Front Page Fatality (15 page)

Torn between keeping his confidence and worrying, I grabbed the phone and pushed redial, trying to keep the frantic note out of my voice as I asked for Aaron.

“Davis.”

My stomach knotted again when Jerry Davis, the detective working the drug dealer case, answered Aaron’s phone.

“Hello?” Jerry said, drawing the word out.

I struggled to make my lips work.

“Jerry? It’s Nichelle Clarke at the
Telegraph
. Please tell me Aaron’s in a meeting and you just happen to be hanging out waiting for him.”

Jerry laughed. “You have some sort of hot scoop today?” he asked, misinterpreting the desperation clear in my tone. “Sorry, Nichelle, he’s on vacation this week. He emailed yesterday morning that he was taking the boat out and he’d be out of cell range for a week or ten days, so I’m trying to cover for him. I gotta hand it to him. You people are pretty time-consuming. His job is harder than I thought.”

“Vacation.” I repeated, my voice hollow.

I heard Aaron in my head: “I’m going to have two kids in college, come September. No vacations around here for a while. I’ll take the extra paycheck for my time off.…Let’s see what I can manage to stir up if I poke this hornet’s nest.”

What if Aaron stirred up more than he bargained for?

“You’re sure the email was from Aaron?” My voice was too high.

“I didn’t see him typing it, or anything, but it was sent from his RPD account. Hey, are you okay?”

“Yes. No. I don’t know, Jerry. There’s some weird stuff going on this morning.”

“Anything I can help with?”

I bit my lip and tried to think of something. Was there anything he might not ask too many questions about?

“I don’t think so,” I said finally.

“Let me know if there’s anything I can do for you while Aaron’s gone.”

“Thanks, Jerry. If you do happen to hear from Aaron, ask him to give me a call.”

Twisting the top off a Diet Coke bottle in the break room a couple of minutes later, I remembered that Bob was supposed to be getting his walking papers from Dr. Schaefer.

I went back to my cube and called my boss’ house. He picked up on the second ring, and if I hadn’t seen him looking so frail two days before, I would never have believed the man had a heart condition.

“Hey, chief,” I said. “How are you feeling?”

“Nicey,” Bob said, more cheerful than I was used to. “I’m fantastic. I’m home! It’s nice to be in my own clothes and watching my own TV. I have two news channels on, but Warden Parker here won’t let me talk to Les for more than seven minutes an hour, which is driving me insane.”

He didn’t sound the least bit annoyed.

“You’re not fooling anyone. And he’s trying to make sure you get well quickly,” I said. “He’s done this before. You listen to him and you’ll be back in here hollering at us in no time.”

I could hear the smile in his voice. “Yes, ma’am.”

“I’m glad to hear you sounding like yourself. I want to come by and see you.”

“Sure,” Bob said, his grouching about babysitters apparently forgotten, at least for the moment. “I think Parker said he has to run up there at three to get his column filed because he forgot his laptop.”

“Tell him no rush,” I said. “I’ll come hang out with you while he gets his piece taken care of. Do you need me to pick up anything on my way?”

“I don’t think so. He got groceries already.” His voice dropped to an exaggerated conspiratorial whisper. “He’s making some kind of soup. Do you figure whatever he comes up with will be edible?”

Parker’s good-natured laugh rang in the background.

“I’m sure he’s not going to kill you,” I said. “It’s good to have you back, Chief. Get some rest.”

As far as actual printable copy was concerned, my day was pretty light. There were a couple of follow-ups on small trials I had been waiting for verdicts on, but nothing worthy of sitting at the courthouse. One was a hit-and-run (minor injuries, acquitted), the other an animal cruelty case (puppy mill, convicted). I interviewed the prosecutors and defense attorneys for both cases, pounded out the stories, and sent them to Les. Two hours early. That ought to shut Shelby up for a while.

Parker’s bike was still in the driveway when I pulled up outside Bob’s stately brick-front colonial that afternoon. I sat in my car, listening to the radio and rehearsing what I was planning to tell my editor. I needed to keep it light so I wouldn’t give him another heart attack, but I also wanted to know what he really thought. I wondered if there was a punch line to a mob boss being in my living room. Knock, knock. Who’s there? The Mafia. Except he didn’t knock. Yeah, there’s not much funny about that.

Parker left before I had a good plan, waving as he settled the helmet on his head. Damn. I stepped out of the car. Short of a sudden flash of brilliance, I could just watch my tone, lay it out straight, and hope for the best.

“Nicey?” Bob called when I opened the front door. “I’m in the living room.”

I walked down the long entry hall, past the parlor and the dining room, and found Bob, looking normal save for the plaid pajamas and blanket, stretched out on his brown leather sofa watching CNN. MSNBC was running in a small box in the corner of the screen.

I grinned. “Glad to see you up and around, sir,” I said.

“Not up and around,” he scowled. Being at home evidently lost its novelty quickly. “If someone would let me up and around, I’d go to the office. Instead, I’m here with another babysitter, and Parker ordered me to stay on this couch unless I have to use the bathroom. I feel like I’m in first grade. I should have eaten a few more salads, I guess.”

