Front Page Fatality (14 page)

Scrolling down, I chose a Wikipedia article that turned out to be a complete history of organized crime in Sicily. It was fascinating, even if it wasn’t particularly relevant, and I read  through half the page before I saw a link to something more promising. I waited for the article on the American Mafia to load and became engrossed in the information on the screen. It could’ve been lifted from any one of a hundred novels.

“Yeah, I never would have believed any of this yesterday morning,” I said to the empty room, my eyes getting big as I read the long list of American cities with known Mafia families. Some of them were an easy day’s drive from Richmond. And the fine print said the list was a partial one.

“Holy shit.” I exhaled forcefully, sat back in the chair, and dropped the headphones to my desk. Looking at a chart of how Mafia families are organized, I surmised Joey must be up there. I didn’t figure foot soldiers wore three-thousand-dollar suits and rode around in chauffeur-driven cars.

There was a whole section on initiation and how it usually involved murder. I remembered the sardonic smile that played around Joey’s lips for most of the time I had talked to him, and shivered. Had someone, or more than one someone, taken their last breath looking at that smile?

“A good friend to have,” he’d said.

I guess if my choice was limited by him being in my living room, I’d certainly rather he like me than not.

Bob was right. Missing lawyers, stolen evidence, and organized crime. It was a bona-fide investigative story. But I needed to know more about what I was dealing with. I clicked over to the
Telegraph
archives, searching old courthouse photos for Joey’s face. I found it in a shot from the decapitated accountant trial. Joey was part of a crowd of onlookers, leaning on a column behind the bigheaded prosecutor. I couldn’t zoom in too much without making the image fuzzy, but I’d recognize that little half-grin anywhere.

“What the hell am I getting myself into?” I wondered aloud. Even as I said the words, I had a feeling it was too late to back out. And I wasn’t at all sure I wanted to.

10.

Missing links

“No telling, where you’re concerned,” Shelby’s voice came from behind my shoulder and I jumped, whacking my knee on the underside of my desk. That would leave a mark. “Anything interesting?”

Seriously, universe? I searched the memories of my college religion class for the words to the Hail Mary. Not that I was Catholic. I was just trying to cover my penance bases as Shelby stared at me with her ping-pong-ball eyes, making a tsk-tsk sound with her tongue.

“Nothing you’d be up for,” I stretched my lips into a tight smile and cocked my head to one side. “Though, you know, I’ve read your stuff. It’s not bad.”

She smiled, her eyes getting impossibly bigger. “I know.”

I shrugged. “Like I said, not bad. But covering cops and covering garden parties are about as similar as the Oscars red carpet and a kid playing dress up. You wouldn’t last a day in my shoes. Bob’s not giving you my job, so give it up.”

“Bob’s not here, is he? Les wasn’t happy with you last night. Not to kiss and tell, but I’d watch my step if I were you.”

“Are you serious? Is there anyone in this building you haven’t boinked trying to get a promotion? Do you have, like, any self-respect?”

“Sure. I respect my ability to find ways to get what I want,” she smiled. “You’re a good writer, Nichelle. And you’re a good reporter. Bob thinks you’re the next Helen Thomas, and it’s totally obvious to everyone how much you love that. But I’m a good writer, too. I just got hired for a beat that was expendable. Cops is not, and once I get away from the copy desk, I have no intention of going back.”

I narrowed my eyes and started to say something, but she kept talking.

“So do me a favor. Go get your story. I don’t even have to know what it is right now. Les said you were into something big he didn’t think you could handle. I, ever selfless, offered to help, which he thought was very sweet of me.” She smirked. “And as long as we’re talking about what everyone knows, we all know you’ve got your eye on the
Post
. And we all know if you were really good enough, you’d already be working there. Look, Nichelle, at the end of the day, it makes me no difference how you go. Ride off into the sunset to be a politics superstar, screw up and get yourself fired. All I care is that right now, Les is in charge, and I’m next in line for a byline as the crime reporter. So you have yourself a nice day. Just remember, I’ll be around.”

She shot me one last smug grin, turned on her heel, and started to walk off.

“Hey Shelby?” I called.

She turned back.

