Neely Tucker - The Ways of the Dead

“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.

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.

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?”