Anonymous Sources (3 page)

    

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 23

I
don't consider myself superstitious. But I do follow something of a ritual every time I land a story on the front page.

On these mornings—and there have been many of them now—I lock my little apartment and walk the fifteen minutes across Harvard Square to the T-stop. Out of Town News still stacks up neat piles of the
Chronicle
, alongside the
New York Times
and the
Wall Street Journal
. I shell out the exact change and carry it onto the train with me, savoring the feel of newsprint on my fingers and the thrill—yes, it's still a thrill—of seeing my name above the fold on page one.

Today, if I may say so, my story read pretty damn well. The headline
wasn't wildly creative but it was accurate enough: “Harvard Student Falls to His Death; Police Promise Full Investigation.” The critical thing was the dateline: “Inside Eliot House, Harvard College.”

Most of the competition had stories datelined, at best, “Cambridge, Mass.” The other papers had been forced to quote heavily from either the
Crimson
or, I noted with satisfaction, my own reporting. No one else had gotten inside.

Getting inside is my specialty.

I've never loved the stories that are the bread and butter of a big-city newspaper: violent crimes, contentious city-council meetings, natural disasters, and subway strikes. They make good copy. But they're a little obvious. I love the stories no one knows are there.

I like to think I'm good at getting people to talk. Sometimes all you have to do is ask. The simple questions work best. Pick one, ask it over and over, don't let them dodge it, and you'd be amazed at what people will tell you. With more sophisticated sources, you have to earn their trust. Call them on a routine story, get it right, call them back the next day for feedback. Pay your dues. The best stories grow out of a tiny detail someone lets drop, a crumb that doesn't initially seem significant. But then you consider it alongside another crumb that a different source might have dropped weeks back. I gather these morsels patiently, hoard them, until I begin to make out a path that I can follow.

All this crumb-gathering has earned me one of the
New England Chronicle
's most prestigious beats, higher education. I can't say higher ed makes my pulse race. But my beat offers one critical quality: it is relentless. Boston is home to more colleges and universities than any city in the world. There are more ivory towers than you can count. That means there is always, always something to write about.

This is good on the nights when the ache begins in my chest. I don't give in to it more than a couple of times a year. I can go for days now when I barely think about what happened. But when it starts, I can feel the ache move up from my chest to my throat to knock me behind the
eyes. I used to vomit with the guilt. The regret.
Regret
—the word does not begin to capture what I feel.

You wouldn't expect it, but on these nights I do not drink. I think because if I did, I would never find it in me to get up again. Some scrap of self-preservation tells me I have to just lie there and ride it out. Eventually, the newsroom will call. And I'll get up and go to work again.

    

    

M
orning, Ginger!”

My friend Elias Thottrup, the paper's national security reporter. He's based in the DC bureau; I hadn't realized he was around. I narrowed my eyes and pretended to scowl at him.

“Why, good morning, Shorty,” I purred. “You know how I love it when you call me Ginger.”

He chuckled and kept moving across the newsroom. “All right then. Carrot Top, if you insist. Coffee later?”

I nodded. Patted my hair self-consciously. Another trait I inherited from my Scottish mother. Salon highlights tame it to a shade I like to
think of as strawberry blond. But I was overdue for the salon, and I had to admit my hair was looking particularly fiery this morning.

Well, nothing to be done about it right now. I threw my bag under my desk, swapped my flip-flops—the same ones that had served me so well last night—for a pair of ridiculously high heels, and flipped on my computer. The
Chronicle
newsroom was still quiet at this hour. I was starting to scribble down the three voice mails flashing on my phone when Hyde Rawlins rounded the corner.

Hyde is managing editor of the
Chronicle
. He looked harassed. At eight thirty in the morning. Not a good sign.

“Ah, Ms. James. The celebrated correspondent returns triumphant. A tip of the old chapeau and all that. Nicely done. However. You'll need to get right back over to Harvard. Now.”

“Why? What's happened?”

“It's not what. It's who. Thomas Carlyle's father is what's happened. Last night we seem to have missed the minor detail that this kid was the son of Lowell Carlyle.”

I looked at Hyde blankly.

He rolled his eyes. “As in the White House counsel? As in the president's lawyer? As in one of the most influential men in Washington?”

“Oh.”

“Indeed. Quite. Mr. Carlyle is understandably grief-stricken and furious and on the warpath to find out exactly why his son fell out of a fifth-floor window last night. Apparently he is not overly impressed so far by the exertions of the Cambridge cops. The Washington bureau has it from his office that he was on the seven a.m. shuttle up today. Mrs. Carlyle too. So if you would please get yourself back over there and see what you can dig up?”

