Riley Thorn and the Corpse in the Closet by Lucy Score

25

8:42 a.m., Monday, August 17

Channel 50’s broadcast studio was housed in an unattractive building on Sixth Street in Harrisburg near the rumbling railroad tracks. Riley winced as memories of her years there punched her in the face when Kellen pulled his cruiser into the rear parking lot next to the dumpster.

She was still feeling raw and wobbly over the whole conversation with a corpse thing and sweating out three pounds of water weight.

Being forced to literally walk back into her past less than twelve hours later seemed like lemon juice on top of a dozen paper cuts.

“Come on, Cleo,” Kellen said, looking annoyingly handsome and confident behind his aviators. “You’ll be fine.”

“I am not accepting that nickname,” she groused, getting out of the car.

The humidity blasted her as soon as her shoes hit the asphalt.

She’d taken a little—okay, a lot—of extra care with her appearance today. Not because she was trying to impress anyone named Griffin “Stupidface” Gentry. But because she’d left these offices humiliated. This was an opportunity to give them a different last memory of her.

Kellen led the way around the building to the front door, where the frigid air conditioning met them like a French kiss from a polar bear.

The waiting room was a vanilla box with one plate glass window emblazoned with Channel 50’s logo. Life-size cutouts of the morning and evening news anchors formed a creepy wall of talent. She shuddered when she spotted Griffin’s, which had obviously been blown up larger than life-size since it was over six feet tall and had regular-size feet. Less than half of the dozen chairs scattered around the room’s perimeter were occupied.

“I really need this job.”The thought seemed to be coming from a thirty-something, white brunette in a cheap suit. She was jiggling her foot so hard her shoe fell off.

“Man, this place is depressing,”the Asian woman two chairs down in the gauzy summer blouse thought. “I’d need a lot of alcohol in my life to walk through this door every day. Maybe I should fake a family emergency?”

There was another person tucked into the corner holding up a newspaper. Purple hair peeked over the masthead.

Kellen badged the guy at the front desk, and less than a minute later, an overly eager staffer named Hudson appeared to lead them directly to the studio.

They arrived in time to see morning news anchor Griffin Gentry chortling with an area chef over crepes in the kitchen studio.

The set was looking a little dated. But the studio beyond it was downright decrepit. Paint peeled off the walls. The cleaner-resistant mold still dotted the baseboards above the concrete floor. Cables snaked between cameras and sound equipment held together with duct tape. Camera 2 now had two fans on it to keep it from overheating.

It looked like the years had not been kind to Channel 50, Riley noted.

“And we’re out,” a member of the crew yelled.

“I appreciate this opportunity,” the chef said, beaming at Griffin. “This means so much to my restaurant.”

“Yeah, whatever. Makeup! I need more bronzer,” Griffin bellowed, losing his boyish, for-the-cameras grin. He hopped down from his box and made a beeline for the makeup artist.

Kellen hid a laugh with a cough. “Was he—”

Riley nodded. “Oh, yeah. He does all his interviews on a booster box.”

“He looks like an overgrown preschooler who got in his mother’s spray tanner,” Kellen observed.

“Don’t I know it. Come on. The news director is over there,” she said, pointing to a man in a rumpled, short-sleeved plaid shirt that was two sizes too big. His khakis hadn’t seen the hot side of an iron in at least a month. “His name is Chris Yang. He’s been with Channel 50 for at least ten years. If anyone on the staff is getting threats, he’ll know.”

They picked their way around camera equipment and fraying cords to where Chris paced with a coffee in hand and a phone to his ear.

“I don’t care if she’s hungover. Put some eye drops in her and get her to fucking smile on camera for sixty seconds,” he said before disconnecting.

“Chris Yang?” Kellen asked.

“Yeah. One sec.” Chris held up a finger and called up an app on his phone to record a note. “Remind me to look into local rehab clinics. Also remind me to stop hiring twenty-two-year-old country club girls who serve Malcolm Gentry cocktails.” Memo recorded, he stowed his phone in the cargo pocket of his khakis.

“We’re in the middle of a show. You can sign up for a tour at the front desk.”

Kellen produced his badge. “I’m Detective Weber with homicide. I have a few questions for you.”

Chris’s eyes bulged, and his breath expelled in a nervous laugh. “Me? Ha. Questions from a homicide detective? Come on. This is some joke, right? Did Clarence in advertising put you up to this?”

“Two dead bodies are no joke,” Kellen said sternly.

“Well, shit. Yeah. Sure. Am I a suspect? Wait, you wouldn’t tell me if I was. Listen, I’ve got fifteen more minutes of the morning show. You mind hanging out in the sound booth?”

