Chasing Venus (3 page)

Ahead she could see her
house.
 
With none of the lights on,
it didn’t look welcoming.
 
It was a
rambling, rundown yellow Victorian with cockeyed front steps.
 
Several of its black shutters were one
storm away from falling to pieces.
 
It needed a paint job and a security system and since it was a rental it
wouldn’t get either.

Helms stopped the
cruiser and
Pincus
got out to open her door.
 
She thanked them and hightailed it
indoors, aware of two pairs of eyes on her back.

Inside the house, she
double-locked the door, hooked the chain, then went around and switched on
every lamp she owned.
 
When the old
house was lit up like a Christmas tree, she headed for the kitchen and pulled a
Gatorade from the fridge.
 
Then she
sat down at the small pine table tucked into the corner beneath the curtained
kitchen window.

You have to stop thinking about the murders.
 
You’re not getting enough writing done.

It was so difficult to
focus.
 
And tomorrow she had to
attend Maggie Boswell’s funeral, which would bring it all back full-force.
 
But Michael had asked her to go with him
and she couldn’t refuse, not after everything he’d done for her over the years.

Nobody’s coming after you.
 
Keep your eye on the ball.
 
Write.

Her next deadline
wasn’t far off.
 
And she had to meet
it, with a fabulous manuscript.
 
The
best way to build her name was to get those books out thick and fast, keep her
readership captivated.
 
This was her
chance to break through.
 
She
couldn’t let it slip away because she turned into a
basketcase
.

That’s just what Philip would expect you to do.

No greater motivation
existed.
 
“That’s it.”
 
She levered herself up from the chair,
tossed a frozen burrito in the microwave for dinner, and marched upstairs to the
spare bedroom she used as a study.
 
She’d shower later.
 
For now
she’d work.
 
She clicked on the file
for chapter seventeen and settled in.

There was only one
murder mystery she would let herself dwell on.
 
The one in her own imagination.

*

Reid Gardner sat by a
bank of phones in
Crimewatch
’s
Hollywood studios.
 
Past 2 AM, it
was chilly and deserted, with most of the overhead lights off and the rest
dimmed.
 
In the newsroom behind him,
the cleaning lady clattered, emptying trash cans, occasionally running the
vacuum, humming a tune he couldn’t name.

Still he waited, even
four hours after the show had gone off the air; still he hoped for one more
call to come in on the viewer hotline.
 
He loved when that happened.
 
It meant they were getting a tip from someone who’d seen the show, a tip
that might end up putting a fugitive behind bars.
 
That night, like every other night for
the past five years, there was one scumbag in particular Reid wanted to take
down.

An incoming call button
flared red.
 
Phone headset on, fresh
tipsheet
on the computer screen, Reid jabbed the
button.
 
“
Crimewatch
hotline.”

“Yeah, I got
somethin
’ to say.”
 
The caller was male, youngish.
 
Per usual.

“Go for it.”

“That Espinoza dude on
your show tonight?”

Damn.
 
Not Reid’s personal Most Wanted.
 
Still, of the ten they’d profiled on the
broadcast, an important grab.
 
“You
know where he is?”

“Not right now.
 
But I seen him.”
 
Cocky.
 
Per usual.

“You’re sure it was
him?”

Silence.
 
Not a good sign.
 
Then, “Yeah, I’m sure.”

Right.
 
This call was rapidly moving south on
the priority list.
 
“Where?”

“Outside Omaha, dump of
a town called Murdock.”

Reid shook his head but
moved his fingers dutifully over the computer keyboard.
 
Unlikely.
 
The last place they’d been able to
confirm Espinoza’s whereabouts was South Florida.
 
“That off interstate eighty?”

The guy chuckled.
 
“Hey, pretty good, man.
 
Nobody ever knows
jackshit
about Murdock.
 
You got a big
ol
’ map there or
somethin
’?”

“No.”
 
Except for the one in Reid’s head.
 
Bagging fugitives wasn’t a desk job.

The guy on the line
paused.
 
Then, “Who is this,
anyway?”

No point lying.
 
“Reid Gardner.”

“No shit!”
 
He pronounced it
shee
-it.
 
“You the host and you answer the
friggin
’ phones?
 
In the middle of the night?
 
Not for me, man.
 
If
 
I was you, I’d be
livin
’
large.”

“Not my style.”
 
He noted that Sheila Banerjee had come
into the newsroom.
 
The scent of
patchouli was the first clue.
 
The fact
that they were the only two staffers left in the building was the other.
 
“Anyway, give me what you got on Espinoza.”

That didn’t take
long.
 
In the meanwhile Sheila hiked
a slim hip onto the table beside Reid’s phone and swung her right leg lightly
back and forth, keeping her sandal on with a graceful arch of her toes.
 
The soft fabric of her skirt swished rhythmically,
lulling Reid into remembering just how tired he was.

He finished the call
and peeled off his headset, then leaned back in the rolling chair and pinched
the skin between his eyes.

“Finally ready to call
it a night?”
 
Sheila’s voice was
soft, her Delhi accent more pronounced in the wee hours.

He raised his head to
regard her.
 
“You didn’t have to
stay.”

She said nothing, just
met his gaze.
 
And really, there was
nothing to say.
 
It wasn’t just
loyalty to her producer job that kept Sheila Banerjee at her desk well past
midnight, and they both knew it.

