even the non-thing that it was.
“You think someone’s offering a false confession?” Might as well go for it. If she was off base, she’d know it instantly.
“Why would you say that?” Peter turned to her, frowning.
“Well, you just asked me if-” Jane fussed with the window, wished she knew what was going on. There’d been a dead woman, Shandra Newbury, killed in a vacant house on Waverly Road. Now another one at the Arboretum, if she had it right. Were they connected? What did Elliot Sandoval have to do with it? Why didn’t Peter-who clearly was involved-simply explain what the hell was up?
“Peter, listen. We agreed I won’t report what you tell me about Sandoval. So why don’t you just tell me?”
“Because it’s not about Elliot Sandoval confessing,” Peter said.
“Then who?” Jane frowned, trying to make sense of it. “What confession?”
“It’ll work, trust me,” Aaron said into the phone. “I’ll switch the Nordstand Boulevard clients to another property. Same size, same everything.”
Though the bank was still open, tonight till five, Aaron’s office was deserted, secretary gone and other VPs pleading “off-site meetings.” Aaron took advantage of the privacy, knowing no one could overhear. “I’ll tell them the old tenants couldn’t be out until tonight so we can’t let the new ones in until tomorrow. I’ll waive the key deposit. They’re kids, they won’t care.”
Ackerman hated when he called, Aaron knew that, but sometimes it was the only way to connect. And so what? There’d be no incriminating record of it, no way to prove exactly what they’d been talking about. If anyone asked, they’d been discussing the bank’s foreclosed properties. Exactly what they were supposed to be doing.
He rolled his eyes as Ackerman responded with his typical semi-cryptic half-sentences, meaningless or explainable if anyone happened to overhear. Ackerman had his own issues to juggle, and Aaron knew the pressures on him were relentlessly unpredictable. Which made Ackerman the same way, relentlessly unpredictable. Aaron was used to it. Didn’t take Ackerman’s arrogant and dismissive behavior personally anymore. It was all part of the deal.
“I’ll make the rounds of the other places, let you know the score,” Aaron said. “Sound good?”
But there was only silence. Ackerman had hung up.
Par for the course, Aaron thought, as he put down the phone. He checked his calendar and spreadsheets. One property’s rent was a few days overdue. He smiled as he grabbed his car keys. College kids. What would he do without them?
25
Lizzie McDivitt stood on the sidewalk, half a block from the house. Just another Jamaica Plain saltbox, white, dandelion-dotted lawn, flagstones up to the screened front door. No cars in the asphalt driveway. Curtains over the front windows, closed, curtains over the second floor windows, closed, too. It could be vacant. Like it was supposed to be. Like the bank records said it was.
She fingered the keys in the pouch of her purse. Aaron’s keys. Yes, she was meeting him later, and whatever she discovered, she could easily pretend none of it happened. Didn’t have to decide that now.
She felt the sidewalk through her flat shoes, felt the humidity frizzing the ends of her hair, barely a breeze fluttered the leafy maple saplings that lined this street. Almost too hot to be outside. Maybe everyone was at a neighborhood swimming pool, or inside, grateful for air conditioning.
Maddie Kate Wendell. Why was she-and apparently a bunch of other college kids-living in that first “empty” house? Lizzie had checked the bank records on the down-low, and there was no denying it. The documentation was spot on, current and official. On paper, Maddie Kate’s house was empty.