The Morning After (13 page)

He was gone.

Not a trace of him anywhere near the street.

Vanished swiftly, as if she’d dreamed him.

“Come on, Nikki. Get a grip.” Maybe her imagination was just working overtime and she saw evil lurking where there was none. All the talk about graves and dead bodies and murder was probably just getting to her. “Oh, that’s good,” she thought aloud. “The would-be crime reporter creeped out because of a guy who was probably just waiting for a bus.” What was wrong with her? One confrontation with Reed and she was suddenly jelly? That wasn’t like her. She rammed the car into gear and drove out of the parking lot. There was no one watching her, following her. It was nothing. Nothing!

And yet…

She looked in the mirror once more. Was he there? Just out of the lamplight? Silently spying from the shadowy foliage? Was there a bit of movement?

Cold sweat appeared on her skin as she stepped on the accelerator.

A horn blasted.

She stood on the brakes, narrowly missing a taxi that was roaring by on her right. She hadn’t even seen the cab. Adrenaline pumping, fingers damp on the wheel, she told herself to pull it together. She couldn’t afford to blow the opportunity of cracking this story wide open. Not when she’d waited for it all of her life.

She gunned it and the hatchback squealed onto the street.

One last peek at the mirror, but she saw no one. No one at all.

Run, bitch
, The Survivor thought from the dense foliage on the other side of the hedge. Between the leaves he observed the red taillights as Nikki Gillette’s car disappeared around a corner.
You’ll never get away. Not from me.

A thrill skittered down his spine. Anticipation sang through his blood. She was hooked and her interest would ensure more media attention, not just from the rag of a newspaper that she worked for, but from the television and radio stations as well. Not just in that hick town up north, but in Atlanta and here in Savannah as well. The national media would pick it up…yes…

As he’d expected, Nikki Gillette had tailed Reed to this diner and confronted the cop. From outside the window, The Survivor had watched their exchange. It had gone perfectly, according to plan. Standing in the cold air he’d heard nothing of the conversation, but, from their expressions, and by reading their lips, he’d watched the argument ensue.

She wanted a scoop.

Reed wouldn’t tell her a thing.

Which would spur her into delving deeper. It was her nature. Nikki didn’t like to lose.

Now, cop and reporter were both involved.

Perfect.

Their nerves were already stretched tight.

The Survivor smiled. Licked his lips with the tip of his tongue.

For this was just the beginning.

CHAPTER 6

“Okay, Cliff, so give,” Nikki said when he’d finally answered his cell phone. She’d spent the morning in the office, catching up as quickly as she could on her other work, leaving a message for her sister, listening to a little office gossip, but for the most part concentrating on the two bodies found in the single grave in the northern Georgia woods. She’d tried all her contacts in Lumpkin County and a friend with the AP who worked out of Atlanta, but what little information had been given to the press from the sheriff’s department was already widespread. It didn’t give her the edge she needed. Now, seated at her desk, doodling on a notepad, she spoke softly, hoping no one, including Trina, would overhear. “What’s happening with the case up in Dahlonega? Why’s Reed involved?”

“Hell, Nikki, why don’t you ask him?” Cliff was irritated.

“I tried. This morning. Let’s just say he wasn’t overly communicative.”

“Sounds like him.”

“So, why him? Why did he chopper up there? What was the connection?”

“I can’t say.”

“But there was a connection.”

“I said, I can’t—”

“Why not?”

He didn’t answer, but she’d guessed the reason when Reed had been sent up to Dahlonega. “Because somehow Reed’s involved. Either with the victim or the killer or he’s a suspect or—”

“Whoa. Slow down. Don’t overspeculate.”

“But there has to be a reason. Do you know who the victims are yet?”

He hesitated.

“I take that as a yes.”

“I didn’t say that.”

“Come on, Cliff. You guys are going to release the names as soon as the next of kin have been notified.”

“It’ll happen this afternoon.”

“So, give me a little bit of a head start.”

He sighed through his nose, and Nikki felt a second’s relief. Cliff always let out his breath before spilling significant beans. “I guess it wouldn’t hurt. There are two women, one older and decomposing badly—we don’t know who she is. The other one is younger, obviously been in the coffin a short while.”

