Stone Eater (Will Finch Mystery Thriller Series Book 2) Read online

  She paused and stared at Gianna’s phone. It probably held the answers to everything, or offered some clues, at least. But how to break the password?

  She took the phone into her hand again and swiped the screen. The six blank spaces appeared and in the upper corner the digital clock ticked impatiently, waiting for a password. She tried something new: g-i-a-n-n-a. Instantly, the screen unlocked and Eve stared at Gianna’s home screen.

  Tears flowed from her eyes and she began to sob. The feeling came like a rush of adrenaline, but it tasted bitter and stale.

  “g-i-a-n-n-a.” She spelled the password aloud and brushed the tears from her eyes. Gianna, you were one sweet, life-loving lady. I am going to miss you, she whispered to herself and wiped away another tear. I already do.

  She sipped at her coffee and almost spat it out. Cold. She decided to brew a fresh pot and settle in for the day. She’d need some high-octane caffeine to dig through this gold mine. She resolved to begin with a thorough search of Gianna’s text messages. Maybe that would lead somewhere. Or to someone.

  ※ — TWO — ※

  WILL FINCH SHUT the glass door and sat in the chair on the far side of Wally Gimbel’s oak desk. The desk, yet another piece of furniture that the managing editor had salvaged from his old office one floor below, lay under stacks of files and news clippings.

  When the print edition of the San Francisco Post was downsized by the Parson brothers, the thirty-three survivors knew they were lucky to still draw a monthly pay check. Ten other employees had been offered new positions with the paper’s digital edition, dubbed the SF eXpress, the only division in the Parson Media empire able to expand following the economic crash. The restructuring created two legally separate entities and unless the print edition could return a profit within a few months, it would be sold (or simply closed) and the eXpress would fly solo.

  Under the guidance of Wally Gimbel, the managing editor, the eXpress employed a skeletal staff of ten: six reporters, one copy editor (Jeanine Fix, who also served as the internet web master) and her two assistants, plus an office manager, Dixie Lindstrom, who doubled as receptionist. A pool of ten or twelve eager freelancer writers and photographers provided on-demand coverage as needed, and three interns from Will’s journalism program at Berkeley worked for free. Among the reporters, Will covered the crime beat.

  Wally studied Finch for a moment and turned his eyes away from the savage bruise on the reporter’s cheek. “Let me see your ear,” he said and let out a long sigh when Will turned his head and pointed a finger at his truncated ear lobe. “I guess you should talk to someone over in Benefits. Maybe there’s an insurance claim you can make for that.”

  “Maybe. I’ll ask.” Finch shrugged and looked at his boss. He knew that neither of them wanted to dwell on his injuries. More important, they needed to assess how to move forward with the stories related to the deaths of Raymond Toeplitz and Gianna Whitelaw. The first hurdle for Will would be to say Gianna’s name aloud without stammering. The second would be to convince someone that she’d been murdered. “So where do we stand, Wally? On the drive back to town I couldn’t make sense of her death. Or anything else,” he added.

  “No surprise. Probably due to the cathedral bell clanging in your head.” He waved a hand past his own ear. “But let’s look at the bases we’ve got covered. First, Fiona Page is handling the Gianna Whitelaw suicide.” He paused to study Will’s face again. Fiona had already told Wally that Will was convinced Gianna had been murdered. But flagrant rumors surrounded her death. That she’d sunk into depression after the demise of Raymond Toeplitz, her lover. That she’d had a history of affairs, some scandalous. From time to time she’d exhibited impetuous behavior, sometimes bordering on mania. Was she simply out of control? If so, was her death an impulsive suicide? Wally had assigned Fiona to the story knowing that she’d ferret out all the answers and separate fact from fiction.

