Charlotte found her cameraman, Michael, already waiting for her at the courthouse. Every cameraman she’d ever worked with drove like brakes had never been invented. He stood beside the station’s news van, a logo on the side and antenna on the top to broadcast live coverage. It was four in the morning, but the whole town seemed already awake. Beyond the ring of yellow caution tape, dozens of people stood in clutches, wearing coats to guard themselves against the cool spring morning. Their eyes reflected disbelief and sadness. Some were crying, others gaped or gossiped.
It was true, then. Jason Blunt, head of the village council and as much of a beloved son as this town ever had, was dead.
After the village council meeting and the coverage of the mosque, the producers back in Atlanta had asked for more. They’d been the only station to have the news, and it drew big ratings. Charlotte had planned to try to interview Jason, to ask him why he had supported the mosque when so many locals didn’t. Now she’d be reporting his death.
She’d known Jason when she lived here; everyone did. He was larger than life itself, physically big but also bursting with energy, someone who seemed to look at existence as a grand game, one he was sure to win.
She pushed the memories away. There was a job to do.
“Do we know what happened?” Charlotte asked.
Michael shook his head. He perpetually looked as if he’d just roused himself from sleep and immediately downed a couple of energy drinks. His coarse brown hair went every direction at once.
“It’s strange. Police scanner is dead quiet. Nothing from the sheriff’s department or the state police. Sounds like the county dispatcher was in the building and heard shots, then went up and found the body. The sheriff might have been there, too, but I haven’t seen him.”
Charlotte looked around again, searching for the sheriff. No sign of him.
She took out a reporter’s notebook to jot down details. Michael grabbed it from her and focused the camera’s lens on a page, finding his white balance, then handed it back over. He lifted up the camera and started to shoot the scene—the crowd of mourning people, the people in dark suits standing guard at the courthouse door.
Charlotte stared up at the second-story window with bits of broken glass ringing it, like fangs in a mouth. Michael followed her eyes, then raised the camera and filmed the window as well.
Nearby were parked the vans of other news stations. Their teams were seeing all the same things. Did they know anything that Charlotte didn’t? She would have to go on the air within minutes. There was no official confirmation of anything. All she could report on were rumors of a death.
Charlotte took out her phone. She’d only been in town a handful of days, but she’d been busy building up her contacts. She scrolled and landed on the number of a woman who worked in forensics with the state police. They’d met when Charlotte had toured the offices, and then Charlotte bumped into the woman again at a coffee shop and had bought her breakfast. The oldest trick there was in befriending sources. Charlotte tapped out a text.
are you up? sorry to bother you
Three dots appeared. A reply came.
I am. Don’t have many details. Got the call about the murder, but then they told us we weren’t needed.
Charlotte looked back up at the scene. She recognized the two state police detectives in their matching mustaches and windbreakers standing off to the side. But the people doing things, the ones moving in and out of the building and holding the perimeter, all wore plain dark suits. She tapped another message.
who’s working the case then?
Three dots. Then:
FBI
The pieces of it didn’t fit. The FBI wasn’t supposed to take over cases, only to support the locals when they needed help. And there was something else. The other murder, the one she’d reported on the first day that she arrived. The realtor. Maybe it was all a coincidence . . . She started typing into her phone again.
another murder? do you have the autopsy report on the last one? I can come pick it up later
Three dots. Then:
No. Sorry. There was no autopsy.
Three dots.
I shouldn’t say more.
Charlotte let it sink in. There was something here, she felt it. But she would start that digging later. Now it was time to go on air. She inspected her hair and makeup one last time in the van’s side mirror, then grabbed the microphone.
“Confirmation from an official source,” she said as Michael framed her in front of the courthouse. “Murder.”
She glanced across the scene one last time. Where was the sheriff? What did he know?
Erickson drove David to his apartment. A second wind came over him, and his mind raced through the details he’d learned, the gaps in his knowledge.
“Go past the courthouse,” he said.
Erickson shook his head.
“No. You need sleep. And there’s nothing to see there right now.”
The old agent was quiet a while, then spoke again.
“Next few days are going to be the hardest, kid. You’re going to want to come at this thing like a charging bull, but you can’t. You have to be with your family; there’s going to be the funeral. And you’re going to want to tell them as much as you can. Because they deserve the truth. But they can’t find out. Not about the cuts, the other murders, any of it. So that’s your job, from here till the funeral. You go and you mourn with them. You remember your cousin. If anyone asks, you can tell them that you just happened to be at the scene. The neighbors heard the shot you fired into the shed, so you can say that you pursued the assailant but didn’t get a good look. The same story that’s going in your report.”
David nodded, processing.
“I need to write it up.”
“It’s already written,” Erickson said. “Get through the funeral. Then we start the work. I’ll give you all the information we have. We’ll go to the courthouse, go through the crime scene. Go through all the forensics we have. All of it.”
They were both quiet for a few minutes. Then David spoke.
“Do you think we’ll catch him?” he asked.
Erickson sighed.
“I’ve done this a long time, kid. Long enough to know better than to make promises.”