Devil in the Deadline (22 page)

“These people are so far in the middle of this they can't see their way out,” I said, more to myself than to Landers as I picked it up.

“It certainly appears that's more of a possibility than I thought,” he said. “What are they hiding that's worth killing two young women in the space of a week?”

I kept my face neutral, which wasn't easy under his scrutiny. Things I had found on my own—like Ruth's name and hometown—I was happy to share. But the ATF information Kyle had given me was off the record. Landers would have to find that himself.

“Could that be why Agent Miller was at your house last night?” Landers drummed his fingers on the desktop.

“You'd have to ask him,” I said.

He slammed his hands down on the desk. “Two people are dead and someone's trying to kill you.” He got louder with every word. “Isn't that more important than your story?”

“You wouldn't trust me if I passed on information someone else gave me in confidence. My reputation is much more important to me than the story. Kyle likes you. He got himself assigned to a new investigation this morning. Call him.” I jotted Kyle's cell down and passed it across the desk.

He leaned back in his chair, eyes flashing. “I don't have time for games.”

“I'm not playing one.” I kept a handle on my temper—not simple, with so much frustration and so little sleep in the way. Landers wasn't a bad guy. He just wanted to figure this out. I could sympathize.

“You have any suspects?” he asked.

“A few. I wouldn't rule out Ruth's parents, though I'm not sure how they'd fit with the second victim.”

“Me, either. The mother hung up on me. Right after she told me she hadn't had a daughter in three years and gave me an alibi. They were hosting a tent revival. Three thousand people watched their every move all week long.”

I closed my eyes, giving my head a little shake. “Could they have paid someone to do it?”

He tipped his head to one side. “The M.O. doesn't really fit with a professional hit.”

“But they seem a little crazy, don't they? Not surprisingly, they didn't return my call.”

Landers nodded. “You're better off. It was like talking to a Stephen King character.” He jotted a note. “I'll have a chat with the local law enforcement in South Carolina.”

“Ask them about her old boyfriend. I talked to him this morning. Big time torch for her. If he knew she was seeing other guys, he'd have motive. Aaron and Kyle are trying to get him picked up.”

“Thanks.” He scribbled Jared's name when I offered it.

“I'm not ruling out a serial. Like you said, the law school is near the Bottom.” He leaned forward, resting his elbows on the desk. “But I'm getting more interested in your theory about this ministry outfit. Or maybe there's another connection between the victims and the killer. I'm not going to give away your headline, Miss Clarke. I just want to catch this bastard.”

I tapped my pen on my notebook, scanning his walls. The case had taken over his office, marked-up maps and horrifying photos dotting the drab-gray interior matte. “I've become very interested in a CPA who works for Golightly,” I said slowly. “Edwin Wolterhall. Has a violent sex offender history and a penchant for young brunettes. And she might have been trying to blackmail him. Her friends here said she talked about getting money for them to move.”

He picked up his pen. “Spell his name for me?”

I obliged. “Kyle seems to think getting a warrant through all the lawyers Way of Life has on staff will be difficult.”

Landers nodded. “It will. But nothing's impossible if you keep at it long enough. Thanks for coming by.”

I asked for and jotted down contact information for Cecilia's next of kin before I tucked the pen and paper back into my bag. “Thanks for coming to the rescue last night.”

“We'll get to the bottom of it.” He stood, waving me toward the door. “I'll keep you posted.”

I settled back into the driver's seat of my car, the second victim, the law firm, and Wolterhall spinning through my thoughts. There had to be a link. Maybe more coffee and another round with Google could help me find it.

2
5.

  

Nancy and Bess

  

R
ichmond detectives have identified the remains of a young woman found in a car trunk in Church Hill last week as Cecilia Erickson, 24, of Richmond. Erickson was a paralegal and a student at Richmond American University Law School, where she was in her second year.

“We're pursuing every angle in this case,” RPD Det. Chris Landers, who's leading the investigation, said.

Erickson was the same age as Ruth Galloway, the young woman found brutally murdered on Belle Isle earlier this month. Landers said that while an arrest has been made in that case, he can't dismiss the similarities between the women without further investigation.

  

I sat back in my chair. That was as close as I could get to saying “possible serial killer” and still sleep at night.

Finishing the story with background from my earlier reports, I sent it to Bob with a note to pop it on the web as soon as he read it through. Lord, I missed the days when Charlie was my biggest worry. At least Charlie had a schedule. A week of constant deadline mode was wearing on my nerves.

More caffeine.

Fresh coffee in hand, I clicked into my web browser ten minutes later, checking Channel Four's site to see if Charlie had anything.

Coffee sloshed all over my desk when I thumped the cup down, and I snatched the computer out of harm's way, my eyes locked on the headline: “Police search Bottom for possible serial killer.”

I muttered every swearword I knew—including a few my mother didn't know I knew—as I scrolled through the story. Which led off “Cecilia Erickson, a twenty-four-year-old Richmond paralegal...”

Damn, damn, damn.

I wasn't sure where my anger was directed yet, but I was good and pissed. Surely Landers hadn't blabbed to her. But then who did?

