Hack (22 page)

“Don’t believe everything you read in the papers,” Izzy chuckled.

Mary Catherine held up the front page so I could see The Wood.

Uh-oh, the dreaded question mark, the one magic squiggle that made it possible for a newspaper to lie about anyone. Mary Catherine handed me the rag. My photograph, a head shot from my
Mail
ID, was inset onto a scene of cops examining Jack Leslie’s wet body next to the banged-up cab. But they had done something to my picture, photoshopped it. My eyes were hollow and predatory. I looked evil. Under my picture were three words and one squiggle.

Cannibal Serial Killer?

This set me off on another jag, accusing my bosses at the
Mail
of incest and bestiality. As I read, I expanded my oaths to include various other perversions. The front page asked the question whether
New York Mail
reporter Francis X. Shepherd had murdered one and possibly two intrepid
Mail
security investigators, who had begun investigating him as the possible Hacker. Police, it said, had served a search warrant on the newspaper as part of its probe—of me. The byline was Don Badger and they had the gall to call it
EXCLUSIVE
. Turned out my favorite Human Resources executives were intrepid sleuths on the trail of an elusive killer—who had pretended to get exclusive stories on slayings he might have engineered. It quoted an anonymous law enforcement source, who said I might have killed Jack Leslie and Matt Molloy because their unofficial investigation came too close for comfort. Previously, cops had believed that famous foodie Aubrey Forsythe was the Hacker but investigators were now wondering if Forsythe had help in his horrific killing spree. What was clear was that Leslie and Molloy were heroes.

“They tried to lure him with a ruse but, sadly, it appears they seriously underestimated their quarry,” the unnamed law enforcement source said.

It was strange that, when they spoke to the
Mail
, New York cops suddenly seemed to acquire British accents. The paper was cooperating with the police investigation, turning over records and computer data to help lock up the wily monster who had slain three—perhaps as many as five—if the courageous security men were counted. It went on like that for pages, re-hashing the hackings and speculating how I might have been in a perfect position to commit the killings and blame them on someone else. The only things missing were advertisements for torches and pitchforks. There was a particularly cute editorial by my fearless leader, Lucky Tal Edgar, an apology to his dear readers—for me. I was a viper at the breast of the First Amendment, a clever trickster who foisted myself off as an investigative reporter, after concealing past evil deeds that involved the death of helpless children. I was the worst person in the world, a suspected serial killer, lusting for the blood of innocents. Wow.

“Crap,” I spat, throwing the paper to the foot of my bed.

“Don’t worry,” Izzy said. “I know it’s bullshit.”

“What about the DA?”

“He doesn’t have the case yet. Not until I make an arrest.”

“And my boss wants to stay out of it,” Mary Catherine threw in.

“Not after he reads this,” I said. “People with badges will be popping up everywhere. That was the idea. The
Mail
has taken over the investigation. They own the county prosecutors and the feds. The worst of this whole thing is… I have to… Oh, man…”

“What?” Mary Catherine asked, alarmed.

“This crap will be picked up everywhere. Even in Kansas, even on NPR,” I explained. “Now I have to call my parents.”

“That’s the worst?” Izzy asked.

“You haven’t met my parents.”

Jane arrived in my hospital room just as I was finishing up my call to my parents. She waited until I hung up then leaned in and kissed me.

“Who was that?”

I told her.

“It’s funny, I can’t picture you with a mother and a father.

You seem like, I don’t know, an orphan,” she smiled. “Cute, lovable, maybe a little sad?”

“My parents think I’m an orphan, too.”

She made a face and asked if I was kidding. I wasn’t. “They rarely speak to me. They called me a serial killer before the
Mail
called me one. That was my mom I was talking to. My dad wouldn’t get on the phone. When I left college to join the military after 9/11, they were horrified. When they found out I killed people, terrorists, they disowned me.”

“But you were a soldier, fighting the evildoers.”

“They don’t see it that way. To them, I’m a killer, even if I kill killers. They’re from the planet 1960s, pacifists. My dad spent Vietnam working as an orderly in a veterans’ hospital, a conscientious objector. To Mom and Dad, I’m what’s wrong with the world. I tried to tell my mother that the stuff in the
Mail
is all lies but I doubt it got through.”

