“You got it,” Harper promised.
Kissing her husband lightly, Elaine turned right, and disappeared between a set of double doors marked STAFF ONLY.
Toby pointed in the opposite direction. “This way.”
Harper followed him through a maze of hospital corridors, until he turned in to a bright, empty stairwell.
“Nobody ever takes the stairs,” Toby told her as he bounded down, his voice echoing loudly. “They’re crazy. That elevator takes forever. And it’s full of sick people.”
They spiraled down three floors before emerging into another quiet corridor. They’d only walked for a few seconds when they reached the nurses’ station—a long, curved desk with five chairs, set directly in front of the elevator doors.
Two nurses in green scrubs stood at one end, looking at something on a computer screen.
Toby waved at one of them, who smiled at him.
“Hi, Toby. What are you up to?”
“Oh you know.” He flashed his amiable grin. “Passing through.”
She returned to her work as they moved down the hallway.
When they were out of earshot, Toby told Harper, “I don’t know how Anderson got out, but no way did he take that elevator without being noticed. Even at one in the morning.”
“They can see everyone coming up the stairs, too,” she pointed out. “Damn.”
“Don’t give up yet.” Toby looked at a long row of doors ahead. “What was his room number again?”
“Two nineteen.”
They paused to check the next room they passed. Two sixty-seven.
“Must be further down,” Toby said, striding off.
When they found it, room 219 was at the opposite end of the ward from the nurses’ station. Its broad faux wood door was half open.
Cautiously, they stepped inside. The private room held a bed with a bare mattress. Next to the bed stood an IV machine, unplugged, cables wound behind it.
On the far wall was a window, which did not appear to have a handle.
“Is that sealed shut?” Harper asked, pointing.
Toby nodded.
“So he didn’t get out on the elevator, and he didn’t get out by climbing out that window.” He glanced at her quizzically. “Can this guy fly?”
“Not as far as I know.”
Harper didn’t want to admit it, but her faith in her own theory was fading fast. There was no way to walk around this place freely. Patients couldn’t leave and come back at will.
The police were right. Anderson couldn’t be her killer.
Which left her with what?
Absolutely nothing.
They walked out to the corridor in silence.
“Stay here a second,” Toby told her. “I want to check something.”
Leaving her there, he walked farther down the corridor, looking at doors. First he went right. And then, passing her, he walked the other way, checking each door he went by.
After a minute, he paused, then turned and motioned for her.
When she reached him, he pointed at the door. “What do you think?”
A green sign on an otherwise unmarked door read FIRE ESCAPE.
She looked from him to the door. “Is it alarmed?”
Toby grabbed the door handle. “Let’s find out.”
Startled, Harper reached for his arm.
“Toby, don’t,” she hissed.
With a defiant look, he turned the handle.
The door opened without a sound, revealing a staircase.
“Oh man,” Toby said, grinning. “That was a buzz. You looked scared shitless.”
She didn’t laugh.
“How did you know there wasn’t an alarm?”
“That’s not how hospitals work,” he told her, stepping through the door. “This place is all about getting from A to B as fast as possible and not waking people up. Most staircases double as fire escapes.”
His voice echoed as the door closed behind them.
“Now, come on. Let’s see if there’s any way your guy did this thing.”
This staircase was narrower and more utilitarian than the one they’d used earlier.
They walked down one floor. The stairs ended in front of a set of unmarked double doors.
“I’ll bet you all kinds of money those lead straight to the parking lot,” Toby told her.
He pushed the bar on the door. It swung open, letting in a wave of hot, humid air.
Outside, rows of cars stretched in all directions, gleaming in the sunlight.
“Bingo,” Harper said.
Once outside, the two of them looked around.
Beyond the parking lot, Harper could see the busy road in the distance, hear cars heading to and from downtown.
Suddenly, she could see it all. She could see Anderson, getting out of bed, throwing on his clothes, coming down those stairs. Pushing open the door. She could see him walking out into the dark night, and everything that happened next.
She could see his alibi falling apart.
Toby examined the door. “There’s no handle. If he got out this way, how’d he get back in?”
In response, Harper began searching the ground. Almost immediately, she found what she was looking for. Bending, she picked up a broken brick.
“Did you ever sneak out of school?” she asked, holding it up. “This is how Bonnie and I used to do it.”
She set the brick down between the door and the doorjamb. Then, she let go of the door. It went as far as the brick and stopped, leaving a small crack. To any passerby, it would look closed.
But you could get in and out with ease.
“I’ll be damned,” Toby said.
He was smiling but his eyes were hard.
“He’s your murderer, isn’t he? That rich kid killed that girl.”
“I think so.” Harper swung the door open again and let it close with a thud. “All he had to do was come down the stairs, leave that door propped open, go kill Naomi Scott, slip back in, kick the brick away, let the door close, and go back to bed. It wouldn’t have taken him forty minutes if he timed it right.”
“Works for me,” Toby said.
