Front Page Fatality Read online

  “Why are they here?”

  “Something about the police vessel that was involved.” He sounded huffy. “Like they think we did something wrong. Not that they’ve turned up anything. Their official report won’t be ready for weeks, probably, but they’re sticking with the scenario I gave you last night. Man, those guys are a pain in the ass, but don’t you dare quote me on that!”

  “I wouldn’t.” I laughed. “But why don’t you tell me how you really feel, detective?”

  “You have no idea.”

  “Do you have an official statement on their involvement?”

  “You’d have to call their field office to get that. All I can tell you is they have people working at the scene.”

  “Is there any chance the driver of DeLuca’s boat was under the influence?”

  “Unfortunately, we won’t ever know that.” Aaron’s tone turned somber. “There wasn’t enough left of any of the victims to check.”

  I swallowed hard, closing my eyes. “Oh,” was all I said.

  “Anything else?” he asked.

  “I need the service records and background on the officers who were killed,” I said. “Also contact information for the next of kin, and who will tell me what they were doing out there.”

  “If you check your fax machine, you will find you already have what I can give you from their personnel files and the families’ contact information,” he said. “You’re welcome. And call Commander Owen Jones over at the river unit. When I talked to him this morning, he was pretty shaken up, but he should be able to give you what you need.”

  “Thanks, Aaron. What would I do without you?”

  “Have a lot less fun at work? I hope you at least get tomorrow off.”

  “I may. You going fishing?”

  “Absolutely. I’ve had as much of this place as I can stand for one week.”

  I grabbed the faxes and dialed Commander Jones as I stared at the grainy photos of the dead officers, Alex Roberts and Brian Freeman. I wondered what they had been doing when the other boat hit them. Did they see it coming?

  I introduced myself when Jones picked up. “Is this a good time to ask you about the accident on the river last night?”

  “As good a time as any,” he said. “I think I’m going to be busy with this mess for a while.”

  “Let’s start with the obvious: what were they doing?”

  “That’s the first question I’ve gotten from everyone today, and it’s one I don’t have an answer for. I didn’t give those orders, so I don’t know.”

  “Oh.” I hadn’t seen that coming. “Where did their orders come from, then? Is there someone else I can talk to?”

  “I’m not really sure, to tell you the truth. I can’t find anything in the system about why they were out there. Orders for use of the aquatic fleet would go through me or someone above me. If it came from over my head, you need to talk to the big brass downtown, but I would be very surprised to find any of them in the office today, and I haven’t even had time to turn around twice because of all the media calls this morning.”

  Nothing like another story with more holes than the back nine at Jefferson Country Club. Especially when Bob was hanging around just to read my stuff. Dammit. I scribbled down Jones’ comments, such that they were.

  I asked Jones about date of the last fatality accident in his unit. He told me there hadn’t ever been another one, and the only other accident of any kind involving a police boat had been in 1967.

  “How long had Roberts and Freeman been with your unit?” I asked.

  “They weren’t part of my unit, strictly speaking. They both went through the training for this unit, but neither requested a transfer over here. I can’t tell you how much wish I had more answers, Miss Clarke, but I’m figuring this out as I go.”

  Thanking him, I tried to piece it together in my head as I put the phone down. What the hell? I stared at the photo of Jenna’s kids that sat on my desk without really seeing it. Did they take the boat for a joyride?

  With a new picture of the rookie cops out fishing, maybe even drinking, I reached for the phone again. Charlie hadn’t come anywhere close to that, but someone else—someone important—had to say it. How could I get ahold of the command staff on a Saturday?

  I drummed my fingers on the handset, one of the little pink message slips that covered the surface of my banged-up desk catching my eye.

  Yes!

  I dug first through the pile closest to me, then two others, before I hit pay dirt. Three weeks before, I’d interviewed the deputy chief of police about the success of the anti-bullying program he started in the city’s public schools. And he’d left me a message to call him. On his cell phone.

  That’d teach Bob to pick on me for having a desk that looked like an episode of Hoarders. If I succeeded in doing anything but pissing Dave Lowe off by calling him on a Saturday, of course.

  I turned back to the file Aaron had faxed me before I picked up the phone to call Lowe.

  According to their service records, Roberts and Freeman had been exemplary officers. No reprimands, no poor reviews, no trouble. Was it possible these two guys stole a city-owned boat?

  I grabbed a pen and settled the handset on my shoulder, determined to find out.

  Lowe sounded mildly irritated when I identified myself, but he didn’t hang up on me, so I plunged into my questions before he could think to. My sails depleted as quickly as they’d filled when he explained he wasn’t sure how much help he could be if I’d already talked to Jones.

  “Commander Jones said he hadn’t ordered the officers to be out on the boat,” I told him. “He also said any orders that didn’t come from him would have to come from a member of the command staff. Do you know who sent them out there and what they were supposed to be doing?”

  He was silent for so long, I wondered if he had hung up.

  I waited.

  Still nothing.

  “Chief, are you there?” I asked finally.

  “I’m here.” There was something in his tone I couldn’t read. “I’m not in Richmond at the moment, and I’ve mostly been following Channel Four’s coverage on my cell phone, to tell you the truth.”