“How short?”

“Less than a day.”

“Who is she?” Nikki asked

“Her name is Barbara Jean Marx. Goes by Bobbi. Native Savannahian. Look, that’s all I can tell you, really. I’ve got to go.”

Nikki wrote down the victim’s name. It was a start. “How did she die?”

Hesitation. Nikki put a question mark by the name.

“What about the other one?”

“I’ll leave it at homicide, at least in Bobbi’s case, but I really can’t discuss it any further. It could injure the investigation.”

“That’s department mumbo jumbo and you know it.” Nikki wrote Reed’s name beside the victims and put another question mark by
Who is the other victim? How related?

“For now, it’s all I can say.”

Bobbi could tell Cliff wasn’t about to be swayed on the cause of death issue, so she tried another tack. “So, who is she? And I’m not talking about her name.”

“I’m not at liberty to say.”

“You’re beginning to sound like a broken record.”

“Good.”

Hearing the finality in his tone and knowing he was about to ring off, she quickly asked, “Why would the department send Reed? Or did the Lumpkin County Sheriff’s Department request him?”

A beat. No answer. He was clamming up. She had to work fast. “Was it because he lived up there once, or because he’s got some special skills, or just because he was the cop on duty?”

“Figure it out, Nikki,” Siebert growled. “It ain’t rocket science.” He hung up with a loud, final click.

“Damn,” she muttered, but tore the piece of paper from her notepad and stuffed it into her purse. She didn’t waste a minute. This was her chance. Her BIG chance. One she wasn’t going to share with Norm Metzger. No way. No how. No matter what Tom Fink wanted. She wouldn’t take a chance that somehow someone in the office might discover what she was researching, so she packed up her laptop, logged out and drove home. Even though she might freeze as the insulation in her turret apartment was nearly nonexistent, she did have cable Internet and a password that would allow her into news archives at the
Sentinel
and its sister newspaper in Atlanta. Whatever there was to know about Barbara Jean Marx, Nikki would discover it this afternoon, then start the legwork to check out “Bobbi’s” home, her workplace, her friends. And maybe in so doing she’d figure out why the woman was murdered.

“What do they know up at the sheriff’s department?” Reed asked when McFee entered his office around three. Reed had worked all morning, catching up on other cases, tracking down the lab to see if they’d gotten any latent fingerprints off the note he’d received the other day, calling St. Claire and asking about more information on the victims in the grave. The ME had faxed over the preliminary reports and Reed was reading them now. Everything St. Claire had told him had proved true. Barbara Jean Marx had died of asphyxiation, she had a high blood alcohol level and traces of a sedative, Ativan, in her blood. Her fingers were scraped raw, her knees bruised, her forehead bloodied, presumably from hitting her head on the inside top of the coffin. She’d lost fingernails and toenails while trying to claw her way to freedom. And she’d been about eleven weeks pregnant. His gut clenched as McFee settled into a side chair. “You talked to Baldwin?”

“A couple of times, but we still haven’t got much more information than we had a couple of days ago,” the big detective admitted. His scowl was more pronounced as he ran a hand over his jaw. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a small notepad. “Prescott Jones, the kid who was hurt up at the mountain, he’s still critical. Baldwin went up to talk to him and find out what he saw, but didn’t get much out of him and the doctors and nurses weren’t happy to have anyone disturbing him. The boy’s old man wasn’t any help. Seems to think the kid can sell his story to a tabloid. Baldwin’s still working on him, though. He talked to the other boy.”

“Delacroix?”

“Right. But his story hasn’t changed and he can’t remember any more details. There was something about him, though…he seemed to be holding back.”

“Maybe cops scare him. They do a lot of kids. So the boy clams up rather than get himself into what he thinks will be deeper trouble.”

“I’ll check with him again.” McFee made a note to himself. “Or maybe the sheriff can get whatever it is out of him.”

“Maybe,” Reed allowed.

“I also talked to the lead investigator for the crime scene and they’ve got a serial number on the coffin, along with soil samples. You were right, some of the dirt on the coffin didn’t match the soil where it was found. Too much sand.”

