Killing Kate: A Novel (Riley Spartz Book 4) (25 page)

Often while cranking out news stories, I found myself wishing I didn’t have to stick to facts . . . thinking what a tale I could spin if I wasn’t bound by reality. But rules are rules. Now as I tried to write fiction, I found myself craving facts because after a career in journalism, making stuff up felt like cheating.

“Hey, Riley, do you want any coffee?” Laura must have wanted to give me a caffeine boost so I wouldn’t fall asleep before completing the job.

“Stop interrupting me,” I told her.

To get me in the mood to write erotica, I decided to seek a male point of view. So I dialed my beau. I started off telling Garnett about the “Taunting Teresa” messages, which he found riveting.

“You must be crashing to make air tonight, Riley. I’m surprised you even had time to call me.”

That’s when I told him about my suspension. And my ghostwriting plan to finish Desiree Fleur’s latest book.

“So you’re writing pornography instead of news?” he asked.

“No, erotica,” I said. “There’s a difference. Porn is just sex. Erotica is emotion and art.” At least that’s what I told myself. “Listen, Nick.” Then I read one of the hot manuscript pages to him.

“Well, maybe you should fly out here to DC and let me help you with your research.” Garnett’s voice had a husky tone that I recognized from our close encounters.

“You know how much I hate flying.” It was probably unfair, but most of the travel in our long-distance relationship fell on Garnett because it was easier for him to find a business reason to come to Minneapolis than for me to fly out to our nation’s capital. “Maybe you should come here to collaborate, Nick.” I tried uttering the invitation with a come-hither tone.

“As much as I’m tempted, Riley, I have a security meeting dealing with all the controversy over the new full-body airport scanners. Hey, that might be an interesting segment for your novel. The X-rays are quite explicit.”

Those naked images would certainly make the book topical. I told Garnett I’d consider that idea. I summarized
Sexpocalypse
for him, how global economies, politics, and military powers stalled because of the sexual chaos. Garnett made some intriguing suggestions for the terrorist characters, and I took down notes.

“Something big and unexpected has to happen next in the plot,” I said. “I think the ending needs a burst of spontaneity.”

“If you were more spontaneous, Riley, you’d be on your way to the airport now, counting the minutes until we, well, you know what I’m alluding to.”

“I’m much more spontaneous than you, Nick. No job is more impromptu than covering news.”

“Well, spontaneity has its time and place.”

And while I didn’t say it out loud, I never forget that I once married a man I barely knew for a week. And those vows were the height of spontaneity.

Garnett and I didn’t talk much about my deceased husband, Hugh Boyer. They’d known each other casually in law enforcement circles, and he was among the hundreds of uniforms who drove bumper to bumper to his funeral. Bringing up Hugh would bring up the topic of marriage, and that wasn’t something I wanted to discuss over the phone.

“Since you’re suspended from work,” he said, “you have more flexibility to travel right now. You could research those body scanners on your way to see me.”

“But tomorrow I’m back in the news saddle, so I guess our fantasies are going to have to play out a thousand miles apart. In the meantime, I’m back to ghosting sex.”

“Well, you know what they say, women need a reason for having sex,” he said, “men just need a place.”

“Well, as much as I’d like to use that adage in my erotic prose, I believe Billy Crystal in
City Slickers
, 1981, said it first.”

And then I suddenly came up with the perfect steamy outcome
to
Sexpocalpyse.
I promised Garnett to read it to him when I finished. And he whispered a few sweet nothings to me before wishing me a productive night without writer’s block.

So I wrote and rewrote.

“How’s it going, Riley?” Laura tapped on the door to make sure I was still typing.

I ignored her because I was in the middle of a tense scene.

“Are you still awake?”

“Leave me alone, Laura.”

I had a feeling book clubs might enjoy discussing my ending and even sharing private passions.

I only hoped my parents would never find out I wrote it, nor any of their church friends. Or my bosses at Channel 3. They’d probably invoke the unsuitability clause in my contract to fire me. I didn’t think they’d settle for a one-day suspension.

I
stayed up much too late. Laura was zonked on the couch when I finally wrote The End. I was tired of typing. I was tiring of her company. I was just plain tired.

Crawling under the blankets, I think I fell asleep before my eyelids shut. By the time I yawned and stretched myself alert, the newsroom huddle was long over. When I arrived at the station, I pretended thinking I’d been scheduled for the afternoon shift. The bosses couldn’t really yell at me because my story was marked for the late news, and the producer wanted me live on the set.

