All Fall Down

“Yeah,” he barked. “Get moving!”

They did, jumping to their feet and hurrying out of their boss’s office. The first thing Melanie did was call her twin sister, Mia. The other woman picked up right away. “Mia, it’s Mel.”

“Melanie! My God, I was just watching channel six. That poor girl!” She lowered her voice. “Was it awful?”

“Worse,” Melanie replied grimly. “That’s why I’m calling. I need a favor.” “Shoot.”

“It’s crazy around here, and I don’t expect it to let up in time for me to pick Casey up at preschool. Would you mind?” Melanie glanced at the picture of her four-year-old son on her desk, her lips lifting in an involuntary smile. “I’d ask Stan to do it but I don’t have the time for one of his lectures about why I need to quit my job and how my being a cop is bad for Casey.”

“He’s full of crap. But, yes, I’d love to get Casey from school. And since I’ll be in the neighborhood, I suppose you’d like me to head around the corner and pick up your uniforms at that dry cleaners?”

“You’re a lifesaver. On both accounts.”

From the corners of her eyes, she saw that Bobby was ready and waiting at the door. “Look, when you pick him up this time, don’t pretend to be me. It really freaks his teachers out.”

“Lightweights.” Mia cackled, sounding absolutely wicked. “What’s the good of being an identical twin if I can’t have a little fun with it? Besides, Casey likes it. It’s our little game.”

Melanie shook her head. Actually, she and Mia were both identical twins and triplets. When Melanie told people so, they always laughed, thinking she was making a joke. But it was true. She and Mia were identical twins but they also had a fraternal triplet sister, Ashley.

What made it even more fun was Ashley’s striking resemblance to her sisters. When together, the three fair-haired, blue-eyed look-alikes drew the startled gazes of passersby. Even their friends had been known to do double takes.

“Remember how we used to trick our teachers?” Mia murmured, her tone amused.

“I’m thirty-two, not ninety-two. Of course, I remember. You were always the instigator. And I was the one who always got blamed.”

“Try reversing that, sister dear.”

Bobby cleared his throat, tapped his watch and pointed at the chief’s office. She nodded in acknowledgment. “I would if I had the time, Mia. Right now I’ve got to go solve a murder.”

Her sister’s wish of “Go for it, Sherlock” ringing in her ears, Melanie hung up the phone and hurried to meet her partner.

4

The Mecklenburg County District Attorney’s office was located in Uptown Charlotte, in the old county courthouse building. Built in the days before the advent of the office high-rise—those unadorned rectangles filled with low-ceiling rooms jammed with vanilla cubicles, each no bigger or smaller than the other—the courthouse was now a part of Government Plaza, residing with modern-day, state-of-the-art wonders like the Law Enforcement Center.

Rabbit warrens, Assistant District Attorney Veronica Ford called such buildings. Monuments to the depersonalization of modern life. In contrast, the old courthouse possessed an aura of faded grandeur. To Veronica, it fit her image of a place where the wheels of justice turned slowly but surely, a place where, though sometimes mired in a flawed, old-fashioned system, justice had its way.

Just as it fit her image of Charlotte, a city of both the old South and the new, a city of blooming trees and skyscrapers, of southern gentility and frenzied commerce. A city she had felt at home in from the moment she’d arrived, nine months before.

Even though running late for a team meeting, Veronica eschewed the rickety but reliable elevator and took the wide, curving central staircase to the second floor, trailing her hand along its ornate wrought-iron handrail. Veronica loved the law. She loved her part in it, relished the fact that without her the world would not be quite as good a place to live. She believed that—perhaps naively, perhaps with conceit.

But if she didn’t, what would be the point of working for the D.A.? She could make a helluva lot more money with a lot less stress practicing corporate law.

“Afternoon, Jen,” she called to the receptionist as she stepped onto the top landing.

Pregnant with her first child, the young woman was positively glowing with happiness. She smiled at Veronica. “Morning to you, too.”

“Any messages?”

“Several.” The woman indicated a stack of pink message slips. “Nothing urgent.”

Veronica crossed to the reception desk, set her Starbucks travel mug down and handed the other woman a take-out bag from the same establishment. She grinned. “I brought the baby a little something.”

“One of the cranberry-nut scones? The baby loves those.”

“The very ones.”

The receptionist squealed with pleasure and dug into the bag. “You are a complete peach, Veronica Ford. The baby and I thank you.”

Veronica laughed and flipped quickly through the messages, seeing nothing that couldn’t wait until after her meeting. “How late am I? Rick here yet?”

Rick Zanders was the Person’s Team supervisor. The lawyers on the Person’s Team, of which Veronica was one, handled all violent crimes committed against a person—with the exception of homicide and crimes against children. Those included rape, assault, battery, sexual assault and kidnapping. The team met every Wednesday afternoon to discuss the status of ongoing cases, to be informed about what was new, to discuss strategy and offer assistance when needed.

“Only a couple minutes before you, and he had several calls to make before the meeting.” She glanced at her watch, then over her shoulder. “I bet you still have ten minutes. Apparently, Rick knows the Andersen family personally.” Jen lowered her voice. “You heard about the murder?”

“I heard.” Veronica frowned. “What’s everyone saying? Is there anything more than what’s in the media? Any suspects?”

“Not that I’ve heard. But I bet Rick has some of the details.” She shuddered. “It’s so awful. She was a really nice girl. So pretty, too.”

Veronica thought of the attractive blonde she had seen pictured on television that morning. She hadn’t been in Charlotte long enough to have met any of the Andersens personally, but she had heard of them. As she understood it, Joli Andersen had had a bright future ahead of her.

“They said on TV that she was strangled,” Jen continued, whispering.

“Suffocated,” Veronica corrected.

“Do you think they’ll catch the guy?” The receptionist laid a hand protectively over her swollen belly. “Knowing a person like that is walking the streets of Charlotte gives me the creeps. I mean, if someone like Joli Andersen can get killed, anybody can.”

Veronica knew Jen wasn’t alone in her fears, not today. No doubt those same words, or a variation of them, had been uttered in nearly every household in Charlotte over the past few hours. A murder like this one, a victim like Joli Andersen, drove home just how dangerous the world was. And just how fickle fate.

“I can assure you of one thing, Jen, this will probably be the most intensive manhunt Charlotte has ever seen.” Veronica stuffed her messages into her pocket, then collected her coffee cup and briefcase. “And when they do catch him, we’ll nail him.”

The receptionist smiled, looking relieved. “Justice always wins out.”

After agreeing, Veronica made her way to the conference room. There, the other lawyers—with the exception of Rick—were already assembled. And as she had known they would be, they were all talking about the same thing—Joli Andersen’s murder. She called out a hello, dropped her things at a vacant spot at the table and ambled over to a group of her colleagues. They all began talking to her at once.

“Isn’t it unbelievable?”

“I heard Rick dated Joli for a while. This is going to hit him really hard.”

“Are you sure? He’s quite a bit older than—”

“—heard that the FBI’s been called in.”

“A top profiler. Rumor has it that—”

“The crime involved some sort of kinky sex.”

Veronica jumped on the last, the first bit of new information that interested her. “Where did you hear that? That wasn’t on any of the news reports.”