Harper nodded.
He looked impressed. “Tell me something—do you ever think you might be cursed?”
Shooting him a withering glance, Harper logged in to her computer.
“I’m busy, DJ.”
“I’m only saying it’s worth a thought,” he said, spinning back toward his own desk.
It was a bad joke, but as Harper hurriedly checked out the stories about the shooting on the local TV station websites, she found herself thinking about it, nonetheless. After all, Naomi wasn’t the first murder victim in her life.
The first murder victim had been her mother.
Harper had discovered her body on the kitchen floor when she was twelve years old. That still-unsolved homicide set off a chain of events that led to her close relationship with the police.
It had also led to everything that happened last year, when Lieutenant Smith was convicted of a murder that had mirrored her mother’s killing in every way.
Breaking that story—and becoming part of it when she was shot by Smith—had raised Harper’s profile, ensuring her position at the newspaper, even in these shaky financial times.
Still, Baxter wasn’t one to stand on history. She needed constant emotional reinforcement in the form of juicy crime stories on the front page. Even without police cooperation, Harper could provide that. She had her ways. She knew the system better than anyone.
As long as she could keep the headlines coming, her job was safe. She hoped.
Picking up the phone, Harper dialed the phone number for the mayor’s direct line. It rang five times before an assistant answered.
“Thank you for calling Mayor Cantrelle’s office, how can I help you?”
“This is Harper McClain at the Daily News. I’d like to ask the mayor some questions about the shooting on River Street last night.”
“She’s in a meeting.” The assistant’s tone indicated she wasn’t the first to call. “I’ll ask her to get back to you.”
“Make it quick, would you? We’re in a rush.”
“As I said.” The assistant sounded unmoved. “She’s in a meeting.”
While she waited for the mayor, Harper opened an internet search engine and typed: Naomi Scott.
A flood of false returns filled her screen. A blogger with forty thousand Twitter followers dominated, along with a Chicago attorney.
When she added “Savannah” to the search, though, she found what she was looking for.
It was a social networking site for students at the Savannah State College. The picture on Naomi’s page was arresting. Her shoulder-length black hair hung loose in waves. Her unblemished skin, high cheekbones, and huge, cinnamon eyes gave her an ethereal beauty.
Harper stared at the familiar face for a moment.
“What did you get yourself into?” she murmured.
The short bio beneath the image said: “Young, free, and ambitious. Ready to change the world.”
It listed her area of study as criminal law. The only other information was a phone number and a student email address.
Leaving the landline open for the mayor’s call, she picked up her cell and dialed Naomi’s number.
It went straight to voice mail.
“Hi. This is Naomi. Leave me a message.”
Hearing the dead woman’s familiar voice was chilling.
Harper hung up and then immediately dialed another number. This one she knew by heart. As it rang, she stared at the picture of the vibrant young woman with her challenging eyes.
The ringing stopped abruptly. “Savannah Police Public Information.”
The voice was male and breathless—as if he’d snatched up the phone while running in search of a fire extinguisher. She could hear other voices in the background, people typing—the sounds of a busy office.
“This is Harper McClain,” she said. “I’m looking for whatever you’ve got on the Naomi Scott murder from last night.”
“You and everybody else,” he said. “What do you want to know?”
“The basics. Got any suspects?”
“Nothing I can tell you on that.”
“You looking for the boyfriend?” she tried, already knowing the answer but also suspecting he wouldn’t verify it on the record.
He snorted a laugh. “Is this some sort of hoax? Or do you have any real questions?”
Harper tried a new angle. “Could you verify that her wallet was found in her bag?”
She heard him typing something.
“That’s affirmative,” he said.
“Money in the wallet?” she asked, propping the phone under her chin as she made notes.
“Affirmative.”
In that case, it definitely wasn’t a robbery. Miles’s source had been right.
“But her phone was MIA?” she pushed.
“That is what it says on my screen,” he said, adding, “Right now we don’t know if she lost it, left it at home, or got shot for it.”
Harper knew she hadn’t left it behind—Bonnie had seen Naomi take a call less than an hour before she left work.
“Any witnesses?” she asked.
There was a pause, and she heard him clicking keys on his computer.
“Negative,” he said, after a second. “No witnesses have come forward. The body was found by two members of the public, walking home from a party at the Hyatt hotel.”
“Can you give me their names?” she asked.
“Oh sure.” His tone was sarcastic. “And would you like perfume on your birthday, or do you prefer flowers?”
“Please?” Harper begged. “Just one name?”
He made an exasperated sound. “You know I can’t tell you that, McClain.”
Through the line, she could hear another phone ringing.
“Is that everything?” he asked impatiently. “I’m a popular man today.”
“I guess that’s it…”
Before she’d even finished the sentence, the phone went dead in her hand.
Well, at least, thanks to Bonnie, she had the father’s name. And the internet had given her his phone number.
She dialed the number and waited as it rang and rang. After eight rings, she hung up.
If she couldn’t reach family she’d need to find someone else. But she had enough for the website now.
