She searched for another uncommon name. Cole Gantry. There might be several Gantrys, but Cole was unusual enough. And there it was, only one listing. Warrick Road in Allston. She copied the number, and started a new search.
Her stomach grumbled. No wonder she was sleepy. Should she hit the vending machine? Have a little blood-sugar and caffeine boost of Twizzlers and Diet Coke? At this rate, she and Peter would be closing down the kitchen somewhere. She touched her hair again, thinking about a mirror, then took her hand away. It wasn’t a date, it was business. At his rate, it would be over breakfast.
Maybe if she put her head down for a few minutes, she could sneak a tiny nap, and wake up when Peter called. No one would see her.
She yawned again, scooted back the keyboard, and crossed her arms on the desk. Trying to get comfortable, she rested her forehead on one arm, and thought about pillows. Bed. Jake. She felt a little welling of sadness, a loss. Why hadn’t he called?
43
The police report, dated May 14, 1994, indicated two officers had responded to a West Roxbury location, Tollefson Street, and then in parentheses “arboretum.”
Basement fluorescents buzzing overhead, Diva still snoring on the raffia rug, Jake couldn’t read it all fast enough, but he didn’t want to miss anything, either. He shook out one leg and forced his brain to shift into a lower gear, paying attention. Next page. In some cop’s misspelled printing, the stilted and mistake-ridden narrative of the story unfolded, the discovery of the “body of Carol Mary Schafer, WF, approx. 17-19 years of age…”
The medical examiner’s report, signed with an almost-illegible slash of ball-point pen by a guy who’d left town years ago, ruled the cause of death “strangulation by ligature” and “asphyxia.”
The damn Lilac Sunday case was lore. The Grail. The white whale in the Boston PD, their commonality, the case they wrestled with over beers and coffee and during stakeouts when talk of current cases and police gossip ran out. A reward, big big bucks, sat waiting for whoever gave information leading to the killer. Every commissioner since Grandpa stamped it top priority. Jake read on, intent. Hunting.
All the newspaper clippings, snipped with pinking shears and mostly from the Register and the American, ran the same photo of Carley Marie, a painting that hung over her parents’ mantel, her dark hair parted in the middle, a girl with a tentative smile and a string of pearls. Pages from Carley Marie’s Attleboro High school yearbook. The DA-now dead-called it “a heinous and brutal crime,” and warned he already “had his eye” on some suspects, “some more than others.” Jake’s grandfather, Boston Police Commissioner Ewan MacIlhenny Brogan, was not quoted. So far.
Jake continued through the musty paperwork, looking for anything-anything-that would lead him to Gordon Thorley. Or to be fair, to anyone else. The DA had said there were “suspects,” plural. Where the hell was the info on that? He turned a few more pages. If there were suspects, there’d be some sort of-if not a list, then at least-huh.
The back of his neck prickled as Jake ran a finger down the typewritten list of names, trying to read the whole thing at once, looking for the shape of the name “Gordon Thorley.” Some names had checkmarks next to them, some were crossed out, some circled, in different inks, the page possibly handled by more than one person. Today they’d euphemistically call these individuals “persons of interest,” but this coffee-stained document had no heading. Jake figured they wouldn’t have wanted some smart defense attorney to demand it-and then trumpet to a jury that since cops had targeted a whole list of people, wasn’t that reasonable doubt? With an untitled list like this, there would be a semblance of deniability. Interesting that Grandpa kept it.
As his finger moved down the list, name after name, Jake felt his disappointment growing.
He was almost to the end, no Thorley, and his mind was already rationalizing why it didn’t matter. Of course that name wasn’t there. No one had heard of Gordon Thorley, that was the whole dilemma from day one of his “confession.” If they had-wait.
The name Gary Lee Smith was on the list.
Crossed out.
Jake sank into a wicker chair, its uneven legs wobbling, the woven seat so creaky he worried for a moment that it wouldn’t hold his weight. Diva, startled at the sound, raised her head with a halfhearted woof, then went back to sleep.
Gary Lee Smith, according to Nate Frasca, had been Gordon Thorley’s first parole officer. Maybe this wasn’t a list of suspects? But a list of parole officers? Why? If they were POs, they’d have been on the job almost twenty years ago, so it was possible some of them were still working. Or at least, alive. A long-ish shot, but possible.
Why did Grandpa keep this list? Cops were required to review notes in open cases every ten days. But when a case went cold, so did attention to it. Had Grandpa taken this from the police file? Or made a copy and added it to his own separate set of records?
Jake leaned back in the chair, staring at the list. He turned it over, looking for something, anything, a date, a notation, a mark from a copier.
Why was Gary Lee Smith’s name in a file that no one had opened for years?
The armed robbery Thorley’d be nailed for didn’t happen until the year after the Carley Marie killing. Thorley was a free man-teenager?-when Carley Marie was killed. Had Gordon Thorley known Gary Lee Smith before Lilac Sunday?
Jake pulled out his phone, did a quick Internet search. There was a Gary Lee Smith who was an ex-con in Oklahoma and one who was a realtor. There was a dead Marine, and a minor-league baseball player. Nothing about a Massachusetts parole officer.
Nothing that fit.
Jane grabbed her throat, startled by the sound. She sat up, blinking, trying to figure out where she-oh, right. The newsroom. She’d put her head on her desk only for a moment.
Her phone was ringing. Finally. Her desk phone, not her cell.
She checked the time on her computer. Could this be Peter? Where was he? She grabbed the phone before the end of the second ring.
The caller ID showed an in-house extension. Had someone seen her sleeping?
“This is Jane Ryland,” she said, trying to sound awake.
“Hey, you at your desk? I thought I saw the light. It’s Nick LaGarza, over at the copy desk?”
Jane shook her head, clearing it. Stood up, looking over the shoulder-high walls of the cubicles. A lanky guy in a blue shirt stood popped up like a prairie dog, waving, phone clamped to one ear.
“I see you.” She sat down again, preparing her defenses. It’s never a good thing when the copy desk calls. She hoped Nick needed some advice, or a phone number, and was not thinking of sending her on some story. She was off the clock, technically, dammit. No way, this time of night, she was going to-
She paused, regrouping, finding her team player voice. No need to be upset about an imaginary assignment. “Yeah, I’m here. What’s up?”
“We’ve got a possible homicide,” Nick said. “Over on Kenilworth? You know? Over by where the Southeast Expressway comes into Albany? Half a mile from here.”
Jane pictured it, the highway ramp with its craggy overpass, graffiti-emblazoned with indecipherable gang tags and farfetched cartoon faces, the entryway to the iffy neighborhood on the outskirts of Boston. Peter had just been driving on the Southeast Expressway. Must have been.
Could he have-stopped somewhere? On the way here? That’s why he was late? And now, what if Peter was-she swallowed, reconnoitering. She glanced at her cell. No messages. If the phone had rung, she’d have awakened before now. Where was Peter? Possible homicide? Peter?