“Yeah,” Harper murmured, looking up the dark staircase. “Now all I have to do is prove it.”
33
Harper raced back from the hospital to tell Dells and Baxter what she’d learned. But when she got to the newsroom a short time later, Baxter was not at her desk, and Dells’s office was dark.
The usual Saturday crew was in—a few writers from the Living section, and the woman who covered government stuff. But the room felt oddly hushed.
As she plugged in her scanner, a cluster of men in dark gray suits with visitor passes hanging around their necks passed through the newsroom talking to one another and looking at no one else, heading into the stairwell that led to upper floors, where the advertising and management offices were. They seemed to know the building well.
Harper watched them, puzzled.
Still, she didn’t give it much thought. With Baxter away, she had the chance to put all the pieces of her theory together before she presented it. She needed it to be convincing.
Setting her scanner on her desk with the sound turned low, she started writing up what she had.
Police Fail to Investigate Prominent Savannah Man for Murder
By Harper McClain
The evidence police have against Peyton Anderson, the law student son of former district attorney Randall Anderson, would be enough to bring any less-connected suspect in for questioning in the murder of Naomi Scott.
And yet police do not, at this time, consider him a suspect.
According to court documents, and Anderson himself, Anderson and Scott were former friends, who briefly dated. Six months ago, Scott filed for a restraining order, accusing him of stalking and threatening her. That order was granted by a district judge.
Anderson was ordered to stay a minimum of a hundred yards away from Scott at all times. He was told not to contact her.
Twelve days ago, Naomi Scott was shot to death on River Street. The crime remains unsolved.
Police refuse to comment on whether they have any suspects at this time.
The Daily News has learned that court documents show Anderson has a history of stalking and threatening multiple women. Over the last two years, he’s been accused on three occasions of stalking female students at the law school.
He followed the women relentlessly, breaking into their homes, pursuing them during the day and late into the night.
Scott’s own injunction, filed months before she died, portrays the same ruthless approach. Naomi Scott told a judge she was “constantly afraid” and that she feared Anderson would kill her boyfriend, Wilson Shepherd, out of jealousy.
In the end, it wasn’t Shepherd who died, but Scott herself.
On the night of the murder, shortly after 11:00 P.M., Police were called to a street outside City Market, where they found Peyton Anderson bleeding from a stab wound. He said his wallet and phone had been stolen in a violent mugging.
Stabbed in the left arm, he was taken to Savannah Memorial Hospital, where he was treated, and kept overnight for observation.
Therefore, police believe he couldn’t possibly have committed the murder. At the time Naomi Scott was gunned down on River Street, Anderson was in his hospital bed.
But hospital records seen by this reporter show nobody checked on Anderson between 1:00 A.M. and 3:00 A.M.
The murder was called in to police at 2:08 A.M. Anderson’s whereabouts at that time cannot be independently verified.
The hospital refused to comment for this story.
* * *
Harper was so engrossed in her work she didn’t hear DJ walk up to his desk until he rolled his chair around to face her.
“Hey,” he said, whispering, “did you hear about Dells?”
Harper stopped typing. His face was serious, but with that excited lift that comes with bad news.
A sudden tightness gripped her chest.
“What about him?”
DJ propelled himself closer.
“Charlton suspended him,” he said. “For insubordination.”
Harper stared.
“Are you serious?” She searched DJ’s face for any sign that this was an elaborate joke.
“I am coronary levels of seriousness,” he assured her. “It happened an hour ago. I only came in to get my gym bag. I wasn’t going to stay. But then MaryAnne Charlton marched in here with a bunch of men I’ve never seen before. They had a big argument. Dells stormed out. They locked themselves in his office for half an hour, going through his stuff. Then they all left. Dells never came back.”
“Gray suits?” Harper said, remembering the men she’d seen earlier.
He nodded.
Harper dropped her head to her hands.
They’d run out of time. The chief editor’s gambit had failed.
“This is all my fault.”
She sensed rather than saw DJ’s look of surprise.
“Why would it be your fault?”
“The Anderson story.” She raised her head, peering at him miserably. “The one about the restraining orders. Randall Anderson’s on the newspaper board. He and Charlton are buddies. Dells told me he thought we had three days to get evidence against the Anderson kid and prove we were right. I didn’t know it was because he thought he was going to get fired. I thought he just wanted the story fast.” She looked at her watch. “He was wrong. We had two and a half.”
“Have you got it now?” he asked, pointing at her computer. “If you’ve got enough to prove you were right, you can take it to Baxter…”
She shook her head. “I’m close but not close enough. I was going to ask him for more time…”
Her voice trailed off.
What was she going to do? Without Dells, the story was dead in the water. And without the story, Anderson would never be charged.
He would get away with murder.
“Dammit.” She kicked the leg of her desk. “I blew it.”
She looked at the story that would never run, and glanced back at the front of the room, where Baxter had now walked in and was sitting at her computer, staring into the distance, her face drawn.
She was heartsick at the thought of what Anderson might do now. If he got away with murder, he would stalk more women. Maybe kill them.
