Crime Beat Girl

  Contents

  Dedication

  CHAPTER ONE Homecoming

  CHAPTER TWO Wrong Place, Right Time

  CHAPTER THREE Grace and Sin

  CHAPTER FOUR Optimists and Trolls

  CHAPTER FIVE Angels and Lawyers

  CHAPTER SIX Pride and Puzzles

  CHAPTER SEVEN Distractions and Destiny

  CHAPTER EIGHT Longing and Loneliness

  CHAPTER NINE Trials and Tribulations

  CHAPTER TEN Baby Steps

  CHAPTER ELEVEN Thin Line

  CHAPTER TWELVE Revelations

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN Snitches

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN Under the Bus

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN Bait Car

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN Officer Down

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN The Day After

  CHAPTER EIGHTEEN Broken

  CHAPTER NINETEEN Betrayed

  CHAPTER TWENTY Trapped

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE Ruin

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO Connections

  Acknowledgements

  For my husband, Enrique. For my children, Ryan and Casey. And for my parents, Gerry and Linda.

  .

  CHAPTER ONE

  Homecoming

  Debbie Bradley wondered if her faith in her smartphone's map had been misplaced. The streets were nearly deserted. The homes boarded up. Overgrown grass, knee-high weeds, and sun-bleached trash scattered across abandoned lots. The factories that once churned out shoes, Howitzer shells, and even Corvettes were shuttered. Towering churches now had dark, empty holes instead of ornate stained-glass windows.

  The only sound, other than her phone's voice assistant, was the wail of an occasional siren from an unseen emergency vehicle.

  She'd grown up in St. Louis and had always been warned that there were places where she shouldn't venture alone--even in the light of day. But she'd been away from home for over ten years, save for the obligatory Thanksgiving and Christmas visits, and she wasn't sure how much of the old advice was still relevant.

  Then again, Debbie took advice like she took sugar in her coffee: She shunned it.

  She'd always been a contrarian, probably because her parents, Cary Bradley and Beth Hughes, were lawyers. Cary and Beth met in law school, fell in love, and built a law firm representing people who'd been discriminated against at work or preyed upon by big corporations. After her dad died of a heart attack while Debbie was in high school, her mom kept the firm going, and it continued to thrive. There was even a small conference room waiting to be converted into Debbie's office.

  Only Debbie didn't want it.

  Instead, she yearned to help people in a different way. She believed that as a reporter, she could make a difference by exposing corruption and shining a light on injustice. She loved telling the stories of people and places that her readers might never know. She liked getting away from her desk. She liked digging for the truth. She took pleasure in crafting the sentences that would appear in print or on a screen.

  And she was addicted to the buzz she felt each time she saw her byline.

  Now, suddenly, she was back home. A place that was both familiar and foreign. Well, physically, she was home. Her heart, however, was still in Washington, D.C. Her mind replayed in a continuous loop those last moments in the nation's capital, loading two hand-me-down roller suitcases into her battered Honda Civic as her fiancé, Christian Garza, pleaded one last time for her to reconsider her decision to take a new job and move back to St. Louis.

  He didn't understand all the reasons that made her go.

  At some point during their seemingly never-ending engagement, they'd gone from soulmates to roommates. Each time Debbie would suggest a wedding date, Christian found a reason to reject it: too close to the presidential election, too soon after the presidential election, too close to midterms. He'd become obsessed with winning journalism awards. The Pulitzer was the prize he most coveted. Christian was wedded to his job, not her.

  When Debbie learned her mother had breast cancer, it was the sign she needed to take the job she hadn't been looking for. In fact, it was a position she initially had turned down.

  When Sam Hitchens, her college mentor, became the new editor at River City, he reached out to her to see if she was ready to return to her roots. Sam was a traditional newspaper guy but staying afloat at a print paper was getting harder and harder. River City magazine had a stable base of advertisers and the wealthy pockets of a native St. Louisan who'd made his money in tech and wanted to dabble in the media. Sam had been tasked with beefing up the magazine, adding real journalism that could be served alongside puff pieces about plastic surgery, expensive private schools, and the latest trendy couch pillow. The tech mogul envisioned a publication that could serve as the social conscience for the city's aristocrats and aging debutantes as well as the professionals and executives of the city who were in a position to make changes to help those around them.

