THREE TIMES A LADY Page 11

  ‘Ouch,’ Templeton said. ‘I’m sorry to hear that, but I’m happy as hell to hear you’re finally out of the hospital. We were all really worried about you.’

  Dana smiled. ‘Thanks, Gary. Listen – before you say anything else, I want to apologise to you for the way I spoke to you the last time we were together. It was uncalled for and you didn’t deserve it. You were just doing your job and protecting the crime scene. It was completely my fault, no two ways about it. I was way out of line and it won’t happen again.’

  Templeton paused. After a moment or two, he cleared his throat. ‘Don’t worry about it, Dana,’ he said. ‘The stress of the case was getting to all of us back then, including me. It’s perfectly understandable. Anyway, I’m sorry to catch you right when you got home. You must need your rest. I’ll give you a call later on tonight or tomorrow morning, OK?’

  ‘No, Gary, I’m fine. What’s up?’

  Templeton cleared his throat again. ‘Ah, nothing. I’ll handle it myself.’

  Dana stretched her neck and fought back a sudden swell of irritation inside her chest. She just couldn’t help herself. She knew that Templeton was just trying to be polite, not wanting to bother her; especially since the last time they’d spoken their nerves had been frayed to the point of snapping. Still, polite or not, his reluctance to tell her what he’d called about was a little bit aggravating too. ‘If I ask you pretty please will you tell me?’ Dana asked.

  Templeton laughed. Obviously, bygones really were bygones when it came to this man, and thank God for that much. When Gary Templeton buried a grudge, it stayed buried, bless his heart. Much as she’d done with Maggie Carter, Dana found herself thinking that she could probably learn a thing or two from the veteran Cleveland cop, too. Steal a page from Templeton’s playbook and cut people a little bit of slack from time to time. And why not? After all, to err was human but to forgive was divine, right?

  Just so long as you weren’t asking forgiveness for murder.

  ‘OK, Dana,’ Templeton finally relented. ‘I’ll tell you what I’ve got to say if you absolutely insist on hearing it, but I’m warning you right now that you’re not going to like this one little bit.’

  ‘I’m a big girl, Gary. Try me out.’

  ‘I need your help again,’ Templeton said without further preamble, referencing the fact that it had been him who’d called Dana in on the Cleveland Slasher case. ‘Christian Manhoff was found lying dead in the middle of Prospect Avenue while you were recovering in the hospital.’

  Dana searched her memory until she remembered the name. Even though another murder was the last thing in the world she felt like dealing with right now, her investigative mind nonetheless sprang into action processing the information, the mental equivalent of a whiplash reflex. Much like cockroaches and the seemingly never-ending trend of tourists sporting fanny packs to go along with their white sneakers and black dress socks, it seemed, old habits died hard.

  Finally, Dana seized upon it.

  Christian Manhoff was something of a local celebrity around Cleveland – a ‘super-fan’ of the Cleveland Browns, the erstwhile, blue-collar city’s professional football team. That is, if you wanted to count a bumbling squad that seemed to drop the ball every bit as often as they caught it as ‘professional’.

  The cartoonish image of Christian Manhoff filled Dana’s mind. An obese three-hundred-and-fifty-pound man, Manhoff had gained a certain measure of national celebrity by dressing up in an orange-and-white plastic hardhat and a ‘dawg’ mask while going shirtless and sporting nipple rings in the frigid winter air at the Browns games each Sunday afternoon. With his seat situated near one end zone in Cleveland Browns Stadium – a section of the stadium known affectionately around the city as ‘The Dawg Pound’ – Manhoff often got an abundance of face-time, or at least mask-time, on ESPN during its post-game wrap-up shows. But with a visage like that representing the city, Dana wasn’t at all surprised that the rest of the country still viewed Cleveland as a joke. Situated on the shores of Lake Erie, Cleveland’s ‘Mistake By The Lake’ tag still hadn’t worn off yet – and probably never would at this rate. And guys like Christian Manhoff did absolutely nothing to burnish the city’s hopelessly tarnished image.

