Devil in the Deadline (7 page)

7.

  

S
leeping beauty

  

Lande
rs strolled into my favorite coffee shop at two-twenty on the nose.

I rose from an overstuffed armchair in the back corner and waved. He nodded and stepped to the counter to order.

“Thanks for coming to meet me on Sunday,” he said, taking the plaid-upholstered chair opposite mine.

“My hours often mirror y'all's.” I sipped my white mocha and studied him over the rim of the cup. “I appreciate you calling me. What can I do for you?”

“Aaron told me you spoke to the victim's boyfriend this morning.” He set his cup on the table and leaned forward. “I need to know if you're holding anything back. I've hit a wall at every turn so far, and I need something. Any kind of break.”

“Aaron told you I might be hiding something?” I raised an eyebrow.

“On the contrary, he insisted you wouldn't. He trusts you. I don't trust any reporter.”

I sat back and blinked. “Thank you, Detective.”

“No offense,” he said. “But my dad was a reporter. The story is always first.” The bitterness in his voice belied history I didn't want to visit.

“Maybe for your dad,” I said gently. “But people come first for me. At least, I like to think so. Maybe that's why Aaron trusts me.”

The journals I'd stashed under the loose floorboard in my coat closet bopped through my thoughts. But I'd promised to return them, which I couldn't do if they were in the evidence locker at the PD.

He held my gaze for a long minute. “Fair enough. Which people?”

“The victims, usually,” I said. “I try very hard not to muck up your investigations. I did talk to her boyfriend. I gave Aaron everything he said that struck me as relevant.” I smiled. “Aaron asked me to help because he knew I'd do it.”

He nodded, his lips disappearing into a line. “I can respect that.”

I pulled my notebook out of my bag. “If you want my honest opinion, y'all should take a look at the woman—the one you couldn't get anything out of last night? She seems pretty lovesick over the victim's boyfriend,” I said.

He jotted that down. “Aaron said you told him that, too. I'm not sure a woman could have done what I saw last night.”

Same thing Joey said. I tugged at a lock of hair. “Jasmine knew her. She would've let her up there.”

He nodded.

I smiled. “I'm happy to share information. If you want to return the favor, I might be able to help more. I have a knack for puzzles.”

“You also have a knack for investigating.” He grinned. “I've done my homework. Though there's not a badge in this city who doesn't know your reputation for poking around in murder cases.”

“I have a decent track record behind that reputation.” I clicked the pen in and out.

“I suppose you do,” he said. “What do you want to know?”

“Whatever you don't want to tell me will do.” I grinned.

“Off the record until I say otherwise?” He dropped his voice. “I'm dead serious about that.”

“Of course.” My toes tingled at his grave tone. Charlie was going to turn emerald before this was over. Not that it was terribly important. Just a nice bonus.

“The coroner was bothered by the bloodstains at the scene,” he said.

“What? Why?”

“Because the girl hadn't lost enough blood to make that much of a mess.”

“So either there was a second victim,” I began, scribbling every word down.

“Or she laid into the killer.”

I nodded, jotting that down. “If she got enough of a piece of the guy to make such a mess, it wasn't the boyfriend. He was pretty scantily clad when I saw him this morning and didn't appear to be in pain.” Thank God. He seemed like a decent person. I wanted to trust him.

Landers nodded. “What's giving me heartburn is the second victim theory. What if there's some sicko with a dead woman in his living room, looking to start a collection?”

“Why not leave the second one in the old switch house, too, though? I mean, why go to all the trouble of setting up the scene and then only leave one masterpiece behind?”

“I couldn't tell you.” He sipped his coffee. “But I'm not crazy.”

“Sometimes I think your job might be easier if you were.”

“You and me both. My background is all in justice and criminal forensics. There are many days I wish I'd gone for a psych degree.”

I made a note about his history. “So are the forensics crews back at the scene?” I asked.

He nodded. “Cleanup isn't scheduled 'til tomorrow. We're taking more scrapings.”