  Will rubbed a hand along the side of his jaw. “All right. Fiona’s top dog, on that. I get it.” He might have added that he was relieved that Gianna’s story had been pulled from his in-box. He remembered the hour-long recording they’d made over dinner the last night that he’d seen her in Astoria, Oregon. She’d condemned her step-brothers for conspiring to murder Toeplitz. Inflammatory accusations. But now that she was dead, everything she’d revealed became impossible to corroborate. Fortunately, no one knew about their interview. The only purpose it now served was to convince Finch that she’d been right about the conspiracy and for that reason she’d been eliminated. And of course he couldn’t mention that they’d spent their last night together in his motel bed. If that fact ever emerged he’d be embroiled in an ethics scandal condemning his bias in reporting on Senator Whitelaw — her father — and the fraud trial confronting his firm, Whitelaw, Whitelaw & Joss. Within a single day the disclosure would ruin his career.

  “Second,” Wally continued, “we have the taped dialogue between Sheriff Gruman and the boy he’s accused of murdering. What’s his name, Smeardon?”

  Finch nodded.

  “Third, your recording of the sheriff moments before he was shot and killed.” He raised his eyebrows as if he could hardly believe it. “By the way, did you have any second thoughts before you drove up there? I mean … did it not occur to you that the man might be a psychopath?”

  Finch considered the dangers he’d faced down in Iraq. “It’s all about the story, Wally. You know that.”

  Wally smiled his patented cheshire grin. “That’s why I love you,” he said.

  Despite the lingering pain in his face, Finch smiled too. The bond they shared — their unholy quest to unearth the facts beneath corruption and injustice — held Wally and Finch in mutual esteem that dated back to the day Wally hired Will as a copy editor on the Post’s night desk.

  “Love me or love me not, you better get Legal to green-light both those recordings,” Finch said. “And remember, the sheriff didn’t make any confessions when I interviewed him.”

  “I know. But you can cut and paste the dialogue into your first-person account of the shooting.”

  “You want me to write that now?”

  Wally nodded. “The news side of the gun fight is done. But you can take a last kick at the ball. Should be good for a field goal. My bet? It’ll go viral in two hours.”

  “And the Smeardon recording?”

  Wally pouted. “That’s where Legal is still hung up. I’m pressing Lou Levine, but he has concerns that it’s prima facia evidence of Toeplitz’s murder and should be turned over to the police.”

  “They’re right; it is. But it’s my evidence,” Finch countered.

  Wally tipped his head, a signal that they were done. “Do the first-person feature about the shoot-out with the sheriff. Then we’ll see where the Smeardon thing goes. Anything else?”

  “Yeah. If you hear of any decent housing coming on the market, let me know. I’m living like a squatter near the Tenderloin. All these Ellis Act evictions are driving prices wild.”

  “You know, I may have a lead for you.” Wally’s face suddenly brightened. “My nephew, Bryce Weeland, a rich kid who made it big in the tech sector. He’s looking for someone to take over his apartment up in Nob Hill. A joint tenancy thing; today’s version of a hippie commune. He’s been assigned to India for a year and doesn’t want to sell his place. I’ll email you his contact info.”

  ※

  Will Finch walked along the aisle of cubicles toward his desk. The staff writers referred to the shared workspace as “the bog,” a swamp infested with leeches, toads, gators and eels depending on the stories they might be working on. The eXpress was slapped with three law suits in its first six months but the courts dismissed them under the first amendment protections. Consequently, physical threats to journalists everywhere grew at an increasing rate and had to be taken seriously. Case in point: Will’s missing earlobe. Yes, it’s easy to get stung or nipped, he mused, but that was all part of the game and everyone accepted it or moved on
to another career.

  He paused at Fiona Page’s cubicle and peered into the empty space. Likely she’d be chasing down any news about Gianna for the rest of the morning, then return to the office to file the story. A picture of her son Alexander leaned against a coffee mug holding a collection of pens and pencils. Three tubes of Lypsyl were neatly aligned at the top of her desk blotter. A single red rose stood in a glass vase next to her phone. A new admirer?