  Dana caught herself mid-snark, mentally berating herself for her pissy attitude. When in the hell had she become so goddamn heartless? So cold and uncaring? She’d never liked to speak ill of the dead before – or even think ill of them, for that matter. In most cases, anyway. Especially not the recently dead. Wrapping the telephone cord around her finger until it cut off her circulation, shame heated up her cheeks while Templeton filled her in on the rest of the story.

  As Templeton spoke, Dana gathered that Christian Manhoff had been found naked and lying dead in the middle of a downtown street with a large rawhide dog bone shoved halfway down his throat – a favourite prop of the Browns’ ‘super-fans’. According to Templeton, the ME had concluded that Manhoff had choked to death on the bone, though Dana didn’t think that eight years of advanced schooling had necessarily been required to come up with that unsurprising diagnosis.

  ‘There is something else,’ Templeton said when he’d finally finished bringing Dana up to speed.

  ‘What’s that?’

  Templeton hesitated. Then he blew out a slow breath and went on. ‘There was also a picture of your brother attached to one of Manhoff’s nipple rings.’

  Dana’s stomach flipped over inside her gut. For one terrifying moment there, she couldn’t even breathe. Her world swam in and out of focus before clearing up again suddenly in a dizzying flash of colour. Her knees buckled hard. ‘What?’ she asked, hoarsely.

  ‘Yeah, I know,’ Templeton said. ‘It’s fucking weird. The photograph wasn’t there at the initial crime scene, but the ME said he discovered it when he went to do the autopsy.’

  Dana glanced over at the digital clock on her stove, holding on tight to the edge of the kitchen counter for balance. ‘Where are you now?’ she asked.

  ‘Down at the station house.’

  ‘Where’s Christian Manhoff’s body?’

  ‘At the coroner’s office.’

  ‘I’ll be there in half an hour to pick you up.’

  Templeton let out a relieved breath. ‘Thanks, Dana. I really appreciate it. I’m really sorry for dropping this shitstorm into your lap right after you got out of the hospital, but I really didn’t know who else to turn to. I owe you one.’

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ Dana said. ‘I’ll see you in half an hour.’ Hanging up the phone, Dana felt a familiar thrill boil away deep in the pit of her stomach, completely chasing away the vertigo despite the overwhelming shock of having been thrust smack-dab into the middle of yet another homicide investigation featuring a very personal connection to her.

  The thrill of the chase.

  Dana took in several deep breaths through her nostrils and steeled herself for what would come next. Hell, maybe she wasn’t crazy, after all. Maybe she’d just been born for this kind of work. Had been born to chase killers. God knew that she loved it – all the horrible collateral damage usually involved notwithstanding. And much like the rest of the country, anything concerning Nathan Stiedowe – even peripherally – fascinated the hell out of her.

  Besides, Gary, Dana thought as her gaze drifted upward and landed on the fresh bottle of Jim Beam sitting on top of her refrigerator next to a roll of paper towels. It’s me who owes everybody else. Crawford, Eric, Jeremy… all the others…

  And now it was time for her to pay up.

  CHAPTER 13

  After finally discarding the silly white lab coat in favour of her worn brown leather bomber jacket, a fuzzy green scarf and a pair of faded blue jeans – tucking her Glock 17 into her shoulder holster to complete the hastily thrown-together outfit – Dana exited the elevator on the ground floor of her apartment complex and rushed out the front door of the lobby to go meet up with Templeton at the station house downtown. Her heartbeat hadn’t slowed down one bit
since she’d first hung up with the Cleveland cop, and judging from the incessant thumping still banging away against her ribcage, she highly doubted that it would anytime soon.

  Preoccupied with thoughts of her brother and how he might tie into Christian Manhoff’s brutal murder, Dana didn’t notice the television news crew that had been lying in wait for her just outside the main doors until it was already too late. Clever as the sleight of hand might have been with the doctor’s outfit at the hospital, apparently the press hadn’t been fooled for long. Still, Dana was happy the misdirection had worked for as long as it had. After all, she certainly hadn’t expected the press to stay in the dark for ever on the subject of her whereabouts. They were just too good at what they did; too hungry; too goddamn relentless.

