Annie Seymour 01 - Sacred Cows

by Karen E. Olson

  A clean pair of jeans and a flannel shirt over a long-sleeved T-shirt would have to suffice on a Sunday morning, since my laundry basket was overflowing and I didn’t know when I’d get a chance to do laundry. I picked up the pieces of the Times and piled them in the corner next to my desk as I dialed the all-too-familiar number.

  “Come Together.”

  “Hickey Watson, please.”

  “I’m sorry, he’s unavailable.”

  “Not to me, he isn’t,” I said. “Tell him it’s Anne Seymour. Tell him it’s about Allison.”

  “Hold a minute, please.” The words were pleasant, but the voice was cold. I started washing the coffee cups while I listened to a Muzak rendition of “Helter Skelter.”

  “Yeah? What’s up with Allison?”

  No hellos for Hickey. He’s a busy man.

  “She’s dead.” I shut the water off and put the mug in the dish drainer.

  “What?”

  “She’s dead. She’s in a parking lot near the Coliseum with a million holes in her beautiful body. Any idea who might have wanted to do that?”

  Silence. I could hear Hickey’s deep breathing. Then, finally, “Are you sure?”

  “I saw her.”

  “This isn’t good.” I think he was talking more to himself than to me, but since I was on the other end of the line, I picked up his train of thought.

  “No, it’s not. Two girls in less than a week. Not very good for business, Hickey.”

  He hung up on me. And I didn’t get a chance to ask him what Allison’s last name was. I shouldn’t have been so hard on him, but it was too late now.

  I grabbed my purse and was about to go out the door when I stopped, remembering something. I went into the bedroom and pulled the drawer open. There it lay, the ray of sun slapping its steel, making it shine. I picked it up and put it in my bag. But again I stopped in the living room, opened the bag and stared at it. I didn’t like the idea of carrying it around. What if it fell out of my purse in the middle of the newsroom? Some disgruntled reporter would inevitably pick it up and start shooting, and then the blood would be on my hands. No, a newsroom is definitely not the place for a handgun. I put it back in the drawer and slipped back outside.

  I found Dick next to the TV reporter with the stiff hair. “I know who she is,” I whispered.

  “Who?” He was salivating. I’m not kidding.

  “You stay here and get what you can. I’ll see you back at the paper.”

  “You can’t just leave.”

  “Whining is very unattractive.” I let myself breathe again when I got out of the hair spray zone. No wonder the ozone layer is being depleted.

  THE CAMPUS WAS QUIET, as any campus would be on a Sunday morning. I had no idea what Allison’s last name was, much less where she lived. It was possible Sarah knew, so that’s where I went, to Davenport College to find her. A friendly Asian coed directed me to Sarah’s room, obviously unconcerned about who I was and why I was there.

  Sarah was drinking a cup of coffee, the Times crossword puzzle neatly done in pen on her lap, when I came to the open door. I glanced quickly around the room, taking in the piles of folded clothes on the desk (she obviously had time to do laundry), rows of books on a makeshift shelf, a small refrigerator, and a hot pot with a mugful of tea bags next to it.

  “Oh, Christ, it’s you again.”

  She really needed to lighten up. “Yeah. Seems there’s another girl who’s been killed, and I wondered if you knew her last name. Allison. Blond, blue-eyed. Worked with Melissa at that service.”

  The more I talked, the wider Sarah’s eyes got. “You’re shitting me.”

  “No. Do you know her?”

  Sarah shrugged. “Sure. She was over here a lot. They were good friends.” She paused. “Was it like Melissa, you know, did she fall off a building, too?”

  “No. She was stabbed.”

  Sarah’s face went white, whiter than it was already. I hoped she wasn’t going to ask me to describe it, because even though it was still plain as day to me, I didn’t want to relive that moment. Even thinking about it for a second made my stomach churn. I forced myself to concentrate on the moment.