  Opposite her pod, Vince Capelli ticked away at his computer keyboard, his back turned to the aisle so that he could work uninterrupted. A pair of flight-deck style headphones covered his ears. He often bragged that their noise-canceling technology boosted his productivity by at least fifteen percent above the average writer in the bog. True enough, he was a word-horse (or word-whore, as Fiona put it) and two other writers bought comparable sets of headphones and began to contrast product features and decibel reduction stats. A mug’s game, Finch thought, but a pleasant distraction from the daily grind of tracking down leads, and trying to sift a few facts from the constant flood of gossip, rumors and lies.

  Finch’s own cubicle presented a doleful mix of neglect and oppression. Squeezed into the end of the row (which he preferred for the additional privacy it offered) his desk was layered with files, back issues of the San Francisco Post print edition, and an in-basket stacked with unopened mail — all of it covered with a veneer of gray dust. The air of neglect was legitimate enough given his leave after Bethany’s accident with Buddy, his three-week recovery at Eden Veil, and then the week-long expedition to Astoria to cover the Toeplitz murder. He wiped a sleeve over the smudge of lint on his computer monitor. As he clicked on the machine he realized he hadn’t logged into his office workstation since April. When he opened his email a stream of messages poured into his inbox.

  He popped two ibuprofen tabs into his mouth, swallowed them with a shot of coffee and massaged the bruise on his jaw. Experience had taught him to begin from the most recent email message and work backwards chronologically. Most of the questions addressed to the staff would be answered by someone else, and he discarded almost ninety percent of the messages within an hour. After he sorted the remaining dispatches into priority a new email popped onto his screen, a note from Wally with his nephew’s name, Bryce Weeland, and his contact information. Finch called Weeland’s cell number and left a message asking if they could meet to discuss renting his condo in Nob Hill.

  With those chores complete, he started a new file and began to type the first words of the story about Sheriff Mark Gruman’s last day on Earth. He knew the narrative would come slowly at first. But when he was in full stride, the writing would come easily; in fact, it would begin to write itself and soon become unstoppable. Yet those opening lines, the first few words — they would be deleted, changed, re-written until he constructed a decent lead: a door that swung open and revealed the horrors that lay on the other side. Words that compelled the reader to walk in Gruman’s shoes and follow his path to his execution at the foot of his driveway.

  Five hours later he printed out the text of his account. A bit old-school, he liked to edit from paper copy. It allowed him to adjust the diction and squeeze every sentence for bare-bones clarity. Besides, the cleaner the copy he sent to the copy editor, the more likely that she’d publish the story without making any changes. Sure, it was a complex yarn — twenty-five hundred words made of flesh and blood and guts — and the most visceral account he’d written since his days in Iraq. Because it ran five times longer than the standard article in the eXpress, he might have to convince Jeanine that for this particular story, the longer — the better. If she protested, he’d suggest that she break it into three or four parts, as long as she didn’t cut a single line. Wally’s prediction might be spot on. A story like this could break wide open and run for a month, maybe longer.

  Seconds after he emailed the article to Jeanine, his cellphone pinged with an incoming text. He glanced at the screen and felt his heart sink through his belly. Could it be? Or was he on the verge of madness?

  Dessert’s ready, darling. I hope you like chocolate. Let’s meet ASAP. Gianna. XX.

  ※

  Following his appointment at the medical clinic, Finch sat on a chair facing the open-air courtyard in the San Francisco Visitor Center. He set his paper coffee cup aside and rubbed the itchy spot where the stitches had been removed from his cheek. Despite the bright assurances from the clinic nurse his mood descended into a dull funk.

  Laying his hands on the small metal table, he gazed into the green leaves of the Japanese maple above him. He’d been waiting ten minutes, scanning the hundreds of people strolling past him in the sunshine and he began to feel as if he’d been duped, or worse, targeted by someone who knew about his liaison with Gianna. At least the air was warm and bright on his face and when he released the tension from the recent catastrophes in Astoria, he was able to relax.

  After another five minutes he decided to abandon the rendezvous. But as he stood up to leave he heard a woman’s voice behind him.

  “Don’t get up. I just needed to ensure you’re not being watched.”

