Buried Leads (A Headlines in High Heels Mystery) (10 page)

“Cards,” I said aloud.

What if Ted Grayson played cards somewhere else—for more than charity chips? What if he was a gambler on an unlucky streak? I couldn’t tell if it was brilliant or insane, but it jived with what Allison said about risk, and following hunches had ended well for me in the past.

I made a list of everyone I might be able to wheedle information out of on that front, starting with Allison and ending with Joey. He wouldn’t want to tell me, but if I could see his reaction when I asked, it might be all the confirmation I needed.

I gulped the rest of my wine and tried to slow my thoughts. If Ted Grayson was even remotely linked to a murder…that was the kind of story that could make a career.

I just had to make damned sure I was right. And beat Charlie to the headline.

I climbed back under my duvet a little after two, Joey’s pleading eyes floating through my brain as I drifted off, swearing I could still smell that cologne.

9.

All work and a little play

My Saturday started before sunup, thanks to a vivid nightmare about being tied to a table and burned alive. I took Darcy outside for a game of fetch and then scrambled a couple of eggs, trying to slow the heart-pounding adrenaline rush that accompanied those dreams.

The sun still hadn’t peeked over the eastern horizon when my scanner bleeped off an all-call on a missing person. Which, in and of itself, may not have required my presence. But when four patrol cars, the K-9 unit, and a deputy police chief were on their way to the most exclusive (and expensive) assisted living facility in Richmond at o’dark-thirty on a Saturday, there was bound to be a story.

Thankful I’d showered the night before, I twisted my hair up in a clip and jerked on khakis and a sweater, shoving my feet into eggplant Nicholas Kirkwoods that were almost the same shade as my top.

I stuffed my gym clothes into a bag just in case I made it away from the scene in time for body combat and tapped my fingers on the counter while my Colombian Fair Trade brewed into a mug Jenna’s little girl had picked out for my birthday. I added a shot of white mocha syrup and ran out the door.

Skidding my tires on the turn into the nursing home parking lot, I scanned the cars for Aaron’s unmarked police sedan.

It was near the doors, just in front of the Channel Four satellite truck. How Charlie could look camera-ready at six a.m. was beyond me, but she managed it on a consistent basis.

I hung back and waited for her to finish talking to Aaron, admiring her Donna Karan suit and bright eyes. It was too early to be perky.

“Good morning.” Aaron shook his head when he turned toward me.

“How are you, Detective Unavailable?” I asked.

“Come on, Nichelle,” he said, raising both hands in mock surrender. “You know how this works. Do you have any idea what kind of shit I’ll get into with the feds if I give you anything on this break-in at the Graysons? They’re acting like we’ve got our own little Watergate over in the Fan.”

“You could at least call me back and say ‘no comment.’” I gave him a half smile, not wanting to fight with him.

“And give you a chance to badger me into saying something I shouldn’t?” He laughed. “I’ll take my lumps, thanks.”

I thumped his shoulder lightly. “Consider yourself chastised. What the hell is going on here?”

“Alzheimer’s patient wandered off,” he said.

“Bullshit. You’re here. I heard Mike say he was on his way. And while I was driving one of the dispatchers said Chief Lowe had called in for a status update.” I gestured to the pillared marble entryway on the other side of the open doors, the double staircase straight out of Twelve Oaks. “An Alzheimer’s patient who’s pretty important has wandered off. And I didn’t drag myself out this early and possibly skip my workout for you to give me the runaround. Spill it.”

He rolled his baby blue eyes skyward.

“You people and your damned scanners. I have to be careful what I say, though you already know a good bit about it. Remember that hearing you called me about yesterday? James Billings’s mother is a resident here. She saw your story when she got up this morning. Apparently a member of the early to bed and early to rise generation. They don’t know how she slipped past the staff, but they found the newspaper open on her coffee table and she’s gone.”

I sucked in a deep breath and looked around. We were just on the outskirts of the city, in a surprisingly rural area. And it was unseasonably cold. Shit. I pulled out a notebook and jotted down Aaron’s comments, fighting the urge to join the search party.

“Anything yet?” I asked. “They let him go, you know. He’s got an ankle monitor, but he’s not in jail anymore. The CA was pretty pissed about that, actually. It was all in the story.”