She looked away.
 
“There was one tip tonight that might be
worth something.”

He knew which one.
 
“I saw it.”

She read his skepticism
and arched her brows.
 
“You don’t
think it’s any good?”

He shrugged.
 
“They all look good until they look
bad.”
 
Until they lead to the same dead end
.
 
Abruptly he rose, sending his chair
rocketing backwards.
 
“I want to
look at the story one more time.
 
I’m not sure I worded everything right.”

“We went over it so
many—”

“I know.”
 
He was already in the control booth, the
lights of the high-tech electronic equipment blinking red and white in the
chilly, darkened room.
 
He pulled
the show archive off the shelf, then popped the tape in a deck and scanned for
the segment on Larry “Eight Ball” Bigelow.

The man he hunted above
all others.
 
The man who’d changed
his life.
 
The man who’d ended
Donna’s.

Sheila was beside
him.
 
“There.”

Reid slowed the tape,
paused it as a photo of his nemesis filled the small screen.
 
It wasn’t a great shot but it was the
only one they had.
 
There was
Bigelow, his skinny body in a white muscle shirt and worn jeans, bending over a
pool table with a cue in hand.
 
Though
it was hard to see here, Reid knew Bigelow had a
tatt
on his right bicep, a black 8 ball featuring the capital letter B instead of
the numeral 8.
 
He seemed intent on
measuring a shot, so much so that his mouth hung open, revealing a missing
tooth or two.
 
Straggly blond hair
half hid his unshaven face.
 
And
though his eyes weren’t visible, Reid had his own mental picture of their
ice-cold blue depths.
 
He knew the
devil lurked within them.
 
The devil
himself.

For years we’ve tracked him.
 
Reid’s recorded voice boomed in the silent booth
.
 
We’ve gotten close a few
times, thanks to the tips you’ve given us.
 
Those of you who are longtime viewers know this one’s personal for me.

There were a few
details about Donna’s murder.
 
Bigelow’s vital stats appeared on the screen: age, height, weight.
 
A red line crisscrossed a map of the
country, showing his known travels to Reno, Cheyenne, Duluth, and back
again.
 
The map cut to Reid in a
nighttime standup, wearing his signature jeans and leather jacket, in front of
a graffiti-spattered wall.
 
His blond
hair was cropped short; the bump on his nose from that brawl in college more
than any makeup artist could shade away.
 
He looked like the cop he used to be.
 
Only the uniform was different, and the
LAPD badge was long gone.

No one is safe with this punk on the streets.
 
Reid was embarrassed by the
intensity of his voice.
 
To his own
ear, it bordered on desperation
.
 
He’s a killer.
 
I want him to pay.
 
Help me bring him to justice ...

Sheila stopped the
tape.
 
Reid closed his eyes,
listening to the word
justice
bounce
off the control-room walls like a ball he could never quite catch.
 
“You worded it just fine,” she said.

He couldn’t speak.
 
He’d never used that kind of phrasing
before, on the air:
This one’s personal …
I want … Help me …

“I know,” she said, as
if he’d actually spoken.
 
“But our
viewers will understand.
 
And
they’ll help if they can.”

He didn’t look at her
as he ejected the tape and returned it to the archive shelf.
 
“You think we’ll ever get him?”

It took her a while to
answer.
 
Finally, “Yes, I do.”

“We don’t always, you
know.”
 
He turned to face her.
 
He didn’t say,
We didn’t get yours.

Like Reid, like many of
the staff, Sheila was a crime victim.
 
Maybe it was no surprise that so many victims were drawn to working on
the show.
 
Sometimes it felt like
more of a calling than a job.
 
Sure,
they could make TV like the best in the business.
 
They understood the bells and whistles
and quick cuts and handheld-style video that gave cop-type shows their raw
edge.
 
But they knew something else,
too, something you didn’t learn in TV and film school.

Sheila’s expression
remained stoic.
 
She never mentioned
the rape anymore.
 
It’d been years
since she made Reid give up the search, stop airing the scumbag’s profile.

Reid couldn’t
understand that but he knew that every victim made his or her own choice about
how to get on with the rest of their life.
 
That’s what it was, too.
 
There was Before it happened, and After.
 
Before you intersected with evil, when
you didn’t think it could happen to you, and after, when you knew it could.

Together they abandoned
the booth, shut down the studio for the night, and rode the elevator to the
subterranean parking garage.
 
Reid
accompanied Sheila to her car as a courtesy.
 
The building was secure as a
fortress.
 
Given the hate their work
generated in the scum-of-the-earth population, it had to be.

Sheila settled herself
in her white Jetta and rolled down the window.
 
She seemed to hesitate, then, “Do you
want to come over to my place for a nightcap?
 
It might help you relax.”

He couldn’t let himself
go down that road again.
 
It would
be no more fair to Sheila now than it had been then.
 
“Not tonight.”
 
He kept his tone light.

She nodded.
 
He got the idea his refusal came as no
surprise.
 
“Tomorrow do you want to
meet here or at the airport?” she asked.

“At the airport.”
 
The flight left at 9 AM.
 
It’d be another short night.

“The funeral is at
noon.
 
You have the background file
I gave you?”

He nodded.
 
He had it; he just hadn’t read it.
 
He couldn’t focus on the segment about
the writer murders until the Bigelow profile aired.
 
He was too hyped about whether a good
tip might come in.