Chasing a Colton Killer
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Deborah Fletcher Mello
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HarlequinChapter 1
The noise in the newsroom of the New York Wire rose to stadium-grade level, sounding like the last touchdown cheers of a winning football game. Reporters, editors and photographers were all shouting over one another, each desperate to make a point or get dibs in on a perspective story. It was chaos. Organized chaos but chaos nonetheless.
Stella Maxwell stepped into the space dubbed the “war room,” having just left an early morning meeting with the editorial team. It wasn’t even eleven o’clock in the morning, and she’d already put in five hours of work. Now her head hurt.
She stared at the computer on her desk. The screen saver was a quote by Joseph Pulitzer that read, “The power to mold the future of the republic will be in the hands of the journalists of future generations.”
There was a time she believed that, but with each passing day, she was starting to think that the future lay in the hands of rogue teenagers who trolled the internet, spurned authority and put all their trust in the almighty dollar. She hated teenagers. In fact, she had a strong dislike for most children in general. Most especially since being assigned a story on dangerous TikTok challenges happening in New York City public schools. If the little demons weren’t blowing up each other, they were blowing up someone’s property.
Stella thought the future looked bleak if left in the hands of younger iGens, who had no boundaries and believed the entire world owed them a pass for simply breathing. Yes, she said it. To herself, of course. Now to figure out how to convey that message in a quarter page piece with her byline and not insult those people who actually liked the little monsters.
Working for the New York Wire was not Stella’s job du jour. It paid the bills, but truth be told, it left her less than satisfied. Although she loved journalism and put every ounce of herself into all of her assignments, she would have preferred to be writing for the New York Times or the Washington Post, newspapers with better visibility and more credibility. Publications that were worthy of the substantial talent she brought to the table. She considered her current job a stepping stone to bigger and better, her career of choice eventually netting her Pulitzer gold. She suddenly laughed aloud, drawing looks from the men sitting in the cubicles beside her.
“What’s so funny?” Garrett Hoffman asked. He was the pop culture editor, and they often lunched together while bouncing stories off one another.
Stella shook her head. “If I don’t laugh, I’m going to cry. It’s starting to be that kind of week.”
“Can I help?” the young man asked, eyeing her with bright baby blue eyes and thick lashes the color of corn silk.
Shrugging her shoulders, Stella blew a soft sigh. “Just pray for me. I’m headed to PS 41 down in Greenwich Village later today to interview a gang of middle schoolers.”
“Have you brushed up on your cool kid jargon so you don’t come off old?”
“I am old. I’m about to be thirty, and in their eyes, that’s ancient!”
“Exactly, which is why you need to know how to talk their lingo. Otherwise, those little monsters will eat you alive!”
The duo laughed.
“What are you working on?” Stella questioned. She leaned back in her chair, rocking slowly back and forth.
“Waiting for confirmation on a Kim and Kanye reconciliation.”
“That will never happen!”
“Says you!”
“And Kim! She’s had her rebound fling with Pete What’s-his-name, and now she’s ready to move on to something more serious. She’s not going back to babysit her past mistakes.”
“And if she does?”
“You’ll be writing another breakup story in six months.”
“And people say I need to get my life together.” He sighed heavily.
Stella laughed again. The phone on her desk rang, the unexpected chime startling her ever so slightly.
Garrett laughed at her again. “It looks like duty is calling you!”
“With my luck, it’ll be a wrong number,” Stella said as she reached for the receiver and pulled it to her ear. “Thank you for calling the Wire. This is Stella Maxwell.”
“There’s a man being murdered in the alley behind your building.”
Stella bristled. “Excuse me? Who is this?”
“He’ll be dead if you don’t come now,” the caller said. “Can you save him, Stella?”
Stella didn’t recognize the voice and found it difficult to distinguish whether it was male or female. There was the faintest hint of digitization, and she knew, whoever the caller was, they were masking their sound with a voice modifier. With the many free apps that could be downloaded and used during gaming or phone calls, they had the ability to make a person sound deeper, higher or even like the opposite sex. For all Stella knew, the caller could have been anyone.
She asked again, the barest hint of anxiety in her own tone. “Who the hell is this? And why are you calling me?”
“I guess you don’t want the story,” the caller said, and then they disconnected the line.
Stella stared at the phone receiver for a brief second before dropping it back down on the cradle.
“What’s up?” Garrett questioned.