  I walked over to the bookshelf and glanced at the titles. Biology and psychology textbooks were divided by Tom Jones, Madame Bovary, and Crime and Punishment. A bronze Buddha a little more than half a foot tall sat sentry and I picked it up, its heft reminding me that I should work out now and then.

  “What’s her last name?”

  “Sanders. Allison Sanders.” Sarah took a sip of her coffee, her eyes following me as I moved toward the window, still holding the Buddha. “This is really weird. What are the odds of two girls who knew each other being murdered within a few days of each other?”

  My question exactly.

  “Do you know where she lived? Anything about her background, anything that might help find out who did this?”

  Sarah shrugged. She was good at that. “I really didn’t know her that well. She hung with Melissa and her crowd.” I’d hoped to get her while she was still in shock, people usually talked more then, but this girl was a stiff. Excuse the expression.

  “Did you like her more than you liked Melissa?”

  She shrugged again. “About the same. They were two peas in a pod.” She got up. Her long legs seemed to go on forever. Sitting in the library, she’d seemed small, but she was taller than me, and I had to look up at her. Sarah came toward me and held out her hand. I glanced down at the Buddha, then gave it to her. She put it back next to the books.

  I wasn’t getting anywhere on this one, but I suspected Sarah knew more about Allison and Melissa than she let on. I had to push her buttons. She might not tell me anything anyway, so what was I going to lose?

  “You must have heard them talking when they were in the room with you. You must have heard something that might help. Hell, I’d eavesdrop if I could, two beautiful girls working for an escort service. They must have intrigued someone like you.” I could tell the “someone like you” was the key. I watched her eyes narrow and she studied me for a minute.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?”

  “Their lifestyle was so not you. We can’t help but be curious about those who are different. And especially so beautiful.”

  “Why do you keep emphasizing the way they looked? It doesn’t matter what people look like.”

  I chuckled. “Bullshit, Sarah. It does matter. First impressions are made on looks, not on personality.”

  She was quiet a minute, then, “Okay, suppose I did hear them talking once or twice. I usually just left when they were here, I went to the library. But I heard some stuff. It was pretty disgusting. I think they liked to talk about the sex while I was here, just to get me, you know.”

  “Did they talk about any man in particular?”

  She thought a minute. “David, mostly. He was bugging Melissa all the time. She wanted Allison to get him off her back, but she didn’t want to get involved.”

  “Was he interested in Allison at all?”

  “I don’t think so. Sounded like he did call her a lot, just to find out stuff about Melissa. You know, like when she was going out, who was she going with.”

  Typical guy. Go to the friends, not to the woman herself to find out what was up. “Anyone else?”

  “The last couple of weeks they kept talking about this one guy. He called here a few times. Sounded kind of snobby. I think they were both seeing him.”

  “Do you remember his name?”

  She shrugged and turned away, but not before I saw her face go flush. “Mark, I think.”

  It always seemed to come back to Torrey. And I had my clandestine meeting with him tonight. After seeing Allison’s mutilated body, I was even less inclined to keep the date. I still had all day to decide.

  “Did you ever talk to him at length?”

  The flush was gone and she shook her head. “No, not really.”

  I wasn’t sure I believed her, but she’d pl
opped back down on the bed and resumed her crossword puzzle. I was being dismissed.

  I made my way toward the door. “Thanks, Sarah. I appreciate your help. Do you still have my card?”

  “Yeah, sure.” She didn’t look up.

  “If you can think of anything else . . .”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  I let myself out.

  CHAPTER 9

  He was sitting at my desk again, and this time I slammed my purse into the back of his head.

  “What—?” Dick turned around, rubbing his head, a Jim Carrey expression on his face, which pissed me off even more, since I hate Jim Carrey.

  “Get the fuck out of my chair,” I hissed.

  He really does listen to me when I talk like that, because he jumped up faster than I could say “moron.”

  Marty was hovering. “You guys really need to start getting along.”