“If some of the blood belongs to the killer, you could get lucky in the FBI database.” I stared at the painting of the state capitol building behind him, something worrying around the back of my brain.

“It's not like they didn't take samples last night. But it was all the same type. All from her. This whole damned thing is weird.”

“Maybe they got it all from close to the same place?”

“Maybe. I told them to make sure they checked every corner today.”

Every corner. The dark reaches of the room. And the woods outside.

“Hot damn,” I mumbled.

“I'm sorry?” Landers furrowed his brow.

“What if there was someone else there last night?” I asked. “Aaron said something about the killer hanging around, and that fits with a serial profile, at least some of the time. But there's this blog that's been bugging me all day. They had stuff about this case they shouldn't have. What if the blogger was lurking last night? Watching you guys?”

“I don't know how anyone could have gotten past all the uniforms we had out there watching the perimeter.”

“There are miles of woods and river down there,” I said, more to myself than to him, though he nodded.

“Maybe,” he said. “What blog? I haven't seen anything but your story and the local TV coverage.”

“I'm not sure you want to look.” I fished my phone out and pulled it up, handing him my BlackBerry. “The good news is, it doesn't have too many followers.”

“Fan-goddamn-tastic,” he grouched, handing it back and running a hand through his curls. “I don't have enough pressure. Now I have to find a way to keep information about an open investigation off the fucking Internet.”

“Sorry. Aaron said he has cyber watching it.”

“Maybe they'll manage to put a stop to it before it blows up. All I need is the whole city seeing Jack the Ripper on every corner because some blogger hollered ‘serial killer.'”

“Understood.” The word sounded far away, the shadowy alleys of the Bottom crowding my thoughts. Were any other young women suddenly missing from the streets?

That could tell me if Landers was on the right trail—or if I might be.

I smiled a thank you at Landers, itching to go see if I could find Jasmine's friends.

Something told me they'd be long gone as soon as they scraped up bus fare.

  

Ninety minutes and six thousand faces later, I was ready to take my aching feet home when I spotted a familiar jacket moving through the bustling farmer's market on 17th.

I picked my way through watermelon-thumping shoppers and heat-weary farmers, my eyes locked on the Yankees windbreaker. In eighty-seven-degree weather. It had to be the same one I'd seen at the hospital the night before.

I caught up and he turned to look at me. “I saw you,” he said, not breaking stride, a sketchpad tucked under one arm.

“Last night,” I said. “I'm Nichelle. How are you feeling today?”

“No, you were with Flyboy this morning,” he said. “I told him you were nice.”

“I appreciate that. I want to ask you a few more questions. Are you going to work?”

“Weekends when the weather's nice are good for sketching,” he said. “Money is better, too. People who are here during the week won't pay as much.”

Haggling with homeless artists over a drawing? People never cease to amaze me.

“Have you drawn a few today?” I asked.

“Five. Seven is better. I like sevens. I'm going up to the slip. People come to the market in the morning. In the afternoon, they go up there.”

I nodded, picking my way across the cobblestones beside him for a half block before I spoke again.

“Are there any other girls who haven't been around lately?” I asked, reaching back through my memory to my abnormal psych class for typical timeframes. “If you think about the past month or two, have you noticed anyone disappearing?”

He twisted his mouth to one side and slowed his pace slightly. “I don't think so,” he said. “We don't see as many other people as we used to. Before Jazz came.”

Oh, really? “Why is that?”

He shook his head, dropping his eyes to his shoes and mumbling. “Better before.”

Turning abruptly, he crossed East Cary to take a seat on an empty bench bolted into a crumbling section of the brick sidewalk. He pulled half a pencil from a box, and set the empty container on the seat next to him. Flipping his pad open, he stared at me without blinking for so long my eyes had sympathy pains.

I smiled.

He bent his head, moving the pencil across the paper lightning-fast. And mumbling. If I hadn't been so focused on his face, I'd have missed the words entirely. As it was, I couldn't testify in court I'd heard right. “Everyone goes to the church shelter. Except us. She cried if we went to the church shelter.”

