Buried Leads (A Headlines in High Heels Mystery) (15 page)

I studied Joyce’s kind face and soft, honest eyes. I didn’t think she’d done anything wrong, and my inner Lois Lane screamed that I was right.

If I was right about this, was I right about Billings? Kyle clearly thought he had his man, and while Billings might not be a stand-up guy, there was a difference between being a greedy asshole in business and being a murderer. Like, a life in prison sentence.

“Joyce, did you see anyone at the Graysons’ house on Friday morning?” I asked.

She met my eyes straight on and shook her head slowly.

“I was upstairs cleaning the bathroom, and I heard a noise downstairs. I thought it was Mrs. Grayson, coming in early from her trip. She goes to New York to shop all the time now, and I wanted to ask her if she was ready for me to change out the linens to the winter sets, so I went down the back stairs, calling to her. I heard footsteps, and when I got down there, the door was standing open. I peeked into the senator’s office and saw the broken window, but I didn’t go in there because he’s very particular about no one being in that room but him. I closed the door, called the police and Mrs. Grayson, and then waited for someone to show up.”

“What kind of footsteps did you hear?” I asked.

She furrowed her brow. “I’m not sure I follow you.”

“Were they light, sharp, loud?” I asked. “If you think about what different kinds of shoes sound like on wood flooring, what do you think the person was wearing, and do you see them as large or small?”

She tipped her head to one side and twisted her mouth, considering that for a second before her lips popped into a perfect O.

“I know who it was,” she whispered, her left hand flying to her mouth. “Oh, Jesus, Miss Clarke, I think I know who it was.”

“Who?” I leaned forward in my seat.

“I don’t know the man’s name, but I’ve seen him,” Joyce said. “He’s come to talk to the senator a handful of times lately. He dresses like a western movie and drives a big pickup truck, and the boots he wears clomp on that floor in the back hall something terrible. That’s why I heard him from the other corner of the house. But why would he break in? He’d been invited over plenty of times.”

She lost me at “big pickup truck” and “boots.” I stared at her, my brain reeling quickly through different pieces of my week. I dug in my bag for my Blackberry and pulled up the
Telegraph
’s mobile site, searching for my story on the jewelry store.

“This pickup truck?” I said, flipping the screen around.

She studied the photo on the screen for what seemed like a long time. “I think so, yes, though I can’t see the front of this one, and I never paid attention to his plates,” she said, handing the phone back. “Did he hurt himself?”

“No.” I laid the phone on the table and stared at the photo. “He hurt some other people, though. How sure are you that his boots are what you heard?”

“As sure as I can be, given that I didn’t see him.”

“Did you tell the police about this man?”

“I didn’t even think to,” she said. “It hadn’t occurred to me, about how the shoes sounded, until you asked me that question. They didn’t ask me that. Do you know who drives this pickup, Miss Clarke? Maybe I can go back to work soon, after all.”’

“I sure hope so, Joyce,” I said, locking the phone and tucking it back into my bag. “I would love to visit with you more, but I have to get back to the office and see what I can find out about this. Thank you so much for your time.”

“Of course, Miss Clarke?”

I stopped mid-stride and turned back to her.

“The detective I spoke to gave me a card. Should I tell him about this? What you asked me about the shoes?”

I nodded. I wasn’t sure they’d run down a lead based on faraway footfalls, but it couldn’t hurt for her to call and tell them.

I darted to the car without bothering to open my umbrella, my brain running a hundred miles an hour through what I knew about this story. It got sexier—and more convoluted—by the minute.

Driving back to my office as fast as traffic would allow, I shivered a little in the chill that had come with the storm and cranked up the heat, wishing I’d thought to check the weather and grab a jacket on my way out to accost Aaron. I ticked off what I knew in time to the swishing of the windshield wipers as I waited for the light to turn green.

The girl at the jewelry store said the guy who ran into the building was a tobacco farmer. Kyle was probably looking for this farmer.  James Billings, the VP at Raymond Garfield, and Amesworth, the dead lobbyist, were funneling money to Senator Grayson through the tobacco lobby to pay for his secret sexual escapades. And Joyce seemed pretty sure the farmer had broken into Grayson’s private study. Which meant there was something in there he wanted, and if she spooked him, he might not have gotten it. 

Parking in the garage, I glimpsed Trudy Montgomery’s shiny convertible a few slots down. The nagging feeling I needed to talk to her was too strong to ignore.

