Tempting the Devil (2 page)

“What
can
you tell me?”

“That some sons of bitches executed three officers,” he said.

“Do you know when?”

He shrugged. “Two called in at two a.m. and said they were taking a break. I don't know about the third. They must have chanced on some kind of illegal activity. Probably drugs.”

“It doesn't look like there was a struggle.”

His eyes turned hard. “Someone got the drop on them.” His gaze left her face as he watched a photographer take photos and newly arrived officers from the police department expand the crime scene ribbon.

More people were filling the clearing now, including the first television van. She found her cell in her pocket and phoned Wade Carlton, city editor for the paper.

“I have enough for a bulletin for the first edition,” she said.

He didn't waste words but handed her off to another reporter to take the story.

“Three Meredith County police officers were found slain this morning in a clearing near Wilson Lake in the northwest corner of Meredith County. They had been handcuffed together and each shot in the back of the head, execution-style.

“Meredith County Sheriff Will Sammons said all three officers were on duty last night. Two reported in to the police dispatcher at two a.m. They and the third officer did not report in at the end of their shift, and a search was instigated. Their bodies were found at eleven o'clock this morning, on a narrow dirt road leading to the private lake.

“The three officers—as yet unidentified pending notification to their families—are members of the Meredith County Police Department. The department operates independently of the county sheriff's office.

“Sheriff Sammons said there are no immediate suspects but that the officers may have stumbled on a drug sale or stolen car operation.”

To Wade Carlton, when he came back on the line, she said, “I'll have more later.”

“I'll send Bob Greene out there,” he said.

Bob Greene was the principal police reporter for the paper. She didn't want the story taken away from her. “I know the people here. They trust me.” She took a deep breath, then said, “They don't know Bob.”

Wade Carlton hesitated, then, “Okay it's yours. For now.”

She closed the cell phone, then went over to a deputy sheriff who stood alone. When she was first assigned the county, she'd had coffee with him several times at the café across from the courthouse and had talked him into letting her ride along in his squad car for several days. It wasn't quite against rules because there were no rules regarding reporters, but she knew he'd never reported it.

They had become friends, and he'd flirted with her more than once, though he often talked about his wife and son.

“Sandy?”

He turned to her, his usually pleasant expression harsh with anger. “Damn them,” he said in a low voice. “Damn them to hell.”

“Did you know the officers?”

“Yes,” he said shortly. “Weren't close, though. Our department and the police department don't talk much.”

She wanted to keep him talking. There was a rare anger about him that was explosive. She felt it, and an angry man often said things he might ordinarily be more cautious about.

She was aware of the tension between the two agencies. The county had a sheriff's office and a separate police department that covered the same area. She'd heard about some of the turf wars. The county police operated under the county commission; the sheriff's deputies under the elected sheriff.

“Two look really young,” she prodded.

“They all have families,” he said bitterly. “One was just married.”

“What do
you
think happened?”

He cast a quick look at the sheriff, who was now talking to his second in command: Chief Deputy Paul Joyner. “What did the sheriff say?”

“They must have stumbled onto some illegal transaction and were ambushed.”

He raised an eyebrow.

“You don't think so?” she probed.

“Three cops—two of them experienced?” he said in a low voice. Then he moved away and joined the sheriff watching the crime scene investigators at work.

She talked to several other deputies but did not try to approach members of the police department who were now flooding the scene. Instead she watched as they stood in numb grief.

The thump, thump, thump of news helicopters now thrummed from above. Reporters and local law enforcement thickened the crowd. The police chief arrived with an entourage and stalked over to Sheriff Sammons. The body language was angry, and she inched toward them, only to be told to stay back.

Still watching, she limped over to the editor of the local paper, an older man with whom she'd often shared cups of coffee and exchanged information. His paper was a weekly and thus they didn't have the competition that flared between daily papers.

“Sandy tell you anything?” Hank Conrad asked.

“Nope,” she said. “Only that one was recently married. You have the names yet?”

“Yep.”

“They wouldn't give them to me,” she complained.

“You'll wait until the families are notified?”

“Of course.”

He gave her the three names. “You'll have them before my paper comes out anyway. Rather you than those TV types.”

“Do you know any of them?”

“I know all three. Good officers. Never heard anything bad about any of them.”

“About ‘them'?” She'd caught Hank's slight inflection on the word “them.”

He shrugged. “There's always rumors flying around. Never been able to pin anything down.”

“About who?”

“No one specifically.” He turned around and approached the police photographer. She was left standing there alone. Again.

And, damn it, her leg was beginning to ache, the one she'd nearly destroyed when her car flew off the road and landed in a ravine. It was getting stronger day by day, but the brace she wore was heavy, and her muscles complained when they felt misused. She tried desperately not to show it. She'd worked too hard to get this far; she didn't want to go back to an inside desk job.

She used her cell phone again to call in the names of the slain officers. It was newspaper policy not to reveal names or contact relatives until they'd been officially notified. Sometimes there was a slipup, as she knew only too well, but she knew in this case they would hold back. Having the names, though, meant they could start on background. She was glad she wasn't part of the television media where the pressure to “get there first” often clashed with ethics.

She listened as other reporters tossed questions. She never liked to ask her own while others were listening. She would ask her questions later.

When they were through, the sheriff asked the news media to leave. The detectives and forensic people needed to do their work without a media circus.

Some protested as they were moved out. But she had more information than most since she'd been in the sheriff's office when he was notified and had been one of the first on the scene. She could describe the initial reactions of anger and disbelief of first responders. Meredith County was mostly a bucolic area with few crimes, and fewer murders. Most of the latter were domestic disputes.

