DRIVEN: A Rita Mars Thriller

by Webster, Valerie

  “Come again,” Lorretta said. “And if you see Hodge, tell him we’ve been expecting him for dinner.”

  Hodge was Loretta’s long deceased uncle and the former owner/occupant of Rita’s home. Loretta concluded every meeting with Rita with a request to be remembered to him.

  “I will certainly do that,” Rita said.

  When she walked through the back door into her kitchen, she shivered. She kept expecting to see the ghost of Hodge one of these days.

  Right now she didn’t want to see anyone, alive or dead. She craved sleep. The first day of November was near an end. The same sliver of moon that had hung over Harper’s Ferry on Sunday night now rose above the rolling hills. A fox barked from the line of locust trees that ran along the ridge above her back pasture.

  Rita locked the door behind her and trudged up the wooden stairway to her room. She stripped to nothing and snuggled under the down comforter on her king-size bed. She was going to sleep forever.

  She woke around midnight and threw on a sweatshirt, socks and a worn pair of sweatpants. Armed with a Coke and a slapped together cheese sandwich, she slipped into her home office.

  The office was small. On three walls were shelves of books. On the remaining wall was frame after frame of 5x7 photos of her favorite people. Her grandmother, Lily. Rita and her brother at the beach, governors, senators, law makers and law breakers. Two presidents and three Attorneys General. Her cocker spaniel, Huxley, friend and companion from fifth grade through freshman year at college. The gang from The Star at the Press Club Awards dinner, 1987—Bobby Ellis was in that picture. Her first lover, Tricia. There was a space where one frame had been recently removed.

  Rita sat and turned on her PC. She immediately launched into her search to track down the stories Bobby Ellis had written for the Montgomery Monitor. The first was about violation and circumvention of procurement regulations. Boring. Mundane. He was still rusty here. Nothing new. Nothing different. The second was about pollution credits. The writing was crisper, but she recognized it as rehash of alternative press reporting. She shook her head.

  “This is not what got you killed,” she said to herself.

  The third made her sit up and take notice. Bobby was into this story. It punched hard. It named names and catalogued a host of details that only an insider could know.

  “This is where you picked up your source.” Rita sat back in her chair.

  The story was about the senior senator from Pennsylvania. It clearly outlined with facts, the money and the gifts and the trips from pharma lobby and how it compromised the senator’s ability to render objectivity as chair of the committee advising oversight of the FDA.

  Britt Hillman was up for election this year. The vote was scheduled for Tuesday. Rita clicked into another data source. The usually unbeatable senator was sweating out a neck-and-neck race in the polls.

  “Did he kill you?” Rita took a swig of Coke. “Or did your source give you something too hot to handle by yourself?”

  Chapter 4

  The Star’s newsroom had once been the home of a secret society of crusaders. It was dim then and sectioned into a warren of small, private offices. The air was thick with the hint of power and the endless search for inconvenient truths secreted by the rich and infamous.

  Now it was a boiler room operation, lined row after row with long, open carrels. On every wall were huge monitors constantly streaming the news from channels around the world. There was a huge glass enclosed live shot arena for video interviews. It was open. It was bright lights, big city. It was not her newsroom any more.

  And yet every story written, those of the doomed and those of the chosen, the beautiful and the bad, they all still lived here. Rita quivered with that high voltage rush brought on by the thrill and threat of deadlines.

  Reflex, she said to herself. It’s only the vestige of seventeen years of memory.

  It was a quarter to four and the evening edition crew was on board. A few graying heads, but the rest looked like they should have been in high school. I can’t be this old, she thought to herself.

  Then she caught a glimpse of the person she was looking for. Huntley Shell sat at his computer where day and night news stories from across the universe appeared at the magical touch of a computer key.

  Shell was tall and lean with a movie star jaw and dirty blond hair. He was the kind of guy you saw on the golf course with an easy swing and casual saunter—country club pretty. His eyes were blue, evasive with a prurient glaze. He was not the guy you wanted on night watch if you slept in enemy territory; he’d sell you in an instant for a hot story byline. Huntley Shell was lead man on the White House beat.

