All Fall Down (2 page)

B
y three that afternoon, Melanie was running on nerves and caffeine. After throwing up, she had retrieved a Coke from the motel vending machine, rinsed her mouth with it, then gotten back to work. The CMPD forensic team had arrived, and she and Bobby had worked alongside them, logging in and bagging evidence. The medical examiner had come, followed by the body-removal service the county contracted to transport bodies to the morgue. She and Bobby had then reported to WPD headquarters to officially start their day.

Melanie poured herself another cup of coffee, ignoring both her sour stomach and dull headache. She didn't have time for queasiness or fatigue—the shit had only just begun hitting the fan. And no wonder. With this case there was plenty of it to go around: the FBI was involved, the CMPD, Charlotte's most powerful citizen and of course, Whistlestop's little band of blue. The victim had been young, beautiful and rich; her death gruesome and kinky.

Front page, made to order.

“May!” Chief Greer bellowed from the doorway to his office. “Taggerty! Get in here. Now!”

Melanie looked at Bobby, who rolled his eyes.
Something had definitely sent their boss into orbit. And Chief Gary Greer in orbit was a sight to behold. Six-foot-four, built like a bull and with skin the color of fine dark chocolate, he commanded both respect and fear. But despite his overwhelming physical presence—or perhaps because of it—he rarely lost his temper. When he did, everybody hopped to attention.

In fact, Melanie had seen him this angry only once before: when he had discovered that one of the officers on night patrol had been letting hookers walk in exchange for blow jobs.

Melanie grabbed her notepad and jumped to her feet. Bobby followed her. When they reached the man's office, he ordered them to sit.

“I just got off the phone with Chief Lyons. Bastard politely suggested we bow out of this investigation. For the good of all involved, turn the entire thing over to the CMPD.”

“What!” Melanie jumped to her feet. “You didn't agree—”

“Hell no! I told him to kiss my hairy, black butt.” He laughed. “That put old Jack in his place.”

Melanie smiled. Her chief had been a homicide investigator with the CMPD himself, and a highly decorated one at that. Four years ago he had been shot in the line of duty; the incident had nearly cost him his life. After he'd recovered, his wife gave him an ultimatum—the job or the marriage. Only forty-six and too young to be put out to pasture, he'd chosen the marriage and accepted this position. Although outwardly comfortable with his decision, Melanie sus
pected that he, like she, longed for real crimes to investigate.

“They're not going to push us out,” he continued, yanking at his tie to loosen it. “The murder occurred in our community, and I have citizens to account to. Like it or not, they're stuck with us.”

His mouth thinned. “This is a big one. All eyes are going to be on us. Pressure for a quick resolution is going to come from all quarters and it's going to be intense. The press is going nuts already, and Andersen's begun pulling in markers. Keep your heads and do your job. Don't let the heat get to you.

“The truth is,” he continued, “the CMPD's more experienced. They have more manpower, better facilities, deeper pockets. Fine, we accept their help. But that's as far as we bend. Any questions?”

“Yeah,” Melanie said. “The FBI guy, Parks. What's his story?”

“Wondered how long it'd take you to ask.” Her chief smiled, his first of the afternoon. “A bit of an asshole, isn't he?”

Bobby laughed. “A bit? That guy was a walking, talking pucker.”

“And no stranger to the bottle,” Melanie added.

The chief frowned, looking from one to the other of them. “He'd been drinking?”

“Drinking?” she repeated. “No, that word implies restraint. Moderation. Parks looked and smelled like he'd been on a year-long binge.”

Her chief seemed to digest that information, his expression tight. “Connor Parks is a profiler. Until a year ago he was a bigwig at Quantico, what was then called
the Behavioral Science Unit. I don't know the details, but rumor has it he publicly embarrassed the Bureau. He was censured and demoted.”

A profiler. No wonder.
Melanie had attended an FBI-sponsored seminar on profiling a year or so ago. She had found the information presented fascinating. The way the agent had explained it, every killer unwittingly left a signature at the scene of his crime. It was the profiler's job to read that signature, to put himself or herself in the head of both predator and prey and re-create the how, why and most importantly, the who of the event.

Which was exactly what Parks had been attempting to do today.

“So what's he doing in Charlotte working on our puny case?” Bobby asked.

