Small Town Spin (6 page)

“You didn’t ask.” He took a seat in the small chair in the corner.

“And me with the whole ‘questions are my livelihood’ thing, too.” I took a bite. The soup was blistering hot, but amazing.

“This is fantastic. Thank you.”

“I’m glad you like it.”

I continued to mull over the story aloud between bites. By the time I put the empty bowl on the night table, I could’ve sworn I felt a little better. “Is there magic in that stuff? Or liquor?” I asked.

Joey shook his head. “Just vegetables.”

“It was nice of you.” I said, reaching for my laptop. “Truly.”

“Someone has to make sure you take care of yourself. But I get the feeling you want me to go.”

I frowned. “I don’t want you to go. And I’m certainly not trying to be rude. But I have work to do, and sleep to get, so I’m afraid I’m not going to be great company. I’m shocked my Blackberry isn’t already buzzing with Bob wanting a story. I really should have done it when I got home.”

“No offense taken.” He stopped in the doorway. “Feel better. Maybe I’ll see you next Friday?”

“Girls’ night with Jenna,” I said, scrunching my face apologetically.

“Saturday?”

“You’re on. I better be back to a hundred percent by then.”

“Keep eating the soup. I put the rest in your fridge. It works, I’m telling you.”

“I’m a believer.” I smiled.

“I’ll call you tomorrow. Sleep well.” He stared at me for a moment, then crossed to the bed and dropped a kiss on my head. “Be careful.”

“You know something I should know?” I tried to focus on his words, when all I wanted was to melt into a puddle on the bed.

“Nope.” He raised both hands in mock-surrender and backed toward the door when I arched one eyebrow at that. “I swear it. I’d never heard of Mathews, Virginia until I read your story this morning. Probably why Okerson moved out there in the first place, right?”

“You know anyone who might know something?” I asked.

“About this kid? I can’t imagine why.”

“Or his dad.” I felt an idea looming. “Tony Okerson was a big deal football player. Who knows who he might have come into contact with? I’ve never heard or seen anything about him being into gambling or anything...” I let that trail off, almost feeling traitorous for wondering such a thing.

Joey nodded thoughtfully. “But that doesn’t mean he’s not. You’d be surprised at some of the athletes and celebrities who are. Hurting the kid to get at dad is low, but not unheard of.”

“Yeah?” I didn’t care for this idea, except that it’d be an exclusive. I didn’t know any other reporters with an in at the Mafia.

He sighed and shoved his hands into his pockets. “Why do I have a feeling I’ll regret this conversation someday soon?”

I opened my mouth to object and he shook his head.

“Tell you what,” he said. “I’ll see if I can find out anything for you if you swear that you won’t go poking into this alone and you promise to watch yourself and call someone for help if it looks like it might be more dangerous than playing fetch with Darcy.”

The dog popped out of her bed and yipped when he said her name.

“Who am I going to call for help?” I asked. I didn’t want to make him a promise I couldn’t deliver on.

“Your friends at the Richmond PD?” He dropped his eyes to the floor. “Your friend at the ATF?”

I nodded slowly, catching the resentful note in his voice, but unsure what to do about it. My long-ago ex-boyfriend was a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives supercop.

He was also interested in no longer being my ex-boyfriend. Joey didn’t like Kyle. Kyle didn’t like Joey (what he knew about him, anyhow, which wasn’t much). I liked them both. Em was right. It was a mess.

“I promise,” I said.

“I’ll see what I can find.” He backed out the door with a wave. “Get well.”

I heard the kitchen door click shut and sank into the pillows for a second, closing my eyes and breathing deep. Kyle. Joey. Equally gorgeous. Equally exciting. Almost equally problematic.

Pushing the covers back, I sighed. “Since I’m not deciphering my love life anytime soon, what say we figure out what happened to this kid, Darcy?” I asked the dog, slipping out of bed. She pricked up her ears and bit her favorite old stuffed squirrel.

After washing my face and making some tea, I climbed back in bed and opened my computer. My fingers hovered over the keys, but I didn’t get a single word into the lead before my Blackberry lit up.

I glanced at the screen and frowned at the unfamiliar number. Not Bob.

“Clarke,” I said, pressing it to my ear.

“Zeke Waters in Mathews County,” came the reply. “Remember that epidemic we talked about? It’s been thirty-six hours. And I have another dead kid.”

6.

Like wildfire

“You and the local paper are the only media being notified tonight, and I only called you because TJ’s parents brought you into this,” Waters said tightly, letting me through the yellow crime-scene tape blocking access to the area under the drawbridge. Deputies combed the rocks with flashlights, and I tried not to slip as I tagged after the sheriff.

I’d had the sense to leave my Jimmy Choos at home in favor of a pair of Tory Burch ballet flats when I’d dragged myself out of bed and back to the coast, but I wasn’t expecting rocky shore terrain. The flats were slick, and my balance was already off from being sick. I hadn’t come this far to wait by the road for an interview, though.

