Free The Other Woman by Hank Phillippi Ryan

yes.”
    Jane put her head down, listening with half an ear to Alex’s instructions. Causeway Street was a wind tunnel, the chill blasting across the river. The white cables of the new bridge, spiking up like the rigging of some huge sailing ship, glared in the noontime sun. Poor Jake, she thought. He sees that bridge, he thinks about murder, not colonial schooners. The subway station was a block or two away, just past the—
    “Hey, Alex? Listen, I’m right by Lassiter headquarters. I connected with a great possible source yesterday, a guy in the campaign, who says he can maybe hook me up with Moira. Okay if I stop by there first? See if he’s there? Great. See ya.”
    She pushed through the revolving front doors of Lassiter headquarters into the spotlit lobby of a political photo gallery. Lassiter with a president. Arm in arm with at least three senators. Lassiter, hand on a bible, sworn in as Governor of Massachusetts. Moira beside him, elegant even with her Hillary headband and ’90s shoulder pads. A FedEx guy in shorts and a backward baseball cap wheeled an overloaded cart of packages behind her, retrieving a few that slipped over the edges, and hurried through as the elevator doors were closing.
    Place is a zoo. Blaring Sousa music. Messages squawking intermittently over a PA system. Two metal tables covered in patriotic bunting, heaped with multicolored campaign brochures. TIME TO TRUST , one said. ENERGY FOR ENERGY . Jane stashed a few into her tote bag. She’d post them on her “half” of the bulletin board, if Tuck’s morbid photos didn’t take up all the room.
    Now to find Trevor. But the reception desk was empty. A green notebook, obviously a sign-in sheet, lay open in plain view. A can of Diet Coke, lipstick-ringed straw inserted, sat abandoned next to an elaborate telephone console. Lights flashed as phones rang, unanswered. Someone sure wasn’t doing their job. No wonder the campaign was in disarray.
    Jane reached into her tote bag for her phone to call Trevor. But it was already buzzing with a text.
    “Call me, roomie,” it said. Roomie? Tuck? What does he want, another shelf? Ah, sure she would call. Later. She found the white business card Trevor had given her and dialed him instead.
    *   *   *
    “There’s no Bridge Killer, Supe. I’m telling you, there isn’t.” Jake placed a manila file folder of his printed-out canvass notes onto his boss’s desk, then plopped into the ratty padded seat of the chair beside it. Boston Police HQ was new on the outside, limestone and double-tall glass, but they’d moved in all the old furniture from downtown. Even the superintendent’s office, prime territory, looked furnished from law enforcement yard sales.
    “There’s however many bridges in Boston, and the Charles River runs from Beacon Hill out to Newton,” Jake continued. “The harbor. Fort Point Channel. Water and bridges, hard to have a murder here that’s not near one or the other. Or both. But they’re not connected. You know? Sir?”
    Superintendent Francis Rivera had opened the file, looked at it briefly, tossed it back at Jake. “So what I’m hearing is, you’re nowhere,” Rivera said. “And your partner DeLuca is nowhere. Correct, Detective?”
    Jake started to answer.
    “I’m not interested in files of nothing, Brogan. You’re a murder cop, right? You’re supposed to be about answers. That’s why I called you in here. Answers.”
    “Yes, sir.” Jake knew Rivera’s bad-cop mode was SOP. The supe was a good guy, up from the ranks, born in Roxbury, football, debate team, West Point, Desert Storm, Boston’s second black superintendent. Knew his stuff. “Let me run this by you. Remember the ME findings. Doctor A says the Longfellow victim was well taken care of. Good teeth. No tats. No piercings. Professionally colored hair. Manicure. No bruises, nothing. No defensive wounds. Nothing . I’d put her—college kid. Maybe older. Sir.”
    “So? And that means?” The