Buried Leads (A Headlines in High Heels Mystery) (7 page)

I cleared my throat when I stopped next to her. She squinted up at me.

“Can I help you?” she asked. The pale features under her smattering of freckles looked tired.

I introduced myself and asked if she felt like telling me what had happened. Over her shoulder I saw Charlie stop on her way back to the van, poking her cameraman and pointing at me. I waved discreetly before I turned back to the pretty redhead, determined to get something good.

“Sure.” The redhead shrugged and gestured for me to have a seat beside her. “I’m Brittany.”

When I’d settled on the sun-warmed concrete and taken down the correct spelling of her name, she launched into her story.

“I was helping a couple with the engagement rings,” she said. “They were really nice, and she was so excited about picking out her ring. They had been here for a while—she didn’t like anything we had in the case and wanted to look at settings and diamonds to see if we could do a semi-custom. I love the engagement rings. Everyone’s always so excited when they come in to look at those.”

I nodded. “I can imagine. This was the couple who were taken to the hospital?”

“Yeah. I would’ve been hit, too, but I had turned around to get a color grading guide for diamonds out of the file cabinet. I got sprayed with the glass from the case when he crashed into it. Anyway, there it was, out of nowhere. This guy had just left with some big expensive tennis bracelet for his wife. Or his girlfriend.” She snorted. “He was a character. Big, loud dude in boots and a cowboy hat. Made a real fuss of wanting the biggest diamond bracelet we had in the place, and paid cash for it. Most of those are looking for make-up jewelry for the wife or suck-up diamonds for the girlfriend.”

I jotted notes, trying not to laugh. I knew the type: Dallas has its fair share of big, loud cowboys. They can be colorful, for sure.

“I see. Was this one a regular customer?”

“No. He lives out in the sticks. I heard him say he owns one of those big farms out in Powhatan.” Her green eyes rolled skyward. “Been in his family for generations, he said. And something about his regular jeweler not having anything big enough. He wouldn’t talk to anyone but my manager.”

“That explains the truck and the boots,” I said.

“The truck, maybe. Those boots hadn’t ever seen a field, though.”

I nodded, jotting that down.

“Are those people going to be okay?” she asked. “They were so happy. Excited about getting married. And my friend Janie—she was in the way. The glass from the windows cut her up pretty badly.”

I patted her hand. “The police spokesman said the paramedics expected everyone to be fine. Thanks for your help.”

“No problem. I guess I can go home now. I think we’re closed.”

I turned back toward the building, intent on finding the structural engineer, and saw a blue SUV turn into the parking lot.

I shaded my eyes with my notebook and stared as Kyle stepped out of the driver’s seat. He paused when he saw me, then raised one arm and waved.

“You’re just underfoot today, aren’t you? What’s this got to do with the ATF, Mr. Special Agent?” I asked when I met him halfway across the lot.

“On the record? No comment.” He grinned. His eyes said he was happy to see me, and I smiled back. I had missed Kyle. Not that he needed to know that.

“Really?” I arched an eyebrow at him. “All right, then. I’ll figure it out for myself.”

He pointed to a group of men who were surveying the damage. One had a tie and wire-rimmed glasses, and two of the others had hard hats and clipboards.

“Looks like someone did a number on this place,” Kyle said.

“Yeah. The cops said they’re waiting for a structural engineer to tell them if they can even pull the truck out of there. I’d bet that’s one or both of the hard hat crew over there. Store clerk said the guy who did it was a real piece of work. Flashing a lot of cash and buying big diamonds.”

Kyle’s eyebrows went up.

“Really? Who did you talk to?”

I turned back toward the sidewalk, but she was gone.

“Oh. She said she was going home,” I told Kyle, scanning the parking lot for the auburn ringlets. “I guess she meant right now. I didn’t get a phone number, but I do have a name.”

“That’s okay,” he said. “I’m sure I can find someone else. And if not, I know where to find you.”

“Sure,” I said. “If you’re going to keep secrets, I’m going to go see what I can find out from these guys and get back to the office before deadlines eat me alive. I now owe Bob three stories, and I still have a feature due today.”

