Devil in the Deadline (3 page)

“We okay?” I raised hopeful eyebrows.

“Right as rain, Granny B would say.” He kicked open the door and stood, turning to lean back into the car. “Goodnight, friend. Don't get yourself in over your head chasing this lead, and be careful with White. He might like you, but he wants this collar more than he wants air right now. You think he's doing you a favor. But there's a lot in this one for him. Watch your back.”

I nodded. “Thanks, Kyle.”

“Call if you need me.” He shut the door and disappeared into the building.

His disappointed half-smile followed me all the way home. I knew I'd done the right thing by telling the truth, but it still kind of sucked. There was a hell of a headline waiting for me, though. Dead chick and psycho killer first. Boys later.

Kicking my Manolos to the kitchen floor, I patted my toy Pomeranian on the head and stretched. I
wanted the story on the web before the early news shows, so I grabbed a cup of Colombian Fair Trade and my laptop and settled on the sofa to write.

  

Richmond Police are combing the boulders of Belle Isle for clues in the early light this morning, following the grisly discovery of a murder scene in an old switch house overlooking the park just after 10 p.m. Saturday.

“Evil. Evil is the only word I've got,” RPD Spokesman Aaron White said as he surveyed the scene.

White said the young woman was stabbed

  

I paused, staring at my blinking cursor. Filleted was the word I would personally use, but I didn't want to include too many details of the scene in the story. Walking the line between “enough to nail the exclusive” and “too little to screw up the investigation” wasn't easy on the best day, and at two in the morning on very little caffeine, it was damn near impossible. Stabbed. I nodded, adding “repeatedly.” Good enough.

  

The scene was discovered by vagrants looking for shelter.

“No one's ever there at night,” the man who called police told the
Richmond Telegraph
in an exclusive interview. “Cops patrol the park pretty good after dark, watching for drug dealers. It's a safe place to sleep. Cool in the summer, with the breeze from the river and all the concrete.”

  

I added a few more comments from Aaron, tiptoeing around the forensic jargon, but hitting that this murder was anything but standard issue. I put his number in the last paragraph with a plea for information. That would bring the nut jobs out of the woodwork and give him some sorting to do, but chasing wild geese was often the only road to someone who could actually help.

I emailed the story to my editor a little before three, adding an “urgent” flag and a note that I'd be in the newsroom as soon as I got a few hours' sleep.

Standing under the super-bright security light I'd recently added to my backyard, I watched Darcy run a lap around the fence line, still wondering what kind of person could do something so unspeakable.

The puzzle invaded my sleep, dreams peppered with flashes of blood-soaked walls and glassy green eyes, a voice from nowhere repeating a refrain of “they killed her.”

They who?

3
.

  

Hard truths

  

I
kicked the tangled covers the rest of the way to the floor around eight-thirty, giving up on sleep the third time I woke with blankets strangling my legs. I never rest well when there's a big story in the works—it's nearly impossible to get my brain to shut down—but a potential psycho on the loose added a whole new level of fitful to my slumber.

Darcy didn't move when I plunked my feet to the scarred 1920s hardwood and shuffled to the bathroom. A ponytail and a little concealer later, I found two texts on my BlackBerry from my editor. Charlie didn't have close to what I did, which always put Bob in an excellent mood. Score one for the crime reporter.

Juggling a latte and my notebook, I stepped off the elevator into the newsroom at nine-fifteen and nearly walked into Shelby Taylor. Her eyes narrowed, her full lips twisting into a sneer before I could get the “excuse me” out of my mouth.

Beating Charlie made Bob happy. It also pissed Shelby off. Not that our copy chief wanted the TV station to scoop us. She just wanted my job, so anything that got me a brownie point or two with the bosses stuck in her craw. And now that she was no longer sleeping with the managing editor, she was more irritable than usual.

“How'd you manage to get more than everyone else in town this morning?” she asked, swiping her spiky black hair off her forehead before she laid her hands on her Barbie-doll-sized hips.

“Why in God's name are you here on Sunday?” I countered, stepping around her and turning toward my desk. “Don't you have a life? Surely Les and his hairplugs moving on hasn't been that devastating. Except when you count the loss of job potential. It must be humiliating, having the guy you were only sleeping with to get my beat dump you.”

She gaped at me for a second, recovering with a smirk and a Splenda-coated tone. “I'm sure you wouldn't know anything about that, would you? Because you didn't have an exclusive this morning that's got Charlie Lewis ready to spit nails. How's that ATF agent friend of yours? Still in bed?”

“I don't have to stoop to your tricks to get ahead, Shelby. And it's not an ATF case.”

“Mmm-hmm.” She widened her eyes and offered a conspiratorial nod. “Whatever gets you through the day, sugar.”

