The Ways of the Dead Read online

  “I don’t buy it.”

  “Says it was a robbery. They bumped into Sarah in the store, she got spooked and ran out back in the alley, they cornered her. She bucked.”

  “Oh, come on. I could make this up and I was sitting here with you when it happened.”

  “Deland, the oldest, grabbed her and spun her around, pulling her up against him, getting his hand over her mouth. Highsmith put the knife to her throat to keep her still. But she was shaking her head side to side, trying to get Deland’s hand off her mouth. She apparently didn’t see the knife. Ripped her head to the right and—”

  “—cut—cut her own throat. How much of this fairy tale do you believe, Counselor?”

  “The ‘cut her own throat’ is nonsense, but I do buy the ‘she resisted’ thing and they got pissed.”

  Sully was about to say that his information from the coroner’s office was that her throat was cut postmortem, but that was not in the public sphere. She already knew that. She was telling him what Jackson’s story was, without telling him the specific holes in it. If he let her know that the throat was postmortem, it might burn Jason as his source.

  He said, “It takes three dudes to hold down one fifteen-year-old chick?”

  “She was trying to scream, so the man says. Deland was choking her to get her quiet.”

  “And they got out of there without blood on them.”

  “Says they had some blood to deal with, but not a lot on them. I already told you there wasn’t a lot on the ground out there. Most of it was in the dumpster. It’s plausible. Says they trashed the clothes, changed, and burned the old ones.”

  “And went back to playing basketball.”

  “For cover, to establish an alibi.”

  “And what does he get out of this version of events?”

  “A clean conscience and a juvenile adjudication, if he testifies at trial against his associates.”

  “Because, magically, he didn’t participate.”

  “He was the youngest accomplice. He could make a fair showing to a jury that he was young, intimidated, didn’t realize this was going to be violent, and, when it turned out to be, was under deadly pressure to go along with what the big kids were doing.”

  “So you guys have already cut the deal.”

  “Yes.”

  Sully sat back, trying to hold his temper in check.

  “You didn’t say this was off the record. Any of it.”

  “I didn’t. You can source it to a ‘law enforcement official familiar with the investigation.’”

  “When’s the presser?”

  “Tomorrow. Noon if the chief can get everyone together. Highsmith and Deland will get murder one, assault, robbery, assault with a deadly weapon, and a couple of others.”

  Sully looked at his watch. It was ten minutes to ten. He could get it in the suburban edition if he quit fucking around.

  “Meaning he could skate when?”

  She shrugged. “Prisons and parole boards release people, not the U.S. Attorney’s Office. But I would say Mr. Jackson would be celebrating his thirtieth birthday back in D.C.”

  “You got the wrong guys, Eva. They’re not on the hook for this.”

  “That would be remarkable, buying yourself nearly twenty years in lockup for something you didn’t do.”

  “Maybe he thought that deal would be less worse than what would happen to him if he didn’t.”

  “Meaning what, life without parole?”

  “Meaning a very short life span, for him or someone he knows.”

  “He’s not on the wrong side of anybody, Sully. He’s a featherweight.”

  “Which doesn’t mean somebody doesn’t have something on him.”

  “Are you going to enlighten me? Or are you just talking out of your neck?”

  “You can’t tell me everything you know, and vice versa. But I’m telling you, Eva, don’t get tied in tight on this.”

  • • •

  Outside on the street it was dark. He dropped his phone, maybe a little drunk, then stooped down to pick it up, got Tony on the rewrite desk on the phone and dictated a few paragraphs about the impending plea bargain. Tony asked him, stifling a cough, the name of his source and Sully told him that wasn’t going to happen. There was a pause, and Tony asked if he was absolutely certain about the leak and Sully said he could add it to the Ten Fucking Commandments.

  He hung up and called R.J. at home.

  “Holy shit, Sullivan,” he bellowed. “Beautiful. This is going to lead the paper.”

  “Yeah.”

  “So . . .”

  “So yeah.”

  “So now what about Reese and Pittman?” R.J. said. “What about the other, what are we calling them, mysterious deaths?”

  Goddamn. He was right to the point.

  “’s the same as it was before.”

  “That can’t be. I know Reese had the affair, and I hate to agree with Melissa about anything. But we’ve got to have something really solid to go ahead with this right now. Just him having the affair isn’t going to do it. Public sympathy—”

  “We already have him nailed.”

  “Dazzle me with how.”

  “Failure to disclose. Failure to report his knowledge to MPD about a young woman missing and believed dead. He knew damn good and well that she went missing, that the last time anyone saw her was at Halo, and he alone knew she was alive at least eight hours after that. We can establish that he, an officer of the court, knowingly withheld that information from law enforcement to preserve the secret of an adulterous affair. Minimum, judicial misconduct.”

  R.J. paused. Sully could visualize him stroking his beard.

  “You’re not bad at this. If she was just missing, well, maybe it was just a moral dilemma. But after her body was discovered last week, it’s a game-changer. She was killed—I don’t care if they call it a murder investigation or not—and she was killed in that neighborhood, perhaps on the day of their liaison. Christ, he’s sounding like a suspect.”

