DM for Murder

by Matt Bendoris

  ‘I’ll drink to that,’ Sorrell replied.

  Silence fell between the two men again as they drained their whisky glasses, before Haye spoke. ‘Cap’n, don’t you think we’re taking our eye off the ball with chasing down Coops and shit? I could join the team looking through Horrigan’s tweets full-time. Push them hard. Run down the death threats myself. I just think we’re getting side-lined, while the bastard is still out there taunting us on Bryce Horrigan’s own Twitter feed, for fuck’s sake. Then there’s your Baby Angel. We still haven’t found out who they are. Gotta be linked, surely?’

  Sorrell responded in a measured manner. ‘Your freedom fighter, William Wallace – he wasn’t just some barbarian, right? If I remember the film, he was educated. Spoke Latin?’

  ‘Yeah. Sure. Where you goin’ with this, cap’n?’ Haye asked through bleary eyes.

  ‘Coops is the same,’ Sorrell declared.

  ‘Fuck off. He speaks Latin? Fuck off,’ Haye repeated, finishing the last of his Guinness.

  ‘Believe it or not, he does. Catholic upbringing or something. He’s real smart, too. Coops wouldn’t want to have been arrested. To do the walk of shame in front of the TV cameras? Have his bosses ask all sorts of awkward questions? No way. He always wanted the easy life.’

  ‘So?’ Haye asked.

  ‘So he’s protecting someone,’ Sorrell said, ordering another round of Jura and Guinness.

  ‘The hooker?’ Haye asked incredulously.

  ‘That wouldn’t make any sense if she was just a hooker. So she has to be something more than that.’

  ‘His lover?’ Haye said, the penny finally dropping.

  ‘Slow. But you got there in the end, Haye, and that’s all that counts. Listen, what’s the first rule of homicide? Follow the facts. Every case throws up leads and we chase them down, right? That’s what we’re doing here. This Twitter stuff feels like a carrot on a stick. Someone is trying to tempt us away from where we’re going. Well, last time I checked, I was in charge of this case. Not some crazy person on Twitter. Tomorrow, lean on Coops’ ex-wife, Stephanie. A hard-faced bitch if ever there was one. Rumour has it she used to beat Coops up,’ Sorrell smiled.

  ‘No shit?’ Haye said in amazement. ‘No wonder he used to take it out on the suspects.’

  Both men burst out laughing.

  ‘Five minutes speaking to Stephanie and you’ll wish you were in Coops’ company again.’ Sorrell smiled once more, feeling he’d been able to think straight for the first time since the death of Bryce Horrigan.

  53 #TheLordsWork

  Baby Angel @BabyAngel

  Still reckon I’m a fake, captain?

  Bernard Sorrell @BernardSorrell

  I know you’re a fake. Your name is not Baby Angel. The real you has yet to come forward.

  Baby Angel @BabyAngel

  Ah, dear captain, this is but a moniker I need to hide behind to do the Lord’s work.

  Bernard Sorrell @BernardSorrell

  Funny, you’ve never mentioned the Lord until now. I don’t believe you’re the religious type. You’re a phoney.

  Baby Angel @BabyAngel

  You have got me there. I never was one for Bible class. But that doesn’t mean the rest isn’t true.

  Bernard Sorrell @BernardSorrell

  I tend to believe if you lie about one thing, you can’t trust the rest.

  Baby Angel @BabyAngel

  Tell me there wasn’t a man matching Schroeder’s description at that motel and I’ll let you be.

  Sorrell had discovered that not only was there someone matching Schroeder’s description at the motel, CCTV footage had confirmed his identity. It was advantage, Baby Angel.

  Baby Angel @BabyAngel

  Well?

  Bernard Sorrell @BernardSorrell

  Yes, Schroeder was there. Now tell me how you know.

  Baby Angel @BabyAngel

  All in good time, captain. But first we have to catch our killer.

  Bernard Sorrell @BernardSorrell

  Suspect. Schroeder is a suspect.

  Baby Angel @BabyAngel

  Person of interest, suspect, whatever. I’ll just call him The Killer. So what’s our next step?

  Bernard Sorrell @BernardSorrell

  There is no we. This is a police matter.