And his father would protect him.
She didn’t know how she was going to tell Jerrod Scott his daughter’s killer was going to get away with it. She didn’t know where she’d find the words.
But there was nothing she could do. Charlton had outplayed them all.
With slow reluctance, she saved the article as “draft” and sent a copy to herself, just in case. Then she closed the file.
For now, the Anderson story was dead.
* * *
Whatever had been keeping Savannah’s criminals quiet all week ended that night.
Harper’s scanner started humming at sunset and did not stop. There were three shootings and a stabbing all within a few hours of each other.
She sped from one crime scene to another, running fast to try to keep up. There was no time to think, and maybe that wasn’t such a bad thing.
When she pulled up to the third shooting scene on Waters Street, it was a few minutes after eleven o’clock.
She hadn’t been back to the newsroom in hours. Mostly because she was busy. But also because she couldn’t face it right now.
The cops were no longer bothering with niceties like crime tape. They, too, had become a flying squad, rushing from crime to crime. Harper left her car two blocks away from the blue lights, and walked straight up to the ambulance.
The air was hot and heavy with the grainy-sweet smell of exhaust. Beneath that high note was a low note—something metallic and dangerous that set her nerves on edge.
The flickering lights illuminated a young, black man on a stretcher, his eyes closed, skinny arms limp. He was lean and tall—his long legs sprawled from baggy shorts. He didn’t look out of his teens.
The EMTs had already cut his T-shirt open, and Harper could see the wound high on his ribs on the right side. Blood poured dark red onto the blue stretcher cover.
Harper didn’t like his chances.
Paramedics clustered around him, giving quick clear orders to one another. One was dressing the wound as another attached an IV. A third was checking vitals and calling it in to the emergency room.
Spotting Miles crouched down near the curb, shooting the dangling IV bags against the backdrop of the ambulance’s glaring lights, Harper ran over to him.
“What’ve we got?” she asked, watching the EMTs work. “Or do I need to ask?”
“It’s exactly what it looks like.” He spoke as he took the shot. “Kid was selling crack on the corner. Two guys walk up, one has a gun. Bang bang.”
Harper pulled a battered notebook from her pocket.
“They did this in front of witnesses?”
Miles stood. “What I heard was, half the block was out on the street.”
“Jesus, what a night,” she muttered, scribbling notes.
He tilted the camera to check his shots.
“Been hot too long. Things boil over.” He glanced at her. “How’s Baxter taking the news about Dells?”
“She hasn’t said a word. I think she’s furious.”
“Don’t blame her.” Miles hung his camera from his shoulder. “Charlton’s crazy to let him go. There’s nobody else on staff who knows how to do that job. It throws Baxter in it, waist deep.”
“Guess you were right about Dells pushing his luck,” she said.
He gave her a look. “Least it was him and not you.”
“This time,” she said.
She glanced at her watch. “I’ve got to go talk to some witnesses or I won’t make deadline. See you at the next shooting?”
“I’ll be there,” he said.
Harper made her way to the curb to t
alk to neighbors, who were not very interested in sharing their thoughts with a journalist.
In the darkness, she passed Josh Leonard from Channel 5, lugging his own camera. As soon as he saw her, he stopped.
“Heard about Dells.” He gave her a look. “Charlton’s lost her tiny mind if she thinks she can run that paper without him.”
“That’s what everyone says.” Harper shoved her notebook in her pocket. “You guys hiring? I might be looking.”
To her surprise he didn’t smile.
“You ever come looking for a job, Channel 5 would hire you without even thinking twice.”
“Shut up,” she said.
His expression was serious.
“I’m not joking. Do it. Get me off the murder beat. Come join the dark side.”
He glanced over to where the ambulance workers worked on the victim.
“I’ve got to go get some more shots. Good luck with all that. Let me know if you decide you want to be me for a while. I’ll hook you up.”
With that, he walked away, leaving Harper staring after him.
It was a crowded and chaotic scene. The patrol cops were in a bad mood, shouting “Get back!” at the residents, who were restive and unwilling to be corralled.
Trying to avoid getting caught up in that growing tension, Harper took a step backward, running into a police officer behind her.
He had his Kevlar vest on—it felt like running into a rock.
“Sorry,” she began, turning around, and then she recognized Riley’s familiar face.
He looked out of breath. In his tired brown eyes she detected the same bewilderment she felt.
“What the hell is going on?” she asked. “Has everyone in Savannah gone crazy?”
“I wish I knew. I just got through chasing some teenage gangster half a mile through the city. Lost him.” Running a hand across his forehead, he wiped the sweat from his face. “I’m getting too old for this shit.”
She pointed at the ambulance next to them. “Any idea who shot this guy?”
Riley shook his head. “All I know is we’re looking for two possible shooters, who fled on foot.”
Harper flipped through her notebook, struggling to find a clean page.
“Any other description?” she asked.
A Beautiful Corpse--A Harper McClain Mystery Page 26