Harper could have denied it, but she had a feeling that would make it all worse. It was time to come clean, and see how much of her head they’d let her keep.
‘Yes,’ she said softly. ‘It’s true.’
Still standing by the door, Baxter let out a long breath. Harper didn’t dare turn around to look at her.
Dells’ fingers were steepled under his chin. He said nothing. He seemed to be waiting.
That was when she broke her own rule about talking too much when you’re already in trouble.
‘I’ve been investigating two murders.’ Her words were quick and unemotional, like his. ‘Fifteen years apart, but identical in every other way. One is the murder of Marie Whitney. The other is the murder of my mother.’
Dells’ eyebrows winged up, but he let her continue without interruption.
‘The files I looked at last night were related to the Whitney murder,’ she said. ‘I needed more information to understand if I was on the right track.’
When she paused for breath he finally spoke.
‘Have you told the police about your suspicions?’
‘I have.’ She rested her hands on the chair back in front of her. ‘I told the head of the homicide squad at the very start.’
‘And what did he say?’
‘He disagreed with me. Therefore, I’ve proceeded without police cooperation.’
A significant silence fell.
‘Why on earth,’ Dells asked dangerously, ‘would you do that?’
‘Because,’ she said, ‘I suspected the murderer was a cop.’
‘Oh crap,’ Baxter whispered behind her.
Harper kept her eyes on Dells, who was still observing her like a lab experiment. If he was surprised, or felt any emotion at all, he hid it damned well.
She never wanted to play cards against him.
‘What made you think that?’ he asked after a second.
Harper’s heart skipped. She had no idea why but, for some reason, he was giving her a chance. She wished she’d slept at all last night so she could be certain her words made some kind of sense. She was almost dizzy with fatigue and stress.
Still, she stood straight as she made her case.
‘In both cases, the method of murder was professional – the police themselves have used that term. Both murder sites were surgically cleaned. The killer wore crime-scene covers on his shoes in both cases. The clothing of both victims was removed posthumously. Whitney may have been in a relationship with a detective shortly before she died – no one would know more about how to keep a crime scene clean. This week, I’ve been trying to find out if the same might have been true of my mother, but so far, I haven’t found the connection.’
Running out of breath, she stopped there. If that wasn’t enough, more wouldn’t help.
‘You say “suspected”,’ Dells said. ‘Why past tense?’
She had to give him credit. The man didn’t miss a thing.
‘Because,’ Harper said, thinking of her conversation with Blazer last night, and the Mercedes following her through dark streets, ‘there are other possibilities. Whitney hurt a lot of people.’
Dells considered this for a long moment. Through the glass walls, Harper could hear the buzz of conversation, distant laughter.
‘Look, Miss McClain.’ Dells leaned back in his chair, brushing something off the knee of his pants. ‘You’re an excellent reporter. Your work is the best I’ve seen in a long time. But you must know that there is a condition – a real psychological state – that happens even to the best reporters when they get too close to their work. It can become an obsession. It’s not good for the writer and it’s not good for the reader. I think this,’ he pointed at her, ‘is a textbook case.’
Harper wanted to argue – to explain that this wasn’t what was happening here. She was keeping her distance from the case. She was fine.
When she drew a breath to speak, she saw his shoulders stiffen ever so slightly, and the delicate warning arch of his eyebrows.
Tightening her lips, she let him continue.
‘You cannot and should not investigate your own mother’s murder for this newspaper,’ he continued, ‘that’s simply impossible. I can’t allow it. It stops now. As for the Whitney case, while I have great appreciation for the fine art of reporters’ instinct, my understanding is that both Emma and the head of the homicide unit have told you you’re on the wrong track, and I need you to drop that case, too. Let the police do their work.’
‘But they won’t.’ The words burst out of her. ‘Not if it’s one of their own.’
‘It’s not your case, Miss McClain.’ He’d raised his voice very slightly, but somehow that was intimidating enough to silence her. ‘You are not the police. You are under no obligation to find out the truth in the matter, and I believe that if you continue to research the case you will so damage your relationship with the police as to render you no longer useful to me as a police reporter. Do you understand what I am saying to you?’
His eyes locked on hers and for an instant she saw the mercilessness there – the speed with which he could end her career, and how little he would care about what became of her after that.
Harper bit her lip so hard she tasted blood. The sting and the bitter copper of it helped her say what she had to say next.
‘I understand,’ she said.
‘I am not firing you at this time,’ he said after a moment. ‘To be honest, I don’t like being told what to do, and I didn’t appreciate the deputy chief’s tone this morning. The last time I checked the masthead, he didn’t have a seat on the board of this newspaper. However, it’s important to me that this sort of mistake never happens again. Therefore, I am suspending you for ten working days without pay, starting immediately. You will be on probation for six months. Any violation of the rules of your employment here will result in immediate termination without severance pay or notice. Do you understand these conditions?’
Harper tried to think of something to say – some further defense or explanation. But her mind had gone blank.
‘I understand,’ she said numbly.
Dells picked up the pen from atop the stack of papers on his desk and bent back to whatever task he’d been doing when she first arrived.
