Free Charity Kills (A David Storm Mystery) by Jon Bridgewater

I was waiting for your permission to give out a statement of regret for this unfortunate young woman’s death and how the Show wishes her family our deepest sympathies for their loss. The good news is it’s Sunday, so when it is picked up, it will make only the evening news and Sundays are the least watched.”
    Powers looked again at Dakota. “Do you have a meeting set up with the Show committee chairs, to make sure their committee members understand they don’t talk to anyone, press, cops, anyone, and they redirect any inquiry they may get to the Show management offices?”
    “I’ll do it later this morning, sir. It will be like the cow charging through the kids’ incident sir a few years ago, it will be reinforced to them that if asked what happened they should be like Schultz on Hogan’s Heroes and say, ‘I know nothing.’” Dakota smiled as she mimicked the inept POW camp sergeant from the old television show.
    Powers then focused on Sergeant Hebert. “How about your cops?”
    “Leadership is on board, Leon,” Sergeant Hebert said. “Her picture is being passed around to all the officers who worked last night. They won’t withhold information, but they work for me or at least most of them do, so like me, they don’t really have much regard for office boys.” His well-known dislike of the police in suits was obvious in his tone.
    Powers turned to look at Dakota and Nagel. “Does Detective Storm know anything about the others?”
    Dakota didn’t reply, except to shake her head no.
    “OK. Keep me informed of anything that comes up that could tarnish the Show.”
    As if an afterthought, he asked, “Do any of you know this Leslie Phillips or have you ever seen her before?” He threw the copy of the picture Hebert had brought onto the middle of the table. None of the eleven executive committee members answered. They sat silently, merely looking at the dead girl’s picture.
    * * * *

    Powers looked quietly at the face of each of them, one by one, trying to read body language. He knew someone at this table had seen the girl and possibly knew her, but none would answer now, not in front of so many of their cohorts. One of them might even know who the killer was, but would never admit it. It was time to circle the wagons. He suspected they all wondered if this murder could be tied to the other killings of young women found in or around the vicinity of the Show over the last seven years. He had to depend on their discretion. This was a closed group, a society within a society; too much was at stake for this to become anything more than the tragic death of a young woman with no ties to the Show.

Chapter Seven
    Russell Finds an Ally
    Channel 5 News had been Russell’s home since returning to Houston from college. He had started as a rookie reporter making less money a month then a city street sweeper, but it wasn’t the money that pushed him. It was news: the finding a story and pursuing it ‘til the facts came out. In the twenty-five years he had spent at Channel 5 he
had risen up the ladder of success, becoming the nightly anchor for the 6:00 and 10:00 pm wrap-ups at the age of thirty.
    After five years on the anchor desk he found he was bored. He looked at the jobs afforded him and he discovered being the weatherman better fit his work ethic, which had reverted back to his apathetic, unconcerned approach to life. He found he was good at doing the weather; it didn’t take much preparation and it afforded him the same notoriety as being an anchor.
    As he pushed open the station entry doors that Sunday after his conversation with Storm, he glanced at the foyer and reflected that not much had changed in the almost twenty-five years he had been there, with the exception of the arrival from time to time of fresh new energetic faces. These new people were mostly young and always looking to make their mark and to step up to a bigger market stations or the chance to get to go to the “Show,” which is how