I glanced at the clock. Just past noon. I had four hours to get Bob his stories. Plenty of time to have a heart-to-heart with the
Telegraph
’s resident political insider.

13.

Explosive news

“I’ve always admired your knowledge of the inner workings of D.C.” I smiled at Trudy from her office doorway, sipping plain coffee because the last of my white chocolate syrup had disappeared.  “Bob is right. You know more about the players up there than anyone this side of the beltway.”

Trudy cocked her head to one side, turning her chair toward me. “Thank you. I think. Why do I feel a ‘but’ coming on here, Nichelle?”

I took a deep breath. I liked Trudy. I respected her work. I needed her to tell me what she knew about Grayson, but more than that, I really hoped she didn’t know what I knew.

It’s easy to get close to sources when you work a beat for a long time, and I didn’t want to think Trudy might be looking past Senator Grayson’s transgressions because she liked him. But it wasn’t impossible.

“Not a ‘but.’ A ‘so.’ ” I said. “So—how is it that you don’t know Ted Grayson is taking bribes?”

“What in the pea-picking hell are you talking about? Ted Grayson’s one of the straightest arrows on Capitol Hill. He wouldn’t take a bribe if his life depended on it.”

“Only if his sex life depended on it,” I muttered.

“Pardon?” She arched an eyebrow.

“Nothing.” I waved a hand. “You really don’t know anything about this? No one in the opposing campaign has anything on it?”

“I don’t have the first clue what you’re talking about,” she said, never breaking eye contact. “Why don’t you step in here and have a seat and let’s figure it out, shall we?”

I obliged, shutting the door behind me and settling into the chair opposite her.

“I went by the campaign office Friday night, looking for information on the robbery at the Grayson house,” I said.

“There some reason you didn’t just ask me?” She leaned back in her chair.

“You didn’t answer your phone.”

“What did you find in your visit to the campaign office that makes you think Grayson is on the take? Was there a confession letter taped to the front door?”

“I talked to a girl who works there. She said she overheard him arguing with two other men who asked him what they were paying him for. I’ve been running my ass off chasing this murder story on the lobbyist, and Grayson’s name just keeps coming up. If he’s the straightest arrow on the hill, we’re in serious trouble.”

“Do you have anyone to corroborate this story? Or any other proof?”

“Grayson is taking bribe money from Raymond Garfield tobacco and who knows who else. Trust me. You want my notes?”

“I think I can do my own research, doll. And I will. In November.” Trudy ignored me when I opened my mouth to protest. “Do you have any idea the lengths a campaign can go to plant information? The Internet is a powerful tool. If you have the right people doing it, you can make anyone look guilty of anything. This has been the single nastiest race I’ve ever covered, and it’s not even October yet.

“Unless you’ve got a photo of Grayson standing over the corpse with a weapon and blood on his hands, you have nothing I’m interested in. And even then, I want the negative.”

“Trudy, I’ve covered cops for a long time—” I began.

“I know, and you could be on to something. Or you could be looking too hard for something that’s not there in an effort to catch the eye of a certain section editor at the
Washington Post
. That’s immaterial to me, really. If Grayson’s dirty, which I would have a hard time believing, then he’ll be dirty when the election’s over, too. And I’ll trust your information a lot more the second week of November.”

Her computer beeped and she turned her attention to the screen.

“The new
Post
poll has Grayson by two.” She glanced at me.

“I can’t let this go,” I said. “I have a dead guy and a man in prison I’m almost positive shouldn’t be. And I’m not sure that’s even all of it.”

She stared at me. “I believe you. At least, I believe you believe what you’re saying. But you really ought to drop it. I am not risking my reputation based on your gut. You’re a big girl. If you must chase it, go on. What do I care? If you dig something up on him, you’re that much more valuable at cops and courts. Or maybe someone in D.C. will notice you. If you don’t, it’s your job on the line, not mine. Just watch it. If you’re dealing with Calhoun’s campaign, he’ll come at you harder after this poll. You’ll have a helluva time knowing who to trust.”

I nodded, pushing myself out of the chair and turning for the door. “Thanks, Trudy.” I paused and looked back at her. “You don’t know anyone else in the newsroom who likes white mochas, do you?”

“I’m a hot tea girl, myself,” she said. “Why?”

“No reason.” I let myself out, thinking about my deadlines and Joyce and wondering if I could pump Aaron on the farmer without him knowing what I was up to.

