Billboard Cop

by Lynde Lakes

  York forced himself to maintain unblinking eye contact with the chief. If he tried to deny that they’d made love he’d only add fuel to the fire. “Jen Lyman is the key to this case. Tie my hands and I’ll take leave and follow up on my own. I’m too close to breaking this wide open to get bogged down in department crap.”

  “The mayor’s spitting fire—”

  “I’ll bet. Especially since he may be in this up to his fat ass.”

  “Got proof?”

  “Let me do my job, and I’ll give it to you.”

  “Until you have something concrete, keep the mayor’s name out of it, hear?”

  Sharpe lowered his head an inch and glared at him. York felt like a matador about to be gored by a bull. His boss added, “You have seven days to clean up your act. In the meantime, keep that reporter out of your bed, and don’t let anything get into print until we’ve nailed this maniac.”

  ****

  Jen glanced toward the door at the husky, potato-nosed cop York had assigned to guard her in his absence. He tilted back in a chair. Hanging around this office watching her on a Sunday morning had to be boring. He smiled, and she returned the courtesy. Her fingers tapped a tattoo on the desk. Thank God this togetherness wouldn’t be for long. It was a bitter pill—the strangler roamed the streets free as a bird, and here she was a virtual prisoner. She pulled out the case file and, after typing up the information on the latest killing, she added it to the folder. She rubbed her arms. If only she knew the identity of this psycho.

  She’d been so scared last night. Then she forgot her fear in York’s arms. After spending the night, warm and cuddly with him curled around her, how could she ever go back to sleeping alone? Being with him had felt so right. Yet, if she hadn’t been brazen, last night probably wouldn’t have happened. York wanted her, but he wasn’t the one to push it. What did that say about her? It only proved to him that she wasn’t what he wanted in the long term. Nothing about her behavior had been old-fashioned. She hadn’t held back anything, recklessly showing her hunger for him. Why couldn’t she have been more demure like the domestic goddess he wanted? Not that he’d complained. Far from it. But York was the cop protecting her. When it was over, he’d be protecting someone else. He would move on, and even though it would tear her heart out, she would have to as well.

  York said he’d be back at 2:00 p.m. and they’d have a late lunch, then check out some leads together. What leads? Did it have something to do with the service station report?

  Maybe if she searched Gordon’s desk and his computer files again she could come up with leads of her own. Now was the perfect time. The building was almost deserted on Sundays. Her editor was probably cleaning out his garage like he’d been planning to do, and Dory and her husband Clark were driving up the coast to see his parents. Jen sighed. She could’ve had her own little get away if the killer hadn’t struck again.

  With the watchdog cop on her heels, she went to Gordon’s cubicle and turned on his computer. The cop paced the room. Jen shook her head. “You might as well get comfortable. I’ll be here a while.”

  He dropped into a chair near the door. This was horrible for both of them, but it couldn’t be helped. She flicked through Gordon’s computer directories, hoping something would catch her eye. Nothing did. Rifling his desk produced zilch as well. Maybe Connie...

  Jen called Connie at her home and told her about the latest killing. “Until now the victims were connected to the toxic waste story, or the strangler story,” Jen said. “But that woman last night—”

  “You think my boss had something to do with it, don’t you?” Connie asked.

  “It’s possible. A computer hacker named Joel claimed to have Sniffles’ journal, and he was ready to sell it to me. But he disappeared after meeting with a tall, redheaded man.”

  “Look,” Connie said, “if Tim’s guilty, boss or not, I’d be the first in line to throw rocks at him, but—”

  “If you doubt Tormont’s guilt, explain this: Sniffles said Greeks and garbage men made strange bedfellows.”

  “Pardon the pun,” Connie said, “but that’s all Greek to me.”

  Jen couldn’t even drum up a courtesy laugh. “Listen, you have to help me, here. I’m tired of coming close then hitting a blank wall. I know it’s reaching, but did Gordon keep a work diary or chronicle at his apartment?” Connie was his fiancé and should know.

  “He liked to keep everything with him in his briefcase,” she said.