  “So.”

  “So I’ll talk to Edward. I can get you another day or two. I’m not saying we’re there yet. I’m saying we can make a case. I’ll have Chris do the presser tomorrow. But you’ve got to go on this, champ. You’ve got to go hard.”

  • • •

  At home, in the darkness, Dusty next to him in the bed, both of them teetering on the edge of exhaustion, of sleep. Other than it being a long time after midnight, he had no idea of the time. The sex had been something close to violent, and he was trying to let the afterglow lull him all the way to sleep.

  “Who is this we’re listening to?” she said.

  “Tom Waits.”

  “It sounds like he’s gargling.”

  “Don’t blaspheme.”

  “‘Freeways, cars, and trucks.’ Is this supposed to be profound? What else would you see on the freeway?”

  “It’s about being in love.”

  “Well, I’m not in love with him, I can tell you that.”

  “How was class this week?”

  “Kicked my ass. I was cranky, I’m sorry. I didn’t realize—I mean, really realize—there was so much math to being an RN.”

  “Math?”

  “Chemistry. Dosages.”

  “I can barely add.”

  “No kidding. I’ve seen your checkbook.”

  He laughed, softly, in the dark, turning to let her leg drape over his. “That’s mostly subtraction.”

  “My mother always said”—she yawned, closing her eyes, setting into her pillow—“to date men with at least six figures in the bank.”

  “Momma didn’t date me.”

  “Obviously.”

  “How is she?”

  “Playing tennis three days a week, down there at Boca.”

 
“You feel nice.”

  “Mmm,” her voice drifted lower, sleepier. “You’re too amped up about—about this Sarah Reese thing, baby. Feels like I don’t know you.”

  He debated telling her about the gunfire, but that was over before it started. He could never explain and she’d never understand.

  “These three guys, the suspects?” He decided to go that route. “They didn’t do this. The judge was screwing Noel. These other women, missing, dead . . . something out there is really fucked up. It’s not as neat as what the police are saying.”

  “I still can’t believe the Judge Reese thing. What are you going to do?”

  The music went off. It was quiet, the occasional passing car, a breeze in the trees outside, the year getting colder.

  “I don’t know,” he said, almost a whisper. “Find out who killed Noel. That seems to be the key to the lock.”

  “Can’t you just let it go? It’s eating you up. You’re—you’re different.”

  “Can’t.”

  “Can’t what?”

  “Let it go. It’s—I can’t explain.”

  After a while, she yawned and pulled the covers up, the last nesting before sleep. “Can we at least go somewhere when it’s over?” She hated murder and the talk of it, he could tell.

  “Where to?”

  “You’ve never taken me to New Orleans.”

  “‘Never.’ Well, damn. We’ve only been dating, what, not even a year.”

  “Still.”

  “I took you to New York,” he said, feeling defensive but not wanting to sound that way. “We ran away to Broadway. Stayed at the Algonquin.”

  “But New Orleans, though.”

  “Okay. Alright. You want to spend Christmas in the Quarter?”

  “Sure,” she said. He felt some of the tension release in her shoulders. “We could do that. We could eat beignets.” She was almost asleep, her body heavier on him, her breath slowing. “You could take me to that bar where you used to work. I could check it out. Maybe they’d hire me.”

  “I’m not sure getting hired at the Chart Room would be a career destination.”

  “What’s wrong with it?” Mumbling, drowsy, dreamy.

  He wondered if she’d remember the conversation in the morning.

  “Nothing. It’s just a dive. And you’d have to be a who dat.”

  “Never,” she said, turning her head away on the pillow, pulling her knees up. “A ’fin to the death.”

  “Un-hunh.”

  “Only unbeaten team.” She was asleep.

  He reached over and touched her nose with the tip of a finger in the dark. “‘Christmas in the Quarter.’ It sounds like a song about being in love.” He wanted it to be true. He really, really wanted it to be true.

  thirty-four

  The next morning Sully was back at Lorena Bradford’s. Standing in the kitchen, he looked on the patio table and saw the paper, the A section, flapping lightly in the breeze, drawing him outside through the sliding glass door. The story on the right of the page, the anchor, had the headline “Confession in Reese Slaying” and a thumb-sized picture of Sarah Reese tucked into the deck head. His name was there. He picked it up and opened it to the jump and saw the story ran nearly half the page. There were the mug shots of the three suspects. Chris and Tony had done serious legwork after he had called in the bombshell.

  He wandered back inside. It was nearing noon. He’d left his house early, Dusty still asleep and he sweaty and restless, nervous as a cat. Tooled through the neighborhood, tried Sly on his cell, wound up here. Lorena had been awake and staring at the television when he’d knocked.

  Now the television was still on with the sound off, the anchor on the cable channel blabbing about the case, the confession, the unraveling of it all. There was filler footage of Georgia and Princeton Place, of Doyle’s Market the night of the murder, the yellow police tape up and the squad cars with their lights flashing.

  “Turn it up,” Lorena said. She had been upstairs and had come down behind him. He found the remote and pressed the volume button.

