by Blake Banner
She made a face like I’d just said two and two made four point zero one. “I don’t know, Stone. I don’t see it that clearly.” She finally turned to look at me. “It’s too much of a coincidence, isn’t it?”
“You just said you didn’t like Katie for it.”
She sighed. “I know.” She swiveled around and leaned her elbows on the table. “He finishes his article, decides it’s going to make him rich and famous, decides to tell Katie about Samantha, and Samantha about Katie, Katie dumps him and moves out, his laptop and his papers disappear and he gets executed—all in the space of a week. There is no way these events are not connected.”
“I agree, but I’m damned if I can see how at the moment.”
She gave me a lopsided smile and I was momentarily distracted by how extraordinarily beautiful her face was. “Oh, Mighty Sensei, a full morning into the investigation and you don’t know the answer? You must be getting old.”
She took a pull on her beer, smacked her lips, and examined the glass for a moment.
“How does this work? He finishes his article, and having put it all together, he realizes he has a bombshell on his hands. He’s looking at the Pulitzer, a best-selling book, TV interviews—he’s made the big time. Now, remember, this guy is security conscious, he keeps a gun next to his laptop, so what does he do? He puts his finished work somewhere safe…” She spread her hands and shrugged. “A safety deposit box, his editor, a locker at the paper. Could be anywhere. Meantime, he decides to come clean with Katie. He has real feelings for her. After all, she is a rare woman who is prepared to support a talented, but very demanding man. So he tells her. She gets pissed and storms out.”
She took another pull on her beer and examined the glass again, as though she was watching the end of the story play itself out on the side of her glass before she told me about it.
“Then, one of two things happens. Either he goes and tells Samantha the bad news, which seems unlikely if Katie has just dumped him…”
“He may have believed she would come back to him.”
She nodded, then shrugged. “Or, Katie decided to tell her. Now…” She took a deep breath. “If Katie had killed him, you know what, Stone? I think she would have used a battle axe. She has volatile emotions and she doesn’t strike me as the ice-cold rage type. But Samantha, we don’t know her well enough to be sure, but I could buy that. I could buy her judging him, sentencing him to death, and then executing him.”
I thought about it for a minute. “What is it about Samantha…?”
“We know that they were married for at least five years, right? In all that time she was prepared to put up with him disappearing for weeks at a time, failing to show at weekends, broken promises. That’s got to make you mad, right? But instead of confronting him, threatening him or just dumping the son of a bitch, she swallows it and adapts her life to suit his. That is…”
Again she spread her hands and I finished for her. “Cold anger.”
“The final straw comes when, after all the sacrifices she has made, instead of getting her reward, some other dame gets it. She comes to see him. He lets her in. ‘What the hell are you doing here?’ She tells him she knows about Katie. She knows what he’s like about security, she knows where he’s likely to keep his gun, she takes it and, bang! Ice cold.”
I did a lot of nodding. “It’s neat, it’s logical, it’s convincing.”
“But?”
Julio brought our chicken and beans and we ate hungrily and in silence for a while. Finally, when I was wiping the plate with a hunk of bread, I said, “What would stop Katie from telling us she had spoken to Samantha?”
She snorted. “That’s easy. The loyalty of two wronged women.”
“Really? Good to know.”
“You don’t buy it.”
I shook my head. “It’s not that. It is a very credible scenario, and so far the most likely, but right now that’s all it is. There is no evidence to support it. We need to find his laptop and his article. The fact that he was working on something that was apparently bigger than Watergate, the fact that he was apparently executed, and the fact that the article and the laptop disappeared without ever making headline news…”
I shrugged one shoulder and she nodded. “I hear you. It is pretty suggestive.”
“At the very least we need to explore that angle. We start by talking to his editor, Bob…”
“Bob Shaw. You think he might have the article?”
