“I want something on this today. Talk to that escort service guy again, see if you can track down anything on Allison that can connect her to McGee and Torrey so we can put these two together.”
“Will they want that?” I asked, thinking of the suits upstairs and the sacred cows grazing in our backyard.
“Fuck them,” Marty said, then clenched his teeth. “Forget I said that.”
I chuckled. “Come on, Marty, it just means you’re like the rest of us.”
“I am not like you, and if it gets back to me that I said that, I’ll have your ass.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him that my mother was fucking the publisher and I might now have some temporary clout.
My phone rang, keeping me from saying something I shouldn’t, and he wandered back to his desk.
“Newsroom,” I answered. I usually don’t like to identify myself, just in case it’s some nutcase who wants to complain about why he didn’t get his newspaper or that the paper was left in a puddle or we somehow forgot to put in his listing about the chicken dinner at the local VFW.
“I saw you with Vinny DeLucia last night.” My mother has impeccable timing: When I don’t have time to talk to her, she calls me, wanting a heart-to-heart.
“It’s nothing, Mother. We went to high school together. That’s all.”
“He didn’t, um, tell you anything, did he?”
“Like what? Like he’s working on a big investigation for you, something that has to do with Melissa Peabody?”
That got her, because she didn’t say anything for a couple of seconds. “Did he tell you?”
I sighed. “No, Mother. But why don’t you tell me about it?”
“It’s privileged,” she said, and I knew I wouldn’t get shit out of her right now. Direct confrontation would never work; passive aggressiveness was the way to go, and I’d blown it.
“You know, Mom, I have to get going. A friend of Melissa’s was killed, and I have to get back on it.”
“Killed?” The curiosity seeped through the receiver into my ear. I smiled. Two could play this game.
“Sorry, Mom, gotta go.”
Under normal circumstances, I would have to wait for her permission to hang up. It almost gave me an ulcer while I was in college, before I realized I could just zone her out while I waited. But it was time to change the rules.
I hung up.
I began writing the top of the story. I’d fill in the blanks later, if we had anything to fill them with. I was doubtful. This murder would tie up Tom all day. Even if I paged him he wouldn’t call me back. Sarah had been little help. I’d have to hoof it around campus and try to get more of a description of Allison, other than what I already knew, and maybe even a picture if I got lucky.
On my way back to the campus, I stopped by the crime scene again. There were still some officers milling about, the yellow tape giving me a sense of déjà vu. I spotted Tom and pulled into a parking space.
“Anything?” I asked when I got closer to him.
He jumped, startled at the sound of my voice. “Oh, shit, Annie.”
“Sorry. Did you find the murder weapon?”
He shook his head. “If it wasn’t for all the blood, I’d think she was killed somewhere else and moved here. It’s the cleanest fucking scene I’ve ever seen.”
He was pointing, and I noticed what he meant: There was no litter. Nothing. It looked like it had been swept up. A shiver ran down my spine and pinched me on the ass.
“Do you think there’s some serial killer after Yalies?” I tried.
He stared at me. “She’s a Yalie?”
I’d forgotten that he didn’t know who she was and I hadn’t enlightened him earlier.
“You know who she is,” he growled.
I took a deep breath. “Yeah. She’s a friend of Melissa’s.”
He started walking in circles. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me. You were here earlier, you saw her.”
“And I proceeded to lose my breakfast on the curb over there. I wasn’t exactly in a state of mind to help the police at the moment. I’m here now.” I hadn’t come here to tell him about Allison, I wanted him to tell me what he knew about her death so I could write about it.
“What’s her name?”
“Allison Sanders. She works for that escort service, too. I met with her the other night. She and Melissa were Mark Torrey’s regulars.”
“Jesus Christ.”
My thoughts exactly.
“What else do you know about her?” he asked.
“Nothing. Really. I was heading over to the school now to try to find someone to tell me about her.”
“You can’t write about this,” he said.
“Say what?”
“If you write about this, people will think there’s some serial killer after Yalies. That wouldn’t be good.”