“If you were so great at what you do, Bob wouldn’t have hired me in the first place. You were already here, remember? Too bad you’re not his type. You may be leading Les around by his dick right now, but Bob still makes the staffing decisions. And just because you were a convenient threat on Saturday, doesn’t mean you’re next in line for jack shit.” I sounded way more confident than I felt, and her smile faltered, which made mine widen. “So you have yourself a nice day at the copy desk, okay?”

Tuesday, mercifully, did not live up to Monday in terms of drama. I didn’t see Shelby again, and my day passed in a blur of phone calls and faxes. I called Gavin Neal’s wife (who had no comment, thank you, Les, but at least I had it in my day-two story), and looked through Neal’s recent cases again. The case I had remembered while I was talking to Joey, with the stolen guns, was the only notable one. A search of public records revealed a bankruptcy filing, mostly for medical collections, that hadn’t been granted, but I couldn’t access more than the final judgment, which held that Neal’s bills must be paid because of tougher standards in the bankruptcy code.

Money was always good motive.

But then Joey’s words rang in my head, and no matter how I turned them over, I couldn’t fit Neal into a scenario where the money blew up on the river. First, he went to evidence on Sunday, not Friday. Second, why would he put it on a PD boat if he was stealing it from the PD?

If Joey was right about the boat, then Neal wasn’t the logical suspect in the evidence theft. Yet Charlie had blasted Neal’s face, superimposed over images of the evidence room, all over Channel Four beginning with the early show. Aaron was right—the PD cast Neal as the bad guy. Charlie had nothing on his financial troubles, but I knew she would soon, and that only strengthened the case against him.

After a good deal of back-and-forth, my desire to not lose to Charlie beat out my doubts about Neal and I went with it, bankruptcy and all. I threw in comments from DonnaJo and other prosecutors who proclaimed Neal’s innocence to balance my story, but it still didn’t look too good.

If he didn’t take it, who did? I wondered about Aaron and his hornet’s nest, but I didn’t hear anything from him and he didn’t answer when I called.

I went to see Bob on my way home and found him holding court in a hospital room that looked like it had been attacked by a florist on speed. I nodded to the mayor, three guys in suits I didn’t recognize, and the
Telegraph
’s advertising director, who all rose to leave when the phone rang just after I walked in.

Bob talked to Les about the next day’s newspaper for a few minutes, picking at a tray of overcooked chicken, limp broccoli, and orange Jell-O. He looked almost like himself. He was even wearing pajamas Parker dropped off that morning instead of the hospital gown.

Dr. Schaefer stopped in before I left, and she said she planned to send Bob home the next day. I grumbled about insurance companies and told Bob I’d be happy to help with whatever he needed. He said Parker had already volunteered for that job. 

“It sounded like he has some experience.” I smiled. “Something tells me he’ll take good care of you.”

Bob muttered something about a babysitter and I laughed, wishing him a good night.

Darcy streaked to the door in a little furry blur, barking her head off like always, when I got home. I scooped her up and kissed her fuzzy head, scratching her chest while I inspected the house. After a third check of all the locks, I relaxed a little.

I spooned a can of beef and carrots Pedigree into Darcy’s bowl and ate a sandwich at the counter while she snarfed it down, then took her out for the shortest game of fetch in history, checked the locks again, and fell into bed, comforted by the soft feel of the sheets on my skin and the heft of the duvet as I settled back into the pillows.

I dreamed of Joey.

We were in a long room, like a conference room minus the table, and he was at the other end trying to tell me something. I couldn’t hear him for the god-awful buzzing noise, like honeybees in hyper-drive, and no matter how I waved or beckoned, I couldn’t get him to come closer. He reached into his jacket pocket and produced a fat brass ring. He held it out to me, then pulled it away when I reached for it, holding it up and thumping the outside of it instead of tossing it over.

I woke up Wednesday with the covers twisted around my legs as if I’d been fighting them in my sleep, my hair damp with sweat in the air-conditioned room. I stretched, grumbling as I climbed out of bed, still craving sleep. The unsettling dream had kept me from resting.

I went to the gym anyway, and as I threw jabs, angled, and perfected my
ap chagi
(I was fairly certain the instructor was butchering the Korean when he called for the front kick by shouting “ap shaggy,” but no one seemed to mind), I thought about Joey. Freud probably wouldn’t see anything deeply hidden in my dream. Bob called the
Post
my brass ring. I was pretty sure Joey had the key, but he wouldn’t give it to me. Fair enough. Except I couldn’t get past the feeling I was missing something.