“It’s not too late to remedy that, you know.” I tried not to sound too reproachful. “We need to introduce you to the farmer’s market.”

“So I’ve been told,” he said, gesturing to the big brown leather recliner. “Sit. Tell me what’s going on with your story.”

I took a deep breath, surprised it had taken him more than two minutes to ask.

Still lacking a better idea, I tried to keep my voice light as I told him about my uninvited guest. It didn’t work.

“Jesus, kid.” Bob blew out a slow, controlled breath. “I’m out for three days and this is what you come up with? The goddamned Mafia? Are you sure?”

“It’s not like he gave me a business card that said ‘Goodfellas, we deliver.’ But the story fits. And I found him in that photo from the embezzler murder trial, too. I heard a couple of the ACAs down there talking about the guy stealing from the mob. What do you think? You’re the first person I’ve told about this.”

“As much as I don’t want to, I think you’re right. I’ve heard rumors. Once you get involved with these people, you don’t get uninvolved until they get what they want. But why haven’t you asked your guys at the PD about this Joey?”

“Because they’re not there. Either of them.” My voice caught a little on the last word. “Mike didn’t go home Monday night and they’re saying Aaron is on vacation. I guess that might be true, but he just told me he wasn’t taking vacation this year.”

“Did either of them take the money?”

“I don’t want to think so.” I sighed. I needed his opinion, and for him to give it to me, he needed to know what was going on. “Here’s the thing: Mike’s the one who brought me the story on the missing evidence. He went down there to check something out and it was gone, and he called IAD and then he called me. So, part of me wonders if Mike stole it, but why would he bring me the story if he was the one who did it?”

“To make it look like he’s not?”

I dropped my head into one hand. And Mike had been at the river on Friday night, too. As much as I hated the idea, if Joey was right and the evidence was on the boat, what if Mike wasn’t just being helpful?

“Yeah, that’s kind of where I landed, too.” I peeked through splayed fingers at Bob’s furrowed brow before I raised my head. “Shit, Chief. I don’t know. I don’t know who to trust. I don’t know what to think. I do have another theory, though. I think there’s a decent chance the deputy police chief is running this whole thing, no matter who’s involved in it.” I forged ahead, talking so fast I wasn’t sure he could keep up.

“I think he stole the evidence and sent those rookies to take it somewhere,” I said when I finally sat back in the chair. “But if that’s it, what I don’t know is whether or not Roberts and Freeman knew there was anything illegal on the boat. Or who else might be in on it.”

“It’s a hell of a sexy story, isn’t it?” Bob asked. “I can’t say I’m quite as excited about it as I was Monday, but…good God, you can’t not go after it. I know you, and I remember what it’s like. But you can’t imagine how shitty I’m going to feel if you get yourself hurt chasing a headline.”

“Well, no worries, because I have no intention of doing anything but cracking the case and saving the day. Step aside, Lois Lane.”

He laughed in spite of the crease in his forehead. “Work fast, huh, Lois? The sooner you’re out from under this one, the better I’ll feel. Plus, Charlie won’t be far behind you. You don’t want to end up second chair after all this mess.” He smiled at me and changed the subject. “Let’s talk about something a little less stressful before we both have a heart condition. Tell me everything else that’s going on. I’m going through withdrawals.”

Two hours later, I had him fully back in the loop and we had just moved on to politics when Parker walked in the front door.

“Just checking in before I head out for the night.” He nodded a hello at me and focused on Bob. “You need anything, boss? That minestrone should be done by now, and I have a date. Did y’all know there’s a new reporter at Channel Ten? She was at the DeLucas’ house the other day. Said she likes my column.”

He glanced at me. “Speaking of, at the risk of being a pain in the ass, did you ever read my piece from Saturday?”

I shook my head, unable to keep a rueful smile off my face.

“I’m going to, I swear,” I said. “I’ve just been busy. Nothing personal.”

“Sure it’s not. What could possibly have you so busy you don’t have time for a fifteen hundred word story?”

Bob’s eyes flicked between us as I paused for half a beat too long.

“Mostly personal stuff,” I said, not wanting my lead offered up as a way to get the new girl at Channel Ten into the sack. “Nothing that would interest you. But I really will get to it. I don’t break promises, even when I have to delay them.”

Parker pinched his lips together and studied me for a second before he flashed the trademark grin and told us goodnight.

We heard the door click as he let himself out.

I moved to follow suit and my boss shot me another warning glare.

“Quick and clean. Don’t piss Les off, don’t get us sued, and for fuck’s sake, don’t get yourself killed,” he said.

“Yessir,” I said.

My thoughts tangled up in my story as I drove home to the gravelly twang of Janis Joplin, and I pondered what Bob had said, wondering if Aaron and Mike really could be knee deep in this and unable to think of a single person who could tell me the answer to that.

But what if I could find out for myself?

