Death in Cold Type

by C. C. Benison

  Déjà Vu All Over Again

  Leo watched Axel, his arm like a plaid bear’s around Merritt’s overpadded shoulders, half-dragging her through the library door to the staff lounge beyond. It crossed his mind to wonder why the library lights were on, but he was so glad to have Merritt and her shrieking piehole out of the newsroom that he let the thought fade to black. What’s with women and this screaming thing? Do they learn it from the movies, or is it natural? Yes, Guy was dead. But, as he and Axel were frantically calling the police and trying to get a message to Martin at Galleries Portáge, Merritt kept erupting into these bizarre ululations. Finally, Axel grabbed her and crushed her to him so hard his white shirt was imprinted with a transfer of her made-up face.

  She’s grooving on this, he thought. It’s the Joy of Histrionics.

  Leo was proud of Stevie—she was made of sterner stuff, or different stuff, at least. But he was worried, too. Merritt’s screams, so sharp once he and Stevie had dashed into the newsroom, Axel’s unreadable face when he turned to them, the half-shadowed room, some strangely familiar but unpleasant tang in the atmosphere, had frozen her like a small animal on a night highway. She’d known without being told. It was all he could do to make her sit. He had practically had to fold her onto the nearest spot, a step on the corkscrew staircase that ran up to the composing room on the fifth floor. She was there now, facing away from him and the body at the front of the newsroom, half hidden behind the iron fretwork.

  The room was garish, sickly green under the fluorescent lights. He’d swept his arm over the whole bank of switches when he’d realized, slower than Stevie, what was going on. He took a deep breath and dashed toward Guy’s desk.

  “He’s dead,” Axel had intoned.

  Leo stared at him.

  “Well, don’t look at me.” A scowl crossed Axel’s face.

  “Better than looking at him. Marginally.”

  “What are you doing up here anyway?”

  “More to the point, what are you doing up here?”

  “Merritt was going to clean out her desk. She’s quitting.”

  Before Leo could open his mouth again, Merritt had opened hers. Axel carted Merritt off. Then he and Axel hit the phones. Now he was going to see for himself. Twice in one week I’m doing meet’n’greet with the unexpectedly deceased, he thought.

  This is not healthy.

  The sight of Guy lifeless, however, had none of the sudden shock he’d felt when Frank had raised the lights on Michael’s corpse. If anything, Guy appeared to be slumbering like some narcoleptic office worker who couldn’t help his head falling to his computer keyboard. His eyes were even closed. Michael’s eyes had been open, staring. That had been the worst. Had Guy died with his eyes closed? Could you if you were being strangled? Or had the killer closed the lids?

  What sick delicacy.

  It was clearly a strangling. It didn’t take a close examination to see the bruising on either side of the neck above the shirt collar. And there was bruising, too, along the forehead just below the hairline. He glanced at the blank computer screen. Had his head been smashed against the thick glass?

  And what had he been doing here? Why hadn’t he been at Galleries Portáge? Clearly, he’d been dressed for it. His usual fucking little preppy tweed jacket wasn’t hugging the back of his chair. The jacket of an expensive-looking blue business suit was. Guy’s shirt was blazing white; the tie, what Leo could see of it, striped and understated. What had the devious little shit been up to in the newsroom? The only thing on his desktop was the Saturday Go! section with some angry blue-pencilling around misspelled words, the blue pencil itself, and a coffee mug, clean, with Pop A Zit! on the side. Leo itched to open the desk drawers, but thought better of it. He bent down to run his eyes over the desk’s surface to see if a trail of disturbed dust would indicate the removal of something telling, but, of course, Guy’s desk was clean as a whistle. Where other newsroom denizens let their desks become encrusted with grime, Guy, the little tightass, would regularly trot over the men’s washroom and come back with a soapy paper towel to wipe down his surfaces.

  And the computer was switched off. Had it been all evening? He didn’t dare touch it to see if it were still warm. Had Guy been working at something? Had the killer switched off the machine with the same sort of peculiar care that led him—or her?—to close the dead man’s lids?