Boots beating a sharp tattoo announced Morrisette before she appeared in the doorway. Her blond hair projected in all directions and she was dressed head to toe in denim jeans, shirt, and jacket. Along with her snakeskin boots that she’d bought long ago in El Paso. “Did I miss anything?” she asked and offered McFee a smile that could easily be construed as flirty. Jesus, would she
never
learn?

“McFee was just filling me in on what they found up north.”

“The crime scene team got a serial number on the casket and soil that doesn’t match the surrounding dirt.”

“So, the coffin came from somewhere else.”

“Looks like,” McFee said. “They’re checking and comparing.”

Morrisette propped her rear on the windowsill. Behind her, on the other side of the glass, a winter sun was forcing rays through thick clouds. “They might see if it matches the silt around Stonewall Cemetery.”

“Why?” McFee asked.

“They had a disturbance the other night.”

Reed turned all his attention to his partner. “A coffin missing?”

“You got it. Not just the coffin, but the body inside.”

“Let me guess—a sixty-year-old woman?”

“Pauline Alexander.”

McFee snorted. “That works. The coffin was made in Jackson, Mississippi, and sold to Beauford Alexander, for his wife. Just about two months ago.”

“Pauline Alexander died at home, a heart attack while she was in the kitchen making jam or jelly or preserves or the like.” Morrisette shrugged. “I didn’t know anyone did that sort of thing anymore. Anyway Beauford came in from hunting, found her on the floor and called 911. But it was too late.”

Reed scanned the autopsy on the older woman, looking for anything that would have caused a heart attack, but there was nothing, at least so far, that would indicate foul play. “So, we have one woman who died of natural causes and another who was murdered, left alive in the casket to die,” he said, then glanced up. “And she was pregnant.”

“Shit, no!” Morrisette pushed up from the windowsill.

McFee’s expression hardened. “A baby?”

“The victim was around two months along.”

“You think the murderer knew?” Morrisette demanded. “Jesus H. Christ, what kind of sick, perverted wacko would off a pregnant woman? Who would be so angry? Hell, it’s probably the father. The husband.”

“If he was the father,” Reed said, his guts roiling. “We’ll need a DNA test.”

“You said you were involved with her.” Across the desk, McFee was staring suspiciously at Reed.

“What? Wait a minute.” Morrisette’s mouth dropped open. “
You, the father?
Oh, Christ, wait till Okano gets wind of this. Your ass will be off this case in a heartbeat.”

“Any news on who saw Bobbi last?” Reed asked.

“Maybe you should tell me.” Morrisette was pacing, running her fingers nervously through her already electric-shock-styled hair. “Why didn’t you say anything?” She was angry, her cheeks flaming. “You know, Reed, we’re partners. You know everything about my life, my kids, my exes and…oh, hell.” She flung herself back against the sill in exasperation. “Got any other little secrets you want to air?”

“Not now.”

“Well, let me know, would ya?”

“What we need to figure out is if Barbara Jean Marx knew Pauline Alexander.”

“That, and a whole lot more,” Morrisette muttered.

“Yes, but is there a connection? Was Pauline’s coffin exhumed randomly or was the killer giving us another clue? The note mentions two.”

“Are you fuckin’ for real?” Morrisette muttered. “Or do you have ice water in your veins? You just found out that your lover was tossed into a coffin, buried alive, possibly carrying your child and you…you sit there calmly and ask if she knew the other woman?” She rolled her eyes and threw up a hand. “I can’t believe it.”

Reed leaned back in his chair. “The best thing we can do is solve this.”

“But—”

“He’s right,” McFee cut in. “And you don’t have much time.” He was staring at Reed, but hitched a thumb toward Morrisette. “Because she’s right, too. Your ass is gonna be thrown off this case. Pronto.”

Nikki’s cell phone chirped as she pulled up to the curb in front of Jerome Marx’s business. Caller ID verified that her friend Simone was on the other end of the connection. “Hey, what’s up?” Nikki asked, eyeing the doorway to the redbrick building situated a few blocks from the Cotton Exchange.

“Kickboxing tomorrow night, seven o’clock. Remember?”

Inwardly Nikki groaned. She had hours of research ahead of her tonight and tomorrow, and a story to write. “No.”

“You missed the last class.”

“I know, I know, but I’m caught up in something really big.”