“The coffee machine has a lot of opinions today,” Heston quips over his shoulder, his eyes bloodshot.
Elsie snaps. “You spend the night on the street, Heston?” The room takes a quick breath. Heston turns in his seat and glares.
“Elsie,” Hunter warns, incredulous, “that’s not appropriate. Heston’s your senior.”
“And I don’t have to justify myself to secretaries.”
“Heston,” Hunter snaps, “no assholes in my office.”
The assembled group chuckles quietly.
“Chief’s pretty sure it’s the same guy,” Hunter continues, moving on from the fuss. “We’ll take his lead. Heston, do some digging.”
The reporter slowly scrapes his seat back and slopes out.
As everyone else gathers up their belongings, Elsie hangs back. Hunter already has his head in some copy and is striking sentences through with a red pen.
“You want to tell me what all that was about?” He doesn’t look up from his work.
Elsie clenches her jaw. “Heston has scratches all over his arms. I just wondered where he got them.” There’s no point in skirting thetruth. She first saw the marks on his hands several weeks ago. Then, when she and Patti were in the bar questioning Greaves and Bale, he’d appeared, ordered a drink, then left immediately. It had struck Elsie as odd. Was he trying to create an alibi for himself? Since then, he’s been disheveled, avoidant. What’s to say the scratches aren’t defensive wounds? Plus, he knows everything about the murder cases. He’s always late to the office—suggesting he’s been out all night.Doing what?
“Is that any of your business, Elsie? He’s a grown man.”
She sighs, begins to leave, then thinks better of it.
“What was her name?” she asks him.
Hunter glances up, looking very much as if his patience is being tested.
“The girl. Do we know anything else about her?”
“She’s number five.”
She growls despite herself. “These women are real people.” Elsie knows it’s bold, but she has to say it. “They’re not just props. We should be writing more about them, looking into their lives. They deserve that.” She knows she’s right. Whoever is doing this may have taken their lives, but he is superfluous to their stories. She can’t let the killer be the person everyone remembers. These girls deserve to be known, but she is aware that sort of sentiment won’t tempt Hunter. She straightens, adds as a sweetener, “And it might help us catch this killer.”
“Elsie”—Hunter removes his glasses—“it is not our job to catch the killer.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “It’s our job to gather the facts and to report on them in a compelling way for the general public to consume.”
“I just thought…” She falters. “I thought it might provide an interesting insight for readers if we looked at these women in more detail.”
He glares at her wordlessly before his eyes move pointedly to the door. She knows what that means.
“Five hundred words,” he calls after her as she leaves, stopping her in her tracks. “Give me half a page on the girls, and we’ll run it in the domestic column.”
A grin spreads across her face, but she won’t let him see it. She clears her throat.
“I’ll get on it right away.”
“And, Elsie…”
She turns.
“Heston’s wife got a cat. It hates him. Just like the rest of us.”
—
Later, at Beverley’s,Elsie tells her about the article. The most recent victim, Kate McKenzie, was a talented young horse rider and musician. She had so much life in her, so much to give, and it had all been snuffed out, just like that. Elsie cannot imagine the horror of being targeted in your own home, in your own shower, by a stranger. Her mind reels with the thought of it. She knows that writing this article is important, that it will give these lost girls a voice, reclaim some of their power.
“That’s fantastic.” Beverley’s words are flat. Elsie can tell she is distracted.
