Christi Daugherty - A Beautiful Corpse

The city editor strode across the room, her blunt-cut dark hair swinging against the shoulders of her navy blazer. Dells was right behind her.

‘Crap,’ Harper whispered.

The managing editor usually didn’t get involved in the crime beat. But this one must be big enough to attract his attention.

‘What’ve you got on River Street?’ Baxter asked as she neared Harper’s desk. ‘Why does Miles say you know the victim?’

Out of the corner of her eye, Harper saw DJ’s head bob up.

‘I don’t really know her. I just happened to be in the bar where she works last night,’ Harper explained, glancing at Dells.

‘Perfect,’ Baxter snapped. ‘Do me a first-person, emotional account – “A Brush With Death”. It can run alongside your main piece on the shooting.’

Dells stepped forward. As always, he was impeccably dressed, in a dark-blue suit with a crisp white shirt that looked like it cost more than her car, and a pale blue silk tie. His dark hair was neatly styled.

‘What do we know so far?’ he asked. ‘The TV stations haven’t got much.’

‘The dead woman is Naomi Scott – a second-year law student.’ Harper flipped open her notebook. ‘Seemed to be your basic all-American girl. Left work at one thirty, died of two gunshot wounds. Found with her purse but not her phone. Cops aren’t saying if it was robbery. Nobody knows what the hell she was doing down by the river.’

‘Do we know who her family is?’ Dells asked. ‘Are they locals?’

‘I think so,’ Harper said. ‘Her father’s Jerrod Scott, I’m trying to track him down now.’

Baxter peered at the half-empty notebook. ‘Is that all you’ve got?’

‘Come on.’ A defensive note entered Harper’s voice: ‘I was in the police station half the night.’

‘We’re holding most of the front page for this,’ Dells told her. ‘The TV stations are going to be all over it.’

‘I’ll start making calls,’ Harper said.

‘Good.’ Baxter’s tone was brisk. ‘I want to know who this girl was. If she was so perfect, how’d she end up dead in the street at two in the morning? Call the mayor’s office. Ask her what she’s going to do about people getting shot in the middle of the damned tourist district.’

Dells headed back to his office. Baxter followed, turning so fast her jacket flew off one bony shoulder.

Her last words floated behind her like a cluster bomb: ‘Do it fast. We need something for the website, now .’

When they were gone, DJ swung around to look at Harper, brown eyes wide behind smudged, wire-framed glasses.

‘Dude. You drank in her bar and then she died?’

Harper nodded.

He looked impressed. ‘Tell me something – do you ever think you might be cursed?’

Shooting him a withering glance, Harper logged in to her computer.

‘I’m busy, DJ.’

‘I’m only saying it’s worth a thought,’ he said, spinning back toward his own desk.

It was a bad joke but, as Harper hurriedly checked out the stories about the shooting on the local TV station websites, she found herself thinking about it, nonetheless. After all, Naomi wasn’t the first murder victim in her life.

The first murder victim had been her mother.

Harper had discovered her body on the kitchen floor when she was twelve years old. That still unsolved homicide set off a chain of events that led to her close relationship with the police.

It had also led to everything that happened last year, when Lieutenant Smith was convicted of a murder that had mirrored her mother’s killing in every way.

Breaking that story – and becoming part of it when she was shot by Smith – had raised Harper’s profile; ensuring her position at the newspaper, even in these shaky financial times.

Still, Baxter wasn’t one to stand on history. She needed a steady stream of juicy crime stories to anchor the front page. Even without police cooperation, Harper could provide that. She had her ways. She knew the system better than anyone.

As long as she could keep the headlines coming, her job was safe. She hoped.

Picking up the phone, Harper dialed the mayor’s office number. It rang five times before an assistant answered.

‘Thank you for calling Mayor Cantrelle’s office, how can I help you?’

‘This is Harper McClain at the Daily News . I’d like to ask the mayor some questions about the shooting on River Street last night.’

‘She’s in a meeting.’ The assistant’s tone indicated she wasn’t the first to call. ‘I’ll ask her to get back to you.’

‘Make it quick, would you? We’re in a rush.’

‘As I said,’ the assistant sounded unmoved, ‘she’s in a meeting.’

While she waited for the mayor to call her back, Harper opened an internet search engine and typed: ‘Naomi Scott’.

A flood of false returns filled her screen. A blogger with 40,000 Twitter followers dominated, along with a Chicago attorney.

When she added ‘Savannah’ to the search, though, she found what she was looking for.

It was a social networking site for students at the Savannah State College. The picture on Naomi’s page was arresting. Her shoulder-length black hair hung loose in waves. Her unblemished skin, high cheekbones and huge, cinnamon eyes gave her an ethereal beauty.

Harper stared at the familiar face for a moment.

‘What did you get yourself into?’ she murmured.

The short bio beneath the image said: ‘Young, free, and ambitious. Ready to change the world.’

It listed her area of study as criminal law. The only other information was a phone number and a student email address.

Leaving the landline open for the mayor’s call, Harper picked up her cell and dialed Naomi’s number.

It went straight to voicemail.

‘Hi. This is Naomi. Leave a message.’

Hearing the dead woman’s familiar voice was chilling.

Harper hung up and then immediately dialed another number. This one she knew by heart. As it rang, she stared at the picture of the vibrant young woman with her challenging eyes.

The ringing stopped abruptly. ‘Savannah Police Public Information.’

The voice was male and breathless – as if he’d snatched up the phone while running in search of a fire extinguisher. She could hear other voices in the background and people typing – the sounds of a busy office.

‘This is Harper McClain,’ she said. ‘I’m looking for whatever you’ve got on the Naomi Scott murder from last night.’

‘You and everybody else,’ he said. ‘What do you want to know?’

‘The basics. Got any suspects?’

‘Nothing I can tell you on that.’

‘You looking for the boyfriend?’ she tried, already knowing the answer but also suspecting he wouldn’t verify it on the record.

He snorted a laugh. ‘Is this some sort of hoax? Or do you have any real questions?’

Harper tried a new angle. ‘Could you verify that her wallet was found in her bag?’

She heard him typing something.

‘That’s affirmative,’ he said.

‘Money in the wallet?’ she asked, propping the phone under her chin as she made notes.

‘Affirmative.’

In that case, it definitely wasn’t a robbery. Miles’s source had been right.

‘But her phone was MIA?’ she pushed it.

‘That is what it says on my screen,’ he said, adding, ‘Right now we don’t know if she lost it, left it at home, or got shot for it.’

Harper knew she hadn’t left it at home. Bonnie had seen Naomi take a call less than an hour before she left work.

‘Any witnesses?’

There was a pause, and she heard him clicking keys on his computer.

‘Negative,’ he said, after a second. ‘No witnesses have come forward. The body was found by two members of the public, walking home from a party at the Hyatt hotel.’