She parked the Camaro behind them, and struck out on foot.
The drivers of the abandoned cars were clustered at the edge of the scene. Their faces wore the dazed, worried looks of people whose lives had intersected dramatically with that day’s news.
Beyond them, blackened pieces of an unidentifiable vehicle smoldered, scattered across the interstate as if hurled there by a giant, angry child. Ambulances were parked everywhere, emergency lights spinning silently.
Harper slipped past the crowd and followed the bits of car before finding the rest of the accident, cars tangled together into a confusing, still-smoldering mass, surrounded by police and ambulances beneath the huge, late-summer sun.
Miles was right in the middle of it, standing next to Josh Leonard, the reporter from Channel 5 News. He was pointing at something next to the tangled mass.
Only when Harper reached them did she see the beer can. There was another lying nearby. And more in the distance.
“At this hour?” she said. “It’s not even eleven o’clock.”
Miles’s face was somber.
“Three dead,” he told her quietly. “Six injured. Cops think one of the drivers was drunk.”
Josh didn’t make any of his usual jokes.
“It’s a bloodbath,” he told her. “They think it was a stag party.”
“Oh, man.” Harper pulled her phone from her pocket. “I’ll let the paper know. Where are they taking the injured?”
“I’m not sure.” Miles pointed at an ambulance nearby. “Ask Toby.”
Looking over where he indicated, she saw paramedic Toby Jennings, his white-blond hair rumpled, his face serious as he connected an IV tube to a bag suspended above a bloodied man on a stretcher.
Harper made her way toward him.
As the stretcher was loaded onto one of the ambulances, Toby raked his fingers through his hair and looked around for more to do.
“Hey, Toby,” Harper called, waving.
Glancing up, he gave a distracted half smile, and lifted his hand.
“Hey,” he said, as she approached. “You got a ticket to this show as well? I thought this place was supposed to be exclusive.”
“The bouncer knows me,” she said.
He gave her a quick hug.
Hugging was new for them. Ever since he’d been the paramedic on call the night she was shot, he’d “taken a new interest in your survival,” as he liked to put it.
“How’s it going?” Harper asked.
“Oh, you know.” He looked back as he spoke, assessing the remaining two victims, who were both surrounded by other paramedics. “Another day, another disaster. Keeps the bills paid.”
Harper lowered her voice. “Is it true one of the drivers had been drinking?”
His condemning nod said everything.
“They were driving back from Jacksonville after an all-night stag party,” he said, quietly. “I’m told the groom was in a different car that didn’t wreck, which makes him one lucky son of a bitch, because nobody walked out of this in good shape.”
Harper shook her head. “When will people learn?”
“Never, is what I’m thinking,” Toby said. He gestured at her shoulder. “What about you? Still predicting the weather with that thing?”
Harper’s hand rose toward her scar. “It’s good. Only hurts when I tell a lie.”
He grinned. “Well, that’s going to be a nightmare for you at the paper. I mean, all you journalists do is make things up, or so I’m told.”
She kicked him lightly, and he grabbed his shin.
“Toby!” The voice came from one of the ambulances. “Load up.”
Toby gave her an apologetic smile. “Duty calls.”
“Oh hey,” she said, as he headed to join the others. “Where are you taking them?”
“Savannah Memorial.” He jumped into the back of the nearest ambulance and turned to face her. “Come over! We’ve got cake.”
* * *
By the time she’d gathered enough information from the scene, and then driven to the hospital and back to the newsroom to write up her story, it was afternoon and she hadn’t had a chance to even think about the Scott case.
She had just hit Send on her piece when DJ spun his chair around and rolled himself closer to her desk.
“How do you always know when I’m finishing something?” she asked him, suspiciously.
“Intuition.” He tapped his forehead. “I saw you guys caught yourselves a live one. Baxter said it was a slaughterhouse out there.”
“Yeah,” she said. “If you were thinking of driving down to Florida this afternoon, I’d put it off until tomorrow. The interstate’s a nightmare.”
