Karen Rose - Scream For Me

Daniel recognized the voice instantly and was a little amused to find himself standing straighter as he stopped in front of his old high school English teacher. “Mr. Grant.”

One side of the old man’s bushy white mustache lifted. “So you do remember.”

Daniel met the old man’s eyes. “ ‘Death, be not proud, though some have called thee mighty and dreadful, for thou art not so.’ ” Odd that that would be the first quotation to enter his mind. Daniel thought about the woman lying in the morgue, unidentified and as yet unreported as missing. Or maybe not so odd .

The other side of Grant’s mustache lifted and he bobbed his white head in salute. “John Donne. One of your favorites, as I recall.”

“Not so much anymore. I guess I’ve seen too much death.”

“I suspect you have at that, Daniel. We’re all sorry about your parents.”

“Thank you. It’s been a difficult time for all of us.”

“I was at the funeral and the grave. Susannah looked pale.”

Daniel swallowed. That his sister had. She’d had good reason. “She’ll hold up.”

“Of course she will. Your parents raised good stock.” Grant winced when he realized what he’d said. “Hell. You know what I meant.”

To his surprise, Daniel found his lips curving. “I know what you meant, sir.”

“That Simon was always bad news.” Grant leaned forward and dropped his voice, although Daniel knew every eye in town was watching them. “I read what you did, Daniel. It took courage. Good for you, son. I was proud of you.”

Daniel’s smile faded and he swallowed again, this time as his eyes stung. “Thank you.” He cleared his voice. “You got a seat on the barbershop bench, I see.”

Grant nodded. “Only had to wait for old Jeff Orwell to pass.” He scowled. “Old man held on for two long years, just because he knew I was waiting.”

Daniel shook his head. “The nerve of some people.”

Grant smiled. “It’s good to see you, Daniel. You were one of my best students.”

“You were always one of my favorite teachers. You and Miss Agreen.” He lifted his brows. “You two still an item?”

Grant coughed until Daniel thought he’d have to do CPR. “You knew about that?”

“Everybody did, Mr. Grant. I always thought you knew we knew and didn’t care.”

Grant drew a deep breath. “People think their secrets are so damn safe,” he murmured, so quietly Daniel almost didn’t hear. “People are fools.” Then he whispered under his breath, “Don’t be a fool, son.” Then he looked up, his smile reappearing, and he rocked back on his cane. “Good to see you. Don’t be a stranger, Daniel Vartanian.”

Daniel studied his old teacher’s eyes, but there was no hint of what had seemed a dire warning just a few seconds before. “I’ll try. Take care, Mr. Grant. Give the next guy on the waiting list for the barbershop bench a very long wait.”

“That I will.”

Daniel walked on to the office of the Dutton Review , the real reason for his visit. The Review sat across the street from the police station, which would be Daniel’s next stop. The inside of the newspaper office was stuffy and packed floor to ceiling with boxes. A small space had been carved out for a desk, a computer, and a phone. At the desk sat a plump man with a pair of glasses resting on his balding head.

Four large bandages covered his left forearm, looking like sergeant’s stripes, and an angry red welt peeked from his shirt collar. It looked as if the man had tangled with something and lost. Perhaps a tree. Hello, Daniel thought.

The man looked up and Daniel recognized the boy who’d sat behind him from kindergarten through high school. Jim Woolf’s mouth curved in something just shy of a sneer. “Well. If it isn’t the man himself. Special Agent Daniel Vartanian. In the flesh.”

“Jim. How are you?”

“Better today than you are, I suspect, although I have to say I’m flattered. I thought you’d send a flunkie to do your dirty work, but here you are, back in little old Dutton.”

Daniel sat on the edge of Woolf’s desk. “You didn’t return my phone calls, Jim.”

Jim’s fingers resting lightly on his rounded stomach. “I didn’t have anything to say.”

“A newspaperman with nothing to say. That has to be a first.”

“I’m not telling you what you want to know, Daniel.”

Daniel abandoned the polite path. “Then I’ll arrest you for impeding an investigation.”

Jim flinched. “Wow. You pulled off the gloves there, real fast.”

“I spent the morning in the morgue watching that woman autopsied. Tends to suck the joy right out of a man’s day. Ever seen an autopsy, Jim?”

Jim’s jaw squared. “No. But I’m still not telling you what you want to know.”

“Okay. Get your coat.”

Jim sat up straight. “You’re bluffing.”

“No, I’m not. Someone clued you in to that crime scene before the cops arrived. No telling how long you had to poke around that body. No telling what you touched. What you took.” Daniel met Jim’s eyes. “Maybe you even put her there.”

Jim turned red. “I had nothing to do with that and you know it.”

“I know nothing. I wasn’t there. You, on the other hand, were.”

“You don’t know that I was. Maybe I got the pictures from somebody else.”

Daniel leaned across the desk and pointed to the Band-Aids on the man’s forearm. “You left part of yourself behind, Jim. Crime scene guys found your skin in the bark of that tree.” Jim paled a little. “Now I can take you in and get a warrant for a DNA sample or you can tell me how you knew to be up that tree yesterday afternoon.”

“I can’t. Beyond the constitutional aspects, if I tell you, I’ll never get another tip.”

“So you got a tip.”

Jim sighed. “Daniel… If I knew I wouldn’t tell you, but I don’t know who it was.”

“An anonymous tip. Convenient.”

“It’s the truth. The call came through on my home phone, but the number was blocked. I didn’t know what I’d see when I got there.”

“Was the caller male or female?”

Jim shook his head. “No. Not gonna tell you that.”

Daniel considered. He’d already gotten more than he thought he would. “Then tell me when you arrived and what you did see.”

Jim tilted his head. “What’s in it for me?”

“An interview, exclusive. You might even sell to one of the big guys in Atlanta.”

Jim’s eyes lit up and Daniel knew he’d plucked the right chord. “All right. It’s not complicated. I got the call yesterday at noon. I got there at about one, climbed the tree, and waited. About two the bikers came through. A half hour later Officer Larkin showed up. He took one look at the body, climbed back up the bank to the road, and threw up. Pretty soon you state boys showed up. After everybody left I climbed down and went home.”

“Once you climbed down, how exactly did you get home?”

Jim’s lips thinned. “My wife. Marianne.”

Daniel blinked. “Marianne? Marianne Murphy? You married Marianne Murphy?”

Jim looked smug. “Yes.”

Marianne Murphy had been the girl voted most likely to do… everybody. “Well.” Daniel cleared his throat, not wanting to visualize Jim Woolf with the buxom and very generous Marianne Murphy. “How did you get there?”

“She dropped me off, too.”

“I’ll want to talk to her. To confirm the times. And I want the pictures you took while you were sitting there. All of them.”

Glaring, Jim popped his memory card from his camera and tossed it. Daniel caught it with one hand and slipped it into his pocket as he stood up. “I’ll be in touch.”

Jim followed him to the door. “When?”