Buried Leads (A Headlines in High Heels Mystery) (20 page)

I didn’t know if Grayson was sleeping with Allison or Lakshmi or both, and I wasn’t sure I could trust anything, given that my earnest-campaign-worker source had turned out to be a prostitute. And was now dead. The only person I knew hadn’t done it was Lucinda Eckersly, because if she strangled a young, athletic girl, I’d deliver my beat to Shelby on a platter and probably never get out of bed again.

Evans was silent for a long minute.

“Let me see what I can find,” he said. “I won’t talk to another reporter before I talk to you, but this could take a while.”

Thanking him for his time, I hung up. Fabulous. Except I didn’t have a while.

“Dammit.” I grabbed my bag and hurried to the elevator, ignoring my ankle and trying to remember if I had any Advil stashed in the car.

“Where are you off to?” Eunice asked as I stepped onto the elevator. “I thought Bob was going to bust something when he couldn’t find you this morning.”

“I’ve got to save my job from Shelby Taylor,” I said. “And somewhere around here, there’s a murderer who needs catching.”

“You leave the murderers to the police, huh, sugar?” she called as the doors closed and saved me from having to reply.

“They think they’ve got him already,” I muttered, pulling my Blackberry out of my pocket and tapping out a text to Parker. I paused to send it as I pulled the car out of the garage and got my signal back.

“Keep Shelby away from the math building.”

There was a call girl in the statistics department I wanted to get some answers from. My phone binged.

“Chasing her up and down Greek row,” his reply read. “This is bullshit. She’s waving her press badge under their noses. No one’s talking.”

“Let her go,” I tapped back. “Sorry you’re wasting your day. I’ll fill you in later.”

“Better be a hell of a story. You can buy drinks.”

“Capital Ale @ 7. Bring Mel.”

If I didn’t find something by the time Charlie went on the air again at six, I’d be toasting my new job at the copy desk—or my outright unemployment.

I scanned the office directory in the math building for the professor Lakshmi had mentioned, hoping he’d know where I could find her. Three-oh-six. Stairs. Yay.

My ankle protested the whole way up, but I found the office, door ajar.

I tapped lightly.

“Come in,” a gruff man’s voice called.

I poked my head around the doorframe, smiling at the gray-haired, tweed-clad man I assumed was Professor Gaskins.

“Can I help you?” he asked.

“I’m looking for a student of yours, actually, and I could swear she told me she works in your office,” I fibbed. “Lakshmi?”

He smiled. “She’s my teaching assistant. One of the most brilliant grad students I’ve ever taught.”

“Do you know where I might be able to find her?” I asked. “It’s kind of important that I talk to her.”

“She usually teaches a freshman course for me this time of day,” he said. “Something tells me it might not be packed today, though. It’s downstairs in the auditorium.”

“Thanks.”

I limped back and opened the lecture hall door, Lakshmi’s sweet-as-bells voice ringing clear in the empty hallway. She smiled confused recognition as I slipped into a seat in the back. There were three students down front, all boys, hanging on her every word.

“Well,” she said. “I think that’s enough for today, guys. I’ll see you Thursday.”

“Do you remember me?” I asked once we were alone and face to face.

“From the card game, right?” she asked. “I didn’t know you were a student here.”

“I’m not.” I held her gaze. “I’m a reporter at the
Telegraph
, and I’m working on a story about the call girl who was found in the dumpster outside this morning. I think you might be able to tell me something about that.”

Her expression faltered for a split second before she stretched her lips into a thin line and started gathering up her books. “I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

“I think you do,” I said. “I heard your friend the other night making some rather snide comments about your companion and how much he was paying you. I think other people are paying you, too. And I think some of the same people might have been involved with the victim of last night’s murder. How do you know you’re not next?” Nothing like a healthy dose of terror to make people spill their guts. “I won’t use your name. But if the cops get to whoever’s behind this, you might live to get your Master’s. Talk to me.”

Lakshmi shoved the books into a canvas bag and sighed, her eyes on the desk. When she looked up at me, they were full of tears.

“My dad left the government to work in experimental energy. His company went under two years ago,” she said. “I would have gotten kicked out of school because we couldn’t pay the tuition. He made too much the year before for me to qualify for any aid, and they didn’t care that he’d lost everything. Allison offered me a way to stay on campus. She made it sound like fun, and the money was amazing.”

“She was in charge?”

“I don’t think so, really. She was president of the Delta Kappas when we were undergrads. I took her the money at the end of the night. But I got the idea she was fronting for someone.”