“Charlotte's his demotion.” The chief looked from her to Bobby once more. “Make no mistake. The man's good at what he does, booze or not. Use him.”

“With that personality, he'd better be good,” she muttered, jotting a note to call him, then meeting her chief's gaze again. “What's next?”

“I want you to question the victim's friends, her family members and fellow students. Find out who she was seeing, where she hung out and what she was into. But first, get over to CMPD headquarters. Make sure they haven't already sent somebody out. If they have, find out who and track them down. We have to appear a united front. Andersen will flip if it looks like we're not. Next thing I know, the mayor'll be crawling up my ass.”

That'd be a neat trick.
To hide her smile, Melanie glanced down at her notes.

“Anything else?” Bobby asked.

“Yeah,” he barked. “Get moving!”

They did, jumping to their feet and hurrying out of their boss's office. The first thing Melanie did was call her twin sister, Mia. The other woman picked up right away. “Mia, it's Mel.”

“Melanie! My God, I was just watching channel six. That poor girl!” She lowered her voice. “Was it awful?”

“Worse,” Melanie replied grimly. “That's why I'm calling. I need a favor.”

“Shoot.”

“It's crazy around here, and I don't expect it to let up in time for me to pick Casey up at preschool. Would you mind?” Melanie glanced at the picture of her four-year-old son on her desk, her lips lifting in an involuntary smile. “I'd ask Stan to do it but I don't have the time for one of his lectures about why I need to quit my job and how my being a cop is bad for Casey.”

“He's full of crap. But, yes, I'd love to get Casey from school. And since I'll be in the neighborhood, I suppose you'd like me to head around the corner and pick up your uniforms at that dry cleaners?”

“You're a lifesaver. On both accounts.”

From the corners of her eyes, she saw that Bobby was ready and waiting at the door. “Look, when you pick him up this time, don't pretend to be me. It really freaks his teachers out.”

“Lightweights.” Mia cackled, sounding absolutely
wicked. “What's the good of being an identical twin if I can't have a little fun with it? Besides, Casey likes it. It's our little game.”

Melanie shook her head. Actually, she and Mia were both identical twins and triplets. When Melanie told people so, they always laughed, thinking she was making a joke. But it was true. She and Mia were identical twins but they also had a fraternal triplet sister, Ashley.

What made it even more fun was Ashley's striking resemblance to her sisters. When together, the three fair-haired, blue-eyed look-alikes drew the startled gazes of passersby. Even their friends had been known to do double takes.

“Remember how we used to trick our teachers?” Mia murmured, her tone amused.

“I'm thirty-two, not ninety-two. Of course, I remember. You were always the instigator. And I was the one who always got blamed.”

“Try reversing that, sister dear.”

Bobby cleared his throat, tapped his watch and pointed at the chief's office. She nodded in acknowledgment. “I would if I had the time, Mia. Right now I've got to go solve a murder.”

Her sister's wish of “Go for it, Sherlock” ringing in her ears, Melanie hung up the phone and hurried to meet her partner.

T
he Mecklenburg County District Attorney's office was located in Uptown Charlotte, in the old county courthouse building. Built in the days before the advent of the office high-rise—those unadorned rectangles filled with low-ceiling rooms jammed with vanilla cubicles, each no bigger or smaller than the other—the courthouse was now a part of Government Plaza, residing with modern-day, state-of-the-art wonders like the Law Enforcement Center.

Rabbit warrens, Assistant District Attorney Veronica Ford called such buildings. Monuments to the de-personalization of modern life. In contrast, the old courthouse possessed an aura of faded grandeur. To Veronica, it fit her image of a place where the wheels of justice turned slowly but surely, a place where, though sometimes mired in a flawed, old-fashioned system, justice had its way.

Just as it fit her image of Charlotte, a city of both the old South and the new, a city of blooming trees and skyscrapers, of southern gentility and frenzied commerce. A city she had felt at home in from the moment she'd arrived, nine months before.

Even though running late for a team meeting, Veronica eschewed the rickety but reliable elevator and
took the wide, curving central staircase to the second floor, trailing her hand along its ornate wrought-iron handrail. Veronica loved the law. She loved her part in it, relished the fact that without her the world would not be quite as good a place to live. She believed that—perhaps naively, perhaps with conceit.

