That made me steaming mad. We had a developing situation here. If it got in the news prematurely, it would hurt any chance the department had to control this case. I could just imagine the nightmare headlines: BRIDE AND GROOM KILLER STRIKES AGAIN. And Roth would be livid. This would be the second time I had failed to control the crime scene with the same reporter.
“Who’s your friend?” Raleigh asked.
“Cindy Thomas,” she announced, extending her hand. “And you?”
“Cindy’s with the Chronicle,” I alerted him.
Raleigh did a startled double take, left in midshake like a fired worker holding the hand of his replacement.
“Listen very clearly, Ms. Thomas,” I said firmly. “I don’t know if you’ve been around long enough to develop a sense for how this is supposed to work. But if you’re planning on doing anything besides telling me why you’re here and then packing up your little reporter’s kit and driving away, you’re definitely gonna make the department’s shit list in a hurry.”
“Cindy,” she reminded me. “But first, the much more interesting question is, why am I bumping into you out here?”
Raleigh and I both glared at her with deepening impatience. “Answer my question,” I pressed.
“All right.” She pursed her lips. “You two shooting up here on a Sunday, Captain Raleigh kicking around the woods and the parking lot, your grilling the hotel staff, both of you looking stumped. I have to figure it all starts to add up. Like the fact that the place hasn’t been cordoned off, so no crime’s been committed yet. That someone could be missing. Since we all know what you two are working on, it’s not a far reach to assume it might be a couple who just got married. Possibly, that our bride and groom killer found himself number two.”
My eyes were wide, worried.
“Either that”— she smiled —“or I’ve grossly misjudged things and you guys are just here zin-tasting for the department’s wine club.”
“You picked up all that from watching us?” I asked her.
“Honestly, no.” She nodded toward the hotel gate. “Most of it was from the big-mouth local cop I was yapping with out there.”
Without meaning to, I started to smile.
“Seriously, you realize you can’t run with anything here,” Raleigh said.
“Another dead bride and groom? Same M.O.?” She snorted with resolve. “Damn right I’m going to run with it.”
I was starting to see the situation going straight downhill. “One thing I’d strongly consider would be to get in your car and just drive back into town.”
“Would you say that to Fitzpatrick or Stone?”
“If you went back to town, then I really would owe you one.”
She smiled thinly. “You’re kidding, aren’t you? Just walk away?”
“Yeah, just walk away.”
Cindy shook her head. “Sorry. One, I’d probably get fired, and two, there’s just no way I can let this pass.”
“What if I drove back with you?” I said, spur of the moment. “What if you can have pretty much what you’re looking for, be on the inside, and give me some consideration at the same time?”
Raleigh’s eyes almost bulged out of his head, but I gave him my best let-me-handle-this expression.
“When this story does break,” Cindy insisted, “it’s gonna be larger than any of us can control.”
“And when it does, it’ll be yours.”
Her eyes narrowed. She was rolling around in her head whether she could trust me. “You mean from you, exclusive?”
I waited for Raleigh to object. To my amazement, he went along.
“Chief Mercer handling all the releases?” Cindy asked.
“He is. All the public ones.”