“I’m not sure if I’m being pranked or tossed a story I can scoop,” she said as she rose swiftly from her seat, grabbing her purse and her cell phone.
“Where are you going?”
“To check out a tip,” she said, hurrying to the elevator. She shouted over her shoulder. “I’ll call you later!”
As she rode the elevator down to the first floor, the phone chimed, signaling an incoming text message. The message reiterated what the caller had just told her.
There’s a man being murdered in the alley beside your building. Can you save him? Come now or he’ll die on your watch, Stella!
Stepping out of the elevator, Stella paused, forwarding the message to a dispatcher friend at the 911 call center. She added the Forty-Seventh Street address and asked her to send a patrol car. Just in case it wasn’t a prank.
Dropping her phone back into her handbag, she exited the building, turning toward the corner and the back side of the high-rise office building. People pushed past her, unconcerned as they made their way to their own destinations. It was the city and everyone was in a rush. They ignored her as she ignored them, a single thought on her mind. Please, God, let this be a prank.
Rounding the backside of the building, she entered the alley, her eyes skating swiftly back and forth. Her stomach suddenly pitched, her gaze widening as she caught sight of a man lying on the ground, blood beginning to pool beneath his torso. Stella looked around a second time as she inched closer to the body, and then she recognized him, his blue eyes meeting hers. It was Rockwell Henley, the boyfriend who’d dumped her via text message just days earlier.
Stella screamed Rockwell’s name as she dropped down beside his body, noting the large butcher knife stuck in his chest. She pulled his head into her lap and cried out for help.
FBI agent Brennan Colton had always loved New York City’s theater district. The Midtown Manhattan neighborhood between 40th and 54th Streets and 6th and 8th Avenues had always represented the best times and great artistic expression. Just weeks ago, he’d been there with friends to see the musical & Juliet. Dinner had followed, the group heading to Nobu Downtown for sashimi and his favorite Wagyu beef served with their warm mushroom salad.
Now, he and patrolmen from the 130th Precinct were walking from theater to theater searching for the next potential victim of a high-profile serial killer. Weeks ago, a man named Mark Welden had been found shot to death in the area of Central Park known as the Ramble. There had been a typed note stuffed in his pocket. That note had announced the murderer’s intent to kill in the name of serial killer Maeve O’Leary, a woman known as the Black Widow. O’Leary had recently been captured and charged with killing multiple husbands for financial gain. The murderer declared the objective to kill persons whose initials literally spelled out Maeve’s name.
Soon after, a second body was found on the observation deck of the Empire State Building. His name was Andrew Capowski, and he also had a note in his pocket. Edward Pendleton had been murdered at the Met shortly after. With his last note, the killer had teased that he was jumping to the letter L to confuse them. It made no sense, but it was all they had to work with.
FBI profilers had determined the killer was male, deeply troubled and obsessed with a woman he couldn’t have. His victims had all been blond, blue-eyed and in their thirties, another detail pointing them toward the killer. Because of the significant sites where the bodies had been found, the media had dubbed him the Landmark Killer.
The last note had been sent to Brennan’s cousin Sinead Colton just days earlier. Sinead was also an agent with the FBI, and that note had pointed them toward Broadway as being the sight of the next murder. Brennan had been singularly focused on the forty Broadway theaters that were located on those streets that intersected Broadway in the Times Square area. They’d been searching for employees whose names began with the letter L and fit the physical profile of the previous victims.
Finding the Landmark Killer had become personal, and Brennan was willing to dedicate all his energy to searching out the murderer who’d also added harassing and provoking Colton family members to his list of crimes.
An officer, whose name Brennan had forgotten, suddenly tapped him on the shoulder. He jumped, the touch unexpected, as he’d fallen into deep thought.
“Sorry, Agent Colton, but we just got a call. There’s been a murder near here. The sergeant thought you might want to follow us to the crime scene.”
“Do they think it’s our guy?”
The officer shook his head. “Not sure, sir.”
Brennan nodded. He took a deep breath, and as the officer turned an about-face, heading in the opposite direction, he followed after him.
Tears streamed down Stella’s face. Sirens sounded in the distance, their harsh ring drawing closer and closer. The sirens were soon followed by the heavy patter of footsteps rushing in her direction.
“Put your hands up,” someone shouted.
“Move away from the body,” someone else hollered.
It was only when she heard the familiar click of guns being chambered that she turned to look over her shoulder. At least a dozen of New York’s finest were pointing their weapons in her direction. She felt herself bristle, a flood of grief and fear washing over her.
