Crime Beat (9 page)

“Best cover for a killer. That’s why we always get those neighbor quotes that go ‘I never would have suspected.’“

“If the cops had anything on him, they wouldn’t have let him walk out of the building. That was just a dog-and-pony show to buy some time.”

“Is that why you didn’t cover it?”

It was my turn to smile, though I had to work at it a little. “Circulation is up. Our readers are informed citizens who respect integrity and the principal of innocent until proven guilty. In my opinion, the
News & Observer
is rolling in the sewer with the
National Enquirer
. Next you’ll be reporting on Tiger Woods’ idiot love child.”

“Maybe, but at least none of us are murderers. You know what Hardison told me the SBI told him?”

“That donuts make you fat and lazy?”

“This serial killer may be a serial killer, but he’s not following the book. It’s like a killer whose heart’s not in it. He doesn’t take any pride in his work. That clipper thing seems like an afterthought, as if he had to throw in a gimmick to get taken seriously.”

“There would be other ways to do that. Like, carve your initials, steal panties, or harvest a specific organ. I mean, is he going to sit on Death Row and brag about his fingernail collection?”

She leaned forward, and I leaned forward as well. The beer was working on her a little, and her face relaxed. The electric candlelight sparkled in her big pupils. “You know something, you’re a smart-ass.”

I smiled, a little easier this time. “Comes with the territory. Scratch a cynic and you get a disillusioned idealist.”

She reached out a hand, the one that scrawled pencil notes in her composition book, and touched mine. I couldn’t help but notice her fingernails. They had a little bit of garlic toast crumbs stuck to them, but otherwise they were healthy.

She curled her fingers into a claw and raked them across the back of my hand, hard enough to leave red trails. “I scratch you and all I see is meat.”

I caught her hand and gently held it. “You shouldn’t be driving. If you got pulled, I’d have to run your arrest on the front page, with a gorgeous mug shot.”

“I’ll bet you say that to all the reporters.”

“Only the gorgeous ones.”

Her face got softer. Her eyes got softer. Her hair got softer. It must have been a while for her.

We went to my place, where some things got softer and other things got harder.

Things like my life.

12.

The call for the arson case came in early the next morning. I was late, being the gentleman that I was, but Moretz was in his cubicle as usual. He’d texted me but I hadn’t turned on my phone, because I hate the sound of beeping when I’m trying to be romantic. But I heard the sirens on the way in and was glad I had a reporter on the job that didn’t require sleep.

If only I could be lucky enough to keep him out of prison for a while.

Moretz called me from the scene as I started laying out the obituary page. Obits are one of our staples. When someone dies in a small town, you can count on at least 30 friends and family members picking up a copy to clip out that last public artifact.

For some reason, Facebook and Twitter hadn’t erased that simple, solemn ritual for most people. In death, we still had the final word—and a corner on the market.

“Two-story house, fully engaged,” Moretz said.

I tried not to cheer for the total loss. That seemed like bad form. “Any fatals?”

“Not so much as a heat rash.”

“Okay.” If a death had occurred, I’d have been conflicted. Kavanaugh would probably want to write it up for the
News & Observer
, and her story would hit the street hours before our edition. But she wouldn’t cover a run-of-the-mill fire. I recognized the wisdom in the saying, “Don’t play where you make your hay.”

 ”But we did get a dog,” Moretz said.

Dog death. Every storyteller since the dawn of time understood that you never killed off the dog. Immolate thousands, wipe out the rain forest, let the human race endure a nuclear holocaust, but never, ever let the dog die. Dean Koontz had subsidized a new head of hair embracing that core principal.

“We can’t run that,” I said. Which didn’t keep me from plotting the follow-up, the tearful burial scene and the impassioned plea to donate in Fido’s honor to the local animal shelter.

“You’ll want this one,” Moretz said. “Dog’s trapped inside, one of the firefighters goes up and knocks the door apart with a sledgehammer. Dog comes out yipping and steaming, they hose him down, happily ever after.”

My pulse rate increased. “You got photos?”

“That’s why you pay me the big bucks, Chief.”

The fire was front-page kind of stuff, a vacationing couple who barely got out with their lives. The house was owned by a doctor who recently lost his license because of pill pushing, and word on the street said he was strapped for cash. Naturally, everyone in the community believed he’d torched his own house for the insurance money.

But we in the newspaper business, unlike the judicial system and the court of public opinion, gave him the benefit of a doubt. Though we liked to hint at guilt whenever it might get people to drop quarters in our little metal boxes.

