Got the Life (A Nicki Sosebee Novel) (8 page)

Nicki drew in a deep breath.  She hadn’t expected him to be so…violent.  But what did she expect from someone accused of arson?  She forced her sweetest smile.  “I just wondered if you wanted to tell your side of the story.”

“What story?  The one where they’re saying I set fire to that house?”

She nodded and looked down at her notes.  “Yes.  They’ve charged you with
four
counts of arson and one count of criminal mischief.  But you’re innocent until proven guilty.  So my job is to provide readers with both sides of the story.”

Edwards
grabbed his crotch, a silver skull ring on his middle finger glinting in the sunlight that fell in the doorway, and said, “You can tell your readers to suck it.”

That was it.
  If he wanted to be rude, she could be rude back.
  Nicki held her pen to her pad and asked, “Can I quote you?”

She stepped back when Edwards threw the screen door open, and it barely missed clipping her.  “You think that’s funny?”

She continued backing up when she heard a voice in the doorway.  “Hey, man, she’s cool.  Back off.”

“She’s a
puta
, Carlos.  I don’t need this kind of trouble.”

Carlos stepped out of the house, placing his hand on Edwards’s shoulder, stopping the volatile man’s progress.  “She’s cool.  I know her.”  Edwards looked at Carlos, a sneer on the younger man’s face.  “She’s just doing her job.”  At last,
Carlos
made eye contact with Nicki.  She could see the questions in his eyes, but
she knew there was
no way he going to let Edwards harm her.  She was grateful for that.  Carlos said, “If you don’t want to answer any questions, you can tell her that.  But do you really think it will help your case any if you harass this poor woman?”

Edwards rolled his eyes.  “What-the-fuck-ever.”  He looked over at Nicki
and flipped her off with both hands
.  She’d never been looked at with that much contempt before.  The sneer on his face reappeared as he said, “No comment.”  He turned around, Carlos’s hand dropping from his shoulder as he walked back to the house.  “Bitch.”

Great.  So now she was a bitch in multiple languages. 
And that was after being called sweet in Spanish just earlier that morning.  How things change
d
.

Carlos turned around, watching Edwards reenter the house.  He walked closer to Nicki, a small smile on his face
, wrapping a protective arm around her shoulder
.  “So, I take it this is one of your other jobs?”

Chapter Nine

THERE WAS NO
question in Nicki’s mind:  Edwards was guilty as hell.  Too bad she had to be balanced and fair in her reporting.  She’d love to tell the fair citizens of
Winchester
exactly what she thought about the man.

She knew she’d been lucky Carlos was there.  So apparently Edwards’s family were
the friends
Carlos
had in
Winchester
.
  Carlos rushed her out of there, but not without giving her one last kiss at her car.  He said he liked
her
outfit as he shut her door, then walked to the sidewalk again, waving her off.

What was Carlos’s connection to Edwards?  Did it matter?  She looked at her car clock as she drove away.  She still had over an hour before her appointment with the Assistant DA.  She didn’t want to just sit
in their lobby waiting
for an hour, so she decided to get a coffee at the Winchester Café and read the
Colorado Springs
paper,
the
Gazette
.

She ordered a venti caramel macchiato and found the paper.  She sat in a corner, away from the glare of the sun.  Sh
e wanted to see if the Springs’
paper had anything about the Edwards case.  She spent half an hour browsing through the paper and found nothing.  She wasn’t surprise
d
, though.  Edwards was back in
Winchester
County
, and
Colorado Springs
had enough of its own crime and misery than to follow the story here.  Besides, nothing had really happened yet:  Edwards had pleaded not guilty and was out on bail.  To a big paper like
the
Gazette
, it was no big deal.

She fe
lt wired leaving the café
. 
Should’ve ordered the grande instead.
  The sugar and caffeine had her hyped up, but it was just as well.  She’d been feeling tired before the coffee.  That darned Carlos keeping her up most of the night.

She grinned.  She’d do it again if given the choice.

She arrived at the District Attorney’s office ten minutes early and told the receptionist that she had
a
n
appointment with
Paul Sanders.  The receptionist asked her to have a seat and she picked up her phone.

Nicki turned around, taking in the lobby.  It wasn’t much to look at—beige carpet, off-white vinyl chairs, and a wooden coffee table that looked out of place.  There were several magazines on it, but she didn’t feel like reading.  She reviewed her notes and the questions she’d written and felt prepared when Assistant DA Sanders opened the door.  “Ms. Sosebee?”
  She stood, smiling and extending her hand.  Sanders managed a weak smile in return but did give her a firm handshake.  “Follow me.”

As Nicki followed Sanders down the hall, she was pleased to notice that the employee area was better cared for than the lobby.  Sanders’s office was plain—off-white walls, mahogany desk, three chairs, and a well-stocked bookshelf along one wall—but functional…and neat.  He had a desk calendar, a pen, and two file folders on his desk, along with a phone and PC.  That was it.  And everything was aligned in square angles—there was nothing just strewn on his desk; everything had been purposefully placed.

So this guy was anal.

That told Nicki to be to the point…no chit-chat, no niceties.  She thought she could manage.  Sanders said, “So you have some questions about the Edwards case, is that right?”

She nodded.  “Yes.  Detective Wright told me I’d have to speak with your office about the case.”

