Second Chance at Life

by Joanna Campbell Slan

  I had moved on to my next step, reconciling sold articles with the remainder of our inventory, when I heard a tap-tap-tap at the back door.

  “Someone has forgotten a key,” I said to Jack. He was a bit miffed about being disturbed from his nap.

  Adrian Green was standing on my back stoop. In one hand was a bouquet of carnations and daisies. The vibrant colors were unlike anything that occurred in nature.

  “How nice!” I said and hurried to put them in water. Instantly, dye began leaking from the stems. I hate it when they add artificial color to flowers. Or to food. The falsehood outweighs any possible benefit. I prefer the imperfection of reality to the gloss of fakeness. However, I remembered my manners and thanked Adrian profusely.

  “Couldn’t make it yesterday to your big event. I flew in from New York City late last night,” he said, pulling up a seat at the table and taking off his bike helmet. His hair had been mashed flat. It gave him a rakish look. “Terribly, terribly busy with meetings. Important people. Devastated by the news about Kathy. Horrified.”

  Oddly, he didn’t look as upset as he sounded.

  “Please accept our sympathies,” I said. “All of us were impressed by Kathy. I instructed my staff to wear black ribbons as a token of our respect.”

  “Yes. A tragedy,” he said. “Nothing can be done. Onward and upward.”

  How heartless of him!

  “New York City,” I said. “Wow. So much fun.”

  “Would have been, except that I was there on business. Finalizing details of a large publishing contact. Rather hectic. Racing here and there. Talking to top level executives. Tiring, actually. But one does what one must.”

  “Have they made any progress in finding Kathy’s killer?” I asked.

  “None that I know of.” Adrian sighed. “Although one does not expect much from a bunch of dogsbodies like these local coppers. Not a professional in the bunch, I dare say.”

  “Dogsbodies?”

  “Sorry. A term with origins in the British navy. A dogsbody is a lackey. A minor player. No one important or keen on his job.”

  I wasn’t sure that this applied to Lou Murray, but this wasn’t the time to debate Lou’s ability.

  “Can I offer you a cup of coffee or tea?”

  “A coffee would be lovely, thanks. I trust the VIP event went swimmingly?” He took off his glasses and dried them on the paper napkin I set out for him.

  “Yes, thanks in large part to the Shoreline News.”

  “Glad to be of help.” He loaded his cup with sugar and cream. Stirring it sloppily, he gulped it down. “Which brings me to the reason for my visit. I know that Kathy bought that photo from you. She intended it as a gift for her dear old mum. One hates to think that her mother won’t be receiving her present. But it appears that the photo has disappeared. Scarpered away. I was wondering if you have a copy. One I could give dear old mum at the funeral? For her daughter’s sake?”

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “That was a one of a kind item.”

  “No other copies? Or other photos of the same people? Same setting?”

  “None.”

  “I was afraid of that,” said Adrian, as he let his spoon clatter into his empty cup. “Thought that might be the case. Too right by half.”

  He pushed his chair away. I caught a sniff of his designer cologne. Pine and metallic high notes. Edgy and fresh.

  “Very well. I must get going. Looks like the rain is going to start up again,” and he paused long enough to take my hand. “Cara, what a delight it has been to spend time with you. I was wondering—hoping, actually—that you might agree to come to dinner with me? Next week perhaps?”

  This came as a surprise. I recovered myself in time to say, “I’d like that.”

  We walked to the back door. In his biking shorts and jersey, Adrian was the picture of lean fitness. His build reminded me of Lance Armstrong. There was not an ounce of fat on him anywhere.

  He must have noticed that I was staring, because he smirked at me. “Right. We shall start with dinner and see where it goes.”

  Leaning in, he planted a quick kiss on my cheek.

  CHAPTER 37

  The Shoreline News in downtown Stuart, FL

  ~Lou~

  The sky had darkened. To the south, black clouds churned overhead. Rain had started, stopped, and was coming again. The air crackled with electricity.