  Sam had gotten to know Debbie when he spent a semester teaching as an adjunct at Mizzou, part of a leave of absence he was given while working as the investigative team's editor for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch. Before he stepped foot on campus, he'd already been impressed with the legal work of Debbie's parents. Once in the classroom, he saw promise in the daughter of the legal duo. Even after he went back to his regular job at the paper, they'd stayed in touch. She'd send him an occasional clip. He'd give her detailed feedback and suggestions for improvement.

  Debbie noticed that her phone had gone quiet. Either she was going in the right direction or her app had crashed. Again. She took one hand off the steering wheel and adjusted her glasses as she peered at the small screen. She put the phone back down and tucked a strand of her thick, wavy hair the color of a roasted chestnut shell back into her tight ponytail. Maybe it's time to turn back, she thought. But a retreat wouldn't get her to the Teen Alliance interview.

  She needed to focus on the assignment. It was easy enough--interviewing the executive director of a nonprofit. Teen Alliance was an organization trying to give kids from families with little means healthy ways to spend their free time. It would be a puff piece, and although light, fluffy, positive stories weren't really her strength, Sam thought it would be a way for Debbie to get into the groove of magazine reporting, as well as help her grow her contact list of local movers and shakers.

  The repeated blare of a car horn shook Debbie out of her reverie.

  She turned her head toward the sound that pierced the eerie quiet. It was coming from a blue, rust-pocked pickup truck driven by a silver-haired man. The truck was headed toward her, traveling in its lane, and yet the driver was pointing at Debbie and then pointing at his rearview mirror.

  Instinctively, Debbie looked into her own rearview. That's when she spotted a red Audi convertible weaving wildly in and out of her lane--and the truck's lane--and was not slowing down.

  Debbie lurched her steering wheel abruptly to the right. The oncoming truck veered in the opposite direction, leaving as much room as possible for the erratic luxury car barreling down the roadway and any driver unfortunate enough to be sharing the space.

  The out-of-control Audi swerved toward the truck, then sharply careened the opposite way, its front aimed at Debbie's car. Debbie's heart lurched into her throat. The Audi's tires squealed. The nose of the Audi turned sharply once again and clipped the back end of the truck before jumping the curb.

  Screams rang out. A crowd of teens who had been gathered outside a tiny market--the sort that sells junk food, liquor, and lottery tickets in places where chain grocery stores refuse to operate--was in the path of the Audi that was no longer being guided by its driver.

  Those on the edges of the group scattered like birds after the loud boom of a gunshot, darting out of the car's path. Those who w
ere in the center, the unlucky ones, flew into the air when the car connected with human flesh.

  Debbie slammed on her brakes, threw her car into park, and grabbed her phone to dial 911.

  The Audi finally came to a stop after the front end and hood smashed through the display window of the market. Customers still clutching red plastic baskets and a worker wearing a green apron stumbled out the front door, dazed and confused.

  Debbie jumped out of her car. There were people broken and bleeding on the ground. Some wailed. One teen who had been tossed in the air and then left crumpled in a heap on the earth looked at Debbie with a vacant gaze, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.

  As Debbie ran toward the Audi, rage filled her chest.

  She flung open the car's door with all the strength that anger fuels. The driver, slumped over a deployed airbag, moaned. His feet barely reached the pedals, and his tear-streaked cheeks were round with the baby fat he hadn't lost.

  He was just a child.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Wrong Place, Right Time

  "My baby! My baby!"

  Detective Daniel Flannery watched as a woman wearing a gray T-shirt, red sweatpants, and tan slippers with a hole on the right big toe ran toward the crime scene. Two male officers grabbed her, but she continued to push, stretching out her arms to embrace a child that she couldn't see.

