Christi Daugherty - A Beautiful Corpse

August was always brutal, but this year it seemed even worse than usual. It had been over a hundred degrees every day for two weeks. The heat was relentless.

Harper shoved her auburn hair back, twisting it into a knot at the base of her neck as she surveyed the traffic backed up on Bay Street. She’d planned to get in her car and drive straight to The Library to try to find out more about Naomi and Wilson Shepherd, but it would take half an hour to get anywhere right now.

Instead, she walked toward the scene of the crime.

Already sweating, she threaded her way through stalled traffic, breathing in the acrid scent of exhaust and hot pavement. Whatever the mayor’s worries, news of the murder clearly hadn’t reached the city’s visitors yet. Tourists circulated in brightly colored crowds of T-shirts, baggy shorts and baseball caps, guidebooks shoved under arms.

As she headed down an uneven cobblestone ramp towards River Street, Harper was struck by the audacity of the murderer. All around her were people. Walking, strolling, driving. A Savannah Police car was stuck in traffic twenty feet away.

Even at two in the morning, this area would not have been empty. The Hyatt hotel stood nearby, overlooking the river. Hotels, restaurants, and apartment buildings surrounded her on all sides.

People were close the whole time.

Most murders take place in the shadows. They’re shameful acts hidden from prying eyes.

This hadn’t been a normal murder. This location made it a kind of public execution.

Down by the river, a breeze cooled her skin. The exhaust faded away, to be replaced by the smell of muddy water, and the cloying scent of burned sugar from the praline shops.

It was already busy. Kids ran through the riverfront plaza, oblivious to what had happened here a few hours ago. In the distance, a paddle-wheel riverboat, painted candy-cane red and white, sat waiting for passengers. A busker played the banjo, a battered top hat shading him from the sun as he jangled out a version of ‘Summertime’.

This was why the mayor was panicking. Why Harper and Baxter had both come to work seven hours early today.

The death of Naomi Scott threatened all of this.

Savannah lived or died by its tourist trade. A murder on this street put poison in the well.

Hurrying her pace, Harper walked down the narrow street, searching for the spot. It was hard to square the dark street from the night before with this bright, busy scene. It took a few minutes to find what she was searching for.

In the end, it was the ragged white remnants of crime tape that guided her, fluttering from the base of the lampposts.

From there, the crime scene was easy to find. Discarded latex gloves lay at the curb, along with other medical detritus, overlooked in the hasty clean-up in the dark.

The cobbles were damp – someone had hosed them down, trying to wash the evidence away. But blood stains everything it touches.

The darker stones showed clearly where the body had fallen.

She turned a full circle, oblivious to the tourists jostling her as they passed.

It didn’t make sense. Why had Naomi left The Library in the middle of the night and come here? Was she meeting her boyfriend, as the police suspected, only to be shot dead? And if so, why here of all places?

This was a crazy place for a murder.

Half an hour later, Harper parked the Camaro in a shady spot on a narrow lane on the other side of downtown.

Tucked away not far from the Savannah College of Art and Design, College Row was quiet and dingy during the day, littered with empty beer cans and cigarette butts. The short alley served no purpose except to hold two bars and a small clothes shop, known for its quirky T-shirts.

The lights were off in the Library Bar when she walked up. Its sign – an open book with a martini glass perched on it – was unlit.

When she tried the door, Harper found it locked.

‘Hello?’ she called, knocking on the door. ‘Is anyone in there?’

No response. She knocked again, raising her voice.

‘Hello?’

This time, something inside stirred. She heard footsteps shuffling across the room.

After a minute, the door opened a crack.

A rumpled, lived-in face peered out at her.

Harper barely recognized Jim ‘Fitz’ Fitzgerald, the bar’s jovial owner. Normally, he was a natty dresser, with a penchant for tweed jackets, turned-up cuffs and crisp, white shirts. Today, he wore a flannel shirt and wrinkled slacks, his thick, graying hair waved wildly.

‘We’re closed right now,’ he told her, and began to shut the door.

Harper moved quickly, angling her body so it would have been rude – if not impossible – to close the door on her.

‘Hi, Fitz,’ she said. ‘I don’t know if you’ll remember me, but I’m a friend of Bonnie’s. Harper McClain, from the newspaper?’

For a moment he didn’t react, but then recognition dawned.

‘You’re that police reporter,’ he said. ‘The one who got shot.’

Even from here, she could smell the medicinal tang of vodka on his breath.

‘That’s me,’ she said. ‘Look, I hate to bother you at a time like this, but I need to ask you a few questions about Naomi Scott.’

‘Oh, lord. I don’t know.’ He peered at her blearily. ‘Would you want to print this?’

‘I need someone who knows her to talk to me about the kind of person she was,’ she said, avoiding his question. ‘I only met her a few times, but I know she was a smart, kind person. I need someone to tell me who she was so people who never met her can understand.’

He studied her with red-rimmed eyes. ‘I don’t know if her family would want me to talk.’

‘You’d be doing them a favor,’ she told him. And this, at least, was the truth. ‘They know how wonderful their daughter was but talking to me will be hard for them right now.’

He hesitated, leaning hard against the door, one hand still poised to push it shut.

‘I’d really appreciate your help.’ Harper held his gaze steadily.

Finally, he took a step back.

‘I guess you better come in. We’re letting the air out.’

Harper followed, closing the door behind her.

Inside it was dim and cool. It smelled faintly of disinfectant and beer.

Fitz shuffled to the bar and climbed unsteadily onto a stool in front of a tall glass filled with ice and clear liquid.

Harper perched on the stool next to his.

‘I can’t understand it.’ He turned to her, his face haunted beneath that tangle of hair. ‘She was right here last night.’ He pointed across the bar to the empty space in front of the bottles. ‘She was fine. Now, they say she’s dead.’

Ice rattled as he lifted the glass and took a long, shaky drink.

It was ten thirty in the morning. If he was already drunk, Harper couldn’t imagine what he’d be like a few hours later.

She needed him to talk quickly before he passed out.

‘What can you tell me about Naomi?’ she asked. ‘What was she really like?’

‘Oh, everyone who knew her will tell you she was a great kid.’ He stared into his glass. ‘And it’s true. Hard worker. Smart as hell. Always smiling. People came in here just to see her smile, I swear. And ambitious as hell. I thought she’d be president someday.’ He looked at her helplessly. ‘Who would do this to her? Can you tell me that much at least?’

He seemed genuinely grief-stricken.

To an extent, this fit with what Harper knew of him. She didn’t encounter Fitz often – he didn’t tend to hang around on the late shift, and she rarely arrived at the bar before one in the morning. But Bonnie always described him affectionately.

‘Fitz is everyone’s dad,’ she’d told Harper once. ‘He worries about me more than my own father does.’