Turning to her computer, she quickly wrote up a short, sparse news story about the shooting.
Murder on River Street
By Harper McClain
The city was shaken in the early hours of this morning by news of a murder at the very heart of the city’s tourism district.
The victim was Naomi Scott, 24, a law student who also worked as a bartender at the Library Bar on College Row. Police say she was shot twice, at around two o’clock Wednesday morning.
No motive has been determined at this time, although robbery is unlikely.
As this story was being written, detectives were still looking into the details of the crime.
The body was discovered minutes after the murder by two members of the public. Police say no witnesses to the crime have come forward.
Calls for comment to Mayor Melinda Cantrelle’s office were not immediately returned.
When she paused to read it through, Harper thought it wasn’t bad for a first round, given that she’d only spent about twenty minutes at the crime scene.
She’d just sent the story across to Baxter when her phone rang.
“McClain,” she said, throwing her empty coffee cup in the bin.
“Now look, Harper, my office will be issuing a statement at ten thirty. Don’t you dare write that I’m not replying, or that I’m trying to dodge this murder case.”
Mayor Melinda Cantrelle had a distinctive voice—rich and resonant, made for television. In fact, twenty years ago, she’d started her career anchoring the morning news on a local station. That experience gave her an air of cultivated calm most of the time, and she had a made-for-TV smile. But today she was talking fast, her words short and clipped.
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br /> Harper fired a quick message to Baxter: Hold the story. Mayor on phone. And then leaned back in her chair, propping a notebook on her knee.
“Of course not, Mayor Cantrelle,” she lied, sweetly. “But the first story will go up on the website any minute now and I can’t have our readers think I didn’t try to reach you.”
“Oh come on, Harper…” The mayor did not sound happy.
“Can’t you give me something small at least?” Harper cajoled. “What does this murder mean for tourism? And will you be sending more police downtown? Anything like that would be enough to get that ‘no comment’ out of my story.”
There was a long pause, during which Harper suspected the mayor was fighting to control her temper. She’d taken over the city leadership a year earlier, and Harper almost liked her—she had a blunt approach that, if nothing else, gave the appearance of honesty. At forty-five, she was younger than the gray-haired men who normally served as mayor, and she was still new enough at her job to pick up the phone at times like these.
“The police have informed me they are searching for a suspect,” the mayor said smoothly. “We believe this to be a family incident. It would be inappropriate for me to comment further while the investigation is under way. But we intend to get to the bottom of this, I can promise you that. I consider it my number-one job to keep visitors and residents here safe.”
Harper wrote as she talked, pen skidding across her notepad.
“A family incident? Can you be more specific?” she asked, not looking up from the page. “You’re not saying her father had something to do with it, are you?”
“This is off the record.” The mayor lowered her voice. “But I’m told the detectives are looking for her boyfriend. They think this was a personal thing.” Someone spoke in the background, and the sound suddenly became muffled. When Cantrelle returned she sounded rushed.
“Look, I’m afraid I have to go. We’ll be issuing a full statement in an hour. Cathy will email it over. Call her if you need anything else.”
When she’d hung up, Harper read over her notes.
As she’d suspected when Daltrey questioned them last night, they thought it was the boyfriend.
She flipped through her notepad until she found his name: Wilson Shepherd.
It wasn’t a surprise. The vast majority of murdered women are killed by someone close to them—husband, boyfriend, friend. No more than one in ten murdered women are killed by someone they don’t know.
Harper had long thought women were afraid of the wrong thing. Women are scared of the hooded teen at a gas station, or the unknown man walking down the dark street late at night.
They should be afraid of their husbands.
When you get right down to it, if you’re a woman, being killed by someone you love is the most ordinary murder of all.
This was bad news. The paper hardly covered domestic violence.
“There’s nothing there,” Baxter had said, more than once. “No one wants to read about that stuff.”
She wasn’t wrong.
A random murder is a threat to everyone. It’s lawlessness in the streets.
But if a woman’s ex-boyfriend shoots her? Well. She should have made a better choice.
If Naomi Scott was killed by Wilson Shepherd it would move the story to page six within a couple of days.
Harper kept trying to remember whether she’d met Naomi’s boyfriend. Her mind summoned an image of a serious, chubby-cheeked guy, neatly dressed, sitting quietly at one end of the bar.
Before she’d gone to sleep last night, she’d asked Bonnie what she knew about him. All she’d said was that they met at school. She’d been so worn out Harper hadn’t wanted to push it.
She’d still be asleep now. But later today, she could see if she remembered more.
For now, she searched for his name in the newspaper database and came up empty.
Staring at the empty screen, she tapped her fingers against the desk. She’d done all she could in the office. It was time to go hunting.
After typing up a quick update with the mayor’s statement and sending it through to the editor, she grabbed her scanner and stood up.
DJ glanced at her inquiringly.
“I’m heading out.” She stuffed a fresh notebook in her pocket and picked up her keys.
“If Baxter comes looking for me, tell her I’m off to find a killer.”