I pulled out a notebook and jotted that down.

“Was Senator Grayson a client?”

Lakshmi nodded. “My client, for a while. Allison thought it was funny, because of my major.”

“So you were the only girl Grayson saw?”

“A lot of the clients had certain girls they liked, and they liked the girls to be ‘theirs,’ too, so we had to be careful about what we said.

“Some of the guys are real bigshots. But either they were old and bald and wanted a young, pretty girl on their arm for some function, or they had wives who weren’t into the same things they were in the bedroom. Mostly, I got those guys.”

“Ted Grayson?” I guessed.

“He likes his women bound, gagged, and in a little bit of pain, for the most part.”

My eyebrows went up.

“Pain?”

“Not torture, or even really heavy masochism,” she said. “But he likes to pull hair, hit you, push you around. Pretty tame stuff, on the whole, but still nothing he wanted anyone to know. He pays a pretty penny to have that secret kept.”

“How much?”

“Five thousand a night,” she said. “I kept three, took two to Allison. I don’t know where any of it went after that.”

I nodded and kept scribbling. Two thousand dollars a night and multiple girls, it sounded like. So what the hell was with the fake diamonds?

“How often did you see Grayson?” I asked.

“Once a week or so,” she said. “Until he got tired of me. I don’t miss him. He was creepy. Treated me like I was his property. About the only thing he ever did talk to me about was how beautiful a prize I was, and how I had to stay ‘unspoiled’ for him.”

I jotted her words down, but the other half of my brain was spinning through the numbers. Twenty thousand dollars a month wouldn’t exactly be easy to hide. So Grayson sold his vote to the devil to feed his sexual fantasies. And Allison knew this, yet still worked in his campaign office. Blackmail? Was that why she was dead?

“You don’t happen to know who got Grayson as a client after you, do you?” I asked.

“I think Allison did.” Lakshmi shook her head. “You don’t think Ted has anything to do with her death, do you?”

“She was strangled,” I said, another thought popping through my head. “Did he go for the bedroom asphyxiation bit?”

“Not with me,” Lakshmi said. “But I wouldn’t say it’s impossible.”

I scribbled. Holy shit.

“What am I going to do?” Lakshmi dropped her head into her hands and sobbed, and I wasn’t sure she was even talking to me. “I was getting out. My parents are back on their feet and I don’t need the cash anymore, and I was going to cut ties with the whole thing after Christmas. Now my whole life is ruined.”

“As far as I’m concerned, you’re a confidential source,” I said. “I’m not the only reporter in town who knows Allison was a prostitute, but if I were you? I’d get suddenly ill, take the rest of the semester off, and hope no one turns your name in. Allison’s dead, right? Lay low for a while. It might have the bonus effect of keeping you alive.”

She nodded. “What’s one semester?”

“Not much compared to a lifetime,” I said. “Thanks, Lakshmi. I wasn’t kidding when I said I liked you. Good luck.”

“You won’t print my name?”

“You have my word.”

“Consider me gone.” She grabbed the bag and headed out the door.

Grayson was taking bribes from Billings. Evans had all but confirmed it. And I knew why. But there were still so many questions.

I was running out of time to find the answers.

Trudy’s words about Calhoun came to mind, and I wondered if his local campaign office was open. And who I might find there.

17.

Strike three

I struck out at the Calhoun campaign office and trudged back to the newsroom, racking my brain for anything about Allison or Grayson I might have missed. I wondered for a second if I wanted the truth, or if I wanted the story I’d been chasing. Which could turn out to be two different things, if Trudy and Kyle were right.

I pulled out the notes from my conversation with Lakshmi and flipped open my computer. At least I’d managed to pull something out on the call girl thing.

Bob would have to love an exclusive with one of the girls. Parker hadn’t been in his office when I passed, so Shelby was probably still dragging him all over the campus, which meant she didn’t have anything.

An arm falling from a dumpster at Richmond American University Thursday morning led Richmond police to a call girl ring operating out of the campus. A former member of the group spoke to the
Richmond Telegraph
on condition of anonymity, weaving a tale of powerful men and large stacks of cash.

“Some of the guys are real big shots. But either they were old and bald and wanted a young, pretty girl on their arm for some function, or they had wives who weren’t into the same things they were in the bedroom,” the source said. “I made five thousand [dollars] a night. I kept three, and gave two to [the victim].”

The source identified the victim as a leader in the prostitution operation, but said she was unsure who else might have been involved.

