Buried Leads (A Headlines in High Heels Mystery) (14 page)

“So you come by your interest in politics honestly?” I smiled.

“I guess so,” she said. “It’s hard to not be cynical about politics when you know politicians, though. They’re mostly weasels.”

I stared for a second, her laughter at the idea of Grayson playing poker popping up in my thoughts.

No way.

But she’d used his first name. Could she know him? Like, in the Biblical sense?

“Do you know very many politicians?” My voice was too high. I cleared my throat and took a deep breath. “How about Senator Grayson?”

“He’s an asshole. Everyone thinks he’s so charming, such an upstanding family man.” Lakshmi put her glass on the table and shook her head, snapping her mouth shut like she’d thought better of what she was going to say.

I stayed quiet.

“Well.” She flashed a crooked smile and it was easy to see why men would pay to be with her. She looked like she belonged in a painting. “If people only knew.”

Christ on a cracker, as Eunice would say. Not cards. Call girls.

The photo of Grayson’s family flashed up from my memory and I pictured his short, round wife with her mousy eighties mom hair standing next to Lakshmi.

My gut said I’d found where the money was going.

If I was right about it coming from Billings, I just needed the filler pieces of my puzzle. Was Amesworth their go-between? And how and why had he ended up in a shallow grave?

“I think I’m done with the wine,” Lakshmi said, standing.

“It was nice to meet you,” I said. “Good luck.”

“I make my own luck,” she said. “It gives me the best probability of getting what I want.”

I watched Lakshmi stumble toward her doctor friend, who was saying his goodnights, and wondered: was Grayson being bribed and blackmailed at the same time? Hookers, no matter their looks or price, are never good for political careers. What if Grayson had killed Amesworth to keep his secret?

Why was it that every time I found an answer, three new questions popped up? It was like an exhausting game of mental whack-a-mole. I pulled out my Blackberry and checked my email. Nothing interesting. And it was after midnight already.

I looked up, and Parker caught my eye. The other men were trickling out. I nodded slightly and he stood, sweeping a stack of bills off the tabletop.

He shook hands with the other men at his table, bending over Captain Cigar from earlier and looking toward the door. A tall, thin man with platinum hair and an expensive suit had joined our doorman to bid everyone goodnight.

Parker held a finger up at me and made his way to the door. I followed, lagging behind a few steps as he took the guy aside and moved quickly from pleasantries to serious conversation. The man shook his head, holding his hands up.

Parker took half a step closer, his easy smile fading, and said something else. I had a pretty good feeling he’d found who Willis Hunt owed money to.

Pulling out a roll of bills, Parker peeled several off and pressed them into the other man’s palm, an uncharacteristically serious gaze causing his green eyes to narrow. The other man pocketed the cash and nodded.

Parker turned and caught my elbow. “Ready?”

“Am I ever,” I muttered. “Do I even have to ask what you just did?”

He steered me out the door, smiling a goodnight at people we passed and muttering out of the corner of his mouth. “Probably not, but give me a second and I’ll tell you, anyway.”

I took my keys from him and jumped into the driver’s seat, starting the car before he even had his door closed.

“Where’s the fire? It’s after midnight, you know,” he said, clicking his seatbelt into place.

“Time doesn’t matter to the news,” I said. “I just got the scoop of the century. Now I have to prove it.”

“Sound like a good time was had by all.” He grinned. “Willis is even. As long as he stays away. I promised to keep their game out of the paper and left my winnings there.”

“About that. I’ll pay you back if you’ll just let me know how much,” I said.

He pulled out the cash roll.

“Zero,” he said. “I told you I was good. I won my seven-fifty plus another grand, which I left with our host.”

“Nice,” I said, thankful I didn’t owe him my shoe money. “Thanks, Parker.”

“Thank you. I’ve known Willis was in trouble for months, and you gave me a way to get him out. Besides, this was definitely better than watching a movie alone.”

“Indeed,” I said under my breath, turning the radio up and pressing the accelerator harder.

With an even juicier possible reason for Grayson being on the take, I was doubly anxious to get some research in before I crashed after a very long day.

The silent ride back to Parker’s motorcycle was short.

I waved goodnight and pointed my car toward the Fan. Four blocks from home, I decided to take a small detour past Grayson’s house and see what I could find.

12.

Surprise, surprise

The house was a gorgeous Georgian restoration with soaring ivory columns juxtaposed against deep red brick, the entire front lit by floodlights so bright that even at two ticks ‘til one, it was noon in the Graysons’ front yard. The Graysons had to be gone. Who could sleep through that?