“Harper.” Emma Baxter stormed across the newsroom toward them.
DJ flinched.
“Why does she do that?” he whispered, returning hurriedly to his own desk.
“I got the pictures from the crash scene,” Baxter said. “Our front page is ninety percent death thanks to you.”
“Anytime,” Harper said.
“What’s the latest on Wilson Shepherd? They charge him yet?”
Harper shook her head. “All the press flack will say is, ‘No comment at this time.’”
Baxter glared. “What the hell is taking so long?”
“Good question.”
Remembering what Blazer had let slip last night, Harper leaned forward.
“I heard a rumor the gun he had on him when they arrested him wasn’t the murder weapon. If they had other forensic evidence connecting him to the crime, they’d have charged him this morning. But they didn’t do that, either.”
Baxter held her gaze as the pieces fell into place.
“Shit,” she said. “They’ve got the wrong guy.”
Harper held up a cautioning hand.
“Maybe. Or maybe they messed up the evidence collection. Or maybe it’s something else.”
Baxter tapped a short, blunt fingernail against the edge of Harper’s desk, thinking it through.
“They’ve already held him more than twenty-four hours, so they must have applied for an extension, but if they haven’t got evidence, they’ll have to let him go soon,” she mused. “Then we go back to the possibility that this was a random murder.”
“That’s true. But the only person who thinks Shepherd’s innocent is Naomi’s dad,” Harper said.
“Oh yeah?” Baxter said. “What’s his theory, then?”
With no new information, Harper had kept Jerrod’s theories to herself until now. But if Wilson wasn’t the shooter, she decided, it was time to share.
“He says Naomi had a thing with some other guy at law school. Said she acted like she was scared of him. But you’re not going to like who it is.”
Baxter’s brows drew together.
“What do you mean I’m not going to like it? Who is it?”
“He says it’s Randall Anderson’s son, Peyton.”
“Oh, Christ on a bike.” Baxter gave her a look of fierce disbelief. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Look, I know what you’re thinking. But I’m wondering if Anderson wasn’t involved in some way,” Harper said. “Maybe Naomi cheated on Shepherd with Anderson, and Shepherd wanted revenge. Or maybe Anderson liked her and she didn’t like him back and it all got ugly.”
“Oh, terrific,” the editor groused. “I’ll hand in my notice now before Anderson sues us and shuts us down completely.”
“I’ll do it quietly,” Harper promised. “But I think I have to make some calls.”
As she spoke, her cell phone began to ring.
Baxter talked over it. “I’ll talk to Dells, but bear this in mind, McClain. That man loves a lawsuit. If you piss off Randall Anderson, I can’t save you,” she said. “No one can.”
She stormed back to her desk as Harper picked up her phone. Bonnie’s name was on the screen.
“Hey, Bonnie,” she said absently, her eyes fixed on Baxter’s receding figure. The editor had walked past her ow
n desk and was now knocking on head editor Paul Dells’s office door.
“Harper. Can you talk?”
Bonnie sounded serious—her voice was low, as if she didn’t want to be overheard.
“Always,” Harper said. “What’s wrong?”
“Fitz asked all the staff to come to the Library for a meeting,” Bonnie whispered. “I’m there now. He says there’s going to be a memorial service at the bar, tonight, for Naomi. I thought you’d want to come.”
“Absolutely. What time?”
“Eight o’clock,” Bonnie said.
Harper heard raised voices in the background. It sounded ugly.
“Is something wrong?” she asked. “What’s going on over there?”
“The police are here, talking to Fitz. They’re asking him a lot of questions and he’s losing it.” Bonnie’s voice grew so low she had to struggle to hear her.
“Harper, it’s so weird. It’s almost like they think he had something to do with the murder.”
12
That night at eight, Harper and DJ sat in a dark corner of the Library, waiting for the service to start.
When he’d heard where she was going, DJ had insisted on accompanying her, even though his shift at the paper was over.