His lips pursed together.  Sanders seemed to be a humorless sort of guy.  Nicki guessed this because he had a severe line between his eyebrows but no laugh lines by his lips.  His brown hair was thinning and almost nonexistent on top of his head, and he wore round wire-rimmed glasses.  “Well, as you know, we have charged him with one count of criminal mischief and
four
counts of first-degree arson.”  She nodded.  “What else would you like to know?”  He paused.  “Have you seen the arrest affidavit?”

She paused, forcing herself to keep her mouth closed. 
Arrest affidavit?
  And why hadn’t the kind Detective Wright offered that to her?  Asshole.  She finally spoke.  “No, I haven’t seen it.”

“I can get you a copy.  It would probably answer any questions you might have.”  She nodded. 
Yep. 
It
might.
  He stood.  “I’ll have the secretary make a copy for you.  You can still call if you have other questions after reading
it
.”
  He handed her his business card.

She felt so stupid.  Sean was going to love hearing about how the cop fucked her over.  She probably could have had a great story yesterday if she’d known…  The good news?  This would never happen to her again.  She guessed Neal was right:  she
was
a rookie, and everyone knew it.

Sanders walked her back out to the lobby.  He handed the receptionist a file.  “Marla, can you please make copies of the arrest affidavit for Ms. Sosebee?”

She nodded, then took the file and turned around to the copy machine behind her.  Sanders said, “Nice to meet you,” then l
et the door shut between them.

Nicki stood by the desk
and waited while Marla
flipped through the file and then copied two
sheets of paper.  She turned around and handed them to Nicki.  “Thanks,” she said and walked out the door.  Now she had a lot of work to do.

She decided to work at home on her laptop.  She got home and changed into a pink tank top and short white shorts and made a peanut butter and strawberry jelly sandwich.  Then she sat down and pored through the papers in front of her.  She could see the story unfold in front of her eyes. 
She turned on the laptop, first finding Slipknot’s
Iowa
CD in the media player
and cranking it
.  She wrote best to Slipknot, and she needed a great story today.  So she decided to
present
what the arrest affidavit told her:  She summed up that charges were filed against Edwards (something anyone who’d been reading the paper would know by now), and then she began to nail down the facts of the case thus far.  Edwards was the younger half-brother of Michael Sterne, also charged in the case, who had—thus far—eluded capture.  As Neal had told Nicki a couple of days ago, the police had an APB out for Sterne’s arrest,
but he was not yet in custody.

According to the arrest affidavit, one Charles Baker of
Colorado Springs
had fires set to his home two months earlier, and those fires destroyed the house.  Charles Baker was dating Sterne’s ex-girlfriend, Melissa Jacobs, the month prior to the fires.  The arrest affidavit went on to state that Sterne’s cell phone was pinging off towers in W
inchester County on April thirtee
nth, the day and time of the fires, and Edwards’s phone was pinging off towers in Colorado Springs in return.  There were also multiple calls made between the two men during the time of the fires.  In March, Sterne had been arrested already with an assault charge.  Baker had been visiting Jacobs in
Winchester
at the time
and Sterne had gotten in Baker’s face over it
.

So now
Nicki
knew how the police had figured it out, but she still didn’t understand why the men were being charged in
Winchester
instead of in
Colorado Springs
.
  She found Paul Sanders’s business card and dialed it on her cell phone.  She knew she’d wind up getting the secretary, but maybe he would call her back right away since he’d offered to answer further questions.

“Assistant DA Sanders.”  Well,
hello
.  She had his direct line.  This could
come in
handy.

She smiled.  “Hi, Mr. Sanders.  This is Nicki Sosebee.  I’ve gone over Jason Edwards’s arrest affidavit, and I do have one question.”

“Shoot.”  Maybe not as humorless as she’d originally imagined.  She was glad to hear that.

“Why are Edwards and his half-brother being charged in
Winchester
instead of
El Paso
County
?
”  She cleared her throat.  “This is on the record, by the way.”

She could hear a smile in Sanders’s voice.  “I assumed so.”  He paused.  “Edwards and Sterne are being charged here because Sterne was first arrested when he assaulted Charles Baker.  That criminal activity occurred in
Winchester
County
, not
El Paso
.  And, further, the two men planned the arson here in
Winchester
County
as well.”

Nicki jotted his information down.  “How do you know they planned the arson here?”

Sanders didn’t answer at first.  “I’m not at liberty to say.”

Didn’t matter—he’d already said it…
on the record
...so she would quote it.  She didn’t have to say
how
they knew.

“Is there anything else you think I should know?”

“No, I don’t think so.  Those are the questions I would’ve asked in your shoes.”

Nicki hoped that Sanders would turn out to be a solid contact in the DA’s office.  Even if not, he’d been of immense help today.  She finished writing out her story, including at the end that Sanders had refused to comment
.  She then pounded out a first paragraph that told—in true journalist fashion—the most important but bare-boned facts of the story
, and then emailed it to Neal.  She followed up with a phone call, letting him know the story was on the way.

And she still had two hours before she had to go to
Napoli
, so she decided to go brag to Sean about her killer story.

Chapter Ten

NICKI’S CELL
PHONE
rang
just as she was grabbing her purse and heading toward the door.  Even though she hadn’t programmed the number into her phone (yet), she recognized the number as Carlos’s.
  She was curious and paused inside
the doorway
to answer it.  “Hello?”