  Lou was waiting outside of the newspaper office when Adrian Green rode up on his bicycle, a Raleigh Record with chipped blue paint. Lou recognized the editor from a photo that Ollie had pulled up online. Adrian was medium-height, lean, and could have posed as an illustration in the Wikipedia listing for “metro-sexual,” considering his carefully cut hairstyle and designer glasses. The tight biking shorts and jersey left little to the imagination.

  “Adrian Green? I’m Detective Lou Murray. We need to talk,” Lou said, flipping open his badge.

  "I have a phone appointment. Let me look at my diary and call you next week.” Adrian’s eyes were beady as a ferret’s. Turning his back on Lou, he wound a metal cable through both tires before hooking them with a combination lock. The scent of expensive men’s cologne trailed after the editor, as if he’d bathed in it. His accent reminded Lou of Harry Potter.

  “Cocky little twerp,” said Showalter.

  “This can’t wait. One of your employees has died."

  “Yes, I heard about Kathy. Pity, isn’t it? The murder rate in this country is appalling. Gun violence runs rampant, and you don’t do anything to stop it! But that is neither here nor there. Kathy’s death has nothing to do with me or our paper.” Despite the bravado in his voice, Adrian mopped his forehead with the sleeve of his jersey.

  “Really? You know that to be a fact?” asked Lou.

  “Certainly.” Adrian adjusted his tortoiseshell glasses. “She lived in a bad part of town. Cheap apartment. Things happen.”

  “She didn’t die in her apartment. We found her stuffed into the trunk of her car. ”

  “My word.” Adrian Green turned the color of his name. Sweat beads dotted his forehead. “The devil you say. No, can’t be. You’ve got it wrong. You are winding me up, aren’t you?”

  His surprise seemed genuine.

  “Let’s go inside and talk,” said Lou, jerking his head toward the building.

  “Sorry. It will have to wait. I simply must make a phone call.” Adrian’s hands shook as he removed his bike helmet.

  “I don’t think so. Either we go inside or I take you down to the police station.” Lou reached out and grabbed the smaller man by the collar. “You choose.”

  “All right! Stop it!”

  Lou let go, but Adrian still glared at him.

  “Make him nervous. See what you can get from him,” suggested Showalter.

  So Lou crowded Adrian’s personal space. His ploy worked. It took Adrian several tries to key the outside door. As he led the way down the hall, his hands trembled at his sides.

  Office spaces branched off of a common tiled passage. Adrian walked all the way to the end, which was designated as a suite. As Lou had hoped, they were the first to arrive. Four desks set parallel to the door and at right angles to a half wall of fabric. Each cubicle held a computer and chair. Most occupants had chosen to use the fabric barrier as a bulletin board. A sign hung over the area: Advertising.

  Behind the advertising cubicles stood another wall, this one floor to ceiling, and four more cubicles with computers, chairs, and shelving. The items on the desks and pinned to the walls suggested that these spaces belonged to reporters.

  “You have your own office?” Lou asked.

  Adrian gestured toward a space with its own door. This he unlocked and entered. At first glance, Lou thought it held a nice walnut desk. But on closer inspection, the piece was made of cheap particle board, as were the bookshelves on the opposite wall.

  “Appearing successful means everything to this twerp,” said Showalter. “Give me a battered desk of real wood any day over
this cheap claptrap.”

  Adrian shrugged off his jacket, hung it neatly on a wooden hanger with Hilton branded on the side. Taking his chair behind the desk, he squared his shoulders, as though the chintzy setting had somehow bestowed authority on him.

  “Do I need an attorney?” asked Adrian.

  “We’re just having a friendly chat,” Lou replied, as he pulled up one of two chairs facing the man’s desk. “Where were you last Wednesday night?”

  “New York City.”

  “Can anyone verify this?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “I’ll need names and numbers. I want you to account for all of your time from when you left town to now. Why didn’t you answer your cell phone?”

  Green kept his expression neutral. “There was no reason for anyone from here to contact me. I was on my own time, transacting business that didn’t concern the Shoreline News.”