“It’s possible. But The New York Telegraph has always had a reputation for publishing high quality, controversial journalism. It has been traditionally anti-establishment, whoever the establishment was. So you’d expect that if he had the article, and David was killed for it, he’d publish it. The added controversy of the murder and a posthumous Pulitzer wouldn’t do the paper, or him, any harm at all. But…”
“If there were powerful enough interests involved, they might have taken out David and silenced his editor.”
“Again, it’s a possibility we need to explore. Right now all we have is theories.”
“So, the New York Telegraph?”
I stood and grabbed my coat from the back of my chair. “Appropriately located at 5 Penn Plaza.”
We took the Bruckner Expressway, through steady, heavy rain, and for the second time that day, crossed 3rd Avenue Bridge. After that, it was left onto Columbus and a slow crawl south all the way to West 30th. We didn’t talk much. We just watched a bobbing sea of colored umbrellas jostle each other and occasionally make suicide runs through the slow moving river of traffic, lit up with red, green, and amber lights, like Christmas for fishes. Three more lefts found me a parking space outside the bank at 5 Penn and we pulled up our collars and tried to dodge the raindrops in a hundred yard dash to the big glass and brass entrance of the green marble lobby.
The paper had its offices on the fifth floor. We stepped out of the elevator into a sober, mahogany and brass lobby that was as busy as Grand Central Station. I made my way to the reception desk and showed my badge to a pretty woman in a blue suit.
“Detectives Stone and Dehan. We’d like to talk to the editor in chief.”
She winked at me with long lashes. “I’ll see if she’s available.” She picked up the phone and pressed a button. “Usually it’s attorneys who want to talk to her. Cops not so much. Yuh, Al, I got two cops here, Detectives Stone and Dianne, they want to see Ms. Pearce…” She raised her eyes to me. “He’s just checking if she’s free.”
I frowned at her. “Ms. Pearce? What happened to Bob Shaw?”
“He retired, couple of years ago.” Then, to the phone, “She’s free? Okay, thanks, honey.” She pointed at a large glass door in a long glass wall, through which we could see what looked like hundreds of people sitting in small cubicles, talking on the phone and typing furiously, often at the same time. “She says you got five minutes. Through that door, right to the end, you can’t miss it.”
We elbowed our way through the busy, noisy room till we came to a glass-fronted office at the end. Inside there was an attractive woman, sitting behind the desk in an elegant burgundy suit with a white blouse. She was talking on the phone and waved us in as I pushed open the door. She pointed at two chairs opposite and said into the phone, “Take responsibility, Emma. Just do it. If they sue, they sue. Just be damned sure of your facts. If they sue us, I want to eat them alive in court. So I need you to be right and I need you to know that you are right. Deal with it.”
She hung up and we showed her our badges. “Detectives John Stone and Carmen Dehan, Ms. Pearce.”
She glanced at the badges, then at our faces, and said, “Tell me you are here to arrest me and rescue me from this goddamn paper.”
I smiled. “I’m afraid not. We just need to ask you a couple of questions. In fact, it was Bob Shaw we wanted to talk to.”
She raised an eyebrow at the edge of her desk and ran her finger along it, like she was reading Braille. “Bob? Bob’s retired. Can I ask what it’s abo
ut? If it’s to do with the paper, it’s to do with me.”
I sensed rather than saw Dehan lean back in her chair and cross her arms. I said, “Do you recall the murder of one of your reporters, about ten years ago? His name was David Thorndike.”
“Sure, I remember it. Dave was a damn good reporter. I covered the case for the paper. What about it?”
I looked at her with renewed interest. “Were you friends?”
She snorted. “Dave had no friends. Good reporters don’t. We knew each other. I respected him. That’s about as far as it went.”
“You remember he was working on a story at the time…”
“That’s why he was in that god-forsaken apartment in the Bronx. If you ask me, it’s what got him killed.”
“Really? Okay, I’m asking.”