  As was usual with television journalists, everything happened very quickly from there. Before Dana knew what was going on, lights from three different cameras blinded her and a microphone was shoved into her face. A second boom mike was lowered just above her head while a young man with perfect hair stepped forward in the middle of the pack and smiled his perfect teeth at her, each one of his dental veneers every bit as bright and dazzling as the lights blazing forth from the cameras. The powerful lights sliced through the foggy winter air with all the efficiency of a paper cut, stabbing Dana’s thoroughly shocked brain via her woefully unprepared eyeballs.

  Dana blinked rapidly against the blinding lights and counted the number of figures huddled in a rough semi-circle around Colgate’s poster boy. Four. The lead reporter had come with a full crew in tow, and why not? This story could be his ticket out of Cleveland and onto bigger and better things. Los Angeles, perhaps. Maybe even New York City itself – the holy grail of TV news.

  ‘Agent Whitestone,’ the man said with a melodramatic flair that he’d no doubt been practicing in front of his bathroom mirror each and every night for the past five years now, refining it and redefining it until it sounded as smooth as processed honey, both to his own ears and to the ears of his viewers. ‘Brent Price, Channel Four News. You walked right past us at the hospital, didn’t you?’

  The reporter narrowed his bright blue eyes beneath his carefully coiffed brown hair to let Dana know she’d been caught red-handed and there was nowhere left for her to hide. ‘Didn’t you?’ he repeated.

  Dana forced back a swell of anger in her chest. Wasn’t easy. ‘I have no idea what you’re talking about, Mr Price,’ she said, putting her head down and hustling past the journalists, making a beeline for her car parked forty-five feet away. She really didn’t have time for this crap right now. Having never been anything less than a total gentleman a day in his entire life, Gary Templeton would no doubt be waiting for her on the kerb downtown, and Dana didn’t want to keep the Cleveland cop standing out there in the cold any longer than she absolutely needed to.

  Not that she was going to get off the hook that easily, of course.

  The newsman laughed and shuffled his feet to block Dana’s path, slipping momentarily on a patch of black ice beneath his brown dress shoes and temporarily losing his balance. Flinging out his arms wildly to his sides, Price regained his equilibrium quickly, but otherwise looked like an adult who was attempting to ride a skateboard for the first time in his life. Still, once he’d regained his balance, Price acted as though nothing had happened at all. Not even a single flicker of acknowledgement on his handsome face that he’d come perilously close to smashing out all his pretty veneers against the hard ground.

  Dana watched all this unfold in amazement. Not a single hair on Price’s head had moved out of place despite his near-fall and the fact that the healthy wind swirling around the parking lot called to mind a certain famous fictional tornado that had once dropped an entire house on a wicked witch sporting ruby-red slippers.

  Dana shook her head in bewilderment. No matter how long she lived, she knew she’d never understand where TV folks got all their confidence from. Still, she highly doubted it came from industrial-strength hairspray or ten pounds of pancake make-up. No, it was something else. Maybe a complete lack of self-awareness, an utter inability to step outside your own body and view yourself through the eyes of others. A complete lack of the self-consciousness Dana seemed to have been born with. Whatever it was, though, Dana knew that she could probably use some more of it herself. A lot more of it. She hated knowing that she didn’t even trust herself any more. How in the hell could she expect other people to trust her?

  And in her job, trust was everything.

  Still – much like a cat’s love – trust was something that needed to be earned. Or, in her case, earned back. Starting with Gary Templeton and Christian Manhoff’s grieving family. No matter how hard it might seem to accomplish, Dana knew she needed to regroup mentally, to show everybody she hadn’t cracked, that she was still capable of doing her job properly. And maybe, just maybe, even excelling at it every once in a while.

  ‘Sure you don’t know what I’m talking about, Agent Whitestone,’ Price persisted, turning down the corners of his mouth to indicate that he wasn’t buying her story. ‘Nice try, though. I guess you really didn’t want to talk to us, huh? Anyway, it’s a good thing for me that my source on the inside finally coughed up the information. The rest of those idiots are still waiting for you outside Fairview General.’

  Price cast his gaze up into the menacing winter skies above and clucked his tongue with false concern. ‘The poor bastards. It’s going to get dark pretty soon and our weather guy says that it’s supposed to get viciously cold out here tonight. Can you believe that? Helluva way to describe the weather, huh? But that’s what he said. Viciously cold. I’ve never heard it described that way before, have you?’

