"What are you talking about?" The voice was sharper now; his mind was in gear. He was a journalist probing for facts.
"It was a professional hit."
"But who'd want Lance dead?
"It was-" Now Rune's voice cracked too and the reason it did had nothing to do with being tired. She repeated in a whisper, "It was Piper."
31
That?" Maisel cleared his throat.
Rune heard the rustling of cloth. She pictured the producer sitting up, putting his feet on the floor, feeling for slippers.
"Piper hired them to kill Lance."
Again, a pause. He was waiting. She heard him clear his throat again then cough. "This isn't funny."
"It's true, Lee."
"Come on, Rune. Why would she want him dead?"
"Somebody took all the Randy Boggs files and tapes out of my desk. Everything was gone."
"Who?"
"Danny Turner, the head electrician on the set, told me it was Piper."
Maisel didn't answer.
Rune said, "And remember, she didn't want to do the story in the first place, she tried to get me to
stop? She was going to send me to London? To get rid of me."
Maisel snapped, "What I was asking waswhy she'd want Lance Hopper dead."
"Because he was going to fire her. I went through her personnel file-"
"You what? How?"
"I just did… Anyway, you know what I found? That Hopper tried to fire her a year before he died. Piper filed two EEOC complaints against him. They were both dropped but there's lots of memos – it was this huge war."
"Rune, people don't kill people for jobs."
"Maybe not usually – but you know Piper and her temper. You told me that her job was her whole life. And how much does she make? A million a year? That's enough to kill somebody for."
"But how is she going to find professional killers? This is just too-"
"What were some of her assignments?" She continued, "In Africa, in Nicaragua, the Middle East. She could've met some mercenaries. The fat guy – Jack -he looked just like a soldier. And he probably hired Randy to help him."
Maisel considered this. He was less skeptical than a moment ago. He said, "Keep going."
Rune felt like a juggler. It was tough to keep all the parts of the story in the air at once. "When Mr Frost, the new witness, died? It wasn't an accident at all. Piper knew his name. She saw it from my story. She sent that fat guy to kill him. And then what happens? All the cassettes disappear. And she knew where I'd put the duplicate cassette of Frost. And she'd know how to get into the computer and steal the master."
She felt the silence from the other end of the line -his concentration as he weighed her words, the shock. But maybe also the excitement reporters must feel when they first sniff a lead to a hot story. When he spoke it was almost as if to himself. "And she was pretty smooth when she ad-libbed the broadcast."
Rune said, "Like she'd known all along she was going to have to do it."
A long pause. "This is a nuclear bomb we're playing with, Rune. You've got a lot of speculation. There's no direct evidence linking her to the killing."
"Iknow she did it, Lee."
"The way youknew Boggs was innocent?"
She said nothing to that. The producer continued. "Just let me ask you one thing. You're bitter because Piper fired you and ruined your story. If that hadn't happened, if you were an objective reporter, would you still be coming down against Piper?"
"Yes, I would. Maybe there're no eyewitnesses but there's plenty of circumstantial evidence."
Maisel was silent for a moment. "I'll have to call Dan Semple. I'll…" His voice was fading. "Semple…"
Rune asked, "What are you thinking, Lee?" She remembered Semple's picking Piper up in his limo after she and Rune had dinner at that French restaurant. "Oh, no, you think he's in on it too?"
"They had an affair, you know. Piper and him. Around the time Hopper was killed."
Rune said, "After Hopper was killed Semple got his job…! "What are we going to do, Lee?"
Maisel said, "Okay, stay on the line. I'm going to make some calls." She heard him use his cell phone to talk to Jim Eustice at home and tell him what Rune suspected. He then called Timothy Krueger, the Network lawyer who'd presided over Rune's unemployment. Then she heard a conference call as Maisel spoke to Krueger and, apparently, the police. She deduced that they were all going to rendezvous at the Network in a half hour – in Studio E, an old, unused space in the basement of the building where they could meet in private.
Maisel hung up his mobile phone and came back on the other line. "Rune, you there?"
"I'm here."
"I talked to Jim and our legal department."
"I heard."
Maisel confirmed that they were meeting two homicide detectives in Studio E.
"I'll be there," Rune said.
"Lay low until the cops get there. We don't want Piper to see you."
"Sure."
"Man, this's bad," he muttered. But that was the only emotion he showed. Instantly he was Edward R. Murrow again. He said to her, "You did a good job, Rune. Whatever the fallout from this, you did good. See you in a half hour."
These were the longest minutes of her life.
The hour was late but television networks never sleep and she was afraid that if she got to Studio E before Maisel or Krueger or the police, a security guard might see her and word would get back to Piper or Dan Semple.
So she sat in the booth at the Greek diner, bouncing her toes on the linoleum, feeling the terrible sting of betrayal.
Feeling fear too. Recalling all the time she'd spent alone with Sutton, inches away from her, a killer whose heart was as cold as her journalist's eyes.
After fifteen minutes Rune could stand it no longer and she left the deli and headed back to the Network. She slipped in through the door Bradford had doctored to let her inside then started down the corridor through a slightly more populated part of the studio.
A noise nearby. Rune froze.
But it turned out to be only Bradford.
"What's up?" he asked, noticing her troubled face.
She looked around. "Just between us, okay?"
"Top secret," he whispered.
"Piper Sutton had Lance Hopper killed."
"Are you serious?" the young man said.
"You bet I am," she answered. "He was going to fire her. She found out about it and hired Boggs and his friend to kill him."
"Jesus!"
"I'm going to meet Lee down in Studio E." Then her face broke into a smile. "And after she's in jail I'm going to talk Lee into letting me do the story for the Network."
"You?"
"Sure. Why not?"
Bradford apparently couldn't think of any reason why not and simply nodded. He said finally, "Brother, you've sure graduated from overturned ammonia trucks. Say, after your meeting, how 'bout that beer?"
"How 'bout somechampagne?" Rune said.
"It'll be on me," he said.
The Network building was like a warren – as complicated and big as a huge high school.
Rune got lost several times on her way to Studio E, which was at the end of a dozen dim corridors. At least she didn't have to worry about being seen now. The studio was in a completely deserted part of the Network building.
She pushed inside and waved to Lee Maisel, who sat at a battered swivel chair, engaged in a somber discussion with someone whose back was to Rune. This would be either Jim Eustice or the lawyer, Tim Krueger. The cops weren't here yet.
"Rune, come on in," Maisel said. He nodded at her hand. "You've got the files you found in Personnel?"
"Right here," she said.
"Good." Maisel stepped forward and took it from her.
Rune sat down at the table and turned to the other man as she started to ask when the police would be here. She froze.
The man was Jack, the killer.
He eyed her up and down and said, "There you go, Lee, Itold you them girls look alike. No wonder I shot the wrong one."
32
It was like the time she had three frozen margaritas, crazy drunk – her mind giddy and spinning, her body sick.