“Dave had a real reputation. He and Bob were about as close as Dave ever got to anybody. Bob had a lot of respect for Dave as a reporter. He had proved himself time and again. But Dave was really jealous and really secretive. He played his cards close to the chest…” She paused and gave me a slow, deliberate once-over and smiled. “Real close to the chest, Detective Stone. You know what I mean? So Bob and Dave had come to a kind of understanding. Dave told him in very basic, limited terms the general area of his investigation, and Bob either approved it or not. If he approved it, that was pretty much the last he heard about it until the story was ready. He said it was his way of protecting himself, Bob, and the story.” She shrugged. “Only somebody like Dave could get away with something like that, because he had such a damned good track record. He produced one controversy after another and his facts were rock solid. Made a fortune for the paper.”
I shrugged. “So what was special about this story?”
“Special?” She said it as though the word had some deeper meaning and gave me the once-over again. “That’s the point. Nobody except him knew, but he did something he had never done before. He called Bob and told him this was the greatest story of his career, that he expected to get the Pulitzer for it, and that he feared his life was at risk.”
“That wasn’t in the police report.”
“What can I tell you? I didn’t edit the police report.” She winked at me and there was something infectious about her grin. “Bob asked him if he wanted to pull the plug. He said he didn’t. The story was all but finished and he’d be bringing it in any day.”
“How do you know this?”
“I wrote the story after he was killed, remember? Bob and I discussed it at length.”
“What happened to his story and his laptop?”
“I have no idea.”
“Could Bob have them?”
She looked doubtful. “And not publish the story? I don’t think so.”
I sighed. “We really need to see him. Can you…?”
“Put you in touch with him? Sure I can. But what’s in it for me?”
I felt Dehan stir and sigh noisily. Pearce ignored her and kept her smile focused on me. I blinked and said, “You don’t get charged with obstructing a police investigation.”
She raised an eyebrow and said with heavy meaning. “You’re hard, I like that in a man. I’ll tell you what, you take me out to dinner, give me an exclusive when the investigation is finished, and I’ll put you in touch with Bob Shaw and dig up anything else I can on Dave and his investigation. How does that sound?”
I gave her my sweetest smile and said, “How could I possibly say no, Ms. Pearce?”
“Shelly.”
I reached in my wallet and pulled out a card. As I handed it to her, she handed me one of hers. “Call me, John.”
I stood. “I will, John.” It was lame but she laughed. Dehan didn’t. More seriously, I said, “When can I expect to hear from you, Shelly?”
“I’ll call him in the next half hour and get back to you straight away. But I am serious, John. I expect dinner.” Again the once-over. “I am pretty sure I can help you.”
I nodded once. “We’ll be in touch.”
Dehan was silent all the way to the elevators, all the way down, and across the lobby. When we got into the street she jammed her hat on her head, pulled up her collar, and shouldered her way through the rain ahead of me. She waited by the passenger door for me to catch up, wrenched it open when I unlocked it, and slammed it hard after she’d climbed in. I got in, closed the door, and looked at her.
“What’s the matter?” She made a face and shook her head. “Stop it, Dehan. What’s got into you?”
She took her hat off, rammed it on her knee and stared at me with blazing black eyes for a long count of four. Then she said, “Nothing!”
I sighed and fired up the engine. We pulled out onto 8th Avenue and started the long, slow, wet crawl north, toward the Bronx.
FIVE
The call came as I was parking. My cell was on the dash. I glanced at Dehan, who was staring away from me, out at the rain, and said, “Can you get that?”
She picked it up and put it to her ear.
“Yeah.” She waited a moment with one eyebrow raised, then said, “Just a minute.”
She held out the phone without looking at me. I finished parking and took it.
“Yeah, Stone.”
“I just knew you’d answer the phone like that. I would have laid money on it. It’s Shelly.”
I smiled. “Yeah? So I’m that predictable, huh?”