“Sure.” It was starting to come back. Lowell Carlyle was a bigwig at Harvard Law School. He had taught constitutional law. And then the president asked him to come to Washington. When had that been, a couple of years ago? I don't follow Washington politics closely, but
my vague impression was that Carlyle was well regarded. Which meant that if he was on the warpath, as Hyde had indelicately put it, he would have the support of powerful allies not just at Harvard, but at the White House.

THE COP POSTED OUTSIDE ELIOT
House this morning was considerably friendlier than his colleagues the night before. But he still wouldn't let me in.

He'd kept his eyes trained on me as I made my way down Dunster Street from the T-stop in the square.

“Let me guess,” he called, as I approached his post outside the front doors. “Fox News?
USA Today
? I know you're not CNN. They're already here.” He gestured toward several television trucks, satellite dishes stretched toward the sky, parked around the cul-de-sac.

I grinned. “Looks like they beat me to it this morning. I'm with the
Chronicle
, actually.”

“The
Chronicle
? You don't say. You wouldn't know anything about this reporter who's got the chief all worked up? The one who sneaked in last night and heard the briefing meant for students only and ran all the quotes in today's paper?”

I rearranged my features into a picture of innocence. “No. Really? Shocking, honestly, the things some people will do for a story. But listen, Officer . . . ?”

“Galloni.”

“Officer Galloni. Great. Have Thomas Carlyle's parents been here yet this morning?”

“Afraid I couldn't tell you that.”

“Did you guys find anything when you searched the grass last night?”

“Couldn't say.”

“Any further insight into whether this was an accident or a suicide or what?”

“Afraid I really, definitely couldn't tell you that. Even if I knew.” He winked as he said it. Looked like he was enjoying himself.

“Right. I guess I'll just take a quick look inside then and be on my way.” I made to step around him.

He burst out laughing. “Nice try. I think you'd better be going before I have to arrest you. Miss—er—Miss James, you said it was?”

“I hadn't, actually.” I studied him. Maybe a few years older than me and not bad looking.

My own looks are not subtle. It's hard to be subtle with screaming red hair. I'm taller than average, five feet seven inches, and not conventionally beautiful. Or at least I never thought so: too many freckles, too strong a jaw. But I have long, lean legs and I'm curvy in the right places. I dress well. And now that I've hit my late twenties, I seem to have grown into my looks. Jess says I'm “striking.” Judging by the wolf whistles I get on the street, I'd say I pull off “sexy” on my good days.

So now I decided to test whether Galloni was immune. I tilted my head, pulled back my shoulders, and stepped close.

“You know,” I whispered, “if you were just to lean down and tie your shoe for a second, you would never even notice me walking past. And then I could do my job, and you could get on with doing yours, and everyone would be happy.”

“Can't do it.”

“Ten minutes. I won't touch anything.”

“I really can't. Sorry.” And he actually looked it.

Hmm. So he wasn't immune. But he wasn't budging either. I stepped back.

“Well, then, it was nice to meet you. I should get going. Sorry to trouble you, Officer Galloni.”

“It's Lieutenant Galloni, actually. And no trouble at all, Miss James.”

I could feel his eyes on me as I walked away. I was glad I'd kept the heels on.

DUNSTER STREET CURVES JUST ENOUGH
that the front steps to Kirkland House weren't visible from where Galloni stood. I paused when I reached them. I was pretty sure it wouldn't be illegal, technically, to sneak into Eliot House again. But Galloni, however charming, had delivered a warning: they knew I'd trespassed once. I wasn't sure I'd get off so lightly if the police caught me trespassing a second time around the scene of an investigation.

Still, it was tempting. I glanced around. There was no guard this time at Kirkland House. I decided to see how far I could get before someone stopped me. I crossed the courtyard. Glided back through the Kirkland dining hall, back toward the enormous kitchens, behind the grill, past the food trolleys. It turned out to be easy. A few cooks and dishwashers glanced my way, but no one made to stop me. I marveled, not for the first time, at what you can get away with if you look as if you know what you're doing.

Within five minutes I was standing in the middle of the Eliot dining hall. I would have to be careful. Breakfast appeared to be long finished, lunch was not yet served, and the dining hall was nearly empty. I headed to the far end, away from the main entrance where Galloni was stationed. A pair of swinging doors gave way into a stone foyer.

I knew from a couple of stories I'd done on undergraduate life that Harvard houses are organized around stairwells known as entries. A-Entry, B-Entry, etc. A few dozen students live in each one.

Where I found myself now was apparently the bottom of H-Entry. Some sort of student common room was at the far end of the foyer. Stairs rose up to the right. I wasn't exactly sure what I was looking for,
but I thought it might be useful to get a closer look at where Carlyle had fallen. I was heading for the glass doors that led out into the central courtyard when they swung open. A cop walked in. Navy uniform, gold badge, talking on a handheld radio. I froze.