“I know. We’ll find her. K-9 is searching the surrounding area. She didn’t have more than a half-hour head start.”

“Thanks, Aaron.”

“They said you can wait inside if you don’t want to stand out here in the cold.”

I shook my head. “I’m okay.”

He stared at me for a second and then patted my arm. “It’s not your fault. And we will find her. The good thing about this place being out here is that we’re not near a freeway or in a shitty neighborhood like a lot of nursing homes. That’s part of the reason they specialize in the care of Alzheimer’s patients. K-9 says the dog has a scent. It’ll be okay.”

I tried to smile as I nodded. Stories can have unforeseen consequences. It was a lousy byproduct of reporting. And Billings wasn’t allowed to leave his neighborhood, so he couldn’t even come help look for her. Given my suspicion that he hadn’t actually killed anyone, that seemed particularly craptastic.

“So, what did you make of Billings?” Aaron asked.

“How come Grayson’s security system didn’t trip up the intruder?” I countered. “Possibly because it wasn’t the cat burglar?”

“Off the record?”

I pretended to consider that for a few seconds. Normally, off the record on a breaking and entering case wouldn’t help much. But he didn’t need to know I wanted information on Grayson for another reason.

“Why not?” I said.

“Possibly,” he said. “A couple of things were unusual about this particular break-in. But we don’t know anything for sure yet, and I’ll lose my ass for talking about it right now.”

“We can’t have that. You wouldn’t do well sitting on your boat with no ass,” I said, my brain spinning through the reasons I could imagine someone would break into Grayson’s house. Billings came to mind first because of Joey’s comments, but he’d been in jail that night.

What if it was Watergate? And did that make it Trudy’s story or mine?

Aaron’s radio beeped and he stepped away to talk to the officers in the field. My thoughts wandered back to Grayson. I pulled out my Blackberry and tapped my browser open, searching for information on the new tax law I’d talked to Kyle about the night before. Between what he’d said and Joey’s ominous warning, I wondered if Joey and his friends were the bad guys Kyle was looking for. I also wondered exactly what the new Virginia law was poised to do to tobacco sales.

“Bingo,” I whispered when the results flashed up on my screen.

I was no marketing genius, but given the information in front of me, I’d say the tobacco companies had to be pretty desperate to keep the federal tax from going up. In five states (including this one with the new state tax), the proposed doubling of the federal rates—from forty-seven cents to a dollar a pack—would have people spending $3.50 a pack just on taxes. In this economy, that would price a lot of people out of smoking.

And Grayson was the chairman of the committee holding up the federal bill.

It wasn’t a leap to think folks had paid him to stop the bill. It wasn’t even a long jump. But I had no proof. And no real idea who killed Amesworth, either.

I looked back inside the grand foyer of the nursing home where Billings’s mother spent her days. Marble floors gleamed under elaborate crystal chandeliers that were probably worth more than my car. Whoever said money was the root of all evil was pretty smart.

So, the million-dollar question was: what did Grayson need more money for? If I could find that, it might give me enough to take the story to Bob. I considered my gambling theory. How could I find out if Grayson was a lousy poker player?

A hand on my elbow broke my concentration.

“They found her,” Aaron said. “Dressed in her Sunday best, complete with hat and gloves, plodding through the pasture. On her way to the courthouse, she said. But she’s fine. All’s well that ends well.”

I smiled at him, relieved. When I turned for the doors to the building, a round little man with a bad comb-over and a navy suit was taking questions on the front steps. I joined a small huddle of reporters that included Charlie, the still-relatively-new girl from Channel Ten whose name I couldn’t remember to save my life, and Erica from the local talk radio station.

I pocketed my Blackberry and dug out my notebook and pen again, jotting down his answers to the standard questions about security, the age of the patient, and the frequency of such incidents.

“Does Mrs. Lansing have family in the area?” Charlie asked.

I looked up.

“Her son,” administrator Harvey Butters said, pulling at his collar. “He couldn’t be here this morning.”

“But he was notified?” Charlie asked, perking up. I cringed slightly, knowing she’d picked up a scent. I’d hoped no one else would connect the dots, since Billings and his mother didn’t share a last name.

“We called him, of course,” Butters said. “He’s very concerned, and was happy to hear his mother was safe.”