“But you’ve got David Best for Melissa’s death. And Allison was killed so differently. They were both involved in a business that’s shady anyway, why would people think it’s a serial killer?” But even as I asked him that, I knew I was wrong. No one would care about the MO. They would only see “Yale” and “murder” and jump to their own conclusions, excuse the pun.
“I have to write it, Tom. It’s my job.” That was the truth. Marty knew about it, we couldn’t sit on this. I couldn’t do it, not even for him. “Anyway, all those other reporters, do you really think Richard Wells doesn’t know who she is yet?”
I almost felt sorry for him. His shoulders sagged even lower, his eyes glazing over. “I shouldn’t have asked you that.”
“No, you shouldn’t have.” I can’t keep my mouth shut.
He glared at me. “I have nothing else to say to you. Please leave the crime scene. We’ll notify you if there’s anything official to report.”
I was dismissed. It felt only slightly less demeaning than when my mother dismissed me. When I was in my car, I remembered I forgot to tell him about my meeting with Torrey. But I was pissed at him and I knew he’d be pissed about that, too, so I just kept going.
Dick was three steps ahead of me. I ran into him in Atticus. Okay, I wanted a cup of coffee and thought maybe I could re-create my uncanny luck of finding people who knew the victim while I was there. All I found was Dick, waiting in line for a cappuccino.
“I thought you were at the accident.”
“No biggie. A couple of graphs. But I got a picture of Allison Sanders.” He pulled a wallet-sized picture out of his breast pocket. It was Allison, all right. But how?
“Her roommate was really nice.” Dick kept talking while I ordered my coffee. “Allison was from Michigan. Detroit. She was here on a scholarship.”
I was too stunned that he’d actually gotten something to be upset about his stepping on my toes. God knows I hadn’t even gotten the girl’s last name when I’d met her. I figured just this once, I’d give Dick a pass.
Dick and I actually managed to come up with a pretty damned good story in the end. The cops weren’t having a press conference until the next day, which meant they knew nothing, had nothing to tell. Didn’t bode well.
I
T WAS GETTING LATE
and I needed to meet Torrey. I hadn’t had time to go home, and I’d eaten half a small pizza with Dick at my desk. All the pizza I was eating lately was sitting on my thighs. When I stepped outside, it was dark and the air was calm. I could smell the harbor, not a nice smell, a little fishy, a little rotten. I thought of the gun in my bedside table drawer and wished I’d brought it with me. The pepper spray in my purse would have to do.
I maneuvered my car into a spot near the building, and as I approached, I wondered if Torrey had tried to reach me to cancel. The windows were dark, and I almost turned back to my car when I saw a light go on on the third floor. A silhouette of a man paced around the room, and I watched it for a minute, debating whether to go face him or run like hell.
I pulled my cell phone out of my purse and dialed Tom’s number. Voice mail. I left a message, telling him where I was and who I was meeting. Just in case.
And before my head could talk me out of this, my feet were up the stairs and I was pushing the heavy door open.
“Miss Seymour?” The disembodied voice echoed through the stairwell.
“Yes. Mark Torrey?”
“Right up here.”
I reached the top of the stairs and turned toward the light. “In here,” the voice directed.
He sat behind a big mahogany desk, a small desk lamp emanating an orange glow. I had the feeling I was in some sort of Surrealist painting. He stared at me without saying anything. I recognized him from that party at my mother’s. He had curly brown hair and a very high forehead. His shoulders were broad, his neck thick, and I was willing to bet he’d played football in high school. He wasn’t what I considered good-looking, but he had the rich-boy arrogance oozing from every pore that some women find attractive.
“I don’t think you’re here to talk finance,” he began.
I sat in one of the big leather chairs in front of the desk without being asked. I don’t believe in protocol at clandestine meetings. “No, Mr. Torrey, I’d like to talk about Melissa Peabody.”
He folded his hands in front of him, his elbows on the desk. “What can I tell you? She was a lovely girl. It was the most unfortunate accident.”
I stifled a chuckle. “It was no accident. She was murdered. And you were there.”
