Buried Leads (A Headlines in High Heels Mystery)

by Walker, LynDee

  I found Aaron at the center of a circle of microphones, giving the first media briefing of the day.

  “...pending notification of next of kin,” he was saying when I walked up, and I dug for a notebook and pen. “The remains were discovered when a university employee came outside to dump the garbage early this morning.”

  I scribbled, looking around for a traumatized janitor while Aaron talked about the forensics team’s deconstruction of the dumpster’s contents.

  When he offered a thank you and turned back toward the crime scene tape, I spotted a woman sitting by herself on the back steps of the union building, her arms wrapped tightly around her knees, her RAU-gold apron barely visible as she hunched over.

  “Late to the party this morning, Clarke,” Charlie Lewis purred from behind my left shoulder, and I shifted my attention to a group of students standing on the opposite side of the sidewalk for her benefit, not wanting to clue her in to the possibility that the woman who’d found the dead girl might be available for an interview.

  “Some of us need our beauty sleep,” I grinned, turning to face her. “We don’t all fall out of bed HD-ready like you do, Charlie.”

  She rolled her green eyes and shook her head, her perfectly-coiffed bob not swaying. “Flattery will get you nowhere,” she said. “I have a lead on this girl you won’t believe. And you can see it at noon with everyone else.”

  “Fabulous. That gives me plenty of time to run down something better before press time,” I said, watching Aaron over her shoulder. He cut the tape and motioned for the crowd to stay put. They were moving the body.

  “Speaking of,” I said, stepping around her. “Excuse me for a second.”

  I hobbled quickly to the back end of the coroner’s van, craning my neck for a glimpse of the stretcher. Peering at corpses wasn’t my favorite thing about my job, but was sometimes a necessary evil. Without a name to attach to the story, I needed to be able to describe the victim.

  I saw dark hair, matted and strewn with something that looked like shredded lettuce.

  Then the medical examiners lifted the gurney and the early-morning sunlight flashed off a large bracelet on her wrist. Who kills a coed and doesn’t steal her oversized bling?

  Wait—a big flashy bracelet. Like the one Eckersly bought his girlfriend?

  I elbowed past the cameraman from Channel Ten, not caring about catching a glare and a muttered curse in reply. I managed to get a good look at the victim’s face.

  Holy shit.

  Allison. The girl from the campaign office.

  “No.” The word popped out before I could stop it and I bit my tongue, staring at the paramedic who’d stepped up to the back of the ambulance and obstructed my view like his midsection might suddenly sprout a window.

  I closed my eyes, trying to erase the image of the girl’s expressionless face from the backs of my eyelids. I’d only met her the one time. Maybe I was wrong. But my gut said I wasn’t. Why was a Grayson campaign intern dead in a RAU dumpster?

  I spun on my heel and winced when my ankle protested, steadying myself for a second and starting back toward the steps where I’d seen the woman I suspected had found the body.

  When she wasn’t there, I sighed, but then saw her white and gold baseball cap disappearing through a door further down the side of the building. I hobbled faster, trying to catch up.

  Checking over my shoulder, I could see Charlie with her mic in a medical examiner’s face. Channel Ten was talking to the kids gathered on the quad. I pulled the door open and ducked inside, finding myself in a large room with a fireplace on one wall and several groupings of overstuffed furniture that had probably survived the Reagan era. I saw the woman huddled in a ball in the corner of a sofa next to the fireplace.

  I slowed my steps as I approached her, experience telling me she might startle easily after such a traumatic experience.

  “Hi,” I said, my press credentials in my hand, but dangling at my side. “I’m Nichelle. That was a pretty terrible thing to see. Did you find her?”

  Upon closer inspection, I put her age closer to the girl in the dumpster’s than my own. Jesus. She was probably a student, too, doing work-study at the union.

  She didn’t answer me at first, hugging her knees with her legs crossed at the ankle, whimpering so softly I wasn’t sure if I imagined it.

