Crime Beat Girl Read online

  Sam reached for his Rolodex.

  Debbie cocked an eyebrow. "Are you sure about looking for new ways of doing things?"

  "Hey, I like looking forward. But that doesn't mean I'm willing to throw out what has worked in the past. I've spent years building this personalized database. I don't want to start over. And when was the last time a Rolodex was hacked by the Russians?"

  "I have a hard time believing that the Russians would be interested in St. Louis," Debbie said. "Do you also have some carbon paper in your desk drawers?"

  Sam scribbled a phone number on a piece of paper. Without looking up, he said, "You got me confused with lawyers in small claims court. You do know that they're still using carbon paper down there, don't you?"

  He handed the slip to Debbie. "Here's the phone number for Jill Loomis, the public information officer for the SLMPD. Give her a call to get more details about what happened. You should also take the time to introduce yourself. Make nice. Be charming, if you can manage it. Make new friends."

  Debbie frowned. "I still want to wrap up the interview with the Teen Alliance executive director. I hate leaving anything unfinished. And it will give me a chance to cultivate sources."

  "Suit yourself," Sam said. "But just make sure that you're on top of the crime beat. It is the start of summer. This is St. Louis. We're in for a long, hot, violent ride. Maybe we can turn your work into an online diary, Debbie's Diary. Or maybe," he paused, flashing first true grin that betrayed his amusement, "we'll call it Crime Beat Girl."

  "Girl? Really?" Debbie shook her head. "That's very condescending. It doesn't fit my feminist point of view."

  Sam shrugged. "I bet you have no problem following Grammar Girl. And hey, if 'girl' gets people to check us out each day, eyeballs on the screen, clicks on ads, and new subscribers to daily emails with embedded ads, then I say we try it. And if it works to build an audience, but you still hate it, we'll change it. Okay?"

  The reporter sighed as she shoved her notebook back into her purse. "Fine."

  Debbie pulled a comb through her wet hair as she walked into her mother's living room.

  "What'd you do with your clothes?" Beth asked, looking up from her tablet. She'd been reviewing deposition testimony, highlighting passages in yellow on her screen to prepare for an upcoming trial. She'd ditched paper depositions a few years before, finding that it took less time to compile her notes if she used one of the tablet apps that were being pushed out to lawyers.

  Debbie sat down on the impeccably clean cream-colored love seat across from her mother. "I know I could probably get the blood stains out. But I don't want to wear them again; gives me the creeps, so I threw them in the dumpster. Even though that means that my sad selection of clothes is even more pathetic."

  Beth nodded, agreeing with her daughter's wardrobe description. The suitcases Debbie had brought back to St. Louis contained more pajama bottoms and workout clothes than professional attire. And even though the mother and daughter were close to each other in size, they were far apart in taste. Debbie wouldn't be caught dead in a navy suit, silk blouse, or tailored pants. Mom clothes was how Debbie described Beth's courthouse-and-clients uniforms when she turned down her mother's initial offer to share her closet until Debbie could get on her feet.

  "We'll go to the mall tomorrow, after my doctor's appointment," Beth volunteered.

  Debbie shook her head. "You're not going to be in the mood to shop after the breast surgeon pokes and prods you. And you've got to meet with the plastic surgeon. Throw in worries about your clients, and you're going to be crabby and uptight."

  Beth took a deep breath, fighting the urge to treat her adult daughter like a child. It wasn't easy. Ever since Debbie had returned to St. Louis, the two strong-willed women always seemed to clash. Beth had been against Debbie's move home--and the havoc it would play on her daughter's promising career. Beth suspected that Debbie was running away from her problems in D.C. rather than rushing to help in St. Louis. Even though Beth wasn't thrilled with Debbie's decision to enter journalism, disrupting that promising career to play nurse to mother wasn't what Beth envisioned for her daughter.

