Man of Steel

by Dave Conifer

  “Somebody goofed,” Bremer answered.

  “And we get to clean it up,” Eddie said. “I tell you, I’m getting too old for this. What did Pomeroy tell them?” he asked.

  “We don’t know,” Bremer said. “We couldn’t get anybody close enough to hear. We’re lucky we know about it at all.”

  “The guy doesn’t even know anything,” Eddie said. “Maybe we should just leave him alone.”

  “He spent over an hour with these reporters,” Bremer said. “He’s never flapped his gums like this before. Not like this. It was a pre-arranged meeting.”

  “He knows nothing,” Eddie repeated.

  “You have no idea what he knows, and I don’t either,” Bremer said. “He knows something happened. And he’s a link. We can’t have anybody poking around. There’s still a trail. We can’t let anybody follow it.”

  “I always thought we only signed on to do this for twenty years,” Eddie said. “I’m about ready to get out of this business.”

  “It’s been nineteen,” Max reminded him. “And you don’t really mean that. This is a lifetime obligation. If you don’t look at it that way you’ll be sorry. We all will.”

  “We were practically kids back then, Max,” Eddie said. “Did you ever think this was going to be your whole career?”

  “No, but the pay is good,” Max answered. “Your kids went to college. So did mine. I can’t complain.”

  “I never would have guessed that I’d spend my life doing something that I’m not allowed to talk about,” Eddie said. He picked up the sandpaper and examined a corner of the cabinet he was refinishing.

  “Are you guys done?” Bremer asked. “Can we get back to business?”

  “Sure, Jerry,” Max said. “What do we have to do?”

  “We need to slow these reporters down,” Bremer said. “But that’s not your end of it. Marino already started on the North Carolina kid. Let’s just say he called in a favor. The kid’s boss just got a plum job offer and he’s already left for California. If we’re lucky that’ll kill the story.”

  “That’s clean,” Eddie said.

  “Pomeroy is your problem now,” Bremer said. “We’re definitely doing something about Pomeroy. If he hasn’t learned his lesson about talking too much after all this time, he never will. We’ll do whatever it takes to keep him quiet. That’s why you two are going downtown for a little while.”

  “Just leave him alone,” Eddie said. “He’s a harmless old man.”

  “You said that already,” Bremer replied curtly.

  “Careful, Eddie,” Max said. “Before you know it they’ll be saying that about us.”

  -- Chapter 9 --

  The next week brought a deluge of mundane reporting work for Jonas. Without Burkhardt around to handpick his assignments he was forced to go back to work on stories for the Metro section. The only story that interested him, the JFK story, was slipping away. Not ready to let that happen, he picked up the stack of notes one slow morning and holed up in an empty conference room, where he reviewed everything they had learned.

  The discrepancies between what Pomeroy had said and what McBride had told them weren’t troubling at all. It was easy to agree with Pomeroy that McBride was a buffoon who knew very little about what had really happened. Jonas wondered if McBride had followed through on his threat to release his story to other reporters if he and Reno didn’t take him seriously. He hadn’t heard anything, but he was a thousand miles away. The best way to find out was to call Reno.

  “Abby, this is Joe,” he said when she picked up the phone.

  “I’m so pissed,” Reno answered without saying hello. “I spent a few days organizing my notes and writing a few pages about that ‘Welcome to Dallas’ ad I told you about. But somebody broke into my apartment yesterday and took my computer. Everything I wrote was on there, and I can’t find my notes either.”

  “You got robbed?”

  “They wrecked the place. Must have been a couple geeks if all they wanted was the computer.”

  “I still have my notes but they’re not as good as yours,” Jonas said.

  “I still have copies of everything filed away here in the office, at least. Except for the article I was writing. I guess that one’s not getting published.”

  “I never work at home,” Jonas declared. “I don’t even have a typewriter there. No notes. Nothing.”

  “Me neither, now. Oh, by the way, remember when we were talking to McBride? The son, not the dad.”

  “Not the dead guy?”

  “Right,” she snickered. “Remember at the last minute he mentioned that his dad was sent to pick up some money up in Indiana?”

  “I remember. What about it?”

  “Do you remember the name of the town? I swear he said Veedersburg.”

  “Could have been,” Jonas said.

  “I’m sure he said Veedersburg,” she said. “I’ve been reading up on ERC. I can’t just accept how they showed up right when he got fired and offered him a job on the spot. I don’t believe in coincidence. Not like this one, anyway. There has to be something we don’t know about. So I’ve been learning as much as I can about them. It turns out that they have some kind of steel mill in Veedersburg. Is that bizarre? Is it a coincidence?”

  “You just said you don’t believe in coincidence.” Jonas thought about it for a moment while Reno waited silently. “Very good, Abby,” he finally said. “Very good. Hard to believe it’s a coincidence. Let’s see. A Dallas police officer drove all the way to Indiana. And it happens that ERC, the company that mysteriously hired Pomeroy just a few days later, has a mill there. You’re right. There’s got to be something we’re not seeing.”