I finished with some scattered information about Allison and her murder, withholding her involvement with Grayson until I knew if anyone else had it yet. I smiled as I sent it to Bob. The smile faded when I clicked into my browser to check Charlie’s coverage.

“Son of a bitch.”

I had a call girl as an anonymous source and a link to the sorority house.

Charlie had the madam. On camera. Being led out of an ivy-covered building in handcuffs, Aaron standing at the foot of the steps to ward off the gaggle of reporters.

I watched the footage with a building wave of nausea.

The goddamned dean was running the whole thing, huge white letters across the bottom of my screen screamed, right under “Channel Four exclusive investigation.” Charlie had officially kicked my ass. The camera panned to the left and I groaned out loud.

Shelby was talking to a uniformed RAU security officer, scribbling as fast as she could and grinning like a Kardashian in front of a paparazzi.

Why the hell hadn’t I heard they were making an arrest?

I fumbled for my scanner. No static. I fiddled with the switch and shook it.

Dead battery.

“Dammit!” It was louder than I intended, and Melanie popped her head over the wall between our cubes.

“You miss a fire sale at Saks or something, doll?” she asked.

“I wish,” I said. “I missed the story of the...well, of the day. Maybe the month. But really, when you’re only as good as what you have today, what the hell does it matter?”

I dropped my head onto my desk with a dull thunk. I hate losing. And I’m not good at it.

“Oh, shit. Is that the dean of the college of fine arts?” Melanie asked from behind me. I had forgotten she was an RAU alum. 

“Yup.”

“Running a call girl ring? Daaaamn.” She drug out the word and wolf-whistled for good measure. “That’s one sexy story. No pun intended.”

“Yup.”

I got up and turned toward Bob’s office, figuring it better to throw myself on the sword than to wait for him to come hunting for me.

“What have you got to say for yourself?” he asked, not turning his eyes from the monitor—which I knew without looking was streaming Charlie’s feed—when I tapped on the open door.

“I screwed up.” I dropped into my chair. “I could say my scanner died and I was busy trying to get the exclusive interview I just sent you, but you don’t care, and it doesn’t really matter. Charlie beat me. And it’s making me sick to my stomach how badly she beat me.”

“She’s got you whipped today,” he said, leaning on one hand and massaging his temples. “Andrews called me ten minutes ago. Shelby’s leading page one with your story going as a companion piece. And she’s on the courthouse for a trial period effective Monday. I’m sorry, kid.”

I closed my eyes.

“This thing with Grayson—”

Bob’s head snapped up. “I told you to back off. Nichelle, I couldn’t love you more if I’d raised you, and you know it. But I swear to God, if you tell me you blew this story and made me look like a fool in front of the wunderkind upstairs chasing politics after I told you to drop it, I’ll put you on leave. I might even fire you.”

“I wasn’t chasing Grayson today,” I said. “I was interviewing the hooker. I tried to give Grayson to Trudy after I talked to you about it last week, but she doesn’t want it. She said she didn’t believe it and wouldn’t take it ’til after the election. But there’s something there, Bob.”

“You have enough to do keeping the part of your job you have left,” he said. “You don’t need to try to do someone else’s, too. Trudy knows D.C. better than most of the guys who work up there. Let it go. Pull something out on this and I’ll put you on it with her after the election, if you want.”

But...

The word didn’t make it out of my mouth. Bob had never been so mad at me. More than that, he was disappointed. And that sucked.

“Yes, sir.”

I went back to my desk, checking my watch.

I wasn’t due to meet Parker for two hours, but I wanted to be in the newsroom to hear Shelby gloat about her story about as much as I wanted to trade my Louboutins for Birkenstocks.

I stuffed my laptop and charger into my bag and told Melanie goodnight.

“We all have shit days,” she said, laying a sympathetic hand on my arm. “You’ll get her tomorrow. It will be okay.”

I nodded, thinking about Shelby covering the courthouse and wanting to kick something.

“I have to get out of here,” I choked out.

“Wine. Sleep. Kick ass,” she called after me.

Halfway to the garage, I had a flash of the bracelet on Allison’s wrist.

Lucinda Eckersly said her son’s whore liked diamonds. But the girl who’d found the body said the bracelet on Allison’s wrist was fake. It didn’t make sense, unless she’d sold the real one, maybe? What if Grayson was still possessive? Or Eckersly was offering to take Allison away from the mess she’d gotten herself into? Bob’s purple face followed close on the heels of that.