“That’s fine,” Kellen said.

“Holy shit.” Chris’s gaze finally landed on Riley. “I know you!”

They’d interacted on an almost daily basis when she’d been a lowly copywriter here. He damn well better know her.

“Hey, Chris,” Riley said in what she hoped was a cool, professional tone.

“I didn’t recognize you since you’re not dyed blue and bleeding from a bullet wound.”

Oh, right. The fountain shooting.The news crew had shown up within minutes of the gun fight and Mrs. Penny’s attempt at vehicular manslaughter. Well, it was better than being known as Griffin’s pathetic ex-wife, she supposed.

“Are you finally here for an interview?” Chris snatched the clipboard away from the hovering production assistant and glared at it. “I swear to Christ if they tried to sneak this into the shooting schedule without talking to me—”

“Riley’s here in an official capacity,” Kellen explained.

“Back from break in thirty,” someone warned.

Griffin dragged himself away from a bronzer brush and plopped down at the news desk.

“Nice of you to join us,” Valerie the co-anchor said dryly.

Griffin scrunched up his face. “Nice of you to join us,” he mimicked.

Riley noticed his foundation cracking in several places, and the satisfied look Valerie flashed the camera.

“You’re working with the cops?” Chris demanded, ushering them toward the sound booth. “Is this a big case? Does that mean the department is employing psychics? Do you have time for an on-camera?”

“Live in. Ten…nine…”

He didn’t wait for an answer before shoving them both inside the sound studio and shutting the door.

There were fewer people manning the booth than when she’d worked here. The equipment was the same and looking a lot worse for wear. Buttons were broken. Bulbs hadn’t been replaced. The sound engineer was balanced on three wheels of a chair because the fourth was missing.

The news business was significantly less glamorous than TV and movies made it look. It was just one of adulthood’s many disappointments.

Riley tucked herself into the corner and tried to stay out of the way.

“Welcome back, Harrisburg! We’ll leave you with one last look at the weather,” Valerie said cheerfully on camera.

If I have to work here for one more year, I am going to throw myself off a bridge.

Riley jumped at the stray thought, and then another one swooped through her head.

It’ll all be over soon.

I’d like to headbutt that Gentry weasel right in the face.

Riley had wanted to shut her spiritual garage doors for the day so she could recuperate in peace, but the whole point of her being a psychic civilian consultant was the psychic thing.

Glancing around, she couldn’t figure out who she’d intercepted the thoughts from. It was like an invisible cloak of depression clung to the entire studio staff.

She grunted and watched Griffin Gentry pretend to become a real boy on camera.

“Let’s head over to our beautiful weather girl, Bella Goodshine,” Griffin said, flashing his unnaturally white teeth at the camera. “Bella, what have you got for us today?”

The cameras cut to Bella dressed in another low-cut pink blouse. Her thick, blonde hair was styled in curls the size of sausage links. “Well, handsome, I’ve got heart eyes for you today!” Bella chirped, making a heart with her fingers and holding them up to her face. “And a chance of severe thunderstorms with possible hail damage!”

Valerie mimed vomiting under the desk. Riley decided she liked her immensely.

“That’s all for today. Have a great Monday, Harrisburg,” Valerie said to the camera.

“From our family to yours, have a Channel 50 day,” Griffin said, throwing his trademark wink and salute at the camera.

“Go fuck yourself.”

That last thought sounded like it came from several minds at the same time.

“And we’re out,” someone on the floor announced.

Chris opened the door with a loud creak and waved them out.

They followed him through a set of metal doors down a windowless corridor past the restrooms.

The corridor opened up into a dingy room of cubicles where sales, advertising, and a handful of copywriters claimed space. It looked as though the room had barely survived some kind of roof leak. Several ceiling tiles were missing, and the ones that remained were stained a dirty brown.

Chris jiggled the handle on a door in the corner and gave it a kick to open it.

“Welcome to my humble abode,” he said.

Technically it was a corner office, but the only appealing feature of the block-walled, windowless room was that it was far enough downwind from the restrooms that it didn’t smell like sewage from the problematic plumbing.

Chris sat behind a desk that was covered in papers, bobbleheads, and enough family photos it seemed as though he was worried about forgetting what his wife and kids looked like.

“Have a seat,” he said, gesturing at the two vinyl chairs across from him.

They sat and Kellen produced two photos. “Do you know Bianca Hornberger or Titus Strubinger?” he asked, handing over the pictures.

Chris held them up side-by-side and frowned. “Hornberger’s the corpse in the closet, right?”