Sheriff Zeke swept the area with a wide orange beam, and I swallowed hard at the memory of the summer I’d had the four jumpers in Richmond, scanning the rocks for blood. I turned to the sheriff when I didn’t see any.

“Is this bridge high enough—or the water shallow enough—for a jump to be lethal if they didn’t hit the rocks?” I stared at the far bank, which I couldn’t really see, but the deputies were all on this side.

“No,” he furrowed his brow, looking up at the underside of the bridge. “This wasn’t a jump. The kids have parties here a lot.”

“Another party?” I clicked out a pen, glancing at the stout man with the dark beard and glasses who appeared next to me, holding a tape recorder. Lyle, probably. “Same kids?”

“Some, yeah,” Zeke said.

“Cause of death?” I asked.

“Not immediately apparent,” he said. “I’m sure the tox screen will reveal it.”

“Then why did you tell me on the phone you suspected it was a copycat suicide?”

“There’s a note,” he said. “Maybe another overdose, or intentional alcohol poisoning.”

“Are you releasing the name of the victim?” Lyle asked.

“Sydney Cobb,” Zeke said, one hand flying up to rake over his face. “It’s Sydney Cobb.”

Something rang familiar, but I was too beat to get it on the first try.

A look flashed between Sheriff Zeke and Lyle.

“What am I missing, guys?” I asked.

“She was TJ Okerson’s girlfriend,” Lyle muttered. “Those of us who work here all the time know that.”

I sucked in a sharp breath. Of course. “Sydney was the only one he ever wanted,” Ashton had said. The picture in TJ’s locker floated to the front of my thoughts.

“She left a note?” I asked.

Zeke nodded. “‘It hurts.’ That’s all it said.”

I closed my eyes for a second, then scribbled that down.

“Listen, folks,” Zeke said, “every hotel in Gloucester and Hampton is full of news crews, and what happens here has the potential to happen in other places because of that. This is new territory for me, this national stage thing. But I want to do everything I can to keep any more children from dying.”

I nodded, catching every word. I was pretty sure I still had the suicide prevention stuff in my files from the other cases.

“I have some public service announcement stuff on this topic I can use in my copy,” I said. “But once we run it, it’s going to go all over, just like TJ’s story did. We can’t control what the other media outlets do.”

Sheriff Zeke sighed.

“I know.” He dropped his head. “Dammit! If TJ Okerson was standing here right now, I’d take a swing at him, hand to God. The Cobbs... I’ve never heard a human being make a sound like the one that came out of Tiffany Cobb when I showed up at her house tonight. Sydney stopped answering her phone a little after seven, she said.”

“They were having a party that early?” I looked up from my notes.

“It was dark. They’re upset.”

Huh. I glanced between Zeke and Lyle again, but they didn’t look like that was out of the ordinary. Damn.

So now this girl had killed herself because of what had happened to her boyfriend, who may or may not have killed himself? It was a shitty story all the way around.

“How old was Sydney?” I asked.

The sheriff reeled off all the vital statistics and I took them down while Lyle stood by with his tape recorder. When Zeke excused himself to check something for a young deputy, I turned to Lyle. “I went by your office today,” I said. “I wanted to introduce myself. I’m Nichelle.”

“I know who you are.” He shoved the tape recorder into his pocket and looked up at the underside of the bridge.

“Listen, the Okersons have a friend who works with me,” I said. “It wasn’t personal.”

He nodded. “Hard to take it any other way when you’ve covered every jaywalking ticket in a town like this for ten years. Then something like this happens and I don’t get the call.”

“I can certainly understand that. Y’all had great photos of the snapping turtle rodeo, by the way. And your story on TJ was good. The football coach didn’t talk to me.”

“Coach B will talk to anything in a skirt, but not seriously. We had a female photographer on our staff for exactly half of one football game. He told her women weren’t allowed on the sidelines, and she clocked him. She got fired.”

“And arrested?” I asked.

“Nope. Zeke said he deserved it, and coach didn’t want to admit it hurt bad enough for him to press charges.”

“See? I didn’t know to call him, and I might have punched him, too, so thanks for the heads up.”

He grunted a reply, eyes roaming around the scene.

I followed suit, standing in silence and hoping to overhear something useful.

“What a week,” Lyle finally said.

“Jesus, you can say that again,” I said. “I’ve spent more time in your town than in mine.”

“I’ve worked out here for a long time, ma’am.” Lyle leveled a gaze at me. “I’ve never seen anything like this. This is a great town. Good people. God fearing. Hard working. Two dead kids in two days? And these kids? TJ and Sydney were the goddamn homecoming king and queen, for chrissakes. This is going to hit these people hard. And Zeke is right: it could spread like brush fire. I wish y’all would all go home and just let it die with Sydney.”

I took a deep breath. “I can understand, and even sympathize. But you know as well as I do that that’s not going to happen. So what can we do to help, Lyle?”

He stared at the ambulance on the other side of the bridge embankment for a long minute. “I don’t know.”