“You need two sets of eyes at these things,” he’d said. “Plus, there’ll be beer.”
Outside, Miles was positioned in a discreet spot, taking pictures of people as they entered.
A poster-sized photograph of Naomi Scott beamed at them from the bar. It was a beautiful picture—the sun had tipped her dark hair with bronze, and the straps of her floaty, white dress contrasted strikingly with the warm brown of her skin. A smile lit up her perfect face.
A face to kill for, Harper thought, as she scanned the growing crowd.
A cluster of TV reporters were gathered inside the door—their makeup and buoyant hair seemed out of place in a dive bar that tended to be populated by art students.
Anyway, the bar had banned all cameras—so they could only watch. Harper could sense their frustration all the way across the room.
Behind the bar, half hidden by the picture of Naomi, Bonnie and Fitz were pouring drinks. Bonnie had pulled her blue-streaked blond hair back, and wore a simple black shift dress. Her normally sunny expression was serious.
Fitz had combed his shaggy hair, and put on a natty dark suit. He looked like himself again, except that his face was puffy and sagging, broken veins were prominent on his cheeks.
Shielded by the crowd, she studied him curiously.
In her call, Bonnie told her that, when the police arrived, the staff watched as they took Fitz into one of the back rooms of the bar for questioning.
A few minutes later the yelling started. Most of it done by Fitz.
Bonnie overheard enough to know that they’d asked him where he was the night of the murder. When he said he’d been home alone, one of them had suggested he might want to get a lawyer.
“They asked him to go to the station with them. Fitz lost it,” Bonnie said. “Told them to get the hell out of his bar and come back when they had a warrant. After that he started drinking and ranting about how the police didn’t know what they were doing. But, if you ask me, he looked scared.”
Despite this, the police had remained silent about their investigation into Wilson Shepherd. They hadn’t charged him or said a word about where the case was headed.
Harper had spent the rest of the afternoon trying to get anyone to tell her what was going on. But everyone involved was tight-lipped.
Turning in her chair, she searched the crowd. Most were around Naomi’s age—their earnest young faces sober and stunned.
“Who are you looking for?” DJ asked, sipping his beer.
“I’m checking out who’s here,” she said. “I don’t see Naomi’s father.”
As she scanned the room, her gaze rested on a table near the door, where Luke sat with Detective Daltrey and Lieutenant Blazer. Daltrey seemed to be having an animated but hushed conversation with Blazer. Harper couldn’t make out what they were saying, but Daltrey said something angrily and then Blazer cut her off with a quick sweep of his hand, which Harper interpreted as meaning “Not here.”
Luke, his eyes fixed on his glass, was staying out of it.
“Who are those guys?” DJ asked, following her gaze. “They look like cops.”
“That’s because they are cops,” Harper replied. “Detectives, to be precise.”
“That is so cool.” Pushing his glasses back into place, he peered at them. “It’s a shame they look so normal. I always hope they’ll look more like actors. Instead of just … people.”
The place was filling quickly—guests stood at the bar and crowded in the doorway.
The bar was lit by flickering candles—they’d been placed on every table and on the bookshelves that lined the walls. The combination of crowds and candles overwhelmed the air-conditioning—the bar felt hot and airless.
As she turned back, Harper’s gaze lighted on a man leaning with his back against the bar. Something about him was familiar. He was young, and more formally dressed than most of the crowd in dark slacks and a blazer, a tie knotted at his throat. He had dark blond hair with a prep-school cut.
It came to her in a rush.
Peyton Anderson.
“What’s he doing here?” she murmured.
“Who?” DJ asked, following her gaze.
Harper only half heard the question.
“Stay here,” she told him, getting to her feet. “Keep an eye out.”
“For what?”
“Anything.”
Harper strolled to the bar, positioning herself next to Anderson. She pretended to wait for Bonnie to notice her.
She saw Anderson turn his wrist and glance at an expensive-looking watch.
“Guess they’re running late,” she said, catching his eye.
