Killer Deadline

by Lauren Carr

  She’d only spent a few hours with Ryan. It’s the least I could do for my sister.

  It wasn’t fair. Life was not fair. They had been dating before Kathleen and Harrison. Their widowed parents had gotten together while chaperoning a Valentine’s Day dance at the high school, which Ryan and Nikki had attended as a couple.

  One month later, Nikki broke it off with Ryan and Kathleen accepted Harrison’s proposal of marriage.

  It’s the least I could do for my sister.

  Yep, evidence indicated that the marriage between his father and her mother had sent them flying into the friend-zone. Worst—sibling-zone—from which they could never escape.

  This was a stupid pact. People are going to get hurt. Most of all Me!

  Her fingers lingered over the screen of her phone while she tried to think of how to respond to his question: Well? How was it? Was it as bad as you thought it would be?

  She punched the shortcut to respond.

  OK.

  Chapter Three

  Elmo’s doggie breath could wake the dead. What could one expect? He was a dog.

  The sun was just starting to peep through the blinds of her old bedroom when Elmo licked Nikki’s face and nudged her so hard that she almost rolled out of the bed.

  “All right! I’m up!” She planted her feet on the floor and grabbed her bathrobe.

  Elmo hopped in front of the door. As soon as she opened it, he charged down the back stairs to the kitchen.

  Nikki ran after him without bothering to put on her slippers. She didn’t want him to have an accident less than twenty-four hours after returning home. She was trotting down the back stairs when she heard Elmo yelp followed by screeches in stereo.

  Elmo had encountered Lucy and Ethel.

  Nikki raced into the kitchen to find the two cats jumping with their backs arched on either side of the boxer. Thinking that he was being invited to dance, Elmo bounced between them while barking and wagging his tail.

  “Elmo, I’m sorry to say that these two creatures don’t like you.” Trying not to get in the middle of the chaos, Nikki made her way to the back door and yanked it open.

  Perturbed about their failure to intimidate the intruder into their family, Lucy and Ethel shot up the stairs to their master’s suite.

  Elmo jumped up onto the kitchen table and took his leash into his mouth. He spun around and raced outside.

  “Seriously, you want a walk this early in the morning?” When she looked across the back yard, she saw why he had been so excited.

  Ryan was doing his stretching exercises in preparation for a run. Leash clamped in his jaws, Elmo flew through the garden toward him. There was no way Ryan was going for a run without him.

  Ryan greeted Elmo with an enthusiastic hug. “Want to come with?” he called back to Nikki while attaching the leash to the dog’s collar.

  “Maybe next time.” She closed the door and went to prepare her coffee.

  “I see Ryan has a new running buddy,” Kathleen said while looking out the window on her way to the kitchen. “Didn’t you used to go running?”

  “I’m not quite dressed for it right now.” Nikki gestured at her bathrobe with one hand while pressing the button to turn on the coffeemaker. She looked around the kitchen counter, which, except for the coffee maker was clear of any items. Unlike most kitchens, there were no cannisters for flours or sugar or frequently used mugs. “Where are the mugs?”

  Kathleen opened the cupboard above the coffeemaker. “Old habits are hard to break. Your father hated cluttered counterspace.” She took two mugs out. “It is more convenient to have the mugs out where I can grab one, but every time I try to leave them on the counter, I feel guilty.”

  “That’s what happens when you’re married to someone too long.” Nikki reached up into the cupboard for the sugar bowl.

  “At least he wasn’t obnoxious about it. He knew he was OCD and admitted that he was the one with the problem.” Kathleen took the coffee creamer from the fridge. “I guess I should have consulted with you before signing a five-year contract with Ashleigh.”

  “There are plenty of talented, real journalists, out there who would require much less maintenance,” Nikki said with one eye on the coffee slowly dripping into the carafe.