I tapped my fingers on the steering wheel, debating for half a second before I climbed out and walked the length of the yard on the opposite side of the street.

I wanted a closer look at the house, but wasn’t stupid enough to go traipsing around outside a home which had been recently burglarized.

I studied the front of the house as I walked, assuming I wouldn’t see anything out of the ordinary.

Call girls. The guy had a wife, a kid, and a voter base that didn’t look kindly on philandering. So to keep the wife from finding out he was cheating, he was taking bribes. Seemed reasonable enough.

Still didn’t give me a why on a break-in or a dead guy.

Turning on my heel, I started back up the street, looking at a large window that faced a ten-foot wall of hedges on the south side of the house. A window that appeared to have a hastily-patched hole in it.

Shit. I stepped closer to the middle of the street, peering into the darkness. I still wasn’t going over there, but by squinting I could see duct tape crisscrossing a full pane of that window.

That, plus the presence of a security system meant this was almost certainly not the work of the cat burglar. That guy got in and out of houses without a trace. He was the Criss Angel of breaking and entering. No way he punched out a window.

And no way a broken window doesn’t set off the alarm. Right?

I climbed back into my car, trying to remember what Aaron had said that morning and wondering for the millionth time if the robbery was a political ploy or the key to this whole damned thing.

My headlights hit off a shadow on my front porch when I turned into the driveway, and I squinted into the darkness again. I’d taken all the summer flowerpots down already, but it looked like there was something hanging from the ceiling.

I hopped out of the car and hurried toward the sidewalk, a small, puffy shape coming into focus as I got closer to the steps.

“No.” I stopped, my hand flying to my mouth, stomach churning.

A small furry shape. Hanging from a thick cord. My legs felt rooted to the sidewalk. I needed to see and didn’t want to know, both with such overwhelming urgency that I couldn’t move. I tried to scream, and finally was able to form a word. “Darcy!”

An explosion of yipping came from behind the closed front door, followed by unmistakable scratching on the wood.

“What the hell?” A sob escaped my throat at the familiar bark, safely inside the house.

I ran up to the porch, poking the macabre new decor. Stuffed. I snatched it down and examined it. It was a toy. A stuffed toy Pomeranian dog. A piece of paper poked out of the collar.

I glanced around, hugging the doll to my chest and unlocking the door as quickly as the pitch dark and my fumbling fingers would allow.

Safely inside with the deadbolt and chain fastened behind me, I slumped to the floor and scooped my very alive, very hyper dog into my arms, burying my face in her fur and sobbing until she started to wriggle and whine.

“I’m so very glad to see you, princess,” I said, wiping my eyes with one hand and ruffling the fur behind her ears with the other. She yipped, then bounced out of my lap and down the hall toward the kitchen.

I got up to follow, turning on lights as I walked, the skin-crawly feeling I’d had on the porch returning when I pulled the note from the fake dog’s collar.

Dear Nosy Nichelle, Next time it won’t be a prop. BACK OFF.

Darcy barked, and I found her in the kitchen, tapping her food bowl with her foot.

“It’s not dinnertime, girl. You ate already,” I said.

She tapped again, and I turned for the pantry.

“I’ve never been so glad to have to feed you in the middle of the night, that’s for damned sure,” I said, my hands shaking as I opened the can.

She gobbled her food while I unknotted the bungee cord around the toy’s neck and examined it in the light. Nothing special: blue with black flecks, available at a million hardware stores and every Wal-Mart.

I stared at it, knowing I’d likely wrecked any fingerprints anyone might be able to lift from it and wondering who would do something so heinous. And how they knew what kind of dog I had.

I shoved the toy dog, cord, and note deep into the kitchen garbage can, covering them with tossed-out food and used tissues and shuddering when I slammed the lid. Walking through the house, I checked locks and debated calling someone.

Jenna and my mom were my go-tos with problems, but this would only worry them. I finally had Joey’s number, but he’d probably hire me a bodyguard if I told him about this, and I didn’t even know for sure it had anything to do with Amesworth’s murder. Fifty people had seen me at the card game just an hour ago: what if someone had recognized me? Or what if the cat burglar was tired of being in the news?

As hard as I tried, I couldn’t shake the creeped-out feeling. I checked the locks twice more, looked in all the closets and behind the shower curtain, and flipped every light in the house on.

I picked up the phone to call Kyle three times, but the years apart and the late hour stopped me before I pushed send. Antsy, I flipped through TV channels until I found a
Friends
rerun and turned the volume up too loud. I paced. I ran back through my week, wondering if there was anything I’d missed.

