Cross Hairs (2 page)

He dug some wrinkled khaki slacks out of his closet and paired it with a blue and green plaid oxford shirt. No tie. No one would confuse him for a Gap model, but he appeared more professional than on most days, which was Cal’s meager goal as he raced out of his rundown duplex apartment door.
This could be big.

On this late summer morning, Cal rushed to his black and maroon Civic . He engaged the engine and pressed the accelerator to the floor. A few seconds passed before Cal coaxed the engine underneath the replacement hood to life. He peeled onto Highway 278 for his five-minute commute. There was no time to waste if he was going to turn out a story sure to land at the top of the heap in his skimpy clips file.

As Cal slowed to a stop at an intersection, his iPhone buzzed again.

Kelly Mendoza’s picture and name consumed the phone’s screen.

Cal’s mood momentarily changed from frenetic to giddy. If there was a good reason for staying in Statenville, it was Kelly Mendoza. Her fiery spirit overtook her common sense at times, but Cal dug spunk in a woman. It didn’t hurt that Kelly possessed good looks either. A 5-foot-9 leggy firecracker with wavy shoulder-length brown hair and piercing blue eyes made for an intriguing package. Kelly embraced her Basque bloodlines in both spirit and beauty. Cal spent more time dreaming about asking her out than he did of covering the Mariners and the Seahawks combined. But there was that bothersome unwritten “no dating fellow employees” policy.

Cal pressed talk.

“Hey, Kelly. Happy Monday morning to you.”

“Cal, I’m sure you heard the news …”

“What news?” Cal said, playing coy.

“Guy hasn’t called you yet?” Kelly asked.

“Yeah, yeah. He told me about the murders. I’m on my way into the office now.” Cal could tell flirting wasn’t a good idea.

“Well, I heard there’s a serial killer on the loose,” she said in a near-whisper. “Why would anyone want to target those two kids? There’s got to be something else going on.”

“Don’t get too freaked out, OK? I’m sure there’s a reasonable explanation for all of this.” Cal just couldn’t think of a plausible one at the moment to soothe Kelly’s nerves.

“Are you packing any heat?”

“Packing what?” A grin spread across Cal’s face.

“You got a gun?”

“Heck, no. What do you think this is? Dodge City? … Are you?”

“You better believe it. I’ve got my Glock 21 within arm’s reach.”

Cal shuddered but responded with a nervous laugh at the thought of some poor criminal getting on the wrong end of Kelly’s gun.

“Well, maybe I should ride with you today. You’re the photographer on call today, aren’t you?”

“Of course, Cal. I’m the only photographer ever on call.”

“I know but it sounded like something you would say if you were working at a big city paper. We might be writing for a small town paper, but we’ve got a big city murder to cover now.”

“I’m a little scared, but a tiny bit excited too,” Kelly admitted.

“Ditto on both of those for me, too. See you at the office in a few.” He ended the call.

What was going on?
Cal wondered.
Is there really a serial killer on the loose in Statenville? And if so, why would he kill those two boys? Whatever could they have done? What could they have been involved with to deserve death?

The paper’s readers would likely be asking those same questions. It seemed like a good place to start when interviewing the local authorities. He imagined their answers and began to write the story in his mind.

He looked down Main Street at Statenville’s usual brisk economic activity. Shoppers and business owners, many whom he knew, went about business as usual. He wondered if they knew a killer was on the loose. And in this small town, he wondered how they couldn’t. Then he wondered why no one seemed scared.

CHAPTER 4

WHEN CAL WALKED THROUGH
The Register’s
glass doors and into the newsroom, his eyes focused on Guy. Cal’s curmudgeon editor stood on the other side of his desk, testing the length of his phone chord as he leaned out his door and snapped for a pen and pad from his assistant. Guy scratched down information that the caller relayed to him before hanging up the phone. He ran his hands through the thinning unkempt hair on his 62-year-old dome, as he exhaled a big breath. Then he spotted Cal.

“Get in here, Cal. You’ve got work to do!” he bellowed.

Cal then realized he was still standing outside the newsroom. He quickly moved toward his editor as he watched the veteran newsman come to life.

“Coming, boss!”