  My jaw clenched so abruptly my teeth clacked. The deputy chief of police was getting his news about dead officers from Charlie? Ouch.

  “I assumed the orders had been given by Commander Jones,” he said slowly. “I can’t fathom who or what put those boys on the river if they weren’t doing something for Jones.”

  Scooping Charlie looked more improbable with each phone call, but the thought of Bob sending Shelby in as reinforcement was enough to make me nauseous, and I refused to let Parker best me on an accident story. I opened my mouth to thank Lowe and go back to the drawing board, but he spoke again before I could.

  “You know, Miss Clarke, I’ve been meaning to call and tell you how much I appreciated the piece you did on my program,” he said. “That project is very dear to my heart. I’ll tell you what, I’m going to make a couple of calls and see if I can figure out what the hell’s going on up there. If I hit on anything, I’ll give you a call back. What’s the best number to reach you?”

  The heavens might as well have opened to a choir of angels.

  I thanked him and cradled the phone in a daze. My weekend just kept getting more curious. First, it was matching drug dealer slayings that likely had nothing to do with fat stacks of drug money. Then, two dead cops on a boat they’d ostensibly had no reason to have out.

  I threw my pen down and stomped in the direction of the break room, mulling over the scant facts I had.

  “I thought you were out of here until Monday?” Eunice, our grandmotherly features editor, called from behind me.

  I turned, waiting for her to catch up. A helicopter crash in Iraq during the first Bush administration had left our former war correspondent with a bad hip, a new job at the features desk, and plenty of time for cooking.

  “I thought I was, too.” My eyes flicked to th
e clock between the elevators, which practically chuckled at me that it was five after one.

  “Unfortunately, tragedies don’t care about weekends.” I waved a hand toward the TV, where Charlie clucked about Nate DeLuca’s boat and its maximum speed capability “I was late this morning, and it’s already after one o’clock. I’m never going to make deadline. Especially without caffeine.”

  “You better grab some and get moving.” Eunice patted my shoulder and stepped into the elevator. “Good luck, sugar.”

  Walking back to my desk with a half-empty Coke bottle, I found renewed determination. There was someone, somewhere, who knew what the hell was going on. I just needed to find them. In the next two hours and ten minutes.

  “Damn.” My eyes fell on the pink message slip on my laptop. Of course, I’d missed the call from Lowe. Under it, I found a post-it from which I learned two things: the first was that Parker had God-awful handwriting, which I had to decipher to get to the second: he was back and would email me his story when it was done in case he had info I wanted.

  Well, at least he hadn’t screwed up. The Telegraph would have something on Sunday no one else did, and in the age of digital information, that was damned hard to do. But my ego was getting more bruised by the second.

  I snatched a blue Bic out of my pen cup and dialed Lowe.

  “I’m not sure how much good my gratitude is going to do you today,” he said. “I can’t find anyone who knows diddly about Roberts and Freeman being on that boat last night. But I can tell you I ordered internal affairs to open a file. No one knows that but myself and the captain I spoke to.”

  An internal affairs investigation? I could work with that.

  I scribbled. “What does that mean? Do you think they were joyriding?”

  Lowe’s voice made a low, rumbling sound through the phone, like a murmur or a fading cell signal, but then came through loud and clear again.

  “We’re looking at this case from every angle. The theory the officers took the boat without orders certainly is among the scenarios under review, but it’s not the only one. We’ll know more as the investigation progresses.”

  From doing me a favor to doubletalk in less than a minute. Welcome to covering cops.

  After we hung up, I dialed the next number on my list. I read Charlie’s stories on the Channel Four website and hummed along with two Aerosmith covers and a Rolling Stones song as I waited for the FBI agent assigned to avoid questions from the press. Experience told me this call was probably an exercise in futility. Special Agent Starnes said nothing to disprove my theory.

  “What I can tell you is limited by the constraints of an ongoing investigation.” Her words were clipped.

  Charlie had footage of FBI agents, logo caps and all, squatting and peering at blackened bits of something on the riverbank, but no quotes from anyone at the FBI, including Starnes. Which meant I was more determined than usual to get something I could use.

  “I understand that,” I said. “I also understand this is the first police boating accident in Richmond in more than forty years. Does the FBI always investigate water accidents involving police vessels?”

  “Not always.”

  “Then why this one?”

  “Miss Clarke, I really can’t discuss an ongoing investigation,” she said. “It’s bureau policy.”

  I sighed. Her wall was well-fortified against badgering, so hammering at it with quick questions was unlikely to produce the information doorway I needed.

  “Agent Starnes, I appreciate that. I know you’re just doing your job. I know the police detective who blew off the FBI’s involvement this morning is just doing his.” I didn’t think I threw Aaron too far under the bus, and I hoped the idea of the locals dismissing the feds might annoy her. “But I have a job to do, too. I have readers who want to know why these men are dead. Clearly you’re investigating for a reason. Give me something, anything. Why is the FBI involved?”

  She paused. “We got a tip.”