The meeting was over.
Chapter Thirty-two
Harper floated out of the newspaper building a few minutes later, her legs unsteady. The pavement felt soft and unstable beneath her shoes.
Baxter was right behind her.
Her assessment of the meeting was succinct.
‘You’re a lucky son of a bitch, McClain.’
They stood in the too-bright sunshine outside the newspaper’s front door. The sun was just beginning to bake the sidewalk. People hurrying to work pushed by them, but Harper barely saw them.
‘Look, Baxter …’ she began.
The editor held up one thin hand to stop her.
‘Don’t bother.’
Reaching into her bag, she dug around. Pulling out a pack of Marlboro Lights, Baxter lit up, inhaling deeply.
‘Dear God, I deserve this cigarette.’ Each word emerged in a wispy puff of smoke. ‘What a fucking morning.’
Holding a cigarette loosely between two fingers, she met Harper’s eyes.
‘You got a break, McClain,’ she said crisply. ‘You got off easy. I promise you, Dells won’t give you another chance. This is it. Stop digging into the Whitney case or he’ll fire you.’
She tightened her bag over one shoulder, took another hit on her smoke.
‘If you keep digging, which I suspect is more likely, don’t get caught. I don’t have time to hire anyone.’
Holding out her free hand, she wriggled her fingers.
‘Give me your scanner.’
‘What?’
Not convinced she’d heard her right, Harper stared at her blankly.
Baxter sighed.
‘You’re off work for the next two weeks,’ she explained. ‘Someone has to take over
your beat. I need your scanner.’
Harper pulled the scanner – which was turned off but with her all the time – from her bag. For a second, she looked at the device in her hand. It was virtually an antique. These days they made them smaller, less obtrusive.
But she’d used this one from the start. And Lane had given it to her.
With slow reluctance, she handed it to Baxter.
‘Tell them not to drop it,’ she said. ‘It’s old.’
Crushing her cigarette butt under the low heel of her shoe, the editor plucked the device from her fingers.
‘They’ll treat it like cut glass, McClain.’ Her tone was dry. ‘Now, go home, will you? And, for God’s sake, stay out of trouble.’
With that, the editor strode back into the newspaper building, her brittle, blunt-cut hair swaying with each step.
When she was gone, Harper didn’t know where to go. It felt strange to be out at this hour. Bizarre to be standing in front of her workplace, where she was suddenly unwelcome.
In her pocket, her phone kept buzzing. She knew it was DJ, sending a hundred messages asking if she was fired.
She wasn’t ready, yet, to explain.
She knew it made sense to go home. Instead, she walked in the opposite direction, across busy Bay Street, and down the sloping, cobblestone lane to the river.
It was quiet – most of the tourist restaurants weren’t open yet. The air held the sticky sweet smell of last night’s spilled beer. Underneath that, the cool scent of the wide river, glinting blue-brown in the hazy sun. In the distance, the high, white arches of the Talmadge Bridge soared like sails, unfurled into the breeze. On the water, a tugboat bustled by, its motor a rough purr. She could hear cars rumbling on the street behind her.
Life went on.
Finding a bench empty, save for an abandoned amber trio of beer bottles clustered neatly around its wrought-iron legs, Harper lowered herself onto the seat, warm from the sun, and took a deep breath.
How was she not fired?
She couldn’t get her brain around it. During the seven years she’d worked at the paper, she’d seen at least a half-dozen people fired for much less.
Every reporter at a newspaper is as disposable as paper, and crime reporters the most expendable of all. Every class of college seniors held a potential two hundred replacements.
Still. She wasn’t about to stop investigating the connection between the two murders.
A homeless man shuffled toward her down the waterfront, bleary-eyed and bear-like, coarse, dirty hair flowing loose over his collar. She could smell him long before he reached her – sun-ripened urine and unwashed sweat.
‘Please,’ he said, his voice hoarse and raw. ‘Got a dollar for some food?’
The hand he held out was filthy. The sleeve’s edge ragged.
On impulse, Harper dug in her pocket, pulled out some crumpled dollar bills and handed them to him without counting them.
He stared at the money with mute fascination – like if he looked at it long enough it would turn into the drugs or alcohol he really wanted.
‘Good luck,’ she said.
Her voice seemed to wake him from the money stupor and, clutching the bills, he scuttled away. Harper watched him disappear into the shadows behind Huey’s restaurant.
That had been stupid of her.
Like most people, she was a month or two away from dead broke. Being a newspaper reporter in a town of this size did not pay well. She had, over the years, set aside a tiny amount of savings for car repairs or unexpected emergencies, but two weeks without pay was going to hurt. She’d get through it, but she’d feel it.
Maybe that guy once had a job and upset his boss. Maybe when it happened he didn’t have two weeks’ worth of savings sitting in the bank.
For the first time in her life, the possibility of losing everything seemed not at all farfetched.
That realization cleared the fog from her mind.
The deputy chief had actively tried to get her fired. There would be others in the police department who would want her gone once they found out what she’d done.
There was a code, and she’d broken it.
