Buried Leads (A Headlines in High Heels Mystery)

by Walker, LynDee

  “If he gets off, he’ll disappear,” Kyle said. “Or insulate himself so well I’ll never get at him again, and all this work will have been for nothing. So what have you got?”

  I tapped my index finger on the black laminate table, still staring at the last photo. Billings was sitting at an outdoor café table with a man in a dark suit, and a young woman in large sunglasses whose face was partially hidden behind her hair. No Joey. Thank God. I wasn’t supposed to care, but I did anyway.

  I shook my head slowly as I raised my eyes to Kyle’s. I knew that look. It was the same one that had gotten me to give up my virginity in a secluded spot along the banks of Lake Ray Hubbard.

  Kyle was begging.

  “I want an exclusive on the whole thing,” I said. “Not just whatever we get on the murder, but all of this,” I waved a hand at the records on the table. “The ATF talks to no one until the Telegraph runs the story. Print, not just online.”

  “I don’t have any control over what the media relations people do,” he said, but I could see his thought pattern clearly. He was figuring a way around it the same way he’d figured a way around my bra that long-ago July evening.

  “You’ll find a way.” I flashed a grin and arched one eyebrow.

  “I suppose I’ll have to.” He grinned back.

  “All right,” I leaned back in the chair. “I don’t think Billings is your boy. Not on the murder.”

  “So you said. But why?”

  “Well, for one, he’s on house arrest. Was he at RAU in the wee hours this morning?”

  “No, he was at home all night. I pull the reports every morning. Why?”

  “Then he didn’t kill Allison.”

  “Who?”

  “Do you own a TV? The call girl at RAU. It’s been all over since early this morning.” I grimaced.

  “All over the TV? But not the newspaper?” He tilted his head to one side.

  “It’s been a shit day.”

  He leaned his elbows on the table and dropped his eyelids halfway, smiling a slow smile that used to make my pulse flutter. I didn’t want to admit it still did. “I could help with that.”

  “Slow down, Captain Hormones,” I said, clearing my throat and dropping my eyes back to the photos. “I want my job back.”

  “You lost your job?” His mouth dropped open. “What the hell happened to you today?”

  “Not all of it. Just half.” I shook my head and tapped the pictures, pushing them back to the middle of the table. “I really don’t want to talk about it. Who are these people?”

  “New York Mafia, mostly,” he said. “I told you, there’s a contraband cigarette trafficking ring running the east coast that steals enough in tax money every year to run a medium-sized country. Well, Billings provides their product at a good rate for a cut of the action.”

  “How can he do that and still keep his job?”

  “They have about thirty fronts set up, some of them as cigarette wholesalers,” he said. “And they run an above-board operation in three different states. So on paper, Billings isn’t doing anything he shouldn’t. But some of the trucks are overweight.” He dug through a box and produced a file folder full of weigh station reports. “Only the ones going from the Raymond Garfield factory to certain wholesalers. And only in South Carolina and New York, where the state taxes are some of the highest in the country.”

  “So there are more cartons in there than they’re reporting,” I said, flipping through the logs and comparing the weights. “How many cigarettes are there in three hundred pounds?”

  “About a hundred and thirty-five thousand,” Kyle said.

  “And this isn’t enough for a warrant?” I asked.

  “Not with the kind of defense lawyers Billings can afford,” Kyle sighed. “I know he’s doing it, but they’ll say the trucks were carrying...I don’t know. Bananas. Luggage. Without an inspection of the contents, I can’t prove they’re not. And without knowing which trucks are carrying too much, I can’t get a warrant. I petitioned for one to cover the whole Raymond Garfield fleet for a month about a year ago, and the judge said there weren’t grounds. Trucks turn up overweight every once in a while. These guys are good.”

  “And the Mafia is running this contraband tobacco thing?”