  And, as a personal injury lawyer, Beth was more comfortable acting as the champion for others who were hurting. She wasn't accustomed to others helping her. When Beth called her daughter to tell her about the lump in her breast, she never imagined it would trigger a chain of events that would lead to Debbie leaving D.C.--and her fiancé. If she'd known Debbie would make such a fuss, Beth might have kept her cancer a secret.

  But now they were back together, struggling to establish new mother-daughter relationship rules.

  "Mom, do we have to argue tonight?" Debbie asked softly. "I don't want to fight. Plus, I still need to turn in my final draft to Sam. He's planning on running the story tomorrow on the website."

  Beth sighed and pulled her slender, manicured hand through her neatly bobbed hair, dyed a convenient shade of blond that concealed hints of gray. Using a meditation tactic she'd learned to help her cope with the stress of practicing law, Beth envisioned a glass of water inside her stomach. The glass was shaking. Beth took a breath and stilled the water inside the imaginary cup.

  "Of course not. I know it has been a long, distressing day for you. Let's start over," Beth began. "Look, I know what your real objection is. You don't like taking money from me. Let's call it a loan. I expect to be paid back once you start receiving your salary. And you know I don't like to shop, so let's make it quick. Browse some clothing store websites tonight. We'll go straight to the clothes you picked out, we'll buy them, and be on our way. Besides, it would be a good way for me transition from the hospital to the office. It is hard to go abruptly from patient asking for medical advice to legal counselor giving advice. An activity in between will help me change my mindset before I go back to the office."

  Debbie shrugged. "I guess that makes sense. By the way, I haven't had any time to look for a place to live."

  "Why don't you just hold off on that for a while," Beth suggested. "You're still trying to settle into your new job. Focus on that before you take on setting up a new apartment. Besides, my surgery is going to go great. My recovery is going to be quick. You may not be in St. Louis long enough for a one-year lease to make sense. There's plenty of room here in this old house. I will give you your privacy--as long as you give me mine."

  Debbie smirked. "You need privacy? For your wild nights reading depositions?"

  Beth smiled. "I'm only fifty-six. Believe it or not, life doesn't end after thirty." Beth paused, weighing her words. "I noticed you weren't wearing your engagement ring."

  Debbie looked down at her hand. It still felt naked without the diamond on her finger.

  "We're taking a break," she answered.

  "Hmmm," Beth replied. "Is this mutual, or is it something that Christian wanted?"

  Debbie avoided her mother's eyes and muttered, "Mutual."

  "You're lying."

  Beth knew she was slipping dangerously into the role of a cross-examining lawyer. It was a trait that didn't encourage warm family relationships. Beth took another deep breath and reached for her daughter's hand. "Debbie, I appreciate everything you are doing for me. I am truly grateful. But you don't have to take care of me. I can take care of myself. I don't want you to give up the life you have worked so hard to build."

  "Mom, if Christian really loved me, he'd wait. He'd understand why I want to be here now. He'd love me enough to be patient. The fact that he can't do these things makes me wonder if he really did love me. Perhaps he just liked the idea of us--rather than the reality."

  "When was the last time you talked to him?" Beth asked.

  "A couple of days ago. He called while waiting to review the edits of his story."

  Beth turned off her tablet, set it on the coffee table, and got up from the couch.

  "My appointment is tomorrow morning at nine a.m. Do you need me to wake you up?"

  "Don't worry, Mom," Debbie replied, "I know ho
w to work my alarm and get myself out of bed."

  CHAPTER THREE

  Grace and Sin

  Travis Hunt closed his eyes and lifted his face to the sun, savoring, for just a few seconds, the midday heat caressing his cheeks. His belly, now full of his momma's food--ham hocks, cornbread, and mac and cheese--added to his brief bliss.

  Travis had just stepped outside the building that housed his mother's second-floor apartment. Her flat was always dark and cool. She kept the forest-green velvet curtains drawn. That way, she said, it would keep the place from heating up in the humid St. Louis summer; the one air conditioning unit hanging out the living room window wouldn't have to work so hard to keep the sticky air away. But Travis knew his mother had other reasons for the dark curtains. She used them as a shield to keep out nosy neighbors and ne'er-do-wells.

