Front Page Fatality Read online

“Well, if you’re in town, and you can, maybe you cook for him sometimes,” she said. “If he keeps eating that much junk, he’ll end up right back here, and we don’t want that. He seems like a nice man, but I’d rather not see him again.”

  I thanked her and she flipped his chart closed and nodded. “I’m sure I’ll see you around. Just have them page me if you have any questions.”

  I peeked into the room when she walked away and found it dark, my boss snoring again. Slipping my Manolos off, I tiptoed to the chair and picked up my laptop and my bag, then snuck back out. I’d just pulled the door closed and put my shoes back on when my stomach made one of the rudest noises I’d ever heard.

  My nose wrinkled at the prospect of hospital cafeteria food, but I decided there had to be something prepackaged I could scarf down before I finished my story. I turned, intending to ask someone at the nurse’s station how to get to the cafeteria, but my eyes locked on a still figure maybe twenty yards down the hallway.

  Hunger forgotten, I stared at the same teenager I had seen outside. Because he was staring at me. Again.

  Taking in the dingy jeans, over-washed wifebeater, and backwards Generals cap, I stood up straight and started walking, the click of my shoes on the tile echoing in the quiet corridor.

  “Hi,” I said when I reached Mr. Sullen Stare, extending my hand and smiling. “I’m Nichelle.”

  “You work at the newspaper.” His voice was flat, his baby face made older by the somber expression and serious brown eyes.

  I blanched, surprised he knew that. “I do. Have we met?”

  “No, but I heard you give your name to someone when you were talking on the phone outside, and I remember it because you wrote that story about my brother,” he said. “Darryl. Somebody shot him. And it wasn’t a random gangbanger like the cops want folks to think. Darryl knew something he wasn’t supposed to know.”

  8.

  Rabbit holes

  Darryl Wright’s little brother scuffed the toe of his worn sneaker over the marble floor in the waiting room, tracing the outline of the diamond-shaped inlay and staring past me at the coral-colored blooms on the azalea outside the picture window.

  “Troy?” I leaned forward in my dusty blue armchair. “Do you want to tell me what you think happened to your brother?”

  He nodded, and when he raised his head I saw tears in his eyes.

  “His friend Noah was bad news. That’s what happened to him. They worked for the same pusher. They knew something. Darryl said he had a big payday coming and Noah was helping him with it. And now they’re both dead.”

  I inhaled sharply at the mention of the first victim, but I stayed quiet.

  “I didn’t pay any attention to him,” Troy said, his voice dropping. “To be really honest, I was embarrassed I had a brother who was dealing, you know? I’m trying so hard to get a scholarship for college, and there’s Darryl, looking for the easy way out of everything. Sitting on his butt waiting for the junkies to roll up. He liked to talk big, so when he started jawing about all this money he was getting because of some big secret he and Noah knew, I just blew it off. But it looks like he was telling the truth.”

  The borders on the puzzle in my head shifted to make room for the new pieces.

  “You know he didn’t even take drugs?”

  “Isn’t that unusual for a drug dealer?” I asked.

  “Yeah.” Troy sighed. “But that was Darryl. He didn’t mind taking the money from the junkies, but he said the stuff did bad things to people. He saw it with the addicts he sold to. So he didn’t ever get into it.”

  “And the other victim, Noah?” I asked. “How did Darryl know him?”

  “I’m not sure. That guy moved up here from Florida about six or seven years ago, I guess. I don’t remember how they met, I just remember him being around. I was in elementary school the first time I remember him being at our house.

  “He was into drugs, and he thought it was really funny Darryl sold them when he didn’t use them. He was always telling Darryl he sold more because he had more faith in his product. Then he got busted, and it was only a few weeks after that that Darryl got busted, too. They both ended up in the same prison, and then they got out within a few months of each other, too.

  “It was like this guy Noah was Darryl’s personal bad luck.” His fingers flew to a gold cross that hung from a thick chain around his neck. “I won’t ever know if my brother would have had a decent life if Noah hadn’t been there. I’m not sorry he’s dead.”