  Kathleen slipped into her seat at the kitchen table. “I hate to disappoint you, dear, but the really talented journalists go to Pittsburgh or Philadelphia or Washington. Here, we get the Suzannes and Ashleighs. The fawning from the locals feed their delusions that they have more going for them than they really do. Camille is in touch with that reality. If we didn’t renew Ashleigh’s contract and you fired her—”

  “Which I would have.” Nikki poured the coffee into two mugs.

  “No one else would have picked her up.” Kathleen mouthed a thank you for the coffee as her daughter sat across from her. “And then Camille would have had to hear about it for the rest of her life. She really doesn’t need that. She went through so much when her mother was in the nursing home.”

  “Is that why you hired Ashleigh for the anchor desk in the first place?” Nikki asked. “Because Ashleigh was your best friend’s daughter.”

  “There’s always room for heart in business,” Kathleen said over the top of her coffee mug. “Your father had a heart. A big one.” She jerked her chin toward a framed picture on one of the tables of their father and Sam Hill, one of WKPG’s most celebrated news journalists and anchors. “I guess now would be the time to tell you the truth about Sam Hill—WKPG-TV’s legendary news journalist.”

  Sam Hill had been WKPG-TV’s top broadcast journalist for many decades. He had started his career under Nikki’s grandfather and gone on to win numerous awards. “Sam Hill? He’d retired ages ago.”

  “Because your father had left him no choice.” Kathleen looked over at her. “It was retire or get fired. Sam didn’t want to retire, but if he hadn’t then his career would have been over anyway.”

  “Sam Hill had been the face of WKPG News. What did he do? It had to be something huge to make Dad give him such an ultimatum.”

  “Sam had done a big investigative piece on drug gangs coming into Pine Grove,” her mother explained. “He claimed to have an anonymous source from inside the gangs, who was afraid for him and his family. They had recorded the interviews in silhouette. Something about the reporting got Ross suspicious. He went nosing around and questioned the crew that Sam had worked with on the story. They didn’t want to lose their jobs. They told your father everything. Sam had made everything up. It was all fiction. The informant was a paid actor.”

  “Oh, dear. If Dad had gone with the story and someone blew the whistle on it all being made up, WKPG’s reputation would have never recovered.”

  “Your dad had him dead to rights,” Kathleen said with a nod of her head. “He couldn’t go with the story, but he also didn’t want to publicly humiliate Sam by letting it get out what he had done. Ross ordered Sam to retire. If Sam had remained on the job, and word about what he had done leaked out among the other young journalists, then it would have sent the wrong message. By retiring, Sam could walk away with his head held high. No one would know—at least not from your father. If Sam refused to retire, your father would have to fire him. That would expose him, in which case, everyone would know that he was a phony.”

  “Sam chose to retire.”

  “But he was furious about it. He claimed your father blackmailed him.” Kathleen gazed at the picture of Ross and Sam, both clutching their broadcast awards. A pipe hung from Sam’s lips, his mouth stretched in a toothy grin. She uttered a sigh. “Ross kept his word. He preserved Sam’s reputation by telling no one the truth.”

  “To everyone who didn’t know the facts, it looked like Dad forced him to retire so that he could replace him with a younger anchor,” Nikki said. “I’ll bet many of Sam’s colleagues considered Dad a monster
for that.” She picked up the carafe, warmed her coffee, and then carried it to freshen her mother’s. “Well, Dad did make a good decision in hiring Wyatt, even though he had no formal education in broadcasting. He wouldn’t have worked his way up to general manager if he didn’t make good decisions.”

  “Wyatt always had a good head on his shoulders, except when it came to Suzanne,” Kathleen said while holding out her mug for the coffee. “Wyatt was never very good with women. He has to be in denial if he doesn’t realize that Suzanne used him to get on the anchor desk. Your father wanted a real journalist. The one he wanted to sign took a job with Lowell’s station in Pittsburgh. He wanted to look for someone else, but Wyatt was the producer for the six o’clock news and Suzanne had him wrapped around her little finger. She put pressure on him. He put pressure on your father, and eventually, Ross gave in.” She sighed. “He regretted it, too.”