4
When she stepped out of the newspaper office, the sun was fierce. Humidity hung so thick it left a white haze in the air, giving the gold dome of City Hall an oddly electric shimmer in the distance.
August was always brutal, but this year it seemed even worse than usual. It had been over a hundred degrees every day for two weeks. The heat was relentless.
Harper shoved her auburn hair back, twisting it into a knot at the base of her neck as she surveyed the traffic backed up on Bay Street. She’d planned to get in her car and drive straight to the Library to try to find out more about Naomi and Wilson Shepherd, but it would take half an hour to get anywhere right now.
Instead, she walked toward the scene of the crime.
Already sweating, she threaded her way through stalled traffic, breathing in the acrid scent of exhaust and hot pavement. Whatever the mayor’s worries, news of the murder clearly hadn’t reached the city’s visitors yet. Tourists circulated in brightly colored crowds of T-shirts, baggy shorts, and baseball caps, guidebooks shoved under arms.
As she headed down an uneven cobblestone ramp toward River Street, Harper was struck by the audacity of the murderer. All around her were people. Walking, strolling, driving. A Savannah Police car was stuck in traffic twenty feet away.
Even at two in the morning, this area would not have been empty. The Hyatt hotel stood nearby, overlooking the river. Hotels, restaurants, and apartment buildings surrounded her on all sides.
Most murders take place in the shadows. They’re shameful acts hidden from prying eyes.
This hadn’t been a normal murder. This location made it a kind of public execution.
Down by the river, a breeze cooled her skin. The exhaust faded away, to be replaced by the smell of muddy water, and the cloying scent of burned sugar from the praline shops.
It was already busy. Kids ran through the riverfront plaza, oblivious to what had happened here a few hours ago. In the distance a paddle-wheel riverboat, painted candy-cane red and white, sat waiting for passengers. A busker played the banjo, a battered top hat shading him from the sun as he jangled out a version of “Summertime.”
This was why the mayor was panicking. Why Harper and Baxter had both come to work seven hours early today.
The death of Naomi Scott threatened all of this.
Savannah lived or died by its tourist trade. A murder on this street put poison in the well.
Hurrying her pace, Harper walked down the narrow street, searching for the spot. It was hard to square the dark street from the night before with this bright, busy scene. It took a few minutes to find what she was searching for.
In the end, it was ragged yellow remnants of crime tape that guided her, fluttering from the base of the lampposts.
From there, the crime scene was easy to find. Discarded latex gloves lay at the curb, along with other medical detritus, overlooked in the hasty cleanup in the dark.
The cobbles were damp—someone had hosed them down, trying to wash the evidence away. But blood stains everything it touches.
The darker stones showed clearly where the body had fallen.
She turned a full circle, oblivious to the tourists jostling her as they passed.
It didn’t make sense. Why had Naomi left the Library in the middle of the night and come here? Was she meeting her boyfriend, as the police suspected, only to be shot dead? And if so, why here of all places?
This was a crazy place for a murder.
* * *
Half an hour later, Harper parked the Camaro in a shady spot on a narrow lane on the other side of downtown.
Tucked away not far from the Savannah College of Art and Design, College Row was quiet and dingy during the day, littered with empty beer cans and cigarette butts. The short alley served no purpose except to hold two bars and a small clothing shop, known for its quirky T-shirts.
The lights were off in the Library Bar when she walked up. Its sign—an open book with a martini glass perched on it—was unlit.
When she tried the door, Harper found it locked.
“Hello?” she called, knocking on the door. “Is anyone in there?”
No response. She knocked again, raising her voice.
“Hello?”
This time, something inside stirred. She heard footsteps shuffling across the room.
After a minute, the door opened a crack.
A rumpled, lived-in face peered out at her.
Harper barely recognized Jim “Fitz” Fitzgerald, the bar’s jovial owner. Normally, he was a natty dresser, with a penchant for tweed jackets, turned-up cuffs, and crisp white shirts. Today, he wore a flannel shirt and wrinkled slacks; his thick, graying hair waved wildly.
“We’re closed right now,” he told her, and began to shut the door.
Harper moved quickly, angling her body so it would have been rude—if not impossible—to close the door on her.
“Hi, Fitz,” she said. “I don’t know if you’ll remember me, but I’m a friend of Bonnie’s. Harper McClain, from the newspaper?”
For a moment he didn’t react, but then recognition dawned.
“You’re that police reporter,” he said. “The one who got shot.”
Even from here, she could smell the medicinal tang of vodka on his breath.
“That’s me,” she said. “Look, I hate to bother you at a time like this, but I need to ask you a few questions about Naomi Scott.”
“Oh, lord. I don’t know.” He peered at her blearily. “Would you want to print this?”
“I need someone who knows her to talk to me about the kind of person she was,” she said, avoiding his question. “I only met her a few times, but I know she was a smart, kind person. I need someone to tell me who she was so people who never met her can understand.”
He studied her with red-rimmed eyes. “I don’t know if her family would want me to talk.”
A Beautiful Corpse--A Harper McClain Mystery Page 3