Pretty Dead (11 page)

“When she left, I thought she was taking a cab. Woulda given her a lift if I’d known she was walking.”

Elise and David sat in a dark bar called the Chameleon. Both of them were drinking iced tea with pink umbrellas while interviewing the bartender, a guy of about thirty with a lot of face jewelry and a neck tattoo.

“Did anything unusual happen two nights ago?” Elise asked.

“It was pretty normal.”

“Any interactions with customers that caught your attention?” David added. “Anybody you’d never seen in the bar before. Someone who might have struck you as a bit odd?”

“We get the regulars, but we also get tourists, so a new face isn’t going to stand out, ya know?”

“Did Caroline mention anybody? Or act in the least unusual herself?” Elise asked. “We’re looking for someone who might have been watching her, a person she might have served.”

The guy thought a moment, then shook his head. “We were fairly busy for a weeknight, so I was focused on my job. I didn’t know what was going on beyond filling my orders.”

Elise gave him her card and told him to call her if he thought of anything.

“We’re going to need copies of all your receipts for the evening,” David told him. “We’re especially interested in credit card signatures and the tables Caroline waited on.”

“Each waitress has a specific number, so it’ll be easy to sort out Caroline’s.”

While they waited for the owner to go through the receipts, they ordered sandwiches and fries. Someone turned on the television in the corner, and a short while later there was Mayor Chesterfield on the screen, a cluster of microphones in front of him.

“We’re bringing in an FBI profiler,” he said. “A specialist.”

“I was under the impression the Savannah Police Department had its own profiler,” someone said.

“We have an officer who used to be a profiler for the FBI, but that’s no longer his job description. The expert we’re bringing in is the best in the country.” A close-up of the mayor. “I want to make sure another young woman doesn’t lose her life. I want to make sure another parent doesn’t lose his daughter to this madman.”

“Would you care to comment on what took place today at the crime scene with Homicide Detective Elise Sandburg?”

“That was an unfortunate incident that I deeply regret,” the mayor said. “And I hope Detective Sandburg will accept my sincerest apologies when I next see her.”

“Can you give us the name of the FBI agent you’re bringing in? The specialist?” a woman off-screen asked.

“Special Agent Victor Lamont.”

David inhaled sharply.

“Know him?” Elise asked.

“We trained and worked together at Quantico. Roomed together for a while too.” His voice was strained.

“Is he good?”

“He thinks so.” David tossed his pink umbrella aside and took a long swallow of tea. Elise got the idea he would have liked for it to have been something stronger. He put the glass down but didn’t look at her. “An arrogant prick, unless he’s changed.”

“I don’t care how obnoxious and arrogant he is if he can help us catch this guy.”

After a long silence David pushed his half-finished sandwich away and dropped back in his chair. “I don’t think I’ll be able to work with him.”

“You’ll have to put aside your differences. Be adult.” She pinched her straw between two fingers and looked up at him. “What did he do? Short-sheet your bed?”

“No.” The next words came as a reluctant admission. “But he slept in it.”

She let go of the straw.

“When I was in Washington State working on the Puget Sound case, that bastard was back in Virginia sleeping with my wife.”

CHAPTER 15

V
ic Lamont.

It was a name David had hoped to never hear again, the man himself someone David sure as hell had hoped to never
see
again. But the biggest shock of the day wasn’t finding out that Lamont was coming to Savannah; it was finding out that the mere mention of the bastard’s name made David’s heart pound and his mouth go dry.

Savannah was miles from David’s old life, both literally and figuratively. He’d planted new roots here. Started over. He had friends, and, except for the constant ache caused by the loss of his son, he thought he’d put the past behind him.

Enter Vic Lamont.

People trick themselves into thinking they’ve moved on. That’s what it was. David had made progress during his waking hours, but sleeping was another story. He dreamed about the people who’d caused him so much pain—those people being his now-dead ex-wife and Lamont. And in that dream, David was a hero. He saved his son’s life over and over, arriving home in time to pull him from the tub, alive and breathing. Good versus evil, and good won.