  “There’s a shit ton of money in it, and it takes massive organization,” he said. “No one else could handle one this big. I’ve busted little one-off operations where people fake the tax stamps or just buy packs here, where the taxes are low, and resell them out of alleys in New York, where they’re high. People buy a sixty-dollar carton of Marlboros in an alley for fifty dollars, and the thief still has fifteen in profit per carton because the taxes are so high there. But these guys...They wouldn’t have this operation up and running if Billings wasn’t supplying their product. There’s no other way they could do this volume without it looking suspicious.”

  I nodded, flipping through the labels on the folders in the box, which were mostly numeric codes I didn’t understand.

  “And if you get him, you might get them,” I said.

  “Bingo. Organized crime is a tough nut to crack. They have a lot of practice covering their asses. But if Billings turns on them to save his own ass—” Kyle smiled slightly. “Well. That’s the kind of bust that could make a guy’s career.”

  “And the kind of story that could shut Les Simpson up once and for all,” I muttered, pulling a folder free from the box.

  Kyle leaned forward. “So, what do you say, Nicey?”

  “Do I get my exclusive?” I asked.

  “I’ll do everything in my power,” he said. “You have my word.”

  “Show me what’s what,” I said, waving my hands over the table. “I don’t get your numbering system. Where’s your file on the murder?”

  He pushed a fat folder toward me and flipped it open. A smiling, work I.D. photo of the deceased lay over a glossy of the gnawed-on remains.

  “Jesus,” I whispered, turning to the forensics report.

  “So someone killed him and dumped him almost right away?” I said. “Blunt force head trauma and gunshot wound. Which was the cause of death?”

  “The shot.”

  I nodded.

  “Did you get the DNA back on the samples they took?”

  “Still waiting. The lab is backed up.”

  I looked at the report again.

  “But the hair was blonde. Billings isn’t blonde.”

  “No, but the victim was. And the hair doesn’t always come from the killer.”

  I rolled my eyes upward to look at him from under my lashes. “Especially when the investigating officers don’t want it to?” I asked, but my brain was considering Grayson and his silver-at-the-temples chestnut coif. Blond hair didn’t come from the senator, either.

  What if we were both wrong?

  If the murders were connected, then it had to be someone who knew Allison, too.

  A photo I’d seen in Lucinda Eckersly’s parlor flashed through my brain.

  Eckersly was hunting, with that old rifle. And he had blonde hair peeking out from under his flannel hunting cap.

  “Kyle, tell me about the gun,” I said, picturing the carvings on the stock of the old rifle hanging over the dining room doorway in the Eckersly’s foyer.

  He shoved a printout of a picture across the table and I caught a sharp breath. I wished I had a picture of Eckersly’s gun to make sure I was right about this one being almost identical.

  “Did Billings say where he got this gun?”

  “He bought it at an auction.”

  “And you’re sure the bullet came from that gun?”

  “No.”

  My head snapped up.

  “I thought you said you had him on the gun.”

  �
��I’m sure the bullet came from that kind of gun,” he said. “He won’t produce the weapon, so I can’t be certain if it came from his gun. Convenient time for a priceless rifle to go missing.”

  “What if it didn’t come from his gun?” I tapped my pen on the table, my puzzle starting to fall into place. “Bill Eckersly was a client of the dead call girl. He’s also involved somehow with Senator Grayson, and maybe Billings, too. I saw a funny looking old fashioned gun in the foyer at his house today. One with a carved stock like this one. And you know something, because you wouldn’t have been there when he drove his truck into the jewelry store the other day if you didn’t. What do you make of him?”

  “He’s supplying Billings with tobacco off the books,” he said. “He doesn’t strike me as the murdering type. Also, what would he have against a lawyer who’s half his age and lives forty miles from him?”

  I bit my lip. He was right. I had no motive on Amesworth I could pin to Eckersly, which was why I hadn’t seriously suspected him before. But the gun matched the one in Kyle’s printout. I was more sure of it the longer I stared at it.

  “His mother was worried about him losing the farm,” I said. “Maybe he wanted more of the money?”