Huh. I didn't want to risk reaching for a notebook, and there was little chance I'd forget that.

My eyes dropped to his hand, and my jaw followed suit. My face popped off the paper, my hair falling around it in soft waves. He shaded the hollow at my throat and looked up, then added a couple of light lines next to my eyes.

“You're pretty.” He pulled the paper off and handed it to me.

I smiled a thank you, digging a twenty from my bag and putting it in his box. I looked around and added another.

“That's too much,” he said.

“You're very talented,” I replied. “Thank you for the picture.”

“Jazz said people would come. She told me they would ask questions about her. I wasn't supposed to answer them. She was afraid. But you're not scary.”

“I like to think I'm not,” I said. “I have a feeling she wasn't talking about me, though.”

I perched on the bench next to him. “Did she ever tell you where she was from? How she ended up down here?”

He studied his shoes.

“I'm trying to help find out who hurt her,” I said. “You told me last night her family killed her. But I'm not sure what you meant. Did she talk about her parents?”

“People were mean to her,” he said, scuffing the toe of one worn-out Reebok along the seam between the cobblestones. “We don't talk about it, not really. It's all so far away. Better not to think about it.” He shook his head.

“How did you end up here?” I asked.

“Don't remember.” He sniffled.

I wanted to pat his arm or put a reassuring hand on his slumped shoulder, but I didn't want to startle him. He wasn't nearly old enough for the level of exhaustion in his eyes. I folded my hands together and nodded.

Marveling at the exquisite sketch in my lap, I shook my head. Such skill. Grace and heart oozed from every line.

I looked up. “Did you ever sketch Jasmine?”

He nodded, laying a finger across his lips and flipping back in the book. “See? Pretty. She didn't like for me to draw her.”

There were three different sketches, two profiles and one of her sleeping face.

I pulled out my BlackBerry and clicked into the camera. “May I?” I asked. Aaron might already have one of the department's artists working on a sketch, with the difficulty they'd had getting a name. But this guy was beyond talented. And he'd drawn a living, breathing woman who was his friend. There's something more recognizable about that than a PD rendition of a corpse.

He nodded. I snapped photos of his sketches.

“Thanks.” I tucked my phone away. He focused his gaze behind my shoulder, trying to smile. I turned to find a woman pushing a cherub-cheeked toddler in a hip pink stroller. Her eyes locked on the paper resting across my knees.

“How much?” she asked, turning to Picasso.

“Only fifty bucks,” I said before he could, pushing off the bench and grinning at the baby. “She's adorable. I think I'm going to come back and get my best friend sketches of her kids for her birthday.”

“Really?” Picasso smiled as the woman hunted through her Coach tote for cash.

“Thanks for talking to me,” I said, extending a hand. “I'll see you again soon.”

“Don't wait,” he said as he shook my hand. “Things are weird. Weirder every day.”

I nodded, turning south when the woman laid the cash in the box and spun back to wipe the little girl's face. A block down, I ducked into an open-air coffeehouse and clicked out a pen, scribbling everything he'd told me as fast as I could. By the time I put the pen down, my eyelids sagged. A hot bath and food didn't sound terrible.

First, I needed to file a follow-up story and do some research on the four-one-one blog. Then maybe some rest would help me find the puzzle pieces to pull this corner of the picture together.

8
.

  

Intuition

  

T
he sun sank into the trees, goldenrod and coral deepening to violet at the horizon as I turned onto my street.

Three hours at my desk produced a day two story with a sidebar featuring the sketches and pleading for help identifying the victim, but netted me less than nothing else. I went back seven years in the
Telegraph
archives, but didn't find anything on a missing autistic kid (I'd done a story on the program for autistic children at Syracuse in college, and it fit) with a flair for art. Something about Picasso told me he'd been on the streets since before he was old enough to vote, and that made me sad.

