Nailed by Joseph Flynn Page A

natural advantages, as far as the police were concerned.
    “I’ll get Stanley on it right away,” Oliver said, heading for the door.
    “You think we could get that lucky?” Ron asked.
    The deputy chief just snorted and kept going.
     
    Another member of the Clay Steadman Show’s viewing audience was Perk Lawler, the local stringer for the Associated Press. She videotaped every episode. She also had an urgent reaction to the mayor’s announcement. Perk picked up her phone and called her boss in Los Angeles. Did she have a story for him.
    And by Saturday morning, so did every newspaper in the country.
    Hours later, news of the murder in Goldstrike and Clay Steadman’s reward offer was in worldwide circulation.
     

Chapter 7
     
    Saturday
     
    About the same time on Saturday morning that the rest of the country was learning about the horrific killing in the Sierra Nevada resort town, two tired and cranky patrol officers, Santo Alighieri and Divine Babson, made a discovery. At the far corner of the parking lot of the Evergreen Supermarket on Timberline Road sat an old dark blue Ford Taurus. There was an acre of available parking between the car and the store.
    Officer Babson, the mother of three, gave her partner a fish-eyed look.
    “Santo,” she asked, “you ever feel the urge to carry a bag of groceries one step farther than you absolutely had to?”
    “Beautiful car like that, maybe the owner just don’t want to get it dinged,” he responded deadpan, but he drove slowly over to the isolated car.
    As they got close, Divine said, “Something wrong here. I feel it. You feel it?”
    “Yeah. Either there’s a body in that trunk or we’re the lucky cops about to get a commendation.”
    Officer Babson radioed the dispatcher that she and her partner were about to investigate a suspicious vehicle and gave their location. The dispatcher acknowledged their message.
    Approaching the car from the rear, Alighieri said, “The plate’s current.”
    “I’ll call it in,” Babson replied “See what we can see.”
    “Hey, Divine,” Alighieri interrupted as he moved to the front of the car. “Come on over here and look at this.”
    She joined her partner and looked in the direction of his nod. The driver’s side sun visor hung down. On it was a label: Clergy.
    Officer Babson just shook her head. “A man gets himself crucified, and we find a minister’s car parked all lonely over here? Makes me want to go home and hold my babies.”
    Alighieri, a bachelor, took the practical point of view.
    “Let’s call the chief in on this. Maybe he’ll let you.”
     
    Ron came and so did Oliver, who’d been about to leave for breakfast at home. They brought Officer Benny Marx, the department’s crime scene man, with them. By the time they arrived at the supermarket parking lot Officers Babson and Alighieri had a name for them.
    “DMV says this car’s registered to a Reverend Isaac Cardwell,” Babson said.
    “A black male,” Alighieri added.
    A number of early morning shoppers noticed the police presence, but the cops didn’t seem to be doing more than talking, and they were too far away for anyone to casually rubberneck.
    “You guys touch anything?” Benny Marx asked.
    Both cops shook their heads.
    “Eyeballed it is all,” Babson explained.
    Alighieri added, “Divine spotted the car over here, wondered why anyone would park so far from the store. When we got within ten feet of it, we knew something was wrong.”
    Oliver looked up from glancing at the Clergy label. “The DMV sent you the reverend’s driver’s license photo, right?”
    Babson held up her department-issued BlackBerry. Isaac Cardwell’s photographic likeness looked out at the assembly of cops.
    Ron nodded. “Good work, officers. You two have been working all night?”
    Alighieri said, “Yes, sir.”
    The chief told the two cops, “Okay, go home and get some rest. Come back for second shift. See if you can find another lead for us.”
    Divine