  It would do me no good to tell him that I’d tried, that we’d actually had moments, but in the long run it would be completely useless for us to be a team. The odds were stacked against us, I was too curmudgeonly and old to change my ways, he was too young and stupid to ever live up to my expectations.

  It made me feel better to sort that out in my head, even if I didn’t tell Marty.

  “I don’t think she’s cracked up for this,” Dick was saying, and I tuned back in real quick.

  “What?” I could hear my voice pounding in my ears, and the few people in the newsroom at this hour on a Sunday looked up.

  “She upchucked all over the crime scene.”

  Marty was laughing. I could feel my face grow hot, but it didn’t keep me from glaring at Dick. Now he was a tattletale, too.

  “You really have to try to get along,” Marty said again.

  “She won’t tell me who it is,” Dick complained.

  “Who who is?” Marty took his glasses off and started cleaning them on his shirttail.

  “The stabbing victim. Annie says she knows who it is, but she won’t tell me.”

  Marty’s myopic eyes turned to me. “Who is she, Annie?”

  “It’s Allison Sanders. She was a friend of Melissa Peabody, they worked together at that escort service.”

  I thought I saw tears fill Marty’s eyes, but maybe it was that he was trying to see me clearly and finally put on his glasses. “You’re kidding.”

  “I wish I were.”

  “Another Yalie?”

  I nodded.

  He sighed. “Fuck,” he said quietly.

  “I still need to track down some information on her. I was lucky to get her last name.”

  “This was the girl you met at the restaurant, right?”

  I nodded again. “Yeah. She was going to alert me about Torrey.” I wondered if I should tell him about my appointment with the elusive Mark Torrey later that night, but opted to leave that out at the moment. He was still having trouble digesting this new information.

  “Do you think they’re connected?”

  I knew he was asking if the murders were linked to Torrey, but Dick wasn’t getting a clear signal.

  “Connected to who?” he asked.

  The look Marty gave him at that moment verified what I’d thought all along: Marty thought he was an idiot, too, and had to get on my case only because he was the boss. It was a small victory, and one that I could never voice, but I would always know it in my heart of hearts and it could comfort me. Maybe.

  Marty’s eyes came back to me.

  I nodded. “Yeah. How could they not be? The coincidence would be too much.”

  “Do you think the key is Torrey?”

  “Maybe. David Best didn’t have the opportunity to kill Allison, and anyway, why would he kill her? There’s no motive. In fact, David was trying to get Allison to help him with Melissa.”

  “Do you think he killed Melissa?”

  I thought about what I’d told Vinny. “I don’t think so.” Vinny also made me think of something else. “You know, my mother’s law firm is investigating this, too. They’ve got a private detective working on it.”

  “Didn’t you get anything out of your mother last night?”

  I was so distracted by the man on her arm that I’d forgotten to ask her about the lawsuit and Torrey. Anyway, Marty didn’t know what he was asking. Getting that sort of information out of my mother is like trying to take a big hunk of meat away from a hungry lion. “No,” I said simply.

  He sighed again. “What about Tom Behr? Can you get anything out of him on this one?”

  Probably not, but I had to appease him with something. “Maybe.”

  “Do the cops know about Allison’s connection to Melissa?”

  “I don’t think so. I didn’t tell Tom about my meeting with her. It didn’t seem relevant because they’d already arrested David Best.”

  At that moment, the scanner started going crazy, dispatchers’ voices in and out, loud and soft. There was an accident. A bad one. Marty looked at me.

  Sure, I’m the police reporter. But I had a fatal stabbing and didn’t think I had to check out an accident. “Come on, Marty, send someone else. Who’s on today?” I hoped by reminding him subtly that I wasn’t scheduled to work that he’d get the message I didn’t want to go.

  “Robin’s the only one here, but she’s heading out in a few minutes to cover the Polish-American parade in the Valley.”

  “What about Dick?”

