“It was busy that night,” Daltrey agreed. “We were stretched thin. And you’re right—the assault wasn’t a big deal. Anderson’s wounds weren’t severe. They kept him overnight as a precaution.”
Harper hated that it all fit. Anderson’s alibi—the reasons why the cops believed it so completely.
“Damn,” she said as it all sank in. “I really wanted it to be him.”
“You want to know a secret?” Daltrey met her gaze. “I did, too. But it can’t be. And that leaves us nowhere. And it’s killing me. That’s why we had to keep Fitzgerald as a maybe. Because I’m not convinced the Shepherd kid has it in him. And without him, we’re screwed.”
She leaned back against the desk, her shoulders slumping.
“There’s no one else. The victim’s dad’s a goddamn saint. She never dated anyone else. Like you say, she was a good person. And … Yeah. We’re letting her down.”
In the sudden quiet that followed, Harper could hear voices from down the hall. The ringing of a phone. The hiss of air-conditioning coming from the vents above their heads.
The room seemed weighted down by their combined inability to solve this.
“Are you looking at anyone else?” she asked. “Off the record?”
“We’re looking at several people. Scott met a lot of people at that bar,” Daltrey said. “Quite a few of them have interesting criminal histories.”
“Anything solid?”
A smile flickered across Daltrey’s face. “If I had anything solid, the newspaper is the last place I’d go to talk about it.” She straightened. “But let’s say there’s nothing obvious so far, and everyone in that room has been working their asses off on it.” She glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to get back.”
Harper followed the detective out into the corridor.
She kept thinking about those restraining orders. How could it not be Anderson?
“Maybe there’s some way he could have done it,” she suggested. “Something we haven’t thought of.”
Daltrey cast her a sideways glance.
“If you think you can find it, knock yourself out, McClain. I’ve never had more witnesses for an alibi in my entire career.”
Just before they reached the door of the homicide squad’s office, Daltrey turned to face her.
“You want some advice? Be careful with this one. The family’s lawyer is so far up our asses right now he could shine a flashlight out of our mouths. If they know you’re looking into his alibi, they’ll turn that attention on you. And, trust me, you don’t want that.”
Coming from Daltrey, this was akin to an act of solidarity. Harper was touched by it.
“Thanks,” she said.
Daltrey held her eyes for a second; then, giving a crisp nod, she opened the door and stormed back into the room full of men.
“Are you just sitting around holding your dicks or are you working?” Harper heard her ask.
She had a brief view of the detectives turning to look at her before the door closed and she was alone.
30
All the way back to the newspaper, Harper was piecing through what she’d learned and trying to figure out what they were all missing. It had to be there.
It was getting too late for the meter maids, so she parked on Bay Street in front of the newspaper offices and climbed out without paying. The edge was just coming off the heat.
A breeze blew her hair into her eyes as she slammed the car door. It smelled of car exhaust and river mud.
Her phone rang as she hit the button on the remote to lock the doors. The number on the screen was unrecognized.
“McClain,” she said, raising her voice to be heard above the traffic.
“We need to talk.”
The voice was male, familiar. For a split second she thought it might be Luke. Her heart kicked.
But almost instantly she realized that it wasn’t him. This voice was younger. The accent was all wrong.
Then her mind found a name to go with that soft, patrician voice.
Peyton Anderson.
It was Friday afternoon—the sidewalks were packed. Beneath the palm trees and live oaks, tourists in shorts mingled with workers in suits.
Jostled, Harper moved out of the way.
“Sure. What do you want to talk about?” She tried to keep the surprise out of her voice.
“Why did you write that article about me?” he asked. “I had nothing to do with what happened to Naomi, and you know it. You’ve been talking to the cops and I know they’ve told you it couldn’t be me. Why are you writing lies?”
He sounded aggrieved, but there was an odd undertone to his voice. He almost sounded … amused.
Warning signals went off in Harper’s mind. Something wasn’t right here.
“I never said you were involved in her murder,” she pointed out.
“Don’t treat me like a child. You implied it. You told me you were writing about Naomi’s life. But all you wrote about was me and those women.” He paused. “I don’t like being tricked.”
There was something ominous about that last line. Harper reached in her pocket and pulled out her notebook. He knew she was a journalist and he hadn’t said he wanted this to be off the record.
If he didn’t know the rules, he ought to learn them.
“Did you stalk Naomi, Peyton?” she asked. “She told a judge you showed up at her house, her work, her classes, constantly harassing her. That you threatened her when she started dating Wilson Shepherd. Was she telling the truth?”
“What do you think? I mean, you put my picture on the front page, Harper. You must have opinions.”
“It doesn’t matter what I think,” she said. “What really happened?”
“Here’s what I think,” he said, ignoring her question. “I think you’re so desperate for a front-page headline, you’d write anything. You’d sell your soul for attention. I think that story made Paul Dells all hot and excited. And now you’re his favorite pretty little reporter. Who knows what he’ll do for you in return?”