I dialed Aaron’s cell phone, tapping a pen on my desk blotter.

Why didn’t Trudy want a story this big? Bob was right—she knew everything about everyone inside the beltway. I replayed her nonchalant dismissal in my head. She couldn’t possibly want me walking such a close line with a big story on her beat. Did she know something she wasn’t letting on? It hadn’t seemed like she was lying, but she was obviously tight with Grayson. Could she be trying to throw me off to cover for him?

“What now?” Aaron barked when he picked up.

“Did you guys hold that farmer who ran into the jewelry store over for a hearing?” I asked, unfazed by his annoyance. I was fairly sure a guy flashing wads of cash around the jewelry store would have easily made bail, but it didn’t hurt to ask.

“He was out in two hours,” Aaron said. “Hearing is tomorrow morning. Why?”

“Bob wants a follow on the story today.” I twisted my fingers into my hair. It wasn’t a lie, because Bob had asked me for a story, but it still felt a little smarmy. “I can tease the hearing. I’ll pop in and write it up for Wednesday, too.” An evidence hearing wouldn’t get thirty thousand Facebook shares in a hundred years, but it would make Bob happy. And at least remove one of Les’ reasons for bitching.

I thanked Aaron and hung up, drumming my fingers on the handset and staring at the cream wall of my cubicle before I flipped my computer open and searched for the police report on the accident at the jewelry store. I copied down the farmer’s address and grabbed my bag, hurrying back to the elevator. While calling would certainly be faster, I’d get a better read on whether the guy was lying to me if we were face to face. I wasn’t sure if or where he fit into my larger story, but the possibility of getting Joyce back to work was enough to make the drive out to Powhatan worth it.

Virginia’s early-autumn splashes of warm reds and bright yellows blurred with the green that still clung to most of the trees as I laid on the accelerator outside the city, my thoughts racing through everything I’d seen and heard at the jewelry store. Lots of cash. Big, loud guy. Looking for obnoxious diamonds. A showoff with a heavy foot, too, if he’d intended to peel his big red bubba truck out backward as fast as he must have been going to plow into the store as he had. Which all added up to this: he probably wasn’t going to want to talk to me. Playing the bimbo and using flattery would be my two surest ways to get his jaw flapping. I detested both and wasn’t good at either.

I slowed the car and turned onto a narrow gravel road, then took a left into a driveway flanked by stone lions guarding an open wrought-iron gate. The drive wound through a grove of manicured magnolias that were just losing their blooms to the early fall chill, the soft slope of the hills in the surrounding fields golden brown with tobacco plants. I flipped the radio off and rolled the windows down, the
whir-chug
of a combine coming from somewhere I couldn’t see.

A majestic, whitewashed house with black shutters appeared, the closest thing to Tara I’d ever seen in real life, making me catch my breath.

“Jesus,” I whispered as I stopped the car, staring at soaring white columns that lined a portico built for hoopskirts and mint juleps. “Welcome to Dixie.” The house was so far from the suburban tract home where I’d grown up it was positively intimidating.

Squaring my shoulders and trying to shake the feeling that I didn’t belong, I hitched my bag over one shoulder and climbed out of the car. There was a stable-sized garage to my right, but no other vehicles in sight.

In place of a regular, push-button doorbell, there was a heavy, braided cord with a tassel on the end. I shook my head slightly and yanked, bells chiming over my head like Saint Luke’s on Sunday morning. An honest-to-God plantation. And from the looks of the fields and the sound of the combine, the folks who owned it had fared just fine with paid labor.

One of the eight-foot, black double doors swung, and a petite woman with a sweet smile and skin as pale as her uniform smiled at me. The flush in her cheeks just made her look that much paler.

“Can I help you, darlin’?” she asked in an accent that spoke more of the Appalachian mountains of West Virginia than it did of Richmond.

I flashed my widest smile.

“I’m here to see William Eckersly. My name is Nichelle Clarke, and I’m a reporter at the
Richmond Telegraph
. I was wondering if he might be able to help me with an article I’m working on?”

She shook her head.

“Mister Will isn’t here this morning,” she said. “He had business to attend to in town. But if you’d like to leave a calling card, I can make sure he gets it when he comes home.”

“Who is it, Doreen?”

A voice that was impossibly wispy and gravelly at the same time came from deeper in the house, and even before the slip of a woman it belonged to rolled her wheelchair into my line of sight, I had a mental picture of a little old grandma who was once the formidable lady of this enormous house.