  When they began phoning, Leo had glanced at Axel’s powerful hands a moment too long when he lifted the receiver. Axel caught the look, understood, glared at him. He put his hand over the cup of the phone and snapped: “Fuck you. Don’t even think it.”

  But Leo thought it.

  He walked over to a computer terminal that had been left switched on. He had an idea: try to access Guy’s computer and see if he had been editing or writing anything that would explain why he would forego sucking-up possibilities at Galleries Portáge for work. He typed in his own access code, RLF322. His parents may have anglicized their last name from Fabiani to Fabian, but that didn’t stop them saddling him with the horrible moniker Raffaele Leonardo. The number 322 was for an apartment on River Avenue he’d lived in when he’d started at the Zit. He waited while the computer whirred and clicked. Stevie suddenly appeared at his side, taking one of the half-broken swivel chairs.

  “Are you okay?” he asked, noting she kept her coat wrapped tightly around her.

  “No.”

  “Do you want to sit with Merritt and Axel while I wait for the police?”

  “I’d rather be with you.”

  Leo wanted to lick every inch of her body. But it wasn’t the time or place.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Trying to see what Guy might have been up to.” He tapped in a command.

  “I have something to tell you.”

  He took his eyes off the screen. “Oh, god, what now? You’re always telling me stuff. I never have anything to tell you. Apparently, I’m an open book.”

  “Merritt is carrying Guy’s baby.”

  Leo couldn’t suppress the gagging noise that rose from his throat. “How do you know?” he said.

  “She told me yesterday, at the reception.”

  “When you two were upstairs?”

  Stevie nodded.

  Leo glanced back at the screen. He frowned. “Does Axel know?”

  “Somehow I think he does.”

  “Shit!”

  “What?”

  “Oh, it’s as I suspected. I’m denied access to Guy’s desk.”

  Stevie turned her head just enough to see the screen. “What are you trying to do?”

  “Everyone’s got an access code to the computer system, and they’re supposed to be secret.”

  “But they’re not.”

  “Not really. I know the code of the woman who sits next to me. But there’s not much point snooping because what most reporters have in their computers is boring. I tried an old code from a short stint I did on the night rim I did a few years ago but—” He read the words on the screen to her. “‘Access denied.’

  “You see, the higher up the food chain you go in this place the more access you have. A reporter can only access his own desk. A copy editor can access his own plus that of everyone equal to, and below, his station. A section head like Guy could access all that plus the other section heads—”

  “Then—?”

  “I need Kingdon.”

  He folded his arms and looked across the room at Guy’s body slumped over his computer keyboard. More than anything he looked absurd, his death slumber a mockery of the indolence he often accused others of displaying. Who killed him?

  Who?

  What?

  Where?

  When?

  Why?

  And sometimes how?

  He couldn’t face the notion of Axel being involved.

  “Perhaps this is like Murder on the Orient Express,” he said, thinking aloud. “The whole newsroom did it!” He affected a clown’s frown. “But, then, why didn’t t
hey ask me to join in?”

  Stevie stared at him.

  “Gallows humour.”

  Who, what, and where were givens. Guy Clark was murdered in the Citizen newsroom.

  Why? Beats me.

  And sometimes how. Strangulation. Easy. How did anyone know Guy was here? Good question. But how did whoever get in? The door had a coded lock. But staff, ex-staff, spouses, ex-spouses, lovers, ex-lovers, children, friends and neighbours all knew the combination. Even various nutbars, who for one reason or another liked to wander up to the newsroom at odd hours, knew it. Hell, the whole world was only six degrees of separation from knowing the combination to the Zit’s newsroom.

  “What’s the combination on the lock of the door we came through?” he asked Stevie.

  “Don’t you know? You opened it.”

  “Indulge me.”

  She frowned, thought about it. “One, three, five, two, four.”

  “See, even you know it.”

  “Hard not to notice. The sequence is so obvious.”

  “Although I suppose Guy could have let whoever in.”