  A teen who Flannery guessed was about fifteen lay on the ground. At the sound of the woman's voice, the girl's trembling hand lifted into the air. The gesture, although slight, was enough to grab the distraught woman's attention. The woman, who Flannery guessed was the mother of the girl on the ground, screamed louder.

  The detective surveyed the chaotic scene with cool detachment. When his brain was on and his emotions were off, his penetrating eyes perceived the smallest details. A cop for over two decades, Flannery had a laser focus that was legendary among his fellow officers, especially the younger ones who had spent more time looking at screens than observing the real world.

  Flannery could detect the faint mark left by an old body piercing that had closed back up. He'd find the tiniest sliver of a fingernail underneath a couch cushion. But the story told most often about him involved a peace lily leaf. He spotted it under the radiator located in the foyer of a home-turned-crime-scene and filed it away in his memory. As he toured the house, Flannery, an avid gardener, realized that there was no peace lily among the dead homeowner's many plants. Using that information, he was ultimately able to trace the murder back to a floral shop's delivery driver. The driver had been stalking the victim, who was a regular customer of the business.

  Flannery watched as Officer Toni Parker strode over to the wailing mom. Parker was easy to pick out. Her red hair, even when pulled back tightly into a bun, set her apart from the other grim-faced officers with severe buzz cuts. Even without seeing her face, Flannery knew that her lips would be pursed, and when combined with her pointed chin, Parker's young face would take the shape of a sober heart.

  He'd known Parker since she was a rookie. With a knack for calming distressed people, she could also summon the tone of a strict mother, one that stopped young criminals for just a moment, their Pavlovian response to their mommas kicking in. Parker was also a symbol of the changes he'd seen in the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department over the course of twenty years. Staffed with more than 1,300 officers, the SLMPD was no longer the province of the male descendants of Irish, German, and Italian immigrants. Now, it was nearly a third African-American, and women made up more than fifteen percent of the force. And in a nod to the fact that St. Louis was home to the largest group of Bosnians outside of Europe, Slavic language speakers were increasingly being recruited.

  Parker gently pulled the woman from the officers. She wrapped one arm around the mother and leaned in close, saying something that Flannery couldn't hear. But he saw the impact of the words. The woman stopped fighting the people who were trying to help.

  That's when Flannery noticed a slender woman with glasses and long brown hair swept back into a disheveled ponytail scribbling in a notebook as she sat quietly next to a blanket that partially covered a face, torso, and most of the legs of a body. Only the corpse's feet were exposed. One foot was naked. On the other, a black flip-flop. The toenails, Flannery noted, were painted bright green.

  "Shit!" he cursed. The trim detective, in his mid-forties with a square jaw, dark hair, and shoulders so broad that each side could hold a dinner plate, puffed out his chest and struck his most intimidating pose.

  "Hey! You!" he said as he straightened his spine to maximize the height that had earned him the tall-drink-of-water nickname from his grandmother.

  The young woman bounced. She'd been lost in her thoughts and her notes. For a moment, she was silent, but then, as if waking from a dream, she stood up, blood visible on her navy-blue-and-white-striped button-down shirt. Red streaks marred the cuffs of her tan pants.

  "You are?" Flannery asked gruffly.

  "Debbie Bradley."

  "Well, Miss Bradley," Flannery began.

  "Ms. Bradley," Debbie corrected.

  "Mzzzz Bradley," Flannery sneered. "What are you doing?"

  "I was on my way to Teen Alliance, to interview the executive director for a story I'm working on," Debbie began.

  "What outfit are you with?" Flannery asked. "You don't look like a TV reporter."

  "Meaning what exactly?" Debbie snapped, taking his quip as a backhanded comment about her appearance not being up to snuff for the screen.

  "I don't see a camera crew," Flannery answered, his lips curved slightly, betraying his joy at landing the insult.

  Debbie pursed her lips. "I just started at River City magazine. This was going to be my first piece."

  "New to town?" Flannery fished.

  "Back," Debbie responded.

