Devil in the Deadline

by Walker, LynDee

  “Her? How in creation would you happen to know the blogger is a woman, Nichelle?” Splenda dripped from Shelby’s words.

  “Girl Friday? Call it intuition. You might have lost yours after so many years at the copy desk, but mine works just fine.”

  “You wouldn’t happen to know who she is, now would you?” She spoke to me, but looked at Andrews, who raised an eyebrow.

  “You’re not working with anyone outside the newsroom, Miss Clarke? I don’t suppose we have a specific policy on that, but I—”

  “I wouldn’t. Even if I had the time,” I said, turning to Bob.

  “Nichelle is nothing if not loyal,” he said. “I’d stake my reputation on that.”

  Andrews nodded. “Good enough. For now. Let Sandy here know if you need any help.” He spun on the heel of one wingtip and walked out.

  Shelby flounced behind him. The section editors filed in when the room cleared.

  “What’s he doing slumming down here?” Eunice Blakely asked, lowering herself slowly into the chair opposite mine and straightening her bad leg. She had a half-dozen screws in one hip as a souvenir of her war correspondent years, which ended with a helicopter crash during Desert Storm. These days, she ran a tight ship in our features section and kept everyone fed. “It’s not even noon.”

  She pulled a large Ziploc baggie from her coral canvas tote and laid it on Bob’s desk. I leaned forward, peering at the contents. Bars, speckled with oats and bitsy chocolate chips. The peanut butter smell that hit me in the face when I opened the bag made my stomach gurgle.

  “Eunice, you’re a magician,” I said, swallowing the first bite. “Tell me these are part of your healthy cooking jag, and I might kiss you.”

  “Pucker up, buttercup.” She grinned. “Figured I needed to make up for the almonds from Friday. My sister sent me this powdered peanut butter stuff that’s my new miracle food. Tastes great, bakes well, almost no fat. Those won’t cost you more than five minutes in the gym.”

  I helped myself to another one, snatching my hand out of the way as the rest of the staff descended. Bob dropped the empty bag into his trash can and grinned. “Now that we’ve eaten, can we talk about the news?”

  “Aw, why not?” Parker said. “We’re all here and everything. Might as well.”

  I glanced around and noticed our sports editor was missing, which explained Parker’s presence. Normally, I’d ask where Spencer was—curiosity is an occupational hazard—but after Andrews’s blog-and-pony show, I took it as a bonus from the universe to brighten my Monday and focused on Bob. Spence had proven himself to be a bitter jackass during a big story I’d covered in the spring, and we still weren’t speaking.

  “The story of the week—month, whatever—is going to be Nichelle’s coverage of this murder,” Bob said, looking around. He fiddled with a paperclip, blowing out a frustrated sigh. “I’d trust anyone in this room with my life. Here’s the thing: Andrews was here because there’s a blog that’s popped up lately about crime in Richmond. I don’t think it’s professional enough to be written by anyone in our newsroom, but just in case, I want y’all to keep anything you hear in this room to yourselves for the duration of this story. Understood?”

  Nods and murmurs from the crowd faded into awkward silence.

  “You’ve got the inside track, right, doll?” Eunice asked finally.

  “So far,” I said. “The problem I see is our online friend either doesn’t understand she’s pissing the cops off, or she doesn’t care. I’ve got a decent chance of staying ahead of Charlie because Aaron and I are helping each other out, but it’s harder with someone who doesn’t play by the rules.”

  Bob nodded. “I have utter faith in your snooping abilities,” he said.

  “You always know how to make a girl blush, chief.” I batted my lashes.

  “It’s a gift.” Bob dropped the paperclip and looked at Parker. “Sports? The Generals look good this year.”

  “They do,” Parker said. “We’ve got coverage of tonight’s divisional face-off leading, and I have a column on the kid who won the Nate DeLuca scholarship. The first anniversary of his death is coming up.” He glanced at me and I dropped my eyes to my notes. A year ago, DeLuca was the Generals’ golden arm, a starting pitcher whose death got mixed up in a crazy story that nearly resulted in mine.

