“Y’all will make a mystery out of anything. Even my boring personal life,” I said with a wink. “What kind of ice cream and wine?”
She wrinkled her nose. The deflections wouldn’t work forever, but I intended to keep the streak alive as long as I could.
“I’m thinking rocky road and Merlot.”
Looked like it wasn’t going to die today. I nodded, my gaze holding hers. She was every bit as full of shit as I was—she’d probably spend her Friday night doing things I didn’t want to think about with Rick Andrews. I managed to contain a shudder, widening my eyes and murmuring, “Sounds good,” instead.
“So, I heard Trudy Montgomery asked you to help out with the presidential speeches next week.” Shelby leaned one tiny hip on the far edge of my U-shaped ivory laminate desk. “I walked over here half expecting to find you floating up near the ceiling.”
“Still trying to wrap my head around it,” I said, my fake smile spreading into a genuine grin. “The floating will come, I’m sure.”
She nodded. “You’ve worked so hard for this, and I know how badly you want it. You’ll kill it. No pun intended.”
I tipped my head to one side, the sheen over her bright-blue eyes and drop in her pitch making me think she actually meant that. “Thanks, Shelby.” Fake or not, it was a nice thing for her to say.
She eyeballed the notebooks. “What’s all that? Anything to do with the dead person the cops aren’t talking about from the capitol this morning? Charlie Lewis looked ready to spit tenpenny nails on the noon broadcast.”
Ah-ha. Of course Shelby was really after the scoop on the hot story of the day. Which I probably would’ve gotten quicker if half my focus wasn’t still on trying to extract the name of Lakshmi’s math professor from my memory. I almost had it, my weirdly photographic brain calling up the door and the silver plaque, but I couldn’t quite make out the name with Shelby chirping at me.
I shook my head. “Just cleaning out my desk.” I picked up the top notebook and dropped it in my green recycle bin for show. “Aaron wouldn’t tell anyone anything we couldn’t get by watching the gurney come out the back door this morning. Whatever happened down there, nobody’s talking about it today.”
Saying the words out loud made me feel a bit better about having an edge on Charlie—for now.
“Bob had me proof your piece before it went live online.” Shelby plucked at a loose thread on her blue silk blouse. “You . . . uh . . . you usually have a little more than that when there’s an interesting corpse. And this one seems more interesting than average for sure.” Her voice was carefully light. Interested, not nosy.
My teeth ground together as I swallowed a Tell your boyfriend I’m onto your bullshit. She was fishing, whether it was for Andrews or someone else—Shelby had a long habit of helping out anyone who was trying to cause me headaches with a big story. The trick this time was that I was supposed to think she was my friend. Telling her where she could stick that was more tempting than a Saks fire sale, but it wasn’t the smart play. Yet, anyway.
“Like I said, they’re not saying. At least not today.” I stood, reaching for my bag and sweeping the notebooks on my desk into it. “But don’t worry—I’ll figure something out.”
“You always do.” She stepped backward and let me through. “Lunch plans?”
“I already ate,” I lied. “But thanks. I have a trial picking up in a little bit.”
I waved goodbye at the elevators and leaned against the back wall when I stepped inside. I did have a trial. But I also had just enough time before it started to swing through the math department at the university and see if I could find Lakshmi’s professor.
4
Twenty-two doors on two floors of offices later, I spotted the right nameplate: Gaskins.
I tapped on the door and it swung open half a blink later, putting me eyeballs-to-mustache with a disheveled man sporting a bigger gut than I remembered and a coffee-stained yellow tie he might’ve been wearing last time we spoke. I stepped backward, my heel catching on the carpet. My nose said he’d splashed on half a bottle of woodsy cologne to make up for a few missed showers.
“Office hours today are from four to seven, young lady,” he said, settling a stack of papers and workbooks under his left arm, his eyes never so much as passing over my face. “I’m on my way to a meeting just now.”
Damn.