  I added another line of chicken scratch to my notes, hoping she might elaborate but knowing she probably wouldn’t.

  She didn’t.

  “A tip that there might be foul play? That the boat was stolen?”

  “That this might be…more than it seems.”

  “Have you found anything to support that?” I asked.

  “I’m sorry,” she said. “Ongoing investigation.”

  I wondered if there was a daily budget for frustrated sighs when another one escaped my chest as I laid the phone down, partly because her cryptic answers weren’t hugely helpful, and partly because it was time to call the families. Last on my list.

  Valerie Roberts sounded spent, her voice scratchy and hollow when she answered the phone. I stumbled over my words as I apologized for bothering her and asked if she felt like talking about her husband.

  There was a heavy, hitching sigh on the other end of the line. “Maybe,” she said. “I can try, I guess.”

  “Thank you. I won’t keep you long. How long were you and—” I glanced at the file again. “—Alex married?”

  “Two years.” Her voice broke. “We just started talking about trying to have a baby.”

  I bit my lip and forged ahead. “Your husband was with the police department a little under a year. Did he ever tell you why he wanted to be a police officer?”

  “He talked about it all the time. We dated for three years before we got married, and the whole time we were in college, all he could talk about was being a cop. He got his degree in criminal justice and he went straight to the academy after graduation. He wanted to help people. And he thought the guns were cool.” Her tone lightened as she told me about him.

  “I was nervous about him doing this for a living. I didn’t know if I would be able to handle him putting himself in danger every time he went to work. He reassured me constantly, and he showed me all his safety gear. I was always afraid he was going to get shot. Something like this never even crossed my mind.”

  The tears returned then, making her voice thick again. She took a deep breath before she continued. “Alex was a good man. Caring and thoughtful and generous, and honest to a fault. He was my soul mate. I truly believe that. He would have been an amazing father.”

  She dissolved into sobs at the last sentence, and I waited as she collected herself. I tried to think of something to say, but “I’m sorry” seemed woefully inadequate, so I stayed quiet.

  I asked her if there was a phone number where his parents could be reached, and she told me they both died in an accident when Alex was young. He’d been raised by his grandparents, who also died in recent years.

  “I see,” I said. “Just one more question. Did Alex mention anything about why he went out on the river last night?”

  “No. He said he had to go to work. Didn’t the department tell you what he was doing?”

  “They can’t find anyone who ordered the boat out last night. They’re investigating the possibility it was taken without orders.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath and when she spoke, her tone was a peculiar mix of incredulous and hurt. “Wait. They’re saying Alex and Brian were what? Fishing? Partying on the department’s boat?” There was a long pause, and I didn’t even chance breathing too loud.

  “Miss Clarke,” she finally said, her words deliberate. “My husband was not the kind of man who did anything even remotely against the rules. Alex was the straightest of straight arrows. Eagle Scout, honor society, the cleanest record in the department. I may not know why he was out on that boat last night, but I sure as hell know him. He did not take it without orders. If someone suggested he did, they’re lying. I’d stake my life on it.”

  5.

  Deep background

  There’s nothing more frustrating for a reporter than a heap of unanswered questions. Facing a blank computer screen with only a sketchy idea of what killed five people, each of whom had been the center of someone else’s universe, had me zipping past frustrated and aiming straight fo
r pissed off. Talking to Brian Freeman’s mother had only made me feel worse. She lost her husband in January, and Brian had been her only child.

  I slammed my hands down on my desk and jumped to my feet. What the hell was so hard about “Why was the boat out there?” I paced behind my cubicle as my mind tried to force this puzzle into some logical order. There were way too many holes to see a clear picture. I finally asked myself what I’d tell Jenna first. Which, of course, was what Charlie hadn’t already told the greater Richmond metro area. That worked, and I resumed my seat and quickly lost myself in the rhythm of the keystrokes.

  After receiving information regarding Friday night’s fatal boating crash on the James River, FBI agents joined Richmond police in combing the riverbank for clues Saturday.

  “We got a tip,” Special Agent Denise Starnes said Saturday, “that this might be more than it seems.”

  I quoted Lowe about the internal affairs investigation next, and wrote about the victims, including notes Parker emailed me about the pitcher, DeLuca, and his two friends. Describing the scene at the river, I used Aaron’s estimation of how the accident happened. I put the accident history for the unit I’d gotten from Jones toward the end, and finished with Valerie Roberts’ emotional assertion of her husband’s innocence.

  I added Parker’s name to the bottom of the article as a contributor and copied him when I emailed my story to Bob.

  While I waited for a reply from my boss, I skimmed through the twenty-seven emails in my inbox, saving three replies from defense attorneys about other cases I was following, and deleting the rest.

  Bob’s edits arrived as I finished reading the last junk press release. He asked me to clarify a couple of things and said he hadn’t heard about the FBI’s tip-off or the internal investigation. His equivalent of a thumbs-up, which was especially gratifying when a story had actually given me a headache. I fished two Advil out of my purse.

  I was halfway through my second Coke of the afternoon when Parker found me loitering in the break room. Once it was time to leave, I’d discovered I didn’t want to go home.