  He had stopped at his mom's for a hot shower and some lunch. His mother would open the front door, even though she'd kicked him out several weeks earlier. She'd be happy to see for herself that her nineteen-year-old son was okay.

  He knew it had pained her to send him packing, with no place to go except the couches of friends or family who would reluctantly agree to put him up for a few days. But his mother was tired. Tired of having strangers beating on her door at two in the morning looking for garbage that Travis said he knew nothing about.

  She was no fool. The folks on her doorstep were always fidgety. They made her nervous. They wouldn't meet her eyes. They avoided looking at the large cross hanging on the wall just inside the front door. Her son would tell the visitors to wait outside. He'd disappear into his room, come back out into the living room with traces of plastic bags sticking out of his sweatshirt pocket. He'd go out into the hallway for a few minutes. Then he'd come back, locking the front door, his back jean pocket stuffed with wrinkled, dirty cash.

  When she demanded to know what was going on, he'd shrug: some friends owed him money.

  Travis was her oldest child, but not her only one. She had babies that she was determined to save from the streets. She might have let Travis slip away, but she wasn't about to let the others follow in their big brother's footsteps. It was her pastor who told her she had to be like the God of the Old Testament. The most loving thing she could do for them all was to be tough. Travis had to go. Maybe wandering the streets, as the Jews did in the desert during the time of Moses, he would find his way back to goodness. Making him leave was the best chance for them all to find salvation, the pastor had said.

  But her resolve had limits. And so, if he needed a meal or a place to wash up, Travis could count on her to open the door--just one more time. And when he left her place, he knew she'd look at him sadly and say, yet again, "I'm praying for you."

  And this time it was no different. As he was getting ready to leave, his mother asked him to come to church with her on Sunday. After his vague promise to think about it, she handed him a brown paper bag with three fried bologna sandwiches on white bread slathered in mayo. She'd made them while he was showering. Inside the bag, she stuffed a twenty-dollar bill--a little something to take care of the bus fare that could bring him to church, and maybe back for another home-cooked meal.

  Now, standing outside, he tightened his hand around the bag his mom had given him. Even as he felt her love, he also knew the twenty would be gone well before Sunday. He'd never make it to church. But at least he'd left his mom with a shred of hope.

  She deserved that.

  Before Travis could take another step, he heard the roar of a muffler. A white Malibu was speeding toward him. The tinted windows were rolled halfway down. The barrels of handguns were hanging out of the car and pointed at him.

  He didn't need to see who the punks were in the Malibu. He knew they were coming for him.

  Travis dropped the bag and turned back to the safety of his mother's. Flinging open the wooden front door with chipped and fading green paint, he tried to make it into the red-brick building that had seen better days.

  A shot rang out, followed by several more in rapid succession, sending splinters of green into the air, the sounds of bullets ricocheting off the old tiles. Blood pooled under the gray marble after his body dropped at the base of the stairs.

  Debbie thought a lot about Sam's crime beat girl pitch as she sat in the doctor's waiting room with her mom. Beth read court pleadings on her tablet as a distraction from the pending consultation about her upcoming mastectomy. Debbie pondered her place at River City.

  She still wasn't thrilled about the name, but it was an opportunity. Even though the daily newspaper had a bigger staff, Sam was right about leveraging all the channels of media available to them.

  She'd decided to embrace the opportunity. And then she decided to look online for tech tools to help her track St. Louis crime.

  She discovered that she couldn't listen to a police scanner. In 2014, the SLMPD encrypted their transmissions so that the public could no longer eavesdrop. After Michael Brown was shot in Ferguson, protesters used scanners to monitor police movements. The cops put an end to the practice when they discovered that the protesters always seemed to be one step ahead.