“I’m not a student,” I said, extending my left hand so he could shake it with his free right one. “Nichelle Clarke from the Richmond Telegraph. I don’t want to make you late for your meeting, but could I come back this afternoon?”
He pushed square, black-plastic-rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose, which scrunched right along with his eyes when he squinted, peering at my face.
“You were here asking about Lakshmi before she disappeared,” he said, his eyes popping from almost shut to white-all-around wide. “What did you do with her, you and your little whore friends?”
My eyes slid side to side as his voice gained decibels with every word.
“You have the story all wrong, sir.” But he did have more of the details than I would’ve thought. “We can talk later, or if you have a moment now, maybe we should step into your office?”
He juggled the papers and glanced at his watch before he stepped to one side and waved me through the door. “Three minutes,” he said, his eyes squinting again. “Did you say you’re a reporter?”
I nodded. “I did come to see you a couple of years ago, and I did talk with Lakshmi that day, but it was to ask her for some information I needed and warn her that she was about to get in big trouble. She chose to leave school to avoid it, it seems.”
So what the hell was she doing with Baine’s kid?
He slumped back against the closed door. “I knew she was doing something she shouldn’t be, and of course every male member of the faculty heard whispers about Dean Baker’s little side enterprise. You can’t keep something like that a secret in a group of academics. We’re gossipy.”
He wasn’t the type I’d peg for being into coed call girls, but he sure seemed to like Lakshmi, so gossipy worked in my favor. I just needed to tread carefully—one offensive word and he’d shut right the hell up.
“She told me she needed the money to stay in school,” I said. Neutral. Helpful.
Leading.
He nodded. “What happened to her father wasn’t right or fair. And my God, she was a brilliant girl. Best grad student I ever had.”
“You haven’t heard from her since she left?” I watched his face carefully. Lakshmi had gone on and on the first time I’d met her about how brilliant this man was and how much she respected him.
Gaskins’s lips rolled between his teeth, his eyes going up toward the ceiling.
There was something he wanted to say, but he wasn’t sure he should.
“Professor? I’m sorry to be the one to tell you, but something terrible has happened. I liked Lakshmi. If there’s anything you can tell me that might point me to where she’s been for the past two years . . .” I let the words trail, keeping my tone soft, but urgent.
“Is she dead?” He didn’t return his eyes to mine, the words falling heavy and monotone.
“I’m so sorry,” I said. “Do you know anything that might help the police with their investigation?”
He stood up straight and looked at his watch again. “I have to go.” He didn’t turn to open the door, his eyes locking on mine for a good thirty seconds. I didn’t blink.
“Lakshmi had a head for numbers like nobody I’ve ever met, and I’ve been a mathematician for twenty-six years. But numbers weren’t enough. Too quiet. She was drawn to power. Action. She wanted to parlay her gift into a career in politics. And she didn’t care what she had to do to get there.” Gaskins turned for the door. “It’s a shame. She was a brilliant, brilliant girl. Good day, Miss Clarke.”
He charged into the hallway, leaving the office open as he rushed for the stairs. I shut his door behind me and fo
llowed him at a slower pace, his last words sticking in my thoughts.
The governor’s son was a walking all-access pass to the political inside track. But what if Lakshmi wanted a more direct conduit to power?
I zipped my little red SUV into a parking space across the street from the courts building two minutes before the gavel was set to bang in DonnaJo’s meth lab trial, which meant I wouldn’t be able to see if she’d share anything about Lakshmi until later. If she knew anything to share. My friend was one of the most trusted senior commonwealth’s attorneys in the state, but the cops were locking this down tighter than usual and no arrest had been made.
I got a smile and a wave through from the security guards. “Late today, are we?” Miles cocked one eyebrow as I scurried past the metal detectors.
Not unusual, but it also wasn’t unusual for my morning to get hijacked by a body. I was just glad the judge had a personal matter that kept the trial from starting early today—otherwise I wouldn’t know any more than Charlie did about what was going on at the capitol.