The glare I fixed on her retreating back should've burned a hole right through her lacy peach tank top. Her jibe stung more than a little behind the memory of Kyle's lips on mine after I asked him about the murder. I stomped to my desk. If Shelby was half as good at reporting as she was at pushing my buttons, she'd have a column in
The
New York Times
.

I dropped my stuff to the tacky brown seventies carpet in my little ivory cubicle, the weekend crew quieter than usual. Settling into my chair, I glanced at Bob's door. Closed. Rare was the story that would get him into the office on a Sunday. Even several years past his wife's death, he honored her wish that his weekends be his own. For the most part, anyway. If he'd seen what I saw last night, he wouldn't leave the newsroom for a month. But given the looming first anniversary of his heart attack, I'd rather keep stress away from him.

I flipped my computer open, laying my notes alongside, and began typing everything I could recall about the murder scene.

An hour later, I had six pages of details I could reference no matter how long the search stretched on. I saved it as “Craven 1,” and sent it to the printer. Staring at the
Telegraph
's home page for a minute, I added a copy of that morning's write-up to the printer queue and stood to go grab them. Retrieving a file folder from the back of my bottom drawer, I named it for my favorite nightmare director, too, and stashed the papers inside.

Checking the clock, I deemed it late enough for normal people to be awake and grabbed the phone, dialing my friend Emily's Dallas cell number.

“Any wedding bells yet?” she drawled by way of hello.

“Oh, go find your own wedding bells, Doctor Sansom,” I laughed. Em had been a good friend since forever. Lucky for me, she was also a top-of-her-field criminal psychologist who didn't mind helping me out with a tangled story here and there. As long as I didn't quote her, or ask too much.

“You have to be kidding,” she said. “Hasn't it been almost a year since he moved up there? What the heck are you waiting for, doll?”

Em had been there for me when I left Kyle in the terminal at DFW International so many years ago, heading to Syracuse to chase my dreams of covering the White House. Throwing psychology to the wind, she'd told me if it was meant to be, we'd find our way back to each other.

She believed we had. I didn't want to talk about it.

“Just making sure I know what I want,” I said. “Isn't the shrink in you proud of me for not jumping into anything serious?”

She sighed. “But the romantic in me wants to live vicariously through you. Forever love, fate—all that drivel I'm not supposed to believe in.”

“No Mister Rights in your neck of the woods these days?”

“Girl, I can't even find a Mister Okay For Tonight,” she said. “I'm thinking I may have to lower my standards. But I suspect you didn't call to talk about my love life. And since you say you didn't call to talk about yours, what's up?”

“I'm covering a murder this morning,” I said, my voice quavering in the middle of the statement. “One unlike anything I've ever seen. I was hoping I could bounce a couple things off you. Just want to know if you think I'm on the right track.”

“Hit me.”

I gave her the rundown of the scene, a few sharp intakes of breath her only reply until I paused to make sure the coast was clear before I told her about Mr. Brooklyn Baseball. Em cleared her throat as I scanned nearby corners for spiky black hair. Shelby's a good lurker.

“As your friend, I feel the need to ask if you've talked to anyone about this,” Emily said. “Like, a professional anyone. That's a powerful thing to see.”

“I'm talking to you,” I said.

“Then allow me to put on my shrink hat and ask you how that made you feel, Nicey?”

“Scared shitless. And sick to my stomach. It also made me want to help.”

“Help who?”

“The guys at the PD who are trying to catch this nutball.” I sighed. “Anyone who loved this woman. What if this is just the beginning? If someone can hack one woman up, what's to keep them from doing it again?”

“That, in my professional opinion, is a perfectly normal response for you,” she said. “You are motivated first by your do-gooder instinct, and second by ambition, my friend. Helping your cops with this will fulfill two major needs for you. It sounds like you're dealing fine, but if you find yourself needing to talk, call me. Now, about this crime scene: I've never been called in to help with a bonafide serial killer, but there's a possibility you've got yourself one. There's also a possibility this was a ritual murder.”

“Ritual?”

“Candles, display—everything you described? Could have significance for the killer for many reasons,” she said. “And your killer could be a single person or a group. If it was a ritual death, there was likely more than one person present for the sacrifice, even if only one killed her. I'm sure your cops are looking at every angle.”

“But how many angles are they going to give me?” I wondered aloud.

“As few as they can get away with,” she said. “I know you get along well with your guys, but no cop ever fully trusts a reporter.”

“So if I want to stay ahead of Charlie, I have to dig up what they're not sharing,” I said.

“Bingo.”

“Thanks, Em,” I said, smiling. “What would I do without you?”

“You'd probably be crazier,” she said. “But still just as lovable.”

“And short one amazing friend.”

“You ought to try the ritual angle first.”

I closed my eyes. “There was so much blood, Em.”

“Whether or not it was all hers will tell you something.”