  Baby Angel @BabyAngel

  Don’t get so protective, captain. Remember, Baltimore Police wouldn’t have heard Schroeder’s name if it hadn’t been for me!

  The captain looked at his screen and muttered, ‘Funny, I was just thinking the same thing.’

  54 #TaxiDriver

  Connor walked the full length of the taxi queue at Baltimore/Washington International Thurgood Marshall Airport – a real mouthful of a title, understandably shortened to ‘Marshall’ by the locals. The taxi stand was located on the lower level of the main terminal, where only BWI Marshall-registered cabs could pick up customers – that gave Connor a realistic chance of speaking to the driver who had driven Horrigan to the hotel. He had a picture of the dead television personality on his BlackBerry, which he pushed through the drivers’ windows, asking if Horrigan had been a customer.

  He was utterly amazed by the huge range of nationalities and races behind the wheels. Back home in Glasgow it seemed all taxi drivers were white and Scottish. Here there were turban-wearing Sikhs, Asians, African Americans, you name it. But they did share one common trait with their Scottish counterparts: they were a bad-tempered bunch. Some would just shake their heads before Connor even asked a question. Another told him straight, ‘If you’re not hiring then fuck off, buddy.’ Connor quite liked the friendly malice feel of adding ‘buddy’ to a threat. But, like any half-decent reporter, he persevered. When he had exhausted the queue of cabs, he simply waited at the end of the line for the next one to come in and try again.

  He knew it was a long shot. It could be the driver’s day off. Or he could be on vacation. Random thoughts started drifting through his head from a mix of jet lag and boredom, as he asked himself, ‘How come, if they call it a vacation in America, Madonna sang Holiday?’ Connor had once held ambitions to work in the States, until someone told him most Americans only got two weeks’ annual ‘vacation’ – three, if they’d worked for the same company for about thirty years. Connor couldn’t do without his seven weeks’ paid leave a year; eight, if you included getting back all the bank holidays he had to work, too.

  The next white cab joined the end of the line, and Connor went through the motions again. ‘Sorry to bother you, but did you pick up this guy?’

  ‘What if I did?’ came the shock reply. A shock because for once he wasn’t being told to get lost.

  ‘I’m a reporter. I’m trying to find out if he said anything?’

  ‘Cops told me not to speak to the press.’

  ‘I was Bryce’s friend. I’m just trying to find out what happened to him.’

  ‘What’s in it for me?’

  ‘$100?’

  ‘I get $70 for every ride into town.’

  ‘Okay, $70 for the ride, $100 for you?’

  ‘Get in.’

  The cab pulled out from the back of the line, earning the ire from his fellow drivers, who angrily tooted their horns and flashed their lights. Connor’s driver flicked them the finger in return. ‘Fucking assholes.’ His badge said his name was Eddie Sandberg.

  ‘So whatcha wanna know?’ Eddie asked.

  ‘Just anything you can tell me. Was he harassed? Worried-looking? Say much?’

  ‘Worried-looking? No, he wasn’t worried-looking,’ Eddie said, before chuckling to himself.

  ‘What’s so funny?’

  ‘Cops asked me the same stuff and I’ll tell you what I told them. The guy was real relaxed. He was also here for some fun.’

  ‘How’d you know that?’

 
Eddie chuckled to himself again. He had quickly started to irritate Connor. Like someone laughing at an in-joke they refuse to share.

  ‘Because when I asked him if he was here for business or pleasure, he told me, “Oh, I’m here for pleasure all right.”’

  ‘That does sound like Bryce,’ Connor conceded.

  ‘There’s no way that guy was here on business. He was here on a promise.’ Eddie’s chuckle became a laugh. ‘But someone had other ideas, right? Am I right?’

  ‘Yes, I guess you’re right.’ Connor had had his fill of Eddie the twisted driver. He asked him to pull in a few blocks from where he was headed as he needed to get out. Connor took his age and a contact number along with a quick photo of Eddie leaning out of his cab window. It would do for a head and shoulders shot to go with his story of Horrigan’s last taxi ride.

  There wasn’t much to go on, but at least now Connor had a good idea of his old boss’s motives for being in Baltimore. And he just knew they were far from honourable.