“I didn’t do anything,” she shouted back. “He needs an ambulance. Please! Someone help him!”
“Move away from the body and put your hands up!” an officer shouted at her a second time.
Stella gently eased Rockwell’s head back to the ground. She pushed herself up and onto her feet. As she took a step back, slowly raising her hands up and over her head, Rockwell gasped. She hesitated, wanting to move back to him, and then he uttered her name, the heavy rasp of his voice vibrating through the air.
“Stella...I’m s...s...s... Oh, Stella...”
Her name was a loud whisper blowing past his thin lips. Then he closed his eyes and blew out his last breath.
Stella was suddenly aware of the many guns pointed in her direction. The police were screaming instructions, and fear hit her like a tidal wave. She was a black woman, alone with the dead body of her ex-boyfriend. His blood stained the front of her blue-and-white striped blouse and covered her hands. Things looked differently from how they actually were, and she knew enough to trust that it would only take one nervous cop with a shaky finger on the trigger of his weapon to change the entire trajectory of all their lives.
“I’m not resisting,” she cried out, her arms pushed skyward, her hands open and fingers spread. “I didn’t do anything. I found him like this. I called for help,” she shouted.
An officer eased behind her. He reached for her right arm and pulled it behind her back. He reached for the other, and then secured her wrists with handcuffs. A second uniformed patrolman grabbed her roughly, pushing her far from the body as EMS personnel hurried to Rockwell’s side. The cop manhandling her pushed her to the ground, instructing her to take a seat. Someone else started firing questions at her, wanting to know what she knew. The moment was surreal, and Stella felt like she was lost in another dimension, her world suddenly turned on its head and spinning out of control.
“You have the right to remain silent. Anything you say can and will be used against you in a court of law. You have the right to an attorney. If you cannot afford an attorney, one will be appointed for you.”
Stella suddenly balked as an officer began to Mirandize her. “Why am I being arrested? I didn’t do anything. I found him like that! I’m a reporter with the New York Wire!”
Brennan took in his surroundings as he turned into the alley and moved closer to the crime scene. A forensics team and numerous detectives were already surveilling the area, and he turned to stare in Stella’s direction as one of the detectives pointed her out as a potential suspect.
Brennan recognized Stella Maxwell from the professional photograph that always accompanied her byline at the newspaper she worked for. That photo didn’t do her justice, because the young woman was breathtaking, in spite of her frazzled expression and the blood splatter on her clothes. He felt something pitch hard in his midsection as he stared, and a loud gasp blew past his thin lips. He ignored the fact that Stella Maxwell had been trying to reach him for weeks now, wanting a comment or interview about his progress with finding the Landmark Killer. He had sent her calls to voice mail and her emails to his trash bin. He had neither needed nor wanted any media attention on the serial killer who was proving to be so elusive.
Now, sitting there, she looked dazed, her teary expression pulling at his heartstrings. He found himself wanting to pull her close, to ease his arms around her torso and comfort her. The rush of emotion was unsettling and totally out of his character. Most especially since he had no idea how she was connected to the dead man now lying under a green tarp.
Stella suddenly called his name, screaming for his attention. “Agent Brennan Colton? Excuse me! Agent Colton, it’s me, Stella Maxwell! Stella Maxwell with the New York Wire! We’ve been playing phone tag!”
Brennan took a deep breath as he turned in her direction. He sauntered slowly to where she was sitting. Her expression lifted, an air of anticipation washing over her face. There was something like hope that misted her large brown eyes. Something that punched him hard in the gut and took his breath away.
“Agent Colton, would you tell them who I am, please,” Stella pleaded, those damn eyes of hers imploring him to step in and save her.
Brennan took a deep breath. He exhaled slowly, staring at her intently. “I’m sorry, Ms. Maxwell. I’m sure things will get sorted out down at the station.” He turned abruptly, moving toward the detectives who were evaluating the case that had landed in their laps. As he walked away, he found himself feeling like a complete schmuck and not the decent guy his parents had raised.
Minutes later, Stella was settled in the back seat of a patrol car. The muscles in her face had tightened, and she looked as if she might explode. She glared in his direction, and he was suddenly unsettled. His instincts told him she had nothing to do with the murder, but he had no jurisdiction over this investigation. He needed to take a step back while the NYPD did their job. He couldn’t afford to make waves with the department. Not as long as he needed their help to find the killer he was after.
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