Front Page Fatality (17 page)

“Nope. I’ll come get you.”

She was quiet for a long minute, and I held my breath. DonnaJo was smart.

“I don’t think I want to know, so I’ll just see you when you get here.”

Very smart.

“See you then.”

I hung up and flipped open my computer, typing Lowe’s name into my Google toolbar.

Facebook and LinkedIn were the top two hits, but his accounts were locked down to exclude everyone but friends or connections. I went back to the search results and kept scrolling. A ton of stuff from the
Telegraph
, most of it written by me, and a good many city council meeting minutes and agendas. TV news stories. A magazine article.

I was on page seven by the time I saw it.

The current command staff at the PD had been in place when I’d come to Richmond, and I’d never done any backgrounding on any of them. So until Google provided me with an old team photo, I had no way of knowing that Dave Lowe had been a trainer for the 1998 UVA baseball team.

And grinning his perfect grin from the back row of the photo on my screen was Grant Parker.

“Fuck me,” I whispered, sitting back in my chair, my eyes locked on the photo. No way.

And yet, there it was. Full color. Undeniable.

“Could I be any dumber?” I said, muffled by the fingers that had flown up to my lips. Parker had hardly ever spoken to me before I’d mentioned the drug dealers in that staff meeting, yet in a week, he’d managed to become something like a friend. At least, I was beginning to think he might.

I ran back through every conversation, ticking off questions about my story he’d tossed into each one. He’d even shown up at the river Friday night. 

Covering cops for six years taught me true coincidences are few and far between.

Closing my eyes, I called up the crime scene shots of drug dealers Noah Smith and Darryl Wright from my memory, their eyes open, blood and gore splattering the walls behind them.

Jesus. What if our sports columnist had been  responsible for that?

I dropped my forehead into one hand and pulled in a deep breath, my head swimming.

Think, Nichelle.

With an enshrined jersey number at UVA and a popular sports column, Grant Parker was a local hero, beloved by thousands of people. Apart from his occasional ego Tourette’s, he seemed like a nice enough guy, too. Why would he be in on a massive murder and drug trafficking scheme?

I had only one answer, and I’d never wanted so badly to be wrong.

The fancy new motorcycle. The thick stack of fifties he’d pulled out at the restaurant. I’d seen a lot in my tenure at the crime desk, and money was second only to sex on the list of motives for murder.

I thought about Parker carrying Katie DeLuca to her car and wondered if the kindness was motivated by guilt. What if Parker knew about the boat all along? Hell, what if he’d set up some sort of rendezvous between the cops and the ballplayers, then shown up to check it out when it went bad? Suddenly nothing seemed too crazy to consider.

I bookmarked the team photo on my computer and sat back in my chair, unsure of what to do with that information. I couldn’t tell Les, and I sure as hell couldn’t tell Bob. They’d laugh me out of the building—possibly the city. I had no one I trusted at the police department, even assuming that Mike and Aaron weren’t part of my growing conspiracy theory, and staring at a photo of Parker and Lowe, that no longer seemed a safe assumption.

I glanced back down at my desk and saw DonnaJo’s email about Neal and his active cases.

His wife had refused to comment on Tuesday, but she was just going to have to get over that. She had to know something, even if she didn’t know she knew it. And I needed to know it, too.

Scribbling down their address in Henrico, I stuffed the files into my bag and took a drive to the suburbs.

Grace Neal looked positively haggard when she opened her front door, her flat brown eyes not even registering surprise to see me standing there.

“Could you please just leave me alone?” she said, her voice raspy. “I know everyone thinks my husband is a felon, but I just want to take care of my little boy and have my husband back at home. I told Charlie Lewis yesterday when she came by poking a camera in my face: I’m not giving interviews. Go away.”

She moved to shut the door. Desperate, I stuck my foot in the crack, wincing at the pressure. She was strong for a petite little thing.

“Are you serious?” Her eyes widened and she pushed harder.

I gritted my teeth and stood my ground.