“I hope Aaron doesn’t have plans for Monday morning,” I told Darcy. “Because I’ll be waiting with a cup of Starbucks Pike Place and a long list of not so fun questions when he gets to work.”

I was afraid to take her outside, but she seemed to enjoy indoor fetch just as much, and I tossed her worn out old squirrel for twice as long as usual.

By the time she was played out and curled into a russet pompom in her bed, I had a decent list of questions for my favorite detective. I couldn’t bring myself to turn the lights off, and fell asleep wondering if I’d still be Aaron’s favorite reporter by lunchtime Monday.

My mishmash nightmares were full of dangling dogs and burning warehouses.

Aaron was happy to see the coffee when he got to work Monday, but he didn’t look thrilled to see me. He faked it pretty well, covering his startled expression with a grin and waving me to his office.

“You going to start making a habit of dropping by unannounced?” He flipped the light on and gestured to one of the worn black plastic office chairs. “Because I could get you a key.”

“No thanks,” I said, taking the seat and crossing my left knee over my right. “Just in case anything ever goes missing out of the lockup again, I’d rather not be on the suspect list.”

“Let’s hope we don’t have to worry about that.” He settled into his rolling chair, shooting me a look that very clearly said “cut the shit and tell me what you want.”

“The robbery at the Grayson house,” I said. “There are several things that don’t add up.”

“Nichelle, you know as well as I do that there are B-and-Es and then there are B-and-Es.” he sighed. “If I tell you anything beyond what’s in the report, Grayson will have my badge. That guy may have a perfect smile, but he’s a mean bastard when you cross him. It’s hard to get to that level in national politics without being a certain kind of prick.”

“It wasn’t the cat burglar,” I said, putting a hand up when he opened his mouth just in case it was to argue. I really didn’t want Aaron to lie to me. “I know it wasn’t the cat burglar, because not only does the alarm system not fit, but there was a hole in one of the downstairs windows. That was conveniently left out of the report.”

He closed his eyes. “I know.”

I studied him for a second. “Remember that favor you promised me several months ago? I think I want to call it in. What the hell is going on here?”

He shook his head. “I’m not sure you want to do that. Because I really, honest-to-God don’t know. Off the record?”

“Do I get comments any other way lately?”

“We left the window out of the report on purpose. Like I told you Saturday, the general consensus is that this crime was not related, but we want whoever did do it to assume we think it’s the cat burglar. The Graysons swear nothing of value is missing, that their maids came in and turned off the alarm system, but whoever broke in was watching for that and went in after it was deactivated. The crew was cleaning upstairs and someone heard a noise and came down, and the would-be thief took off.”

Something tickled the back of my brain.

“No one saw the intruder?”

Aaron flipped open a file folder and read something for a second.

“Maid insisted the sound she heard came from the back of the house, which is where the senator’s private study is,” Aaron said. “But Grayson was very particular about the officers not going in there to check for prints.”

“I bet he was,” I said, finally connecting the nagging feeling to my memory.

Troy Wright’s mother was a maid.

And she’d said her crew cleaned a senator’s house.

I bounced in my seat.

“We have no idea what might actually have been missing,” Aaron continued. “The damned campaign people are hollering that it’s political—which it may very well be—but when the victims in a case like this don’t want to cooperate, we find ourselves in a very awkward situation. He’s a high-profile guy, so it’s big news. If you print what I’m allowed to give you on the record right now, we’re going to look like the goddamned Keystone Cops.”

“Good thing you don’t have to run for office.” I grinned.

“True enough. But if we’re going to look like third-rate nincompoops, I’d rather it be because we actually screwed something up.”

“Fair enough.What do you make of the Billings case?” I asked, changing the subject.

“The ATF is running that show,” he said, leaning back in the chair and lacing his hands behind his head. “I heard a rumor that you have an old friend who has recently joined their ranks over there. I bet you know more about it than I do.”

“I doubt that. I know Kyle’s convinced he’s got his man. I’m not so sure.”

“Oh, yeah?” Aaron raised his eyebrows. “What makes you say that?”

“A hunch, mostly. I don’t have anything concrete.”

“Always go with the gut. Mine has rarely steered me wrong. But I’m not in much of a position to help you. Not unless I want a pissing contest with the new special agent at the ATF, which I really, really don’t. Good luck, though. Don’t get shot at any more.”

I laughed. “Thanks, Aaron. Sorry I ambushed you.”

“You brought coffee. We’re good.”

