Kensbrook, the security staff at the Kitten Club, the killer himself, or Lord Zeus up on high, somebody's getting locked away while the key is thrown in the ocean. Half a dozen tabloid hacks are writing first drafts of quickie books that will be on sale in your local grocery store within the week."
"Cynical much?" I said.
Jack dismissed the question. "If you want to last in this business as long as I have, you'll have the cynical alarm on
High 24/7. Question everything. You wouldn't be here right now if you hadn't done that last year."
"So why did a line I wrote end up at a crime scene?" I asked. "That's my question."
"Let's hope it's an eerie coincidence," Wallace said. "That it doesn't have some sort of meaning that plays into why
Athena was killed."
"If this goes to trial," Jack added with a smile, "we can always claim libel, say the killer used Henry's quote out of context."
I absently scratched my ribs.
"Now the question for you both is," Wallace said, "where do we go from here? We've got the killer's message. Jack, you check with the NYPD, see if Chief Carruthers has any suspects or leads."
"I want to talk to the ballistics department," I said. "Jack, do you know anyone there you can hook me up with?"
"Why ballistics?" Wallace asked.
"Athena was killed by a high-powered rifle shot from a rooftop three blocks away, and the killer left a message he wanted to be found. This is as premeditated as it gets, and was executed with careful consideration. No doubt the murder weapon will fit into that. Then we can run a check on the gun, find the store he bought it at, go from there."
"Jack?" Wallace said. Jack scratched his beard. It looked a little darker than it had the last few days, the brown a little more, er, not gray. With our coverage of the Paradis murder, we were going to sell a lot of papers. Jack wanted to look his best in case there were any photo ops or interviews. And who was I to question the omnipotence of Just For Men?
There was a beep alerting Wallace to an incoming e-mail.
He clicked the mouse, eyes narrowing as he read.
"Mayor Perez called a news conference for noon today.
Costas Paradis will be in attendance."
I looked at Jack, who was staring at the screen, thinking.
The fire was just starting to burn, and I felt it, too.
"I want you both there," Wallace said. "And I don't care what you do or how you do it, get something different to run with tomorrow. I need angles here that won't be covered by the other papers."
"Angle is my middle name," Jack said.
"Yesterday you told me it was Glenfiddich," replied Wallace.
"Mine is Shane," I said proudly. They both looked at me.
I wasn't proud anymore. "I mean it's Angle, too."
Jack shook his head. "Wine cooler. That's your middle name. Get a good story and I'll promote you to Zima."
"And Henry," Wallace said, "if anyone asks about the quote the killer used, you have your 'no comments' at the ready. Am
I correct in assuming you're not hiding anything? That you have no reason to think this is anything but an awful coincidence?"
"I swear I have no idea," I said honestly. "Trust me, after last year I'd just as soon stay out of the spotlight as much as possible."
"Then let's keep it that way. We have to assume the suspect used it simply because the quote was relevant, or that he has some serious bats flying around in his belfry."
"That might work better than a 'no comment,'" Jack said.
"Now get a move on," Wallace continued. "I have no doubt there'll be some fireworks at this conference. You won't want to watch from the back row."
6
Paulina Cole sat at her desk, holding a warm cup in her hands. She took a sip. Coffee and Xanax. Better than toast and a runny omelet. She'd squeezed Dr. Shepberg's name into an article naming the best psychiatrists in NYC and ever since then the prescriptions arrived in her mailbox once a month.
Behind Paulina's desk were half a dozen picture frames containing front pages pulled from the New York Dispatch.
Stories she'd broken, papers so hot they'd sold out their print runs and been dissected on blogs around the world. Since she'd joined the Dispatch, the paper's circulation had grown
1.5 percent, a number many tried to attribute to a new marketing campaign, but those in the know knew it was solely because of her. Ted Allen, the Dispatch' s publisher, had said as much during the last shareholders meeting, and promptly given her a ten percent raise. He said Paulina Cole represented the bold new direction the Dispatch would be taking into the twenty-first century, that despite all the perils facing the print industry, technology simply couldn't compete with an oldfashioned nose for news. According to Allen, the Dispatch was tired of being the number two newspaper in New York.
And come hell or high water (possibly both) they would eventually best their number one enemy. Even if it meant simply hiring away their top reporters.
That's how he phrased it. Their enemy. This wasn't business, this was war. The longer you stayed satisfied being number two the more likely you'd fall out of the race completely. Nobody remembered the guy who lost the election, the ex before meeting your soul mate. The second-best were forgotten, pulped. If you weren't willing to kill to grab the lead, you deserved to get trampled.
That was Paulina's job; to do the trampling, to sell newspapers.
And for all the battles waged between the two newspapers, the coverage of Athena Paradis's murder could be the Dis patch' s Gettysburg. Athena was the most recognizable woman in the world, more than the president's wife, more than Princess Diana (hell, most of Athena's fans were too young to have even heard of Lady Di), even more than that lucky gal who scribbled the words Harry Potter on a notepad.
The battles lines had been drawn. More newspapers were going to be moved during the Paradis investigation than any event save a terrorist attack. Of course Paulina could argue that more people had seen Athena's reality show than had voted in the last election, so by sheer volume alone this was the biggest news story of the decade. Besides, the Lindbergh baby had never posed on the cover of her self-titled album wearing stockings and wrapped in a fire hose.
Until three o'clock this morning, Paulina had been digging into the personal life of David Loverne, congressional candidate, philanthropist, father of Henry Parker's ex-girlfriend
Mya, and alleged keeper of somewhere in the vicinity of four mistresses. It was a cover story in the making. David was beloved. Tall, handsome, the kind of man other men looked
up to and women wanted to look down upon. She was going to blow the whole thing wide open, expose the creep for who he really was. His fans and supporters would be demoralized.
His detractors (yes, there were some) would eat it for breakfast. And every one of them would fork over their fifty cents to read it.
Over the past week, Paulina had interviewed two women who claimed to have slept with Loverne, both within the past year. One dalliance occurred in a limousine after a stump speech, the other in an airplane flying to Dubai. Taking
Loverne down would sell papers. Getting in another dig at someone close to Henry Parker was just icing on the cake.
There was a knock on her door.
"Come in," she said. In walked Terrence Bynes, the
Dispatch' s Metro editor. Paulina's direct boss. The fact that he would lick between the subway railings if Paulina asked him to was implicit in their relationship.