I cradled the receiver and considered that, wondering if Aaron had time to have blood typing results back. Probably not on the weekend.

What else did I have that Charlie didn't?

The guy from the hospital. I flipped through my notes from his interview.

“
There's a cook who gives us leftovers on Fridays.
”

I shoved my notebook and laptop back into my bag and stood, wondering how early the kitchen staff at Bottoms Up got in on Sundays. And hoping the benevolent cook was chatty.

  

I tapped the toe of one strappy emerald Manolo on the slate-and-camel-tiled floor of the entry, waiting for a hostess with a pixie cut and matching smile to return with the manager.

It was easier to go through the front door and ask to talk to the kitchen staff than hang out and wait for the back door to open. As long as it worked.

“What can I do for you, Miss?” the manager's dark eyes crinkled at the corners with a grin as he stuck a hand out. I shook it, returning the smile.

“Nichelle Clarke,
Richmond Telegraph
,” I said. “I'm working on a story I think some of your staff might be able to help me with, if they have time to chat.”

He waved me into the bar and gestured to a black ladderback chair at a small round table, nodding for me to sit as he pulled out the opposite chair. “What kind of story?”

Since the word “murder” would likely get me tossed out on my ass, I smiled and said “the homeless.”

“What would my kitchen staff have to do with that?”

“Word is, you have a few people who have developed a reputation for helping. I'm hoping they'll help me, too.”

He knit his thick eyebrows together. “I'm not sure if I should get you someone to interview or say no comment and ask you to leave.” He spread his hands over the black laminate tabletop. “I can't have it advertised we feed the less fortunate—we're running a business, not a soup kitchen.”

“I understand,” I said. “I'm happy to leave names out of it.” It was an easy trade, especially because it carried the bonus of making it harder for Charlie to follow my tracks.

He stared for a long second.

I kept my expression neutral, watching his eyes.

He sighed. “I got four kids. Three boys and a girl, all grown and married. The people I see on the streets down here—some of them are barely adults. It just about kills me on the daily, ma'am.”

I nodded. “I can only imagine.”

He pushed the chair back and stood, waving me to my feet. “I read the paper every day. You write about crime. Something bad happen to someone?”

I studied him for a long minute. “Do you really want to know?” Not that he wouldn't see it on tomorrow's front page. But I didn't have to be there when he did.

He snapped his dark eyes shut. “Don't think I do. But you think we could help?”

“I hope so.”

“You need to talk to Carl.” He turned for the swinging door next to the bar. “He should be here by now. Follow me, and don't touch anything.”

The dining room was still quiet, but the kitchen bustled with prep for the post-church lunch rush. Mixers whirred, meats sizzled on a long grill, and clouds of steam rose above a stove top covered with huge pots of boiling pasta.

Men and women in black pants and white t-shirts covered by long, sauce-stained aprons shouted conversation over the din. It died when I stepped into the kitchen, curious eyes following every move.

I kept a smile on my face and stayed on the manager's heels until he stopped in the far corner, where a tall man with enormous biceps and a gleaming bald head worked a table-sized clump of white goo I suspected was the fresh mozzarella that covered most of the food in thick, stringy layers.

He nodded to the manager and glanced at me before returning his attention to stretching the mass of cheese to the edges of a large tray. The way the muscles in his arms rippled, it wasn't easy work.

“Carl, this is Miss Clarke. She's a reporter at the
Telegraph
, and she wants to ask you a few questions.”

“Making cheese is news, now?” His teeth flashed bright against his dark skin when he grinned at me. “Forgive my manners, but I'm not sure you want to shake my hand right now.”

“No worries. Nice to meet you. And while that looks fascinating, food and wine isn't quite my area of expertise. I'm actually looking for information on a group of homeless people. I hear y'all feed them on Friday nights.”

Carl glanced at his boss, who nodded an okay.

“There's a lot of folks without a place to stay or food to eat around here,” Carl said. “Why throw out pans and pans of stuff at the end of our busiest night of the week when we can do some good with it?”

I pulled out a notebook and pen, jotting his words down. “Absolutely.”

“Who are you looking for?” he asked. “And why? Some of those folks got stories that make living on the street seem like a Jimmy Stewart movie.”

I put a star by that and looked up.

“The guy I talked to was probably twenty-three, twenty-four. Thin, with shoulder-length hair and a deep voice.”

“Picasso.” Carl nodded. “Green combat boots, right?”

“That's him. They call him Picasso?”

“He's...different,” Carl said, continuing to work on the cheese. “Autism? Maybe slightly slow? I'm not sure. But he can draw like nothing I've ever seen. Makes a little money that way. In the summers, he sells sketches down in the Slip.”

I scribbled, underlining as I went. And I thought the guy was in shock. Better than Landers, who thought he was a junkie. “Sketches. Was that what he meant when he said he was working?” I asked.