He started, as if he hadn’t expected to be addressed.
His eyes skated across her face. She knew what he’d see—someone only a few years older than Naomi had been, neatly dressed in dark clothes. Before coming in, she’d brushed the tangles out of her auburn hair and fixed her makeup.
“It’s normal, I suppose,” he said, politely. “No one can blame them for losing track of time. Under the circumstances.”
He had the smooth, patrician accent of the Savannah upper class. It poured honey over each sentence and gave even single-syllable words a complexity and length they didn’t ordinarily have.
Abandoning the pretense of waiting for a drink, Harper turned to face him.
“Were you a friend of Naomi’s?” She kept her voice appropriately hushed and sympathetic.
“We went to law school together,” he said. He looked at her as if trying to place her. “Did you know her from school?”
“No. I knew her through the Library,” she explained. “My friend is a bartender here.”
“Ah, Bonnie,” he said, glancing over to where Bonnie was pouring wine into glasses. His eyes lingered on her figure. “Naomi liked her.”
“I didn’t know Naomi well,” Harper said, drawing his attention back to her. “But she seemed so talented and full of life. It’s hard to believe this could happen.”
“It’s simply awful,” he said, shaking his head. “I worry about our city. The crime is out of control.”
Interrupting himself, he held out his hand. “I’m sorry, I should introduce myself. I’m Peyton Anderson. I didn’t catch your name.”
Harper hesitated. She hadn’t thought he’d ask who she was. She couldn’t give a fake name—too many people here knew her. There wasn’t time to come up with a plan for avoiding the question.
“I’m Harper.” She shook his hand. His fingers were cool and smooth.
He had a good grip, but he held her hand too long.
“Harper. What an unusual name.” He studied her with flattering interest, as if she were the only person in the room. “It sounds familiar. Are you sure we haven’t met
?”
“I’m positive.” Politely extricating her hand from his, she changed the subject. “So … Were you and Naomi close?”
There was a brief but noticeable pause before he replied.
“If I’m honest, we were more than friends, at times. We went out before she met her current boyfriend.” He leaned closer, confidingly. “I suppose you’ve read that he’s been arrested?”
“Yes, I heard,” she said. “Do you know the boyfriend? Oh, now, what’s his name?” She pretended to think. “Wilson Shepherd, right?”
“Yeah, we’ve met.” His tone cooled. “I never thought he was capable of something like this. It’s frightening if you think about it. He seemed like a nice guy. Not all that bright, maybe. But not a killer.” He turned to look at the picture of Naomi propped up at the center of the bar, eyes lingering on her face. “I can’t believe he’d hurt her. She was so beautiful.”
This wasn’t what Harper had expected. The way Jerrod had described Peyton’s relationship with his daughter, it would seem that he should be at least somewhat uncomfortable, but he didn’t give any indication of that. Instead, he appeared confident and relaxed.
She wasn’t sure what to make of it. But she didn’t have time to think it through. Across the room, the people packed in the bar’s doorway moved aside, and Jerrod Scott entered the bar, accompanied by a protective cluster of family and friends.
Harper looked over and saw Daltrey and Blazer watching Scott attentively. Luke, though, wasn’t looking at him. He was looking at her and Anderson.
Their eyes met across the room. His expression was inscrutable. He could have been thinking anything. Or nothing. Then Daltrey said something to him and he turned away to listen.
She had to force herself to keep her attention on Anderson.
“I feel so sorry for her father,” he was saying. “I know they were close.”
Harper thought of what Naomi had told her dad—that he wasn’t to speak to Peyton under any circumstances. And wondered what the hell all of this meant.
But Jerrod was almost to the front of the room now, and there was no time to pursue it further.
“Looks like things are about to start,” Peyton said, turning to her with those penetrating eyes that seemed to see more than she would have liked. “I’m going to take a seat. It was a pleasure talking to you, Harper. I’m sure we’ll meet again.”
A Beautiful Corpse--A Harper McClain Mystery Page 9