That made a plenty full day.

((SOPHIE BOX))
CHANNEL 3 HAS DISCOVERED
A POSSIBLE CLUE IN A FOUR-
STATE SERIAL KILLER CASE THAT
SUGGESTS THE MURDERER MIGHT
HAVE TIES TO THE TWIN CITIES.

((SOPHIE TWOSHOT))
RILEY SPARTZ JOINS US WITH
MORE ON THE INVESTIGATION.

Even though Chuck’s ratings value as a viewer was gone, I had called him to watch anyway, hoping his girlfriend might have mentioned the email threat to him.

((RILEY CU))
CERTAINLY ONE OF THE
VICTIMS . . . KATE WARNER . . . IS
LOCAL, HOWEVER, POLICE HAVE
MAINTAINED NOTHING SUGGESTS
THE KILLER IS.

((RILEY NAT))
BUT CHANNEL 3 WAS SENT AN
ONLINE MESSAGE THAT MIRRORS
AN EMAIL MESSAGE SENT TO
WARNER BEFORE HER MURDER . . .
THE TEXT OF BOTH READS
“TAUNTING TERESA IS TEMPTING
DEATH.”
BOTH WERE SENT FROM
COMPUTERS AT THE MINNEAPOLIS
PUBLIC LIBRARY, PRESUMABLY
FROM TWO ACCOUNTS WHERE
PATRONS FORGOT TO SIGN OFF.
THE STATION’S MESSAGE
APPEARED IN A VIEWER COMMENT
FOLLOWING A STORY I REPORTED
NOTING THE SIMILARITY BETWEEN
THE SHAPE OF THE BLACK ANGEL
STATUE OF IOWA CITY AND CHALK
OUTLINES AROUND THE BODIES OF
THE THREE HOMICIDES.

To get viewers’ attention, I like holding up props on set and explaining their importance. Noreen’s favorite props are baby animals. For this story, I used the
Black Angel Lace
book. The cover would have been considered too risqué for the early newscasts, but this was past ten PM.

((RILEY HOLD UP BOOK))
THE SAME MESSAGE, “TAUNTING
TERESA IS TEMPTING DEATH”
ALSO APPEARED HANDWRITTEN
IN THE FRONT OF A BOOK KATE
WARNER WROTE TITLED
BLACK
ANGEL LACE
. . . THAT I FOUND IN
HER HOUSE . . . WHERE SHE WAS
MURDERED.

Sophie and I had gone over a couple of questions for her to ask me on the set, so news control cut to a twoshot of us.

“Riley, have you been able to compare the handwriting in the book to Kate’s?”

“Yes, Sophie, we found known samples of her handwriting and it appears quite different from the inscription in the book.”

“Any idea who Teresa might be?”

“The only Teresa reference I’ve come across in this entire investigation is the name of the woman who commissioned the Black Angel cemetery marker nearly a hundred years ago: Teresa Dolezal Feldevert.”

My phone was ringing as I reached my desk. Chief Capacasa was on the other end of the line . . . furious. He was yelling so loud it was hard to hear what he was saying, but finally he quieted enough for me to understand him. But even then I could feel his anger from the other end of downtown.

“Listen, you should have come to us with that information rather than blasting it all over the air.”

“Why, Chief? So you can feed my work to the competition?”

I was looking for assurance that that was all a misunderstanding and would never happen again, but he ignored my question.

“I am putting you on notice, Ms. Spartz, that my team is drawing up a search warrant right now and will be demanding the murder victim’s computer and inscribed book first thing in the morning, just as soon as we can get a judge to sign off on it.”

I was about to tell him not to bother with a warrant, that I’d just hand the items over to the homicide department. But I remembered Miles, the station attorney, was firm on not giving up tapes, notes or any evidence without a subpoena or a warrant. And sometimes not even then.

Channel 3’d been involved in First Amendment court battles before. We’d won some, lost some. As a compromise, I decided to recommend to Miles that we simply comply with the search warrant and turn over the items. If we appealed, the cops would argue they had no other means of obtaining this specific evidence. They’d be right, and the judge would order us to acquiesce. Viewers might assume we were thwarting law enforcement and protecting a killer, all in the name of freedom of the press. At least that’s what the police would argue to the public.