  Jen knew he had a mini computer like hers in his briefcase. “What happened to the hand-held computer where he jotted memo entries?”

  “Cops said it wasn’t on him. Maybe the killer took it.”

  “If Gordon transferred the info daily into his office computer, I can’t find it. I tried the obvious, memo, calendar and so forth.” Jen doodled some spirals and spider webs on a note pad. “Any ideas?”

  “You need one of those computer geeks. If something’s there, they can dig it out.”

  Excitement danced on Jen’s nerve endings. “Hey, I know someone like that. I’ll call you if I come up with anything.”

  She hung up and redialed. Shelly Draker came on the line sounding breathless. Kids shrieked playfully in the background. When Jen told her what she needed, Shelly agreed to come down.

  While waiting for Shelly, she called York at the police department. He was still in a meeting and couldn’t be disturbed. Ted was in the same meeting. That only left her other cop friend. Jen lowered her voice so the guard by the door wouldn’t overhear who she was calling.

  “Like to help you, Jen,” her friend said, “but the chief’s muzzled everyone. Nothing to reporters, period.”

  Jen rubbed her aching head. “I just need to know what personal belongings were found on Gordon Michaels. What could that hurt?”

  “Try me when things cool off,” he said.

  Jen gritted her teeth. She wanted to slam down the phone, but reporters never burn their bridges. After hanging up, she gave Gordon’s frustration-mobile a big spin.

  The watchdog cop shifted in his chair. “Problems?”

  “Know anything about the Gordon Michaels case?”

  “Ouch. Been muzzled on that one. Sorry.”

  “Thanks, anyway.” For nothing. She paced a few steps. Was all this secrecy coming from the chief? Or did it come from higher up—like the mayor. He was good at manipulating and deceiving. Maybe he’d silenced the whole department. Was he capable of violence? Or ordering it? Damn. She had a tiger by the tail and couldn’t let go.

  Twenty minutes later, Shelly showed up carrying a black leather bag.

  “See you brought your doctor’s kit,” Jen said.

  Shelly laughed. “Yeah. Where’s the patient?” Looking like a teenager in jeans and T-shirt, no one would guess Shelly was a computer specialist. “Got here as fast as I could,” she continued a little breathless. “A lady from church is watching my kids.” Shelly withdrew a diagnostic disk from the bag. “There’ll be lots of stuff. What should I look for?”

  “Go by instinct. Messages, e-mails and journal entries, especially from the mayor or Tim Tormont, the refuse director.”

  After two hours of digging through computer files, Jen offered to order a pizza. She had a lunch date at 2:00 p.m. with York, but a little something now wouldn’t hurt.

  “Just get us some chips and sodas. I think I’ve found something interesting.”

  Jen rushed to get the snacks from the vending machine in the hall, her watchdog cop right behind her. Although she didn’t have a clue about most of what Shelly was doing, she didn’t want to miss a thing.

  Shelly popped a few chips in her mouth and took a swig from the can. “I found some trashed e-mails from Kesslers.com. Appears to be threats. Also a memo calendar with appointments. It looks like Gordon had meetings scheduled with the mayor and Tormont. Nothing confirms the meetings though. He has a notation that he met with Sniffles once.” Her eyes glistened and her voice sounded choked. “My Sniffles sure go
t around.” She was silent for a moment. “I printed out the pertinent stuff. Maybe the dates will tell you something.”

  Jen was scanning the printed data when York strode into the room. Her heart beat faster at the sight of his broad shoulders and confident stride. She hadn’t paid any attention to his clothing this morning. Her mind was too full of how he’d looked the night before, his spectacular body glistening with sweat. Now she noticed he wore his usual gray tweed jacket and a paler gray tie. And still looked great.

  “I got your messages,” he said, his blue-eyed gaze probing hers intently. “Is there a problem?”

  She forced herself to breathe evenly, fighting to regain her composure and the new rush of excitement pulsing through her. “I hoped you could tell me what personal belongings your men found on Gordon Michaels. But first, you should see the interesting data and notations Shelly’s uncovered on Gordon’s computer.”