Sitting in my parked car in front of police headquarters, I dialed Joyce Wright, certain she wasn’t home, but hoping I could leave her a message. She picked up on the second ring.

“Joyce!” I said, so startled at her soft “hello” I almost dropped the phone. “Good morning! I thought you’d be at work. It’s Nichelle Clarke from the
Telegraph
. Do you have a few minutes to talk to me?”

“I got all day for you.” Her voice caught. “That story that was in the newspaper yesterday about my boy—there’s no way I can ever repay you for that.”

A warm flush flowed from the pit of my stomach, putting a smile on my face. Eunice had done a beautiful job with the pages, starting the story on the front of the “Richmond Lives” section with a collage of the photos Joyce had loaned me and running several more with the jump copy. I didn’t often write stories that touched people the way Joyce’s voice told me this one had touched her.

“I’m so glad you liked it.” I had obsessed over it to the point of irritating the hell out of Eunice, who assured me it was lovely and the woman wouldn’t be able to help being happy with it. I was glad she was right.

“It’s beautiful,” she said. “That sports reporter came by here early and picked Troy up to take him to the baseball stadium. He was more excited than I’ve seen him since the Christmas he got his first bike. You’re good people, Miss Clarke, as my grandmomma would have said.”

“Nichelle,” I corrected. “And thank you. I have a question for you: you said the other day that you work in the Fan. Do you work in Senator Grayson’s home, by any chance?”

She chuckled. “I do,” she said. “I read your story about that break-in. Did the police tell you that nonsense? Because it wasn’t in the middle of the night. It was after seven in the morning, and I had just gotten there. They said me coming downstairs scared the damned thief away.”

“So I have learned, though not on the record,” I said, thinking that an exclusive with Joyce would be a coup, but might get her into trouble if Grayson didn’t want the real story in the press. And with what Aaron had said about wanting to keep the fact that it wasn’t the cat burglar under wraps, it could muck up the PD’s investigation and get me on their shit list as a bonus. That wasn’t a good place for the newspaper’s crime reporter to be.

“Joyce, do you have time for a cup of coffee?” I asked, checking the clock. I’d already missed three-quarters of the morning news budget meeting by going to see Aaron, which meant I’d have some explaining to do when I got to the office if I didn’t want to end up in trouble with Bob. But as long as I didn’t tell him everything, the idea of an exclusive might keep me out of hot water, and just because she told me what happened didn’t mean I had to run it. She might know something about Grayson that would help me figure out what he was up to.

“I have to have the decaf these days on account of my blood pressure,” she said. “It’s hell, getting old. But why not? I been suspended from work. They say I can’t come back until they know for sure I didn’t break that window at the Grayson house and call the police to cover it up.”

I almost dropped my phone for the second time in five minutes.

“Are you serious?” My thoughts ran to the aging furniture in the tiny living room and the boy with the electric smile who wanted to go to college. It wasn’t a good time for his single mom to be out of work. “What is this, 1955?”

She laughed.

“I guess things don’t change as much as people like to think, Miss Clarke. I got family and some savings. As long as they don’t take too long about figuring out who did do it, we’ll get along.”

I asked her to meet me at Thompson’s on Cary Street in half an hour as I pulled into the office garage. I stepped off the elevator and headed straight to Bob’s open door, mostly because I knew he’d only get more pissed off if I tried to avoid him.

He glared when I tapped on his door frame, rolling his chair away from his computer and waving me into his office. Thunder rumbled through a wall of low, gray clouds outside the window, Mother Nature chiming in with her annoyance. I dropped into my usual orange-velour-upholstered wing chair and met the glare head on. Crossing my legs, I bounced my dangling left foot so much that my pink slingback Jimmy Choo slipped right off my heel and dropped to the floor.

“I wouldn’t get too comfortable, Nicey,” Bob practically growled. I grimaced. He didn’t get mad at me very often. “You missed the news budget meeting for the second time in as many weeks, and this time I didn’t even get the courtesy of a warning phone call.

“You’re a good reporter, kid, and you know I’ve got a soft spot for you, but Les is angling to give Shelby half your job already. You really don’t need to force me into his corner. What the hell is going on with you lately?”

“I’m working on a story,” I began then halted, still not sure how to tell him enough to get me out of this jam, but not tell him so much as to get me into another one.

There were two people on our reporting staff Bob held in higher regard than me: Grant Parker and Trudy Montgomery. And I was desperate to avoid the appearance of pulling a Shelby with Trudy’s beat.