“That’s correct,” Kellen said.

Riley wasn’t surprised. Chris had made local news his life. He could recite the names of every murder victim in the city for the last twenty years.

“This guy isn’t ringing a bell. Sure looks like the cheerful sort.”

Riley peeked at the photo. Strubinger was dressed in camo pants and a Don’t Tread on Me t-shirt decorated with a myriad of stains. He had a bushy beard, unruly hair, and a scowl. “He dead too?”

Kellen nodded. “Both victims appear to have been active on Channel 50’s website and social media accounts.”

“Active how?” Chris asked.

“They both were vocal on articles and posts with these usernames,” Kellen said, sliding another piece of paper across the desk. “Both express aggressive points of view.”

“‘You’re a horrible mother for allowing your child to attend public school. What did you think was going to happen? Of course he was going to choke on the subpar lunch in the cafeteria. I hope you choke and die on your next meal,’” Chris read out loud. “Yeah, that sounds about right for our comments.”

“That was Bianca Hornberger on an article about a student saving another student’s life with the Heimlich maneuver,” Kellen said.

Chris moved on to the next. “The United States of ’Merica wasn’t founded to cater to women. It was built for and by white men. It’s time we remember our heritage and remind the rest that they are here to serve.” He chuckled. “This guy sounds like he’s the type who lives in his mother’s basement.”

“Where were you on the night of August the second?” Kellen asked.

Chris’s eyebrows scaled his forehead. “Oh, shit. He really did live with his mom? I swear I didn’t know that because I murdered him. You just get a feel for the kind of people—and I use that term loosely—who feel like their opinions are required on everything that happens in the world.”

“Where were you on the night of August the second?” Kellen repeated.

Chris dropped the photos as if they were scorpions and dug out a planner.

“Looks like I was here in the editing room until about six. I headed out to my son’s soccer scrimmage. Grabbed some Popeyes in the drive-thru on my way back here to shoot some promos until ten. Then I went home, drank two beers, and fell asleep on the couch with my wife watching Outlander.”

Kellen didn’t say anything. And sweat broke out on Chris’s forehead.

“How about during the day on August seventh?” Riley probed, getting in on the fun.

She sensed Kellen’s approval.

“I was here. I’m always here,” he said, gesturing around him at the general chaos. “I would have been in the studio from five a.m. to ten a.m. Then it was a normal workday until about six p.m.”

“Okay,” Kellen said.

“Okay ‘I believe you okay,’ or okay ‘I’m getting an arrest warrant’?” Chris asked.

“Okay, your alibis can easily be verified,” Kellen said. “Moving on. Have any of your staff received any threats recently?”

Chris opened his hands. “We’re the news, man. Everyone hates us.” He gestured at the printout of comments. “We get this shit all day, every day. Give someone even the pretense of anonymity, and they turn into a horrible human being. I wouldn’t be surprised if my nana was online threatening the pope.”

“What about strange packages in the mail?” Riley asked.

Chris laughed. “Strange how?” He pointed at her. “You know how it is. You worked here. Griffin gets at least two pairs of underwear a week from stalkers with no taste. Bella gets marriage proposals and jewelry and free clothes from her admiring fans. We had two suspicious boxes that we had to call the cops on in the last month alone. One ended up being a damaged shipment of dry shampoo for makeup. The other, some yahoo bagged up baking soda and mailed it in with a note claiming we’d just been ‘poisoned by Amtrak.’”

This time when Chris laughed, it was the sound of a man who had gotten used to being close to the edge.

“But no gag packages?” Riley pressed, wondering just what had happened at Channel 50 since she’d left to make things even worse.

“What kind of gag packages? Like those bags of gummy candy shaped like dicks?” he asked.

“That’s need to know,” Kellen told him. “We’d like to talk to some of your staff. Any of them who have been the target of online threats. Anyone who deals with your online accounts.”

Chris glanced down at his clipboard then tossed it over his shoulder. “Sure. Why not? Who needs to stick to a schedule? Fuck.” He picked up his desk phone. “Hudson, can you make a coffee run? You guys want anything?”

* * *

Riley: Just wanted to take this opportunity to thank you for hiring me so I don’t have to work in moldy, soul-sucking hellholes anymore.

Nick: Going well, huh?

Riley: I feel my soul dying from proximity.

Nick: I’ll breathe some life into your “soul” later. And by “soul” I mean your pants. Heading out to check on a cabin Rupley’s second cousin has up river.

Riley: My pants and I look forward to it. Think you’ll find Rupley there?

Nick: Nope. But I’m taking your Jeep so Uncle Jimmy can smell the fish air.