But the blackness was back, eating a hole in his gut so it could live and sleep and spread dark thoughts. It had been close to two years since David had felt this bad. Shaky and helpless and distracted, while at the same time wanting to drive a fist through the wall. In the past, the things he turned to were prescription drugs, alcohol, and sex with strangers. All seemed nice choices right now.

In an attempt to distract himself from impulses that in the end would only make things worse, David lay down on the couch and grabbed the remote control. His Siamese cat, Isobel, jumped on his stomach and settled herself on his chest, just below his chin, purring loudly while David worked his way through channels until he came to the last five minutes of the eleven o’clock news. Footage of the crime scene. A bit about the mayor and Elise. The female anchor didn’t come right out and say that the mayor had struck the head of homicide.

“Public disagreement,” she called it. The report concluded with the Twitter photo of Elise. It looked like a mug shot.

David shut off the television and was contemplating taking Strata Luna up on her open offer to send him a prostitute, when his phone rang. He checked the screen, saw a photo of Elise’s unbruised face. He didn’t answer. She was too perceptive. Back there at the bar a few hours ago she’d tried to get him to spill his guts, but he’d told her nothing other than the few words about Lamont sleeping with Beth. That was all she needed to know.

The phone stopped ringing. A minute later the screen brightened and a banner appeared, indicating a message. He was about to listen to it when the phone rang again. Knowing Elise wouldn’t give up, he answered this time.

“Want to talk about it?” she asked.

David struggled to pull himself out of the black pit. He made an attempt to sound adequately level, a combination of chirpy and irritated. “If I wanted to talk about it, I would have talked about it earlier. No, I don’t want to talk about it.”

“Just checking. Did you see the news?”

“Caught the tail end of it. They’re calling it a public disagreement.”

She let out a dry laugh. “I heard that. Are you home?”

“Yes.”

“Alone?”

“Yes.”

A pause. “Maybe you shouldn’t be by yourself.”

Damn. She knew he was fighting a meltdown. Was she calling to lend an ear, or make sure he didn’t arrive at work tomorrow with a hangover or still drunk? He was struggling to formulate a casual and reassuring reply when a knock sounded on the door. Isobel let out a cry of alarm, jumped off David’s chest, and vanished into the bedroom. Typical MO. Figuring it was Elise outside his apartment, he said, “You didn’t have to come over.” He got up from the couch and opened the door, the phone still in his hand.

Not Elise.

But close.

Standing in the dark hallway was Jackson Sweet. The man had stopped by a few times, but not often, and never this late.

“Gotta go.” David ended the call before Sweet could say anything and alert Elise to the visit. She was already upset enough over David’s association with her father, slight as it was. David, of all people, knew what betrayal felt like, and he didn’t want to be the one serving it to Elise, but he also wasn’t going to ignore someone in need.

Without invitation, the older man stepped inside.

Sweet’s clothes had a limp, unwashed sheen; he needed to shave, and he smelled like a trash fire. Was he no longer staying at the shelter? David wondered. But lacking a permanent address and looking like a street person didn’t diminish the power Sweet projected.

The folklore about Elise’s father was that he had a hard-to-define thing about him. A
thing
. People talked about how his presence filled a room. That was true. But it wasn’t overt. And it wasn’t anything he deliberately projected. It wasn’t calculated. It just
was
. A kind of cool and laid-back quality that emanated from his pores. It took a lot to impress David, but Sweet impressed him.

The man closed the door, then pinned David with eyes reminiscent of Elise’s. “I’ve been following the news about the murders,” he said with a voice that was slow and deep and as Georgian as a Southern plantation. “I want to help.”

“I appreciate the offer,” David told him, “but we typically don’t use anybody outside the department unless they’re FBI or Georgia Bureau of Investigation.”

“I can interview witnesses and suspects. That’s my strength.”

Oh man. Elise would love that. “Probably not a good idea,” David said.

Getting straight to the point, Sweet said, “Coretta contacted me.”

David frowned in surprise. “And?”

“She asked me to come in tomorrow. I just stopped by to let you know. I thought maybe you could break it to Elise.”

Holy hell.