  Dana ignored Price’s question and forced herself not to glare, even though the sneaky newsman had taken all of about three seconds to get underneath her skin. Still, Dana knew that she looked like a stark raving lunatic whenever she glared at somebody on television and that was the last impression on Earth she wanted to create right now. Or reinforce. Everybody out there probably thought she was crazy already. Accurate as the impression might be, though, she didn’t want to help it along by appearing the part.

  Dana concentrated on keeping her voice completely even and entirely devoid of any emotion, a little trick she’d learned during a media-relations course taught by her former mentor and partner, Crawford Bell. ‘Good to see you, Brett,’ Dana said, purposely getting Brent Price’s first name wrong. ‘How are your wife and kids doing?’

  Dana studied Price’s reaction. Personal questions like the one she’d just asked him put the media on the defensive, made it more likely that the footage they’d just shot wouldn’t wind up on the ten o’clock news. It was a simple trick, but an effective one nonetheless. Not even the fanciest editing job could cover up when a picture jumped wildly to and fro with no natural segue. And in the news business – much like in the FBI – trust was everything. Even the slightest hint that you were trying to pull the wool over the public’s eyes and trying to make them believe anything less than the absolute truth meant you were dead in the water.

  Sure enough, Price looked confused for a moment, casting a sideways glance at one of his cameramen before returning his gaze to Dana. ‘What are you talking about, Agent Whitestone? My name’s Brent and I don’t have a wife and kids. I’m single.’

  Dana crinkled up her face and affected an embarrassed look, as though she’d just been caught in a mortifying social faux pas and could just die right there on the spot. ‘Ah, right,’ she said. She sucked in a lungful of cold air over her teeth to show him just how stupid she felt about the whole thing. ‘Sorry about that. I guess I must have been thinking about Brett Grodin over at Channel Two.’

  Price’s face reddened, but in his case the mortification was completely genuine. Brett Grodin and the rest of the cast over at Channel Two had been kicking the crap out of Channel Four every ratings period for the past five years now and Brent Price – much like all newsmen – hated to be outdone by
his contemporaries, despised knowing that somebody out there was doing a better job than he was and would probably get out of Cleveland a hell of a lot sooner than he did.

  Dana allowed herself a small smile at Price’s obvious discomfort. She just couldn’t help herself. It served the inconsiderate jerk right. Maybe now he’d know how she felt. How it felt to be ambushed at home like this. The shoe was on the other foot now, and the best part of it all was that Price hadn’t even realised that the transition was taking place. Dana had turned the situation around on her questioner with two simple sentences, just like Crawford Bell had taught her to do. God, she missed that man.

  ‘No problem,’ Price said after a moment. Still, he looked pissed off that they’d probably have to trash the entire opening sequence, waving four fingers across his throat to let his cameramen know they could stop taping.

  Despite his pushiness, Dana almost felt sorry for Price as she watched him try to recover his composure in front of his co-workers. Much like Dana, looking like a complete jackass on television didn’t do a damn thing to further his career, either.

  Price cleared his throat and gathered himself before nodding to his cameramen to start taping again. ‘Do you have a minute to give us a quick interview, Agent Whitestone?’ he asked, slipping back into his smooth newsman’s persona now that the all-seeing electronic eyes were capturing his slick performance once more. ‘Maybe we could go inside where it’s warm and have a little sit-down, if that’s agreeable with you. We’ll make it nice. No pressure. Everyone’s dying to know what went on in your recent cases and you’re a very hard target to catch up with.’

  Dana shook her head but continued smiling at Price. At twenty-five or twenty-six, the guy couldn’t have been more than three or four years removed from J-school, and local Cleveland news obviously hadn’t been his first choice. Then again, whose first choice had Cleveland been? Sure, Dana had chosen to return to her native city after graduating from Cleveland State University in 1994 with a degree in criminal psychology and beginning her career in Washington, DC three years later, but she marked the exception to the rule, not the rule itself. Cleveland had always been considered to be the place where promising careers went to die. Probably always would be. Still, in this economy, you took jobs wherever you could find them.