Crime Beat Girl Read online

  "Well, could it be that he was married to the woman who is now the mayor's wife?" Debbie asked.

  "Denise Robertson? Yuck. She is just as phony and ambitious as her husband. From what I recall, the mayor was first a cop. Then he left the force for law school. He practiced for several years before running for mayor. No one thought he'd win. After all, he wasn't from St. Louis originally. California, I think."

  "How'd he wind up here?" Debbie asked. St. Louis wasn't exactly known as a beacon for those who weren't from the area.

  Beth shook her head. "I can't remember exactly. I think maybe he went to college here. Saint Louis University? As I think about it, I believe one of his parents was a university professor out west. Robertson was eligible for reduced tuition at several colleges. Saint Louis University was one. And he decided to get as far away from California as possible. Then he decided to stick around. Joined the St. Louis Metropolitan Police Department. Then after a few years, went to law school. Was a corporate lawyer--then won a long-shot race for mayor. I'm still not sure how he got the backing of the city's Democratic machine. Probably Denise. She's got that South City pedigree. Her family has connections to the unions and I think somebody, a great-uncle, was an alderman. Or maybe it was a second cousin? I can't keep track of all the incestuous machinations in city party politics."

  "Interesting," Debbie said.

  "Anyway," Beth continued, "I never met a couple who was more deserving of one another. How was last night?"

  Debbie groaned and then related the story of the towed Civic.

  "Ace Towing?" Beth asked. "I had a client who worked for them. He was entitled to file a work comp claim after he was hurt while trying to hook up a car to tow. He was hurt pretty bad. That can be some dangerous work. Anyway, he refused to pursue work comp, wanted to try to make a product liability claim against the maker of the tow truck's crane. I've never seen a man so reluctant to seek damages from his employer. He said his boss was good to him, he didn't want to mess it up. Even though I assured him that employers had insurance that covered these types of incidents, he insisted on leaving them out of the pursuit for compensation because they'd already been more than fair to him. But I never could find out if 'more than fair' converted into real dollars."

  Debbie closed her laptop. Perhaps she was wrong about Ace Towing. Perhaps their shady exterior had her leaping to an undeserved conclusion.

  "What are your plans for today?" Beth asked.

  Debbie looked out the kitchen window, mulling over her options. She planned to take the day off for her mother's surgery, so it made sense to get a draft of the story on Jarrett knocked out. But she didn't want to be insensitive. Her mother might want a distraction.

  "I'm not sure," Debbie answered. "And you?"

  "Work," Beth said. "I'm going to be drugged up for the next couple of days. I better get ahead now."

  "Mom, you should rest."

  "C'mon. You were thinking of doing the exact same thing as me. Working."

  "Well," Debbie started to say before deciding it was better not to lie. "Okay. You're right. I'll shower, send my editor an email updating him on the events of last night, write, and try to exercise."

  "A productive Sunday," Beth said as she headed out to the porch to enjoy her cup of coffee.

  After showering and dressing in an old pair of Levi's, a loose white T-shirt, and a pair of fluffy socks, Debbie was ready to get to work. Or so she thought.

  Her headache was gone, replaced with a mild sense of dread that lurked just at the edge of her consciousness. It was always there when she needed to start a writing project. The story she had been drafting in her mind would never match up to the one that sputtered out in fits and starts onto her laptop screen.

  She took a deep breath and opened a blank Word document, hoping to get down an outline that would effortlessly turn into scene snippets and rough paragraphs that could be massaged. But starting was always the hardest. She had to make readers care in the first couple of paragraphs. Otherwise, they'd lose interest and stop reading. The only ones who would slog through to the end were Jarrett, his family and friends, and Darlinda Owens. And Debbie's mother, of course.

  There was some additional pressure that was making her freeze. She needed to prove herself to her peers. Christian might also be stalking her professionally, just as she was lurking around the edges of his online presence. Did he wonder how she was doing without him? A strong story would let him know that she was just fine.

  As she stared at her screen, an email alert caught her attention.