I tapped one finger on the edge of my laptop as the four-one-one blog loaded.

A grinning photo lifted from Cecilia's Facebook wall smiled at me, two different “unnamed police sources” quoted about the search for Richmond's very own John Wayne Gacy.

Heat rose in my cheeks as I read, each line sending my blood pressure closer to the danger zone. By the time I clicked it off, I was surprised my head was still intact.

“Dammit!” I dropped my head back and shouted at the ceiling. It shouldn't have taken Charlie this long to find the blog, honestly. But having to race both of them to this story wasn't what I needed.

“Everything okay, Nicey?” Bob's voice came from behind me, and I tipped the chair back and studied his upside-down furrowed brow.

“No. Things are so not okay for me this morning, I can't even see okay in the rearview.” And the people who shot up my house less than twelve hours ago weren't even the biggest reason why. Not that I was telling Bob that. “You can take your time with the exclusive I just sent you. Charlie has it already. She got it from Girl Friday.” I sat up and spun the chair around.

“Damn.”

“I don't get it, Bob,” I said. “Landers was so careful. Hell, he came by my house last night to tell me about this.”

His brow furrowed. “Why didn't you write it up then?”

“Because—” My lips froze. Shit. That wasn't smart. “Because we were discussing other things and we didn't make it around to this. That's why I missed the meeting to go see him this morning.”

Bob was a good reporter, too. Of all the rotten luck. “What were you discussing with him that was so important you missed being first to a huge story?”

I bit the inside of my cheek. “Personal stuff?”

He groaned. “Jesus, Nichelle, were those roses from a cop? I can't even begin to tell you what kind of headache that's going to create for the both of us.”

I blinked, giving that a second to sink in. In the balance, it hurt him less to think I was seeing a detective outside work than it would to know why Landers had been at my house at midnight—or who the flowers were really from. Two problems, one unintentional fib. Win.

Shrugging, I changed the subject. “Shelby thinks she has a lead,” I said. “I'm ready to level my playing field. What did you need?”

“You weren't in the meeting. Just wanted to see what other copy you had for today. I wasn't looking for the ulcer you just gave me, that's for damned sure.”

“Sorry.” No, I wasn't. Ulcer beats heart palpitations. “I'm headed to the courthouse, and I'll have the murder trial day two. Not sure what else. I haven't gotten through all the police reports. Not that they're doing much but waiting for another dead woman to pop up.”

“Your friend think this really is a serial?” Bob's bushy eyebrows met his hairline.

“He doesn't know. He can't rule it out, because if it is...” I didn't finish the sentence.

Bob nodded. “Right. And what about your preacher? You turn up anything but the girl's name out there?”

I laughed and shook my head. “No comment?”

“I'm not stupid, Nichelle. Telling you to stay off a lead like that is like tossing a ribeye in front of a dog and telling him to sit. Just don't get us sued. And if you're playing Nancy Drew, let's have the story first, huh?”

“I'm trying.”

“If Girl Friday is getting her information from the PD, perhaps we should run it before you take it to them.”

“I—” I stopped.

He was right. I promised to have my copy ready by deadline (for all the good it would do me) and clicked the blog back up on my screen, scrolling to previous entries.

She hadn't had Ruth's identity until six hours after we put it on the web.

But Cecilia, she had first.

Why?

I jumped to my feet and snatched up my bag, hoping Shelby was a decent detective.

  

Shelby grinned so genuinely when I tapped her shoulder I had to force myself not to flinch. She's always been pretty, and a true smile directed my way was almost enough to make me like her.

“I got her,” she said, grin still in place.

“Her who? You're sure?” I bounced on the balls of my feet.

“Ninety-nine-point-nine percent,” Shelby said.

Two solid weeks of competing with a ghost had me ready to punch someone. But I might settle for yelling. “Where can we find her?”

“Your cops should be able to tell you that,” she said, clicking her computer screen to life. “She works at RPD headquarters.”

“A cop?” Damned if Aaron wasn't right. “Why on Earth would a cop run a blog like that? Dragging information out of the PD is harder than pulling teeth out of a lion. For most people, anyway.”

Shelby clicked a window up, full of bitsy type I couldn't read from where I stood. “She's not a cop. She's a dispatcher.” She waved toward the screen. “Alexa Reading—she graduated from RAU with a bachelor's in journalism last month, but—”

“She couldn't find a job,” I breathed, my thoughts straying to Violet and her useless econ degree as I squinted at the screen.

“Not the one she wanted. But she has good communications skills and a college degree. So the PD snapped her up,” Shelby said, scooting her chair to one side so I could see better.

The screen was split, showing a side-by-side of snippets from the blog next to articles from the RAU Eagle.

“It's a writing style analyzer,” Shelby said. “It's as close to certain as you could be that the same person wrote this stuff.”

“How did you find her?” I asked, scanning the highlights in the excerpts. Phrasing—especially odd ones—matched. It had to be her. And it all fit. Working in dispatch, she had 24/7 access to every radio in the department. Her “unnamed sources” didn't even know they were talking to her.

