don’t know.” Her voice cracked with emotion. “I’ve worked for the Barkers many years and they always tell me if they’re going away but not today. When I got here this morning, no one was home and there were no notes for me. I get very worried and then you showed up.”
“What is Mrs. Barker’s first name?”
“Lynn.”
“Can we come in, Miss . . .?”
“I am Francelina Lopez. Yes, please come in.”
The foyer was the size of Speers’ backyard and decorated with Italian marble and sculpted statues in each of the four corners. In the room to his right, he saw a large fireplace and a baby grand piano. On top of the piano were several portraits that caught his eye.
“Could I look at those pictures?”
“Yes, yes.”
After confirming the two pictured people were the Barkers, Speers began to study them as he continued to ask Francelina questions.
“What does Mr. Barker do for a living?”
“He owns a big drug company. Mantis Pharmaceuticals.”
“And his wife?”
“She doesn’t have a job but is on many boards and, how you say, committees? She especially likes the arts.”
“Is that so?”
Speers came across the one thing he’d been hoping to find. Turning to face Francelina, he held up the security guard’s find: a gold bracelet. When she saw it glittering in his hand, she gasped aloud.
“Is this Mrs. Barker’s? The same one she is wearing in this photo?”
“Yes, yes,” Francelina said, her eyes beginning to water.
“When was the last time you saw Mrs. Barker?”
“Yesterday.”
“You haven’t seen or heard from her this morning?”
“No. Please tell me what’s going on, I beg you.”
“I’m sorry to have to break this news to you. Mr. Barker was shot and killed this morning by a woman who was wearing this bracelet.”
“No—it can’t be. You are mistaken! Mrs. Barker could never do such a thing. Never!”
“Excuse me, I have to make a call,” Speers said stepping away, taking out his cell phone, all the while ignoring the maid’s theatrics.
Speers was quickly connected to the crime scene.
“Mario, this is Mike. If you’re done there, get your butt to 378 Whitecastle Boulevard—the dead guy’s place.”
“You find something out there?”
“Only the killer, Mario.”
“Get outta town!”
“She isn’t here at the moment, although that doesn’t surprise me. After dropping your bracelet at a crime scene, it kind of puts a crimp on any airtight alibi plans you may have made.”
Within the hour the Barker mansion was tied off with yellow police tape and Speers and his men were awaiting a judge to issue them a search warrant.
FIVE
Mitch Carson stood in his office doorway and scanned the assembled faces before finding the one he was seeking.
“Malone, get in here!”
The early morning chaos in The Telegraph newsroom momentarily broke as Mitch’s voice bellowed across the large room.
“Some gals have all the luck,” the paper’s Lifestyle editor said as Jennifer Malone walked past her desk.
“I’ll keep that in mind next time I’m home alone on a Friday night,” she shot back.
Jennifer Malone was a tall, slender woman in her mid-30s with shoulder length brown hair. She had made her mark the day she stepped into the city’s second largest daily.
After having won an investigative reporting award at a small weekly tabloid, she arrived at her junior reporter job interview with the silver-plated statuette in her oversized purse. When the editor asked for her current resume, she first pulled the award out and placed it firmly on his desk, making sure the gold plate stating her name and the category faced him. Without missing a beat, she produced her resume and put the award away, never mentioning it for the remainder of the interview.
“You’ve got bigger balls than most of my guys out there, Ms. Malone,” Mitch had said, pointing to a gathering of male reporters.
“My mother always told me that it’s not the size that matters, it’s how you use them.”
“Well I think we can use them around here—if you think your mother would approve.”
“I can’t see a problem,” Jennifer said with a smile. “I’ll tell her the news at her next parole hearing.”
That successful interview was ten years ago.
“Did you see that?” Mitch said excitedly as he continued to watch the TV coverage on his small set on the counter.
“I’m usually a Good Morning America kind of person,” Jennifer smiled. “After this morning though, I’m a total Nation Today convert. Of course I’m shocked they would book such an elaborate publicity stunt this close to sweeps.”
Mitch looked up from the screen, still not knowing how to take her sense of humour.
“I want you to get down there and find out everything you can about the shooting. I’ve got Levison working the Senator Adams angle, if there is one. I’m also going to assemble a team of eight to help co-ordinate all the information you both send back, as well as anything we get off the air.”
“I’ve already asked Manny the copy boy to have the Batmobile ready for me in 30 seconds.”
“Would you get out of here already!” Mitch ordered. “It’s not every day a major news story breaks before eight in the morning.”
“And a darn good thing too,” Jennifer said as she walked out of the office. “Can you imagine what that kind of stress could do to the editor-in-chief’s blood pressure? It’d kill him.”
Unwilling to confirm the obvious, Mitch nevertheless knew she was right.
“Very funny, Malone.”
He glanced at his secretary who was watching him with a smirk.
“Problem, Amy?”
“No, Mitch. It’s just I love a man in charge who faces danger head on. A man who knows his life is screwed for the next couple of days and thinks nothing
