Bonnie’s face closed. “I think he did that to himself when he killed someone.”
“I do, too.” Harper turned to Bonnie, appealing for her to understand. “But Bon, the Smith we knew—he’s still in there. He still thinks like a cop when he talks to me.”
She waited for Bonnie to reply, but she just sat there, her brow creased with thought.
“I’m sorry, Harper, I’m trying to process this,” she said, at last. “Why didn’t you tell me all this before? Why hide it?”
Harper exhaled.
“I didn’t tell anyone. I couldn’t. I knew it would hurt you. But I’ve been thinking and I have to keep seeing him. If I’m ever going to solve my mom’s murder, I need his help. Is that … Does that sound crazy?”
Bonnie’s eyes searched her face. Then she let out a breath.
“No, it doesn’t sound crazy.”
Putting her arm around Harper’s shoulders, she pulled her closer and pressed a light kiss on her hair.
“I understand, Harper,” she said. “I just worry about you.”
“I’m careful.” Harper leaned into her, breathing in her familiar scent of lemony perfume, and the faint but not unpleasant hint of oil paint that always clung to her hair and skin.
“Be more careful,” Bonnie said.
Harper smiled. “I have three locks.”
They both laughed, and the tension was broken.
That night, to her own surprise, Harper slept dreamlessly for the first time in days.
And as she parked in the lot behind the paper she felt calmer—more focused. As if telling Bonnie the truth had lifted some of the load she’d been carrying lately.
She was determined not to get sidetracked now. She was so close to knowing the truth about what had happened to Naomi Scott. She owed it to the dead girl not to get distracted.
When she reached the newsroom, Baxter wasn’t at her desk. The door to Dells’s office was closed. Through the glass wall, scarred by the long crack Randall Anderson had made, she saw that he was on the phone.
She started to back away, but, spotting her, he motioned for her to come in.
Harper slipped inside, seating herself in one of the sleek leather-and-chrome chairs facing his desk.
“I know what you’re saying,” Dells said into the phone, “but that’s the last thing I want to hear. Let’s look at cheaper suppliers first. We’re bleeding paper at this point.”
Glancing down, Harper noticed that the files open on his desk showed charts and spreadsheets, filled with incomprehensible numbers. Some he’d circled with looping swooshes of his pen. They were pretty big figures.
“Take a look,” he told whoever he was talking to, “and get back to me. Thanks, Tom.”
Squinting, Harper tried to get a better look at the numbers, but Dells closed the folder.
“Quit peeking.” He shook his finger at her.
“You know what I do for a living, right?” she asked.
“I pay you to investigate other people, McClain.” But he sounded amused. “Let’s keep it that way. Speaking of that…”
He motioned for her to speak.
“A lot has happened.” Harper leaned forward eagerly. “First, I interviewed the two women Anderson stalked and they told me everything.”
Talking too fast in her adrenaline rush, she told him what she’d learned.
When she finished, he shook his head in disbelief.
“Dammit, what is wrong with the cops? This can’t be a coincidence. Stalkers kill. He’s made threats. How can they say this is unrelated?”
“It all comes back to his alibi,” Harper said.
“Good point.” Dells leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk. “Where are we at with the alibi? What’s your detective got to say?”
“That’s what I’m doing today,” she said, with confidence she didn’t feel. “It’s just taking a little time to get the cops to talk.”
In truth, she didn’t know where that information would come from. Nobody on the police force was talking.
Dells gave her a warning look.
“Get on that,” he said. “We can’t do much else until we know what he’s told them, and why they believe him. This is the biggest missing piece in the puzzle.”
“I promise I’ll have it today.”
“You better.” His face darkened. “Everyone’s breathing down our necks on this one.”
Harper hesitated before broaching the subject.
“Has Anderson done anything yet? Filed a lawsuit?”
“As far as I know he hasn’t taken legal action.” Dells gave her a dark smile. “But I’m told he had lunch with MaryAnne Charlton yesterday.”
“Shit,” Harper breathed.
“Exactly,” Dells said.
MaryAnne Charlton was the head of the paper’s board of directors—and the heir of the family that had owned the newspaper company for more than sixty years.
Harper had seen her now and then when she’d made state visits to the newsroom—she was an old-school Southern belle, with a penchant for Chanel suits and oversized necklaces.
If she was meeting with Anderson, then he’d gone straight to the top.
It was impossible to tell if this situation made Dells anxious. He affected a permanent air of calm distance. Some of that had broken down as they worked on the story together, but not enough that she really had any clue what he was thinking.
Still, one thing she knew for certain was that Charlton could fire both of them in an instant.
“Has she called you?” Harper pressed him. “Said anything?”
“Not yet.” His response was succinct. And his expression indicated that he’d said all he intended to.
An awkward silence fell.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Harper said, after a moment. “I finally got hold of Jim Fitzgerald.”
“Good,” Dells said. “What’d you learn?”
“He’s a broken man whose business is going under because the cops won’t take him off the suspect list,” Harper said. “If he killed anyone I’ll eat my computer.”
Dells slapped a hand on his desk so hard his pen jumped.