I grabbed a yogurt and a Diet Dr Pepper and settled on the couch with Jasmine's journals. Two hours later, I was convinced there was something horrible—maybe horrible enough to be important—in her past. She loved Flyboy, she loved her friends, they were going to Colorado. Life on the streets was all sunshine and roses. She doodled in the margins—hearts, daisy chains, and boxy “T”s with halos of stripes. I jotted a note to check missing person's reports for the first initial T.

I also flagged four repetitions of “Mr. B was right. I'm free,” but found nothing to indicate who that was, or what he was right about. I paged back through, turning carefully to make sure the magical key I'd hoped to find wasn't on a stuck-together page. Nope. Not one word about anything that happened more than a year ago. No mention of jealousy, money, or why the Methodist shelter was worthy of tears. Strike one.

I took Darcy out to play and fell into bed.

Sunrise didn't bring me any closer to an answer, nor did the fitful dreams that came between Sunday's round of fetch and Monday morning's body combat class. Maddening. Something was there, but it danced around the edges of my brain, vaporizing every time I got close. I gave up trying to catch it and made a mental grocery list as I squatted, sidestepped, and ap-chagi'ed to the pounding dance music.

Rinsing conditioner out of my hair with twenty minutes to get to the news budget meeting, my eyes snapped open.

Jasmine didn't want to go to the shelter. The church shelter. She'd made Picasso afraid of people who might ask questions about her.

Every story I'd ever read about crazy religious sects spun through my brain on fast forward.

Holy Manolos.

I toweled off and threw my gym gear into my duffel bag, climbing into my car with nothing but mascara and lipstick on my face. My still-damp feet slid in my Jimmy Choo wedges as I rushed for the newsroom.

I flew off the elevator, barely returning my friend Melanie's grumpy “good morning.” The fat folder tucked under her arm told me she was headed to City Hall for a budget work session. Summer money season made me excessively thankful I didn't cover the council. Numbers make my eyes cross.

I plopped my black leather tote down in my cube and pulled out my computer and notebook, scribbling my thoughts before I hurried to Bob's office for the meeting. Lost in my suspicions, I almost walked into Grant Parker as I rounded the corner.

“In your own little world of dead folks this morning, huh?” My friend's emerald eyes crinkled at the corners when he flashed his famous megawatt grin. He waved a copy of the city final. “You had exactly no fun this weekend.”

“I wouldn't say that.” I matched the grin with one of my own, sinking into my usual Virginia-Tech-Orange upholstered armchair and smoothing my linen pants. “Kicking Charlie's ass is always fun.”

“And watching it never gets old,” Bob said. “Nice work, getting the inside track at the PD. Though I've seen Charlie Lewis in action enough times to know I wouldn't want to be Aaron White this week. Or maybe you, either. She's got to be good and pissed at losing to you two days in a row.”

“I'm sure,” I said. “But she'll live. It's not my fault they trust me more.”

“Sure it is.” Parker feigned outrage. “Damn you for being honest and upstanding.”

“Pesky morals aside, I also don't come with a cameraman.”

“That could change before too long.” Rick Andrews's voice came from the doorway, and I turned my head to see Shelby's spiky black hair poking over one of our publisher's charcoal-suited shoulders.

I tossed a WTF glance at Bob and he shrugged a reply.

“Good morning, Rick,” he said, dropping his copy notes to the desktop. “To what do I owe the honor today?”

“There's a blogger who's taken it upon himself to add to Nichelle and Charlie's competition,” Andrews said, stepping to the center of the room. Shelby scurried inside and shut the door behind her. I steeled myself for an ass-chewing, glaring at Shelby. She twisted her full lips into the smirk that always made me want to smack her and I turned my attention back to Andrews.

“This morning, he has video of the murder scene from Saturday night,” he said. “It could be time to step up our game. Our website can feed video, too.”