“No rest for the wicked.” He shook his head. “Though that doesn’t really suit the Nichelle I remember.”

I smiled a goodbye and turned back to the building. The engineers spouted a lot of technical jargon about load-bearing walls and danger of spontaneous demolition, and I wrote it down carefully. Climbing back into my car, I waved to Kyle, who was taking notes while he talked to Aaron.

Driving back to the office, I cranked the stereo and turned my conversation with my ex over in my head. The ATF only handled accidents when they involved certain chemical spills, and as far as I knew, diamonds were way outside their area of interest. And even if they weren’t, something like that didn’t need the attention of a big shot.

I tapped the power button on my computer, still no closer to why Kyle had been at the accident scene. Dialing St. Vincent’s media relations office for an update on the victims from the jewelry store, I skimmed my notes from the scene again as I waited for a hospital PR person to pick up the phone.

“Those boots hadn’t ever seen a field,” I said aloud as I read the clerk’s words and pictured her rolling green eyes.

A tobacco field, maybe? Powhatan was full of them. I’d bet my favorite sapphire Louboutins I was right. Kyle didn’t give a damn about diamonds. He was there because of the farmer.

6.

To catch a thief

I hammered out the jewelry store report in record time and plunged straight from that into the feature, with Eunice’s three o’clock deadline looming. One hour. I could write a feature in an hour. I thought, anyway.

Troy Wright and his older brother, Darryl, grew up in the same house, went to the same schools, and had the devotion of a mother who loves her sons more than life itself. In a part of Richmond that sees more than its fair share of violence, where schools are underfunded and drugs and crime are a part of everyday life for many, Troy Wright is a contender for a prestigious academic award and an honor student at Kingston High School, with dreams of studying broadcast journalism at Virginia Tech or UVA.

Darryl was a convicted drug dealer, found shot in the head in his own home in June.

I lost myself in the rhythm of the keystrokes, the rest of the newsroom falling away until I closed with a quote from Joyce about how proud she was of her son and checked the clock. Three-thirty. Eunice wouldn’t be too upset at a half-hour tardy after the day I’d had. Thank God it was her waiting for the piece and not Les.

Unable to ignore my stomach any longer, I sent Eunice the story and went to the break room in search of something edible and a caffeine fix. I hoped Eunice had been in the mood to cook the night before, and that the sports desk hadn’t already demolished whatever she’d brought in. But the fridge held only a half-eaten Taco Bell burrito and a salad with a slimy green coating that didn’t look like anything a person should eat.

“Gross,” I said, swinging the door shut.

“Nothing good in there?” Parker asked from behind me.

I spun to face him. “I don’t think I’ve ever been that hungry,” I said. “I’ll suck it up until I get home. I have one more story to do, which will make four for today. I’m going to sleep until Monday.”

“Damn. And I thought my days were busy when I had a column and a game story,” he said. “Anything good?”

“My feature came out great.” I spun the bottle cap between my fingers and sipped my Coke, then smiled at him. “Speaking of my feature, I need a favor.”

“Anything. I’ll owe you ’til the end of time for convincing me to ask Mel out. She’s…” He shrugged, flashing a grin with more lovesick than star power behind it. “She’s turned my life upside-down. And I love it.”

I grinned back. I’d spent years dismissing Parker—an almost-major-league pitcher who looked like an underwear model—as an egotistical jerk who’d gotten his cushy star-columnist job on account of his baseball fame. But he really was a good guy, and a damned fine writer.  I didn’t often dip a toe into matchmaking, but the better I got to know him, the more I saw that my friend Melanie at the city desk was the perfect balance to his personality. She was smart, serious, and pretty in a non-beer-commercial way. I’d pitched it to him as trying something different than his notch-on-the-bedpost approach to dating, and they’d been fairly inseparable since.

“The kid I did the story on, the one whose brother was the murdered drug dealer from June?” I set the bottle on the counter. “Do you remember any of this?”