  “Then why kill the lobbyist?” Kyle said. “That guy didn’t have any control over who gets what percentage of anything.”

  The jewelry store clerk’s comment about the wad of cash he flashed around the store danced through my head. That didn’t fit, either. Especially not with the fake bracelet Allison had been wearing.

  Allison.

  “The girl?” I asked. “Eckersly’s mother said he was in love with her, and she was a prostitute. If it’s not money, it’s usually sex when someone gets killed.”

  “So you think Eckersly killed Amesworth over the call girl, and then killed her last night because...?”

  “She didn’t love him? She was going to tell?”

  Wait.

  I reached for the forensics report.

  “There was slight remodeling on the head wound,” I said.

  “Yeah. He was hit before he was killed,” Kyle said.

  “Like, hours before he was killed,” I sat up straighter, warming to the scenario in my head. “What if the attorney wanted a little pretty college girl company, so he calls up the dean at his alma mater and they send over Allison—”

  “And the lawyer is into something she doesn’t want to do?” Kyle grinned.

  “Exactly.” I nodded. “So she cracks him over the head and panics, calls her best client for help—”

  “And Eckersly shows up, says he’ll take care of it.”

  “He loads the body in his truck and takes off, but then he shoots the guy and dumps him instead of taking him home. Allison flips her shit, and says she’s going to tell someone.”

  “So now she’s dead, too.” Kyle closed the folder. “How did she die?”

  “Strangled. Eckersly is a big man.”

  Kyle stared at the wall behind me, and I could see him putting it together in his head.

  “You saw the rifle in his house earlier today?” he asked finally.

  “And he has blonde hair. What kind of tires are you looking for?”

  “Big ones.”

  “The kind that go on a double-dually pickup, maybe?” I pictured the red monstrosity buried in the side of the jewelry shop.

  “Yep.” Kyle shook his head. “It wasn’t Billings, was it?”

  “Nope. Is that truck still impounded somewhere?”

  He flipped open his laptop and punched a few keys.

  “The Richmond PD has it,” he said. “Looks like I’m going to check out tire treads.”

  “Looks like I have a story to write,” I stood. “Call me when you have the warrant?”

  “You got it, Lois.” He opened the door and pulled me into a tight hug as I tried to slip past him. “Thanks for your help. We always did make a pretty good team.” He loosened his hold, but didn’t let go.

  My breath caught as his eyelids lowered again. My eyes fell shut and I leaned toward him.

  Stop. Bad idea, kissing a cop. And bad for him, kissing a reporter in a building that didn’t have a dust bunny the security cameras couldn’t see.

  I ducked under Kyle’s arm and stepped into the hall.

  “We have work to do,” I said from a couple of paces away.

  Kyle nodded, his smile not quite reaching his eyes.

  “I’ll call you when we pick him up.”

  19.

  Bathtubs and Backrooms

  I stayed in the tub until the water turned chilly and my fingers were pruned, then drank nearly half a bottle of pinot noir, but still couldn’t sit down for more than five minutes.

  I finally dug out the duster and started attacking my house room by room, thinking about Senator Grayson. And Allison, the dead call girl/campaign volunteer. And Billings, Lakshmi, and Lucinda.

  Darcy gave up following me around after an hour and retreated to her bed in the corner of the living room while I dusted the bookshelves, muttering to myself.

  “Grayson is dirty, too.” I thought about the stamps that were hidden in my closet. Part of one of them had likely been on the murder victim.

  How did he get that if it was Eckersly?

  And what if Kyle let Billings go and never caught up with him again? I’d seen photographic evidence that Billings was a creep. Somehow, making a fortune stealing tax money from schools and social programs while peddling a product that killed people didn’t seem any better to me than shooting someone.

  “Jeez, Darcy!” I threw the duster into the corner, whirling on my still-sore ankle and putting my hands on my hips. “What the hell is going on here?”

  Darcy raised her head, considered me for a few seconds, sniffed the air for signs of food, then plopped her chin back onto her front paws and sighed.