  Troy’s chin dropped to his chest and the tears made little wet spots on his jeans as they fell. They came faster for a few minutes, and I sat with him as he grieved. When he looked up, he drug the back of his hand across his face and took a deep, slow breath.

  “Anyway, do you think there will be anything else in the paper about Darryl?”

  “Yes, Troy, I do.” I looked straight into his earnest eyes. “This story keeps getting curiouser, and I’m not about to let it go. I appreciate you talking to me. If I need to talk to you again, or if my guys at the police department have any questions for you, how do we get in touch with you?”

  Troy jotted his phone number on the back of an old receipt he pulled out of his pocket and handed it to me. The vulnerability in his eyes when they met mine hadn’t been there before, and it tugged at my heart.

  “I miss him,” he said. “I didn’t know I would, but I do.”

  I patted his hand.

  “I’m not a cop, Troy, but it seems to me like there’s a lot more to what happened to your brother than anyone’s saying. Let me nose around and see what I can find out.”

  He nodded and excused himself to check on the friend he’d brought in with a broken ankle. I settled back in the chair and pulled out my laptop, my quest for food lost in the abyss of weirdness that had invaded my world since Friday.

  The dealers had been friends. And not just any friends, but conspirator friends. I drew a blank when I tried to figure why their pusher would’ve left the drugs and money, though. A drug pusher would know the cops would confiscate that stuff.

  Unless the pusher knew he’d get it back.

  Oh, shit.

  My little puzzle was suddenly a lot more interesting.

  I dug out Mike’s file on the missing evidence and scanned the sign-in sheet a fifth time.

  Just cops. And Gavin Neal.

  DonnaJo sounded pretty sure her friend Neal was innocent. Just like Mike sounded sure the cops he worked with couldn’t be crooks. Everyone was a good guy, yet it looked more and more like someone was in bed with a drug pusher. Curiouser and curiouser indeed.

  The clock caught my eye, and I grabbed for my notebook. I had a story to get out, and if Les Simpson was pinch hitting for Bob, I’d better not be late. Crooked cops and shady lawyers would just have to wait.

  I flipped through my notes for the quotes I wanted as I added the rest of the information about the internal affairs investigation and the vanished prosecutor, throwing in Aaron’s confirmation of Neal’s disappearance.

  I leaned my head back after I sent my story to Les, closing my eyes and letting my mind meander through everything that had happened since that morning. Bob, Mike, Parker, Aaron, and Troy whirled on the backs of my eyelids as if riding a souped-up carousel. I listened to the whisper of the doors sliding next to me as people came and went, punctuated by the occasional siren from the ambulance bay. It was nice to just sit still.

  I jerked myself awake, disoriented as I rubbed my eyes with my fists and looked for a clock. Whoever decided twenty minutes of sleep was a “power nap” must’ve been recharging a pretty dim bulb, but it would have to do.

  I found my phone and called Les to make sure he had my story.

  “I wish you could’ve cited your source on the evidence thing. I haven’t seen it anywhere else, and it’d be nice to have it from someone credible,” he said. “And that bit about the lawyer was interesting, but kind of thin. I got a green light from legal, but I didn’t see where y
ou mentioned the family refused to comment. You did call his wife, didn’t you?”

  Wow. Les was usually hard to impress, but I figured the exclusive would make him happy since the paper’s bottom line was his chief concern.

  “First, my source is quite credible, I assure you. Second, I didn’t see the point in calling his wife.” I clenched the phone too hard and tried to keep the frustration out of my tone. I’m not sure I did a very good job. “If she knew where he was, wouldn’t she have told the police?”

  “If he’s really the prime suspect in a robbery of the police department, do you think the police are going to be completely honest with you?”

  I opened my mouth to fire back a reply and instead just sat there, realizing I didn’t have a quippy answer for him. To tell the truth, I hadn’t considered the possibility of anyone outright lying to me. I knew how to dig information out of the PD better than anyone in town, except sometimes Charlie, but Les was right. I assumed they told me the truth.

