Front Page Fatality (5 page)

She spent two hours getting reacquainted with Jose Cuervo and helping me forget my lovelorn woes, her ability to make me laugh increasing in direct proportion to her level of intoxication.

“So, the light is green, but there’s a big truck in front of us that’s slow getting moving,” Jenna said, her words already garbled by laughter as she started a new story. “I didn’t say a word. I was listening to the radio, and all of a sudden from the backseat, I hear Gabby: ‘It’s the long vertical pedal on the right! What, are you waiting for the light to get greener? Some of us have places to go!’ I thought I was going to wreck my car I was laughing so hard. Is that my kid, or what?”

I gasped for air and wiped at the tears streaming from my eyes. “Undeniably. And I’m going to pee my pants if you don’t stop making me laugh.”

Jenna giggled again. “I’m having a great time, hon. I love going out with you. You laugh at my stories, you love my kids, you drive me home—you rock!”

“I do, huh? Okay. I think you’re sufficiently blitzed.” I savored the last bite of a flaky white chocolate and caramel empanada. “I have done my job. We can’t end the evening with a disappointed Chad.”

I drained my tea glass for the sixth time and glanced around. The band had called it a night and the place was practically empty, the cartoon-colored walls not as bright in the soft yellow glow from the overhead bulbs. I pulled my phone out of my purse to check the time and frowned. It was coming up on midnight, and I’d missed two calls in the last hour.

I held up my index finger as I pressed the button to check my voicemail, skipping through a week’s worth of messages, hunting for the most recent ones. I never listened to them unless I was looking for something specific, which had long-ago led Bob to order the receptionists to leave me notes.

“Someone tried to call me,” I murmured as I finally got through the three from that afternoon. “Just a second.”

Aaron White’s voice froze me in my chair for an instant, and I listened to him make a crack about a free favor before I jumped to my feet, looking around for the waitress and reaching for my keys.

“What’s going on?” Jenna lifted her glass again.

“I have to go back to work, and I guess you’re coming with me.” My words were clipped as I silently cursed the mariachis for drowning out the phone’s musical tinkling, and myself for leaving my scanner in the car. “I have an accident to cover. Apparently there was a boat crash about an hour ago.”

3.

Boats and ballplayers and brides, oh my

Jenna was still giggling twenty minutes later when we climbed out of the car by the river side a few miles south of the city. She was positively giddy from being forced to accompany me to an accident scene. Well that, and tequila.

I tried to look severe as I ordered her to do her best to appear sober and avoid making me laugh when I was supposed be working, but her twinkling eyes and eager grin reminded me of a little kid with a Toys “R” Us gift card, and it was damn near impossible to maintain decorum while I was looking at that.

“Yes, ma’am.” she slurred, proving my point as she offered me a weak salute and then winced when I giggled. “Oops. Sorry. I’ll try to be less funny. Damn you, Jack Daniels.”

“You were drinking margaritas, honey. Wrong label.” I chuckled as I tucked her arm into mine so at least she wouldn’t fall. I knew I had no chance of getting her to stay in the car, not in her condition.

All the emergency vehicles had made it difficult to get the car within field-goal range of the crash site, and the flashing red and blue lights made the natural beauty of the riverbank unnaturally eerie. The shredded boats still burning on the black water in the distance didn’t look promising for a happy ending.

I canvassed the emergency personnel for Aaron, but it was hard to even distinguish the policemen from the firefighters in the strange half-darkness so far from the accident scene.

The blond head bobbing just above most of the crowd, however, I knew instantly.

“It can’t be,” I muttered, even as I recognized the butter-colored polo I’d seen twice that day already.

“There you are!” Parker said when I caught up to him. “This is a madhouse. How do you ever get any work done at one of these things?”

“Hey, Parker.” I stared, still unable to come up with a single logical reason for his presence. “I’ve never been to anything like this before. Boats don’t usually blow up on the James. But I’m about to find a cop and see what’s going on. Forgive my manners, but what are you doing here?”