“The drug dealer you thought I killed?”

I nodded. “That’s the one. His kid brother is a National Merit Finalist and wants to study broadcast sports journalism. And he thinks you’re a celebrity. So I sort of told him that maybe you’d let him shadow you for a day. He’s a really great kid.”

“I am a celebrity.” Parker flashed the grin that made the female population of the greater Richmond area call for smelling salts. “But I like you because you don’t seem to realize that. When does he want to come in?”

“Monday?”

“Nothing like giving a guy a heads up, Clarke.” He dropped three quarters into the soda machine. “But sure. I’ll show him around. I can take him out to the park for practice, and to the game, too, if he wants. It’s the second to last one of the year.”

“Thanks, Parker.”

“It’s cool. I like kids.” He stepped aside when I moved toward the door. “Just get me the address and tell him I’ll be there to get him at about ten.”

“I will.” I patted his arm as I passed him. “I have a ton of stuff to do, but I’ll see you around. And really, thank you.”

“You bet. Have a good weekend, Clarke.”

“Thanks. You and Mel doing something fun?”

“Dinner. Movie. I think we might take a picnic out to the country tomorrow. We’re getting boring. It’s fantastic.”

“The great Grant Parker has been domesticated.” His happiness was positively infectious, and knowing I was responsible for it gave me warm-fuzzies.

I scrolled through police reports until I found the one on the break-in I’d overheard Detective Frustrated talking about that morning. I clicked to another screen and typed the address into Google Maps.

“Holy square footage, Batman,” I said, looking at the satellite view of a roof that was easily five times the size of mine. It sat right on Monument, too. A house that big, in that part of town, meant one of two things: old money, or new power. I snatched up the phone and dialed the police department, waiting impatiently for Aaron to pick up.

Voicemail. Damn.

“Hey Aaron, it’s Nichelle,” I said after the beep. “I’m sorry to be a pain in your ass, but you know you love me anyway. I have a couple of questions about this break-in in the Fan last night, and I’m pushing deadline so hard it’s about to push back. Pretty please, could you give me a call as soon as you have a second?”

I cradled the handset and turned to the computer, searching the city tax records for the property address. Maybe I should have bugged Aaron about it at the jewelry store. But with nothing to ask specific questions about, I wouldn’t have gotten much, anyway.

The tax record loaded.

“You’ve got to be shitting me,” I breathed, sitting back in the chair. No wonder Detective Frustrated had been so apologetic, and Aaron was dodging my calls.

The latest house on the cat burglar’s route belonged to one Theodore Grayson, United States Senator for the Commonwealth of Virginia.

“That is way too much of a coincidence to actually be a coincidence,” I said aloud to no one in particular.

“What is?” Bob’s voice came from behind me and I clicked the browser window shut and turned around. Technically, every story I’d written was rightfully mine. But digging for something more on Grayson was definitely a gray area. If I found anything else, I’d take it to Trudy. Really. But I didn’t want him to tell me I had to yet.

“Not sure,” I said. “I have one more story for you today, because people aren’t going to be sick enough of my byline by noon tomorrow. There was another burglary in the Fan last night.”

“I know,” he said. “That’s what I came to see you about. Charlie Lewis has a teaser for the early broadcast, and it’s already on the web at Channel Four and Channel Ten. I’m not fond of hearing from the TV folks that the home of a United States senator was robbed less than two miles from this building. How the hell did you miss that, Nicey?”

“I didn’t miss it,” I protested, trying hard to keep the annoyance out of my voice. “I’ve been busting my ass since six o’clock this morning, running on caffeine and Pop Tarts. I’ve turned in three stories already and am waiting for Aaron to call back about my fourth. That’s not missing anything.”

“They had it first,” he said. “But if you can get him to talk to you, you’ll have it better.”

“He didn’t give Charlie anything?” I asked.

“No comment from police officials,” Bob said. “But Charlie doesn’t have your in at the PD. Work it.”