  “. . . but now appears to be on much more solid footing with the confession. Jackson’s attorney, Avram Kaufman, said his client would be in protective custody at the D.C. jail until the case is fully resolved. The D.C. Public Defender Service, which is still representing Highsmith and Deland, did not return calls. But the head of the agency issued a statement saying the two men maintain their innocence.”

  The camera came back to the studio, the reporter standing outside U.S. District Court in a split screen.

  “And, David and Emily, a final irony for you,” the reporter said, talking to camera. “The trial of the two men will take place in D.C. Superior Court, directly across the small courtyard behind me from the federal courthouse where Sarah Reese’s father presides. His office, on the fourth floor, has a view that overlooks the building where his daughter’s alleged killers will be tried.”

  The camera came fully back to the studio and the anchors segued into another story, about the implications the case might have for Reese’s chances at the U.S. Supreme Court.

  “Fucking Av,” he said.

  “You know him?”

  He shrugged. “Some.”

  “Is he good?”

  “When he wants to be.” Sully pointed the remote at the television and held the volume down until it was mute.

  “Not a word about Noel,” Lorena said.

  “Nope,” Sully said. “We have the field to ourselves.”

  She sat on the couch. “If the police aren’t going to be interested, then I’m not sure that just embarrassing David Reese is—”

  “They’re not going to care until we make them,” he said, more emphatically than he’d intended. “Reese—Reese—he’s got all the advantages. Everybody’s so goddamned worried about being fair to him. I’m worried about being fair to Noel, Lana, Michelle, Rebekah—any and all the women up there. You realize I haven’t even been through all the files of the missing yet? That there could be more? I’m not about to let him skate on his relationship with Noel. She died and he didn’t do a damned thing. Like she never existed.”

  “Okay,” she said. “But it’s like we were saying a few minutes ago—if I take it to the police myself, they’re not going to do anything. Fucking Detective Jensen.”

  “No, they’re not. They’re going to bury it.”

  “Keeps telling me there’s no evidence of violence. Says the department’s resources are stretched.”

  “On Sarah?”

  “You think?”

  He kneeled down beside her. It killed his knee but he did it. He reached out again, no pussyfooting around this time, took her hand in his. He needed her right on point. “Look. We don’t have long. This is edgy, and the longer edgy sits, the more it loses momentum. Every day we take is another day the paper is likely to go, ‘Well . . .’ and let it sit.”

  She looked back at him and squeezed his hand a little, less a sign of affection, more a sign of nerves.

  “Then I’ll work on finishing the chronology this afternoon,” she said. “You?”

  “I’m going to hit the photographer first, then Reese, then Halo,” he said. “That’s all that’s left. After that, writing.”

  “Wait, Reese? You’re going to see him?”

  Sully smiled. “The judge and me,” he said, loving the taste of malice on his tongue, “we got unfinished business.”

  • • •

  Eric Simmons was fiftyish, a good fifteen years older than Sully had expected, the way John Parker had described him as a scared rabbit. He wore blue jeans, loafers, and an open-collared, sand-colored shirt, untucked, working some sort of flowing art-guy effect. A little potbelly under there. He led Sully down a short, dimly lit corridor, then there was a doorway and Simmons turned into an office on the right.

&
nbsp; Simmons gestured toward the couch and took a chair for himself, ignoring the desk.

  “So, Sully. This is about Noel?” The first-name familiarity. It sort of made his skin crawl.

  “Yes,” he said, giving the man his card, pulling out the notebook.

  “Excellent. But I can’t, ah, tell you much, because I don’t know much. And what I know, I’ve already told the police.”

  “Surprisingly, they don’t tell us everything.”

  Simmons crossed his legs at the knee, offered a false little smile. “Of course. Something to drink? I forgot to offer. Water? Some tea? I’ve got—”

  Sully held up a hand, no no.

  “Fine. So. What is it you think I can help you with?”

  Sully started to walk him through the basics of the story, of Noel’s last days, and Simmons cut in, quickly. His voice had a soft, slightly effete undertone but he projected an air of confidence, of authority.

  “I only met Noel—she was a lovely young woman, very pleasant—the three times she came into the studio. There was the day she came in to introduce herself, to tell me what she was interested in, and to ask about terms. Then she came in the first day of the shoot by herself, and the second day with the other girl. I shot the film but didn’t process it. That was how she wanted it.”

  “You never saw the photographs?”

  “No. Well, yes. The police later brought some of them to me and asked if I was the one who shot them. So I saw them then.”

  “But not initially?”

  “No. I shot the film, gave her the unexposed rolls. At her request.”

  “And when were those sessions?”

  “In March of last year. The middle part of the month, as I remember. Is the exact date important? I could have Jennifer—you met her out front—look it up.”

  “If I need it, I can call back. So it was about a month before she disappeared.” He looked at his notes. “You said ‘terms.’ You meant payment?”

  “Yes.”

  “Mind if I ask?”

  “I don’t mind, but I won’t tell you. Not for publication, anyway. My rates are on a sliding scale and I—I wouldn’t want clients to see what I’m charging others. So, not for publication?” Sully nodded. “Four thousand.”