Front Page Fatality

by Walker, LynDee

  Praise for Front Page Fatality

  “Author LynDee Walker sure knows her way around a plot twist. She kept me turning pages late into the night, following the rollercoaster adventures of her fashionably feisty heroine….Front Page Fatality is smart, funny, and loaded with surprises. A terrific debut mystery.”

  – Laura Levine,

  Author of the Jaine Austen Mystery Series

  “Front Page Fatality is delightful, with engaging characters, a crackling good mystery, and of course, high, high heels. LynDee Walker writes with wit and intelligence and the confidence of a newsroom insider. What fun!”

  – Harley Jane Kozak,

  Agatha, Anthony, and Macavity-Award Winning Author of

  Dating Dead Men and Keeper of the Moon (March 2013)

  “This is a joy to read: Nichelle is a likeable character who does put her nose into whatever seems curious to her…the book can be read in one sitting thanks to the easy and casual language the author has employed in writing the book. Highly recommended to the fans of cozy mysteries!”

  – Mystery Tribune

  “Gives those designer shoes a workout! Nicey’s adventure kept me guessing. Goes down as smooth as hot chocolate with whipped cream.”

  – Alice Loweecey,

  Author of the Falcone and Driscoll Investigations

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

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  Reader’s Discussion Guide

  About LynDee Walker

  FRONT PAGE FATALITY

  A Henery Press Mystery

  First Edition

  Kindle edition | January 2013

  Henery Press

  www.henerypress.com

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever, including Internet usage, without written permission from Henery Press, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Copyright © 2012 by LynDee Walker

  Cover design by Fayette Terlouw

  Author photograph by Sarah Dabney-Reardon

  This is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  ISBN-13: 978-1-938383-27-4

  Printed in the United States of America

  For my mom, who was my biggest fan.

  I hope there are bookstores in Heaven. I miss you every day.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  So many people had a hand in making this book a reality, and each one has my eternal gratitude. I’m sure I’ll forget to mention someone, though I’ve been working on this list for a while. If you find that your name was left off, know that it was inadvertent, and accept my thanks.

  Richmond is a beautiful city that has truly become home for my family. Thank you to the gracious people of central Virginia. This is fiction, and I took liberties, but I tried very hard to capture the things I love about this place. I hope I was successful.

  All of the amazing journalists and police officers I’ve worked with: thank you for doing what you do. Thanks to my favorite forensic lab tech, Corrie Meyer, who graciously answered my questions no matter how crazy they seemed.

  No manuscript is ever perfect, but they’re much more imperfect in various drafting stages. This is why writers love their beta readers. Thank you Courtney Loveday, Allison Ward, Pam Walker, Lane Buckman, Becky Durfee, Jennifer Walkup, Maer Wilson, Dee Garretson, Ramsey Hootman, and Danielle Devor, for reading some version of this for me.

  My writer friends have propped me up and poured virtual drinks on bad days, and cheered like no one else on great ones. Thank you, my purgy buds, especially Kris Herndon, Lisa Brackmann, Alice Loweecey, Gretchen McNeil, Sue Laybourn, Kelly Andrews, Amy Bai, Elizabeth Loupas, Alex Harrow, Rick Campbell, Rebecca Burrell, Elysabeth Williams, and Jenn Nelson. Special thanks to my late-night title brainstorm buds, Jan O’Hara and Clovia Shaw.

  My fellow Hens: I couldn’t be more honored to be in such talented company. Thanks Terri L. Austin, Larissa Reinhart, Christina Freeburn, Susan M. Boyer, Gigi Pandian, and Diane Vallere, for being so welcoming and supportive.

  My amazingly talented, fabutastic (why yes, I did just make up a word) editor, Kendel Flaum: thank you for your unending patience and support, for seeing “a gem in the slush pile” (and telling me that—I’m going to frame that email as soon as I have time) and for not getting annoyed with me for breaking the rules and emailing you back. Most of all, thank you for making this a better book. I cannot tell you what a pleasure it is to work with you.

  Big thanks to marketing guru Art Molinares for keeping your finger on the pulse of Internet trends, and for your availability, support, and help.

  Every writer dreams of what the cover of their book might look like if it’s ever published. Thank you to the insanely talented Fayette Terlouw for making this one more beautiful than I ever imagined.

  Great teachers inspire us to achieve great things. Thank you to the talented teachers who made me think I could do this: Carol Mendez, Lynnda Roselle, Margie Howeth, Keith Shelton, Jacque Lambiase, Richard Wells, and Frank Feigert.

  Years of front line experience as a reporter went into Nichelle’s story. Thanks to the folks who made it fun: Sally Ellertson, Lisa Hermes, and Joy E. Cressler. My very own “chief,” James Moody, thank you for taking a chance on me. Photographer extraordinaire Darlene Moore, I still miss the armadillo eggs.

  I am blessed to have great friends. Sarah Dabney-Reardon, many thanks for the author pictures that make me look pretty, even to me. That’s not an easy feat. Thank you for your endless encouragement and your boundless optimism. Nichole Dwire and Nichol Vogel, thank you for believing in me.

