Chapter 31 #2
“What are you talking about?” Ophelia interrupted. “Why is Shana’s mom on the news?” She’d looked up from her phone long enough to zero in on the television, where, once again, Naomi’s picture was on the screen, this time a photograph that looked as if it had come from the DMV.
Lily quickly switched off the TV with the remote. “We’re really not sure.”
Ophelia’s eyebrows lifted. “Did something happen to her?”
“No one knows.” Lily gave an exaggerated shrug, but didn’t lie. “It’s just that the police are looking for her.”
“Why? Did she do something wrong?” For once, Phee was engaged.
“I don’t know, but I doubt it.”
Somewhat mollified, Phee said, “Uncle Pierce will find her.” But she glanced over at Nikki for confirmation.
“Of course he will,” she said. “I’m going to go check with him now.” She handed the still-sleeping Chloe over to Lily. “Good luck with this one.”
“Oh, I think I can handle Little Miss Groggy.” She kissed the little girl’s forehead. “You wake up now, okay, sweetie, so you will go to bed for Aunt Lily at a decent time tonight.”
Chloe’s eyelids didn’t so much as flutter.
“Maybe not,” Lily said. “Hmm.”
“I’ll call,” Nikki promised and started for the back door.
Arlo followed her.
Lately, the shepherd had begun tracking her out to the car, even hopping inside when she opened the car’s door. “Not now,” she told him. “Another time.” He whimpered, but she couldn’t deal with the dog right now.
She drove past Forsyth Park and deeper into the city.
Dusk was creeping through the streets, headlights and streetlamps beginning to glow.
Her phone buzzed, and she saw that Tom Fink was calling.
Great. She ignored the call and tried to phone Pierce.
Her call, of course, went to voice mail.
She texted him and said she was on the way to the station.
Next up, she dialed Jill’s cell phone, and again, no answer.
“Son of a …”
Reaching the police station, she had trouble finding a parking space.
Two news crews were already parked, set up, camera operators focused on reporters planted in front of the building.
When she finally found a spot for the rental car and tried to enter the building, she, like the rest of the media, was kept herded in the lobby.
She tried the back door, but, of course, a deputy was posted, and no amount of cajoling or talking gained her access. “I’ll let your husband know you were here,” Deputy Marlin Freeman told her as he blocked the doorway.
“Why don’t you tell him now?” she suggested, but the big man wouldn’t budge.
“Maybe you can call him and tell him you’re here,” he suggested.
“I’ve tried.”
“Then I suggest—”
“I’ve got this,” Pierce said, from inside the doorway.
Freeman moved aside, but before Nikki could step into the building, Pierce, his jacket slung over one shoulder, strode out, took her arm, and started walking toward the parking lot. “It’s a madhouse in there. I need a break. Missed lunch.” He unlocked his Jeep.
“And breakfast,” she reminded him.
“I told you not to follow after Quinlan, but you did.”
Nikki had left a brief message to that effect. “You didn’t answer,” she accused. “So I left messages.”
“What did Quinlan say?”
“Nothing, really. Apparently, he and Naomi meet there sometimes when her daughter’s taking a riding lesson. He seemed genuinely surprised she was missing.”
They both climbed inside his car, the passenger seat hot, the interior stifling. “No word on Naomi?” she asked, rolling down the window as he drove out of the lot, merging into the thickening traffic of Habersham Street.
“None yet. She was supposed to have a weekend alone with Jamison, what they’re calling a staycation, and she dropped off the girls at her sister’s house in Charleston and never showed up back here.
That’s about all we know so far. So Quinlan was waiting for her.
Could have been covering up.” He slowed for a stoplight as a group of teenagers dashed across the street, laughing and talking.
“He wasn’t really interested in talking to me.”
“No surprise there.”
“Yeah, I get it a lot, and by the way, why was I the last to know about what happened? I get home, and Naomi’s picture is all over the TV.”
He scowled. “The department leaks like a damned sieve sometimes.”
She thought about Jill and held her tongue. “And now they’re calling the serial killer the Savannah Slasher? How did that happen?”
“Don’t know. Again, a leak. No one’s supposed to know about the knife wounds, but,” he admitted, “it was going to come out anyway from the autopsy reports.” He slid a glance her way. “You’re just mad because you didn’t come up with the name.”
“Oh, give me a break.” But there was more than a little truth to the comment. “On the news, they speculated that Naomi being missing might be linked to the serial killer.”
His jaw hardened, and his fingers tightened over the wheel. “She’s not dead, hasn’t been killed. She’s just missing. That kind of irresponsible reporting is what gives the media a bad name.”
She couldn’t deny it. Both of them were feeling testy and anxious.
“What do you want to eat?” he asked.
“Whatever. I had half a toasted cheese and tomato for lunch. Hours ago.” She glanced at her watch. “How about the Stag and Boar?”
“Archer Greenlee’s alibi.” He slid a glance her way.
“I’d like to have a look at the group that meets there,” she said. “Kind of an eclectic group that Kyle told me about.”
“When did you talk to Kyle?” Pierce nosed the Jeep into a parking spot on the street three blocks from the pub and close to Riverview Towers.
“Earlier today. I told you I saw him the day I caught Blanche Crawford being moved by her son into Riverview Towers, remember? Then today he came by unannounced and asked us to go to Mavis Greenlee’s funeral as a family.
Lily went ballistic. Refuses to go, even for Mom’s sake, as she thinks she’d be seen as a hypocrite. ”
“And your mom won’t?”
“Let’s not start with all that,” Nikki suggested.
“I assume you’re going to attend?” He cut the engine.
“A service at All Christian? To watch Reverend Westin Stark wax on about the virtues of one of Savannah’s finest?” she mocked. “You bet I’m going. I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”
He cut the engine.
“Sometimes this group meets at the rifle range; other times they play cards or end up here on Friday nights. The interesting thing is some of them have ties to the victims of the Savannah Slasher.” She snorted and said, “I want to take a look at them,” as they reached the pub with its curved plank door and worn brick exterior.
“They might not appreciate being spied on.”
“They won’t even know I’m there,” she promised.
Inside, the ceilings were low and open-beamed above a warren of rooms that comprised the dining area. Up a winding staircase was the bar, where she assumed the group usually gathered.