Bystanders were out in force, Jane saw. A perfect selection of men on the street. MOS, they called it. And not just men. It was a sidewalk full of the curious, answering the siren song of the sirens, dressed in whatever they’d been wearing at nine thirty on a May night, teenagers in T-shirts and flip-flops, one guy in a suit, a woman with a trench coat belted over the lacy hem of an obvious nightgown.
Maybe one of them knew what’d happened. Knew who lived there, or-or something. Anything.
She looked back at the house. The front door was closed now. No gunfire, no more yelling. Sirens off. Whatever happened was over.
Jane had called Peter’s cell from the car on her way here, but no answer. The disembodied voice mail freaked her out a little, her imagination so out-of-control disconcerting she almost clicked it off before she left a message.
“Checking in,” she’d said, keeping her voice calm. No use to panic. It was just as likely he’d stopped for gas, or even pulled over for coffee and then fallen asleep. She’d done that, after all. There was utterly no reason to believe this victim was Peter, except for her own too-vivid imagination.
“Hoping everything is okay,” she allowed herself to say, because anyone would. “Call me, okay? I got sent on a story. I’m on my cell.”
She shook her head as she hung up, her concern spiraling as the time ticked by. Why hadn’t Peter called? She was incredibly worried, exhausted, and discombobulated-and now she had to cover a story.
“Yeah, let’s do that,” Jane said to TJ. “MOS, good idea.”
She scanned for faces that looked interested, or engaged. She wanted someone who actually knew something, not just some blowhard showoff trying to get their name in the paper. She chose the thirty-something man wearing a Nantucket cap and what looked like hospital scrubs. He’d made eye contact with her, and hadn’t grimaced at the camera. And his cap was bill forward, so he wasn’t a kid.
“Sir? I’m Jane Ryland from the Register,” she began as she and TJ approached. “Do you know who lives over there? Any idea what happened?”
The man frowned. “I’d prefer not to give my name.”
“Great, fine,” Jane said. It didn’t matter, for this interview, who he was, and it was often better to ask for names afterward, anyway, after the subject understood her questions were benign. “So, sir? Any idea who lives in that house?”
She cocked her head toward it, although there was clearly only one house anyone cared about. The one with the yellow tape and the cops in the front.
“Now, you mean?” the man said.
“Now?” Jane was tired, she knew that, but now as opposed to when? Of course now. “Uh, yeah. Now.”
“No one,” the man said.
“DeLuca’s still off, Sherrey’s out of pocket somewhere, everyone else would be double time.” Superintendent Rivera himself on the phone, calling Jake, was cop shorthand for don’t even think about complaining. “That puts you in the driver’s seat,” Rivera had told him.
Which was precisely where Jake was now-Grandpa’s files in the console of his cruiser-speeding to primary a DOA on Kenilworth. Not where you’d expect to find a murder victim, Jake thought, careening around the corner onto Huntington. He’d take the shortcut over the T tracks by Diva’s old digs, the MSPCA, and then get to the little collection of narrow streets behind the VA hospital. Not much ever hit the cops’ radar in that peaceful neighborhood, maybe an occasional wintertime battle when a visitor, clueless to local rules, usurped a shoveled-out parking place. This time of year the disputes sputtered over loose dogs, or kids playing Frisbee in the street. The occasional package swiped from a front porch, or a student whose parents panicked when little Jimmy didn’t show up at school. Usually they discovered the lure of a spring day had been too irresistible, and little Jimmy was found someplace like the Arboretum, or hanging out at the CVS, pilfering candy bars.
Jake blasted lights and sirens, just in case, but if anyone had died, it’d be natural causes, he predicted. Some of the houses there had been owned by the same folks for years. Other homes had turned over, like everywhere, old-timers dying and being replaced by yuppies and boomers, or sometimes losing their homes in the foreclosure blight that had fingered every part of the city.
He snapped off the siren, turned onto Kenilworth. Realized with dismay he wasn’t even close to the first to arrive. Place was crawling with cop cars. Why was the Supe so hot on him being there, too? Maybe the left hand didn’t know what the right hand was doing. Wouldn’t be the first time.
Someone had unspooled crime scene tape across the yard of number 16, one uniform, a woman, stationed at the edge of the wood-railed porch. He hoped someone was canvasing door to door. Crime Scene was here, too, but no ME vehicle, and no ambulance. Not exactly by the book.
On the sidewalk, another surprise. A clutch of onlookers in various stages of dress-or not-and right in the middle, under that street lamp, the unmistakable silhouette of Jane Ryland. How’d she get here before he did?
He clenched his fingers around the steering wheel, stalling, even though there was no way to stall and no way to avoid any of what was ahead. Slamming the car door harder than was probably warranted, he kept his head down and headed toward the house and the uniform who could give him the lowdown on the scene.
He’d deal with Jane later.
Jane looked up at the sound of a car door slamming. She’d heard the siren, figured more cops were on the way, wondered who’d show up. The instant she saw the silhouette, she knew.
Jake.
She tried to focus on what the man she was interviewing had just said. Tried to ignore the continuing worry about Jake. And that she hadn’t heard from Peter. This wasn’t a car accident, so that fear was unfounded. There’d be no reason for Peter to be in some random house in this random neighborhood. Would there?
“Ah, excuse me, you said ‘no one’ lives there? I mean-I’m talking about sixteen Kenilworth? Where they apparently found-”
“Yup, nope, no one,” the man said. He adjusted his cap, put the bill in the back, then back to the front. “That’s why we’re all out here, you know?”
“Did anyone ever live-?” Jane began.
“Evicted,” the man said.
TJ lowered his camera, then quickly put it back up. “Evicted?” he said. “Whoa.”
“Evicted?” Jane tried to process this. If the eviction was by Atlantic & Anchor Bank, that’d be interesting. “Do you know what bank? I mean, where the people had their mortgage?”
“Colonial,” the man said. “Colonial Bank. I know because we have ours there, too. And the Gerritys, they lived there, used to complain about what hardasses they were about paying.” He shrugged. “What are you gonna do, though, right?”
“Right,” Jane said, just to keep the guy happy and talking. She looked at TJ, raising her eyebrows. “So, Mr.-?”
“Doctor. Dr. Alvin Wander.”
“Dr. Wander. So they moved out-”
“Not happily,” Wander said.
“Got you,” Jane said. “When was that?”
“Month ago, I’d say.”
“And-”
“And there’ve been, I don’t know, people, hanging around since then, time to time. Suits. And some women, too. Don’t get me wrong-real estate, bank types, I figured. Wanting to sell it.” He frowned. “Going to create a serious property value situation now, isn’t it? If someone’s dead inside?”
45
“And you are?” Jake said.
The young officer saluted, looking him square in the eye. “Rosie Canfield,” she said. “I mean, Officer Roslynne-”