  He turned his head but at the same moment the woman slipped past him, set her backpack onto the ground and sat in the chair opposite the barista stand. She wore a black fleece hoodie zipped up to her chin. A pair of over-size sunglasses covered her eyebrows and cheekbones. With the hoodie pulled over her head he couldn’t determine the color of her hair. She wore no makeup that he could detect, certainly no lipstick. Her only distinguishing feature appeared to be a mole between her lip and her right nostril. A beauty mark.

  “And you are?” he asked.

  She smiled at this. “Betty Smith. My friends call me Betsy.”

  “Friends?” He narrowed his eyes, tried to penetrate her disguise, and more important, her aura of mystery. “If we’re going to be friends, this is a bad way to start.”

  “I’d say you’re the one who got off to a bad start.”

  He narrowed his eyes, barely able to cover his contempt. “How did you get Gianna’s cell phone? Did you hack into her account?”

  “She asked me to get it for her.”

  Finch shook his head. “What the —”

  “Fuck?” She inched closer. “Look, I know that Gianna never met you before you set out to interview her for the eXpress. I also know you did much more than interview her.” She cocked her head as if to say, I know more about you than you can imagine. Even under the sunglasses and hoodie, her bitterness was unmistakable.

  “So?” — he waved a hand in the air, grasping for what she might want — “I’m supposed to live under some kind of suspicion now?”

  She leaned closer and lowered her voice. “This isn’t about you. This is about Gianna. About what we owe her.”

  Finch examined her strong, capable hands. “And what exactly do we owe her?”

  A hint of remorse crossed her lips. “After ten years of friendship I owe her the truth. About her murder.”

  “And what do you think that I could possibly owe her?”

  “The same thing.”

  He glanced across the concourse and tried to imagine how he’d become entangled by this woman.

  “Look. I know a few things about you.” She turned her head to one side, nudged the bridge of her sunglasses to the top of her nose. “About your wife Cecily. Your alcoholic girlfriend Bethany Hutt. How she killed your son. That you spent a month in recovery at Eden Veil. You’re an emotional train wreck, Mr. Finch. You need to find the truth about Gianna because it’s the one thing that can keep you sane.”

  Finch eased back in his chair. His eyes swept the passing crowds as he tried to guess where she’d acquired his cell phone number. “Who are you?” he murmured.

  “I’ll tell you that when I know I can work with you.”

  “Work with me? You’re a reporter?”

  “No. But I have access to certain information.”

  He paused to consider this. “So you’re a cop.” />
  “Past tense.”

  “Great. The last thing I need. A dirty cop with a rap sheet stapled to her chest. So why don’t you just go to your cop friends with your fact file and open it to the sweet light of day?” His hand swept towards the sun-lit courtyard.

  “I thought you were smarter than that, Finch.” She frowned with a look of disappointment. “So in the past two weeks you’ve uncovered what? Three murders? There’s Toeplitz, the teenager, and now Gianna. Four if you include that sheriff up in Astoria, but we both know that’s a separate case. Now tell me, how many arrests and indictments have resulted from your labors?” She joined the tips of her thumb and index finger and raised them in front of his face: zero. “And the reason for that, if you’re wondering, is because the cops are in the Whitelaws’ pockets. Both the senator and his brother, Dean. Both here and in Oregon.” She tilted her head again as if to ask, get it?

  “So you’ve got information —"

  “And you,” she interrupted, “have the public ear. Face it, we’re a match made in heaven.”

  “I don’t think so,” He stood and looked down at her. At the same moment, he realized that this woman, whoever she was, provided his only connection to Gianna. “Nothing happens,” he said, “Until I know your name.”

  “Fair enough.” Eve fixed her eyes on him. “I’ll text you again in a day or two. If you decide to work with me I’ll tell you everything.”

  He turned and took a few steps across the concourse.

  “Otherwise, I’ll find another reporter. And don’t kid yourself,” she called as he approached the concrete stairs that led up to Market Street, “there’s hundreds like you who’d give their eye teeth for this story.”

  When he was gone she lifted his coffee cup in a paper napkin and placed it in a ziploc bag. Then she tucked the bag into her backpack and smiled.

  “Gotcha.”

  ※ — THREE — ※