Neely Tucker - The Ways of the Dead

Bitchy, bitchy, bitchy.

Back at his desk, the whiskey was gone in two long slurps on the straw. He looked around and then took the ice-laden cup to another reporter’s desk and dropped it in the trash can.

The cycle boots were under the desk, and he reached down and pulled them out, thinking about a burger at Stoney’s, wondering if Eva would pick up the phone if he called her, Dusty up in Baltimore at her weekday bar. There was a cough and a soft “Hey, man.”

Chris again, hands on the chest-high divider of Sully’s cubicle, leaning forward on it, a piece of paper in one hand.

“Yeah?” Sully said. “You filed? What happened with the guys in court?”

“No surprises. No guilty plea, held until trial. Keith did it.”

He extended his fingers, pushing a slip of paper at Sully. “This woman left two messages on the Metro main answering machine yesterday, asking for you. Said she was returning your call. The news aide delivered it to me today, I guess because I was working the story.”

Sully took the slip of paper, which had a 301 area code, Maryland. The name was Lorena Bradford. The name was a blank.

“She say what it was about?”

“Yeah. She said you called her Saturday, before the body was found. She’s Noel Pittman’s sister.”

John Parker was already sitting at a four-top, coffee in front of him, when Sully walked in the next morning, nursing a modest hangover. He got a Coke and sat down.

“You checked your messages?” John asked.

“At the office? Should I?”

“That story you and the fat kid did today? Whole neighborhood is jumping. We got forty, forty-five calls asking if there’s a serial killer on the loose.”

“I didn’t say anything about a serial killer.”

“You didn’t spell the words. But ‘unsolved deaths’? ‘Concentrated area’? Don’t pussyfoot. You know how the game goes. So does Belham. He’s setting up a community meeting tonight, calling in the chief, everybody.”

“Well. I didn’t think he’d do that. But you don’t buy the cluster?”

John shrugged. “No. Not for homicide. Know what you get when you get a lot of crackheads in a small area? Lot of deaths of people too young to die. I see how you get there for a newspaper story, but coincidence doesn’t make much of a homicide investigation.” He slid a manila envelope across the tabletop, the pictures of Noel Pittman. “Adult audiences only,” he said. “Someone sent them to you in the mail.”

Sully peeked inside, thumbing through the eight-by-tens without pulling any of the explicit pictures into public view. “Wow.”

“Yeah.”

“So what was the story on these?” He got out a notebook.

“Based on the file I looked at, which didn’t have all that much, it was straight missing persons. This was last April. A family member starts pushing us on it, so a couple of uniforms looked around. Like I told you, decedent lived on the top end of the 700 block of Princeton. Ten, twelve houses up from where she was found.”

“What’d the place look like?”

“Not tossed, if that’s what you mean. I don’t have anything other than that. Report says the guys went through it. Nothing unusual about the calls on the voice mail, stuff on the computer. Her car never turned up. So it was pretty flat until this photographer guy calls us. He got wind we were making calls, thought we were snooping him. Runs a studio up there in Petworth.”

“She was a client?”

“Man said Pittman told him that she wanted the stills to send to lingerie magazines, upscale men’s magazines, like that, a portfolio. She came in for shoots in his studio, the results of which you’re looking at. First day just her, second day the girl-on-girl stuff. This about two months before she went missing.”

“What about the shooter? You scope him out?”

“Yeah, look, he’s a sleazeball, you ask me, but we didn’t find anything we could hit him for. Makes a lot of money on what they tell me is boudoir photography.”

“Housewives in the buff?”

“Something like it. Girlfriends, whatever. He shoots a lot of advertising, fashion, like that. He checked out.”

“So who’s girl number two?” Sully asked, peering into the envelope.

“Our mystery guest. Photog didn’t have a record of her name. So that was about it. File says a uniform went out to Halo. You been?”

“Once or twice. She was one of the platform girls out there.”

“So we looked at that. Report says the uniform talked to bouncers, bartenders, the guys in the kitchen. Got nothing. Well. She was scoring a little coke out there, but nothing to make any to-do over. We kept an eye on one or two of the bouncers for a while. No crazy ex-boyfriends or ex-girlfriends or whoever. She also worked part-time, a lingerie-like shop, over to Union Station. And college at Howard. Marketing major.”

“What about her car?”

“Older black Acura, two-door. From what we were told, ripped front seat, a dent in the right fender. Put out tracers. No hits.”

“Get much on her background, finances, all that?”

“Nah. Jamaican, came here when she was eight or nine. Not much family around, just a sister. She was the one pushing us to do more.”

“She did coke; she owe anybody money?”

“Not so far as I could tell from looking at the report. Look, you got to remember, this was never a criminal investigation. Missing persons only. You know how many of those come in? Pisses family members off, they want us to do more, but there’s only so much we can do if there’s nothing suggesting foul play. She owed a couple grand on the car, maybe about that on a credit card. I’m saying I don’t think the coke was a habit.”

Sully pulled out a few of the photographs.

They were black-and-white glossies. These were not hammy boudoir shots; this was art photography. He was impressed. Placing them on his lap between his chest and the table, where he could see them without anyone else doing so, he went through them slowly. There were perhaps two dozen.

Noel Pittman had honey-brown skin, shoulder-length straightened black hair, lips that formed a natural pout, full breasts, nice hips, and long legs. She seemed, in her regard for the camera, to have a sense of style, of presence. The photographs, her tousled hair, her eyes glittering. He wondered what her voice had been like. The nude photographs-lying across the bed on her stomach, looking back at the camera over her shoulder, wearing a necklace and a thong, leaning against a shower wall.

“Suspects?”

“We just got the body, partner. But no, none. At least we know now she’s not doing three-ways for a billionaire in Buenos Aires.”

“Who’s got lead on it?”

“Jensen. Good luck. We don’t call him Dick for nothing. He’s liaison to the Reese investigation, as due diligence, but this-look, this is cold-case material. We’ll look at the coroner’s report and if something comes up it’ll be followed.”

“Spot me Jensen’s cell?”

“You didn’t get it from me.” Parker consulted his phone and scribbled a series of numbers on a napkin.

“Who’s the lead on Sarah?”

“Bill, Billy Hairston. But look, I’m not kidding-not even a phone call to him, you hear? Man is overwhelmed. Can’t take a crap without the bureau guys going in the stall with him.”

Sully stood up. “Thanks for the glossies.”

“Perks up the day, doesn’t it?”

Sully walked outside, called Richard Jensen’s number, got the answering machine, and left a message. He rated his odds for a call back as zero. Jensen was two years from retirement but mentally had a foot out the door. He wasn’t going to do anything to jeopardize his pension, being quoted by some hack at a newspaper.