“I’m beginning to wonder if I’ve worked it almost to death,” I sighed. “But I’ll give it everything I’ve got. That piece on the hearing I covered this morning has Charlie beat, right?”

“Seven hours ago,” he said. “Look, I love having the print exclusive for tomorrow, but it doesn’t change the fact that you slipped on this.”

“I was writing my feature.” I caught his eye and smiled. “It came out really nice. That kid is a National Merit Finalist. He’s coming in to shadow Parker on Monday. Wants to be Rick Reilly when he grows up.”

The tight line he’d stretched his mouth into softened slightly.

“I’m sure it is,” he said. “I’ll read it with my coffee on Sunday morning. But you’re not a feature writer. Your job is to stay on top of cops and courts. And Les is still pushing Shelby at the guys upstairs. The piece on the hearing is good, but if you want to keep covering both, they all have to be good.

“The suits wouldn’t dream of just handing Shelby your job after the year you’ve had, but with the recent uptick in readership and ad revenue, your friend the managing editor is pulling for them to split your beat and give half of it to his girlfriend. He says we can afford it now. So just watch it.”

“He’s trying to get them to steal half my beat because we can afford another reporter thanks to me almost getting killed?” I shook my head. “Only Les. Balls of steel, that guy. Big ones. It’s a wonder he can walk upright.”

Bob patted my shoulder. “I’d like to not have that picture in my head this close to dinnertime, thanks. Just get me something Charlie hasn’t had on the robbery before you go home. Trudy’s trying to get an interview with Grayson. He’s not commenting, so far, but I swear she has a little black book on those guys. Grayson’s campaign is hollering Watergate, and the other guys are denying any part of it. This is leading the front in the morning, and I need it. Right now.”

“You got it, Chief.”

I clicked the bookmark for the Channel Four website and pulled up Charlie’s story.

Damn. She had clearly spent every minute she wasn’t at the demolished jewelry store working this robbery, and she’d pretty much knocked it out of the park, for a crime story the police wouldn’t comment on. There was footage of RPD uniforms checking every inch of the perimeter of Grayson’s house. The story had comments from neighbors, a bit about the history of the house (which included a stint as Confederate spy headquarters during the Civil War), and a long background on other crimes the cat burglar may have committed. Charlie’s promo showed the entire yard had been taped off as a crime scene, which was a little odd. I needed Aaron on the phone. It was after four, and I didn’t have time to go to Grayson’s house before deadline.

I dialed Aaron’s cell. Voicemail there, too. So he was either busy, or avoiding me because he knew I was nearly out of time.

I drummed my fingers on the desk, staring at Charlie’s story until the letters on my screen blurred. I didn’t have time to do all that research, and I’d rather wear saddle shoes for all eternity than quote Charlie Lewis’s work in my write-up.

Which left me with what? I flashed onto the detective I’d eavesdropped on that morning. Had he said anything useful?

He had said, “I don’t know how they circumvented the security system.”

I pulled the police report up again and saw that the Graysons used ADT.

“Except this guy has been careful to skip houses with alarms,” I muttered under my breath, pulling a file folder out from under a pile of press releases and flipping through the other burglary reports. That was part of the oddity of the case: the culprit knew which houses had good stuff and no alarm.

I scrolled back through Charlie’s report. She’d missed it. I would have, too, if I hadn’t managed to overhear the detective talking on the phone.

“So, has the burglar changed his M.O., or was this someone other than the cat burglar?” I mused aloud, thinking about the campaign commercials that were getting nastier every day and Bob’s comment about Watergate. I wondered idly if that might be worth a trip by Grayson’s campaign office. If I could get the inside scoop on this break-in, it would help make up for losing to Charlie on the first story.

I dialed Trudy’s extension to see if she’d gotten anything from Grayson, but she didn’t pick up, either.

“It would be so nice if one person would answer the damned phone today,” I mumbled, replacing the receiver.

Whatever. There was a difference between this report and all the others no one had pointed out yet, so I’d lead with that.