  55 #HungForASheep

  Haye took the I-83 highway north out of the city heading to Lutherville, one of the most upmarket districts in the county. Stephanie Cooper’s house was situated by Loch Raven reservoir, with views across the water to Towson Golf & Country Club. Haye pulled up his sedan outside the colonial-style home and whistled softly to himself. ‘You wouldn’t get much change out of a million dollars for that.’

  But while the building and area reeked of money, its inhabitant was distinctly lower class. Before Haye even rang the doorbell, Stephanie Cooper flung open her door. ‘If you’ve come to ask about Coops, I have nuthin’ to say except he’s a no-good piece of shit.’

  ‘I know that,’ Haye replied.

  Stephanie cracked something that could pass as a smile. But it was only fleeting. ‘What the fuck are you here for, then?’

  Curiously, the soon-to-be divorced Stephanie Cooper was the same squat shape and height as her estranged husband. They even had similar aggressive personalities, more like siblings than spouses. Maybe they are, Haye thought to himself.

  ‘I need some help. May I come in?’ he asked politely.

  Stephanie’s dark beady eyes looked Haye up and down. He was good-looking for his age, even if he showed signs of wear and tear. ‘You’ve got ten minutes before my hair appointment,’ she said, showing him her back as she stomped into the depths of her home.

  Haye looked at her boyish short haircut disappearing down the hall and thought Stephanie Cooper’s hairdresser got money for nothing.

  She stopped in the kitchen and gruffly asked, ‘Coffee?’

  ‘Sure, white, two sugars,’ Haye said, scanning around. He could understand why she was so twitchy. There was no way Coops earned a plush pad like this on a cop’s salary, even with a golden handshake from the homicide department. And Stephanie certainly didn’t look like she came from money.

  ‘So what’s the cheating fuck done now?’ Stephanie asked, peering at him with suspicious eyes over the top of her coffee mug.

  ‘I can’t be sure, but he won’t give us the name of a hooker we think he’s running from the Baltimore City Hotel. She might be able to help us with a case,’ Haye said, keeping as much detail to himself as possible.

  Stephanie started to laugh. Like everything about her, it wasn’t nice. More mocking than jocular. ‘This to do with that British prick?’ she asked, already knowing the answer.

  ‘Yeah, Bryce Horrigan. But please keep that to yourself,’ Haye pleaded.

  ‘Know why Coops left? I caught him cheating with one of the girls. Now, this goes no further, all right pretty boy? Because I’ll deny everything, then claim you sexually assaulted me in my own home, gettit?’ Stephanie warned and Haye knew she wasn’t kidding. ‘We had a no screwing rule when we worked the girls. Or blowies. No handjobs, either, okay? He was just to provide the security, make sure we weren’t fucked around by vice squad and I looked after the rest.’

  Suddenly it all made perfect sense to Haye. The expensive house. The lifestyle and Stephanie Cooper – a stereotypical don’t-fuck-with-me brothel madam if ever there was one.

  ‘But he broke the rule, didn’t he? What’s her name?’ Haye said, going for the kill.

  ‘A stuck-up little bitch who called herself Lindy Delwar. College student. At least she was until she discovered she could earn more as Coops’ bitch than through her studies,’ Stephanie said, pouring them both a refill.

  Haye took out his iPhone to find the freeze-frame of the hooker counting her money in the hotel elevator. He showed it to Stephanie, who laughed again. ‘I told her not to count out her bucks like that. It’s crass.’

  Haye thought that was rich coming from Stephanie Cooper. ‘Where can I find this Lindy Delwar?’

  ‘You can start by using her real name, Linda Delaney. They’re shacked up together. They deserve each other, if you ask me. Coops has no other girls working for him. They all stayed with me. Loyalty means a lot to me. Here, you can have the little bitch’s number if you don’t want to speak to her handler. Rumour has it she likes to moonlight without Coops knowing. Drives him crazy. So she’ll meet you if you pretend to be some rich punter,’ Stephanie said, trawling through her iPhone contacts.

  Haye took a note of Lindy Delwar’s number, finished his coffee then politely rinsed it in the sink.