But Eckersly wasn’t Grayson. I desperately needed a way to redeem myself. Answers about the dead girl would do it. Maybe I could find them in the huge white house.

I squealed to a stop in front of the Eckersly home, ignoring my sore ankle as I sprinted up the steps.

I yanked the doorbell pull and after about a minute, I reached for the cord again, but Doreen swung the door inward before I could pull it.

“Miss Clarke! How nice of you to call again.” She beamed, the picture of old southern hospitality.

In this part of the world, people weren’t expected to call for an appointment or schedule a meeting. Dropping by was not only acceptable, but welcome. “Miss Lucinda doesn’t get much company nowadays, and she liked you.”

“I’m glad.” I smiled. “She’s a firecracker. I liked her, too. Is she up for visitors this evening?”

“She’s in the great room watching TV. Did you hear about the poor little girl they found in the dumpster this morning? Such a tragedy.”

“Indeed.” I stepped through the door.

“I’ll just tell Miss Lucinda you’re here,” Doreen said, scuttling off into the reaches of the enormous house.

I browsed the art and artifacts decking the walls, my eyes coming to rest on a gun rack over the doors that led to the dining room. There were three long-barrel rifles in it. They all looked old, and two of them had ornate carvings on the stocks. Like the one William Eckersly held in the photo in the study.

“Nichelle!” The raspy, wispy voice came from behind me, and I turned with a smile, filing the gun in the back of my mind and grinning wider when I saw that she didn’t have a lit cigarette.

Maybe I could talk to her for a bit and not risk getting blown up.

“Mrs. Eckersly.” I reached down and squeezed her outstretched hand. “How are you?”

She gave me a shrewd once over.

“I think you know how I am, or you wouldn’t be here, sugar.”

I nodded. “I suspected as much.”

“Come on in.” She took a drag off her oxygen mask and wheeled herself into the front parlor. She stopped her chair opposite a sofa that would comfortably seat seven and gestured for me to sit down.

“Your son knew Allison?” I asked, reaching into my bag for a notebook and pen.

“Was that her name?” Lucinda chuckled. “Fits her. Perky little thing. That’s Billy’s whore. Wouldn’t say I was sorry, either, but I’m a Christian woman and she was somebody’s little girl. Sad situation. Billy tore out of here when the news first came on this morning, and I haven’t heard from him since.”

I pictured the man from the photos I’d seen on my last visit, wondering about the marks on Allison’s neck for a moment. Eckersly was a big guy, and a farmer. Which meant he probably had strong hands. That comment about the men liking to think the girls were “theirs” could go both ways. What if Eckersly found out Allison was seeing Grayson?

“Do you know if Billy knew that Allison saw other men?” I asked.

“I don’t know why she’d need to. Billy spent fifteen thousand dollars last month on her ‘fees’ and dinners and gifts. What twenty-two-year-old girl needs more than that?”

“So he didn’t think she had other clients?”

She snorted softly. “He didn’t think he was her client. Damned fool thinks he was in love with her. Told me the other night he wasn’t paying her to screw him, he was helping put her through school. ‘The William Eckersly scholarship program,’ he said.”

“That’s a hell of an application process,” I muttered.

“You can say that again,” she answered.

“I’m sorry,” I said. “I didn’t mean for you to hear that.”

“Never apologize to anyone for telling the truth, child,” she said. “If there’s one thing I’ve learned in near-eighty years walking this Earth, it’s that.”

“You are very direct.” I stopped writing and smiled at her.

“It’s a privilege of old age. I get to say what I think and not give a damn whether anybody likes it or not.”

“Mrs. Eckersly, did your son kill Allison?”

She cackled. “There you go, sugar. Just honesty. No, I don’t believe he did. Thought she was the love of his life. I’m pretty sure the reason he bought her that big diamond bracelet was that he was eyeballing the wedding rings.”

“Do you know where he was between midnight and six this morning?”

“I’m sure he was in bed.”

“But you don’t know that for a fact? You didn’t see him come in?” I tried to keep the excitement out of my voice.

It would undoubtedly be weeks before the police would be able to get a list of clients out of the madam, because she’d have top-notch attorneys who would keep her from giving them anything incriminating, so they’d have to get warrants and find it. Which meant they wouldn’t be looking at Eckersly for a good while.

Maybe the way to get back on Andrews’ good side was sitting right in front of me. Sex was a powerful motive for murder. What if he’d found out she was sleeping with other men and just gone apeshit and throttled her? Strangling was almost always a crime of passion.