  “I just opened the door to put the bags in,” she said. “I can’t reach the lid. And her hand fell out. Her hand. I touched it and she was so cold. I screamed and screamed, and someone came to call the police. She was so pale. They pulled her out. Her neck had a funny bruise. Just a purple line. She wasn’t even wearing a coat. Just her tank top and jeans and that tacky bracelet. And it was cold this morning. So cold.” She stopped and let her head drop to her knees. “I wish I could reach the lid.”

  “The bracelet was a little on the gaudy side,” I said, wondering if she’d gotten a good look at it and making a note to ask Aaron about the bruising around the victim’s neck.

  “The bracelet didn’t go,” she mumbled. “Why would a girl that classy wear fake diamonds?”

  “Fake?” I eased myself down onto the edge of the sofa. My ankle wasn’t complaining much, but it needed a rest.

  “As a Rolex hanging in a trenchcoat,” she looked up.

  “You’re sure?”

  “My father has worked for the Rothschild family for almost thirty years. That bracelet was fake. What does it matter? Her arm fell out of the dumpster! Right in my face. Someone killed her. Maybe right here on campus.”

  She resumed rocking and whimpering, and I pondered that. Eckersly hadn’t given her a fake bracelet, so scratch that. But why would a girl like Allison have a gaudy fake tennis bracelet on? Did someone kill her for the bracelet and leave it when they got a better look at it? I shoved the thought aside. I was more likely to get a personal one-of-a-kind masterpiece from Christian Louboutin himself than that was to be true. Way too coincidental.

  I asked for the girl’s name and jotted it down, not sure I’d need it. She’d been through enough for one day. Most of what she’d told me I’d have to confirm elsewhere. It had been chilly that morning, which meant a scantily-clad corpse would be cold no matter if it had been in the dumpster thirty minutes or twelve hours. I’d have to wait for the autopsy report to get time of death.

  I thanked her and headed back outside, nearly walking into Charlie when I opened the door.

  “There you are!” she practically shouted. “Would you mind moving your heap out of my way? Some of us have actual work to do today.”

  Oops. I’d figured she’d hang around for a while getting extra footage.

  “Sorry, Charlie.” I hobbled toward my car. Her camera guy was in the van’s driver’s seat, and he looked irritated, too.

  “What were you doing in there?” She kept pace with me, arching an eyebrow at my limp, but not asking about it.

  “Bathroom,” I said.

  “Bullshit.” She laughed. “You are a lousy liar, Clarke. But keep all the secrets you want. You’ve got nothing on me today. Just don’t miss the noon broadcast.”

  “We’ll see.” I knew Allison worked for the Grayson campaign already, but I wasn’t telling her that. And I had bigger things to worry about if Charlie was onto the senator. Shit.

  I peeled out of the parking space. I’d have to be in the office in front of a TV at noon. Just in case.

  Checking the clock, I knew I had better than three hours to get the body discovery ready to go on the website. What else could I find out in the meantime? The dead girl was connected to Grayson, and Grayson was connected to Kyle’s case. I was sure of it.

  I rummaged in my bag for my Blackberry and called Kyle, really grateful for the first time to have my ex in Richmond. No way I’d have an ATF agent’s cell number under any other circumstance
.

  “What’s up?” Kyle said when he picked up.

  “You have time for coffee?” I asked, thinking about the stamp thingies I’d hidden under the loose floorboard in my coat closet that morning. I was glad I’d never gotten around to reporting that to my landlord. It was damned handy for keeping things hidden. Better than a safe.

  “Actually, yes. IT is working a bug out of our computer system this morning, so I’m staring at papers and twiddling my thumbs,” he said. “You hear any more from your walking buddy?”

  “Give it a rest, Kyle,” I said. “It’s unattractive, this territorial thing. Who I walk or do anything else with is just big fat none of your business. But I need to talk to you. You’re sure Billings is your guy on the Amesworth murder?”

  “You heard Corry ask for them to no-bond him, right? How often does that happen?”