  With trembling fingers, Jen handed York copies of the retrieved trashed e-mails and appointment calendar from Gordon’s computer. He scanned them briefly.

  “I’ll compare these dates with my files,” he said, tucking the papers in an inside jacket pocket. He turned to the watchdog cop and told him he’d take over, and then stood behind Shelly. “What else ya got?”

  “So far trails to nowhere.” Shelly didn’t even look up. Her gaze remained riveted to the screen. “The inside of a computer is a tough place to collect evidence.” She bit her lip as if in concentration. “Lots of places to hide stuff.”

  York nodded as though he understood.

  Jen moved closer to see better, although she had no idea what she was looking at. York curved his arm as though about to put it around her. Then, as though she were the hottest edge of the sun, he yanked his hand back.

  She looked up into his eyes, dark as stormy waters and their gazes locked. His pupils retracted, and emotions she couldn’t read deepened the intensity of his stare. She didn’t get it. He’d kissed her when he dropped her off at work this morning. Now, it seemed, he couldn’t even let himself touch her. What had changed?

  She held his gaze fiercely, fighting to hang onto the connection. After an agonizing moment of green eyes probing blue, he slid his hand around her waist and, with seemingly defiant energy, left it there. She exhaled and gave him a satisfied squeeze.

  Shelly punched some keys. “This machine has 128 megabytes of RAM, and more than 20 gigabytes of hard disk space, roughly the equivalent of 3.5 million pages of typewritten text. It would take me days or even weeks to search it effectively. Time I don’t have with my kids and job.”

  York frowned. “Time’s a key issue. With the clock ticking, we can’t let this drag out.”

  “I can work on this for a while today, but after that you’d better get one of your PD data recovery consultants to comb this bugger for you. Lucky for you, it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to do this stuff anymore. And it’s worth the hassle. Even if the search doesn’t turn up exactly what you need now, you may need some of the buried data for court once you get a conviction.

  A warning rang in Jen’s head. Had she opened a can of worms? “I had no idea this would be so complicated. Since this is The Globe’s computer, we’ll have to talk to Dirk about bringing in others.”

  York pressed her waist as though to reassure her. “He’s promised full cooperation, but if necessary, we can get a court order.”

  “Bingo!” Shelly said. “Here’s something to get your blood flowing—a threat!”

  ****

  York leaned over Shelly’s shoulder and drew Jen with him. Together they squinted at the screen, him as aware of Jen as the venom-filled e-mail message blinking at them. He froze. Good God, it was from his boss.

  Shelly read it out aloud, dramatizing the fury in a feigned, male-like gruff voice, “‘There is no strangler story! If you come nosing around again, we’ll tack you up at the range for target practice!’”

  “Well, well,” Jen said. “The plot thickens. It seems your boss, Police Chief Sharpe, has just become one of your suspects.”

  York shook his head and felt the need to defend Sharpe. “The message is unprofessional, but—“

  “How about unbelievably unprofessional?” Jen asked, seeming to enjoy the irony.

  He met her flashing green eyes as she shifted at his side, sending a tantalizing, light floral fragrance spiraling around him. His gut tightened. “The chief’s note isn’t anything. You know that. He’s just passing down the heat from the mayor. Granted the chief’s not a friend to the press, but—”

  York winced when Jen made a sound between a laugh and a scoff. “That’s an understatement if I ever heard one. He told me practically the same thing to my face.”

  York cursed under his breath. He knew this would happen. To avoid public panic, the chief had ordered everyone to stick to the story that all the murders were random events. Now the lie was backfiring and making the department look bad. But he couldn’t let office politics stop him from getting at the truth. With this message lurking in the hard drive, there could be others that would lead him to the killer.

  The sooner he called in the Data Recovery Specialists the better. “I’ll give the DR boys a call now.” He crossed the room to a phone, hit nine for an outside line, and then punched in the number for the DR department. The retrieval might give him a connection to tie Gordon to Brock—and Brock to the player behind the scene, or as Sniffles liked to call him, the puppet master.