  “I wish I’d noticed it sooner. We could have asked Pomeroy when we had him cornered. There’s an ERC connection here but what is it?”

  “I could call him,” Jonas offered. “It’d be pretty interesting to hear what he said about it. Even if he dodged the question it would tell us something.”

  “He’s not telling us everything he knows,” Reno declared.

  “I’ll give him a call. It can’t hurt anything. He just didn’t want us calling him at work. I’ll call him at home.”

  “I don’t think he wanted that either. The arrangement was clear. We never call, write or visit. He’s done with us.”

  “I’ll promise him it’ll be the last time,” Jonas assured her. “I’ll call you at home tonight if he has anything interesting to say.”

  ~~~

  He didn’t get around to calling Pomeroy until the weekend and when he did, Pomeroy wasn’t happy. “I thought we had a deal,” he said.

  “There’s one little thing I was hoping you could help me out with,” Jonas said. “It’ll only take a minute. McBride told us his father drove to Veedersburg, Indiana, on his last day on the force. Abby found out that ERC has offices there. Isn’t that an odd coincidence? You know, given that they hired you on the spot as soon as you lost your job?”

  “I don’t know anything about Charlie driving to Veedersburg,” Pomeroy said. “This is the first time I’ve ever heard of that.” Jonas heard a woman speaking in the background, and then Pomeroy’s muffled voice as he answered her. “We’re late for church. We never miss the Saturday night mass. Yeah, we have a finishing mill there. I was out there a few years ago helping them with some security protocols.”

  “What do you think Charlie McBride was doing up there?”

  “I don’t know anything about it. I have to get going.”

  ~~~

  One by one the twenty-one members of the Metro Department straggled into the break room for the emergency staff meeting called by Steve Trappe. The steady murmur of conversation stopped immediately when Trappe rushed into the room. He moved to the front and dropped a stack of files on the counter next to the sink before facing the group. “First of all, I’d like to thank everybody for coming on such short notice. I know everybody is busy. I’ll keep it short.”

  He removed his jacket and sl
ung it over the microwave oven, knocking over a carton of plastic spoons. “You’ve all probably heard that Ben Burkhardt left last week. That’s why we’re here. We’re already looking for a replacement but that’ll take some time. Since all of you reported directly to Ben we need to work around this for a while.”

  He picked up a stack of papers and passed them around. “What we’ve decided to do is divide you up between other editors. You’ve all been assigned to one of five groups, each reporting to a designated editor. We’re calling them ‘surrogate editors.’ It’s sloppy but it can work. At the end of the day I’ll oversee a review of what’s going out in the Metro section so if there are any lapses we’ll catch them then.”

  He gave everybody a chance to read what he had handed out before he continued. “This is going to be difficult for all of you,” he said. “We understand that. Let’s just get through it. These surrogate editors, and I’m one of them, aren’t going to have much time to listen to your problems. We’re probably not going to win any Pulitzers this month. You’ll have to do as much as you can on your own. Make routine decisions yourself. Try to solve problems before coming to us. If it isn’t urgent, put it on hold.”

  He picked up his jacket after glancing at his watch. “That’s all I have for now. Try to schedule some time with your surrogate in the next couple of days.” He scooped up the stack of files and ran out the door as fast as he’d come in. The meeting had lasted no more than three minutes.