  “Even back then she was a diva.”

  “Still is,” Kathleen said. “He was going to fire Suzanne. Even though they had a contract, he could still have fired her for cause, and he would have, too, if he hadn’t been killed.”

  Nikki sat up in her seat. “What was he going to fire her for?”

  “Picking a fight with Meredith Norris,” Kathleen said. “She was the station’s meteorologist back then. It was at Sam Hill’s retirement party at the country club of all places. I’ve never been very sure what the fight was about, except that Suzanne had started it. Meredith had only been with the station a few months, and she already had a following. Suzanne was always making little digs at her. Meredith was classy enough to turn the other cheek, but for some reason that night—” She shrugged her shoulders.”

  “How bad was it?” Nikki said.

  “A table filled with food got knocked over,” Kathleen said. “Someone, I think Art Lowell, called the police. There were journalists there from other news outlets. It was the talk of the town—not the type of talk your father liked. We’re supposed to write the news, not make it. Your father ordered Wyatt to take Suzanne home, and he went to work smoothing things over. He called in a lot of favors to keep it from making headlines.”

  “But Dad was killed before he could fire Suzanne.”

  “Suzanne’s contract is coming up for renewal. I didn’t renew it. My recommendation. It’s time for her to retire. She’s not worth the headache.”

  “So then you made the same mistake Dad did by signing Ashleigh Addison to the anchor desk because of your friendship with Camille,” Nikki said with a grin.

  “Yes,” Kathleen said with a heavy sigh. “It’s like she took lessons from Suzanne.”

  “Tomorrow, Ashleigh intends to break a huge story on the evening news. Conner told us that she had told him a long time ago that she had a lead in Dad’s murder case.”

  “I wouldn’t believe that,” Kathleen said. “For one, Ashleigh wouldn’t know what to do with a lead if it bit her in the butt.”

  “But I would.”

  “If you think Ashleigh had happened onto information that could solve your father’s murder, then ask her what it is.”

  “She’d never tell me,” Nikki said with a grumble. “She intends to keep it for her big breaking news exclusive.”

  Kathleen directed her blue eyes up at the ceiling. “That may be her intention, but there’s one person with the power to keep that exclusive from happening. Any producer worth their weight would never allow a news anchor to take to the air with an breaking news story without knowing what that story is.”

  “Exactly,” Nikki said with a gasp. “If Ashleigh wants to break her news story on the air, she’ll have to divulge her story to me—or I’ll kill it.”

  Chapter Four

  Ryan was helping his father plant mums around the gazebo when Daniel Van Metre made a surprise visit. Unaware of Lucy and Ethel eying him from the back porch, Elmo did his part in digging up the garden. The boxer dog had no idea that gardening could be so much fun.

  “Harrison, I thought you were retired.” Daniel tucked a thick folder under his arm.

  The older man’s muscles bulged under his sweaty t-shirt, which was smudged with potting soil. “Retired. Not dead. I had over forty employees working for me when I sold my construction company and I was out there at the job sites working right along with them. When you stop working you get soft. When you get soft, you die.”

  “Is Nikki here?” Daniel jumped back to dodge the flying earth.

  “She went out a bit ago,” Ryan said. “Elmo ditched her as soon as he saw that we were going to be digging in the dirt.”

  The retired sheriff shifted from one foot to the other. “I thought I’d bring over her dad’s case file. I’ve never discussed the details of the case with her. I thought that since she was in the biz …” He ran his thumb over the edge of the folder.

  Under Daniel’s gaze, Ryan was torn between helping his father in the garden and offering to go over the materials in the case file.

  Between the dirt that Elmo was spraying across the stone walkway and garden and Ryan’s anxious glances from Daniel to him, Harrison threw up his hands in defeat. “I’m not going to get any work done with you staring at each other. Go look over your nasty stuff … and take Elmo with you. I’ve got a dozen mums to plant and all I’ve got is one four foot deep hole to fill in.”

