Betsy leaned back just a fraction in her chair, moving away from Noah. “Well, I suppose there’s a deal we could make. Let me follow you around while you investigate the case. Put me in your fucking hip pocket. Let me hear and see everything that happens. Just me. No other reporters.”
Jordain’s first thought was to say no outright. The idea of spending his days with this pushy woman annoyed him.
“Will you fax us your articles the night before they run? Just as a heads-up. No editorial input.”
Negotiating, Betsy nodded.
“Okay,” Jordain said.
Perez did not make a move, but Jordain saw his partner’s eyebrows arch ever so slightly. Meanwhile, Betsy’s eyes gleamed. Her lust for the story chilled Jordain. The way she imitated the worst traits in a man made him pity her. Why did she force her toughness? Didn’t she know how much more powerful women were than men, even if they were wearing pink sweater sets? He was surprised that in the midst of this complicated and disturbing meeting, with the upsetting photographs in front of him, he had stopped to think about any of this.
“One more thing,” she said. “My job is to break the news. That’s harder and harder to do with twenty-four-hour cable news shows reporting all day and all night. I need assurances that if I let you in the newsroom to work on this case as it breaks, you will not issue statements to other members of the press once you walk out the door.”
As much as Jordain hated to admit it, he understood her problem, but he wasn’t used to bargaining with a newspaper. Then again, he’d never come across this particular situation before.
Out of the thousands of missing people, two men had turned up dead within days of each other, in exactly the same way. There was absolutely no evidence of where they had been or what had happened to them. Damn. Damn. Damn. The case was cold from the get-go. They didn’t have anything to go on. Not a single lead. Two men. Dead. He went over it again. Why photographs? Why hair clippings? Why these two men? What was the connection? Who were they to their assailant? And why was the only communication from the killer being sent directly to Betsy Young at the New York Times instead of to the NYPD?
“How did you figure out the names of these men?” Perez asked Betsy.
Jordain knew what his partner was thinking. Was the reporter holding something else back? A letter? E-mail? Nothing had come with the photos and the hair that would have identified the victims.
“We’d run a story on Philip Maur when he was reported missing. He had a big job. I saw it. I remembered his face.” She shrugged.
Jordain didn’t like the way she’d said it. A little too glib. He filed it away.
“And how did you know who Timothy Wheaton was?” Perez asked.
“Same thing. He’s the son of a very well-known author. When the missing-persons report was filed, we saw it.”
“Did you report on it?”
She shook her head. “Me, personally? No.”
“The paper?”
“Yes, but not as prominently as Maur.”
“Except you recognized him?”
“Not right away. I pulled up all the stories we’d done on missing people in the past few weeks, taking a guess I’d find something.”
“And you did,” Perez said.
“I did.” Her words were clipped.
Perez looked over at his partner-indicating he was finished with his questions. Jordain only had one left.
“Betsy, do we have a deal?”
“You’ll give me total exclusivity?”
“I won’t give out any statements to the press until you’ve run your story.”
“Except to me.”
“Except to you when appropriate,” he corrected.
“I don’t like that last part,” Betsy said. “Deal’s off.”
Jordain had consulted with the department’s legal counsel on the way to the station. The New York Times didn’t have to agree to any of the department’s requests. The mail was being sent to Betsy Young, not to the police, and while there were court orders the NYPD could obtain to intercept Betsy Young’s mail, the lawyers felt it would be better if Jordain could get the paper to cooperate. “The Times,” the lawyer had said, “is the newspaper of record for the city, the state and, in fact, many feel, the whole nation. It would be better if we didn’t have to go up against the Gray Lady. That would make the news in itself, and the killer might just stop sending mail completely.” It was not what Jordain had wanted to hear. But he knew he had to deal with it. Or deal around it.
Jordain stood. Perez was only seconds behind him. “We’ve done what we can to work with you. If you won’t agree to what I’ve asked, you’ll push me into getting a court order to intercept your mail.”
Betsy pulled out a cell phone, dialed a number and said only two words: “No deal.”
She listened, then she handed the phone to Jordain. “My boss would like to talk to you.”
Jordain took the phone.
“Good evening, Mr. Hastings. We seem to be having a problem here. Ms. Young can’t wrap her head around the fact that we have a killer loose and we need you to cooperate with us on our investigation. I really would prefer that to getting a court order demanding that you do so.”
“There is every chance you could get such an order, Detective. And every chance it would be denied you. Ms. Young is asking for something well within your rights to grant her. Exclusivity in exchange for us opening our doors to you.”
“There are lives at stake here and you’re bargaining?” Jordain said, finally unable to keep the anger out of his voice.
“I’m running a newspaper and trying to be accommodating.”
Jordain spoke into the phone but looked right at Betsy. “No. You are asking for more than anyone would agree to. Here it is, Hastings. Once more. Last time. We’ll have an officer there to go through the mail in the morning. Anything suspicious he finds, he will make two calls. One to me or Detective Perez, the second to Ms. Young. And she’ll wait until we show up before opening the mail. And I want you to agree to hold off running the story until we tell you it’s okay.”
“How much time?” Hastings asked.
“I can’t tell you that. I won’t know until I know what we need to do.”
“If you take too much time we could lose our exclusive.”
“Not likely. If anyone else gets a lead they will have to call my office to confirm, and we won’t do that until after we’ve given you a heads-up.”
“I don’t like that,” Hastings said.
“And I’m not surprised, but this isn’t just news, it’s murder. And it’s complicated. And we don’t have anything to go on except what you are getting.”
“The thing that bothers me with this nice-nice cooperation between us and the Times,” Perez said to Jordain after Young had left, “is that the killer is getting exactly what he wants and what is going to feed him. He’s sending those photographs to the Times instead of us because he wants to be in the paper. And we’re allowing that to happen.”
“We’re not allowing that to happen. The Constitution of the United States allows that to happen.”
Perez nodded. They had both been policemen long enough to know that their jobs were not always made easy by the civil liberties in place in the country. “There’s nothing we can complain about-no one to complain to. We have to work within the law.”
“Except in situations where there is no law,” Jordain said.
Perez heard the smile in his partner’s voice. “What are you talking about?”
“I don’t think there is any law that says we have to remember to call Betsy Young and fill her in on everything we get. There is no law that we have to report to the reporters. And there is no law that says we have to rush to give the Times the okay to run the next story. Or, God forbid, the story after that.”