  “I’ve worked with some of these guys for better than twenty years, and now I’m looking at everyone like they’re a suspect,” Mike had said.

  What if he was right?

  Shit, shit, shit.

  “You know what, Les? I didn’t think about it that way,” I tugged at a strand of hair. Missing something on Bob’s watch was bad enough, but at least Bob forgives the mistake so long as you learn from it. “You’re right. This isn’t exactly a typical burglary. Let me see if I can get ahold of her.”

  “You do that,” he said. “For tomorrow.”

  “But— ”

  He cut the objection off before I even got going.

  “But nothing. It’s almost six o’clock, the front is already down in the pressroom, and I’m not spending tens of thousands of dollars we don’t have because you fucked up, Clarke. Do it better tomorrow.”

  The clatter in my ear as he slammed down the phone told me he was done talking to me.

  “Well, you have yourself a nice evening, too, jackass.” I muttered, dropping the phone back into my bag. Dammit.

  I found no trace of Bob in the room where I’d left him, but a nurse with too-bright lipstick and a severe blond bun scrawled the number of his room in the cardiac unit on a purple post-it and pointed me to the elevators.

  I heard the familiar arguing voices from CNN and scattered laughter from the hallway as I approached the open door to room three-two-three.

  “I’m sorry, I thought I was in the cardiac ward,” I teased as I peeked around the corner, “not the newsroom.”

  My grin widened when I saw Bob sitting up in the bed eating dinner, surrounded by half of our editorial staff. “You look like that nap did you a world of good.”

  He nodded, smiling back at me and looking much more like himself than I had seen him look all day.

  “I think the drugs helped a little, too,” he said, and my smile widened. Yep. He was going to be fine.

  I leaned against the wall next to the door and sighed.

  “I heard you found him.” Parker separated himself from the crowd and gave me a worried once-over, running a hand through his hair. “I wish I’d been there. What happened?”

  I recounted the story for the third time.

  “Damn.” He leaned a shoulder on the open door next to me, throwing an affectionate smile at Bob. “My dad had a heart attack three years ago. I’m glad you went in when you did. He looks great, all things considered, and this is the best cardiac unit in Virginia.”

  “The doctor said he should make a full recovery.” I smiled. “Thank God. It scared the hell out of me. He’s going to have to change his diet, but he can do that.”

  “If my dad can learn to like vegetables, anyone can.” Parker grinned and stuck his hands in his pockets before his eyes went skipping between the people and the monitors. “What did you need to talk to him about it the middle of the morning, anyway? You didn’t show for the staff meeting today.”

  “A story.” I stepped to one side as the nurse poked her head in and shot the crowd of well-wishers the stink eye. “I had an interview that preempted the meeting. Though I wasn’t aware you were keeping tabs on my attendance.” I waved as people trickled out, leaving me, Parker, and Bob.

  Smiling at Bob, I dropped into a chair and cast a glance around what resembled a fairly-tastefully-decorated bedroom, with soft blue walls accented with handsome navy and emerald borders. The bed was one of those hospital numbers I’d seen on TV shows. The kind with a headboard and footboard that tries to impersonate a real bed.

  “You’re really not going to tell me what you’re working on?” Parker asked.

  Bob opened his mouth and I shot him a look that clearly said “shut up.”

  “You can read all about it in the morning,” I grinned at Parker. “And you don’t even have to cough up the seventy-five cents.”

  Bob did the chuckle/wince thing again.

  “I thought I said no more wisecracks.”

  “No wisecracks? Why don’t you take away her shoes while you’re at it, boss?” Parker shook his head, his eyes on me as he addressed Bob. “Good to have you talking to us again. You gave everyone a nice little jolt of adrenaline.”

  “Sorry.” Bob grinned. “No game tonight?”

  “Nope. I was at the ballpark trying to hunt up a story when all the excitement actually was in your office today. And you always say nothing newsworthy happens in there.” Parker glanced at the heavy, stainless Tag Heuer on his wrist. “I have to run, though. Rest. Feel better. We’ll miss you, but we’d like for you to, you know, not die.”