  “Almost never.” But even if Senator Grayson didn’t kill the lobbyist, he was into something he shouldn’t be. Possibly more so than the rest of his cohorts on Capitol Hill, though who could really tell about that? Maybe he was just dumb enough to get caught. My inner Lois was growing more convinced all this had something to do with Kyle’s big contraband cigarette investigation, though.

  But how was I supposed to convince him of that without confessing to a federal agent that I’d broken into a senator’s house?

  “Just come meet me at Thompson’s—it’s a little coffee shop on West Cary.Ten minutes?” I’d figure something out.

  “Twenty.”

  I hung up and shoved the phone back into my bag.

  What did I know? Nothing I could prove.

  What was I pretty sure of? That Allison, a volunteer on Senator Grayson’s campaign, was not dead in a dumpster because of a failed robbery or a random coed slaying. I’d bet my favorite Manolos on that. But why was she dead, and who killed her? I had a feeling that was the key to this whole mess. And I had no idea what Charlie was so excited about, so I needed to find the answer quickly.

  I flipped through mental notecards on the case, beginning with Amesworth, the lobbyist. On the surface, suspecting that he was killed by someone involved in bribing Grayson didn’t make sense, because all the players should have been on the same team. So something went wrong. That was plausible. Maybe Grayson wanted out. Maybe Amesworth was shaking James Billings, the tobacco company executive, down for more money to support the lifestyle the Telegraph’s photo library told me Amesworth enjoyed. Except Joey didn’t think Billings was the killer, and neither did I, really. Plus, he was on house arrest. If he’d killed the girl, Kyle would be able to place him at the scene.

  Then there was Eckersly, the tobacco farmer who shared a proclivity for expensive call girls with the senator.

  I parked in the coffee shop lot fifteen minutes early, blowing out a frustrated sigh. I knew just enough to know there was something there, but I needed the middle piece of my puzzle that would pull it all together.

  Hopefully Kyle had it, and I could convince him to share.

  Kyle looked good. My stomach gave an involuntary flip when his ice blue eyes met mine across the coffee shop. I tried not to notice the biceps ringed by the sleeves of his fitted blue Polo, or the way his torso tapered at the waist like a cartoon superhero’s, and I squelched the little voice singsonging a reminder that he seemed more than a little interested in picking up where we’d left off. I didn’t date cops. And Joey was a way better kisser than I remembered Kyle being. Though one kiss wasn’t exactly picking out china; not to mention his occupation not being exactly desirable.

  Kyle ordered his coffee and I watched, not liking the way his eyes lit when he spun from the counter and saw that I’d been staring at his tight ass in his khakis.

  “Enjoying the view?”

  “Knock it off. Old habits die hard.”

  “Sure they do. Especially when old habits have a bitch of a fitness test for work every three months and spend hours in the gym every day.”

  He sat down in the chair across from me and not-so-subtly flexed a bicep as he sipped his latte. “Is ogling all you wanted me for, or can I do something else for you?”

  “Your head has definitely gotten bigger,” I said.

  “It’s not the only thing.”

  “Oh my God, Kyle.” I thumped my cup down on the table and laughed in spite of myself. “Are you twelve? Shut up. No, don’t shut up; tell me about Billings.”

  He sat back in the chair and laced his hands together behind his head.

  “I’m afraid I can’t go on the record with the press about an open investigation, Miss Clarke.” He winked.

  His ability to push my buttons had not changed.

  “Dammit, Kyle,” I said. “I have a ton of work to do, two different bosses breathing down my neck, and a story that has more rabbit trails than Mr. MacGregor’s garden. I don’t need it on the record today. I just need to know why you’re so sure it’s him.”

  He stared for a long minute, not saying a word.

  “He’s part of the other thing you were telling me about, too, isn’t he?” I asked. “The contraband stuff and the stamps. That’s why you picked him up so fast.” He twisted his mouth to one side, and I knew I was onto something.