“Miss Lucinda! You’re supposed to be resting.” The maid shot a chastising glare. “This here is a reporter who wants to talk to Mister Will.”

“I’ll have time enough to rest when I’m dead,” Lucinda Eckersly took a long draw on a mask attached to a green metal oxygen tank that rode alongside her chair in a little rack. “Lord only knows what my son has done to drag our name through the mud now. Because losing his family to that whore of his wasn’t enough. What can we do for you, young lady?”

She leveled a gaze at me that could have terrified a professional linebacker into doing exactly as she said, and waved me into the foyer.

“Doreen, show Miss?” Lucinda arched an eyebrow at me.

“Clarke,” I said. “Nichelle Clarke.”

“Are you kin to the Prince William County Clarkes?” Lucinda’s head snapped up, a gleam in her watery blue eyes. I smiled. Plantations, feuds, uniformed servants and pull chain doorbells. I began to wonder if I’d driven through a space-time vortex on my way out to the country.

“No, ma’am. I grew up in Texas, and my family’s from California.”

“Well then,” she said, giving me a critical once-over. “Follow Doreen to the sitting room, and I’ll be with you directly. I need a new tank.”

I followed Doreen, trying not to let my jaw drop at the massive works of art that lined the foyer walls, interspersed with swords, framed papers, and dark, heavy, very antique-looking furniture. Jenna would bust something to get a look at some of this stuff. A painting I was pretty sure (from having an artist like Jenna as a friend) was an actual Chagall hung just inside the front door. A wardrobe that would have taken up half my living room sat along the wall opposite the polished staircase that rose to the second floor. My shoes clicked on the hardwood, the sound echoing through the cavernous hallway.

“Nice shoes,” Lucinda called behind me. “I used to be a high heels girl myself, before I got too old to walk in them anymore.”

“Indeed she was,” Doreen said, stopping in front of a set of rich, golden wood double doors. “Miss Lucinda was a beauty in her day. Belle of the county. Richest husband, biggest house. To look at her now, you wouldn’t know it, but she was quite a lady.”

“I believe it,” I said, stepping through the doors into a dim, silent room with an oversized rectangular piano in one corner and a pair of sculpted wood and silk sofas flanking a fireplace in the other. The musty smell said it wasn’t used too often anymore. Doreen pulled heavy drapes back from the floor-to-ceiling windows and tied them with thick cord, flooding the space with sunlight. Dust motes, no doubt from the drapes, danced in the beams. I perched on the high-backed settee facing the window, crossing my legs.

My eyes fell on a framed photo on a wooden side table. A burly man in camouflage and a neon-orange vest with one foot on the ribcage of a humongous buck. Holding an antler with one hand, he brandished an ornate, old-fashioned looking rifle with the other. William? 

“How long have you worked here?” I asked Doreen as she fussed with the drapery cords and straightened the music books on the piano.

“Forty-one years in November,” she said, not looking up from her work. “I was the first person Miss Lucinda hired when she married Mister Harold, God rest his soul. My momma kicked me out when I was sixteen and I came east looking for a better life than coal mines and dirt floor shacks. I found it here. Miss Lucinda has been through a lot. But she’s a good woman. A real blessing to me and my family.”

She raised her eyes to meet mine at last, and something serious in her stare sent a chill through me, sunshine be damned. I smiled and nodded, but before I could ask any more questions, the door creaked open and Lucinda wheeled herself into the room, preceded by the distinct odor of a burning cigarette.

“Sorry to keep you waiting, Miss Clarke,” Mrs. Eckersly said, a Virginia Slim dangling from her lower lip. She rolled herself to an opening in the furniture arrangement opposite me and cut a defiant glance at Doreen, who shook her head as she shut the door behind her, but didn’t say a word.

I tried to keep my features arranged in a neutral expression, but my eyes locked on Lucinda’s oxygen tank, which was full, according to what she’d said, then flitted to the lit cigarette. I was pretty sure I was suddenly in mortal danger, sitting and chatting with a little old lady in the middle of the afternoon.

On one hand, I wanted her to talk to me about her son, and I was pretty sure she wanted to talk, too. On the other, I was fond of remaining in one piece, and she was going to blow herself right the hell up, smoking with an oxygen tank strapped to her. I couldn’t tell if she got points for stubbornness, or lost them for stupidity.