“I read every post on her blog three hundred times, and some stuff started to pop out at me. She has a good grasp of writing and structuring a news story. But she's green. So I started looking at the college papers,” Shelby said. “I pulled samples from several issues throughout the year and ran them through the analyzer.”

“That had to be hours of work.” I smiled. “And it's brilliant. Thanks, Shelby.”

“I hit this about three this morning, and then I couldn't sleep, I was so excited,” she said. “I guess that's how you feel when you're working on one of your Nancy Drew stories.”

“Just about. You're not a bad Nancy yourself.”

“I'm more of a Bess,” she said. “But I'm good with that. This was fun, Nichelle. Thanks for letting me help.”

I wasn't sure I'd “let” her do anything. But since she seemed to want to think that, I just nodded.

“Let's find a dispatcher, shall we?” I asked, another puzzle piece falling in as the times on the blog flitted through my head. “She works the early shift–that's why she doesn't post between seven and three.”

Shelby was quiet on the short ride to police headquarters. I was glad of it, too many things whirling through my fried brain to make small talk.

We checked in at the desk and the sergeant smiled. “You here to see White or Landers?” he asked.

“Neither.” Yet. “We're actually looking for a dispatcher this morning, Sam.” I glanced at Shelby, waiting for the name.

“Alexa,” she said brightly. “Alexa Reading.”

“You aren't supposed to interview anyone without Detective White's say-so.” Sam frowned.

“I'm not really looking for an interview.” I smiled. “And I promise, Aaron would approve of my intentions.”

He stared at me for half a second and smiled. “I've never known you to be a liar, Nichelle. Don't prove me wrong today, huh?”

I nodded.

“She's a quiet one.” He stood, turning for the door that led to dispatch. “Be right back.”

“I just bet she is,” I mumbled to Shelby, mentally rehearsing what to say to Girl Friday.

“What are we going to do?” Shelby asked.

“Try to explain that she's being irresponsible,” I said as Sam appeared in the doorway, a slight young woman with a soft brown bob on his heels.

“Can I help you?” She stopped in the doorway. “I have important work to do.”

“I was hoping we could take a walk,” I said, skipping an introduction because the look on her face said she knew good and well who I was. “I understand how important being near your desk is to four-one-one, but I'd like to talk to you for a few minutes.”

Her eyes widened a touch, then flew to Sam, who didn't appear to be paying us any mind.

“I can't be away from nine-one-one long.” She stressed the numbers. “But okay.”

Shelby and I led her outside and a half-block down before we turned on her.

“How's it going, Girl Friday?” I asked.

“I don't know what you're talking about, Nichelle.” She pursed her lips, folding her arms over her chest.

“But you know who I am,” I said, my eyebrows going up.

“You work at the newspaper.”

“It's not like my photo runs with my byline,” I told her. “And Shelby here has pretty good proof that you're behind River City Four-one-one, so give it a rest. I'm not here to argue with you. I'm here to offer a few words of friendly advice.”

“Let me guess,” she said, her mouth twisting into a sneer. “You want me to go easy on the cops. They have an innocent man in jail and you couldn't care less. You don't deserve to have a byline.”

Shelby took a step forward and opened her mouth. Since I wasn't sure I wanted to hear her opinion on that topic, I raised one hand and turned back to Alexa.

“You don't have the first damned clue what I do or don't care about,” I said. “So if I were you, I'd watch the accusatory tone. I care very much about that guy and about this story. And you seem dead-set on wrecking everything anyone is trying to do here. That's not journalism, it's muckraking. It's irresponsible. Do you even understand the headlines you're running could incite a panic if your following gets any bigger?”

“The people deserve the truth,” she said, eyes flashing.

I rolled mine. “Not at the expense of public safety.”

“There's a serial killer running around the city, and you think not warning people is in the interest of public safety?” She shook her head. “Unbelievable. How did you end up with a job when I didn't?”

I blinked.

“First, I worked my ass off to get a job, and I work my ass off every day to keep it,” I said. “Second, nobody is sure this is a serial killer, except maybe the people you've managed to convince with your sensational reports.”

“You're just pissed because I beat you to the punch on the victim's identity this morning.”

She smirked, and my fingers itched to smack the look off her face. I folded them behind my back.

“I'd be lying if I said I wasn't annoyed, but I got my information honestly, and you didn't,” I said.

“And Nichelle's story was better,” Shelby piped up.

“I—” I glanced around. No Rod Serling. “Thanks, Shelby.” I turned back to Alexa. “Look, you're stealing confidential police department information and broadcasting it online. And you're spinning it in a way that could cause big trouble. I get being young and passionate about the First Amendment, but you're going about this all wrong.”

“And I suppose your way—letting the cops get away with whatever the hell they want—that's better?”

I closed my eyes for a long second, and Shelby snorted. “I think someone missed a homework assignment,” she said.

I grinned, meeting Alexa's angry stare. “Look, I don't know you, and to be honest, I don't really give a damn why you're so mad. I came to talk to you instead of turning your name over to Aaron, because he will fire you, and I don't fancy being responsible for anyone being out of work. I saw you were a recent j-school grad and I thought I could give you some advice. Maybe even help you out. Clearly, my mistake.”