  However, there were alternatives. After a few clicks, she came across a story about an app created by a St. Louis resident. It sent an alert when an emergency call came into the SLMPD. The user plugged in an address and the app would send an email or text with lookout alerts for incidents nearby.

  Her search also turned up the SLMPD's Daily Crimes and Happenings report. Each day, the police department posted a summary of crime reports. It listed the date, an address with the last two numbers replaced with XX, and the demographic details of the offenders, victims, and witnesses. It also contained a list of the charges sought.

  On this report, Debbie found her accident, and she recognized herself as a witness: white, female, twenty-eight years old. The suspect was identified as a juvenile, which meant that the record was sealed. He was charged with second-degree murder, robbery, and assault with a deadly weapon. The dead seventeen-year-old victim, Rainaa Mercer, was identified.

  Debbie also discovered a workaround to the sealed record. According to the SLMPLD's website, witnesses could request a copy of the police report. Debbie guessed the name of the kid behind the wheel would be marked out, but there would be other breadcrumbs to follow.

  Thinking it was at least worth a try, she filled out on online request for the document. Then she promptly forgot about the app and her request as her mother met with the surgeon, a renowned female doctor who was doing one more exam, answering another round of questions before the mastectomy. The initial scans suggested the tumor was no more than possibly stage 2. It wasn't spreading fast. The decision was made to skip pre-surgery radiation. After the operation, the medical team would revisit the questions of radiation and chemotherapy.

  Debbie didn't plan on visiting a crime scene. She'd meant to spend the afternoon in the office after Beth's appointment and the brief stop at the mall. But shortly after Debbie sat down at her desk, an email arrived at 2:18 p.m. The subject line: Person Down.

  "What in the hell are you doing here?" Flannery asked as Debbie walked toward the crime scene with her pen already jotting down observations in a notebook. Even though she only had the first two numbers of the address, the email had provided the street name. All she had to do was drive to the right block, then follow the flashing red lights and yellow police tape.

  Debbie forced her lips to smile. "Detective Flannery."

  Flannery frowned. "Look, I can't have you taking pictures with your cell phone again and then splashing the images all over the internet. Your photos from yesterday are all over Twitter and Facebook."

  "You read my story," Debbie replied. "I didn't take you for a River City subscriber, or a social media fan."

  "I'm not," Flannery answered. "But our public information officer is. And so is our police chief. And mayor. Plus, we're not a backwoods police department. We've got a robust social media monitoring center that follows internet cha
tter. I got chewed out this morning because of your article. It isn't just because you're a reporter. You're an eyewitness."

  "I disclosed in the story that I was part of the story. My editor doesn't have a problem with it."

  "Well, we do. You're gonna screw up our case. Posting pictures and writing articles about accidents you're involved in without knowing the complete story of what went down is dangerous. Your story could be full of errors that were made because you didn't have all the facts. The kid's lawyer is going to come at you with all of the bad information you're putting out there and use it to discredit you."

  Debbie could feel her ears warming and hear her voice rising. "Which of my facts are wrong? And I hope you're not thinking of trying to stop me from reporting. Because if you are, we are going have one very big problem. I know my constitutional rights--and I won't hesitate to assert them."

  Detective Flannery rubbed his temple with one hand. "You got your rights. I got my orders. You've been on the job how long?"

  "Two days."

  "Well, congratulations. You've managed to piss off the police department and mayor in record time."

  Debbie's lips pursed. She wasn't winning friends nor was she influencing people. But when it came to a reporter's rights, and the Constitution, there was no compromise in her world.

  "Look," Flannery said as he shifted his weight from his right leg to his left, "I'm not stupid. I know the legal rules. And this is completely off the record, I'm not gonna stick my neck out so far for this department to try and stop you, as long as you color inside the lines. I know what happens if I go out on a limb. The rest of the local media will pummel me, claim I'm interfering with a reporter. I know how that one ends. I've been through this before. My boss will throw me under the bus and call me a rogue cop, even if I'm only following his hinted orders and the mayor's rants."