  "Shots Fired--58XX Pawnee Ave." Debbie opened the email. The report was fresh, just ten minutes old. Debbie clicked on the map to find the location, then used street view to take a look around the area.

  It was a residential street with houses lining both sides. On one corner stood an abandoned apartment building. The red-brick structure looked to be from the 1920s or 1930s. A portion of the room visible on the front of the building had collapsed. The doors and windows on the first floor had been boarded up. A sign warning away trespassers had been posted. The upper windows were deep holes. The front yard was overgrown with weeds, and ivy had climbed from the ground to the roof in one portion of the facade.

  And yet, the house next door was well kept and in good repair, at least when the street was photographed by Google. The neighboring lawn meticulously mowed. A hedge separated the two properties, and it appeared the homeowner was making every effort to keep the diseased property at bay.

  Another email alert flashed on her screen. "Person down." Same general address. Debbie thumped her pen a few times on her reporter's notebook as the adrenaline rush began.

  It was just too hard to stay away from the action.

  It had become Debbie's new normal: flashing blue lights and a small crowd of people gathered behind yellow crime scene tape.

  Debbie approached a young woman clad in tan shorts cut high, making the most of her shapely legs, and a red tank top revealing strong arms. She was standing on a patchy, yellowed lawn across the street from the abandoned apartment building that Debbie had glimpsed from her laptop. The woman, who couldn't have yet been thirty, was gripping the hand of a little girl with tiny braids sprinkled with white and red beads who looked to be about six.

  "Hi," Debbie said in her least threatening voice. "I'm a reporter. I was wondering if you could tell me what happened?"

  The woman looked down at the girl, whose wide dark eyes surrounded by long lashes never strayed from the crime scene unfolding in front of her.

  "My daughter, she stayed with her auntie last night. I had to get her this morning. I stay just a few houses away from my sis. We was walking back home, me and my kid. That's when we heard shots. Bam, bam, bam. I just wrapped myself 'round her tight to protect her from slugs. Fool, can't he see there's children here before he decides to pop a cap?"

  Debbie nodded. "Did you know the shooter?"

  The woman eyed her warily. "Don't want my name in no paper. We mind our own business around here. I got a baby to take care of."

  "I just want to hear what happened. I won't identify you."

  The woman narrowed her eyes, looking Debbie up and down, and continued, "That broken-down place over there," she said, using her chin to gesture to the vacant apartment building, "it's no good. Neighbors have been hollerin' at the alderman and the mayor to tear it down or get the landlord to fix it up. But nobody listens. Landlord's prob'ly paying off the alderman. All I know is that bad people seem to hang around it."

  The woman tugged the hand of the little girl. "C'mon, Destiny, time to get home," she said as she noticed Officer Parker heading for them.

  Debbie surveyed the scene, taking notes of the action, as Parker made her way over. A cop wearing a green security vest leaned against a white squad car, puffing a cigarette. Several officers were gathered near the vacant building. Some were dressed in their uniform blues, others wore khakis and a black vest with white letters identifying them as St. Louis police. The
female officers had their hair swept up. Many of the male officers had shaved heads or military-style crew cuts. Except for one. Flannery's thick, dark hair stood out, making it easy for her to pick him out of the sea of law enforcement officers who had surrounded the body draped in a white sheet next to the sidewalk. It appeared that the person down was next to a tree. Had the individual been standing there when shot, or was this where the victim dropped after running?

  "I guess I'm not surprised to see you here," Parker said. "I was going to text you."

  "What happened?"

  "Ask anyone standing here, and they'll say they have no idea. But they know. They're just protecting the bad guys. As usual. My guess is that this was drug-related. The victim was standing next to that tree over there, near the apartment building. People on the street know it's a popular place to buy street drugs: heroin; K2, a synthetic cannabis with some very nasty side effects; hydrocodone; Oxycontin; cocaine; meth."