  “I was planning to break out the official case file down at the station tomorrow.” Ryan led Daniel up the stairs to his apartment.

  The minimally furnished living space consisted of a great room that included a u-shaped kitchen with a breakfast bar and a bedroom with one small bathroom. A computerized exercise machine occupied a corner with a view out a window. The space was littered with discarded clothes, books, plates, and hand weights, and other items. A clothes basket rested on the coffee table—evidence of an interruption while doing laundry.

  Daniel plopped down at the kitchen table. “We’ve been waiting twenty-three years for a break in this case.” He slapped opened the folder. “I made sure they did everything by the book when collecting evidence. So I know that every bit of evidence is still good to help us catch this guy.”

  “Now that Nikki isn’t here, you can tell me. Did you have any suspects?” Ryan took a bottle of water from the fridge.

  Sitting at his feet, Elmo, filthy from head to toe from his gardening, looked up at him to send a silent message. Message received, Ryan took a bowl from the cupboard, set it on the floor, and filled it with water from the bottle.

  “None that panned out.” Daniel spread out the forensics reports and crime scene pictures across the table. “Of course, you know, one of the first questions you ask friends, family, and co-workers is who do you think did it. If you’re lucky, everyone names the same guy and evidence points in his direction. That didn’t happen here.”

  Ryan sat across from him. “Dad and Kathleen have been married for twenty years. She’s said nothing to indicate that her and Ross were anything but happy.” He took the forensics report and noted that the lead crime scene investigator had been his late predecessor. “I’d think if Ross was a cheat that she’d have said something by now.”

  Daniel agreed. “He wasn’t. So we can eliminate jealous lovers or their spouses.”

  “Yeah, but nobody ever knows what is really happening behind the scenes.”

  Behind Ryan’s back, Elmo trotted past with a pair of royal blue boxers in his mouth. The dog carried them to the coffee table. He dropped the shorts into the laundry basket. He then picked up one discarded slipper from under the table and placed that in the basket with the shorts.

  Unaware of the clean-up going on behind him, Ryan studied the pathology report. “Body temperature was ninety-four-point-two. Who was the last one to see him alive?” He laid down the report and picked up one of the crime scene pictures. It was of Ross Bryant slumped in his chair behind his desk with a pair of scissors sticking out of the l
eft side of his chest.

  “His administrative assistant Debra Gregory. She was working right outside his office—all afternoon—until Ross sent her to the mailroom. She had no motive to do it.”

  “Lucky killer.” Ryan laid down the picture of the scene. “The killer struck while she was away from her desk, so she couldn’t identify him. Either that or lucky Debra. If she had been at her desk, the murderer may have snuffed her out, too.”

  “I’m thinking the killer was watching, but I haven’t been able to figure out how he could have seen her step away. In order to get to Ross’s office, the murderer had to go through the main reception area on the ground floor, take the elevator to the third floor—

  “Or the stairs,” Ryan said.

  “The receptionist on the main floor and the rest of the station’s employees would have noticed someone they didn’t know—especially after the murder had been discovered. As soon as Debra sounded the alarm, the building went on lock-down. No one got out without the station’s security knowing about it.”

  “Unless the murderer was someone on the inside and they never left,” Ryan said. “How certain is Debra that it was Ross who’d called to send her to the mailroom?”

  “Like maybe the killer had called to lure her away from her desk so that he could commit murder? The call came in on the intercom. She’d worked with Ross for years. She knew his voice.”

  Ryan studied the array of photographs. The crime scene team had taken pictures of the office where Ross’s body had been discovered from every angle. They had even photographed the cabinet and bookcases that lined the wall across from his desk. The doors to the cabinet containing the entertainment center were open to reveal the television and video player, which were powered off.

  “You’ve completely eliminated Art Lowell as being behind it?”

  “He had an airtight alibi,” Daniel said. “Besides, this doesn’t look like a professional hit.”