  My big-hearted, funny best friend, who read every page of the rambling rough draft and saw something there that made her say nice things, who listened to me talk about plot points and publishing until I’m sure she could’ve cheerfully taken a hammer to me (but never let on), who put up with my neuroses, and who taught me to walk in heels: thank you, Julie Hallberg, for being you.

  My supportive and all-around fantastic husband, Justin, who was an evenings-and-weekends single dad for almost a whole summer while his wife went a little crazy after being bitten by the fiction bug. Thanks for believing in me even when I didn’t. And my monkeys, who don’t complain too much when mommy is holed up with her imaginary friends — thank you for being the light in my days, and the very best things that ever happened to me. I love you.

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  So many bodies, so little time

  Thinking about blood spatters and ballistics reports before I’d even finished my coffee wasn’t exactly how I wanted to start my weekend.

  “More dead people? Really, guys?” I asked, as if the beat cops whose chatter blared out of the police scanner in my passenger seat could hear me. They, of course, kept right on talking. Apparently, this dead guy had lost a good bit of brains to a bullet, too.

  I reached for my Blackberry, keeping one hand on the steering wheel and my eyes on the morning traffic. A body before I’d even made it to the newsroom was usually a good thing—but not that Friday. If I’d had to pay by the corpse, my MasterCard would’ve been maxed out by Wednesday that week. Especially
given the eBay charge for the new heels on my feet.

  I glanced at the clock and stomped my sapphire Louboutin down on the gas pedal, thumbing the speed dial for police headquarters.

  “Aaron, it’s Nichelle,” I said when I got the department spokesman’s voicemail. “I hear y’all are having a party out on Southside this morning, and I seem to have misplaced my invitation. Give me a call when you get a minute.”

  Tossing my phone back into my bag, I turned into the parking garage of the Richmond Telegraph. I had been hoping for an idiot crook who’d opened an account with his real address before he’d robbed the video store. Anything but another body.

  I flashed a semi-grin at my editor as I strode into his office a few minutes later.

  “I’ve got another dead drug dealer on Southside. They just found him this morning.” My words dissolved his annoyed expression to one of interest, his perpetual aggravation with my last-minute arrivals for the morning staff meeting forgotten at the mention of a homicide.

  “Another one, huh?” He leaned forward and rested his elbows on his massive mahogany desk. “Do we know if this homicide is related to the guy they found out there a couple of weeks ago?”

  “Aside from the bit about him being a dealer I caught on the scanner, not really.” I dropped into my usual seat. “I left a message for Aaron White on my way in. I should have something for you by this afternoon.”

  Bob nodded, appearing satisfied and moving on to the sports section. “What’s going on in your world this morning, Parker? Anything worth having an opinion on, or am I paying you to make stuff up yet?”

  Our sports columnist (and de facto sports editor since the real thing was still on leave with his wife and new baby) raised his voice over the round of laughter and began a rundown of the day’s sporting events.

  “And I’m writing my column on the women’s basketball coach over at the University of Richmond,” he finished. “She’s in the middle of treatment for breast cancer, and she still led the team to the playoffs again this past season.” He glanced at his notes. “This makes four years in a row.”

  “Nice,” Bob said. “I love a human interest story on a woman in the sports section.”

  The international desk was following an uprising after yet another questionable election in the Middle East, and the government reporters were still covering the bickering between the senate candidates who were gearing up for the fall race.

  Political jokes fired faster than a drunken celebutante’s antics circle the blogosphere, and I chuckled at the warring punch lines as my eyes skipped between the faces of my colleagues—my family in Richmond, really. They adopted me the second I’d stepped into the newsroom without a friend in a six-hundred-mile radius, the ink still wet on my degree from Syracuse.

  “Bawb.” The drawling soprano that belonged to our copy chief came from the doorway as if on cue, chasing away my warm fuzzies and twisting my smile into a reflexive grimace. Every family needs at least one annoying cousin, and Shelby was happy to fill that role for me. “Could you please make sure everyone has their copy in by deadline tonight? My staff would like to leave on time, since it is Friday and all.”

  It wouldn’t be morning if Shelby wasn’t trying to crash the news meeting. Maybe I could at least stay far enough under her radar to avoid the trademark backhanded compliments she was so fond of throwing my way, especially in front of Bob. Or not, I thought as she swung her phoniest smile on me. Here it comes. I left out a comma, or a hyphen, or there’s an extra space somewhere.

  “Nichelle, what a great job you did on the murder conviction!” Shelby put her hands on her tiny hips and stuck out her inversely-proportionate chest, straining the cotton of her simple cornflower t-shirt. “Though I’m pretty sure the prosecutor was approaching the bench, not the beach.”

  My temper flared, but before I opened my mouth to tell her that quickly pounding out the day’s lead story was different than writing up the garden club meetings she covered before her big move to the copy desk, Bob cleared his throat.

  “That one’s on me, since I edited that story, Shelby,” he said, before he dismissed her with a promise that deadlines would be adhered to by all.

  “Sorry, chief.” I shrugged at Bob as Shelby’s spiky black hair disappeared into the maze of cubicles. “Bench, beach. Potato, tomato.”