If she was going to get through this, she needed a plan, and if she was going to come up with one of those, she needed coffee.
Jumping off the bench, she headed back towards her car, her stride swift and resolute.
The town’s eccentrics were out in full at this hour. As she made her way down the street next to the newspaper building she passed an old man in a tweed jacket and fedora walking a thug-faced bulldog wearing a University of Georgia T-shirt. The man tilted his hat politely as he passed her. The T-shirt-wearing dog, hopping along with its odd, mincing gait, didn’t even glance at her.
This side of the city – its cheery, tourist-friendly, daytime side – was as foreign to Harper as Tokyo. Her Savannah was very different. Her Savannah was dark and dangerous nights in neighborhoods that would have sent these people running for their lives.
How had it come to pass that she felt happier and more at home in that Savannah than this one?
Something Dells had said flickered unwanted across her mind – the part about reporters getting too close to their stories. But that wasn’t the case. She was, and always had been, in perfect control.
When she had the evidence together, he would see that.
That afternoon, Harper sat on the living room sofa, eating brown sugar Pop-Tarts straight from the package, staring at her notes on the Whitney case.
She thought about texting Luke, but she was afraid of what he’d say when he found out what she’d done.
On the other hand, he probably knew already. Everyone knew.
She sank further into the sofa, wishing the cushions would absorb her completely.
DJ had been sending her regular updates by text and email throughout the day, so she knew there’d been a staff meeting where Baxter and Dells announced her banishment. She was also aware that Baxter had set up a rota for different reporters to handle the crime beat on various nights.
Mark Jansen, the city hall reporter, was taking the first night shift with his usual grace and team spirit.
Jansen is losing his SHIT, DJ texted her. Says they should hire a replacement and he’s not a substitute teacher. He and Baxter are going at it like two cats in a sack. Do you want me to video them? It’s hilarious. She’s destroying him.
Jansen was balding, with a pot-belly and a perpetually vexed expression. He was always the first one out the door at the stroke of five thirty each evening. Harper could imagine his fury at having to work late one night out of three hundred and sixty-five. The man was a living, breathing nap machine.
Typing fast, she replied:
No videos. If you get caught, Baxter will kill you. But more updates please.
When this was all over, she was going to send DJ a fruit basket or a box of football tickets – whatever you send nice guys who did kind things for no reason.
When her phone beeped again, she grabbed it from the arm of the sofa to see DJ’s latest update. But it wasn’t from DJ. It was from Miles.
Just heard. Coming over.
Harper winced.
She couldn’t deal with another lecture. But there was no way Miles would take no for an answer.
Forcing herself up, she brushed away the crumbs and put the Pop-Tarts back in the cupboard. Then she hurried to her room and quickly ran a brush through her hair, and straightened her top. There was nothing she could do about the dark circles under her eyes.
Ten minutes later, Miles stood in the doorway, his crisp button-down shirt tucked into charcoal slacks.
She didn’t like the new caution she could see in his expression.
‘I don’t even know what to say,’ he began.
‘You better come in before you start yelling.’ Harper stepped aside.
‘I’m not going to yell.’
They walked into the living room together.
She saw his gaze take in the
notebooks scattered on the floor by the sofa before honing in on the scanner buzzing and chirping in the corner of the living room.
Baxter had taken her work scanner, but not the spare she kept at home.
‘I’m only listening in case something happens and Jansen misses it,’ she said with a touch of defensiveness. ‘The guy’s an idiot.’
‘He is at that,’ Miles agreed.
‘Do you want something to drink?’ Harper asked. ‘Coffee?’
‘I’m fine. Let’s talk.’ He sat down on the sofa without waiting to be invited. ‘What happened?’
Her spine stiff, Harper sat across from him. Hesitantly at first, and then faster once she got going, she told him the basics, sticking to the high points. She told him about the Mercedes that followed her, the email from Sterling Robinson and her conversations with Whitney’s other panicked exes. And about how she decided to track down Camille Whitney.
When she finished, he leaned forward, hands resting on his knees.
‘That Mercedes still following you?’
She shook her head. ‘I haven’t seen it again.’
There was a long pause while he seemed to process everything she’d told him. When he did speak, it wasn’t what she’d expected.
‘What’s going on, Harper?’ he asked gently. ‘This isn’t like you.’
There was no anger in his voice, only enough puzzlement and compassion to make her heart hurt.
‘You push the limits all the time, but I’ve never seen you take the kind of chances you’re taking lately,’ he said. ‘Why are you doing this?’
‘I have to know,’ she said. ‘If it’s related to my mom’s murder, I have to know.’ He tried to argue but she talked over him, her words coming out too fast. ‘I don’t trust Blazer to solve this. And I have to know, Miles. Can’t you see that?’
She knew she sounded manic but she couldn’t help it. She was pleading now. She’d give anything for him to say he truly understood.
But he looked away, his eyes stopping on Bonnie’s portrait of her above the fireplace. In the butter yellow afternoon light, the red and orange of it appeared to be ablaze.
‘I can’t say I get it,’ he said. ‘Not completely. But I’m trying.’
The Echo Killing Page 27