  They lapsed into silence. Leo glanced again over the top of his computer at the slumberer and considered that since the shock had worn off and he wasn’t exactly overwhelmed with grief at Guy’s passing he ought to be working on the story. Hell, it was front-page stuff, a jesusly novelty: NEWSROOM SLAYING. But whose front page would it grace—or besmirch, as the case may be? The fucking Examiner had beat them to the punch with a new Sunday edition, and the news of ructions at the Zit would soon be crackling through the Examiner’s police squawkbox. For the Zit, on Monday, it would probably be five inches on page three—the journalistic equivalent of a discreet gentlemanly cough. And one of the members of League of Daves would probably do the reporting.

  As if following his logic, a phone rang on a desk across the room. Then another.

  “Here we go,” he said to no one in particular. “Word’s out.”

  The phones were reinforced by a grinding buzz like that of a giant insect.

  “Martin, at last,” Leo rose. Another phone rang, this one next to him. His hand hesitated over the receiver.

  “Leave it,” Martin snapped, rounding the corner.

  Yet another phone began ringing two feet away. Kingdon ducked into the telephone operator’s booth and with a kind of controlled franticness ran his eyes over the switchboard. Finally, he yanked at something and the ringing stopped. Face red from exertion, he stepped from the booth. His eyes darted to the far corner of the room.

  “Are you quite sure Mr. Clark is—”

  No, Martin, he’s trying out a new yoga position.

  No, Martin, he’s tapping out a story with his nose.

  No, Martin, he meditating according to the principles of Guru Conrad Black.

  “Yes, Martin, he’s dead. There’s no doubt.”

  “I see.”

  Leo watched as Martin’s eyes were drawn again toward the spectacle of a dead body in his newsroom. He seemed suddenly confounded by indecision, rubbing his hands and rising on the balls of his feet as though about to speed off somewhere, though not to the sanctuary of the management offices where Guy’s body lay uncomfortably close. Finally Martin moved to a chair near Leo and sat tentatively on its edge. It was the first time Leo had seen him sit down in the newsroom.

  “And you phoned the police?” he said in a vacant tone.

  No, Martin, Stevie and I have been too busy making love on this desk.

  No, Martin, Stevie and I decided to phone all our friends in Australia.

  No, Martin, Stevie and I are completely stupid and don’t know how to behave in a crisis.

  “Yes, Martin, of course.”

  “Ah.”

  “Do you have access to Guy’s desk?”

  Martin’s puzzled face looked up at him.

  “His computer. Can you access it?”

  “Oh? Yes…”

  “Then call it up.”

  “I don’t think—”

  “Oh, for Christ’s sake, Martin. Guy might have been writing something. It might be a fucking clue.”

  Martin hesitated. He pulled a handkerchief from somewhere past his dress coat and began mopping at a line of perspiration along his forehead.

  “Take off your coat and stay awhile,” Leo said.

  Martin did as instructed, wheeled over to the computer terminal and then, collecting himself, began to tap on the keys, one plump hand covering the other so as not to reveal his sign-on code, as if anyone gave a shit.

  The immediate result was disappointing. There were only a few entries in Guy’s desk, each encoded with the time of day the story was last handled. There were no entries at all for Saturday.

  “Try the Go! desk or the city desk.” Leo leaned into the computer screen. “Maybe he finished his story and sent it elsewhere.”

  But there were no stories in the directories with Guy Clark’s initials on them to indicate their origin. Nor were there any in half a dozen other directories that seemed possible destinations. Finally, Leo suggested calling up the “kill” file, the repository of all the old, used, or unwanted stories generated like so much garbage in an abundant society, but fully accessible only to senior editors. A simple press of the “kill” button on the far right side of the keyboard did not destroy a story so much as consign it to a computer limbo, where it was allowed to linger for a few hours (in case someone contemplated resurrection) before it forever vanished from the system.

  With no one having worked at the Citizen all day Saturday, the kill file should have been empty. But it wasn’t. With excitement rising, Leo watched the initials GXC flash on the screen next to a line of shorthand information, the title and length of story, and time of consignment. He had been correct. Guy had been writing something after all.