  He looked up.

  Rita took a deep breath and approached him.

  “Hey, Rita. How’s the detective biz?” he asked.

  “You make it sound like Amway.”

  “I get an image from it, you know? Spying on errant husbands, sneaking around in rubber-soled shoes.”

  “Thanks for the vote of confidence.” Rita rolled her eyes, then plunked heavily into a nearby chair.

  “Hey, I’m only kidding.” Huntley pushed back from his desk to face Rita.

  “No, you’re not, but I don’t care. I came here for information.”

  “Ok, so what do you need?”

  “Bobby Ellis. I heard he was bucking to get back here.”

  “Avery would never have taken him back,” Huntley snorted. Bill Avery was The Star’s managing editor.

  “And why not?” Rita asked.

  “The man was a loser. He couldn’t write a bad check.”

  “According to who?” Rita snapped forward in her seat.

  “I’m telling you. Bobby was a used-up cokehead who’d been through the rehab mill and was pretending to get it together. You know how he got the job at the Montgomery Monitor —working for less than scale. He wrote a lot of schlock. Then he came up with that over-hyped series on government influence buying,” Huntley said.

  “He was a good reporter.” Rita could feel those nasty little furrows that scrunched between her eyebrows when she was mad. She massaged the bridge of her nose.

  “Well, the Monitor material was better than his last stuff here. I will give him that, but not—if you will forgive the term—star quality.” Huntley cocked his head at a snobbish angle.

  “Star quality?”

  “Come on. He was hacking at tired targets. You’ve got to get in tight with the big boys to make your name with a story.”

  “Damn it, Huntley. If you’re doing an investigative piece, the ‘big boys’ aren’t going to say diddly.” Rita propelled herself from the chair.

  “In this day and age, you’ve got to have high profile connections or you’re nowhere. This is the age of celebrity,” he said.

  “This is not the age of celebrity,” she said drawing herself up as tall as possible. “This is the age of proctology—which is why I left. I got tired of the view.”

  Huntley stared at her.

  Rita closed her eyes. “I didn’t come here to start a fight.”

  “I’m sorry. I know Bobby was a friend. I shouldn’t have called him a loser,” Huntley said. “But dammit, he pissed me off. He had it all. Besides his goddamned looks, he got the stories—the really good ones. Then one day he decided to suck his life up his nose.”

  “I don’t think one day he decided that.” Rita’s voice was soft and sad.

  “Well, it was a stupid move and it cost him everything,” Huntley said.

  “Yes, it did cost him everything.”

  Huntley Shell and Rita Mars looked away from one another.

  “So, what do you need?” Huntley said at last.

  Rita sat down. “What was going on with Bobby? Any rumors?”

  “I know he was trying to get back here. He called Avery once a week. The ‘influence’ series was supposed to be his ticket in. Avery liked the series, but didn’t promise anything. He wasn’t sure about the coke cure.”

  “He burned a
lot of bridges while he was snorting,” Rita said.

  “Damn right. I’m still surprised the Monitor picked him up.”

  “Anything else?”

  “Avery said Bobby told him that the last in the series was the best. It was going to blow the hinges off some very big doors,” Huntley said.

  “Did he say what it was about?”

  Huntley shook his head.

  How foreign this newsroom had become. A cough here or there, silent heads staring at flickering screens. The only sound was the tapping of keyboards and the occasional ding of the breakroom microwave.

  “Did any of Bobbie’s stories draw any flak?” Rita asked.

  “The fourth one—PAC money piece on Britt Hillman, the esteemed senator from Pennsylvania. Hillman got bent out of shape. Sent lots of letters. He and Bobby got into a shouting match at a press conference where Hillman denied the charges. I was there. Hillman gave Bobby a shove and said rumormongers like him should be shot. Bobby was in his glory, smiling—knew he’d drawn blood. He came up to me afterward and said he hoped he’d have a desk next to mine.” Huntley turned away from Rita. “I didn’t have much to say to him.”