  “Just tell me!” I didn’t really mean to shout that. People turned to look and I ducked my head. “I heard you had a weapon. Do you have positive ballistics? Any other evidence? I need to know whether or not to believe you before I have a stroke.”

  “Same old Nicey.” He laughed. “Off the record?”

  “Sure.” I made a show of tucking my pen and my Blackberry back into my bag.

  “The bullet that killed Amesworth was fired from a very special gun. A Sharps eighteen-fifty-nine Confederate Carbine rifle. It’s a piece that was used by Civil War sharpshooters. Very expensive to manufacture back then, and consequently very rare. Like, there were only about two thousand made a hundred and fifty years ago.”

  “And Billings has one of these rifles?”

  “He does, but it’s missing from the rack in his office where he keeps it. He says he loaned it out, but won’t say to whom. He hasn’t filed an insurance claim on it, either.”

  Hmmm. Rare gun. Suddenly missing.

  “That’s pretty damning,” I said. “But why the hell would anyone use a gun like that to murder someone?”

  “This guy is a real bastard.” Kyle leaned his elbows on the table. “I’ve been working this contraband case since before I left Dallas. It’s one of the reasons they transferred me here.”

  “He’s the vice president of a company that makes money off of a product that kills people,” I said. “He’s not supposed to be a stand-up guy. That doesn’t mean he murdered someone.”

  “You have a better explanation for his gun vanishing just after someone was shot with one just like it?”

  I considered that for a second.

  “No. But how did you know he had one, anyway?” I asked. “Guns don’t have to be registered in Virginia.”

  “I got a lucky break. The new family smoking prevention law says the FDA has oversight of tobacco manufacturing. I sat down with the inspector who’d been over to Raymond Garfield a few days before Amesworth was killed, and we got to talking about guns. His father was a collector. He was telling me about this beauty in Billings’s office, and then this guy turns up, shot with the same antique gun. After years of work, I finally have Billings on something.”

  “That’s a lucky break.” It sure sounded like he had Billings on the weapon. But Grayson had those stamps. I sipped my coffee, mulling that over.

  What if Billings was telling the truth? If the gun really had been loaned to someone, why wouldn’t he just cough up their name to save his ass?

  Because the someone was Senator Grayson and it might make the ATF wonder why they were so buddy-buddy?
/>   “What do you know about Ted Grayson?” I asked.

  He raised his eyebrows.

  “United States Senator for the Commonwealth of Virginia, fairly middle of the road politically, historically not a fan of guns or cigarettes.”

  “Thank you, Wikipedia,” I said. “But I’ve been poking around in his backroom dealings, and there’s something fishy.”

  “What do you have on him?”

  “Nothing concrete,” I said, unable to come up with a single possible way that I should know he had those stamps. “I think he’s taking bribe money. I’ve been wondering if it’s from Billings. But everything about this is so convoluted, I’m not sure of anything. My gut says there’s something more here, though. I don’t think Billings is your murderer.”

  I sipped my coffee.

  “Well, I’m very glad all your years of training in criminal investigation have led you to that conclusion.” He didn’t even have the decency to sound annoyed. He sounded amused.

  “I’m sorry, have we forgotten my ability to channel Nancy Drew?” I asked.

  “Beginner’s luck.” He waved a hand.

  Asshole. I folded my arms over my chest and glared.

  “You’re pretty sure of yourself for a guy with no murder weapon,” I said. “Don’t you think it’s worth looking into anything else?”

  “I’m looking into plenty else,” he said. “My guys are checking the tire tracks from the body dump against Billings’s cars as we speak. I’m almost certain Billings had a couple of folks from the House of Delegates on his payroll, and I think that’s why Amesworth is dead. But come on, Nicey. How am I going to go back to the office and open a file on a sitting U.S. senator—one who’s in a smackdown of a reelection campaign at the moment, let’s not forget—because my ex-girlfriend told me she has a hunch? You’re going to get me laughed right out to the podunk sheriff’s department.”