  “I can’t wait to read it,” I said.

  Parker smiled. “I guess I’d better bring my A game, then.”

  “You always do.” I grinned.

  Bob moved on to features and Eunice outlined a summer family fun section while I checked email on my BlackBerry. It was Monday, all right. Ninety-seven messages before nine a.m. I scrolled down the screen, Aaron’s name catching my eye.

  Call me when you can get away.

  I bounced in my seat until Bob dismissed the meeting, hoping Aaron had good news.

  Bolting for my desk, I made it four steps before Parker’s voice froze my Jimmy Choo in midair.

  “Can we talk?” he asked, falling into step beside me.

  The uncertain tone from our resident Captain Charisma was enough to make me forget Aaron for a minute.

  “Never too busy for you. What’s up?” I stopped and turned to face him, leaning against a long row of filing cabinets.

  His full lips disappeared into a thin white line, and he tipped his perfectly-tousled blond head. “It’s Mel.”

  Uh-oh. “I saw her going out to a budget session.” I kept my voice even. “Everything okay?”

  “I dunno.” Parker shoved his hands into the pockets of his khakis. “We’re just—she’s not—” He sighed. “Let me try that again. Nothing’s really up. It’s just not as much fun as it was. Not as easy. I’ve never been in a relationship before, really. Is this normal?”

  “Boy, are you asking the wrong girl.” I laughed. “That sounds like a Bob question. But I’ll say that from talking to my friend Jenna, who’s been married for, like, ever, it seems good relationships go through phases.”

  “Yeah?” He nodded, more to himself than to me if I read his face right.

  “When did it start?”

  “Right around when TJ died,” Parker said.

  I nodded. I’d noticed some tension in paradise when Parker’s friend lost his teenage son in April. I smiled and channeled Emily. “Have you talked to her about it?”

  “Not really.”

  “Maybe you should try. If there’s something weird between the two of you, letting it fester is only going to make it worse.”

  He nodded. “We’re supposed to have dinner tomorrow night. I’ll ask her.”

  “Holler if you need to talk.” I patted his arm. “It’ll be okay. Maybe she doesn’t handle dead people well. Not everyone sees them on such a regular basis.” I glanced at the big silver-and-glass clock on the wall between the elevators. “I have to run, but really. I’m around if you need me.”

  “Thanks.”

  I strode to my cube, grabbing the phone and punching in Aaron’s cell.

  “Happy Monday, sunshine,” he said.

  “I bet mine’s happier than yours, unless you’ve got something Earth-shattering for me.” I leaned one hip on my desk, reaching for a pen.

  “I think I might. Landers asked me to find you. He’s up to his ass in alligators this morning and didn’t have time, but he said he promised.”

  More work to keep my voice even. “Oh, yeah?” I clicked the pen out and flipped an old press release over. “What’s up?”

  “We sent forensics back out there to take more blood samples,” Aaron said. “Turns out, all that show was made with two different kinds of blood.”

  “So Jasmine got a piece of the killer? Or there’s another victim?” I scribbled as I fired questions at him.

  “Or the killer knows someone who works on a ranch. It was cow’s blood.”

  I almost dropped my pen. “What?” I forced my lips around the word. All they wanted to do was gape open.

  “Beats the shit out of me. Everything we’
ve come up with here is screwier than the last thing.” Aaron sighed. “I don’t suppose you want to offer one of your crazy hunches?”

  “No one ever listens to them,” I said.

  “Try me.”

  “I did have a thought this morning, but I haven’t had time to check it out.” I twisted the phone cord around one index finger. “It’s kind of nuts, though.”

  “Any goose chase is better than sitting here scratching our b—never mind,” Aaron said.

  I laughed. “Frustrated, detective?”

  “Oh, you can quote me on that, Miss Clarke.”

  “But not the part about scratching things?”

  “Please don’t.”

  I snorted. “So, I went back down to the Bottom yesterday afternoon and I found the guy who called this in the other night. He is a really, really talented sketch artist. Seriously good.”