This was dangerously close to what was actually happening at the paper. How did he know?
“Was anything I wrote untrue?” she asked, trying to draw him back to the subject. “I am very willing to talk to you again if you want to give me your side of the story.”
“I don’t want to talk about me,” he said. “I want to talk about you. You intrigue me, Harper. You take risks you shouldn’t take. You put yourself in danger. Why is that? Does it have to do with your mother?”
Harper froze.
“What about my mother?” It came out ice cold.
He chuckled. “Didn’t you think I’d look you up? Someone murdered your mother when you were a child. You found her body. That kind of experience changes you. It makes you dangerous. I’ll bet you’re an animal in bed, Harper. I’d love to find out.”
Her stomach curdled.
This must be what Naomi went through day after day. This oily voice picking at her, objectifying her, filled with hate and longing in equal measures. Making her feel violated and afraid.
There was no way to win. He liked women to be scared. He liked them to get angry. She’d read those injunctions. She knew what turned him on.
She wouldn’t give him what he wanted.
“I hear you were attacked the same night Naomi was killed,” she said briskly, as if he hadn’t spoken. “Can you tell me about it?”
“Oh, you are as cool as I thought.” He sounded gleeful. “Yes, I was violently attacked. Why do you ask about that now? Did you just find out? Did I ruin your plans? Your great idea to blame everything on Randall Anderson’s son? You must have thought you’d win a Pulitzer, huh, Harper? Is that what you thought? I’m sorry to spoil it for you.”
“All I’m trying to do is cover a murder,” she said. “I don’t have a problem with you, as long as you’re not the man who shot Naomi Scott to death on River Street. This isn’t personal.”
There was a pause.
“You�
��re wrong there, Harper. This is very personal.” She could hear him smiling. “By the way, what did Angela and Cameron tell you? Man, they are looking hot these days.”
Harper suppressed a gasp. How could he know that she’d met them? She hadn’t written the story yet.
“You talked to those two jealous bitches and then you ran straight to talk to the police,” he continued. “I guess they set you straight. Because you sure don’t look too happy right now. But I like the way you look in that black top. And even when you’re not smiling, you’re kind of sexy. That red hair…” He let out a long, hissing breath. “Does the carpet match the curtains, I wonder? I might have to find out.”
Harper’s blood chilled.
He was watching her.
Leaving the car behind, she ran into the middle of the sidewalk, the phone still pressed to her ear, scanning the crowded street.
There were too many people. He could have been anywhere. In one of the brick buildings across the street. In the hotel nearby, on an upper floor. In a car, parked at the curb.
But he was somewhere close. And he’d been watching her since yesterday.
“Careful there, hon,” an older woman said as she swerved to avoid Harper, who was now blocking the sidewalk.
“Now you get it.” Anderson gave a pleased chuckle. “I know everything you do. So, run inside your little newspaper office and tell Dells that my father is going to bring him down.”
The phone went dead.
Standing on her toes, Harper scoured the people in the distance.
For a second, she thought she saw a tall, slim figure in the shade of an oak tree on the far side of the street.
But, when she leaned out to get a better look, there was nobody there.
* * *
When Harper walked into the newspaper building a few minutes later, she felt shaken.
She should have seen this coming, she supposed. Three women had been stalked by Peyton Anderson, and three times the police had failed to protect them.
If she was right and somehow he’d killed Naomi Scott and gotten away with it all with a slap on the wrist …
He must feel superhuman by now.
Why wouldn’t he turn that power on the reporter who embarrassed him on the front page of his hometown paper?
For a moment out there, that sensation of being observed had felt so familiar, she realized she’d been feeling that way all year. In her apartment. In her car.
That creeping, preternatural awareness of observation had become part of her life.
And now there were two people watching her. One she knew. And one she didn’t.
Baxter was hanging up the phone as Harper walked up to her desk.
Her anxiety must have shown on her face, because the city editor gave her a puzzled look.
“Something wrong?”
“Can we talk?” Harper asked.
Baxter stood and, motioning for her to follow, led her into Dells’s empty office, closing the door behind her.
“What’s the matter?”
“I just got off the phone with Peyton Anderson,” Harper said. “He’s been following me.”
“What?” Baxter asked, incredulous. “Following you where?”
“Everywhere.”
Harper filled her in on what had happened.
“And you didn’t see him?” Baxter asked when she finished.
“I thought I might have seen him in the distance, but when I got a good look he was gone. But he knew everything I’ve been doing for the last couple of days. He knew I’d seen those women who filed restraining orders against him.” Harper stopped, covering her mouth with her fingertips. “I better warn them. He might try to hurt them if he thinks they’re helping me.”
Baxter held up one hand. “Slow down. Let’s work this through. And the police say he couldn’t have killed Naomi because he was attacked that same night?”
Harper nodded. “The cops questioned him at the hospital at eleven o’clock.”
Baxter eyed her doubtfully. “And you still like him for it?”
