Read Online The Ways of the Dead by Neely Tucker - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Neely Tucker
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Escobar was involved in prostitution and believe the killing was related to that trade.
Another young woman, Noel Pittman, a part-time student at Howard University, disappeared April 24 of last year. A call to the telephone number listed on a flier asking for help finding her was not returned yesterday . . .
Sully looked at the clock: 7:15. A kicker and he was home. Flipping through his notes, he remembered he hadn’t said anything else about the strip club, after mentioning it in the lede. If he came back to it now at the end, it would appear as if he’d intended that all along.
Les Samuels, who runs the strip club, said residents and neighbors were not indifferent to the Reese slaying. He was in his office in the back of the club yesterday afternoon, filling out paperwork for the array of city and law enforcement agencies that license his establishment.
“What people don’t want,” he said, “is trouble they ain’t already got. People got plenty of trouble all by themselves. A rich white girl gets killed up the street? That’s a fresh lot of trouble. That’s something you want to stay about a million miles away from.”
“Sullivan!”
He hit the send button. “Yours!”
The bathroom, a place to walk to. Water ran from the tap in a cold torrent, and lowering his face to the sink, he cupped his hands to catch it, splashing it over his face. A damp hand through the hair and he looked up to the mirror. The scars were there, like bones melted by fire, by electricity. He thought of his house and its silences, awaiting him like an entombing crypt, and he did not want to go there, did not want to be left alone with his thoughts.
Back at the desk, he read through his notes for fact-checking, checked the names to be sure, and then Melissa was waving, beckoning him. She had made a few tightening and clarification changes. She called the story up in layout, so they could see the front page and how it was displayed.
There was no one else nearby, but she lowered her voice anyway, part of that bullshit hey-I’m-doing-you-a-favor air of familiarity she liked to convey. “Fabulous work today, Sullivan. It saved us. Now. Look. Really need you at the Reese house tomorrow. They’re making some sort of statement at one.”
He blinked. She needed to whisper to hand him a lame-ass assignment like that?
“Chris—let’s let him get that,” he said. “Lemme push the investigative side, something related to the manhunt but not precisely on it.”
She looked away from the screen and at him, not pleased with the push-back. “Thanks, but cops are Chris’s beat. Jamie is working the feds. I need a real pro out there with the family. This statement, or whatever it is, isn’t going to be much, but I know you can do something with it. We’ll box it on the front.”
“A statement? You’re serious?” He was whispering back, as if they were trading stock tips. “You’re sending me out to McLean to take
dictation
? Send a shooter and an intern.”
“No,” she said firmly, holding his gaze now. “I need a scene setter. It’s a Sunday. Nothing else is going to develop on a Sunday. I need you to do just what you did today: Write the story onto the front page. The family statement, you know, pathos, the eternal grief of parents of murdered children.”
“Reese and I have a certain history—”
“Which nobody cares about,” she said. “You two are both professionals. Surely a tiff several years ago will not affect either of you when it comes to the murder of his child.”
“A
tiff
?” It burst out of him, loud and hot, before he could stifle it. “He tried to get me fucking
fired
. He leaked me intel and then tried to say it—”
“So you always said,” she shot back.
“Screw you,” he said, standing up. “Just fuck that—”
“Sullivan,” Edward Winters cut in, looking like he was pulling the leash on a poorly trained dog. Starched striped shirt, tie, hair swept back in a perfect coif, he seemed
Another young woman, Noel Pittman, a part-time student at Howard University, disappeared April 24 of last year. A call to the telephone number listed on a flier asking for help finding her was not returned yesterday . . .
Sully looked at the clock: 7:15. A kicker and he was home. Flipping through his notes, he remembered he hadn’t said anything else about the strip club, after mentioning it in the lede. If he came back to it now at the end, it would appear as if he’d intended that all along.
Les Samuels, who runs the strip club, said residents and neighbors were not indifferent to the Reese slaying. He was in his office in the back of the club yesterday afternoon, filling out paperwork for the array of city and law enforcement agencies that license his establishment.
“What people don’t want,” he said, “is trouble they ain’t already got. People got plenty of trouble all by themselves. A rich white girl gets killed up the street? That’s a fresh lot of trouble. That’s something you want to stay about a million miles away from.”
“Sullivan!”
He hit the send button. “Yours!”
The bathroom, a place to walk to. Water ran from the tap in a cold torrent, and lowering his face to the sink, he cupped his hands to catch it, splashing it over his face. A damp hand through the hair and he looked up to the mirror. The scars were there, like bones melted by fire, by electricity. He thought of his house and its silences, awaiting him like an entombing crypt, and he did not want to go there, did not want to be left alone with his thoughts.
Back at the desk, he read through his notes for fact-checking, checked the names to be sure, and then Melissa was waving, beckoning him. She had made a few tightening and clarification changes. She called the story up in layout, so they could see the front page and how it was displayed.
There was no one else nearby, but she lowered her voice anyway, part of that bullshit hey-I’m-doing-you-a-favor air of familiarity she liked to convey. “Fabulous work today, Sullivan. It saved us. Now. Look. Really need you at the Reese house tomorrow. They’re making some sort of statement at one.”
He blinked. She needed to whisper to hand him a lame-ass assignment like that?
“Chris—let’s let him get that,” he said. “Lemme push the investigative side, something related to the manhunt but not precisely on it.”
She looked away from the screen and at him, not pleased with the push-back. “Thanks, but cops are Chris’s beat. Jamie is working the feds. I need a real pro out there with the family. This statement, or whatever it is, isn’t going to be much, but I know you can do something with it. We’ll box it on the front.”
“A statement? You’re serious?” He was whispering back, as if they were trading stock tips. “You’re sending me out to McLean to take
dictation
? Send a shooter and an intern.”
“No,” she said firmly, holding his gaze now. “I need a scene setter. It’s a Sunday. Nothing else is going to develop on a Sunday. I need you to do just what you did today: Write the story onto the front page. The family statement, you know, pathos, the eternal grief of parents of murdered children.”
“Reese and I have a certain history—”
“Which nobody cares about,” she said. “You two are both professionals. Surely a tiff several years ago will not affect either of you when it comes to the murder of his child.”
“A
tiff
?” It burst out of him, loud and hot, before he could stifle it. “He tried to get me fucking
fired
. He leaked me intel and then tried to say it—”
“So you always said,” she shot back.
“Screw you,” he said, standing up. “Just fuck that—”
“Sullivan,” Edward Winters cut in, looking like he was pulling the leash on a poorly trained dog. Starched striped shirt, tie, hair swept back in a perfect coif, he seemed
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