“Mrs. Neal, I know you don’t want to talk to me, and frankly, I don’t blame you,” I said. “I can’t believe I’m actually doing this, but I sort of don’t have a choice. There’s something wrong at the police department, and I think your husband might know what it is. I thought he might be part of it, but now I’m not so sure. So I’m going to need you to open that door and let some blood back into my foot, and then I’m going to need your help to figure this out.”

She stared a good thirty seconds, my foot still pinched in the heavy oak door, before she swung it wide and waved me inside.

“Just be quiet, please,” she said. “It’s so hard to get him to sleep sometimes.”

I hobbled through the bright foyer into her family room, wide and sunny with butter-colored walls and cushy, overstuffed furniture. It looked like a spread from Better Homes and Gardens, save for an end table that held a small lamp and a very large piece of medical equipment with a mask attached to it.

“My son has Cystic Fibrosis,” she said, following my gaze. “It means he has a buildup of thick mucus in a lot of his organs, including his lungs. That helps him breathe a little easier.”

“I’m sorry to hear that.” I was, but the words sounded lame. I didn’t really know what else to say.

“It is what it is.” She flashed a tired half-smile. “He’s a wonderful little boy, and I wouldn’t trade him for anything. But sometimes it’s hard. I’ve never had to take care of him by myself for so long before.”

“And you haven’t heard from your husband at all?” I watched her for signs of dishonesty.

“Not since he left here on Sunday.” Grace Neal held my gaze as she spoke, not fidgeting or wavering. “I know he didn’t steal that evidence, but why do you think my Gavin’s innocent?”

“I have a theory, and I’m wondering if your husband may think the same thing.”

“He’s suspicious of something.” She nodded. “He got his nose all out of joint a few months ago over the guns from that case he worked last year. The trucker from New York?”

I nodded as I reached into my bag and pulled out a notebook.

“Tell me why he was mad.” I clicked out a pen.

“Gavin has a thing about guns,” she said. “A sort of personal vendetta. He had a good friend when he was a little boy who was in the wrong place at the wrong time and caught a stray bullet from an unregistered gun. He became a prosecutor to keep them off the streets. I’ve never seen him work so hard on a case. He triple checked every detail, staying at the office until midnight for a week before his opening argument. He was ecstatic at the thought of so many guns being destroyed after he won, and he spent months after the trial counting the days until they were sent off to be scrapped.”

I guessed where her story was going from what Joey had said about the guns being on the boat.

“About two months ago, he went down to the police department to ride along while the guns were taken out of the evidence lock-up over to be chomped—they put them in this big shredding machine and the city sells the scrap metal. Gavin thinks it’s the greatest invention of the twentieth century.” She half-smiled, then sighed.

“But then he got to the evidence room and they told him he wasn’t allowed to go. They kept saying it was against regulations. He put up a fuss because he knows the rules inside and out, but they wouldn’t budge. The guy in the evidence room said he had orders from the command staff.”

“Of course he did,” I muttered.

“Excuse me?” Grace paused and gave me a quizzical smile.

“Sorry. Thinking out loud. Please, go on.”

She sighed again. “So Gavin called the command office, and someone gave him some bullshit about how they couldn’t be liable for putting Gavin in a dangerous situation in case someone tried to hijack the truck or something. Gavin argued, but the guy refused to give in. I felt so bad for him. Not that I wanted him to be in danger, but he was so excited about this. They finally said they’d send the deputy chief. That’s the second-in-command, right?”

I nodded.

“He said he’d go along and then call Gavin as soon as they got back from dropping the guns off at the shredder.

“And he did. Called Gavin a couple of hours later, said everything went smoothly. Gavin was so excited. He brought home champagne.”

“But then something went wrong?”

She nodded.

“The next day, he called his friend at the plant to see how much scrap they got out of them, and the guy said the guns never arrived.”

I sucked in a sharp breath even though I had suspected the words were coming.

