It was way too early for this BS. Walker clicked the phone on speaker and turned to pour his coffee. Then, the magical “ping,” the phone alerted him to a received message.
It was the first of Hadden’s jPEGs.
“Hold on, Hadden, I think I got something.”
Walker opened up the text. Holy shit!
He set down his mug and reaching into the pocket of his bathrobe, he pulled out his other cell phone, punched in a number off speed dial and put Hadden on mute with his other thumb.
“Jerry, get up. Hurry. Get out to the Hamptons right now. There’s a dead girl in Eric Saxton’s pool house. I’ve got photo confirmation. She’s probably at the morgue by now. Don’t stop for a shower. Get out there and try to get whatever you can. Take the coroner doughnuts, find the cop, do whatever you have to do, get something now. Find out who she is. I want it on the cover of Snoop but it’s gotta be fast. We go to press in twelve hours.”
Walker clicked off. Taking Hadden off mute, he broke into Hadden’s monologue. “I’m sorry, I lost you for a moment. Look, let’s cut the crap. How much do you want?”
The jPEGs kept coming. They were beyond fantastic.
“So how many do you have?”
“Over a hundred. I’ve got the mansion exteriors, shots of the family on the grand piano…”
“You didn’t break in, did you? That’ll screw the pooch…”
“No way! I’m not an idiot, Mr. Walker. I shot from outside, through the window! For all they know, I coulda been thirty feet away! No trespassing here!”
“Okay. What else do you have… exteriors, photos…”
“I got the backyard, the tranquility pool, pool house, about twenty-five or thirty shots of the girl, the cops arriving, and the jackpot… shots of the girl being wheeled out with a wrist dangling off the gurney!”
“Face covered?”
“Yeah. The S.O.B.s covered her up with a sheet.”
“Damn. I hate when they do that. But you said a wrist was dangling out?”
“Yep.”
“Okay. But we still have no idea who the girl is… She could be nobody…”
“Who cares who she is? It’s Eric Saxton’s house! This is at least worth fifty grand! Don’t bullshit me. I’ll go to another tab if you don’t pay. I’ll call right now you cheap son of a-”
Taking a closer look at one particular shot of the dead girl, the one where her leg was sprawled out from the chair, Walker abruptly stopped the bargaining, cutting Hadden off mid-sentence.
“No need for you to do that. No need to haggle about money. You’re right. Your work is phenomenal. You have a real talent for, let me say, capturing the moment so well, so beautifully. Perfectly, actually, to be completely accurate. Snoop will absolutely pay you the fifty. I can wire it from my laptop in thirty minutes. Give me a number. Happy?”
Hadden was speechless. He knew Snoop was the best, but he’d expected a big argument, and in the end, he’d realistically hoped he could turn around fifteen large. This was over triple what he had hoped for.
“Just send the rest of what you’ve got. I’m firing up my laptop right now. E-mail the numbers so I don’t wire to the wrong account. Okay, buddy?”
“I’m e-mailing now from my BlackBerry. Thanks…” Hadden didn’t know quite how to end it, but he wanted to get off the phone before somehow, it all went wrong.
The phone clicked off. Man, what a morning!
Little did Hadden know that at that very same moment, Walker was yelling out to his wife, “Honey! Honey! Come here! Hurry! Look at this!”
When she arrived in the kitchen rubbing her eyes, Walker was standing by the kitchen window to get the morning light, squinting into his iPhone.
“Look at this dead girl…”
“Why do I want to look at a picture of a dead girl first thing in the morning? I haven’t even had any coffee…”
“Okay. Don’t look at the dead girl. Just look at her leg.”
Marjorie Walker squinted in the light to get a look at a shapely leg attached to a dead woman’s body, seated in a straight chair. The leg was sprawled at an unnatural angle.
“Okay. I see it. What about it?”
“The tattoo, Marjorie, the tattoo! Forget the head. Look at the tattoo!”
By now, Walker was on his laptop, to which he’d sent the photos. He punched a few keys and the photo was enlarged. He zeroed in on the ankle tattoo and blew it up. Along with some Chinese characters, the tattoo depicted two intertwined hearts. The hearts had initials in them. LS and KD.
Leather Stockton and her former husband, Kenny DePaul.
The dead girl was Leather Stockton.
Chapter 8
OMG! DID YOU SEE THE TWITTER? ABOUT LEATHER STOCKTON?” Sookie breathed it into her cell phone, barely able to contain the excitement.
“Yee-es! Of course I saw it! Twenty minutes ago!” He had to outdo her on the timing… Sookie had to think he saw it before she did.
He was a little stunned she knew about the murder. Sookie hadn’t even known Reagan was dead for two days, while Russo booked like mad.
“Are you thinking what I’m thinking?” He breathed it right back into the receiver at her, his lips actually grazing the mouthpiece.
“Yes! Absolutely! Pull Harry’s last interview with her… you know the one after her DUI? Or was it after her divorce from that Wall Streeter? Whatever… I think it was right after her DUI… Didn’t you tell me she was drunk in the Green Room?”
“Yes, I definitely told you. You weren’t here. You were in the Bahamas, I think, weren’t you celebrating your fortieth? Weren’t you on a yacht and you had that French Champagne you told me about? You know, a thousand dollars a bottle?”
“Tony… You’re right! Again! I was in the Bahamas with Julian for my fortieth! The French Champagne! Your memory is amazing!” It hit neither that all Champagne came from France, or else it wasn’t Champagne.
“I remember! I never forget a detail!” Tony desperately wanted praise. It didn’t happen.
“But, please, Tony, don’t get me started on Julian. He’s dating a girl in college now. College. Some little tramp from Barbados. She’s probably eighteen. That’s sick. Please, I can’t think about him anymore today.”
Tony didn’t bother to point out he wasn’t the one who brought up Sookie’s soon-to-be ex-husband, Julian. She did. As usual. No way did Tony want to launch another three-hour phone therapy session about Sookie’s most recent marriage disaster.
“How do you know she’s eighteen? Where did you see her?”
“Where? It doesn’t matter… Okay… from my car… across a parking lot when they were going out to dinner. I happened to be there at the same time they were.”
Oh, no, Sookie was stalking her ex again. Tony knew it.
“But Tony, let’s focus on Leather.”
“It’s got to run today.”
“No! Tonight! We’ll stick with Hailey Dean and the torso for today daytime, then push the suits to preempt political coverage and go with Harry’s last sit-down with Leather! That White House bunch, whine, whine, whine, it’s always the same thing night after night. How do they do it?”
“Yes! Tonight!” Tony paused. “But wait…” Stay calm… Stay calm. Tony thought it through. “If we go prime time tonight, we won’t get the credit for the big number… It won’t be our time slot…”
“Doesn’t matter… we don’t have time to promo before air…” she reminded him.
“Okay. I’m on it. By the way… where are you?”