  “Ok, so Hillman gets a knot in his knickers and mouths off. He pokes Bobby and lobs a cheap threat witnessed by a swarm of hungry reporters.”

  “Not exactly the performance of a hit man who means busi­ness,” Huntley said.

  “The story do much damage?”

  Huntley shrugged. “Who’s to say? Nothing seems to stop a longtime incumbent. Name recognition is everything.”

  “Yeah, put a face on TV enough and, bingo, sheep are gonna follow.” Rita nodded.

  “Other than that, I know nada.”

  Rita rose from her seat. “Thanks. I appreciate your help.” She shook Huntley’s hand.

  “I’ll keep my ears open. I hear anything, you’ll be the first to know,” he said.

  “Here’s my card.”

  Huntley stared at the card. “Rita, you were a damned good reporter. Come back.”

  “Got to do this, Huntley,” she said, “but thanks.”

  Rita stepped outside onto L Street again. The predawn air was chill and melded with the scent of gasoline exhaust and sewer fumes. The capitol dome gleamed as a beacon of order above a conflicted city. Sirens howled in pursuit while sodium street lamps poured golden light across dark alleys and heroic statues, people of power and people of poverty.

  Above Rita’s head the Star sign glowed like a Broadway marquee. There were so many stories. She had written some of them. She took a backward glance at the door she’d just closed and walked away from temptation.

  ♏

  It was just before six as Rita approached Baltimore from I-95. She decided that she would swing through Karin VanDreem’s neighborhood instead of heading for home. She wanted to familiarize herself with the territory in the dark as well as the day.

  Karin lived in Guilford. The community was characterized by huge old colonial and Victorian homes with expansive yards, well-tended gardens, thick stands of trees and shrubbery. As Rita thought about it, the place was perfect for predators with robbery in mind, easy cover for concealment and escape.

  Over the last ten years the surrounding neighborhoods had gone to seed. Guilford was an island bounded on all sides by areas of high crime and transient residents. Rita wondered why this woman stayed here at all. The aging fortresses seemed like bulwarks against the unthinkable, but these venerable addresses were frequent notes in the police blotter.

  Rita turned off St. Paul onto Stratford. The curbs were spotted here and there with Beemers and Mercedes and Volvo wagons, though all of the residents had garages and were off the street. At this hour most windows were dark.

  Karin VanDreem lived at the end on the corner of Stratford and Underwood. It was a big brick colonial with thick English boxwood hedges that ran the perimeter of a wide yard. Rita could see the front door plainly, but that was all. Two oaks deepened the darkness in front.

  Rita took a left on Underwood, drove down a block and turned around to scout the scene coming from the other direction. The house faced Stratford and doubling back this way gave her a better view of the east side of the house.

  Movement in the hedge. Imagination or real? Did someone step back through the boxwood from the street into Karin’s yard? Rita passed the front door once more. Nothing.

  But the action out of the corner of her eye demanded attention. She neared the next intersection, slowed, cut the Jeep’s lights and rolled to a stop. Now what, bright girl, she said to herself. She wasn’t carrying her weapon and she wasn’t about to stroll around a stalking victim’s back yard in the dead of night without some kind of protection.

  Rita looked in the glove box. No pepper spray. She thought of taking the jack handle under the back seat. Fat chance. By the time she dug that thing out the entire neighborhood would be on alert.

  The bat, of course. Through the summer Rita pitched in an “over the hill” softball league. She kept her glove, her cleats, and her good luck bat in the Jeep. She reached back and clasped its worn rubber grip, then snapped off the dome light so that opening her door wouldn’t draw attention.

  Her breath quickened as she slid quietly out of the driver’s side and left the door ajar in the interest of stealth. She had on a pair of Italian loafers. Not the best to run in, but what the hell, it beat six-inch heels. Too bad they made such a scratchy crunch on the sidewalk.