I dug a card out of my bag and jotted my cell number on the back. “If you think of something, call me.”

He stuck it in his pocket, only half paying attention to me.

I pulled out my Blackberry to text Bob an update and sighed when I saw that it was almost ten. “I’m never going to get well,” I muttered, picking my way back toward my car.

Once out from under the shadows of the bridge, I spotted Zeke talking to his deputies up near the edge of the road. Passing a patrol car, I glanced into the open trunk and saw a box of bagged objects. Rocks, beer and Coke bottles, a crumpled piece of neon green paper, and assorted other teen party scene stuff. A mason jar crowned the pile. I paused, glancing toward the sheriff, who had his back turned. None of them were paying attention to me.

Stepping closer to the trunk, I ran the beam of my little pink flashlight over the jar. The label looked like it had come off an inkjet printer, the three x’s across it all faded in the middle.

In my years covering crime I’d seen dead people and drugs, interviewed murderers and prostitutes, and snuck into illegal gambling halls: but I’d never seen a jar of moonshine. Not the unregulated, not-sold-in-stores kind, anyway. Yet I was pretty sure I was looking at an empty one.

I fished my Blackberry out and snapped a quick photo of it, then stuffed the phone back into my bag.

“Find something interesting?” Zeke asked, waiting behind me with crossed arms when I turned. My face must have betrayed me, because he put up one hand before I could get a word out. “Wait. Do I want to know?”

“Is that a moonshine jar, sheriff?”

“It is.” He closed the trunk of the patrol car.

“You’re pretty cavalier about that for a cop.”

“Miss Clarke, moonshiners are Alcoholic Beverage Commission police business, not mine, first of all. Second of all, I have my hands full right now. I couldn’t hunt for a still if I wanted to.”

“Was there moonshine at the party the night TJ died?”

“There was. The kids drink it because it’s easy for them to get. Teenagers are the perfect target market for moonshiners, because they’re the ones who want booze and can’t buy it, which has always sort of been the whole point of moonshine, right?”

I shook my head. “And you’re really not doing anything about this?”

“I do when I catch them. The kids, that is. Underage drinking is against the law. But chasing moonshiners isn’t my jurisdiction.”

“Was Sydney drinking that tonight?”

“Very possibly,” he said. “That jar was found near her. I’ll run prints to be sure.”

“Where do they get it? Is it a local operation? I mean, I cover a lot of shit in Richmond, and I’ve never run across bonafide illegal moonshine.”

“I know of three stills on the island. When anyone drops by to check them out, they’re family heirlooms gathering dust. But I’m sure that’s not always the case.”

I nodded, seeing a phone call to the ABC police in my future. “Thanks again, Sheriff.” I pushed the button to unlock my car door and waved a good night. “I’m sure I’ll see you soon.”

Back home, I brewed a cup of coffee just after eleven, thanking my lucky stars I hadn’t passed a bored state trooper as I lead-footed it home from Tidewater. Bob had called me twice and I had a story to write before I could sleep. Two, actually. And no promise of rest for my Saturday, either. Settled on my couch with my laptop and a cup of Colombian Fair Trade, I stared at the screen.

“Two dead kids. Jealous baseball player guy. Moonshine. This is jacked up, Darcy.”

I had no pointed reason to suspect that Sydney’s death was anything other than exactly what it looked like. But something nagged. I started typing.

For the second time in as many days, a well-known teenager in Mathews County on the Virginia coast is dead.

Sydney Cobb was surrounded by friends Friday night, students toasting the short life of Mathews High quarterback TJ Okerson. Sydney was TJ’s longtime girlfriend, his mother told the
Telegraph
in an exclusive interview.

“She left a note,” Mathews County Sheriff Zeke Waters said as deputies around him scoured the rocky shoreline for evidence. Waters said Cobb’s note read, “It hurts.”

I pulled from my story on TJ to finish the piece, and sent it to Bob with a promise that the day two on TJ was coming. After some thought, I’d left out the moonshine jar. I didn’t want anyone else nosing around that until I had time to check it out.

Pondering it, I clicked over to my Google tab and typed “moonshine.” The number of hits was staggering. I gathered from a scan of the pages that the Internet could teach me how to distill my own booze, and decided to look over that in the morning.

I dug out my notes from Coach Morris and wrote a day two on what a great kid TJ was, and how his parents didn’t pressure him, which I was more sure about after seeing Tony on ESPN earlier. He’d even said something about TJ being healed enough to salvage his career if that’s what he wanted to do. Which didn’t sound like a psycho-pushy-dad thing to say. Maybe I could head off some hateful commentaries by highlighting that.

By the time I emailed Bob the second story, my coffee was cold and I was past ready to crawl into bed. I hustled Darcy outside, trying to focus on something more pleasant than dead teenagers and grieving parents in the last few minutes before my head touched the pillows.  A few hours before, I’d been looking forward to the dreams I might have after Joey’s surprise visit. By bedtime, I just hoped to keep them more chick lit than Stephen King.