“Yeah,” she said. “Gavin was pissed. We’ve been married for twelve years and I’ve never seen him so mad. He drove straight to the police department and demanded to see this deputy guy, but of course, the cop didn’t have time to talk. Gavin filed a complaint with the civil service commission. It got bogged down in red tape, but he kept after it.

“Finally, the commission told Gavin the guy at the scrap plant swore under oath he destroyed the guns. Apparently he was ‘mistaken’ when he told Gavin the guns never arrived. Gavin didn’t believe any of it, swore to me something fishy was going on at the police department, and from that point on, he made weekly random checks of the evidence room. Then Sunday, he never made it home.” Her voice faded on the last word.

Bingo. I nodded my head as I scribbled.

“Did he tell you what he suspected?” I asked.

“He did not.” She brushed at her eye and shook her head. “He said I didn’t need to be part of it, and I didn’t press him, to be honest with you. There were things he had to see at work that I didn’t care to know about. When he comes home after this nightmare, he’ll join a private firm with a fat salary and a corner office and a lot of tax law or something equally boring, if I have anything to say about it. He turns down half a dozen offers every single year. My husband is a brilliant lawyer, and he has a good heart. But I’m through with the crusading if this is how it’s going to end up.”

“Can’t say I blame you,” I said.

“Why are you asking, anyway?” she asked. “Do you think something happened to him? Something bad?”

“You don’t?” I didn’t mean to blurt it quite so bluntly, but I couldn’t believe she didn’t think the worst after what she just told me.

Grace bit her lip, her effort to control her breathing not really working. “I don’t want to,” she said, a small sob escaping with the words. “I just want him to come home.”

“I hope he does,” I said. “Thank you for talking to me, Grace. This is a big help. Can I ask one last favor?”

She sniffled and drug the back of one hand across her face. “Sure.”

“Does your husband have a home office, and may I check it out?”

She stood up and moved toward the back of the house.

“In here,” she said. “He likes to work in the sunroom where he can see the trees.”

I looked over the desk, but all of the files were labeled with one of two things: the names of medical companies and doctor’s offices, or defendants. I rifled through two drawers and a cabinet, but came up empty-handed. Damn. I had just turned back to the doorway to thank Grace for her time when an ear-splitting trill split the silence in the house.

“Shit,” the word slid between clenched teeth as Grace lunged for the cordless phone on the desk. “I keep the ringer up so I can hear it over Alex’s breathing machine.” She hit a button on the white handset and raised it to her ear.

“Neal residence.”

I looked back at my notes, but a small, strangled sound from my hostess snapped my head back up.

“Thank you.” The words were automatic, little more than a whisper, her eyes wide and staring at nothing. The phone clattered to the tile floor and I jumped to my feet, dumping the notebook under the desk.

“Grace?”

“He’s gone.” She said it so softly I almost didn’t hear, tears falling fast. “My Gavin. He’s dead. That…they…the police pulled him out of the river an hour ago. They said his body was dumped there. Weighted down.”

Her face crumpled into a mask of grief and she would’ve fallen if I hadn’t caught her, leading her back to the sofa in the buttery-bright family room and holding her while she sobbed.

There are times when being right really sucks.

13.

The weight of the world

By the time I found a phone number for Grace Neal’s mother scrawled across the babysitter pad on their fridge and waited for her to arrive, my Blackberry had rung itself into a nearly-dead battery.

“Where the fuck have you been?” Les screamed in my ear when I called him back as I pointed the car down West Broad toward the city. “Don’t you own a goddamn scanner anymore? Your missing prosecutor just turned up in the river, dumped like something out of an old gangster movie, according to Channel Four. Of course, I have to get my information from Charlie Lewis, because my cops reporter is nowhere to be found when the biggest crime story of the year breaks. They’re having a press conference at police headquarters at five-thirty.”

I checked my clock. It was already five-fifteen, and I was all the way out in the west end. Damn.

“I know about the lawyer. I was interviewing his wife when the cops called. I stayed with her until her mother arrived.”

“You what? Since when are we in the business of babysitting strangers?”