  As she walked, she hoped no overly alert homeowner would spy a woman walking down his street with a baseball bat in hand. She moved closer to the hedgerows and fences and out of the light from the street lamps. The remnants of wood smoke hung in the chill air.

  Rita halted at the entrance walk to Karin’s. She couldn’t see around or over the hedge so she stood still for a moment and listened. The morning was silent. Only her breathing made any sound.

  But as she crept toward the end of the hedge, she heard the snap of a stick. Someone was walking on the other side. Rita held her breath. Whoever it was stopped moving.

  Rita waited. Was it a footstep? But then, the soft swish of fabric on fabric. It was not imagination.

  Rita crept to the end of the hedge. The dark was almost impenetrable. Karin VanDreem’s house was between two streetlights, both blocked by trees still in full leaf, and the porch light was too weak to carry this far.

  Rita took a chance and thrust her head around the corner for a quick peak. The streetlight cast just enough light to make out a silhouette. He had his back to her, looking at the house. He carried something in his right hand, maybe a magnum flashlight.

  He was much taller than her, heavier, but that’s all she could determine. She had no idea if he had a gun. She slipped quickly around the hedge again when she heard another twig crack. He was walking, slowly, toward the back of her house. She had one way to make this work.

  Rita stole around the hedge to draw a bead on her target. Then she launched herself. Treading as lightly as possible, she sprinted to a spot at the man’s left elbow. There she planted her feet, cocked the bat, and swung away across the back of the man’s knees.

  He fell like a chain-sawed pine. Rita was on him immediately. She held his upper arms down with her legs and yanked the bat under this throat in a chokehold.

  “Who the hell are you?” Sweat trickled down her temple.

  “You broke my knees.”

  “You’ll recover. Now tell me who you are and what you’re doing here.”

  At this point, he started to twist from his hips to try and throw Rita off. She tightened the grip on the bat. He lay still again.

  “You don’t want to do that.”

  “I can’t breathe.” His voice was muffled.

  “Then tell me who you are.”

  “Guilford Community Security,” the man gasped. “The association hired us to patrol the area. Too many robberies.”

  “What were you doing sneaking around this house?”

  “I wasn’t sneaking. I saw
somebody and came to check it out. Hey, let up on this damned bat will you?”

  “Gun?” Rita asked.

  “Shoulder holster, left side.”

  He was correct.

  A light went on in an upstairs room of Karin Van Dreem’s house.

  “Radio?” Rita said.

  “Right hip. It’s a cell phone.”

  Rita reached back quickly, grabbed the phone and dialed 911.

  Robert Ruger was the security guard’s name. He had a bruise under his chin and one on his ego, but was otherwise healthy when the police arrived. The security company’s night manager pulled up shortly thereafter. He was as angry at Ruger as he was at Rita. She apologized, explained the situation, and promised she would notify the company if she did any more night surveillance. Karin, in a wine-colored robe, charged into the growing crowd in her yard to defend Rita. The police took a dim view, nevertheless, and muttered their usual comments about pulling Rita’s license.

  By now half of Karin VanDreem’s neighbors hung out of windows or walked out onto their sidewalks to check out the commotion. Police reassured them, shooed them back inside, and then took off into the rising sun. Robert Ruger left to nurse his wounded pride, and Karin invited Rita in for a cup of coffee.

  The warm yellow kitchen was homey and big, with utensils and appliances that Karin probably knew how to use. It smelled of homemade cookies. Karin set a mug of coffee and a plate of fresh chocolate chip cookies in front of Rita. She sat down beside her at the breakfast nook under a huge bay window. The first rays of morning spiked through.

  “Well, that was pretty interesting,” Karin’s eyes sparkled with excitement.

  “Yes, it isn’t every day that I get to capture a real live security guard.” Rita took another cookie.

  “But I’m glad you were here and observant enough to see that something was going on.” Karin’s robe gapped at her throat and plunged a V straight to her breasts.

  Rita turned away and stared hard at the cookie she was eating. “The one thing I’m concerned about is that he told me the reason he was wandering around in your yard is he saw someone here.”