  ‘So, you wanna go upstairs and fuck?’ Stephanie asked bluntly.

  ‘What?’ Haye spluttered, before regaining his composure. ‘I thought my ten minutes was up?’

  ‘You can have another ten,’ she said, making her way to the staircase.

  ‘What about your hair appointment?’

  ‘Let’s be honest, this crop job pretty much looks after its fucking self.’

  ‘And accusing me of sexual assault?’ Haye asked, following her like a puppy.

  ‘Only if you don’t do me right,’ she said, leading him into her bedroom by the hand.

  56 #RecordTraffic

  The Daily Chronicle @DailyChronicle

  Mother of @BryceTripleB warned TV star he’d be killed.

  The tweet had a link to the Daily Chronicle’s website, which gave a teaser of April’s ‘World Exclusive’, a tabloid tag reserved for what were the biggest stories. April thought it was a hugely overused newspaper term and something of an oxymoron. A footballer getting his wife and mistress both pregnant at the same time was a proper scoop, but only meant something on these shores.

  However, her interview with Flora Horrigan was probably April’s first true world exclusive as the murder of Bryce was still making headlines around the globe. Very quickly other news outlets would be running the quotes from April’s interview, which was technically illegal and breached copyright. But such was the clamour for instant rolling news, the other media websites would simply credit the Daily Chronicle in their stories and include a hyperlink to the Scottish paper’s homepage. If there was any fall-out, they’d let the lawyers work it out later. April’s exclusive proved to be something of a coup for her organisation, which saw its subscriptions suddenly go up at a rate of about 100 an hour – the fastest growth rate since they had gone behind a paywall a year earlier.

  The splash in the print edition also had the world exclusive strapline and read: TV STAR’S MUM PREDICTED DEATH. Due to the constraints of page size and design it needed to be worded differently from the online version, simply to make it fit on a front page, which is measured in the centuries-old newspaper measurements of seven columns width – with 3.4 centimetres in each column. But online, the banner headline read, The mother of TV star Bryce Horrigan talks exclusively about how she predicted her son’s murder. This was so Internet search engines would pick up on the words ‘Bryce Horrigan’ and ‘murder’.

  The editor from the online department excitedly burst into April’s broom cupboard office and babbled, ‘We’ve just seen a 300 per cent increase in subscriptions an
d passed the 51,000 hits mark for your story, too. Traffic is going through the roof.’

  ‘Well done,’ April replied as the online editor practically skipped out of her office. Not only had she failed to understand a single word that he’d said, she couldn’t even remember his name. April only knew him as the lanky, curly-haired boy that ‘did something with the computers’. When faced with the unknown, April just smiled. Usually she’d get away with it, unless Connor was around. He’d recognise that familiar vacant look and mutter, ‘You haven’t a fucking clue, have you?’

  It was the same when they’d both bump into the paper’s political editor in the breakout area. Connor would immediately engage him in debate about the latest events at the Scottish Parliament and playfully try to bring the oblivious April into the conversation, with fear etched all over her face. Afterwards she would ask Connor how he was always so up to date with everything that was going on. He’d shrug and reply, ‘Because I actually read our newspaper.’

  He had a point. Politics was carried daily on page two. April would just glance at it and glaze over. She had absolutely no interest in politics whatsoever, even though it still dominated television news. She couldn’t even remember the last time she’d voted, but reckoned it was probably when she was still married to husband number two, who had been quite active with the Labour party… or the Liberals, she could never remember which. He was obsessed with politics, and insisted on talking about it morning, noon and night, until she could take it no more and ordered him to leave their home. When husband number two asked what he’d done wrong, April had snapped, ‘You’re actually boring me to death with your politics.’

  He’d sniffed, ‘But I thought you liked politics? I thought it was “our thing”?’

  April had replied, ‘Well “our thing” has got old, and life’s too short.’

  And that had been the end of that marriage.

  There had been a time when April had her choice of suitors. Now all she had was the lecherous old Italian restaurant owner Luigi, who would propose to her, without fail, on every occasion she ate in his restaurant. She could usually laugh it off, but he was persistent. Unfortunately she didn’t do much to put off her admirer as she kept insisting on eating there.