Patrick Robinson - To The Death

Segel ordered hundreds of “wanted” posters to be distributed all over the area. Hell, someone must have seen her. No one can just disappear off the face of the earth. And what I really need to know is where did she live. She must have lived somewhere. And somewhere close. And someone must have seen her.

At 7:30 P.M., he held a press conference at the Brockhurst Police Department, having tempted the broadcasters and journalists by announcing that the police were treating the death of a local man, Mr. Matt Barker, as murder.

This is not absolutely unusual when a body is found with a dagger jutting out of its chest. But the word “murder” has a shock-value ring to it, particularly when the media does not even realize there has been a death, never mind a homicide.

Detective Segel had deliberately withheld the announcement all through the day, since he did not want small afternoon newspapers running away with the story. He wanted blanket coverage, big dailies, network newscasts, wall-to-wall radio bulletins. Lights, cameras, music. Detective Segel wanted The Big Show. Because he believed that was the way to nail Miss Carla Martin. He believed someone would come forward with information about the vanishing Estuary Killer.

His judgment in the first part was excellent. The idea of a middle-class, well-to-do, Porsche-driving proprietor of a garage being stabbed to death in the parking lot of the local hotel was very appealing to those who essentially make a lavish living out of other people’s misfortunes.

And journalists drew a careful bead on the tiny township of Brockhurst. The first to arrive were the camera crews and presenters from the big 24-hour news networks, CNN and Fox. Both of them have running news programs, all day and night; and a story like this, a classic whodunnit, would keep them topical for at least two days, maybe four.

Reporters from the three main Washington newspapers, the Post, the Star, and the Journal, came down in a shared helicopter. CBS thought it worthwhile to send a full camera crew down, plus presenters, in a truck the size of the Pentagon.

NBC thought it was a good story, but was happy to rely on stringers and a local camera crew. ABC sent no one, but E-mailed a local reporter and told him to keep them posted. The newspapers from Richmond and Norfolk, both situated around fifty miles from Brockhurst, sent in reporters and photographers.

And there were about a dozen representatives from local weeklies based around the Rappahannock River and Chesapeake Bay area. And the same number of radio reporters, five of them local and five down from Washington. It was, without doubt, the biggest assembly of media personnel ever seen in Brockhurst. The whole town was talking about it, and, within a couple of hours, the name Matt Barker would be heard more often than that of the President of the United States. There’s one thing about meeting a violent death. It really gets your name out there.

Detective Joe Segel started the proceedings by announcing the fact that Mr. Matthew Barker, a well-known member of the local community for many years, had been found dead outside the Estuary Hotel this morning. He was thirty-four. A jeweled dagger was protruding from his chest. It had been driven into his heart, right up to the hilt, and death had occurred at around midnight.

He added that no one had been arrested, but that a friend of Mr. Barker’s, the barmaid at the Estuary Hotel, Miss Carla Martin, was almost certainly the last person to see him alive, and had mysteriously vanished.

There was available to the media an excellent identity-kit picture, a very close likeness of Carla, which reporters could pick up from the table at the back of the room. Before taking any questions, Detective Joe Segel said, “We are extremely interested in speaking to this lady, because we believe she may be able to assist us with our inquiries.”

Does this mean we got a murder hunt right here?

“Well, not precisely, because we really do not have any evidence whatsoever against Miss Carla Martin. But she was most certainly the last person seen speaking to him before he left the bar. And she may have seen him again in the parking lot of the hotel when she left. Mr. Barker’s body was found at the street end of the parking lot.”

How long after he left did Carla exit the bar?

“We believe twenty minutes maximum.”

Was she in love with him? You know, were they going out together?

“So far the answer to that is a very definite no. According to his close friends, Mr. Barker had asked her out, but she always refused.”

Where did Carla live? In the hotel?

“Good question. She did not live in the hotel, and it appears that she removed her identity card from the manager’s file. We thus have absolutely no idea where she lived. But it must have been quite near. She came to work every day, right?”

When did she quit her job?

“She never did. She just failed to show up today. She was due to start at 5 P.M. What is it now? Eight o’clock? And she’s never been late before. Don’t hold your breath.”

Pretty suspicious, right?

“Pretty suspicious,” agreed Joe Segel. “But that does not mean she murdered him.”

A lot of people wouldn’t agree with that. This is a murder hunt, sir. You must know that.

“No, it’s not. She may have just fled because of something she saw out there in the parking lot and did not wish to get involved, for whatever reason. And even if she did kill him, it may have been self-defense. We don’t know that he didn’t attack her. He was a big man, and his fly was undone.”

Jesus Christ, Joe. You mean the whole world could see his pecker?

“Well, only the members of the world who happened to be walking past the western end of the Estuary Hotel parking lot, right after first light today.”

You think he had tried to sexually assault Carla?

“Well, I wouldn’t rule it out. But this entire case rests on us finding Carla Martin. And I want you to help us get that done.”

A few members of the press corps nodded their assent and asked for more details about Matt Barker’s home and relatives. A couple of them wanted to know a lot more about the sex side of the case. And Joe told them he would be happy to see members of the media privately in his office any time during the next hour.

He knew the value of the publicity the case would receive from this. And he knew the value of that kind of exposure. Not Matt’s kind. And he was not about to discuss the Barker Pecker again, not in front of a mixed audience.

As it happened, there were enough journalists asking questions to keep Detective Segel busy for another hour and a half, at which point he called an end to the evening’s proceedings. He turned out his office light, locked the door, and walked briskly up the road to the Estuary Hotel for a nightcap, as he often did.

But when he opened the front door, the journalists were packed in there, most of them staying, all of them trying to obtain interviews from locals, as they prepared to hit the world with:

VIRGINIA TOWN IN SHOCK AT COLD-BLOODED MURDER State Police Launch Dragnet in Hunt for Mystery Woman

Detective Joe Segel retreated toward home. He had answered quite enough questions for one day. And with a major media outburst scheduled in the next few hours, he needed to be up early.

Nonetheless, Joe walked rather disconsolately home, knowing he would be greeted by an equally disconsolate wife, Joanne, who would tell him she could hardly remember what he looked like, the way she always did when he was involved in a major case.

Joe, who was forty-six, had married late in life, and Joanne, who was much younger, in her late twenties, was already showing signs of exasperation as the wife of a police officer. She had given up preparing a late dinner long ago.