Crime Beat by Scott Nicholson Read Free Book Online

the distance.”
    “You only came up from Raleigh to pad your mileage.” I wasn’t going to let her intimidate me, though she did, a little.
    “No, the boss told me to take a few days and write a series. They’ll be talking about it all over the state. If the cops link the two killings, then you’re going to start getting some big boys in here, Fox News and CNN. Then we’ll see how fast you and John Moretz get pushed to the side.”
    I didn’t like the sound of that, but it was likely to happen. Even a homegrown hero like Hardison would have his head turned by a chance to go national. All I could do was hope the Rebel Clipper stayed small but still sold papers.
    “What say we go out to dinner and compare notes?” I said.
    She winced. “That could be dangerous.”
    “This is strictly professional.” I tested a lie. “We’re not competing, since our audiences don’t overlap.”
    “What about Moretz?”
    “He’s got to cover the town council tonight.”
    “Well, you probably know more than you’re putting in the paper.”
    “Actually, less.”
    She frowned.
    “Kidding,” I said. Those big-city reporters sure take everything seriously.
    “So, where do you think he’ll strike again?”
    “First, we’re not sure this is a serial killer, and second, this could be some sort of coincidence.”
    “The coincidence is Sycamore Shade has averaged about one murder per year for the last decade, and now there are two in the last couple of weeks? And a lot more violent deaths since Moretz got here?”
    “We can get into all that over dinner.”
    “Thanks, but I don’t fraternize the enemy.”
    As she pushed her way out of the room, one of the television heads yelled at her for shoving the camera during his stand-up. She didn’t even pause, just slapped her notebook against her hip loudly enough to disturb the radio people who were calling in their live reports.
    I wish I could afford to hire her, but no way could I compete with big-city salaries. Besides, even though she shot me down on dinner, Moretz was eating her lunch.
    And I don’t think she liked it.

 
    8.
    Victim Number Three floated up 17 days later.
    Moretz had been fidgety around the office, killing time with a few drug busts, an exclusive interview with the second victim’s husband, and the arraignment of the mayor’s son, in which Wilbanks pleaded “Not guilty” and had his bond set at $50,000.
    Kelsey Kavanaugh filed her series entitled Murders Shake Sleepy Mountain Town , and life was more or less back to normal.
    Loraine Shumate, 33, was found on the far side of the lake in the state park, less than a mile from the first murder scene. A couple of boys with fishing poles and cigarettes discovered the body, but Moretz somehow found out and got there before the police and rescue squad. I’d asked him to check around the first murder scene, so he must have been pretty close when the call came in.
    To his credit, he resisted the urge to drag the body out of the water and search it, although he did get several dozen pictures of the face-down corpse stuck in the muddy reeds, a ragged gash around her neck. He also talked to one of the boys, who asked if she had been killed “by that Clipper guy.”
    Shumate’s throat had been slashed, probably with a straight razor. She was dressed in a lavender jogging suit, her hair streaming out in a ponytail. She must have been putting in some miles on the wooded trails when the killer jumped out, gave her an extra smile, and tossed her in the lake.
    A jurisdictional squabble erupted, with Hardison trying to seize the case while the SBI pulled their “state property” card and claimed superior resources. Both the sheriff and the SBI yelled at Moretz, with Hardison threatening to charge my reporter with tampering with evidence. But Moretz stuck with it until the body was pulled from the water and loaded into an ambulance two hours later.
    Best of all, we still had an hour before deadline.
    “No clippers