“I know a little about what happened.” He grimaced. “The coach got a call during my interview after the Generals game. The little speedboat belonged to Nate DeLuca, one of our pitchers. I don’t know the details, but it hit a Richmond PD boat. Like you said, there was an explosion. The fire department is searching the river and the banks on both sides, but they don’t think anyone survived. After I called in my story, I came to see for myself what happened to DeLuca. I’m going to write a feature on him for Sunday. He should’ve been at the ballpark tonight, but he had friends in town, and since he wasn’t pitching, the coach gave him the night off.”

“Sweet cartwheeling Jesus. Let’s go see what else we can find out,” I said. “Kiss your Saturday goodbye, Mr. Columnist. You’re going to be at the office tomorrow.” And so was I. So much for my leisurely weekend.

I turned to dive back into the crowd in search of Aaron and mid-whirl, I noticed Jenna standing there, still and surprised. Her eyes were doing that white-all-around thing again.

“People died out there?” she squeaked.

I patted her hand. “You want to go back to the car?”

“No.” She squared her small shoulders and gripped my arm a little tighter. “I want to go to work with you.”

I turned back to Parker. “Grant Parker, this is my friend Jenna Rowe. This wreck crashed girls’ night. She drank too much tequila, but she’s very excited to see the glamorous world of journalism up close.”

“The best way to do that is after too much tequila,” he said. “Nice to meet you, Jenna.”

The thin fingers around my arm dug in tighter, and I didn’t think their owner was breathing. I elbowed her lightly in the ribs, rolling my eyes. Her forceful exhale sounded like a sigh as she gazed at Parker.

“I really love your column,” she lied. Jenna hated sports in any incarnation. She was already bemoaning the start of Gabby’s soccer season, and it was three months away.

“Thank you.” He smiled.

We moved through the crowd as a unit until I saw a familiar face.

“Mike!” I waved at Sergeant Sorrel from the narcotics unit.

“Nichelle,” he said, turning from the water to face me when I stopped next to him. “Where’ve you been? You missed the TV crews. They all left about twenty minutes ago.”

Damn. Charlie no doubt drank her margaritas with her scanner in her lap.

“I was out and I missed the call, but got down here as quick as I could. I didn’t even take my poor friend Jenna home first.”

Mike smiled at Jenna and held out his hand. “I guess you never know how your Friday night is going to end up when you’re friends with Nichelle, huh?” 

I started to introduce Parker, but quickly learned women weren’t alone in their rambling worship  of him.

“Hey! You’re Grant Parker!” Mike said before I got a word out. “I watched you play ball when you were in college here, man. You had some arm. Too bad about all that, I guess—but I read your column. I’m a big fan.”

Parker smiled and shook Mike’s hand. “Thanks. I appreciate that.”

I stared at Mike, and then at Parker. Parker had fans? I was impressed. And a little jealous.

“I guess you heard a baseball player was driving the little boat, huh?” Mike asked Parker.

Parker nodded, but I jumped in before he could say anything, impatient to get to the bottom of at least one story that day.

“Aaron’s here, so he’s taking point on this, right?” I asked.

“I saw him down closer to the crash site a little while ago,” Mike said. “Let me see where he went.”

He called Aaron on the police radio attached to his shoulder, and we all heard Aaron say he was about fifty yards downstream from us.

With Jenna and Parker in tow, I headed down the bank. It was tricky, navigating over the slimy rocks in the middle of the night. We’d had a wet spring, and the river had swollen almost to flood level, leaving the rocks along the banks coated with a layer of slippery goo once the water began receding. It was still fuller than normal and moving fast, judging by the bubbly whooshing that underscored the sounds around us. I wished I’d worn more practical shoes.

Aaron looked up at me with a grim half-smile when I found him. “Nichelle. Nice night to be out on the river. I can’t believe this. Such a fucking waste.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Probably be several days, and even then we won’t have the whole story because there were no survivors.” Aaron talked, I scribbled. “It looks like the ballplayer and his buddies were going too fast, and when they came around that bend, they didn’t have time to  avoid our boys.

“The little speedboat came apart around the hull of the PD vessel,” he continued. “Their gas lines and tank also shredded, and the sparks set it off, so our guys ended up basically wrapped inside the explosion.”

Jenna whimpered behind me and I closed my eyes, as if that could somehow banish the image he just put into my head.

“Good God, Aaron.”

When I had my wits about me again I returned to my questions. “Who was it? On the police vessel, I mean?”