“Don’t they believe in self-defense?”

“No. Non-violent direct action, you know, Gandhi, Martin Luther King Jr. They were Freedom Riders.”

“What’s a Freedom Rider?” she asked.

I changed the subject and we talked about Skippy. “That horrible girl from the
Daily Press
was hanging around outside your building,” Jane said. “She and these two huge slugs demanded information. Of course I didn’t tell her a thing.”

“Sorry, she’s just sucking around for a story, a day late and a dollar short.”

After a nurse came in to take some blood, Jane began asking about my night in the park.

“You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want,” she said quickly.

I took a deep breath, which hurt, and told her everything. “Wow,” she said. “Aren’t you worried I’ll tell Lieutenant Negron?”

“He already knows. Not about the knife, probably, but he definitely knows I took Jack Leslie out. We’re just waiting to see if Matt Molloy shows up and what kind of story he tells when he does. We’ll take it from there.”

“It must be nice to be so close to someone that you each know what the other is thinking,” Jane said wistfully. “I’d like to have that with someone again.”

“Don’t be jealous of Izzy. We’re just good friends. Look, Jane, look deep into my eyes and tell me what I’m thinking.”

She looked. Then she moved closer and kissed me.

“This is a hospital,” she laughed. “Someone could come in.”

“See? That wasn’t so tough.”

She sat on the bed, took my hand and kissed me, better this time. It felt good.

A flash went off. Another. Ginny Mac was in the room, shooting pictures with a silver digital camera. Damn. Speak of the devil. She had probably followed Jane here. Ginny zipped around the bed for a better angle and took more shots. She stashed the camera and pulled out a pen and notebook and began peppering me with questions. Did I kill both Jack Leslie and Matt Molloy? Did I kill Neil Parmesan and all the other victims? Why did I do it? Did I get a sexual charge from it?

She was loving it. Now there was an explanation for how I beat her on everything. I was the Hacker. I tried to respond but she wouldn’t shut up her ridiculous rapid-fire questions—I assumed so she could say I had refused to comment on whether I was a degenerate. She asked Jane her name and age and if she enjoyed sex with a serial killer.

“You are an idiot,” Jane said. “Those goons from the
Mail
kidnapped Shepherd and tried to kill him, you moron. The police have video. Can’t you see all these bandages? You think he shot himself?”

“Shot? That’s not what his own paper says,” Ginny countered. “They say you’re the Hacker, Sheppie.”

Sheppie?

“It’s a cover-up because they’re all involved. In this and a lot of other things,” Jane protested. “They—”

“Don’t, Jane,” I warned her. “Ginny, I thought you got fired?”

“Only temporarily. You being a serial killer gave me an in. And this story will make me golden.”

“Ginny, I’d be happy to comment if you’d stop talking for a second. Or don’t you want me to respond? You just want me to say no comment, so you can run back to your office and write some stupid story. Like… let’s see, what have you got? I know: ‘Smiling Killer!’ Or ‘First Picture of the Hacker!’ right?”

“Maybe, sweetie,” she replied, sarcastically. “I was thinking ‘Horny Hacker Humps in Hospital.’ You know, ‘Sex-Fest in Bed!—Serial Slayer Laughs at Cops,’ something like that. We all know you’re a gas in the sack.”

I laughed. Jane was appalled and looked at me like Ginny and I had the same disease and she was wondering if it was contagious. She looked back and forth between Ginny and me, putting it together.

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Jane said, pulling her hand away from mine. “You two?”

“Wait,” I tried. “Let me explain.”

“I don’t believe it,” Jane said, walking out of the room, with a frosty glare at Ginny. Ginny gave her a triumphant nasty girl smile. I tried to get up. No way. I asked Ginny for help but she just looked at me, and all my electronic and tubular attachments, like she was seeing my injuries for the first time. She took another shot with her camera. I gave up.

“Any comment, Hacker?” Ginny asked.

“That’s crap,” I told her. “You want to sneak around for this penny-ante shit, that’s your choice. Or are you ready for a real story? A bigger story. Huge. One that will blow the
Mail
away?”

“You’re just stalling me,” Ginny said.