  I heard Aaron’s computer keys clicking as he noted that. “That’s where you got the sketches you ran this morning,” he said. “Do me a favor and email Charlie that info? She’s convinced you got them from me. Thanks for putting them out there, though. We’re circulating them through law enforcement.”

  “If I get Charlie off your ass, do I get dibs on anything the sketches bring in?”

  “Sounds fair to me. So, about your hunch?”

  “I asked if any other girls were missing,” I said. “Because of what Landers said about the bloodstains. But artist guy told me he didn’t know because they couldn’t go to the church shelters anymore. He said Jasmine cried if they tried to. Then he told me she said people might come around asking about her, and he should be afraid of them.” I paused for a breath.

  “A cult.” Aaron clicked his tongue. “Son of a bitch.”

  “It took me twelve hours to get there, but that’s where I landed, too,” I said. “Why do you sound like I just made your day worse?”

  “You’re from Texas, right? Cops and crazy religion don’t mix well. Ever been to Waco?”

  “Ah. I was in elementary school when that happened, but I remember my mom having the news on nonstop for all of that spring.” A flash of her sobbing into the telephone skated through my brain, and I flinched. My mom never cried, and the memory unsettled me.

  “So many things went wrong down there that no one will ever even know about.” Aaron sighed. “The thing is, it’s almost always the same. People resent intrusion and don’t trust the government, and to them, my badge represents the government. Jesus. I’d rather deal with a serial. Good old fashioned psychopaths are logical. People who think God’s telling them to murder young women, I can’t figure.”

  “Just a theory. And no one ever listens to my theories.”

  “Your gut has a good track record.” Aaron chuckled and I grinned. “But this is going to get very complicated. If you’re right, who knows where she was from, how many people there are, who owns the land, if it’s in another state? My haystack just got a whole lot bigger. And wrapped in a big, fat spool of red tape. That could be federal territory.”

  “Could still be a serial. Or a random nutjob. Or someone she knew. Even if she ran away from a religious sect, it doesn’t mean they killed her. What if our psycho was trying to set his scene and didn’t get enough blood out of her?” I paused. “Speaking of blood, you didn’t happen to catch today’s post by our Girl Friday, did you?”

  “I haven’t had time to catch if the sun came up,” he said. More computer clicking. “Cyber is on that. Why?”

  I waited four beats and bit back a grin at the string of swear words in my ear when he found the video. “Because there’s that,” I said.

  “What the hell is the matter with people? Is this person—and I’m using the term loosely this morning—trying to incite a riot?”

  “I’m betting she’s trying to increase her readership,” I said. “But I thought you should know.”

  “Thanks. I don’t have time for an amateur Lois Lane right now, Nichelle.”

  “I’m keeping an ear out,” I said. “Because neither do I.”

  I twisted around and looked at the clock. “Crap, Aaron, I have a trial starting in three minutes.” I hung up, my mental puzzle shifting to include cults and cows.

  But how to find a link?

  Waco.

  Maybe Kyle knew where to look.

  9.

  Black Angus mojo

  Downtown blurred past my windows in a mishmash of art-deco building fronts that usually topped my list of favorite Richmond features—but I didn’t even notice them. Stopping at a light, I punched Kyle’s number up on my screen and typed a text to him. “Wondering if you can help with my new theory. Give me a call when you have a few?”

  I dropped my BlackBerry in the cup holder and laid on the gas, the chatter from the police scanner in my passenger seat noticeably lighter than usual. The whole department seemed on edge.

  I ticked off a mental to-do list that started with the trial and the day’s police reports, and ended with a fat question mark over the next day’s murder follow up. Even if I got somewhere with cult research, I wasn’t tipping my hand to Charlie and the rest of the country without having the story nailed down, and that wouldn’t happen in a day.

  I rushed through security and into the courtroom, a drug lord who’d run half the Southside two years ago already seated at the defendant’s table.

  I focused on the opening arguments, keenly aware of the Ginsu swords Charlie stared at me for half the morning. Ducking out before she could corner me, I sped back to the office, checking my BlackBerry as I turned into the garage. Nothing from Kyle.