David had long suspected that Coretta hadn’t left her Gullah heritage far behind, so it shouldn’t have been a surprise to find that she’d reached out to Jackson Sweet in a time of crisis. But to bring him in to help with the case? Maybe interrogate suspects? Somebody wasn’t going to be happy about that. Hell,
David
wasn’t happy about it.

David offered Sweet something to drink and eat, but the man declined and didn’t hang around. Once he’d vanished into the dark hallway and the door had closed shut behind him, David called Coretta, hoping there’d been some mix-up.

Nope.

“We have to use whatever resources are at our disposal,” she said.

“Involving Sweet is a bad idea.” It felt weird and wrong to be talking to Coretta about work outside of headquarters. Which was probably a sign that their relationship, or whatever it was, shouldn’t be happening.

“I didn’t ask for your opinion,” she said, clearly angry that he was taking what she probably considered Elise’s side in this.

He was tempted to bring up the fiasco that had been the press conference, but he decided her chilly response wasn’t inviting any more criticism.

“I want you and Elise to go over the details of the case with Mr. Sweet,” Coretta told him. “Bring him up to speed.”

“Even the information we haven’t yet released?” This was getting odder by the second. He didn’t want to think it, but he’d sensed that Coretta was jealous of the relationship he had with Elise. Was Coretta doing this to torment her?

“Yes. Everything. And David? I’ll break the news to Elise tomorrow morning at a meeting in my office. I want you and Jackson Sweet to be there.”

David disconnected and headed for his bedroom and hopefully sleep; he was dreading tomorrow. But the Jackson Sweet twist had brought with it an unexpected consequence. David was no longer fixating on Vic Lamont.

Standing in the kitchen, Elise contemplated going to David’s apartment to make sure he was really all right, but she’d have to either leave Audrey alone or drag her out of bed to bring her along. Both bad ideas.

Instead, she dug out the business card Jay Thomas had given her the day they met. She hadn’t bothered to enter his number into her phone. She did so now, then called him.

A groggy voice answered, and she checked the clock: 11:35 p.m. “This is Detective Sandburg.” She heard rummaging, heard the click of what sounded like a lamp switch, and imagined him in bed, dressed in striped button pajamas, fumbling for his glasses.

“Has there been another murder?” Jay Thomas asked, his voice edged with sleep.

Elise opened the refrigerator, stared at a few shriveled oranges and a pizza box, then closed the door. “No.” At least not that they knew of. “I’m calling for a couple of reasons. One, to thank you for intervening earlier today. And two, to tell you to remove the YouTube video you posted.” She found a bag of chips in the cupboard, set her phone aside, and opened the package, corn tortillas scattering across the counter.

“That YouTube video isn’t mine,” he said. “I swear. I wouldn’t do that.”

“But the Twitter photo is?” she asked, grabbing the phone.

“Um, yeah.”

She’d tell him to delete his post, but the damage was done. The photo was trending.

“I already talked about this with Detective Gould,” Jay Thomas said.

“You’re talking about it with me too.” She scooped most of the chips back into the bag and folded the top down. “Are you writing a piece on what happened today? Because if you are, let me remind you that you have a contract.”

“This doesn’t fall under the boundaries established in the agreement I have with the police department. It’s current news.”

“You wouldn’t have been privy to it if you hadn’t been with me.”

“I disagree.”

“I’ve felt bad about treating you with suspicion. Not anymore.”

“I’m sorry, but I have a job to do. Report the news. I could have sold that photo of you, but I didn’t. I posted it to Twitter to circumvent anyone else who might try to do that.”

“Noble of you.” Pure sarcasm. “If I see a sensationalized story about the altercation with your byline, we’re done. Don’t expect to get in a car with me again.”

She disconnected and began eating chips off the counter.

CHAPTER 16

E
lise dreaded being summoned down the hall to Major Hoffman’s office. The visits were known to involve a reprimand, often dealing with something David had or hadn’t done. And now, since David and the major were dating—well, that put a new spin on things.

Unlike some police departments where walls were glass and afforded little privacy, most offices in the ancient building that housed the Savannah PD were private and full of dark wood and high ceilings. Even the newer updated areas were nothing like the contemporary spaces portrayed in modern cop shows.