DM for Murder

by Matt Bendoris

  Yet something had brought him to Baltimore. Connor corrected himself: ‘Not something. Someone.’

  He picked up his battered old man bag, containing his recorder and notepad, and headed out into the Maryland capital to do his job. He would contact his boss, Big Fergie, in the taxi to say he was in situ then start asking around to see if anyone knew why Bryce had been in town.

  34 #HeavenSent?

  Bryce Horrigan’s own Twitter account had taken to mocking the Baltimore Police Department on a regular basis. The retweets alone would run into thousands, with the hashtag #CluelessCops remaining in the top ten trending topics. If that wasn’t enough of a headache for Sorrell, he also began to receive more DMs from Baby Angel:

  Baby Angel @BabyAngel

  Found Schroeder yet, captain?

  Bernard Sorrell @BernardSorrell

  Nope, but working on it. Amongst others.

  Baby Angel @BabyAngel

  Why waste your time? He’s your murderer, although a hero in my eyes. He made the world a better place.

  Bernard Sorrell @BernardSorrell

  Why you so certain Schroeder’s involved?

  Baby Angel @BabyAngel

  Oh come on, captain. A pro-life whackjob who happens to be 100s of miles from home in a strange city when Bryce’s brains are blown out?

  Bernard Sorrell @BernardSorrell

  But how do YOU know about him? You have never said who you are.

  Baby Angel @BabyAngel

  I am the Baby Angel. A voice of good for those who have no voice.

  Bernard Sorrell @BernardSorrell

  So you say. But really you could be any keyboard warrior, pretending to be someone you’re not.

  Baby Angel @BabyAngel

  Why are you wasting your time with me in the middle of a homicide investigation?

  Bernard Sorrell @BernardSorrell

  Because I’m trying to figure out what makes crazies like you tick. My theory is Social Media has put knives in the hands of lunatics.

  Baby Angel @BabyAngel

  Or powerful handguns, like Schroeder.

  Bernard Sorrell @BernardSorrell

  Again, so you say.

  Baby Angel @BabyAngel

  Ah, still an unbeliever, captain? Check out the Sunrise Motel. I think you’ll find someone matching Schroeder’s description was there.

  The captain looked at the last message and sat back in his seat. He knew the motel well. It’s where he had picked up several bail jumpers enjoying a last night on US soil before heading to the Canadian border.

  Whoever Baby Angel was, they certainly knew their stuff. But the captain couldn’t help wondering if this angel was heaven sent or doing the devil’s work.

  35 #LetTrainTakeStrain

  ‘You know someone else you should try to track down?’ Connor said as he checked in with April after phoning his newsdesk. ‘Lacey Lanning.’

  ‘Who?’ April said through her customary mouthful of food.

  ‘The DJ, Lacey Lanning. Bryce ended up giving her a weekly column in the paper – and probably another column in bed.’

  ‘Don’t be disgusting,’ April protested.

  ‘Who’s being disgusting? Me with my double entendres or you spraying food all over the café while talking?’ Connor said. April conceded he had a point.

  ‘Lacey was unbelievably ambitious. She was like a Bryce groupie. I remember he hired a karaoke machine for his birthday party, to be ironic or something. Lacey made sure she clapped the loudest and danced the wildest when Bryce sang. She ended up on stage as his backing singer. Pasty could barely conceal her fury, but that’s what the worshippers in the court of King Horrigan had to do – fight for his attention.’

  ‘No wonder you left,’ April said before taking a noisy slurp of tea.

  ‘Yeah, there was only so long I could keep up the charade. But Lacey was a master at it. Then it all went tits-up. I’d left London by that point so I don’t know exactly what happened. As far as I know she’s back home in Inverness. I bet she has a tale to tell. You should speak to her.’

  ‘Brilliant plan,’ April replied, although the enthusiasm in her voice didn’t match her thoughts. April hated long drives. Or short drives, for that matter. They always seemed to end in an incident, for she was a truly terrible driver. She didn’t set out to annoy her fellow road users, but somehow she nearly always managed to, whether sitting at 45mph in the fast lane, or driving with her full beam on for nearly a whole winter until Connor spotted it.