She couldn't shake the image of the bodies. Who would risk killing three police officers? Every law enforcement official in the state would want their heads. Every investigative tool would be used to find them.

The pure cold-bloodedness of the crime was chilling.

What secret—or secrets—was behind it?

Her mind turned over what she'd heard during the past hour.

“
Damn them
.”

“
There's always rumors …
”

She made a mental note to call Sandy and find out exactly what he knew. Or suspected.

She'd learned she had a talent for that, getting people to say more than they meant to say. She didn't have many others, but she knew how to listen. And listening was the key to getting answers to the questions she really wanted to ask.

It wasn't calculated. She had an immense curiosity. She always wanted to learn as much as she could about everyone she met, and people responded—usually—to that interest and often divulged things they'd never intended to tell.

Her mother used to scold her about it. “Curiosity killed the cat,” she'd always warned.

“But a cat has nine lives,” Robin always responded.

She wondered whether those police officers on the ground had felt the same way.

chapter two

Robin drove into Atlanta to write the story. She always thought better on a keyboard than on a phone.

As soon as she arrived at her desk, she called the police chief's office and discovered the officers' names had been released along with their ages, the number of years they'd been with the department, addresses, and immediate family information.

She wrote the story she'd already partially composed in her head and signaled to the city editor, who read it on the computer. He then gestured for her to come to his desk.

“Damn good job,” he said. “Bob Greene's calling the families and will do a sidebar on them. Your story will lead the front page.”

A strange mixture of elation and guilt filled her. And relief. Relief that she wouldn't have to call the families. Elation at the praise for her story and its placement. Guilt that she felt any elation at all.

“You keep on the story,” he said. “Work with Bob, though. He has contacts with all the law enforcement agencies.”

“So do I,” she reminded him.

She went back to the desk. The story was finished for the first edition, but there would be others, and she would be expected to add to it.

At eight, she left. Drained. Exhausted. Her leg aching like the devils in hell were pricking it with pitchforks.

Poor Daisy
. The big bushy black and white cat she'd rescued a year ago would be stalking through the house in search of food. She'd found Daisy as a kitten next to her tire one day, the kitten's skin bare with mange and half her ear gone.

The drive to her rented house in an old part of Atlanta took less time than usual, or perhaps she drove faster. She was anxious to get home, feed Daisy, have a glass of wine, and think about where she could take the story tomorrow.

She parked in front of her home, a Victorian cottage. It was small and lacked a garage but was full of character. She loved every square foot of it.

Her father had been military, an enlisted man who climbed to sergeant major. They'd lived in military quarters all her early years, usually small plain quarters that looked like every other unit, no matter which base. She'd never felt at home in any of them, nor had she ever made best friends. She knew she would be gone the next year. Or the next.

But she'd decided when coming to Atlanta she would find her nest, no matter what else she sacrificed.

The cottage always welcomed her, even on the worst of days. One day she hoped to buy it.

The murder still very much on her mind, she locked the car and went inside. Daisy meowed and wormed her furry self against one leg, then another before jumping up onto the counter, meowing soulfully for her meal.

Robin rubbed Daisy's back for a moment, and the demand turned into a purr. It was amazing what an animal could do for you, particularly when loneliness wrapped around her like a shroud. It didn't usually do that, but something about today, about death, made her want to feel alive.

She thought about calling one of her two sisters, and dropped the idea. They had problems of their own. Lark was in the midst of a divorce, and Star—short for Starling—was near term with her first child. Their mother had loved birds, and Robin had always been grateful she hadn't been named Tufted Titmouse or House Wren.

She smiled at the joke she'd often shared with Lark and Star, then the loneliness closed in again. Their mother had died two years ago from a stroke. Home had always been where she was, and now there was no longer a place to go home to.

Daisy's purr turned into a demanding meow again, jerking Robin back to the moment. She opened a can of tuna, spooned the contents into a dish and watched Daisy's greedy consumption. When the cat finished her meal, Robin poured herself a glass of wine and switched on a jazz CD. She took the glass outside and placed it on the table, then returned for her crutches.

Few things were more important now than removing the brace. For good. She could walk now without the brace as long as she used crutches and kept her weight off the left leg. She unzipped the leg of her specially tailored slacks and removed the brace. Just taking off the brace and the ugly heavy shoes it required was a huge relief. She ran her hands along the scarred skin, then balanced herself on the crutches and went outside and sat in her wicker rocking chair.

The sky was clear, the deep dark blue of dusk just lighting with stars. She took a sip of chilled wine, and wondered why she felt so lost. Usually a story of today's magnitude excited her, stirred the competitive juices. But now she remembered her mother's stroke, and her father's death in a desert far away, and she knew the despair that three families felt tonight. It was much too close to home.

She told herself to let it go. She was not often given to melancholy. She had always been an optimist, just like her chirping namesake. One of the older reporters—Jack Ross—called her his Holly Golightly, the fictional heroine from
Breakfast at Tiffany's
. She'd rented the movie after that and wasn't sure whether she was flattered or insulted.

But all too quickly, the images she tried to banish returned. How could someone get so close to armed officers? She kept trying to remember the look in Sandy's eyes. Anger. Raw anger. Or something else?

She finished her glass of wine and went inside to the room she'd made into an office. She went through her Rolodex and found Sandy's cell number. He had given it to her after learning that she often drove lonely roads at night; he'd told her to call him if she ever had car trouble.