“After that phone call?” Harper’s voice was tight. “I think he’s our guy.”
“What does Daltrey think?”
Harper waved the question away. “She says no one else makes sense. He’s the obvious suspect. Except for the alibi. Which she says is solid.”
Baxter’s gaze narrowed.
“So your story’s dead. Unless you’re going to write that the killer is definitely him, except that there’s no way it could be him, because he was absolutely positively somewhere else at the time Naomi Scott was killed?”
Harper couldn’t believe how obtuse she was being.
“I just told you the little psychopath has been following me for two days,” she said, sharply. “Doesn’t that tell you anything?”
“It tells me he’s a stalker,” Baxter said. “Which is the one thing we already knew about him. What it does not tell me is that he bought a gun, tracked down a bartender, and shot her on River Street ten days ago. I still don’t know who did that.”
“He did it.” Harper’s voice sharpened. “I know he did. I can feel it.”
“I don’t deal in feelings,” Baxter retorted. “I deal in facts. The facts say we need to give his picture to the guard at the front desk so he knows to call the cops if he ever tries to get in this building. The facts do not tell me he is a murderer.”
Harper started to argue but Baxter stopped her.
“Don’t bring me feelings, McClain,” she said, her voice rising. “When you figure out how this guy could be in two places at once, we can talk. Until then, as far as I’m concerned, you’ve got no story. And don’t let Dells put ideas in your head. I will quit before I let this paper run an article that could end your career, you hear me? If you’re not careful you’ll find yourself in the middle of his private war. And if that happens, MaryAnne Charlton will eat you alive.”
They glared at each other across the head editor’s glossy, modern office.
“I don’t even know what that means,” Harper said.
“You’re a reporter. Figure it out.”
Harper stormed to the door.
“Fine,” she said, yanking it open. “I’ll get you more. Because I’m telling you right now—Peyton Anderson killed Naomi Scott. I know he did.
“And I’m going to prove it.”
31
The argument with Baxter was infuriating. And the worst part was, the city editor wasn’t wrong. If Anderson’s alibi held up, Harper didn’t have a story at all.
What she didn’t understand, though, was what Baxter had said about Charlton. What had she meant about a “private war” between the owner and Dells?
She wasn’t about to ask. Not until they’d both calmed down.
Baxter had disappeared, anyway. Probably outside for a smoke.
Harper still had the day’s crime to cover, but first she made a call to Savannah Memorial Hospital. If Anderson had been taken there the night of the stabbing, there should be a record of it.
When she got the hospital press officer on the phone, however, the woman was far from helpful.
“All information related to patients is private,” she said.
“I’m not asking for any information about him,” Harper pointed out. “I’m asking if he was in your hospital last Tuesday night.”
“All patient information,” the woman repeated evenly, “is private.”
“Can’t you give me a yes or no?”
“All information…” the woman began.
Harper hung up.
The hospital wasn’t going to help.
She’d have to find another way.
* * *
A few hours later, Harper drove back to police headquarters for the second time that day.
The lobby was much emptier now than it had been earlier.
Alone at the front desk, night desk officer Dwayne Josephs was watching a baseball game on a small television.
“Hey Harper.” He
glanced at his watch. “Things must be quiet out there if you’re hanging around here.”
“It’s dead,” Harper said. “If someone doesn’t get shot soon the front page will be blank.”
“That would be a pity,” he commiserated.
She leaned against his desk.
“Dwayne.”
He looked at her, his brow furrowing.
“I need a favor.”
A hint of caution entered his expression. Doing favors for Harper had nearly cost him his job the summer before.
But all he said was, “Okay…?”
“Could you pull me a crime report from last week?” she asked, adding hastily, “It’s nothing big. Just a stabbing last Tuesday at around eleven o’clock, near City Market. I missed it the night it happened or I’d already know everything about it.”
His wide smile reappeared.
“Oh, sure. That’s an easy one. I thought you were going to ask for something hard.”
Dwayne turned to his computer. He typed for a couple of minutes, searching through last week’s forms.
“I think I got it.” He glanced at her. “Victim name of Anderson?”
Harper nodded. “That’s it. Can you print me a copy?”
A few minutes later, Harper sat in her car at the edge of the police parking lot, reading the report of Anderson’s mugging.
As Daltrey told her, it took place shortly after eleven, around the corner from the busy City Market area. The description of the crime was straightforward.
“Victim was walking on Congress Street when two black males approached him, demanding money. Victim produced wallet and phone. One suspect yelled ‘Too slow, bitch’ and stabbed him with a bladed object. The two suspects fled the scene on foot. Victim was transported to Savannah Memorial Hospital by EMS.”
In the space for the victim name, the officer had written Peyton Anderson. Clear as day.
It fit Daltrey’s description of the events perfectly.
And Harper didn’t buy it.
She’d covered a lot of muggings over the years. Hundreds of them. Knives were almost never involved.
A Beautiful Corpse--A Harper McClain Mystery Page 24