Cal’s desk was on the second row of four in
The Register’s
cramped newsroom. He sat behind Edith Caraway, the chipper receptionist who didn’t try to hide her vintage era with the bouffant hairstyle she sported. Next to her was Earl Munroe, the middle-aged obituary and typesetter extraordinaire. Earl enjoyed sharing his mock obituaries almost as much as Edith enjoyed hearing them. Both had worked at the paper for more than 20 years and neither seemed to aspire to anything more.

Directly next to Cal’s desk was copy editor and sole page designer, Terry Alford, armed with every technological advancement known to a modern newsroom. When he wasn’t designing pages he spent most of his time flaunting his software and hardware superiority over the plebe reporters. His high-powered Mac desktop versus the reporters’ aging Dell laptops was like comparing a Bazooka to a pea shooter – at least in his mind. He often exploded into diatribes about his virtual world conquests that would make Charlie Sheen blush. This usually produced exaggerated eye rolls and snickers from anyone unlucky enough to be caught in one of his technological barrages.

Behind Cal’s desk was Kelly’s workstation, the almighty photo department, and a spot for Sammy Mendoza, Kelly’s 26-year-old cousin assigned to cover society functions who spent most of his time basking in nepotism. Sammy wasn’t interested in small talk unless it included the latest gossip on who was running around on whom or who had purchased the latest top-of-the-line luxury automobile.

That left Guy and his secretary, Mindy Nicholson. Mindy didn’t belong in this position. She was sharp, savvy and ambitious. But those things don’t matter much when you decide to marry a sheep farmer. She would do anything for Guy and was exactly what he needed to maintain his sanity when something went awry.

Guy managed to cordon himself off from everyone else, if ever so slightly, with four-foot bluish-gray cubicle walls that were well past their prime. Mostly, it made Guy look silly as he tried to maintain some semblance of past newsroom glory as the editor of the Salt Lake City
Tribune
. But he pretended not to care that it looked just like you would imagine a small town newspaper in the middle-of-nowhere Idaho would look like.

Cal’s desk, a relic rivaling Edith, was awash in papers. If Cal had 30 seconds to locate a meaningful piece of information on his desk or he would be typing in obituaries for a week, Earl would have been assured a week of vacation.

Normally on a Monday morning, only Edith and Earl would be at their posts, but today, there wasn’t an empty seat – not even Sammy’s.

Cal dumped his laptop bag on his desk and headed for Guy’s space.

“So, what’s the scoop, boss?”

“That’s why I hire reporters, Cal,” Guy growled. “They’re supposed to bring me the scoop.”

Cal sucked in a short breath. He was unsure of how to respond to Guy’s thinly veiled accusation. But he didn’t have a chance to say anything as Guy began barking instructions.

“Go to the sheriff’s office and see if Jones will give you anything. Then report back to me and we’ll figure out where to go next.”

“You got it.”

“And, Cal, be careful, you hear me? I want Kelly with you at all times to get some good art. We need a good dominant photo for Wednesday’s paper. Even if it’s Jones looking forlorn, I want
something
.”

“Will do, boss.”

Kelly was already gathering her camera bag and notepad before Cal turned around and headed for his desk. She was waiting for Cal by the glass doorway as he scooped up his belongings.

Just as Cal was about to pass Edith near the front of the newsroom, she hung up the phone and began shaking.

“Cal, don’t go anywhere,” she said. “I think you’re going to want to hear this.”

Then she turned toward the back of the newsroom and utilized her Edithcom.

“Guy, there’s been another murder!”

CHAPTER 5

THE JOINT CONSOLIDATION OF
the Statenville Police Department with the Brooks County Sheriff’s Department was the mastermind of Mayor Nathan Gold. Twelve years ago when he first assumed office in the town without term limits, the word “recession” was rarely uttered, much less the basis for decision-making among local, state and federal governments. But Gold looked like a genius over a decade later. Some called him visionary. Others considered him controlling, which certainly was a by-product of a city-county law enforcement department.

Nevertheless, the consolidation of resources and elimination of needless officers in a town where most people chose to remain in accordance with the law made Gold popular. Under his careful watch, Statenville had thrived – even in the midst of a down economy. Who could argue with his decisions when Statenville’s major export business – Cloverdale Industries – was turning the city into a boon town, while neighboring cities in other counties were struggling to survive?