Since I’m a decent human being, you prick. I clenched my jaw. He totally would have left the poor woman sitting there in shock. Of course, Charlie probably would have, too.

I gulped a deep breath. Don’t piss him off, Bob said. And I didn’t want to give Shelby any more ammunition.

“I’m sorry,” I said, fighting to keep my tone even. “I did talk to the widow, and she told me her husband was suspicious that something wasn’t right in the police evidence room.”

I paused, waiting for an “attagirl.” He was quiet. I gave up.

“I have my laptop, and I’m on my way to the PD,” I said. “They never start press conferences on time, anyway. Watch your email for my write-up and tell Ryan to be ready to get it on the web. Has Charlie been out at the recovery site? Did you send photo?”

“Yes, I sent photo. I know how to do my job. And of course Charlie’s been out there. Even the new girl from Channel Ten has been out there. Everyone has kicked our ass on this, thanks to you. Don’t bother going to the PD. Shelby’s already there. We can take it from here.”

I slammed my foot on the brake just in time to keep from rear-ending the corvette in front of me, no retort at the ready for that. And the beeping in my ear told me he’d hung up, anyway. I threw the phone across the car and it clattered against the passenger window before it bounced into the floor.

“Dammit!” I slammed my hands down on the steering wheel. “This is really what I get for not being a heartless bitch? Hey, karma, I think I’m getting screwed, here.”

The light changed and I drove aimlessly, the urge to kick something (namely Les) pretty strong as I replayed the conversation in my head.

Coasting up Monument Avenue, I passed the stunning collection of larger-than-life statues that began near the old city limits with Robert E. Lee and ended a mile and a half later with tennis star Arthur Ashe. The street itself was gorgeous, with stately antebellum homes peeking from behind rustling leaves, the shadows cast by the spires at First English Lutheran Church growing long in the evening sunlight. I rolled down the windows and took deep, calming breaths.

Les would have to eat those words when I exposed the corruption at the police department. And I would very much enjoy watching him do that.

Feeling more sociable and remembering my date with DonnaJo, I followed Monument until it turned into Franklin, then turned on Ninth, passing city hall and the library before I stopped in front of the John Marshall Courts Building, which housed the CA’s offices. I flipped the mirror down before I got out, dabbing on lipstick and straightening my hair.

“Let Shelby have her fun,” I said aloud to my reflection. “It won’t matter. Les is just a jackass on a power trip. Just beat Charlie to the punch here, and it won’t matter one little bit.”

Since I had no way of knowing what Charlie had or didn’t have, I needed to work fast and make sure I got it right.

I took the elevator up to DonnaJo’s practically deserted office and found her staring at her computer, which was streaming Charlie’s coverage of the press conference, though it still hadn’t started.

“I didn’t expect to see you.” DonnaJo’s blue eyes widened when I tapped on her doorframe. Judging by the red rims on those eyes and her smeared makeup, my beauty-queen-turned-hardass-prosecutor friend had taken the news about her colleague badly. “Why are you not over at the press conference? You heard about Gavin?”

“I’m so sorry, honey.” I shook my head. “I was at his house when they called his wife. I stayed with her after she got the call, so the asshole who’s filling in for Bob sent a copy editor to the press conference instead.”

“Ouch.”

“It stings, I admit.” I sat on the gray velour sofa near the door. “But it’s not the end of the world. It’s one press conference. Though, good of the paper be damned, I hope she chokes.”

DonnaJo laughed. “May Charlie Lewis wipe the floor with her.”

“Charlie will eat her for breakfast,” I said. “But hey, she wanted to play with the big girls.”

DonnaJo spun the screen so I could see it, too, and my stomach turned as I watched Deputy Police Chief Dave Lowe take the podium outside police headquarters.

Lowe cleared his throat and faced the cameras, squaring his narrow shoulders as he gripped the sides of the podium with both hands, his dark, curly hair shellacked so the wind whipping the flags behind him didn’t budge it. He wasn’t a big man, probably shorter than me with a slight build. Looking into his round brown eyes, even on TV, gave me chills.