  Bob snorted. “Thanks.”

  Parker nodded as he backed out the door. “And holler if you need anything. I’m usually around somewhere, and I have certifiable experience. I made sure my mom got downtime when my dad was recovering.”

  Well, check you out, Captain Ego. I felt a grudging wave of respect for the second time since Friday as he disappeared with a wave. First he’d been gentle with Katie DeLuca down at the riverfront. Now Bob. I remembered the days after my mom’s mastectomy all too well. Caring for an ailing parent was a damned sight harder than chasing crime stories or interviewing ballplayers.

  Bob turned his attention to me. “I take it you got your story done?” he asked between bites of what appeared to be instant mashed potatoes.

  “I did. Les wasn’t happy with it, though. He’s sort of a prick, you know that? Get better.”

  Bob chuckled. “He means well. I like to think, at least. He is completely unforgiving with the budget, though, and he doesn’t miss much. What’d you do?”

  “What’d I fail to do, actually. I didn’t call the lawyer’s wife.”

  “You trust your cops.”

  “And you think I shouldn’t, either?” Damn. If they both thought I should’ve called her, then Charlie might have actually done it, if she knew Neal was missing. I reminded myself she hadn’t called Aaron about it, and hoped she didn’t have another source on the force. I’d seen nothing on the station’s website at five-thirty, but there was always a chance they could be holding it for the eleven.

  Bob shrugged. “Most of the time? I think you’re okay. It’s hard to cover a beat and not grow fond of the people, and I know you have your favorites down there. But on something like this, you have to question everything. No sense in losing sleep over it, but get it tomorrow.”

  “Consider it done.”

  “Anything new?” He sipped milk out of a carton so small I wondered if they’d swiped it from an elementary school cafeteria.

  “Don’t you need to be eating more than that?”

  “This is what they brought.” He shrugged. “What else did you find out?”

  “Good stuff. Not on the lawyer, but on the drug dealer murders and the missing evidence. You’ll never believe who I happened across this afternoon.”

  I talked while he finished what passed for dinner. He murmured or looked surprised occasionally, but didn’t interrupt. When I sat back and sighed a few minut
es later, he stared at me for a long moment and then cleared his throat.

  “Damn, kiddo,” he said. “This really is like chasing the white rabbit down the hole, isn’t it? Things keep popping up, and one is more spectacular than the last. But you listen to an old man and take some advice. You’re getting into investigative territory, here. These are the stories that make careers, and the kind of thing that might get you noticed by the guys up at the Post.”

  My mouth popped into a little “o” at that and he smiled.

  “I might be old, but I’m still pretty sharp. I know that’s your brass ring, and I’m glad you want it. Makes you work harder. It’s my job to talk you into passing it by if the time comes—and that could be sooner than later if you’ve got something here. But I’d be an asshole if I didn’t warn you to watch yourself. Investigative reporting is a whole different beast. You’ll be in as much real danger as a cop working a case would be. Drug pushers, crooked cops. These are not people you want to piss off.”

  “I am careful. I promise. But you wouldn’t give that speech to one of the guys.” I hated being treated like I wasn’t as capable as a man, but it wasn’t worth arguing with him about. I like it when guys open doors for me and kill bugs so I don’t have to, and I figure the chivalrous impulse that makes them do those things also compels the good ones to be protective.

  “I’m a big girl. And you know all those meetings you bitch about me being late for? I take body combat four days a week. So maybe it’s them you should worry about.”

  “Judging from your stories, they have guns. And experience using them.” He leaned back against the pillows and I noticed his coloring had faded a bit. “But remind me not to piss you off.”

  I changed the subject. He had no business being preoccupied with dangers lurking in my story.

  “So, I was thinking today, after I met Troy,” I began, trying to sound flippant. “And no matter what happens with this case, I might do a feature story on his family. A sort of ‘growing up in the city’ piece.”

  Bob didn’t open his eyes as he shook his head. “A feature? Do you even remember how to write one?”