  She still remembered how he leaned in through her driver’s window in the staff car park and flicked the switch on her steering column with the words, ‘You may be blind as an old bat – but it doesn’t mean everyone else has to be.’

  Her Daewoo, which was a hideous purple colour, was covered in scrapes, dents and bumps, most of them inflicted by the car’s hapless driver. There was even a considerable crater on the roof. April had no idea how it had come about and thought that one possible explanation was that perhaps the car had been struck by a meteor. She wished she’d kept her cosmos collision theory to herself, as she could still recall Connor’s sarcastic reply.

  ‘So you’re telling me, an ancient lump of carbon travels millions of light years across the galaxy, survives the Earth’s atmosphere, only to end its epic voyage by colliding with your old banger? That’ll be the Daewoo,’ Connor had snorted. ‘Is it perhaps more feasible that you dented it with the garage door?’

  ‘Come to think of it, I did hear a scraping noise on the roof one morning. What am I like?’ April had recalled.

  Another time, she’d said to Connor, ‘I hadn’t realised when you overtake another car you have to wait until you can see them in your rear view mirror before pulling in – I was always nipping in straight away, cutting them up.’

  That was greeted with another of Connor’s stinging rebukes. ‘Let me get this right. For years, possibly decades, you have been causing road rage incidents wherever you go? Did you never think you might be doing something wrong with all the beeping of horns and flashing lights?’

  ‘I thought they were just saying “thank you”. I used to give them a friendly little “toot, toot” back.’

  ‘Dear Lord. You shouldn’t be allowed out by yourself.’

  April Lavender really was a liability let loose on the roads. Connor seemed to read her thoughts from several thousand miles away. ‘Don’t worry, you don’t have to drive the A9. Let the train take the strain. Beautiful countryside, although you’ll probably end up snoring your head off as usual. Why not buy yourself a nice Marks & Spencer’s lunch for the journey? That’s what I do.’

  April smiled. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d taken a train. She looked forward to it. Especially the lunch.

  36 #NonCompliant

  Colin Cooper sat slumped in the interview room’s chair, looking for all intents and purposes like he couldn’t care less. He’d been left to stew for almost an hour but knew the drill better than most. When Haye and Sorrell entered the room, Cooper barely looked up. ‘The monkey and the organ grinder. I’m honoured.’

  Sorrell ignored the jibe, as he was determined to keep his cool. ‘Good to see you again, Colin. Sorry to keep you waiting, things have been a little hectic today, what with the incident at your hotel.’

  ‘Yeah, then Lieutenant Asshole here brings me out front in cuffs and I end up on the news, with half the world and my bosses thinking I killed the English prick,’ Cooper said bitterly.

  ‘Scottish, dumb-ass. Bryce Horrigan was Scottish,’ Haye responded, taking the bait.

  Cooper completely ignored Haye, refusing to even look in his direction.

  ‘We cleared that up, Colin. Released a statement saying an employee had been arrested for an unrelated matter,’ Sorrell said in his most reassuring manner.

  ‘Yeah, but who’
s gonna believe that, captain?’ Cooper said, eyeballing his former colleague.

  ‘You brought it on yourself, Coops,’ Haye spat back. ‘I was being all civil. You were being an asshole.’

  ‘Captain, can’t you tell shit-for-brains to shut the fuck up? He’s like a yappy dog: yelp, yelp, yelp. I don’t know how you put up with that every day. I’d have stuck a slug in his head long ago. Put him out of his misery and do us all a favour.’

  Haye leapt across the table, grabbing Cooper by the collar. ‘Come on then, let’s see how tough you really are.’

  Sorrell pulled the men apart, and decided to play devil’s advocate. ‘Colin is just yanking your chain, lieutenant.’

  Cooper laughed as he fixed his collar. ‘Jeez, these youngsters are so easily wound up. You need to relax a little, Haye. Get some relief.’