  Marty looked from me to Dick and back to me. “Okay.” Back to Dick. “Can you get out there?”

  “What about this stabbing?” Usually he was the first one to ride on the back of the ambulance, but he was getting a taste of what was a good story and what was routine. This could not bode well for me in the future.

  “Annie can handle it for now. Get out there, see if there’s a photographer in the lab to bring along. Might be a good time to get a picture.”

  We watched Dick lope to the other side of the newsroom and disappear into the lab.

  “You owe me,” Marty was saying.

  I nodded. “Yeah, sure. Thanks.”

  “I want something on this today. Talk to that escort service guy again, see if you can track down anything on Allison that can connect her to McGee and Torrey so we can put these two together.”

  “Will they want that?” I asked, thinking of the suits upstairs and the sacred cows grazing in our backyard.

  “Fuck them,” Marty said, then clenched his teeth. “Forget I said that.”

  I chuckled. “Come on, Marty, it just means you’re like the rest of us.”

  “I am not like you, and if it gets back to me that I said that, I’ll have your ass.”

  I didn’t have the heart to tell him that my mother was fucking the publisher and I might now have some temporary clout.

  My phone rang, keeping me from saying something I shouldn’t, and he wandered back to his desk.

  “Newsroom,” I answered. I usually don’t like to identify myself, just in case it’s some nutcase who wants to complain about why he didn’t get his newspaper or that the paper was left in a puddle or we somehow forgot to put in his listing about the chicken dinner at the local VFW.

  “I saw you with Vinny DeLucia last night.” My mother has impeccable timing: When I don’t have time to talk to her, she calls me, wanting a heart-to-heart.

  “It’s nothing, Mother. We went to high school together. That’s all.”

  “He didn’t, um, tell you anything, did he?”

  “Like what? Like he’s working on a big investigation for you, something that has to do with Melissa Peabody?”

  That got her, because she didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds. “Did he tell you?”

  I sighed. “No, Mother. But why don’t you tell me about it?”

  “It’s privileged,” she said, and I knew I wouldn’t get shit out of her right now. Direct confrontation would never work; passive aggressiveness was the way to go, and I’d blown it.

  “You know, Mom, I have to get going. A friend of Melissa’
s was killed, and I have to get back on it.”

  “Killed?” The curiosity seeped through the receiver into my ear. I smiled. Two could play this game.

  “Sorry, Mom, gotta go.”

  Under normal circumstances, I would have to wait for her permission to hang up. It almost gave me an ulcer while I was in college, before I realized I could just zone her out while I waited. But it was time to change the rules.

  I hung up.

  I began writing the top of the story. I’d fill in the blanks later, if we had anything to fill them with. I was doubtful. This murder would tie up Tom all day. Even if I paged him he wouldn’t call me back. Sarah had been little help. I’d have to hoof it around campus and try to get more of a description of Allison, other than what I already knew, and maybe even a picture if I got lucky.

  On my way back to the campus, I stopped by the crime scene again. There were still some officers milling about, the yellow tape giving me a sense of déjà vu. I spotted Tom and pulled into a parking space.

  “Anything?” I asked when I got closer to him.

  He jumped, startled at the sound of my voice. “Oh, shit, Annie.”

  “Sorry. Did you find the murder weapon?”

  He shook his head. “If it wasn’t for all the blood, I’d think she was killed somewhere else and moved here. It’s the cleanest fucking scene I’ve ever seen.”

  He was pointing, and I noticed what he meant: There was no litter. Nothing. It looked like it had been swept up. A shiver ran down my spine and pinched me on the ass.

  “Do you think there’s some serial killer after Yalies?” I tried.

  He stared at me. “She’s a Yalie?”

  I’d forgotten that he didn’t know who she was and I hadn’t enlightened him earlier.

  “You know who she is,” he growled.

  I took a deep breath. “Yeah. She’s a friend of Melissa’s.”