A Soul To Steal by Rob Blackwell Page B

Quinn.
    “Right now just making the rounds on the stalker,” he said. “I’m trying to find out why they canceled the press conference.”
    “But you know that…”
    “Yeah, but they don’t know that I know,” he said. “I wanted to find out what the cops have told some of the heads of the citizen patrols.”
    “I doubt very much they told them there was a dead body in the woods,” she said.
    “Nope,” Quinn replied. “But they were stupid enough to tell them different stories. Bill Browson, who heads up the Leesburg Family Council, was told that Sheriff Brown had to testify in court unexpectedly.  But Rev. Athearn was told that there was simply no new information. They both might be true, but I doubt it.”
    “Sloppy,” Kate said.
    “Yeah, because they had to do it fast,” Janus said.
    “Why are you wasting time on this?” she asked. “Why not just confront the police?”
    “I could,” he said. “But what would that do? The story needs time to simmer. The cops think they can keep a lid on this, but there is no way this doesn’t start to leak out. Sooner or later, something always does. The more people that know, the easier getting confirmation will be. If I ask too many questions too soon, the right people are going to get scared and clam up. I want to see how many times I get the same story.”
    “But if you just asked…”
    “This isn’t Ohio, Kate,” Janus said. “These cops don’t like or trust us very much. They’re secretive down to their core. A lot happens in this town they don’t like to talk about. The first time Lord Halloween struck, a lot of people lost faith in the police and they never got it back. It’s created a siege mentality at the police force.”
    “But you could force them to talk, just by asking a lot of questions,” she said.
    “If I do that today, they could find my source,” he said. “And that won’t help me. Let them see me asking everyone in town—they will hear about it. They’ll get nervous and when I call them tomorrow they won’t ask who gave me the story. They’ll figure I pieced it together.”
    “But what more do you know?” Kate asked.
    Quinn gestured at Janus.
    “He’s been my eyes in the sky,” he replied. “I’m waiting for his report.”
    “Quinn called me this morning and had me head out to the site,” he explained to Kate.
    “Where the body supposedly is?” she asked.
    “We didn’t know exactly where, but…” Quinn said.
    “We know where now,” Janus said.
     “What did you find?” she asked.
    “The cops are swarming around the woods along a side road between Leesburg and Waterford. They’ve roped off a whole chunk of it. It isn’t very well traveled, but…”
     “Not exactly subtle,” she said.
    “They never are,” Quinn replied. “Secretive, but not subtle.”
    “I got there and parked far enough away,” Janus said. “I started taking photos pretty far back. I have a good telescope lens, so I could see quite a few uniforms combing the woods.”
    “Did they see you?”
    “Not at first,” he said. “I got pretty close before anyone came over to me. When they did, though, you would have thought I killed the lady.”
    “What happened?”
    “A whole bunch of cops—like five or six—started coming toward me and shouting and shit,” he said. “I switched the film because I figured they might try and hurt the camera, but they weren’t that dumb. Instead they just started trying to intimidate me.”
    “What did you do?” Kate asked.
    “I told them they could go fuck themselves,” Janus said and grinned.
    “This is his usual response to most inquiries,” Quinn said.
    “Really?” she asked.
    “Oh yeah,” Quinn said, holding up his hands. “Honest to God.”
    “So I imagine they took that well,” she said.
    “Well, I also showed them my press badge,” Janus added. “That made them calm down, but one of them went running back and brought out Stu.”
    “Who’s Stu?”
    “Brown’s