First Lady Read Online Free Page B

Chuck Grant headed for a squad car at the curb. They were an odd pair—she, short, plump, African-American; he, tall, gaunt, self-described redneck.
    â€œKnow what those two ladies are doing over there?” I called to them.
    Chuck stared, shrugged sardonically. “Hookers?”
    Brenda nonchalantly raised her hand at him, then lowered each long, multicolored nail until only the middle finger was extended. She glanced at the women. “They’re looking for work.”
    I was puzzled. “Work? Work from whom?”
    Brenda opened the driver’s side of the black and white cruiser. “Whomever, Justin, just about whomever.” As she started her engine, she said, “Big Hair’s after your ass again.” She drew an imaginary box around her head with her hands and grinned with parodic sincerity.
    I knew who she meant. And sure enough, Carol Cathy Cane from the Channel Seven “Action News” came hurrying with her bearded cameraman down the broad stone steps where a small line of picketing sanitation workers was parading back and forth. The TV diva wasn’t much interested in the strike. It was me she was after.
    CeeCee, as Ms. Cane was known to Hillston, had a personal stake in Cathy Oakes’ and G.I. Jane’s killer. Back in March she’d named him. What if—CeeCee had suggested with zest—what if the killer had put the label around G.I. Jane’s toe “mailing” her to Cuddy and me because he was daring us to solve the puzzle before he murdered again? What if he had put Guess T-shirts on his naked victims to taunt the police with his crime: Guess who I am? What did I think of that idea? Without waiting to find out, CeeCee had christened him “The Guess Who Killer” on the spot—she was adroit at the sound bite—and by the following evening all the Piedmont news shows were calling our unknown murderer the Guess Who Killer, and by the weekend, all the television anchors were advising women not to go out jogging alone until the police caught Guess Who.
    I tried to slip past her cameraman now by dodging behind a Civil War cannon near the steps, but CeeCee ran over and blocked my path.
    â€œLieutenant, Lieutenant!”
    â€œOh, CeeCee, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you.”
    Carol Cathy Cane had big hair, long legs, and a breathless enthusiasm for the ephemeral that had finally freed her from the late-night wrap-up, where she feared the networks would never notice her, and promoted her to the coveted evening news spot at Channel Seven. She and I knew each other well, but in our interviews she always pretended she’d never seen me before and had never asked me the same questions a dozen previous times. Now she spun her finger at her cameraman and opened our exchange, as she always did, by warning her viewers with solemn glee that a homicidal maniac was still stalking the Piedmont and when was I going to apprehend him?
    I smiled just as solemnly. “As soon as I find him.”
    I heard an ugly laugh. Sheriff Homer Louge, who appeared to spend very little time at the County Sheriff’s Office across town, stopped beside us on the steps and stood there listening with crossed arms and a smug grin. He was tall and thick with a face that looked as if a truck tire had rolled over it.
    CeeCee was asking why a homicidal maniac had singled me out as G.I. Jane’s “friend.” Was it because I was Justin Savile the Fifth? (The “V” had been emphatically added to my name on the label attached to the corpse’s toe.) “Your family has always been very prominent in North Carolina. Could this be a class-hatred thing with Guess Who?”
    Sheriff Louge gave another barking laugh and ambled up the steps past us, melodramatically shaking his head as I told CeeCee I had no reason to assume the killer had ever heard of my family or had any personal feelings about me or Chief Mangum either, one way or the other.