I slid into the end of the back row in the gallery just as the first witness, a seventeen-year-old drug dealer named Jerry Joe Stickley who went by “Sticks” on account of his bony legs, took his hand off the Bible and nodded to the bailiff.
His watery hazel eyes flicked between the defense table and his lap as DonnaJo approached the stand. “Jerry, can you tell us if there’s anyone in the room that you knew before February twenty-third of this year?” She kept her voice low and soothing. The kid had flipped on his friends and solidified the commonwealth’s case against them. But DonnaJo had worried over this moment for weeks—getting a ninth-grade dropout scared enough of prison to agree to testify against a drug ring when you had him in a room by himself wasn’t hard. DonnaJo was smart and erudite, her unfaded former Miss Virginia looks aiding her gift for convincing folks to agree with her, whether they were in the jury box or on the witness stand. This was the final test, though: getting Jerry to stick by his word with three guys he was knock-kneed terrified of staring him down from across the room—that would take every reassuring smile DonnaJo could muster.
I clicked my pen out, the sound echoing in the silent chamber. Jerry didn’t look up, muttering, “Yes, ma’am,” into his threadbare blue button-down collar.
The stenographer shot the judge a look accompanied by an almost imperceptible headshake. The judge cleared his throat, but DonnaJo raised a discreet hand and leaned toward the polished cherry rail between her and the kid. “We’re going to need that a little louder for the record, Jerry.”
“Yes, ma’am, I did.” His voice shook, but everyone heard him loud and clear that time. I squeezed my pen tighter. The tricky part was still on deck.
“And can you point out which people you’re referring to, please?” DonnaJo’s sleepy drawl cradled the words, her soft tone making the loaded question sound as innocent as an offer to take Jerry for ice cream.
He didn’t move.
Not a twitch. Not a blink.
The entire courtroom held its collective breath. My eyes jumped from DonnaJo, to the witness, to the defense attorney, an up-and-coming junior partner at the city’s largest firm. Craig was a nice guy, and a damned good lawyer, who’d taken the case on court appointment for reasons nobody could figure out.
Nobody except me, anyway.
Three weeks ago, I’d bumped into Craig accidentally-on-purpose at an upscale bar popular with the local legal crowd, and he’d told me flat out he didn’t think his clients had a snowman’s chance in Jamaica of avoiding prison. “This case doesn’t have a damned thing to do with them,” he’d said, leaning in over his Scotch. “The commonwealth has them dead to rights. DonnaJo Marsh is as good as it gets at sending guys like these away. She flipped a dealer and she has like ten eyewitnesses putting my guys at the scene.” He’d shaken his head. “Nope. The win here isn’t about a not guilty verdict. It’s in the perception. People out in the suburbs or down in the Fan hear ‘drug dealers’ and they think ‘black kids,’ and so when an eighteen-year-old gets sent away for the years he might’ve spent in college for getting busted with an ounce of weed, nobody gives a shit. And that’s just . . .” He waved one hand. “It’s just stupidly fucking wrong. Especially when, statistically, white guys who kill people cooking up meth get lighter sentences. Not just in Virginia, but everywhere. There’s not a scrap of justice to be found in that, Nichelle.”
“So, you’re trying to lose?” I asked.
He sipped his drink. “Not at all. I signed an agreement with the commonwealth to provide those guys the best defense I can muster, and I”—he winked, the effects of the Scotch starting to show on his face—“am very good at my job. They’ll get service they couldn’t pay for with five meth trailers running around the clock. But at the final gavel, the truth will prevail. As it should, really.”
He drained his glass while I swirled the ice in my Midori sour with a swizzle stick. “I’m missing a piece of this puzzle, Craig,” I said finally. “Guys like you are always in it to win—but so far what I’m hearing is basically that you know they did it and they deserve to do time, yet you’re busting your ass for no return. Care to make that match up for me?”