  “Bigstuff,” he muttered, reading out the story’s slug. What a fucking ego. No clue to the contents. And the contents were few. The length of story was indicated at 3.8 inches, barely more than a few sentences. Still, he thought, impatiently leaning over Martin and typing in instructions himself, it might be a lead, more than enough to suggest the nature of Guy’s story. But when he entered the command, the computer flashed “audit trail closed.”

  “Shit! Why can’t we call up the story?”

  “Because, Mr. Fabian, that’s the nature of the kill file. The point of it is to get rid of the refuse. We can’t keep everything forever. The computer system would clog.”

  Leo groaned. “But, Martin, the killed story stays in the system for a few hours—”

  “One hour.”

  “—and could be retrieved in an emergency.”

  “True. But I don’t know how.”

  Or you won’t tell me, you fat little twerp. “Then someone else must know. Alcock! Alcock must know. Where’s a phone book?”

  “That man is persona non grata. He fouled my desk.”

  “Urine’s supposed to be good for walnut.”

  “Well, Mr. Fabian,” Martin drawled. “You’ve got five minutes before it vanishes. Look at the time. The story was killed at 9:06. It’s now 10:01.”

  A minute later Leo had Alcock on the phone. It took another two minutes to calm his rage. The former city editor was pickled yet lucid, not unlike a typical afternoon in the newsroom. “Just shut the fuck up, Ray, and give me the codes.”

  “Mr. Alcock,” Martin picked up an extension. “Give him the goddamn codes. Now!”

  The squawking stopped. Leo typed in the sequence as directed. The computer whirled through its motions, and then the story flashed complete onto the screen.

  They stared at the green glow. Leo felt like he had been punched. All the air went out of him. “Shit!” He slammed the phone back on the hook, cutting Alcock off in mid-expletive. “It’s gibberish.”

  On the screen was exactly 3.8 inches of assorted letters and numbers in a nonsensical stream.

  “Oh, well,” Martin said airily. Leo stared at him. Martin looked relieved!


  “Maybe it’s the result of his head hitting the keyboard,” Stevie suggested.

  Martin seemed to take in her presence for the first time.

  “Stevie Lord, a friend of mine. Stevie, Martin Kingdon, ME of this place.” Leo gestured one to the other. And no, Martin, she isn’t someone you hired, then completely forgot about.

  “How do you do?” Martin intoned, rising.

  And neither is this a tea party.

  “You must excuse me. I have something to attend to in my office.”

  Leo watched him take a wide berth through the sea of desks. Without thinking, Leo darted after Kingdon and caught him just before he could disappear into his inner sanctum.

  “Martin,” he said in a low voice, blocking the way. “I know why you wanted me off the story.”

  “And why would that be?”

  “You thought that I would dig too deep.” He paused. “Do you remember Chappaquiddick?”

  Martin regarded him stonily.

  “You know, Mary-Jo Kopechne. Ted Kennedy. Car accident. Ted’s friends do a nice little cover-up.”

  “And your point, Mr. Fabian?”

  Leo took a deep breath. “Guy knew you’d organized all the falsification in Tom Rossiter’s death. He knew because his sister had told him, and she knew because Michael had told her. Ten years ago, you thought you could curry favour with your nephew, Tom Rossiter’s son and heir, by covering up what was, in fact, manslaughter. Four people dead, one injured. But it didn’t work. Michael despised his father, and disdained you for being so venal.”

  Martin pushed him out of the way. “I could have you fired, Mr. Fabian.”

  “You could.”

  “I should have fired you last spring.”

  “An angel interceded.”

  “Ah, you know. And I thought my nephew preferred circumspection in his acts of kindness.”

  “I had another source.”

  “In any case, your intercessor is dead.” Martin sank into the shadows of his office.

  “And two of the people who know about your shenanigans are dead,” Leo called after him.

  Martin’s face reappeared out of the gloom. “Are you blackmailing me, Mr. Fabian? Angling to be city editor, perhaps, now that we seem to be without one?”