Cranking up the music, I cut across two lanes and hung a sharp left on Thompson, heading for the freeway. The often-annoying ability to remember anything I read, which tended to leave my mind cluttered and hard to shut off at night, produced a perfect image of the map on Aaron’s office wall—and the big black circle around the marina on the Appomattox River where he docked his boat.

11.

Move over, Lois

The Appomattox is nearly an hour south of Richmond, and the sun was low in the sky by the time I got close enough to check my maps app for the exact location of the marina. There were two in the vicinity of Aaron’s black circle, and I pulled into the nearly-deserted gravel parking lot at the first and hopped out, not sure if I was excited or nervous.

I wanted the boat to be gone—though I wouldn’t know for sure until I’d checked both locations. But the wringing in my gut told me I would find something. True, he didn’t answer to me, but it didn’t seem like Aaron to tell me he wasn’t going on vacation and then take off the very next day. Especially not in the middle of such a big case.

“Alyssa Lynne,” I muttered, strolling down the dock trying to look like I belonged as I checked the names of the vessels tethered there. He’d told me once that the boat was his other baby, so he’d named it after his daughters.

I counted thirty-four boats on one side of the slip and turned to start up the other, still alone with the sun sinking fast in the distance. A breeze ruffled my hair and I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, unable to relax even in such a peaceful place.

Still no dice on the other side. Slightly buoyed by that, I went back to my car and sat with the windows down for a minute, listening to the water.

My phone binged the arrival of a text just as I started the engine and I glanced at it, only the top half of the message visible over the edge of the cup holder.

It was from Les.

“What now?” I sighed, talking to my Blackberry. “All my stuff was done early today, in case you didn’t notice.”

“Charlie has the missing lawyer’s wife on camera,” it read. “If you can’t handle this, there are other people here who can.”

Shit. I’d called the woman and she’d refused to comment. What did he want me to do, stalk her?

My mobile browser was lousy with streaming video, but I clicked onto Channel Four’s site and tried anyway. Charlie’s story was the second from the top, and a scan of the text didn’t reveal anything Earth-shattering. I didn’t even see the wife’s name, which was Grace, according to the court papers I’d found the day before.

I tried the video, and after several minutes managed to put together enough patchy footage to see it was close to the same story they’d run the night before, save for the addition of the bankruptcy filing, some information on a few of Neal’s old cases, and about five seconds of a puffy-eyed Grace Neal telling Charlie “no comment” and shutting the door in her face.

“I’m getting threats over a ‘no comment?’” I tossed the phone back into the cup holder and banged my head against the back of the seat. “Is he kidding me?”

I slammed my foot down on the accelerator and spun the tires on the gravel, not wanting to lose the sunlight completely before I got to the other marina. What I did want to do was text my makeshift boss a very polite “please bite my ass,” but I knew Bob would frown on that, so I focused on the road, taking the unfamiliar turns too fast, Janis wailing loud enough to rattle the windows.

Twilight had fallen by the time I parked at the second marina, which had roughly three times as many slips, though about half of them were empty.

I hurried down the closest dock, the bait shop closed and not another soul in sight, cursing my lack of a flashlight and scanning the names on the boats as I went.

I found nothing on either of the first two docks and was almost at the end of the third, ready to decide he’d changed his mind and I was losing mine to paranoia and conspiracy theories, when I saw it.

My stomach twisted as I stared at the RPD shield painted on the hull next to his daughters’ names. Damn.

So he wasn’t on vacation. One question answered, but five new ones in its place.

Had he lied to Jerry? Had Jerry lied to me? Aaron knew all about boats and rivers. Was it really him the whole time? Had he taken off after the crash because he was afraid he’d get caught? Or had his hornet’s nest been nastier than he’d anticipated?

I stepped closer to the boat, which was a nice one—with a small cabin and everything—especially for a guy with two kids and what I knew about cops’ and teachers’ salaries. Dammit. I hated feeling like everyone was a suspect, and I had no idea what to think.

If it was him, and he had taken off, why would he say he was going on the boat and then leave it here? And in that same vein, if they were moving the goods over the waterways, what if there was something on there?

I took another step toward the boat and stopped, biting my lip. It wasn’t exactly a house, but still private property. And a cop’s private property at that.

But what if it wasn’t him? What if something was wrong, or something happened to him, and there was a clue on there somewhere?

I looked around, the first of the evening stars twinkling overhead. Nothing out here but me and the fish and the man in the moon. It wouldn’t hurt to take a quick peek. If he was guilty, I wouldn’t care if he minded, and if he wasn’t, I was nearly sure he wouldn’t mind.

I stepped onboard shakily, looking around the deck and wondering what my chances were of finding anything interesting.

There was a console near the captain’s chair, which looked like as good a hiding place as any, but held only a box of fish hooks, a flashlight, and a package of batteries.

Maybe down in the belly, then. I crossed the deck to the galley door, jerked it open, and slipped inside before I could change my mind, telling myself I wanted as much to know what had happened to my friend as I wanted to know anything else about this case.