He gestured to the bartender, not speaking until he had another double Scotch in his hand. “Your turn to tell the truth, Nichelle—the story is more interesting with me on their side, right?”
Yes, it was. Craig was movie-lawyer handsome with charisma to spare, and spent most of his professional life on some variety of moral justice crusade. His presence at the defense table had put these particular drug dealers front and center for every news outlet in the city for weeks now. Given them the run of the news cycle this week, too—until this morning.
I knew exactly why he was at that table.
It wasn’t about the defendants at all. It was about the platform.
I wondered, watching Craig watch Jerry sit frozen on the stand, what he wanted the kid to do. Lawyers, especially good ones, are competitive by nature. Craig himself had played football at UVA. Could the desire to win overpower what he seemed to see as a larger social mission in this case, or was he laser-focused on Jerry because he was willing him to talk?
If he was, it worked. Jerry pulled in a breath I saw raise his shoulders from across the room before he pointed a trembling finger at each of the defendants. “Right there, ma’am.”
I studied them, calm and still in the round-backed wooden chairs. They were dressed in navy suits for court, the leader’s long red hair caught back in a ponytail, hands clasped in front of them on the table. Prison hadn’t been kind to these guys—they looked thinner than I remembered, their hands red and chapped almost raw like they’d been scrubbing sheets over an old-school washboard. In lye.
DonnaJo drew my eyes back to the stand, firing questions for better than half an hour, letting Jerry’s increasingly steady retelling paint a picture of hard men who cared more about skirting the law and cutting corners to turn a profit than they did about the safety of their friends, associates, or neighbors.
I swear I saw one juror swipe at the corner of her eye before he was through talking about the explosion.
“It was for real like all hell broke loose,” Jerry said. “The thing I can’t forget is the squealing sound when the metal walls of the trailer blew apart. Like somebody slaughtering a dozen hogs all at one time.” He shuddered. I scribbled a star next to the comment, wondering if DonnaJo had coached him on the pause he followed it with.
“And did any of the defendants express remorse to you at any time for the lives lost?” DonnaJo walked to the projector screen, clicking the remote in her hand to display a picture of a freckle-faced redheaded boy on a tricycle. She touched the child’s hand in the photo.
Jerry shook his head. “No, ma’am.”
“No further questions, Your Honor.” DonnaJo returned to her seat as Craig left his.
“Jerry, how close were you to the trailer when it blew up?” His tone was light,
conversational. But I’d watched Craig work enough to know that slight smile was dangerous.
Jerry fidgeted, tapping his palms on the wooden arms of the chair. “A hundred yards, maybe? Close enough to get this.” He held up his right arm, a still-pink scar running five inches down it easily visible from my seat. I scribbled notes, my eyes on Craig.
“And why were you on your way to the trailer that night?”
Jerry blinked. “They called me there. I was their best runner.”
“They called you there.” Craig walked closer to the box. “Why’d they call you there, Jerry?”
Jerry’s thin lips disappeared altogether, rolling between his teeth. His hands picked up a beat on the chair arms again.
DonnaJo sat up straighter, watching Jerry for a silent minute before she scribbled something on the yellow legal pad in front of her and pushed it to her assistant. The young man read it before he turned to her and shrugged.
Oh shit.
Craig knew something she didn’t know.
I scooted to the edge of my seat.
The judge leaned in to his mic. “The witness will answer the question.”
Jerry’s eyes went to DonnaJo, and Craig stepped smoothly between them. “Jerry?”
Jerry studied the ceiling. “Nobody ever got around to telling me that, sir. They went to jail before I talked to them.”
Craig put his right index finger over his lips, nodding. He turned and walked back toward the defense table, where he took a swallow from his water bottle.
DonnaJo whispered to her assistant. He got up and hurried out the double doors behind me, his eyes on his shoes as he passed a gallery full of murmuring reporters and onlookers.
Deadly Politics Page 3