  Parker continued, "A car sees someone standing next to the tree. The car stops. The person under the tree goes up to the car. Money, drugs exchange hands. The car drives away. We don't know yet if that's what happened here. Without any businesses around, we don't have any security cameras to check. There may be some neighbors with cameras or doorbells with eyes, but I doubt it. So we hope that the shell casings will tell us more. I think there were two guns involved. We found .45 caliber shell casings and .223 shell casings. Problem is that if the victim had a gun, it isn't anywhere to be found now."

  Debbie crossed her arms. "But if this is an area where there's already a lot of criminal activity, couldn't it be that the shell casings are from earlier shootings?"

  Parker shrugged. "Perhaps."

  Flannery approached. "Officer Parker, I see you've found Ms. Bradley."

  "Yes, sir. I knew you'd want me to keep an eye on her for you," Parker answered.

  "You two seemed chatty," Flannery added.

  "Yeah," Debbie answered, "if you call a bossy cop explaining to me yet again crime scene protocol and the press as chatty."

  "Why don't you go over to that TV crew, make sure the cameras don't get too close. I'll deal with Ms. Bradley," Flannery said.

  As Officer Parker headed over to a news van with a large antenna that was just setting up, Flannery remarked, "I thought you'd have the day off, after your late night."

  "I could say the same to you," Debbie responded.

  Taking in her T-shirt, jeans, and deck shoes, Flannery added, "Not quite so fancy today."

  Debbie shrugged. "I had planned on staying home and writing. I'll be away from the office tomorrow, so I wanted to get a jump on my work."

  "But you couldn't stay away from a crime scene, right?"

  "What happened? Drug deal gone bad?"

  "No comment, you know that. Talk to the PIO," Flannery said.

  "How about letting me buy you coffee Tuesday? My mom's surgery is tomorrow, but I'd really like to thank you for helping me out last night."

  "Look, I have nothing against you, except for the fact that you're a reporter. There's no way I would've left you standing out on the street last night. And your parents have a good reputation around town. My lawyer relatives speak highly of them. But I don't really want to socialize. Besides, I've got to be in juvenile court."

  Debbie's eyebrows rose. "This wouldn't be about Joshua Lucas, would it?"

  "You know I don't have any comment. Good day, Ms. Bradley," he said as he turned to head back to the crime scene.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  Longing and Loneliness

  Debbie stirred from her restless slumber. The scent of Christian's skin, mixed with his cologne, hung in the air. Where is he? She looked at the pillow next to her head but all that was there was an empty space. Wrapped around her body was his old flannel shirt.

  Before Debbie escaped D.C., she grabbed his shirt from their closet and stuffed it into one of her bags. He didn't notice because he'd stormed out of their apartment after yet another argument over her plans to return to St. Louis.

  She remembered that shirt was still tucked in her luggage the night before Beth's surgery. After returning from the crime scene, Debbie cranked out her story. To celebrate the draft, she and her mom spent a quiet evening watching TV, a nature documentary because both women were too distracted to follow a real plot. Then they went to bed, though neither slept. Debbie heard Beth pace across the bedroom floor. Beth likely heard Debbie get up and then sit down in her favorite chair to try to read.

  Sometime around midnight, Debbie remembered that Christian's shirt was in her luggage. Sure, she had the diamond ring he'd given her that day in early April when they were admiring the cherry blossoms in D.C.'s Tidal Basin. But it was a cold stone. It didn't compare to the warmth that caressed the very core of her heart when she put on the clothes that still smelled of him. He had indeed once loved her.

  And so it was his presence that she instinctively felt when the alarm sounded before four a.m. From the hum of water running through the pipes in the old house, Debbie knew her mother was already awake. Debbie dressed quickly. They were going to a hospital, not a party. What Debbie looked like wasn't a concern. And it wasn't long before the two women made their way in the dark to the garage behind the house. Neither said much. Debbie began the day missing the jump start of coffee. But because Beth had been instructed not to eat or drink, Debbie figured she could do without her caffeine injection, at least until her mom went into surgery.