  “Is that why you ignored my messages?”

  “I didn’t get the chance to return your calls. My time was completely taken up with important meetings. Besides, there was nothing I could do for the girl, and since she was already dead, the matter could wait. I hate to sound cold, but as I said earlier, Kathy lived in a rough part of town. She ran with the sort of crowd that often runs into a spot of bother. Actually, I wasn’t at all surprised to hear that she met an early end.”

  “You sure don’t sound very sorry she’s gone.”

  “I was taught to keep a stiff upper lip and all that rot,” said Adrian. “Look. Of course, I am sorry she’s dead. She was a part of our team, but she was only a minor player and a freelancer. I had very limited contact with her, other than assigning and approving her work.”

  “None of your staff were concerned when they found out that Kathy was dead?”

  “Yes, of course they were. But what could I do about it? Nothing. I was on my own time and my own dime up in New York. I purely and simply didn’t need to be distracted by her…by the bad news. I assured the staff that we’d talk upon my return.”

  “What a crock,” said Showalter. “Doesn’t he have one drop of human compassion?”

  Lou forced himself to stay focused. “When was the last time you saw Kathy?”

  “Monday night after the event at that store, The Treasure Chest. We both attended. I came back early because I had a lot to do before leaving for New York. She showed up later, nearly missing her deadline, although she did manage to file her story. I found a few holes that needed plugging. I decided to call Ms. Delgatto myself rather than allow Kathy to waste more of my precious time. She probably would have gotten it wrong anyway.”

  “Are you always so dissatisfied with your employees’ work?”

  “Kathy was a stringer. A freelance journalist. She wasn’t good enough for us to hire as a regular employee. So the answer is yes. In her case at least. I couldn’t always trust her to get things right. She tended to be sloppy.” Green’s voice gained power as he got over his initial surprise. His nervousness had given way to what Lou assumed was his natural demeanor, one of arrogance.

  “So Kathy Simmons filed this story, you talked to Cara Mia Delgatto, and then what?”

  “It was raining hard by then. Kathy offered me a ride to my apartment. I said I’d spring for dinner as a gesture of thanks. We got our food, and she asked me to drive. Said she hated driving in the rain. In fact, she would whinge about it all the time.”

  “Whinge?”

  “You call it whining, we call it whinging. As one might imagine, since I’m from the UK, I’m accustomed to driving in the rain. So I agreed to take over behind the wheel. We exchanged spots at Wendy’s, I headed the car toward my place, and then she asked for yet another favor.”

  “What was it?”

  “She wanted a fag.”

  Lou nearly fell off his chair. “A what?”

  “Fag. Cigarette. Kathy was a secret smoker. Didn’t want her roommate to know.”

  Lou recovered his composure, just barely. “So you stopped to buy cigarettes?”

  “Yes, but she was so paranoid about her roommate finding out about her habit that she refused to buy them here in Stuart. Instead, she asked me to drive us to Hobe Sound. To the Winn-Dixie.”

  “Why?”

  “They would give her points toward discounts on fuel.”

  “You’re telling me you drove fourteen miles out of your way—seven there and seven back—so she could get a discount on her gas?”

  “Silly, wasn’t it? I agree. But she insisted. You know how capricious women can be.”

  “What happened next?”

  “By then it was coming down hard, so I ran inside the Winn-Dixie and bought the cigarettes for her. Then I drove us to my place. I thanked her for the ride. She drove away,” Green said, putting a finger to his mouth so he could chew on a hangnail. “Early Tuesday I flew up to New York. Took the six-thirty flight from West Palm Beach. Got back around ten last night. I can show you my Jet Blue boarding pass.”

  “Interesting,” said Showalter. “The crime scene techs didn’t find any cigarettes in the abandoned Toyota. No signs of anyone smoking in it.”

  “You have no idea what happened to Kathy Simmons,” said Lou.

  “I can't help you. I don't know who killed her. When I left Kathy on Monday night, she was perfectly fine."