Richmond Police were quiet about a search for suspects in a seventh robbery in the city’s historic Fan district early Friday, but the break-in, at the home of U.S. Sen. Ted Grayson, had one difference from the other six burglaries: the senator’s house had a security system.

“Statistics show that a security system is a deterrent to thieves,” RPD spokesman Aaron White told the
Telegraph
last month, after the third burglary of a home that didn’t have a system in place. “These robberies seem to be following a pattern that affirms that.”

Until the break-in at Grayson’s home Friday, none of the burglar’s targets had a security system. Police reports show that the Graysons have a monitored system through ADT, but the company told police they didn’t receive an alert.

Grayson, who has represented Virginia in the U.S. Senate for five years, is in the thick of a hotly contested re-election campaign.

I pulled some details about the campaign from Trudy’s coverage, mentioned that there was no list of missing items in the initial police report, and added Trudy’s name to the bottom as a contributor, not even reading it over in my haste. Once it was floating through cyberspace to Bob’s computer, I thumped my head down on my desk, my stomach gurgling loud enough to be embarrassing, had I been less exhausted or more inclined to care.

Twenty minutes later, I had an “attagirl” from Bob in my email.

My Blackberry binged the arrival of a text and I clicked to the message from Jenna: “C has frozen peas. I have pizza and Kool-Aid for my bday dinner.”

“Hope he’s healed for us to have girls’ night next Fri.” I tapped back. “Enjoy your mommy celebration. One more stop, and I’m going to eat, and then straight to bed.”

I had just packed up my computer when my desk phone rang.

“Crime desk, this is Clarke, can I help you?”

“Hey there,” Kyle said.

“Hey yourself, Agent Miller,” I said. “Are you liking Virginia so far?”

“Come on, Nicey, don’t be that way. I wanted to surprise you.”

“Mission accomplished.” My lips turned up at the corners. “It was kind of fun to see you with your minions this morning, though. Like an episode of
Where are They Now?
from my actual life.”

“Why let the fun stop there? Have dinner with me. I haven’t been able to find any decent food in this town, and I know you have to know where it’s hiding.”

I tapped a pen on my desk. I was tired. But I did need to eat, and Kyle had arrested a high-profile guy for murder that morning. He might be more talkative outside the courthouse and away from his fellow agents.

“What time?” I asked.

“I need about an hour to wrap up here.”

I could still run by Grayson’s campaign office, then. “Perfect. Tell you what—I made chili the other night, and it’s always better when it’s been sitting for a while. I’m ready to go home and kick off my shoes, so why don’t you meet me at my house at seven?”

“You’re inviting me back to your place already?” he said, his tone mischievous.

“I said chili, Kyle. Not lingerie.” I gave him my address and hung up, turning for the elevator. So much for my quiet Friday night. But maybe I could trade sleep for some answers.

7.

Connections and corruption

The parking lot was nearly empty at Grayson’s tiny storefront campaign office on the northern edge of town. I poked my head in the front door and stepped inside when a striking brunette smiled at me from a banged-up metal desk in the far corner. Posters with larger-than-life images of the senator stared from every wall. He was good-looking, but had that smarmy politician air about him, even in two dimensions.

“Can I help you?” the brunette asked in a bright voice laced with exhaustion.

I smiled. I hoped so. She was young—younger than me. Probably her first job in politics, which meant the important people who worked here likely didn’t notice her.

“I’m looking for some information on the senator.” I kept the smile in place.

“We have brochures and pamphlets over there.” She pointed to a folding table just inside the door. “There’s a list of upcoming campaign events, too. And if you’d like to volunteer to help out with canvassing, I can take your name and put you in the database.”

Her hopeful expression told me I’d found a way in.

“I’d like to get to know a little more about Senator Grayson first, but I might be interested in that,” I said.

She grinned. “Great! I’ll be happy to help you any way I can.”

I picked up one of each piece of campaign literature, mostly trying to think up a way to find out something useful without being too obvious. “Here’s the thing: I got most of this from the Internet,” I said. “I want to know what he’s really like. I’d like to help him get re-elected. But I’m not sure what to think about most of Washington anymore. What do you think about him? Why do you work here?”