“For a while, I admit. But she was very much alive when I left.” He smiled then, a hypnotizing smile that caught me off guard, and I found myself leaning toward him, as if he had some sort of gravitational pull on me. In that second, I saw his charm, almost felt like I could trust the guy, it seemed so genuine, even though I knew he was a fraud. I took a deep breath, fighting it, sitting back in my chair again, farther away.
Jesus, he was like that goddamned wormhole on
Star Trek
that sucked in everything that came into its path.
“Why haven’t you come forward to tell the police what you know if you weren’t involved?” I was back in the game.
The smile disappeared, and he bit his lip. I don’t think he knew I could see that well in the dark. “I haven’t been ready to talk about it. I was very close to Melissa, as you probably have figured out by now.”
Close in the biblical sense, sure. Any other way, well, I doubted it. “Why did you agree to speak with me tonight?”
He stared straight into my eyes. I guess he was going to try to tell me what he perceived was the truth and try to get me to believe it because he was being “honest.” By doing that, he was proving to me that he was going to drop a big fat lie on me and expect me not to feel it.
“My conscience was bothering me.”
What an asshole this guy was. He could fool some Yale students who thought he was Mr. Wonderful, but he certainly wasn’t going to fool me, not now. My X-ray vision was seeing the rat underneath the nice suit.
“Why not talk to the cops? Why to a reporter?”
“You have connections. You’ll tell them.”
Oh, Christ, even this guy knew about me and Tom. “What about Allison Sanders?”
He frowned, and I could see he was genuinely puzzled. “What about her? Yes, I know her, but besides being a friend of Melissa’s, I see no reason why she should be involved in this.”
Could he be that good an actor? The skeptic in me said yes. But I encouraged his charade and played along.
“She’s dead, Mr. Torrey. Didn’t you hear? Someone stabbed her to death in a parking lot. She was found this morning.”
I saw something cross his face that I couldn’t read. It pissed me off. “Why are girls you knew and had recent contact with dying?” I demanded. The sentence structure left something to be desired, but it got the point across.
“I really don’t know about that.” But he was a little flustered. I could see that, even in the dim light.
“Maybe you should come with me and talk to the cops.” I didn’t really want to spend that much time with him, but I couldn’t shake the feeling that he was planning to disappear for good.
“Maybe I should.” He was staring into my eyes again. Bad sign.
I pulled my notebook out of my bag. This was probably the only chance I’d get to talk to this guy, and it was time to make it official. “Can you tell me everything that happened the night Melissa was killed?”
“I met her at the apartment, we weren’t going anywhere that night. We’d done that before, it was mutual.”
“But you paid for it.”
“I never paid for it,” he said firmly, like it was true.
But before I could press further, he continued, “When we were done, I had to get back to my place to get some sleep because I had an early meeting. She was getting dressed and said she’d lock up on her way out.”
“Did you see David Best that night?”
“The boyfriend? Oh, yes. He was yelling from the street for her to come out. We closed the sliding doors so we couldn’t hear him.”
“Why did you call in to work the next day saying you were in California because of a death in the family?”
“But I
was
in California. I did have a death in the family. There was a message on my machine when I got home. I just wasn’t there as long as I let on.”
I wasn’t buying any of his shit, but I was writing it down. “Why is the address for McGee Corporation a Gap store?” While I was here, I figured I might as well go for the whole kit and kaboodle, as my grandmother used to say.
“It was a typo.”
“A typo?”
“It was a mistake. We’re actually on the next block, but there was a screwup.”
This guy was lying like a rug, but I had to admit he was smooth. He had a fucking answer for everything. “What’s the correct address?”
“I don’t think that’s relevant to Melissa.”
It was, but I figured I’d get back to that. I tried another tack. “Are you working on the redevelopment plans with Lundgren?”
I could see the puzzlement in his face, but he answered me. “Some of the legal issues involved, yes. That’s part of my job as assistant corporation counsel.”
“Legal issues like what?”
“We may have to take some property over by eminent domain, and that’s always difficult.”
Difficult because people didn’t want the city to take over their properties and homes and force them to move elsewhere just in the name of progress, but that wasn’t what I was here for.
“But isn’t the fact that you used to work for Lundgren a conflict?”