  "Yeah, well, now she's not."

  CHAPTER 38

  “You didn’t happen to see an old black and white photo that Kathy Simmons had, did you? Three people in it? A young man and two boys?” Lou asked.

  Adrian Green sat slack-jawed at his desk. All the color drained from his face. “N-n-n-no.”

  “He’s lying,” said Showalter.

  “If it shows up, let me know. Meanwhile, I’m going to let Detective Anderson in. While I’m gone, you’re going to make a list of employees and their contact information for me.”

  Adrian nodded.

  “I also want a list of all the assignments you made to Kathy Simmons. Ever.”

  “I don’t know that I should give you that,” said Adrian, stiffly.

  “Somebody killed your reporter. What if this is about a story she wrote and they come after you next? You’re the editor? Your name is on the masthead.”

  Adrian’s lower lip trembled. “Since you insist.”

  “I do insist,” said Lou.

  Ollie was waiting on the sidewalk outside the building. He was holding a big black umbrella over his head. The rain was coming down hard. Lou motioned Ollie into the small vestibule between the outside doors and the inside ones. There Ollie shook off his umbrella and listened to what Lou had learned from Adrian Green.

  “Two employees should be arriving any minute,” said Ollie. “That’s what the secretary told me. I’ll see what I can find on the computer and then interview them.”

  “Good,” said Lou. “That’ll give me time to worry Mr. Green.”

  When they returned, the editor was shuffling papers on his desk. There were no signs of the lists that Lou had requested.

  "Mr. Green, this is Detective Anderson. He will need access to the computer and the files that Kathy used."

  “B-b-but we're protected by the First Amendment," said Adrian. “You can search her desk, but I can't let you see any of our computers. We have customer information and background on stories."

  "Solicitations to commit crimes and incitement to imminent lawless action are not covered by the First Amendment," said Lou, who'd learned the fine art of spouting nonsense from Showalter. The trick was to throw in enough jargon to convince the listener that you had legal expertise. Lou had even seen it work on attorneys. Of course, an unflinching delivery helped.

  "We have a duty to protect our sources," said Adrian. Lou stared at the man and frowned. Adrian’s carefully gelled spikes of hair were probably fashionable, but to Lou, they looked like dead trees in the Jonathan Dickinson State Park after a controlled burn.

  “Protect away, but if you deny me access, and we have to drag this out, how
can I help you if the killer hunts you down? Let’s be honest,” said Lou. "The Shoreline News is not exactly a hard-hitting news gathering organization."

  Adrian pouted. "I don’t care what you think of our paper or our standards. I am a professional journalist.”

  “How would you like to become a dead professional journalism with high standards?”

  “All right,” said Adrian, wiping his brow. “I see your point.”

  CHAPTER 38

  “Which one of these computers did Kathy use?” Lou asked the editor.

  “Third from the right,” said Adrian. “That’s the one and only machine she had access to. Not that you’ll find much. She took notes by hand and typed up her assignments there.”

  While Ollie started up the computer, Lou told Adrian, “I still need that list of your employees and their contact details. Also the list of assignments you made to Kathy.”

  “But I would be violating my employees’ privacy if I gave out their phone numbers,” said Adrian. “You can talk to the ones who come in today, but I must insist on protecting the privacy of the others.”

  He pronounced “privacy” as “privv-a-cee” in a hoity-toity manner that ticked Lou off.

  “What if one of your employees is our killer?” asked Lou.

  “Oh, my!” said Adrian. “Hang on.”

  He leaned over a computer and booted it up. In short order, the printer hummed to life, dropping papers into the tray. First came the roster of employees. Next the machine spit out a list of meetings.

  Not much to go on. In fact, it was bupkis.

  “Kathy begged to be put on the chicken dinner circuit,” said Adrian. “That’s journalistic jargon for any event where they served food. She was having a difficult time making ends meet. I gave her assignments where she could also get a decent meal. Did it out of the kindness of my heart.”