“You’ll know soon enough. I get the feeling the
Mail
will not be publishing my story on the subject. I need an outlet, a job. If not you, then I’ll give it to the
Tribune
. In fact, they were Aubrey’s paper. They would love this and they’re so much better at detail than you.”

“The fuck they are,” Ginny snapped, moving closer to me. “This story is mine.”

“You keep saying that but it’s not true. Not once. You just want it to be true and you have a big mouth. I can make it happen—if you shut your trap and listen.”

“Let me guess,” she said. “You’ll give me a big story on Tuesday for a fuck today.”

“You are an idiot,” I concluded. “You pissed Jane off. Last chance—take it or leave it. Your bosses will go berserk and you will finally win. You want the story or not?”

“Maybe. I’m not agreeing until I hear it all.”

“Fair enough. Off the record. For now.”

She grudgingly agreed and I told her most of the story of my night in the park. Then I told her about Badger and the
Mail
on the Joyce case and that there were lots of others—leaving out names and specifics.

“Holy shit,” she said, when I paused. “That’s a fucking story. But we need proof.”

She did not seem to notice that she had used the word “we.”

“We’ll have it soon,” I said, hoping I was telling the truth. “More than we can fit in the paper. And this time take a better picture of me.”

“We could do some nudes,” she suggested.

“This is business, Ginny.”

“Business?”

“Yes, business. You think I was going to give you guys the story for free? We have to talk to your boss. I’m your new partner—except I deserve a big signing bonus as the newest star at the
Daily Press
.”

“What?”

“Don’t freak out. You’ll have a byline, too,” I told her. Our story will be “By F.X. Shepherd and Virginia McElhone.”

“In your dreams, Sheppie. My name goes first.”

“Call me Sheppie one more time and the deal is off.” Her mouth opened but shut without a word. I rang for the nurse. Time to go.

It took another seventeen hours to sign discharge papers and escape from my hospital room the next morning. I was sore, limping, and exhausted—the painkillers wearing off.

Before she stormed out, Jane had brought my house keys and clothes: a loose-fitting short-sleeved sweatshirt and jeans because my bloody clothes had been taken as evidence. I took a shower and put on the outfit, along with a pair of brown cowhide Topsiders. Only the bandages on my left arm were visible, along with the cuts and bruises on my face, now added to my collection. My wallet was stained with blood but the credit cards were undamaged. The bills were mush from the lake.

I was unable to reach Izzy or Mary Catherine by phone from the hospital room so I took a cab home. Skippy wasn’t there but a note from Jane, obviously old, informed me she had taken him to her place, which I already knew. My first order of business was a three-hour nap on the couch. It felt great.

Without a cell phone, I tried Izzy and Mary Catherine again on my landline and again got their voicemails. The clock was ticking so I took my antibiotic pill but not the painkiller. I needed to be sharp. I located my souvenir
NEW YORK MAIL
baseball cap, went out and hailed another cab with my pitching arm.

Jane would not come out to the front desk at the animal hospital. Her assistant Xana said Skippy was at Jane’s place and was okay for another day. Xana’s t-shirt read
FUR IS MURDER
.

“Any message for Dr. Jane?” Xana asked me.

“Just tell her Shepherd needs to see her, thanks.”

“Okay,” Xana said, eyeing me suspiciously, the steel pin through one of her eyebrows twitching. “So, what’s going on?”

Obviously my fan had read the lies about me in the
Mail
. I gave her the short version of what had happened.

“You’re one lucky guy,” she told me.

“Don’t believe what you read in the
Mail
,” I told her.

“I don’t,” she said, showing a nice smile and a flash of a silvery knob through her tongue. “Hey, if Dr. Jane isn’t interested anymore, call me.”

She handed me a card. I took it and muttered something pleasant as I left. The pincushion was hitting on me.

I got more cash from an ATM machine on the street and took another cab to Izzy’s precinct. I had to wait half an hour before he came down and coldly ushered me out the front door.

“I’m sorry, Mr. Shepherd, but I am no longer on the case,” he said in a loud voice. “Or, rather, I am still on the task force but I am no longer in charge. Someone else will be contacting you for an interview shortly. Here is your cell phone, which we already discussed.”