So I told the chief, “Fine, I’ll be waiting.”

D
olezal watched as Riley Spartz waved the book with his handwriting on television in front of a world of admirers. He smiled at the recognition of his effort, especially grateful his work was not attributed to an undeserving.

He remembered mailing the package to his victim on a trip to Iowa City as a signal to expect him. The book proved that he knew Kate Warner was Desiree Fleur. The inscription and postmark warned of his wrath over her disrespect of his dear Black Angel.

He had arrived at Kate’s house after dark. He’d been observing her long enough to know she sometimes had a male visitor, but not this night. She opened the front door for him when she saw he held a legal document from the office, supposedly requiring her signature. He followed her inside, hitting the lock behind him while she hunted for a pen.

“I have one here,” he assured her, as he pulled the bloodstained bat from his briefcase.

That’s when she understood why he came wearing gloves. Kate tried fleeing, but found the legend firm. No escaping the curse of the Black Angel.

A
fter Chief Capacasa’s tirade, I called Noreen and Miles at their homes to brief them about the sudden police interest in our story.

Now we were sitting in the news director’s office before most of the rest of the staff had arrived, except Xiong. I’d asked him to come in early and download everything from Kate’s computer so we’d have a copy.

Black Angel Lace
and the laptop were now sitting on top of Noreen’s desk. She turned the cover facedown, confirming my belief she had issues about sex.

“I agree,” Miles said. “If the police have a legal subpoena, we will comply and turn over the items they seek. If we balk, they may approach the sister and technically the material belongs to her.”

“We can report handing the stuff to law enforcement, can’t we?” Noreen asked.

“Certainly,” he answered.

I ad-libbed a news lead so we could all be on the same page.

((RILEY SOT))
CHANNEL 3 HAS PROVIDED
EVIDENCE TO THE MINNEAPOLIS
POLICE THAT AUTHORITIES
BELIEVE MIGHT BE CONNECTED TO
THE MURDER OF A LOCAL AUTHOR.

Noreen looked at Miles for approval as he nodded at the gist of the script. Over the loudspeaker, we heard a voice call out, “Riley Spartz, you have a visitor at the back door.”

“I’ll escort them here,” Miles said.

“Let me get a camera in position first,” I replied. “I want video of them carrying out the book and computer.”

I had hoped they’d send a uniformed officer for better TV, but instead Detective Delmonico, in plainclothes, showed up with a badge and paperwork.

Miles reviewed the subpoena with lawyer eyes, and signed the correct line. Malik rolled the whole encounter on video while I tried to chat with the homicide detective about the direction of the murder investigation.

“Do you think this message connects the killer to the Black Angel statue or to the Twin Cities?” I asked.

Seeing he didn’t have to be polite to gain cooperation, he ignored me. He did sign the subpoena, indicating the station had complied with the request. Then he handed a copy to our attorney, and picked up the computer and book. He had also wanted the “Taunting Teresa” comment from the Channel 3 website, but Miles told him it was available to the public online.

Malik and I trailed him out the door until he climbed into a unmarked vehicle, me asking questions, Malik shooting tape.

“Did he tell you anything?” Noreen asked when we returned.

“No,” I said, “but let’s see how far they get without the password.”

The neighborhood mother-in-law called me an hour later to report the police were back on the street in front of Kate’s house.
They’d stretched yellow-and-black crime scene tape around the property again.

“Did they say why?” A murder investigation stays open until the case is solved. But once a crime scene is cleared, the cops are generally finished with that location.

“They just told me to keep my eyes on the block and call if I noticed anything unusual,” she said. “But I have to go now. I hear Johnny crying.”

Access to the crime scene via Laura was the main advantage I had over the other media. That relationship had gotten me the angel chalk outline and more. The police were unlikely to talk to me about the current situation with the property. But as the homeowner, Laura had rights. They might be forced to discuss it with her.

“I’m uncomfortable around the police,” Laura told me as we sat at my kitchen table. “I don’t want to meet with them.”

“I’ll be with you,” I assured her. “Remember, the longer that crime scene tape stays up, the harder it’s going to be to sell the house.”

That argument convinced her.

“It’s best we get this resolved before the weekend,” I said, telling her to grab her purse and I’d drive downtown. She fumbled with an oversized bag stuffed with papers and climbed into the car. On the way, she thanked me for writing the ending to her sister’s book.