  Bob chuckled before he turned to the features editor. I tuned out what they were talking about. For the most part, I preferred hard news writing to any other kind.

  I had grabbed the police report on the first drug dealer murder from my file drawer on my way into the meeting, and I pulled it out and read it again. Noah Leon Smith, age twenty-six, had died the Friday before Memorial Day of a massive head injury inflicted by a .45 caliber bullet. He’d been found sprawled across his own sofa in a neighborhood that saw more than its fair share of violence. The easy assumption was that he’d been killed by another dealer, or maybe a desperate customer. But now did a second victim prove that easy assumption faulty?

  My eyes scanned the detective’s narrative with that in mind, and four simple lines jumped out at me like a pair of old sneakers at a Manolo collection debut.

  Bathroom sink, lower cabinet: four kilograms beige powder, two large plastic bags dried, green leafy substance. Upper cabinet: fifteen large bags containing tablets, various sizes and colors. Lab results: powder: heroin. Green leafy: marijuana. Tablets: Oxycontin, Vicodin, Zoloft, Effexor, Ritalin. Kitchen, freezer compartment: three paper grocery sacks containing a total of $257,400 in large bills.

  I’d dismissed it before. Sure, a business rival or a junkie would have stolen the drugs and the money—if they had time, knew where to find it, and weren’t already flying on a sample of Noah Smith’s pharmaceuticals. But another dealer with holes where he shouldn’t have them made me wonder if the crime scenes were similar. If the new victim still had a house full of smack and cash, now that was a story.

  My fingers wound around a lock of my hair, my thoughts hijacked by scenes from old Charles Bronson movies as I considered the possibility the shooter was more interested in payback than a payday. That could be a very sexy story.

  Bob’s endearingly cheesy dismissal snapped me out of my reverie. “All right, folks,” he said every morning. “My office is not newsworthy, so get out and go find me something to print.”

  I paused outside Bob’s door, where Grant Parker was chatting with the international editor about the baseball season. I couldn’t remember ever having spoken more than a dozen words to Parker, an almost-professional pitcher who was regarded around Richmond as just slightly less than Zeus’ son, but the column he’d talked about in the meeting caught my attention.

  I cleared my throat lightly and he turned his head, his bright green eyes widening a touch when they met mine. He was tall, but in my heels, I was almost nose-to-nose with him.

  “What can I do for you, Miss Clarke?” He flashed the smile that made most women here channel their corset-bound ancestors and swoon—and sold a fair number of newspapers, too.

  “I wanted to say thank you,” I said, shifting my file folder to the other arm. “For the column you’re doing today. My mom is a breast cancer survivor, and it’s nice you’re writing about it. The sports section isn’t usually where you’d look for a breast cancer story. So thanks.”

  “You’re so welcome.” His eyes dropped to the square-toed perfection of the shiny blue stilettos I’d shoved my feet into between my early morning body combat class and my mad dash to the meeting, then raised back to mine. “Nice of you to say so. I didn’t know you read my column.”

  “I don’t.” I smiled. “But I will tomorrow.”

  “I guess I’d better be on my A game, then.” He ran a hand through his already-messy blond hair and grinned at me again.

  “I guess you’d better.” I took a step backward. “I’m told I can be tough to impress.”

  “I do love a challenge.” He raised his eyebrows and twisted his mouth to one side.

>   “I bet you do.” I shook my head, making a mental note to call my mother as I turned and headed for my ivory cubicle, Parker and his too-perfect smile forgotten. Charles Bronson. Dead guys. The nagging feeling there was something beyond the obvious on the murdered dealers got stronger the more I thought about the scattered details I’d heard on the scanner.

  My hand was already on the phone to call Aaron again when I snatched up the pink slip on my desk, but the message was from my friend Jenna. She was probably looking for my input on which restaurants had sufficiently-stocked bars for our every-other-Friday girls’ night, which I’d been looking forward to roughly since the opening gavel banged on Monday morning.

  Before I could pick up the phone to return her call, my favorite detective returned mine.

  “Why didn’t the shooter take the drugs and the money in Noah Smith’s house? The dead dealer, from last month?” I asked, barely bothering to tell Aaron good morning. “And was the murder scene this morning the same?”

  He sighed, and I felt my eyebrows go up. That would be a yes. I fumbled for a pen.

  “It was,” he said after a pause. “And we’re not sure.”

  “You think it was the same shooter?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe.”

  I could almost hear the wheels turning in his head as he weighed what to tell me. The uncomfortably symbiotic relationship between police departments and the media was an odd line to walk: I needed him for stories, and he needed the stories for the key witnesses they sometimes brought in his door. I didn’t have to file a Freedom of Information request for every routine report, but Aaron’s job was to let out only the information the department wanted to release. Mine was to get my readers as much as I could. Most days, we struck a decent balance.

  “We rushed the ballistics, but it still won’t be back for another few hours at the earliest,” he said. “Maybe not ’til Monday. I don’t know how busy they are. You want to come by this afternoon?”

  I asked for the first half-hour he had available. “Bob wants something on this for tomorrow, and it is Friday. I’d like to leave at a decent hour one night this week.”