“Couple of rookies.” He shook his head. “Both under twenty-five, not too long out of the academy. This kind of shit makes me sick. Senseless.”

I had never seen Aaron so upset. Not often at a loss for words, I laid a hand on his arm. He stared at the flames as he spoke. “I know. It’s all part of the job, right?”

“I don’t like it, either,” I said, remembering some of the stories that had made me feel as bad as he looked. “What were they doing way out here? Isn’t that the big patrol boat? Did somebody drown?”

“Yes, it is,” he said, his shaking head seeming to contradict the affirmative answer at first. “And no, no one drowned. At least, not that we got a call about. I’m not sure what they were doing, and we still haven’t been able to get the commander of the river unit on the phone. He’s going to have a very unpleasant day tomorrow.”

I nodded, still writing. “I’m going to need the names and records of the officers who were killed, and contact info for the next of kin. I’m sure Parker here will have a piece on the baseball player.”

Aaron looked over my shoulder.

“Hey! Grant Parker!” Aaron’s dark mood appeared at least partially forgotten.

Stepping forward, Parker shook Aaron’s hand. Aaron gushed about Parker’s golden arm, just like Mike had.

I waited for a break in the Parker-adulation, and when Aaron started stumbling around the inevitable apology for the way Parker’s pitching career had ended, I took the opportunity to steer the conversation back to the crash. “When can I have the accident report?” 

“We should have something Monday,” Aaron said. “Probably not any earlier, though.”

I made a face. Monday didn’t do me much good when I wanted the story for Sunday’s early edition.

He walked away after I thanked him, both for the phone call and the interview, and I tried to stand taller in my ridiculously unsuitable shoes, scanning the rest of the crowd for another familiar face.

Jenna was still wobbly and still silently hanging on my arm, and my teetering attempt to see better was all it took to throw her off balance. She probably would have ended up with a broken ankle if Parker hadn’t reached for us, his hand catching my elbow as I started to fall with her. Leaning on him, I grabbed Jenna’s left arm with both hands and pulled. She weighed next to nothing, and my grip was enough to help her get her feet back under her.

“Nothing like nearly busting your ass on a big rock to kill a buzz,” she said.

I twisted my other hand around and grabbed Parker’s forearm, jerking my heel out of a crevice between two rocks. I imagined the blue stilettos I’d so painstakingly cleaned wouldn’t look quite as fabulous after hiking along the waterfront.

“Thanks.” I smiled at Parker as I regained my balance and let go. “Turns out my shoes aren’t suited for traipsing around slimy rocks in the dark.”

“Shoes like that are only suited for one thing: making a woman’s calves look good,” he said, the grin that garnered thousands of readers three mornings a week making his eyes crinkle at the corners. “That’s what my mom always says, anyway. Were you looking for someone? Before, I mean. I am a little taller than you. Maybe I can help.”

“Oh, I…no one in particular. I was just checking to see if there was anyone else here I wanted to talk to.”

He nodded, stepping up onto a bigger stone and surveying the riverbank himself. The rocky shoreline dissolved into overgrown grass, and the grass gave way to mammoth trees, their hulking outlines creeping right up to the water’s edge a few hundred yards downstream.

“Hey.” Parker stepped down and pointed through the crowd. “That’s Katie DeLuca. She is—was—Nate’s new wife. They got married in March.”

I followed his gaze to a striking young blond woman standing near the crash site with two uniformed officers and an older man in a Richmond Generals baseball cap. She nodded at the officers as they talked and gestured toward the river, her face frozen in a mask of horror.

We picked our way toward her and as we got closer, I could see the tears streaming down her face. The patrolmen walked away, deep in conversation themselves, before we reached the little huddle.

“I hate this part of my job,” I grumbled, my stomach lurching as my foot slipped a fraction of an inch on another rock. “I can get on a tight-lipped cop like a duck on a June bug, but just exactly what are we supposed to say to this woman who went from star pitcher’s bride to twenty-something widow in the past hour?”

“Beats the hell out of me,” Parker said. “This is your gig. I’ve met her a few times. You want me to try first?”

I started to say no, but a closer look at the young woman made me think twice. Maybe a familiar face would be a good thing, for her and me both.