“There’s a story. That’s what you take to your detective. That’s how you get her to talk. While she’s failing to solve this crime, there are real-life ramifications happening for all the people they haven’t cleared. Their mistakes have a cost.”
When he talked about the police, his expression grew predatory.
“Don’t hold your punches. Tell her all we know. Make her defend her case to you. Tell her we’re gunning for them.” He rocked forward in his chair. “When can you get me a first draft?”
“Tomorrow, maybe?” Harper suggested, cautiously.
“Tomorrow, definitely,” Dells corrected her. “We need to get something together no later than tomorrow’s deadline. Something publishable and legal and devastating and right.”
He looked at her with those ice-blue eyes.
“If that doesn’t happen, we’re going to be in trouble, you and me. And I don’t like the look of the jury.”
29
When Harper walked up to the police headquarters that afternoon, she was determined to stay there until she had what she needed.
As she walked into the icy wave of industrial air-conditioning, Darlene waved her over to the front desk.
“There she is.” Her voice boomed in the empty lobby. “Miss Freedom of the Press, herself.”
The few people waiting on plastic chairs turned to look at her.
“You’re a bit early today.” The receptionist slid the folder of crime reports over to her, and leaned one elbow on the desk. “Something happening?”
“Nah,” Harper said. “Just busy.”
“Busy.” Darlene scoffed. “You ask me, it’s too quiet. Everyone’s saying there’s nothing to do. Couple of traffic accidents. One shooting in three days.” She leaned her elbows on the tall desk. “Too hot out there for crime, I guess.”
“That’s
good news, though, right?” Harper said.
“I guess.” Darlene sniffed, unconvinced.
Opening the folder, Harper hurried through the stack of overnight crime reports—it was, as the desk officer had said, much smaller than usual.
Usually, summer months were the busiest. The heat brought the worst out in people. Arguments that might have ended with fists made it all the way to guns much faster in August than they did in November.
Her eyes slid across the incident descriptions one after another. Burglary. Burglary. Burglary. Fall. Affray. Affray. Burglary. Shoplifting.
She reached the end of the stack and slid it back across.
Glancing back to make sure no one in the waiting room could overhear, she lowered her voice.
“Any gossip about the Scott case? They still trying to pin it on the boyfriend?”
Her face brightening, Darlene leaned closer.
“I think they don’t know who to pin it on,” she confided. “Now the mayor’s backed off a little, because she’s got her safety commission promising to keep all the tourists wrapped up and protected, so she doesn’t care anymore. The chief’s hoping everyone forgets that girl ever existed.”
“Daltrey’s not going to forget, though,” Harper said. “You know she wants to get the guy who did it.”
Darlene’s eyebrows arched to her hairline. “Julie Daltrey wants to get herself promoted, is what I think.”
“Well, let me see what I can find out,” Harper said. “Is she in right now? I need to ask her a few questions.”
“She’s in the back,” Darlene said, her voice returning to its normal volume. “You want me to buzz you through?”
“Yes, please.”
The buzzer broke the quiet as she pressed the button on her desk and released the lock on the security door.
The shadowy corridor was quiet. Harper turned right, then made a sharp left into a wide staircase. She climbed to the second floor, barely noticing the scuffed walls in need of paint, or the aging posters reminding the cops to BE SAFE. BE AWARE.
The hallway upstairs smelled of pine disinfectant and stale air. Harper didn’t hesitate as she turned right out of the stairs and made her way past a number of small offices.
She’d been up here many times in the past.
The homicide detectives shared a sprawling office at the end of the hallway. The door was closed. As she approached, Harper could hear voices from inside.
Steeling herself, she tapped confidently, and pushed the door open.
Inside, eight desks were arranged along the walls, a battered office chair in front of each. Five were occupied. And five startled faces turned to look at her as she entered.
No matter how many times you do it, it is always daunting walking into a room full of detectives. They do not take intrusion lightly.
“What the hell?” A tall, rangy man in his late twenties leaned back in his chair, endless legs sprawling out as if he didn’t know where they’d come from or what to do with them, and stared at her.
Harper recognized him as Detective Davenport. Also in the room were Detectives Ledbetter, Shumaker, and Daltrey … and Luke, who glanced up at her with something like alarm.
It struck her with sudden horror that he might think she was here to see him.
“I’m uh…” She turned to Daltrey. “Detective Daltrey—I’m here to see you. Didn’t Darlene call?”
Daltrey, whose small features were set in an expression of bemusement, shook her head.
“Darlene likes to surprise us now and then,” she said, glancing at the others for agreement.
“Keeps us on our toes,” Detective Shumaker drawled. He’d draped his jacket across the back of his chair, so there was nothing to hide the way his shirt stretched tight across his beer belly as he watched her with open suspicion.
“She can be tricky,” Davenport agreed, good-naturedly.
Having them arrayed in a semicircle around her, all talking to one another while looking at her, was unnerving.
Harper kept her focus on Daltrey.
“Do you have five minutes? It’s about the Scott case.”
“What about it?” Crossing her legs, Daltrey studied her with little interest. She wore a navy suit with a masculine cut.
“It’s about Peyton Anderson…” Harper began.