  "I'm in charge here," Flannery said. "One of the officers will take down your statement."

  "And what will happen to him?" Debbie pointed to a stretcher that cradled the Audi driver, a boy with a bloody face and neck brace whose head was sandwiched between two red blocks to keep his body from twisting.

  Flannery answered. "He'll go to the hospital. After that, probably juvenile detention."

  "He's just a child," Debbie said, shaking her head. "What's his name?"

  "He's a juvenile. I can't tell you that."

  Undeterred, she asked, "Where did he get the car from?"

  Flannery shrugged. "We'll know soon enough. Now," he said as he waved to Officer Parker, who had just finished guiding the distraught mother into an ambulance, "this officer is going to take your statement."

  Flannery turned to Parker. "This is Debbie Bradley, she's a witness. And," he paused, "a reporter. Take her statement, get her contact information, and then get her outta here."

  "Got it," the officer answered before adding, "Ace Towing is on the way to pick up the Audi."

  "Jesus, what the hell happened to you?" Sam Hitchens asked when Debbie walked into his office.

  Debbie dropped into one of the chairs across from her editor's desk. "I don't even know where to begin."

  "Careful of the chairs," he said. "This is a posh place with nice stuff, nothing like a daily newsroom."

  Debbie flipped through her reporter's notebook and summed up the afternoon's events, ending with her call to Teen Alliance canceling the interview. The executive director had been understanding. Some of the kids the agency worked with were involved in the accident, so a magazine interview was the last thing on the director's mind.

  Sam listened to Debbie's entire tale before opening his mouth. He'd learned long ago it was best not to interrupt reporters coming down from an adrenaline rush.

  "Huh, Flannery you say? That guy hates us." Sam shook his head. "I've tried for years to get him to leak bits of information. You know, most cops love the attention of the media even when they pretend to loathe journalists; never met a group of people with more scores to settle, more grudges to avenge. They're often
happy to participate in some sort of anonymous whisper campaign while appearing above the fray. But that Flannery, I tell you, he knows everything that's going on, yet he'll never talk--even on deep background. He's an odd one."

  Sam paused for a moment, leaned forward, then asked, "Did you get any pictures?"

  Debbie pulled out her smartphone and handed the device to her boss.

  Sam scrolled through the images, nodding every now and then, before handing the phone back.

  Debbie took a breath and made her pitch. "I could write a story about the accident. It could be a first-person essay. A homecoming to one of the nation's most dangerous cities."

  Sam sat back in his chair. "There are going to be charges. You'll be a witness. Don't you think it'll be complicated to write a story?"

  "Look, if I was a TV reporter who just happened to catch the accident on tape while doing a live feed from the area, there'd be no hesitation about airing the footage. Hell, if I had been livestreaming from the spot with social media and the crash happened, it would be all over the internet."

  "I don't know. Some of the media in town may take exception. We write about stories, we aren't the story."

  "As long as I disclose that I was a witness, and so long as I stick to what I saw, I don't see a problem. Did any of the reporters who experienced 9/11 stop reporting as they also became part of the story? And there are plenty of magazine narrative nonfiction pieces where the writer is part of the action."

  Sam tapped his pen three times on his desk, processing his thoughts before sharing them with his new staffer.

  "All right. We'll use your photos--but this is a society pub. So nuthin' too graphic. No blood. No guts. Otherwise, our advertisers and subscribers will go nuts. I want just enough to have people staring and sharing, but I don't want them to feel guilty about being voyeur. We can use this to introduce you to our readers. We'll position you as our fearless new writer."

  Debbie rolled her eyes.

  "I've been wanting to leverage our online space more. We'll put this on our website, a short story, good pictures, and pair it with a social media push to distribute the content to a wider audience. Hell, we can even do a short video with you. I've been dreaming of going bigger than just print. And our tech overlord wants to see it happen. He's already pushing podcasts. My direction is to make our virtual space just as important as the magazine racks at grocery store checkout stands. I'm an old journalist looking for new ways to do things."