Dead by Midnight - Beverly Barton [90]
“Mr. Johnson is Anthony Trice Johnson, the owner of Rough Diamond and several other nightclubs throughout the South.” Joelle looked into the camera as she spoke. “Shontee Thomas was his fiancée.”
“That’s right,” Calvin said, as if Joelle’s comments had been questions. “As soon as I was informed about the intruder, I took two of my men and headed for the elevator.” He shook his head as if still not quite able to believe what he’d seen. “We found Tyrell and some redheaded woman in the elevator, both of them dead.”
“And what did you do then?” Joelle asked.
“We took the stairs to the third floor.”
“Is that where you found Ms. Thomas’s body?”
Calvin nodded. “She was lying there, all shot up and bloody.”
Four uniformed policemen appeared as if from out of nowhere and two flanked Calvin while one spoke to Joelle and the fourth motioned for the cameraman to end filming.
“You don’t have the right to stop me from talking to the press,” Calvin told the policemen. “Mr. Johnson wants people to know what happened to his fiancée. He wants to send a message to the killer.”
Suddenly, the screen blurred and then went blank before the morning news anchor reappeared and hurriedly said, “We seem to have lost our live feed. But we will continue with this breaking story when we return from our regularly scheduled commercial break.”
Standing in the back of the crowd assembled outside the Rough Diamond, he watched as the police escorted Calvin James away from newswoman, Joelle Piette. No one—not the police, the FBI, the press, or Tony Johnson’s security team—suspected that the person who had killed three people inside the nightclub only hours ago was now watching the media circus at close range.
When he had finished with Ebony O around midnight, he had gone back to his hotel. After he had put the fatal shot directly into her head, he had removed her clothes and then taken the mask from the briefcase he had brought with him. He had hidden the case on the third floor until he needed what was inside. Once he’d fitted the mask over her face, he had stuffed her clothes into the briefcase and made his way down the hall to a window that led to the fire escape. He had barely made it down the metal ladder to the alleyway behind the club before he’d heard someone shouting about the open window. He should have taken time to close the window, but he had known that every second counted. Clutching the briefcase, he had run up the alley for two city blocks and then entered his hotel through the back entrance.
After carefully removing the fake mustache, nose, chin, and hairpiece, he had taken off the theatrical makeup and showered. A few hours of restful sleep had been more than enough to revitalize him. On the way back to the Rough Diamond, he’d stopped at a fast-food place for coffee and a biscuit. Initially, he had intended to simply walk by, check out the scene, and circle back to his hotel. His flight home left at 11:55 A.M. But when he saw that a crowd had gathered, he joined them, acting like nothing more than an interested bystander.
Before he left Atlanta, he would mail the new batch of letters, one each to Puff Raven, Cherry Sweets, Sonny Shag Deguzman, Lacey Butts, and Candy Ruff. Four down, five to go.
When Jack and Cathy showed up at her back door a little before nine, Lorie knew that they had probably seen Special Agent Wainwright’s interview on the morning news.
Shelley unlocked and opened the door for the couple. Cathy rushed to Lorie and hugged her. Neither said anything for a couple of minutes; they just gave and accepted comfort.
“We’ll keep Treasures closed today,” Cathy said as she glanced at her husband. “Jack’s going to stay here with you and Ms. Gilbert for a while this morning.”
“Look, there’s no reason for me not to go to work,” Lorie assured her best friend. “If I stay at home, I’ll go stir crazy. Besides, staying home today won’t change anything. It won’t change the fact that Shontee is dead and that I could be next on the killer’s list.”
“Show her the newspaper,” Cathy told Jack.
Grimacing, Jack