An “unsung hero” piece was even better than a murder. It had drama—though we’d have to embellish the firefighter’s risk, because those guys were always treated for smoke inhalation whether they needed it or not—and it had a dog. With any luck, the couple was young and good-looking. And the backstory of the doctor could be dumped into the last paragraph, along with the fire chief’s clichéd comment of “The cause of the fire is under investigation.”

Heck, Moretz would probably even score a little goodwill with Hardison and the other cops. And we’d get a follow-up or two out of it as we recounted the doctor’s past transgressions and subtly raise a cloud of suspicion.

“Can you wrap it by deadline?” I asked.

“If I don’t get arrested before then.”

“Yeah. Hard to type in handcuffs.”

“We’re all in handcuffs,” he said. “They’re just invisible most of the time.”

He rang off with that. Good line.

I called Kavanaugh to see if she was awake and tell her where the coffee was.

13.

Hardison messed up our plans by being competent, detail-oriented, and able to set aside his personal dislike of both Moretz and the media.

In short, he did the unexpected.

He brought in a different suspect for questioning. It was the man who had been romantically linked to the first victim of the Rebel Clipper, the one Moretz had broken to the public and Hardison. He had been on the initial short list of people wanted for questioning, but the second murder had danced the investigation onto a broader stage.

The man, Grayson Jennings, claimed he learned of the woman’s death and had contacted her family. She had broken up with him a month before the murder, and he’d cleared her off his speed dial and headed for the coast.

“A sensible explanation,” Hardison said, in a manner that suggested the cover story was a little too sensible.

The fact that Jennings had returned was a little less sensible. He’d called the sheriff to ask if he could be of any help, and the sheriff was happy to oblige. Kavanaugh must have been tipped, because she had a photo of Jennings being escorted into the office. Moretz, apparently, was now on the sheriff’s “Do not call” list, at least as a reporter.

Kavanaugh didn’t mention it to me, probably as revenge for freezing her out of the arson story, and our little dalliance cooled almost as fast as it began. When her story broke, we were left with eggs on our faces.

Actually, I took the hit, as the publisher summoned me into his office and slapped the
News & Observer
on that maple desk that cost almost as much as my annual salary. I got the message, which of course meant I had to go ride Moretz’s case for getting scooped.

His desk, which used to be tidy and organized, was now a mess of coffee rings, rumpled stacks of paper, bent paper clips, and scratched-up computer discs. I slid the newspaper onto his keyboard as he was typing.

“I thought you and she were an item,” Moretz said, looking up from the article with his cold, dark eyes.

I frowned. A journalist always protects his sources, and I had kept my love life a secret. But I shouldn’t have been surprised, as sharp as Moretz was. He knew a lot more than he put in the paper. “That’s beside the point.”

“Is it? She seems to be getting inside information.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“She’s including details that you snipped out of my copy.”

“I edited for accuracy and any potential for libel.”

He tossed the newspaper toward the recycling bin, but it unfolded like a stiff parachute and floated to the floor. “And then fed it to her like it was whipped cream on your fingers.”

“Look, John, we’ve got a good thing going here. I toss her a few crumbs and I get the whole cake, you know what I mean?”

“Sure, you’re sleeping with the enemy. And that’s more important than the truth.”

“Hey, this Jennings thing pushes you out of the spotlight. We got our mileage out of the con game, and now we can go back to cranking copy and selling papers. You’ll still be a celebrity until they make an arrest. And, who knows, this might make your career. Word gets around in this business, and somebody will probably steal you away in six months.”

“I like it here,” Moretz said.

I waved my hand. “We’re a dying breed. Print journalism is going the way of vinyl albums and disco. You’ll be off blogging or doing an Internet podcast somewhere, the next Julian Assange.”

“If print is dying, what are you doing here, then?”

That was a bigger question than anyone could answer. But this was my one shot at a surge, and though the
Picayune
was a small-town paper, I wanted a single success to cap off my obituary.

I’d proofed enough obits to know that most people didn’t accomplish anything significant, and there were no Lifetime Achievement Awards for being a decent human being. If you wanted to be remembered, you had to make your moment.

I finally came up with a suitable answer. “I’m doing the best I can, that’s what I’m doing here.”

“The best you can do is second best.”

The scanner crackled and a call for an accident with possible injury came through. Moretz grabbed his laptop and camera. “With any luck, I’ll give you some fresh meat for the front page,” he said.

As he brushed past, I said, “Who told you about me and Kavanaugh?”

“I have my sources.”

He hurried away, and I kind of missed the old days when he’d called me “Chief.”

14.

I was mad at Kavanaugh, but once you’ve been to the trough, it’s hard to keep your nose out of it. She was over at my place, filling me in on the Jennings interrogation. In trade, I filled her whiskey glass.

“You think he did it?” I said, flopping beside her on my shopworn couch.