While there was still some debate among locals over the reasons for such a move, Sheriff Hunter Jones wasn’t complaining. He enjoyed having more assets and control.

When Cal and Kelly burst through the Brooks County Sheriff’s Office, located three storefronts down from the
Register
, Sheriff Jones didn’t flinch. He sat with his dull black boots propped on his desk while giving a wooden toothpick a good workout between his teeth.

Jones deliberately looked the reporters up and down before speaking.

“Soooo, what brings you two cub reporters to my office this early on a Monday morning?” he asked as he leaked a wry smile.

“Sheriff Jones, you know good and well why we’re here,” Cal shot back, more than willing to dispense with any unnecessary pleasantries.

“You must’ve heard about the drug overdoses,” Jones said, pausing for effect before continuing. “What a shame. I can’t believe those boys threw away all that talent for a meth high.”

Cal and Kelly looked at one another, both exhaling and relaxing for the first time since they heard the initial report.

“You mean, this isn’t some vendetta murder or the work of some serial killer?” Cal asked, secretly hoping that his dreams of a Pulitzer weren’t going to disappear due to simple drug usage.

“Do you think I’d still be here if that were true?” Jones fired back. He stood up and began moving toward the office coffee maker located on the vacant receptionist’s desk in front of Cal and Kelly.

“Help yourself to the coffee,” Jones offered, refilling his coffee mug and waiting for the duo to reply. While the Sherriff returned to his desk, both reporters eyed the small Styrofoam cups next to the dingy coffee pot, then declined the Sherriff’s generous offer.

“What about the third murder victim? Who was he?” Cal asked.

“That would be Jim Reid’s boy, Devin. And why do you keep using the ‘M’ word? They all died of a simple drug overdose.”

“In a 24-hour period? Doesn’t that seem a bit suspicious to you?” Cal questioned again.

“Well, sure it does. But that’s why we investigate, little cubbie. Suspicion alone never gets a conviction. We need evidence. And we seem to have it.”

Kelly grew tired of listening to Jones dance around the facts.

“You’ve got to give us more than that,” she demanded.

“Well, what do you want to know? I think we all know that we need to be sensitive first and foremost to the families of the deceased. We don’t need to make these boys look like a bunch of drug addicts.”

It was obvious that Jones wasn’t sincerely interested in answering any real questions. But neither Cal nor Kelly protested. The paper adhered to unspoken small town rules such as these.

“What kind of drugs were they using?” Kelly asked, unable to maintain the apparent soft gag order that was being issued by Jones.

“Well, we won’t know that until the tox reports come back from Boise. But we found meth at all three scenes.”

Jones ascribed to an age-old law enforcement trick: If you’re forthcoming about an unusable piece of information, it could stem the tide of uncomfortable questioning. Or at the least it could keep you from appearing like a total jerk when you flat refused to answer a question deemed too invasive. He drummed his fingers on his desk as Cal and Kelly both began scribbling down details in their notebooks.

“But we won’t know anything officially for at least two weeks,” he said, negating what seemed like a juicy fact seconds ago.

“Got any reports yet?” Cal asked, eyeing two completed forms on the receptionist’s desk.

“Nope,” Jones lied. “Mercer and Dawkins will be back with full reports later this afternoon. They’re still bagging evidence at the Reid place. You can talk to them here, later.”

Jones’ last sentence was an oblique order. Cal understood Jones didn’t want them snooping around the Reid’s house and he certainly didn’t want them talking to his deputies before he got a chance to filter their conclusions. He wanted to maintain control of the situation.

Kelly saw it as a dare.

“OK, then. Just let us know if you hear anything else,” Cal said as he and Kelly turned to leave.

“Will do.”

Cal looked back over his shoulder and noticed Jones had plastered himself up against the window, watching them. Cal figured Jones wanted to make sure they didn’t get in a car and head straight for the Reid place.

Kelly pulled Cal close, making him forget for a moment that Jones seemed overly interested in making sure this story remained low key.

“I’m parked out back,” she whispered. They both were thinking the same thing.