  ‘Yeah, maybe your hooker at the hotel could blow me,’ Haye smirked.

  This time it was Cooper’s turn to leap across the table and grab Haye. ‘I don’t work no fucking hookers, okay?’

  ‘Gentlemen, gentlemen, please,’ Sorrell pleaded. ‘Haye, time out. Give Colin and me a moment, would you?’

  Haye stared manically at Cooper, just itching to be allowed at him. Cooper responded by blowing him a kiss then silently mouthing, ‘Bye, bye.’

  ‘Okay, Colin, the fun and games are over,’ Sorrell announced after Haye had left the room.

  ‘Shame, I was just starting to enjoy myself,’ Cooper grinned.

  ‘I need to speak to the girl who was in room 1410 the night Bryce Horrigan was killed. I don’t care what she was doing there and I don’t care what arrangement you both have, if any. None of this will go any further. No press. Nothing said to your bosses. In fact, I can happily call your boss at the hotel and say it was all one big misunderstanding, or that you’d been lifted for unpaid parking tickets. But I need to speak to that girl now,’ Sorrell said, leaving no room for negotiation.

  ‘I’ll tell you what I told your bitch. I don’t know any girl and I don’t know anything about room 1410. So let me go, or give me my fucking phone call.’ Cooper sat back with his arms tightly folded, indicating it was the end of the conversation.

  Sorrell sighed, stood up and left the interview room. Haye was waiting outside, having watched and listened to events unfold on the room’s CCTV.

  ‘What a fucking scumbag. Want me to go fuck him up? Give him a taste of his own medicine?’ Haye asked enthusiastically.

  ‘No, but I do need you to goad him. See if he’ll confess to beating on anyone. Get him to boast about it. We need any sort of leverage to make him hand over that girl. In the meantime, I’ll get onto vice and see if any of them recognise her,’ Sorrell said.

  Haye went back into the interview room and was greeted by Cooper smirking at him again.

  ‘Just asked the cap’n if I could beat the hooker’s name out of you, but he says I’m not to stoop to your level. So who did you beat up when you were a detective, Coops? A couple of ten-year-old kids or something?’ Haye said, following the captain’s instructions to the letter.

  Cooper’s smirk just got wider. ‘Is that all you’ve got? Trying to get me to confess to slapping around some yos? Fuck you, Haye.’

  ‘Oh yeah, as if a grand jury would be interested in that shit. A washed-up, old brothel creeper ex-cop says he used to beat on suspects? No, I’m just curious, Coops. I want to know if you’re as tough as they say you are. So give me a name. Any name. The toughest yo you ever fucked up. Go on, try me. I bet I’ve heard of him.’

  Cooper laughed loudly. ‘Okay, let’s play your little game, if only to pass the time. I’ve got a name for you, ever heard of Tre Paul Beckett?’

  ‘TP?’ Haye asked. ‘No fucking way. Didn’t he once box at welterweight?’

  ‘Yup, could have been a contender too until I lifted him for dealing. I fucked him up good in this very room,’ Cooper said proudly.

  ‘Was he high? Handcuffed? Both?’ Haye asked.

  ‘Nope. Took the cuffs off. Just knew he was gonna swing for me. Nearly caught me too with that lethal right of his. That was his last fight and he lost fair and square. I never let no fucker take a free swipe at me. Welterweights or no welterweights.’

  Haye decided to go for the sucker punch himself. ‘Try me with another?’

  But Cooper shot him a suspicious look and crossed his arms again. ‘Time’s up. Charge me or let me go.’

  Haye knew he’d come to the end of the line. Tre Paul Beckett was not the type who would be ready to help the police, but he was all Haye had.

  37 #PressPack

  Connor stood outside the Baltimore City Hotel and realised the futility of it all. He had travelled 3,000 miles to join the chattering, gossipy throng of yet another press pack. They sounded different from back home, with the big-haired female television reporters who have marginally more make-up and Botox than their male counterparts. But no matter the gender they were all experts in talking complete and utter bullshit.