Jab, jab, bouncebouncebounce, uppercut. Brass. What else was brass?

Gallop, gallop,
ap chagi
! Old chandeliers. Saddle fittings. Military officers.

Oh, shit.

I stopped suddenly, and the guy behind me
ap chagi
-ed me in the ass. I think he apologized, but I was already halfway to the door.

The police command staff. Brass. Dammit, I hated feeling slow.

I tried Aaron again on my way into the newsroom, wondering if his hornet’s nest was on the top floor of police headquarters.

When I got to my desk, I called Captain Jones and asked him if the destroyed patrol boat had been taken out recently, besides the night of the accident.

“I pulled that on Saturday, and there was only one other outing in the past month, a training.” I heard him typing in the background. “Here it is. Looks like two weeks prior to the accident.” More keystrokes. “Huh. I didn’t check the notes on this the other day, the damned phone was ringing off the hook and I got sidetracked. This is a little odd, actually. It was a Saturday, and Deputy Chief Lowe ordered it out on a training exercise. I wonder what kind of training he was doing?”

“Lowe?” I asked. My breath sped. “I take it you didn’t know anything about a scheduled training that day?”

“I don’t do training on the weekends, and I know I wasn’t here that Saturday, because it was my wife’s birthday and we were at the beach.”

“Was Lowe the only officer on the boat that day?” I asked.

“It doesn’t say,” Jones said.

I couldn’t tell from his tone if he was talking to me, or to himself. He sounded far away, as if thinking out loud. Then more clicking. I scribbled furiously.

“There’s another notes screen. Says one of my sergeants went to the boathouse, found Chief Lowe there on the boat. At which time Sergeant Mayer reminded Lowe he had to log the boat out, even for training. Mayer was heading out to search for a missing swimmer and noticed that the patrol vessel hadn’t been checked out.”

I stopped writing, distracted as I ran through the memory of my conversation with Lowe the day after the accident. Had the odd inflection I’d heard in his voice and dismissed as sorrow been something else? Like guilt? “You would think the deputy chief would be familiar with standard operating procedures.”

“I certainly would,” Jones said.

I stared into space after I put the phone down. Lowe? Joey’s hints would fit: someone with enough clearance to sign the boat out, and avoid signing into the evidence locker. Was the deputy chief stealing evidence and selling drugs and guns right out of police headquarters? Joey’s face was replaced in my head by Troy’s as I considered that: if Darryl and Noah knew they were working for the deputy chief of police, then it gave them ready ammunition for blackmail. And made them expendable.

I grabbed the phone and drummed my fingers on the desk while I waited for Mike to pick up. Before I went wholesale with Joey’s version of events, I wanted to know if anyone saw the evidence on Saturday.

“Narcotics, this is Stevens.” A low, unfamiliar voice came through the handset.

“I’m sorry. I think I ended up at the wrong extension. I was looking for Mike Sorrel.”

“The sergeant isn’t here today. Can I help you?”

“No, thanks, I’ll try his cell phone,” I said. “I need to talk to him today.”

“He’s not picking up his cell, miss,” Stevens said, his tone a mixture of patient and concerned. “Can I ask who’s calling?”

“This is Nichelle Clarke at the
Richmond Telegraph
. What do you mean ‘he’s not picking up his cell?’ Is he sick?”

“I wish I knew, Miss. No one has heard from him for a couple of days now. His wife says he didn’t go home from work Monday, and he wasn’t here yesterday, either.”

My stomach flip-flopped, my insides going cold. “He’s…he’s gone? Like, missing? I…” I couldn’t finish that sentence.

“Every spare detective we have is searching,” Stevens said. “We’ll figure it out. Myself, I’m hoping he just needed to get away for a few days. Maybe a fight with his wife she doesn’t want to tell us about. Wanted some distance from her. That’s usually how these things end up.”

“Sure,” I said.

I closed my eyes and dropped my head into my hands when I cradled the receiver. Mike is missing. The words looped through my mind, speeding until they ran together. Mikeismissing. I pictured his grave expression as he cautioned me about the information he gave me Monday morning. And he didn’t go home that night. For all I knew, I was the last person who saw him. But no one knew he’d talked to me.