  “Me, too, girl,” I said, checking my Blackberry for a text or missed call from Kyle.

  Nothing.

  “I’m missing something,” I mumbled, retrieving the duster and returning it to the kitchen cabinet.

  But the story Kyle and I had come up with made sense. Maybe I was just operating on adrenaline overload.

  “Maybe,” I said, eyeing my reflection sternly as I reached for my toothbrush and a tube of Colgate, “you just want the senator to be involved in this so you weren’t chasing the wrong guy the whole time.”

  Then why did he have the stamps?

  I didn’t have an answer for that, so I pushed it aside. I shut off the bathroom light and returned to the sofa, where I picked up a puzzle piece and started filling in the bottom corner of my meadow, laying my phone on the cushion next to me where I’d be sure to hear it.

  I’d finished the bottom half of the jigsaw by the time Kyle’s text came at one-thirty.

  “Tires match. Picked him up at a motor lodge outside Ashland with a stripper and a nearly-empty fifth of Jack. Guilty?”

  “Maybe.” I typed back. “Call me when you’re free.”

  Agents from the Richmond office of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives arrested a local farmer early Friday in connection with the murder of Daniel Amesworth, 29, a west end attorney whose remains were found near the city limits last week. William Eckersly, 37, whose family owns the largest tobacco farm in Powhatan county, is also a suspect in the death of RAU student Allison Brantley, whose body was found on the campus Thursday.

  “I’m limited by agency policy,” ATF Special Agent Kyle Miller said Friday. “But I can confirm that Mr. Eckersly is a person of interest in two open murder investigations.”

  I had the story ready for Bob when he arrived at seven, and his eyebrows raised higher by degrees as he read it. By the time he turned the chair to face me, they were almost on top of his head
.

  “I haven’t heard a word about this,” he said. “Where the hell did you get it?”

  “I’m just that good, I guess,” I said. “Consider it a peace offering. I’m sorry I pissed you off yesterday.”

  “This is quite an amends,” he said. “How long do we have before Charlie gets wind of it?”

  “He promised me an exclusive until we’d printed it.”

  Bob shook his head. “Not sure I want to know what you had to do for that.”

  “Not what you’re thinking,” I said. “I’m me, not Shelby. Even if I have been acting a little like her lately. I don’t want Trudy’s job, Bob. Today, I don’t even want the Post. I just want my beat back the way it was.”

  “I’m not sure I can promise you that,” he said. “This is good, but Les is pretty determined. ”

  I nodded. “I’m prepared to impress Andrews on a daily basis for as long as it takes.”

  “Something tells me you’ll win him over eventually.” Bob grinned. “This will help. I’m going to have Ryan put it on the web now. Twenty-four hours is a long time for something like this to stay quiet in a town like Powhatan. The ATF talking is the least of my worries.”

  I stood. Bob’s voice stopped me in the doorway. “Hey, kid? Nice work.”

  I had to be at the courthouse for the dean’s arraignment at eleven. I checked the docket for the prosecutor’s name at ten-fifteen and grinned when I saw it. DonnaJo. It’d been a while since I’d seen my friend in action, and she was a good lawyer who had a flair for firing off intensely quotable snippets in her arguments. She was also a former beauty queen who usually won points with the jury for her blonde good looks and southern belle charm. Tough break for the dean. I reached for the phone.

  “I can’t tell you shit until I get into the courtroom, honey,” DonnaJo said in place of a hello when she answered.

  “Aw, come on, DonnaJo,” I said. “I’ll buy you a glass of wine after work.”

  “Not today, doll,” she said. “Boss’s orders. There are reporters camped out in every corner of this building, and Corry threatened to put me on parking detail if I breathed a word to anyone. Everybody from the Mayor to Ted Grayson has been in his office since yesterday afternoon, and I think he’s worried about his own ass. Folks are afraid this mess is going to be the end of the university, and the school is important to the city.”