  Every broadcast was essentially the same. The news anchor would announce they were going over live to their reporter at the scene for an ‘update’, where it would be quickly established within thirty seconds that they didn’t have one. Each journalist would try to match the other in banality, generalisations and complete and utter waffle. Fortunately, as is true of all TV folk, they loved the sound of their own voices and could continue in this vein for hours, long after their viewers had given up.

  Connor never understood why TV news journalists had such a high opinion of themselves. But they seemed to revel in their minor celebrity status and the odd occasion they were spotted in supermarkets or complimented on their new hairdo – and that was just the blokes.

  Back home in Scotland, Connor hated it if a local news crew got to a job before he did, as they would attempt to commandeer the whole event, trampling over print journalists’ interview time slots. As if it was their God-given right because they were TV news, despite the fact they had fewer viewers than his paper’s circulation. He recalled Bryce’s words when he once berated his news and sports colleagues by claiming that they were ‘all sheep – they follow the herd and are too scared to break free. If you are ever going to get something different, you have to break away from the pack.’

  That’s exactly what Connor needed to do now. He had one major advantage over the herd here in Baltimore: he had already established a direct line with the captain in charge of the case, and he knew the dead man’s deputy. He would need to start cashing in on his contacts.

  38 #HeadingNorth

  For the first time in her life, Lacey Lanning didn’t crave the oxygen of publicity. Since she had quietly slipped back to her Highland home after the bright lights of London, she had deliberately stayed out of the limelight. She was given the 8pm till midnight slot on the local radio station she’d first started with, which suited her fine. The money was truly appalling, just £30 a show, but it was the only income she had and she wasn’t in a position to negotiate.

  In the early days, she’d had an affair with the station manager, a vain, married middle-aged man, who insisted on being called ‘The Gaffer’. She had cynically used him to get on air then engineer her move to London by threatening to withhold her sexual services if he didn’t help her out. Now, the Gaffer was the one holding all the cards as Lacey returned home to Inverness, very much the broken woman. He had taken a great deal of pleasure in beating her wage demand down to a pittance, then sadistically enjoyed telling her that sex wouldn’t advance her career this time around.

  ‘I’ll be keeping it in my pants. There are a lot younger girls wanting a piece of the Gaffer.’ He eyed her cleavage, which he’d once so desired, and added needlessly, ‘Younger and more pert girls.’

  The Gaffer had a point: the intervening decade had not been kind to Lacey. So much so, the once youngest female broadcaster in the land was now forced to lie abou
t her age, lopping five years from her actual thirty. Sadly for her, she looked at least ten years older.

  The Gaffer looked at her almost distastefully. ‘What the hell happened to you in London, anyway? You’re a mess.’

  She didn’t answer, choosing to stare at her feet instead.

  ‘Well, that’s not my concern now. I don’t even know why I’m giving you a show after you turned your back on me. I made you, Lacey. You were once a great broadcaster. Anyway, thirty quid a show, take it or leave it. Maybe it will help you get back on your feet.’ The £150 a week was hardly going to get her back on her feet, especially with the debts that had followed her home from London. But she was desperate. Desperate enough to even move back in with her parents.

  And she knew she needed to recuperate. To recover from the trauma. She just couldn’t get over the guilt she felt that would wake her up every night in a cold sweat. She repeatedly asked herself, What have I got myself into? What have I done? There was no one she could turn to for help. She needed to lie low or they would come looking for her.

  Lacey’s return to Inverness had gone as well as expected. The Gaffer had predictably been horrible to her, but the listeners seemed to welcome the return of a familiar voice. Being on air in the evening meant she also bypassed having to meet most of the station staff, which made it easier for Lacey to keep herself to herself.

  Then April Lavender came calling. Lacey had told her she didn’t want to talk, especially about Bryce, but the journalist had been most insistent. There was also money involved – £1,000. Hardly a king’s ransom, but still more than a month’s wages. It would certainly help keep the wolves from the door a while longer.

  Reluctantly, she agreed to the interview. As usual, Lacey had her own agenda and she planned to paint a very one-sided picture to the reporter currently making her way north.