Alafair Burke - Angel's Tip

She flipped to the early round of the late-night news. The local ABC affiliate may have been the first to break the story of Chelsea Hart’s murder, but now the department’s Public Information Office had released an official statement, and the case was finding its place in every stratum of the media.

Watching a case transform from real-life incident to ubiquitous cultural phenomenon reminded Ellie of the sprouting process in Gremlins, a movie she still watched every year on Christmas Day. It all started with a single, manageable creature. But add a little water, and suddenly several new balls of mischief were spawned, brewing until they transformed into separate and independent troublemakers that had to be watched over and cared for, each with the potential to hatch its own havoc-wreaking offspring.

And so it was with crime reporting. It started with a single case, followed by the first story. But that initial media coverage provided the germinating water, and from there, the sprouting began. By the end of the week, she would have a precinct full of Gremlins.

Ellie flipped between the two ten o’clock news programs. Both covered all the bases: Chelsea’s name and age; the fact that she was on spring break, alone at night in the Meatpacking District; the discovery of her strangled corpse early this morning by joggers along the East River. No mention of the mutilation of her body or the violent removal of her beautiful hair. Give them time, she thought. Peter had scrambled quickly for the basics, but by tomorrow, reporters would be contacting everyone Chelsea Hart had ever met-at the hotel, at the club, back home in Indiana. Whether they wanted to or not, the public would eventually gain access to all of the ugly and salacious details that boosted ratings and swelled circulation numbers.

And Ellie’s job would get that much harder.

SHE CHANGED THE CHANNEL to a Seinfeld repeat to keep her company while she got ready for bed. She had removed her contact lenses and started to brush her teeth when she heard keys in the front door.

She heard a soft clank, followed by her brother’s voice. “Chain!”

Ellie called out an apology through sudsy toothpaste foam, made her way to the front door (it didn’t take long in her small one-bedroom), and released the safety chain.

“You’ve been doing that a lot lately.” Jess set his hard-shell Fender guitar case by the door, shook off his black thrift-store jacket, and tossed it on the nearest piece of furniture, an off-white armchair in the corner. “Should I take that as a hint that it’s time for me to find another couch? I could swing it now that the job’s working out all right.”

For two months, Jess had been working as a doorman at Vibrations, an establishment on the Westside Highway that euphemistically billed itself as a “gentlemen’s club.” Jess and Ellie preferred to call it the Shake Shack. The Shimmy Shed. Booty Barn. The Rubby Cubby. Titty Towers. The T and A Getaway. Even though Ellie hoped a better job was waiting for her brother somewhere down the road, a part of her wanted him to stay at Vibrations forever just so they could continue conjuring up alternative names for his employer.

“Don’t be ridiculous,” she said. “What would I have done this morning without a roommate to put together my backpack?”

“Did I get everything? I was a little creeped out going through your underwear drawer.”

“Perfect.” In truth, he had forgotten about the Kahr K9 that she now carried as a backup gun and the corresponding ankle holster, but she saw no reason to nitpick. “Seriously, Jess, it’s been nice having you here through all this.”

In reality, the stressful events of the last two months had little to do with Jess’s presence as her couch-inhabiting roommate. Jess tended to move several times a year, depending on his employment status, dating status, and the tolerance of his friends. In between the various moves, he frequently spent days or weeks in her living room. Given that it was Jess who’d helped Ellie find this rent-stabilized apartment in the first place, it only seemed right. Karma and all.

“You sure?” he asked.

“Mos def.”

“In that case, what the fuck is that shitastic smell?”

“Dinner. Indian.” She patted her full belly. “You missed out.”

“Jesus, why don’t you bury a piece of cheese beneath the sofa cushions while you’re at it? This room’ll stink for a week. Not to mention the increased risk of another upchuck incident after this morning’s festivities.”

Ellie jumped onto the sofa and pulled the window up a few inches.

“Thanks,” Jess said, plopping down next to her. “So what’d you do tonight? No, wait, let me guess.” He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers to his temples like a mind reader. “You worked late on your case, came home and called Mom, then ate takeout and watched TV. How did I do?” he asked, opening his eyes.

“You’ve got the Ellie Hatcher schedule down to a T.”

“How’s Mom?” Jess asked.

Ellie shrugged. “You know.”

Jess knew precisely. That’s why he had a tendency not to be around when Ellie made her nightly phone calls to their mother in Wichita. Same reminiscing. Same self-pity about her present life as a bookkeeper and widow whose children didn’t visit enough. Same vodka-glazed voice. Somehow Jess managed to distance himself from all of it, but Ellie still felt the need to look after her mother despite the fourteen hundred miles lying between them.

“You’re not working tonight?” Ellie asked.

“Nah. I got the guys together for a couple hours of practice instead. I figured finding a dead body with my sister this morning was a pretty good excuse to play hooky.”

“You didn’t give them any details, did you?”

“Dead chick in the park was about all they needed to hear. Don’t worry. I’m not divulging any secrets of your case. Unless someone offers to pay. Now that would be different.”

She knew for a fact that her brother was only kidding. After the Wichita police charged William Summer with the College Hill Strangler murders, both Jess and Ellie had been hounded by the media for their stories. How would your father have felt about the arrest? What is it like to know he died without the answers you now have? Why are you so convinced that William Summer killed your father, despite the city’s insistence it was a suicide?

Ellie had played along with the game, hoping the media attention would put pressure on the city. Lord knew her mother could use the pension. But Jess’s position had been firm: Not even if they paid me a million dollars. And Ellie had known from the tone of his voice that he meant it. If Jess was going to be in the public spotlight, it was going to be as a rock god, not for anything having to do with policing or dead bodies.

“No Peter tonight?” Jess asked. Ellie arched an eyebrow in his direction. “Okay, for once, I wasn’t trying to be dirty. No Mr. Morse this evening?”

“No. There’s no Mr. Morse.”

“Problems in paradise?”

“I just sleep better alone, in my own apartment.”

“Yeah, right, because your bed’s so comfortable. I slept on that mattress while you were in Kansas, and it’s like lying in a giant taco shell.”

Ellie had never been particularly at ease discussing romantic relationships with her older brother. Jess, of course, seemed to have no problems whatsoever opening up about his various encounters, sometimes going so far as to describe the bizarre things his freakier girlfriends had suggested. Ellie usually tuned out and escaped to a mental happy place to avoid the images.

“We took a couple nights off so he can write,” she said.

“His novel?”

“I didn’t ask him for specifics, but I don’t think so.”