  And when they arrived, the check-in was efficient. The operating room and medical personnel were ready and waiting. It was amazing how efficient the medical system could be when profit was at stake. An empty OR and waiting nurses and doctors were bad for the bottom line. And so it wasn't long before Beth was whisked away, with the nurse promising Debbie she'd grab her once her mother had changed into her gown and had been prepped for surgery.

  Debbie had barely gotten settled into her waiting room chair and read some of the latest breaking news on her phone when the nurse fetched her and led her back to the prep area, where several patients had been ushered behind their own private curtains.

  "Don't worry," Beth said. "Everything will be A-OK. I got this. And I'm super cozy in this contraption," Beth said, referring to space-age blanket that had been draped over her body to circulate warm air.

  Debbie tried to smile but only managed a grimace.

  "Oh, and I have a surprise for you," Beth said, as her words started to slur from the powerful sedative she'd just been given. "I talked to Maurice, I mean Judge Jamison. He's in juvie now. Juvenile. Not Joshua's judge, but good resource. Good man. Tomorrow. Afternoon. Tuesday. You'll talk to him. Old friend of mine. And your dad's. Law school. Julie knows," Beth said, referring to her sister and Debbie's aunt, Julie Birnbaum. It was then that the nurse signaled it was time for Debbie to leave.

  As Debbie headed back to the waiting room, she had to give her mom props. Beth was a master schemer.

  "You should go home," Julie Birnbaum said to Debbie when she walked into the hospital room.

  "Hi, Aunt Julie," Debbie said, accepting a hug from the woman who resembled her mother.

  Julie was Beth's older sister. Even though the two women had grown up in the same household, Debbie often wondered how they could be related. Her aunt lived a comfortable life in an outer St. Louis suburb. Julie had gone to college and gotten married shortly after graduating; she stayed home and raised the kids, headed up PTA, and was the go-to volunteer at her church. Julie was the type of mom who decorated the house for every holiday and never had to run to the Halloween costume store on October 30. Beth had been the reverse sort of mom.

  The two sisters also sat on the opposite ends of the political spectrum. Julie was a conservative. Beth a social justice progressive. Julie attended Sunday mass. Beth preferred long walks in nature with her family on Sundays.

  Even though Julie and Beth rarely agreed on anything, they managed to stay close. The biggest wedge had been the 2016 presidential election. A
s with so many families, it had been the most divisive event the two women had lived through. Eventually, they crafted a way through the minefield by building a path over their differences--which meant never ever discussing politics, world affairs, or climate change. Social media had proven more complicated. Debbie often heard her mother groan about her sister's latest post. And Debbie was sure her aunt wasn't happy about the news items her sister shared.

  In short, Debbie had decided, Beth and Julie were like most Midwestern relatives, just trying to get along.

  "Here," Julie said, pushing a brown paper sack into Debbie's hands, the type of gesture that didn't consider refusal a possible answer. "Bread Co."

  Debbie smiled. Only in St. Louis was the fast casual restaurant known in the rest of country as Panera still referred to by its original name before a merger, St. Louis Bread Company, or the local shortened version, Bread Co.

  "How's she doing?" Julie asked as she pushed a gray strand of hair behind her ears.

  "Right now, she fades in and out," Debbie explained. "The morphine they've given her makes her loopy. But the doctors said the surgery was a success--whatever that means. It was a complete mastectomy, of course. And they removed the tumor and took a little extra bit of healthy tissue just to be safe. They took some lymph nodes for further testing."

  Julie walked to her sister's bedside. "Poor thing."

  Debbie smiled. "You better not let her hear you say that."

  Beth started to rouse. She opened her eyes. "Water?"

  Debbie grabbed a cup of ice and scooped out a few small chips. "Here, Mom."

  Beth took the ice and then looked at her sister. "Make Debbie go home."

  Julie smiled. "I'm working on it."

  "Look, I'd really like to stay," Debbie argued.

  "You're just going to annoy your mother if you stay. She wants you to go home and rest. The longer you remain, the crankier she'll get. I don't enjoy dealing with my sister when she's irritated. I'll stay. I've got a nice big book to read. You go."