She laughed. “Because I want to work in politics, and I had a foot in the door here. But Senator Grayson is very charismatic. People like him. And he doesn’t take any crap from anyone. He’s not afraid of a little risk. But I think it’s his ability to control most situations that I like best.”

“Decisiveness is certainly a rarity in D.C. these days,” I said. “That’s a good quality for a legislator to have, I think.”

She straightened a thick stack of papers and shoved them into a manila envelope. “He doesn’t let anyone push him around. Even when people try. I think that kind of conviction is good.”

I tipped my head to one side. Who was pushing a sitting senator around? Or trying?

“I agree.” I leaned forward. “I imagine it would take guts to tell someone like Senator Grayson what to do. But I guess it took guts for someone to break into his house, too.”

Her head snapped up, her blue eyes wide. “I know! Can you imagine knowing someone else was in your home? How violating it would feel?”

“I wonder why someone would do that?” I tried to sound casual.

Either it worked or she was only half-listening. “I wouldn’t be surprised if it had something to do with this campaign. I never would have thought politics was so nasty. I was here late one night last week, and then I forgot my purse when I left. I came back to get it, and the senator was in the office.” She waved a hand toward a postage-stamp-sized room near the door. Gray mini-blinds covered the window that faced out into the main lobby. “There were two other men in there with him, yelling about getting their money’s worth out of him. I know he technically works for the taxpayers, but I thought that was uncalled for. He’s already so stressed.”

I managed to keep my jaw from dropping, but just barely. Getting their money’s worth? My inner Lois Lane didn’t think they were talking about tax money. The photo of Amesworth and Grayson spun through my thoughts. What if this whole thing was a backroom deal gone bad?

“The nerve of some people.” I struggled to keep my voice even. “Did you see them?”

“No, I didn’t,” she said. “I got my bag and left, and they were in there with the door closed.”

Damn.

She smiled. “He’s a good man. Can you find a couple of nights to come in and work the phones for us?”

Double damn.

Unable to think of a good reason to turn her down, I reached for her sign-up sheet. “I think you’ve convinced me.” I jotted my first name and my personal email address, since I’d left out my job title during our conversation.

“I’ll be in touch.” She stood when I did and stuck out her hand. “I’m Allison.”

“I’ll look forward to hearing from you, Allison.” It wouldn’t hurt to have a source in Grayson’s office, even if I couldn’t quote her because she didn’t know she was talking to the press.

I turned the radio up and rolled the windows down as I drove home, turning what I’d learned over in my head. Last week, she’d said. Amesworth had been killed sometime in the past week, though no one had said when yet. But Kyle had someone in jail for killing Amesworth. I wondered if Billings could have been the third man Allison had overheard. And how could I get Kyle to talk about Billings—or Grayson—over dinner?

The kitchen porch light flashed on when I pulled into my driveway, twilight earlier each day as the calendar rolled toward winter. The little red maples that would have been big trees in Texas were dwarfed by the hundred-foot pines, oaks, and Bradford pears in Virginia, and were always the first to change, shading crimson like they’d been painted with a fine-tipped brush.

I loved autumn in Virginia, with cooler air, apples fresh from the orchards in Charlottesville, and earlier evenings. But the six months of bare trees and bitter cold on the way? I didn’t care for those.

My toy Pomeranian bounced at the back gate, working her tiny jaw around a battered stuffed squirrel, managing to get a soft squeak out of a long-punctured insert.

I bent to scratch her head, taking the squirrel and tossing it for her each time she retrieved it, my thoughts still swirling around Grayson. Darcy played until the reaches of the yard were dark, then returned without her toy and trotted past me, up the worn wooden steps to the back door.

I barely had time to kick my heels into the corner of the living room before Kyle rang the doorbell.

Darcy yapped and scratched at the door. Kyle knelt and put a hand out for her to sniff when I opened it.

“She’s cute. What’s her name? Scarlett?” Kyle stood and stepped into the foyer when I moved out of the doorway.