“Uh-oh.” Ledbetter turned to look at Daltrey, whose calm instantly eroded.
“Oh hell, McClain,” Daltrey snapped. “Are you still obsessed with the Anderson boy?”
Anger flared, hot and unexpected, in Harper’s chest.
“Maybe. Are you still failing to solve that murder?” she shot back.
“Ooh…” The other detectives hooted, looking back and forth between the two women as if they were facing each other across a net.
“Oh, grow up,” Harper told them. She turned back to Daltrey. “Can we go somewhere else to talk? Please?”
The detective stood so abruptly her chair skidded back.
“Come with me.”
Daltrey was small, but she moved fast, sweeping past Harper to the door.
As Harper turned to follow her, her eyes met Luke’s for a split second. There was so much in that look—worry, confusion, doubt.
With effort, she tore her gaze away and followed Daltrey into the hallway.
The detective stopped halfway down the corridor outside an open door.
“This better be good,” she said, switching on the light and stepping inside.
It was a small office—there were files stacked on the desk. A charger cable for someone’s phone trailed across the fake wood. A window above the desk let in faint, grimy daylight through half-closed blinds.
Harper closed the door. The two women faced each other across the limited expanse of cheap carpet.
Daltrey made an impatient gesture with one hand.
“Get to it, McClain.”
“I’m working on a story about Anderson.” Harper told her, forcing calm into her voice. “A follow-up to the piece that ran the day before yesterday. I’ve met with the two women who claim he stalked them, the way he stalked Scott.”
“Johnson and Martinez?”
Harper nodded. “Detective, if what they say is true, Anderson’s obsession and violence grew with each victim. You know he stalked Scott. How does this not look like a pathway to murder?”
“I don’t care what it looks like.” Daltrey sounded exasperated. “McClain, I’ve told you why we’re not investigating Anderson. I don’t know why you won’t let go of this.”
Mindful of what Dells had said about hitting Daltrey with police failures, Harper launched into her planned attack.
“I won’t let it go because nothing else makes sense. More than a week has passed since Naomi Scott was murdered and what have you got? You’ve got nothing, as far as I can see. Jim Fitzgerald is a broken man whose business is being destroyed by an open-ended investigation with no evidence against him aside from the fact that he stayed home to watch TV that night. Wilson Shepherd is a heartbroken boyfriend who waited all night for the girlfriend who was never coming home. Naomi Scott spent her time volunteering, working, and studying. She had no money to steal. No drug problem. What she did have was a rich guy with a powerful family stalking her for four months.” She drew a breath. “I want to do right by this girl, Detective. Don’t you? Doesn’t her family deserve that?”
Daltrey, eyes flashing, appeared poised to take up the argument. But then, abruptly, she stopped herself.
“Listen, McClain,” she said, after a long pause, “I can see what you see. I have no doubt that Peyton Anderson is a piece of crap posing as a human being. Between you and me, I believe those women, too.”
“Then why won’t you investigate him?” Harper’s voice rose.
“Would you stop assuming I haven’t?” Daltrey snapped. “I have investigated him. The simple truth is, I want Peyton Anderson to be our guy. But he can’t be. Because on the night Naomi Scott was murdered, Anderson was assaulted on the stre
et. He was found by a member of the public, bleeding from a stab wound to his arm. Transported to Savannah Memorial Hospital by ambulance. And treated in the emergency room, where he was interviewed by Savannah police officers.” She drew a breath before adding, “We have nurses, doctors, and cops who all say he was there. We have CCTV footage of him arriving on a stretcher.”
Seeing the surprise on Harper’s face, she gave a thin smile.
“You’ve been looking for Anderson in the wrong files, McClain. You should have looked for him under ‘Victim.’”
“So his alibi…” Harper began, still trying to process it.
“… is the police,” Daltrey finished her thought for her. “Yes it is. We are his alibi. When someone was shooting Naomi Scott to death, Peyton Anderson was lying in a bed at Savannah Memorial Hospital.”
Harper studied Daltrey’s face for any sign of deception and found none.
“I can’t believe it.” She sagged back against the wall. “Who attacked him? How did it happen?”
“The crime occurred between eleven o’clock and midnight,” Daltrey said. “It appeared to be a random mugging.”
“Arrests?”
The detective shook her head. “He gave us a description but we haven’t found the guy.”
“Anything taken?”
“Wallet and phone.”
Harper went through it in her mind, imagining Anderson walking down the street, someone jumping out to attack him—at eleven o’clock, though? The streets would be crowded at that hour.
She glanced at Daltrey. “Where did this happen?”
“Near City Market.” Daltrey spoke without hesitation. “Two patrol officers responded. I’m surprised you didn’t show up at the scene.”
City Market was a trendy downtown development with restaurants and bars. It made perfect sense that someone like Peyton Anderson might be there.
Harper stopped to think about that night over a week ago, and what had happened before she’d ended up at the Library at one in the morning.
“There was a shooting that night,” she said slowly. “Just after ten thirty. Looked like it was going to be a homicide. I must have been at that. I wouldn’t leave an attempted homicide for a robbery.”
A Beautiful Corpse--A Harper McClain Mystery Page 23