“I didn’t see him come in, but he often stays in the fields or in the city until after I go to bed.” Lucinda looked wary.

“Would Doreen have heard him come in?”

“Possibly.” Lucinda didn’t snap, but I could see the wheels turning. She was pissed at her son, but family is family, especially in the country. Power of attorney be damned, she didn’t want him charged with murder.

“You’re not going to tell me anything else, are you?” I closed my notebook.

She stared at the fireplace, focusing on the Eckersly family crest above the mantle. “Jesus. Do you really think my boy could have killed that girl?”

“I don’t know, Mrs. Eckersly.”

“Could you tell Doreen I need my pills?” She gripped the arm of the wheelchair, her voice wispier than usual.

Shit.

“Doreen!” I jumped to my feet and strode quickly to the door, ignoring the twinge in my ankle. “Mrs. Eckersly needs her medicine!”

Doreen bustled in with a silver tray holding a highball glass full of water and a saucer full of pills.

“Miss Lucinda,” she fretted as she handed over the pills one at a time and held the water glass steadily against Mrs. Eckersly’s lips. “You know better than to get yourself so worked up.” She cut a glance at me. “I think you’d better go.”

“Is she going to be all right?”

Doreen laid a protective hand on Lucinda’s shoulder as Lucinda groped for her oxygen again.

“She needs to rest. I take good care of Mrs. Eckersly, Miss.” She nodded to the door and fixed me with a positively shiver-worthy glare.

18.

Cocktails, interrupted

I was almost to the bar where I was supposed to meet Parker and Mel—early but craving a very large glass of Moscato—when my phone rang.

I fished it out of my bag with one hand, keeping my eyes on the increasingly heavy traffic in front of me as parking garages throughout the city began to empty.

“Clarke,” I said, pressing it to my shoulder with one cheek.

“What is it your gut is telling you, again?” Kyle’s words were clipped.

“What? Why? I thought you had your man.”

“I thought I did, too, but the goddamn tire tracks don’t match any vehicle Billings owns,” he said. “So either you’re right and he didn’t do it, or I need to figure a way around this before the judge gets wind of this report.

“I’m searching rental car records for five states and pulling everything else I can think of, but so far I haven’t found a damned thing. I’ve been at it for hours and everything’s blurring together. The defense attorneys have the report and are requesting a meeting with the judge tomorrow morning. Can you come up here and talk me through this?”

So much for my glass of wine. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”

I stopped at a light and sent Parker a text.

“Change of plans. Rain check?”

I was to the next light when my Blackberry binged his reply.

“No wound-licking. Shelby got lucky. Practically tripped over the cops leading the dean out.”

“Changes nothing,” I tapped back. “But thanks.”

I pulled the car easily into a street space in front of the federal building a few minutes later. Most of the worker bees had gone home for the evening. Inside, I handed my I.D. to the guard at the desk and waited for Kyle to come escort me inside.

“Thanks.” He flashed a tight grin as he opened the door for me.

“Don’t mention it. It’s not every day I get invited into the middle of a federal investigation, Mr. Special Agent. How much of this do I get on the record?”

“Can I answer that after I figure out what the hell’s going on here?” He led me down a long, sterile hallway to a conference room and flipped on the lights, waving me toward a table stacked with file folders and boxes of records that looked like months—or years—worth of work.

“Holy shit, Kyle.” I whistled. “What is Billings into?”

“Are we on the record?” He flattened his palms on the table and leaned toward me, his eyes probing.

I held his gaze for a long second.

Something worth promising him we weren’t was in those folders. I didn’t even need my inner Lois to tell me that.

“Not if you don’t want to be.”

“He’s up to his ass in dirty money and shady deals.” Kyle flipped open a folder and pushed it across the table. “He’s even got connections in the goddamned Mafia. But he’s a slippery sonofabitch. I’ve never been able to get anything to stick.”

I inhaled sharply at his mention of the Mafia, flipping through eight-by-ten glossies of Billings in various places and with various people, scanning the images for Joey and hating that I felt a little sick at the idea. But it would explain how he knew what was going on.

“So you had him on the gun and you thought you’d gotten your big break,” I said, thinking about the guns I’d seen in Eckersly’s foyer. Kyle had said the one that killed Amesworth was rare, so I wasn’t sure how likely it was that there was another one in the Richmond area, but it was worth bringing up. “That’s why you went so hard at it with the prosecutor.”

“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?”