But if she didn't, what would be the point of working for the D.A.? She could make a helluva lot more money with a lot less stress practicing corporate law.

“Afternoon, Jen,” she called to the receptionist as she stepped onto the top landing.

Pregnant with her first child, the young woman was positively glowing with happiness. She smiled at Veronica. “Morning to you, too.”

“Any messages?”

“Several.” The woman indicated a stack of pink message slips. “Nothing urgent.”

Veronica crossed to the reception desk, set her Starbucks travel mug down and handed the other woman a take-out bag from the same establishment. She grinned. “I brought the baby a little something.”

“One of the cranberry-nut scones? The baby loves those.”

“The very ones.”

The receptionist squealed with pleasure and dug into the bag. “You are a complete peach, Veronica Ford. The baby and I thank you.”

Veronica laughed and flipped quickly through the messages, seeing nothing that couldn't wait until after her meeting. “How late am I? Rick here yet?”

Rick Zanders was the Person's Team supervisor. The lawyers on the Person's Team, of which Veronica
was one, handled all violent crimes committed against a person—with the exception of homicide and crimes against children. Those included rape, assault, battery, sexual assault and kidnapping. The team met every Wednesday afternoon to discuss the status of ongoing cases, to be informed about what was new, to discuss strategy and offer assistance when needed.

“Only a couple minutes before you, and he had several calls to make before the meeting.” She glanced at her watch, then over her shoulder. “I bet you still have ten minutes. Apparently, Rick knows the Andersen family personally.” Jen lowered her voice. “You heard about the murder?”

“I heard.” Veronica frowned. “What's everyone saying? Is there anything more than what's in the media? Any suspects?”

“Not that I've heard. But I bet Rick has some of the details.” She shuddered. “It's so awful. She was a really nice girl. So pretty, too.”

Veronica thought of the attractive blonde she had seen pictured on television that morning. She hadn't been in Charlotte long enough to have met any of the Andersens personally, but she had heard of them. As she understood it, Joli Andersen had had a bright future ahead of her.

“They said on TV that she was strangled,” Jen continued, whispering.

“Suffocated,” Veronica corrected.

“Do you think they'll catch the guy?” The receptionist laid a hand protectively over her swollen belly. “Knowing a person like that is walking the streets of
Charlotte gives me the creeps. I mean, if someone like Joli Andersen can get killed, anybody can.”

Veronica knew Jen wasn't alone in her fears, not today. No doubt those same words, or a variation of them, had been uttered in nearly every household in Charlotte over the past few hours. A murder like this one, a victim like Joli Andersen, drove home just how dangerous the world was. And just how fickle fate.

“I can assure you of one thing, Jen, this will probably be the most intensive manhunt Charlotte has ever seen.” Veronica stuffed her messages into her pocket, then collected her coffee cup and briefcase. “And when they do catch him, we'll nail him.”

The receptionist smiled, looking relieved. “Justice always wins out.”

After agreeing, Veronica made her way to the conference room. There, the other lawyers—with the exception of Rick—were already assembled. And as she had known they would be, they were all talking about the same thing—Joli Andersen's murder. She called out a hello, dropped her things at a vacant spot at the table and ambled over to a group of her colleagues. They all began talking to her at once.

“Isn't it unbelievable?”

“I heard Rick dated Joli for a while. This is going to hit him really hard.”

“Are you sure? He's quite a bit older than—”

“—heard that the FBI's been called in.”

“A top profiler. Rumor has it that—”

“The crime involved some sort of kinky sex.”

Veronica jumped on the last, the first bit of new
information that interested her. “Where did you hear that? That wasn't on any of the news reports.”

The other attorney looked at her. “A friend in homicide. He didn't give specifics, but indicated it was…unpleasant.”

Rick entered the room, his face ashen. Immediately all conversation ceased, and the assembled ADAs took their seats. He cleared his throat. “Before any of you ask, I don't know much more than you do. The murder occurred in Whistlestop. At a motel. She was suffocated. They have no suspects as of yet, but the FBI is putting together a profile of the killer. Apparently there was biological evidence left at the scene, though I don't know of what nature. In deference to the Andersen family, the police have agreed to keep the most prurient aspects of the crime from the press.”