  My police reports were lighter than usual, a fatal car accident in the pre-dawn hours the only one interesting enough to warrant space. I wrote a short piece from the report and left a message for the victim’s husband. Thirty-four year-old woman, driving to work when she’d run across a pickup full of drunk teenagers speeding down a dark country road with no headlights on. “Such a stupid waste,” I murmured, shaking my head as I typed.

  The kids all tested through the roof for blood alcohol at the St. Vincent’s ER, more than an hour after the crash. The driver was in juvenile custody, but I knew the Commonwealth Attorney’s stance on DUI. Jonathan Corry lost a girlfriend to a drunk driver once upon a time, so he’d push to try the driver as an adult. The kid was likely headed for actual prison, and vehicular manslaughter carries six to ten in Virginia.

  I sent that story to Bob with a note that it might get a couple of inches longer if the husband called me back. Which wasn’t likely, but I was okay with that particular “no comment.” Asking people to talk to me in the middle of tragedy is my least favorite thing about my job.

  It took forty minutes to find attorneys from both sides of the drug dealer’s trial and write up the day one, and I smiled as I attached it to an email. Two down. As snarled as my bigger story was, I’d take my gold stars wherever I could get them.

  I checked the next day’s court docket and pulled notes for two trials I’d need to pop into. After I’d read the first file four times and still couldn’t have told a mad bomber what the defendant had (allegedly) done if it meant saving all of downtown Richmond, I dropped the folder and wandered to the break room in search of some caffeine.

  I plunked quarters into the Coke machine and twisted the top off a bottle of diet, checking my BlackBerry for the hundred and seventieth time since I’d texted Kyle. Still nothing.

  “You all right, sugar?” Eunice pulled a plate of club sandwiches on homemade bread out of the fridge and offered me one. I bit into it and contemplated as I chewed.

  On one hand, I was free and healthy and had a job I loved and a nice place to live. On the other, I was insanely frustrated with something I’d always thought I wanted.

  “In the grand scheme? I’m fabulous,” I said after I swallowed. “In the right-this-minute, I’m annoyed. How about you?”

  “I remember those days.” She nodded. “Want to talk about it?”

  “Eh. It won’t do eithe
r of us any good. But thank you.” I smiled.

  “Anytime.” She shuffled toward the door and I grabbed a paper towel for my sandwich and followed. “You do good work, Nichelle,” Eunice said, turning back toward me. “Don’t worry about the whole big mess they have going on at the PD. Don’t worry about this Internet crap. Just go get the story. Do your thing, and you’ll figure it out.”

  “You should charge for your advice.” I smiled. “Thanks.”

  Her words followed me back to my desk. She was right: I was so focused on helping Aaron and beating Girl Friday, I felt like I was on deadline every second. The stress had eaten my mojo.

  “Time to get my groove back,” I said, flipping my computer open.

  “Can you find mine, too?” Melanie’s voice came from the other side of the cube wall. “This has been a sucky summer so far.”

  I bit my lip. I didn’t want to tell her what Parker had said that morning, because he hadn’t given me permission to.

  Plus, there was my whole murder-investigation mission.

  But I didn’t want to be a bad friend, either.

  “I’ll keep an eye out for it,” I said. “Want to see if yours is drinking with mine? We could grab a cocktail after work and talk.”

  “That sounds great. Five-thirty?”

  “Provided I get through the day with no more dead people.”

  BlackBerry check number one-seventy-one. Nada.

  Men. I’d just have to find out for myself.

  I opened my browser and searched “religious sects, Richmond VA.” My screen flooded with hits, most of them from conspiracy theory websites. I scrolled, but nothing jumped out.

  “The church shelter.” Picasso’s words pinged through my thoughts. Maybe I was looking in the wrong place.

  A new search told me there were a lot of churches in Central Virginia. I narrowed it to addresses more than thirty miles from Richmond, figuring Jasmine wouldn’t go just up the street if she fled something she was afraid of.

  The list was still three miles long. Was there something about Virginia that made people seek Jesus so readily? My finger hovered over the mouse, an hour of reading giving me nothing but a headache.