  And, if the DR boys could link any of it to the mayor, York felt sure he could get Judge Gray to authorize a search warrant to inspect the mayor’s deleted hard drives. If any incriminating evidence was there, as Sniffles had claimed, things could jell fast. Pressure built in his chest. After Gordon’s murder when he’d scanned the reporter’s computer files he should’ve made the parallel and considered the deleted files.

  “With your guys on the job, you won’t need me,” Shelly said. “Besides, I gotta get home to my kids.”

  He watched Shelly hug Jen and slip out the door.

  “I think we should visit the refuse site,” he said, when she disappeared out of sight. “One of the workers was among the strangler’s earlier victims. At the time, I saw no connection to the other murders, but if Tormont is involved...”

  Jen swallowed. She gripped York’s arm. “You think Tormont is the strangler? Does that mean Lee’s off the hook?”

  “Nobody’s off the hook. But the dead man’s coworkers could shed some light on his murder.”

  Before he could say more, a skinny, freckled-face delivery man in a brown uniform stuck his head in the doorway. York studied the guy. A Sunday delivery?

  The company name above the name tag was Everyday and the name tag on his shirt said Josh Pendleton. “Security said I’d find Jen Lyman here,” Pendleton said, gesturing with a package big enough to hold men’s size-twelve work boots.

  “I’m Jen,” she said.

  As she reached for the package, York dropped the receiver and lunged for her. “Hold up.” He met the delivery man’s startled gaze. “Who’s it from?”

  The delivery man read the company tracking label. “Joel Ferguson.”

  Excitement lit up Jen’s face, and York held her firmly as she tried to shake free of his hold. “I’ll bet its Sniffles’ journal!” she said.

  York studied the package in the delivery man’s arms. “Size-wise it could be, but it doesn’t feel right.”

  Jen frowned. “Doesn’t feel right? What do you mean?

  “It doesn’t add up. Joel’s dead and this package suddenly turns up on a Sunday?” He stared at the word personal printed in big, black letters. His heart pounded. Clearly, the sender intended for it to be opened by no one but Jen.

  The delivery man’s face paled. “You act like it’s a bomb.” He swallowed, causing his Adam’s apple to convulse. He darted a frantic look at the door. “It’s not, is it?”

  York forced a calm tone. “Very gently, put it down on that desk.” He felt Jen tremble unde
r his grip.

  “The strangler’s never used bombs,” she said with a quiver in her voice.

  “Never used an axe until it suited his purpose.” York regretted the wide-eyed look of horror that flitted across Jen’s face, but this was no time to pull punches.

  Slowly, with shaky hands, the delivery man lowered the package to the desk.

  “I don’t think it’s a bomb,” York said, not seeing any suspicious signs other than it was marked personal, “but to be on the safe side, I want the bomb squad to check it out.” When he grabbed the phone, the delivery man turned to leave. “Hey, stick around. I have more questions.”

  The guy stopped in the doorway, looking like a trapped mouse.

  York got busy on the phone with the emergency team. When he finished, he turned back to an empty doorway. “Where’d he go?”

  “The word bomb spooked him.” Jen stared at the package. “Is all this caution necessary?”

  He stepped between her and the desk. “Curb your curiosity, Reporter. It might kill you if you don’t.”

  “The package looks harmless to me,” Jen said.

  He knew if he hadn’t been here, she’d have yanked off the wrappings without a second thought.

  “If it’s the journal,” she said, “it could be the break we need. And here we are wasting time.”

  “Patience isn’t your strongest trait, is it, Jen?”

  She threw up her hands, looking frustrated. “Not around you. You’d wear down the endurance of a saint.”

  Fifteen minutes later, the squad leader painstakingly checked the wrappings and said there were no suspicious signs like uneven corners, lumps, bulges, wires or surface stains. To be certain, he ran an X-ray scanner over the package, did a swipe test for traces of foreign material, and partially unwrapped it.

  After one more thorough scan, the leader smiled and handed the box to York. “It’s safe to open,” he said, then gathered his gear and left.

  Before York could stop her, Jen yanked the box from his grasp and moved quickly away. “It’s addressed to me, in case you forgot.”