Tenley felt the flush come up over her cheeks. Brileen had just been making conversation, of course she had.
“Oh, it’s okay.” Tenley mustered all the bravado she could. Maybe change the subject? “My mother works at City Hall, too,” she said. Brileen had asked about her family, after all. Maybe that would impress her.
“Cool. It’s just that…” Brileen sat back, rested her shoulder blades against the booth’s black leather padding, the tips of her fingers splayed on the table, nails on both forefingers bitten to the nubs but polished, shiny, the color of eggplants. “You know. If the police don’t really know what happened to your sister, how do they know the same thing, whatever it was, won’t happen to you?”
20
For a case that started out with too many witnesses, how come there suddenly weren’t enough? Jake ignored the elevator, yanked open the stairway door, and raced down the five flights to the hospital lobby.
“Can you hear me? I’m in the stairs,” he told DeLuca. He’d left a swaddled John Doe No. 2 under the care of Ronald Verrio, instructing him to use that contraband cell phone to snap a few legal photos of the guy’s right arm the second it came into view. One picture could clinch that evidence, no need for Jake to take the time now to see it in person. Though after what DeLuca was now telling him, hurrying back to Headquarters seemed pointless. Before he could get there, everyone he cared about would be gone.
“Freaking lawyers,” DeLuca was saying. “Hewlitt called some bigwig chick, who showed up all briefcase and fast talk, and somehow made a deal to pay off Bobby Land and spring the both of them.”
“Somehow?” Jake was at the third floor, a gloomy mustard-painted expanse of concrete blocks and taped-up laminated No Smoking posters. He grabbed the slick banister, swung himself around to the next level. Looked at his watch. Pushing seven. “Somehow how? Courts are closed.”
“Not if you have the cash, my guess.” DeLuca’s voice was ripe with disdain. “Hewlitt’s convinced a judge to make it all go away. A hundred bucks, released on condition he show up for arraignment ‘at some later date.’ The judge also ordered Hewlitt to ‘make it right’ with Land.”
Jake, now on the second-floor landing, tried to make sense of it. Now they had no cause to hold Hewlitt. Lawyers, story of his life. “What does ‘make it right’ mean?”
“What do you think, Harvard?” DeLuca said. “Bucks, I’d say.”
Right. “So, Land? Where is he now?”
“Hang on, lemme check. You wanna hold?”
“Will do.” Jake would drive to HQ, try to whip this case back under control before it all went to hell. He knew DeLuca was following up with the on-scene officers about other images they’d taken from cell phones, and scouring witness reports. Angie Bartoneri had requested the surveillance video from surrounding buildings. She’d let them know as soon as she got it. And Calvin Hewlitt’s background.
Hewlitt. His story was bullshit, bet the ranch. How did he and John Doe No. 2 get into the alley? The camera thing? Lawyer or no, that guy was guilty. Now Jake would have to fight through a battalion of legal gatekeepers if he wanted to get anywhere near him.
Crap. Too much to do.
Through the middle revolving door-why were they all so damn slow?-out to the curb. Cruiser door open, ignition, liftoff.
He had a dead John Doe in the morgue. A possible suspect swaddled in the hospital. If Jake could uncover a solid connection between the two of them, the rest would fall into place.
Hewlitt was involved. Or-not.
Land was a potential eyewitness.
As for John Doe 2? If he had a tattoo, pizza for everyone and justice prevails, because that meant the killer was safely in custody at Mass General Hospital. If there was no tattoo? Back to square one.
The light at Congress turned red. Of course. He watched out the cruiser’s broad windshield, seeing his future instead of the pedestrians.
He was supposed to meet Jane and her family an hour from now. Crappy timing. He was angry with her. But, whatever. They’d argued before. She was still Jane. He hoped, for everything’s sake, he could still make it.
All he could do was keep the show on the road. Police work was all about step by step, solving one element at a time. You can’t reach the end of the road until you begin the journey, his grandfather used to say. It was all good.
And the light turned green.
The scene in Robyn and Lewis Wilhoite’s living room was now a full-fledged drama. Robyn, sobbing, sat on the couch. Melissa was barricaded behind the wing chair. Jane stood by the desk. All stared at the black mesh of the speakerphone, hearing the buzzing dial tone. Whoever had called had hung up.
“I’m calling Ja-a police detective I know,” Jane said. “Right now.”
Time to bring in the big guns. Big gun Jake, or whoever Jake told her to call. Jake, who she’d last seen, fuming, in Franklin Alley. Jake, who they were all supposed to meet in about an hour. Ridiculous timing, but he was still her Jake. He’d find out about this tonight anyway. Why not now?
No one had heard from Gracie or Lewis since the first phone call three hours earlier. Back then, Lewis assured Robyn they were on an adventure, and they’d believed him. Now, at almost seven o’clock, no one was sure. Robyn said she’d called friends and hospitals. Nothing. The longer the daughter and stepfather were whereabouts unknown, the more the potential for disaster.
Melissa stopped the dial tone, then picked up the receiver. “I’m dialing star six-nine,” she said. “That’ll connect us with whoever called.”
Robyn took her hands from her eyes. “But we know who called,” she whispered. “Lewis.”
“Or someone using Lewis’s phone,” Jane said.
At that, Robyn’s sobs grew louder. Jane hadn’t meant to upset her, but the truth was the truth. The sooner they faced it, the sooner they could resolve this.
For the first time, maybe ever, Melissa seemed flustered. She shook her head, adjusted her pearls. “Oh, right,” she said. “Just trying to hel-never mind.”
“That’s why we have to call the police.” Jane punched up her own phone’s Internet as she talked. She typed in AMBE. The AMBER Alert website appeared. “Okay, so,” Jane went on, scanning, figuring the family and ex-family and family-to-be dynamics would be sorted out as soon as Gracie was safely home. And Lewis, too. “The site says an AMBER Alert may be issued if… let me see… okay, a couple of other things, but mainly, if an abduction has taken place, or the child is at risk of serious injury or death.”
Jane stopped, all eyes now on her. The implied question wasn’t pleasant, but neither was Gracie’s situation. Jane looked at Melissa, hoping for an alliance. Melissa dealt with cases like this as a prosecutor, at least from time to time. When a potential abduction-if that’s what it was, she kept reminding herself-was this close to home, would it cloud her judgment?
“Jane’s right.” Melissa stood a little taller, Jane noticed, straightened her shoulders. “Robyn, do you think Lewis has taken Gracie?”
“Certainly not,” Robyn said. “I mean-”
“Wait,” Jane interrupted. She’d been replaying the day in her mind, realized what they’d forgotten. “Lewis’s phone is obviously working again. He called you. Try calling him now, see what happens.”
Robyn clicked numbers, using both thumbs. She stopped, deleted, started over. “I’m too nervous to dial,” she whispered.
“Even if the cops traced the call,” Melissa said, “it would only tell us where the phone is, not where Lewis is. That might not be the same place.”