I heard Dehan sigh. I looked as she climbed out of the car and slammed the door behind her. Shelly was saying, “No, not at all. You’re just butch. I like that. Listen, business before pleasure. I spoke to Bob. He says he’s happy to meet you. I am whatsapping you his number now.”
“Thanks, Shelly. I appreciate it.”
My cell bleeped and she said, “Is that it? Did it arrive?”
I checked. There was a message from her with his contact details. I put the phone back to my ear. “Yeah, I got it.”
“Okay, now, speaking of pleasure. You owe me dinner, where are you taking me?”
I laughed. “You mean I get to choose?”
“That depends.”
“On what?”
“On where you choose.”
I let the smile show in my voice. “I’m not familiar with the restaurants in Manhattan. Don’t you need to book six months in advance?”
“Unless you’re happy with Californian wine and paper napkins, yeah. Besides, I was hoping you’d chose somewhere within staggering distance of your place.”
I was surprised but didn’t let it show. “Now there’s a thought. I’ll pick you up at seven thirty.”
“I can’t wait.” Her voice was husky and appealing. It made me hesitate a moment.
“Shelly?”
“Yeah…”
“I’m a cop. If something comes up…”
“Don’t worry, honey, I know all about cops. I’ll see you at seven thirty.”
I hung up and sat for a minute staring at the blank screen. Then I climbed out and walked through the rain into the station, wiping the water from my face with my sleeve. I went to the bathroom, dried myself off, and then went to get coffee. I thought about getting one for Dehan, but with the mood she was in, she might pour it over my head. I eventually found her at our desk. She was leaning back, reading something on her laptop.
I dropped into my chair opposite and studied her for a moment. She shifted her position and moved her laptop so I couldn’t see her face.
“What’s going on, Dehan?”
“I’m reading articles by Dave Thorndike. It’s Dave, not David, by the way.”
“That’s very commendable.”
“Looks like you’re going to be busy, so I have to find things to do.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Don’t mean nothin’, boss. You and Ms. Pearce, that’s Shelly to you, are going to be conducting your own private, exclusive investigation. I figured meantime I could become acquainted with Dave Thorndike’s work. His recent articles might give me a lead into what he was in
vestigating.”
“Dehan, that is ridiculous.” She didn’t answer. She just kept reading, like I hadn’t spoken. I sighed. “I have Bob Shaw’s number. That call was from Pearce…”
“You mean Shelly.”
I sighed noisily. “She was calling to give me Bob Shaw’s number.”
“Cool.”
We sat in silence for a bit, her reading and me watching the back of her laptop. Finally, I said, “So I thought we could call him and go and see him this afternoon.”
“Cool. So when are you have your collaborative dinner?”
I counted slowly to five before answering. “This evening, at seven thirty.”
She clicked her wireless mouse and sat up. “You got time to interview a witness before you go? Don’t worry, if you’re busy with your investigation, I can take it myself.”
I frowned a frown that might have been a scowl. “What the hell are you talking about, Dehan? What witness?”
She fixed me with her big, dark eyes, stood, and walked to the printer, which had started to disgorge sheets of paper. She gathered them and brought them back to the desk where she started sorting them into stacks. I gestured at them.
“What’s this? Are you going to tell me what’s going on?”
“These are Dave Thorndike’s last three articles. I’ve printed two copies of each…” She paused while she stapled them into six documents and threw three of them across the desk at me. “These are for you. I’ve only glanced over them in the last ten minutes, but from what I’ve seen, they make interesting reading.”
“Okay…”
“The witness who’s on his way in is Bob Shaw.”
“What?”
Her cheeks flushed and her eyes shone. She grabbed a piece of paper from beside the phone, scrunched it into a ball and threw it at me. “He’s in the book. I called him while you were arranging dinner. He’ll be here in twenty minutes. Will you have time to attend the interview, Detective Stone?”
I stared at her. “Dehan, you are being ridiculous. What the hell is this about?”