I really didn’t think that was what I was doing, but I was terrified Bob would see it that way. I took a deep breath. Just the facts, Nichelle.

“I went by Ted Grayson’s house the other night, and the break-in there was not the work of the cat burglar,” I said. “The PD is keeping that all hush-hush because they don’t want to piss off the senator—at least not while he still is the senator—but there’s something fishy going on there, Bob. I can feel it. I just need a little time to figure out what it is.”

He sat back in the chair and heaved a heavy sigh.

“Ted Grayson, huh? Have you talked to Trudy?”

“No,” I said, and his eyebrows went up. “So far, what I’m dealing with is clearly a crime story. I didn’t see the need to bother her during election season. She’s already up to her neck in deadlines right now.”

Bob studied me carefully for a long minute, then finally shook his head at me.

“What else have you got? You were unusually productive last week, but I need copy from you for today. Since you missed the meeting, I have no idea what you have coming in.”

“I may have something on this robbery, actually,” I said. “Aaron couldn’t give me anything on the record, but the Graysons’ maid was the one who called the cops, and she’s meeting me for coffee in a little while.”

“Nice.” He nodded. “Not to turn you away from a good lead, but I know you, Nicey. It hasn’t occurred to you that the maid could get fired for talking to you?”

“I don’t have to print what I get from her,” I said. “Besides, they already suspended her. They say she can’t come back to work until the break-in is solved. It’s ridiculous. If someone doesn’t figure this out soon, she’ll be looking for a new job anyway, and that’s unfair. She might be able to point me to something I can get on the record, though.”

“I see. So you have to find out who broke into the senator’s house so she can go back to work?”

“Something like that. The more noble the cause, the more determined I am.”

“Why do I have a bad feeling about this?” Bob leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. “Oh, wait; because the last time you decided to play Woodward and Bernstein, you almost got yourself killed.”

“I remember. But I’m not investigating anything this time.” I hoped the lie was convincing as it slid through my teeth. “I’m taking a source on a robbery story for coffee because she’s a nice woman and I like her. That’s all. If I can make more of a story than a day two out of it without getting her in trouble, I will.”

“You’re a lousy liar and you know it,” he said. “But I trust you enough to let you go with it.  I also need a follow on the thing with the jewelry store today. Les tells me that story went viral on Facebook—thirty thousand shares in one day—so the number crunchers want you to stay on top of it.”

“I suppose it’s not every day there’s a pickup buried in the side of a building. I’m glad I had one that shut him up for a day.”

“You didn’t shut him up,” he said. “Les is like a dog with a bone when he wants something. And he thinks putting Shelby on the courthouse would be the best thing to happen to journalism since moveable type. All your Facebook popularity did was strengthen his case that you’re the best cops reporter in town and we should let you focus on the PD.”

He looked up. “You want to think about it?” Bob’s voice softened. “It would give you more free time and it would get Les off your ass.”

“No. I wouldn’t know what to do with free time if I had it, anyway.” I didn’t want to give up the courthouse because the trial stories were often juicier and wider-read than the initial crime reports. Which was exactly why Shelby wanted it. “And before you ask, no, I’m not handing the PD over to Shelby, either. I have sources there who skate dangerously close to being friends, and I don’t want to give that up.”

“I respect the hell out of your ambition, kid. Just take some advice from an old man: don’t put one shiny heel out of line,” He said. “Also, don’t piss Ted Grayson off. He has some friends upstairs, and they would not hesitate to can you if he asked them to.”

Great.

“Yes, sir.” I stood and smoothed my skirt. “Anything else?”

“Other than don’t get yourself killed, which should be obvious, but in your case seems to bear repeating?” Bob asked with a wry smile. “Just one thing: if your gut tells you to ask Trudy about the Grayson thing, do it. I don’t need you ladies in some sort of standoff because she thinks you’re bigfooting her territory. And, don’t miss the meeting tomorrow.”

“You got it, chief,” I said, flashing a grin and turning for the door.

I just barely beat Joyce to the coffee shop, and when I’d ordered myself a skinny white mocha and her a decaf caramel macchiato, we settled into overstuffed armchairs in the corner.

“It took me fifteen minutes to get over here,” she said, staring at the line of brake lights on West Cary. “Silly little storm pops up and folks around here drive like they ain’t never seen a raindrop.”

I grinned. “That they do. But I’m guilty of holing up in my house like the zombie apocalypse is coming when there are more than three flakes of snow on the ground, so I can’t say too much. Except that in my defense, I’m from Texas. Everything shuts down when it snows.”