The half-spent candles flashed on the backs of my eyelids, my stomach doing a slow somersault. “What kind of video?” The words were somewhere between a rasp and a croak. I cleared my throat. “That is, what's in the video you saw on the four-one-one page?”

“A pan of the murder scene, complete with police tape,” Andrews said.

“But not the body?” I asked, the edges of my notebook biting into my fingers as I tightened my grip on it.

The look that crossed his face made me glad he didn't know what I'd seen Saturday night. Andrews didn't care much about anything but selling papers, and I refused to describe the scene in detail for a variety of reasons. I made a mental note to tell Bob to keep my knowledge of it to himself.

Andrews shook his head, drumming his fingers on his thigh. “I noticed the page doesn't have too many followers yet, but that could change. I don't want to lose out on this story.” He glanced at Shelby. “Thank you for bringing it to my attention, Sandy.”

I bit blood out of the inside of my cheek trying to hide a grin. Parker coughed over a laugh. Shelby stared daggers at us both as she stepped forward. “Anything for the good of the paper.” She flashed a put-upon smile at Andrews. “You know, if Nichelle needs to concentrate on this murder coverage, I'm happy to pitch in and help with the courthouse. Or anything else.”

“I'm perfectly capable of doing my job, thanks, Sandy,” I chirped, hitting the last word hard and drawing a soft chuckle from Bob.

Andrews just nodded when I turned back to him. “I'm afraid the PD won't give me the kind of access they have so far if I'm toting a camcorder.” I smiled my most earnest smile. I had less than no interest in a cameraman sidekick, and juggling my notebook and a palmcorder didn't sound appealing.

Andrews twisted his mouth to one side, folding his hands behind his back. Parker made an exaggerated version of the same face at me over the publisher's shoulder. I swallowed a giggle and looked away. When I glanced back, he stuck his tongue out at me. I winked and clicked out a pen.

“Let's see what happens with this,” Andrews said finally. “You do good work, Miss Clarke. Most of the time.”

He meant I did work that was good for occasional national wire pickup and ad revenue. I bet he didn't read my stories without one of those things attached. Lucky for me, his odd fear/respect/jealousy relationship with Bob meant he stayed out of our hair for the most part. Especially since Les Simpson, the managing editor, had gone back to bean counting and sucking up to Andrews full time, pulling back on weaseling himself and Shelby into the newsroom. That had made for a lovely few months.

The last thing I needed was for Andrews to get a burr under his designer saddle in the middle of such a big story.

“The PD's cyber unit is working on finding the blogger. Just for their own informational purposes, though she's going to get herself way on their shit list if she's posting video of crime scenes. I hear the ATF has an interest in talking to her, too.”

“Her? How in creation would you happen to know the blogger is a woman, Nichelle?” Splenda dripped from Shelby's words.

“Girl Friday? Call it intuition. You might have lost yours after so many years at the copy desk, but mine works just fine.”

“You wouldn't happen to know who she is, now would you?” She spoke to me, but looked at Andrews, who raised an eyebrow.

“You're not working with anyone outside the newsroom, Miss Clarke? I don't suppose we have a specific policy on that, but I—”

“I wouldn't. Even if I had the time,” I said, turning to Bob.

“Nichelle is nothing if not loyal,” he said. “I'd stake my reputation on that.”

Andrews nodded. “Good enough. For now. Let Sandy here know if you need any help.” He spun on the heel of one wingtip and walked out.

Shelby flounced behind him. The section editors filed in when the room cleared.

“What's he doing slumming down here?” Eunice Blakely asked, lowering herself slowly into the chair opposite mine and straightening her bad leg. She had a half-dozen screws in one hip as a souvenir of her war correspondent years, which ended with a helicopter crash during Desert Storm. These days, she ran a tight ship in our features section and kept everyone fed. “It's not even noon.”

She pulled a large Ziploc baggie from her coral canvas tote and laid it on Bob's desk. I leaned forward, peering at the contents. Bars, speckled with oats and bitsy chocolate chips. The peanut butter smell that hit me in the face when I opened the bag made my stomach gurgle.