He ran a hand across his forehead; Veronica saw that it shook. From the looks of him, Veronica suspected the rumor about him and the young Joli was true. She wondered if their past relationship might also make him a suspect. Probably, she decided. In this investigation, no stone would be left unturned.

“Why don't we get down to business?” Rick murmured. “What have we got? Anything new?”

Laurie Carter spoke up. “I've got a pretty good assault with a deadly weapon. Two neighboring housewives get into an argument over a cup of borrowed sugar. The argument turns ugly and neighbor one whacks neighbor two with a sauté pan.”

Laughter rippled around the table. A lawyer named Ned House arched his eyebrows. “A sauté pan's your deadly weapon?”

“Hey,” one of the other female prosecutors piped up, “you ever try to pick up one of those suckers? They're heavy.”

“It did the trick,” Laurie said dryly. “Landed our victim in the hospital. Concussion, stitches, broken nose. The whole bit.”

Rick shook his head. “You're joking, right?”

“No way. And here's where the story really gets fun. Turns out neighbor two's been borrowing more than sugar from her neighbor. Seems she and Mrs. Sauté Pan's husband have been doing the suburban cha-cha-cha when they thought nobody was looking.”

Ned made a clucking sound with his tongue. “And people think the 'burbs are safe.”

“Plead it down,” Veronica murmured. “Sure she did it, but the jury's going to sympathize with the scorned wife.”

“Unless the jury's predominantly male,” Ned countered.

Veronica shook her head. “Doesn't matter. This is a country founded by Puritans. In the back of their minds, the jurors, male or female, are going to figure the slut deserved it.”

Rick agreed. “Simple assault's the best you're going to get out of it. Plead it down.”

They moved on, discussing two other assaults and an attempted rape. Each time, the other lawyers looked to Veronica for her opinion. Although she had only been with the Charlotte D.A.'s office nine months, she had been with the Charleston District Attorney for three years before that. There, she had earned the rep
utation of being a careful prosecutor who went after each viable case with a vengeance.

The truth was, she hated bullies. Hated the cowardly scum that roamed the streets preying on those weaker than themselves. On women. Children. The elderly. She had dedicated her life to making the scum pay.

That dedication had translated into a ninety-seven percent conviction rate. It never failed to astound her how awed the other prosecutors were by that number. To her, it hadn't been hard to achieve. If she went forward with a case, she believed she could win it. And she never stopped until she had.

Rick turned to her. “Veronica, how's the Alvarez date-rape case coming?”

The other lawyers looked expectantly at her. When this case had first come in, Rick had recommended against it. It'd be tough to win, he'd said. Date rape was always iffy from a trial standpoint. And this case was more so because the girl involved had a reputation and the boy was a national merit scholar, the captain of his high-school football team and from a prominent family.

But Veronica had fought for the case. She had seen Angie Alvarez's bruises. She had listened to her story and seen the real terror in her eyes. This was America, Veronica had told Rick. Just because a boy could throw a football or his daddy had money didn't make him above the law. “No” meant “no” for everybody.

She had vowed to Rick—and herself—that she would make this case work. And now she had.

Veronica smiled, remembering how, during their
first interview, the boy had smirked at her.
Cocky little prick. She had him now.

“I have another girl,” she said.

Rick straightened. “And she's willing to testify?”

“Willing and ready.”

“What kept her quiet before?”

“Fear. Her mother warned her that if she sought justice, the opposite would happen, her reputation would be ruined and no nice boy would ever have anything to do with her. Her mother begged her to put it behind her and go on as if nothing had happened.”

“What changed?”

“Simple. She hasn't been able to put it behind her.” Veronica dropped her hands to her lap so the other prosecutors wouldn't see her flexing her fingers. She didn't want them to know how deeply this case had affected her. “Besides, there's safety in numbers. And believe me, this boy's been busy.”

“There are more girls?” Laurie said, shaking her head, expression disgusted.

“Looks like there might be. My witnesses have heard rumors. I've got someone checking into a couple of them.”

“Nail this creep to the wall,” Laurie muttered.

“Done.” Veronica smiled, determined. “At this point it's just a matter of how high and how many nails.”