Charlie let it go, but made a beeline for Butters when he was finished, asking, I was sure, for a way to get in touch with Mrs. Lansing’s next of kin.

He waved his hands helplessly as he talked, gesturing to the newspaper on the front doormat. Charlie shot me a glance and picked up the paper after Butters hurried inside. I watched as Charlie read, a small smile playing around my lips. She looked up and offered a nod. I waved, calling a goodbye to Aaron and checking my watch. I still had time to get to the gym if I hurried. And then I had a story to write and some answers to find.

The early body combat class on Saturdays was more advanced than my weekday class, but since I’d missed two during the week, I figured a little extra burn was in order. Particularly after the two (okay, five) of Eunice’s white chocolate macadamia cookies I’d smuggled out of the break room on Monday afternoon.

With faster music, quicker punches, more jumps, and a new hooked side kick the perky brunette instructor called a “cheerio chagi” in an unmistakable lowcountry drawl, I felt about as graceful as a grizzly in stilettos.

The insecurity bred like bunnies on pheromones, until the footwork that had earned me a spot as one of the best in my regular class was a distant memory. I stumbled sideways into the mirror twice, threw the wrong kick,
ap-chagi
’ed the girl in front of me, and came close to falling too many times to count. I also worked up a sweat that would do a football player running August two-a-days in Texas proud. How much of that was exertion and how much was embarrassment was a tough call, though.

By the time I shoved my gym bag into the back of my little red SUV, Grayson and his reason for needing extra income had pulled my attention from my Three Stooges imitation.

I stopped at my house to shower and toss on a quick face. Then I pulled on some jeans and a turtleneck, jammed my not-so-dainty feet into a pair of pink Manolos, and grabbed a pack of strawberry Pop Tarts out of my tiny pantry on my way to the office.

I stepped out of the elevator, rolling my eyes when Shelby Taylor came out of the hallway that led to the managing editor’s office. Her fling with Les had been nothing but a pain in my ass since it began.

“Nichelle!” She grinned and folded her arms over her ample chest, which did not go with her tiny everything else. Shelby reminded me of a pixie Barbie with black hair. But jealousy had no hand in why I disliked her. She gave me plenty of reasons that had nothing to do with her appearance. Like the Splenda that coated every word she spoke to me, for instance. Shelby didn’t know how to make a comment that didn’t have razor edges. “Trying to get a jump on Charlie by sneaking in on a Saturday? She thumped you pretty good on the burglary yesterday. Did your scanner break?”

“My scanner was working fine yesterday, and this morning, when it tipped me to a missing person call at five-thirty. You really ought to be careful what you wish for, Shelby. I don’t think my hours would be good for your boinking the boss. But good morning to you, too. Nice to see you’re as sweet and sincere as ever. Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a story to write. You remember what that’s like, don’t you?” I imitated her fake smile.

“I remember doing it better than you have lately.” Shelby sneered, turning toward the copy desk. “Keep losing to Charlie, and I won’t even need Les.”

She sashayed off before I could say anything else, and I hurried to my cube, fuming and more determined to find out what the hell was going on with Grayson.

Today’s deadline first, though. I flipped my computer open, digging in my bag for my notes from the nursing home. The woman’s identity was definitely the most important thing about the story, given that her son had been arrested for murder less than forty-eight hours before.

I checked my notes and started typing.

Richmond police found an Alzheimer’s patient who wandered away from Jefferson Meadows Assisted Living before dawn Saturday in less than an hour, returning Elizabeth Lansing to her home without incident.

Lansing’s son, James Billings, was arrested Friday in connection with the murder of Henrico attorney Daniel Amesworth, twenty-nine. Officials said when Mrs. Lansing learned of her son’s situation, she was determined to see him, even if it meant going on foot.

“They don’t know how she slipped past the staff,” Det. Aaron White, RPD public information officer, said at the scene.

Harvey Butters, the chief administrator at Jefferson Meadows, said Mrs. Lansing was unharmed and resting in her room by sunup Saturday.

I read back through the story twice before I sent it to Les, sure he’d find something to complain about anyway. And if he didn’t, Shelby would.

“Can’t please everyone,” I mumbled, trying to channel my mom’s bubbly self-confidence as I clicked my web browser open.

I didn’t even have time to figure out what I was looking for before Les emailed me back.