“Eunice, you're a magician,” I said, swallowing the first bite. “Tell me these are part of your healthy cooking jag, and I might kiss you.”

“Pucker up, buttercup.” She grinned. “Figured I needed to make up for the almonds from Friday. My sister sent me this powdered peanut butter stuff that's my new miracle food. Tastes great, bakes well, almost no fat. Those won't cost you more than five minutes in the gym.”

I helped myself to another one, snatching my hand out of the way as the rest of the staff descended. Bob dropped the empty bag into his trash can and grinned. “Now that we've eaten, can we talk about the news?”

“Aw, why not?” Parker said. “We're all here and everything. Might as well.”

I glanced around and noticed our sports editor was missing, which explained Parker's presence. Normally, I'd ask where Spencer was—curiosity is an occupational hazard—but after Andrews's blog-and-pony show, I took it as a bonus from the universe to brighten my Monday and focused on Bob. Spence had proven himself to be a bitter jackass during a big story I'd covered in the spring, and we still weren't speaking.

“The story of the week—month, whatever—is going to be Nichelle's coverage of this murder,” Bob said, looking around. He fiddled with a paperclip, blowing out a frustrated sigh. “I'd trust anyone in this room with my life. Here's the thing: Andrews was here because there's a blog that's popped up lately about crime in Richmond. I don't think it's professional enough to be written by anyone in our newsroom, but just in case, I want y'all to keep anything you hear in this room to yourselves for the duration of this story. Understood?”

Nods and murmurs from the crowd faded into awkward silence.

“You've got the inside track, right, doll?” Eunice asked finally.

“So far,” I said. “The problem I see is our online friend either doesn't understand she's pissing the cops off, or she doesn't care. I've got a decent chance of staying ahead of Charlie because Aaron and I are helping each other out, but it's harder with someone who doesn't play by the rules.”

Bob nodded. “I have utter faith in your snooping abilities,” he said.

“You always know how to make a girl blush, chief.” I batted my lashes.

“It's a gift.” Bob dropped the paperclip and looked at Parker. “Sports? The Generals look good this year.”

“They do,” Parker said. “We've got coverage of tonight's divisional face-off leading, and I have a column on the kid who won the Nate DeLuca scholarship. The first anniversary of his death is coming up.” He glanced at me and I dropped my eyes to my notes. A year ago, DeLuca was the Generals' golden arm, a starting pitcher whose death got mixed up in a crazy story that nearly resulted in mine.

“I can't wait to read it,” I said.

Parker smiled. “I guess I'd better bring my A game, then.”

“You always do.” I grinned.

Bob moved on to features and Eunice outlined a summer family fun section while I checked email on my BlackBerry. It was Monday, all right. Ninety-seven messages before nine a.m. I scrolled down the screen, Aaron's name catching my eye.

Call me when you can get away.

I bounced in my seat until Bob dismissed the meeting, hoping Aaron had good news.

  

Bolting for my desk, I made it four steps before Parker's voice froze my Jimmy Choo in midair.

“Can we talk?” he asked, falling into step beside me.

The uncertain tone from our resident Captain Charisma was enough to make me forget Aaron for a minute.

“Never too busy for you. What's up?” I stopped and turned to face him, leaning against a long row of filing cabinets.

His full lips disappeared into a thin white line, and he tipped his perfectly-tousled blond head. “It's Mel.”

Uh-oh. “I saw her going out to a budget session.” I kept my voice even. “Everything okay?”

“I dunno.” Parker shoved his hands into the pockets of his khakis. “We're just—she's not—” He sighed. “Let me try that again. Nothing's really up. It's just not as much fun as it was. Not as easy. I've never been in a relationship before, really. Is this normal?”

“Boy, are you asking the wrong girl.” I laughed. “That sounds like a Bob question. But I'll say that from talking to my friend Jenna, who's been married for, like, ever, it seems good relationships go through phases.”