  Jonas wasn’t sure how he felt when he saw that he was in the group reporting to Trappe himself. Trappe intimidated him. On the other hand, he was always so busy that Jonas was pretty sure he wasn’t going to be watching very closely. Maybe he could squeeze out some time for the Kennedy story after all.

  ~~~

  On Monday morning R.J. Pomeroy kissed his sleeping wife goodbye and left for work long before the sun came up. He’d been doing it that way since coming to Pittsburgh almost twenty years before. It surprised him that west bound Crafton Boulevard was blocked by construction barriers. Normally the roads department was pretty good about warning drivers ahead of time about detours. He dutifully turned left, following the directions of the disinterested worker with the orange flag and cone-tipped flashlight.

  As he drove deeper into the belt of suburbia along the still-empty road he plotted a new course to get downtown. He didn’t notice the tow truck until it pulled beside him and crashed into the side of his Oldsmobile. Pomeroy reflexively tried to hold his ground as he tried to understand what was happening. He steered into his attackers as hard as he could but the force of the truck was too strong. Before long he was driving on the shoulder. When he slammed on his brakes the truck slowed right along with him. Fear on his face, Pomeroy looked over helplessly into the cab of the truck. He knew what this was about.

  When his eyes turned back to the road he realized with terror that he was headed straight for a concrete barrier. The car was moving too fast to stop in time and he knew it. He couldn’t veer back onto the road because the tow truck was there. Unless he wanted to drive head-on into the barrier there was only one other option. The Oldsmobile tumbled into Moon Run Ravine, flipping over several times before coming to rest at the bottom.

  The truck pulled to the side of the road and sped back in reverse to the place where Pomeroy went over the bank. The two men inside, both wearing ski masks, looked at each other as they waited for the sound of an explosion. When it didn’t come, one jumped from the truck and disappeared over the side. Two minutes later greasy black smoke billowed up the embankment. After the man had climbed back to the road and slipped into the truck it pulled back onto Crafton Boulevard and vanished into the suburbs. A mile up the road in both directions men pushed road barriers aside, threw flashlights and traffic cones into the trunks of their cars and melted away onto the side streets.

  -- Chapter 10 --

  Halfway through the week, just when Jonas was worried that the story was stalling again, he heard from his partner in Texas. “Joe, this is Abby. Did you wrap up that assassination story yet?” she asked.

  “Yeah, right. Not even close,” Jonas grumbled. “My editor walked out just a couple days ago so the story’s on hold. How about you?”

  “Same here. He’s gone? Permanently?”

  “Yeah. I hope I still get to work on it. My temporary boss doesn’t know shit about it.”

  “Listen, I did some more research on ERC,” she said. “There was all kinds of nastiness going on between them and Kennedy. And I’m talking like right before he was killed. It was bad.”

  “Oh yeah? Like what?”

  “It’s all on the public record,” she said. “I’ve got stacks of stuff I want to show you. Kennedy and the head of ERC really fought it out over steel prices, all on the front page. You’ll love it. It was really bitter.”

  “I’d like to see it. Maybe you’re onto something.”

  “Maybe,” she said. “I showed it to my boss and she said to keep going with it. I told her the first thing I needed to do was get up there to talk to you and she was okay with it. So when am I invited?”

  “You’re coming here? I better make sure I’m allowed to work on it.”

  “Have you talked with anybody about it yet?”

  “I tried, but my new boss is swamped with his own stuff. I can’t even get in to see him.”

  “That’s his problem if he’s too busy. Why would you stop if nobody came and told you to stop? I think you’re fine.”

  “That’s good but I hope I can remember it when I’m getting reamed out.”

  “Can I come on Monday, then? I need a few days to clear the decks here.”

  “Okay,” he said. “We can work out the details later. Just call me back.”

  ~~~

  She didn’t call back until late Friday afternoon. Jonas, who’d been leaving urgent messages for her all day, was relieved to finally hear from her. “Abby, Pomeroy is dead,” he said. “I just confirmed it.”

  “What? What happened?”

  “He drove off the side of the road and crashed at the bottom of a cliff. But his wife told the police she has no idea why he was there in the first place. He should have been on his way to work.”

  “Oh my God. I can’t believe it!”

  “It happened the morning after I called him back, Abby. Remember how worried he was about being watched? That’s why he made us promise never to call him again. You warned me not to do it. I feel like it’s my fault he’s dead.”

  “How did you find out about it?”

  “That’s even creepier. Somebody sent me an envelope with the obituary clipping yesterday. It was sent by inter-office mail. That means it came from an employee here at The Sentinel. Or at least somebody went to a lot of trouble to make it look that way.”

  “There’s no way to trace it back and find out who sent it?” Reno asked.

  “I already tried. If only I hadn’t called,” he lamented, “he’d still be alive.”

  “You don’t know that it had anything to do with us,” she said. “Car accidents happen all the time.”

  “The police say there were skid marks that made it look like another car was involved. Plus, somebody sent me the obituary. There’s no other way to explain that.”

  “Let’s talk about it when I get there. Don’t get down on yourself, Joe. Let’s say it did happen because you called. That doesn’t change anything. Somebody else did it, not you. That’s who should be feeling guilty about it.”

  “I’m not so sure we should keep working on this, Abby.”

  “If somebody really did get killed over it,” she argued, “That’s all the more reason why we should keep working on this story. It means we’re onto something.”

  “Yeah, maybe, but it could also mean that we’ll end up like Pomeroy,” he countered. “Would you feel the same way if they sent the obit to you? If they can send me inter-office mail that means they can get to me anyplace, anytime. Same for you.”

  “Don’t get carried away he
re. You’re reading too much into this. We’ll talk it through on Monday. Can you last that long without me?”

  “Yeah, I’ll try to survive that long,” he said. She recited her flight information and he promised to be there to pick her up.

  ~~~

  Jonas was at the Charlotte airport an hour before Reno was scheduled to land. By the time her plane pulled into the gate he’d read his copy of The Sentinel from cover to cover and was already re-reading the sports page. She looked upset when she finally emerged. Clutching a small overnight bag and a bulky white canvas sack, she walked quickly towards him as soon as she spotted him. “Come on,” she said, hooking his arm without breaking stride.

  “What’s going on?” Jonas demanded.

  “I think somebody’s following me. Let’s go in here,” she said as she dragged him into a gift shop. “Watch,” she said after pulling him behind a rack of paperbacks. “Tall guy, reddish hair, sideburns and glasses, white oxford shirt.” As soon as she’d said it he appeared, jogging past the shop before stopping and looking around. Reno bent down out of view, so Jonas did the same. When they looked back out a minute later he was gone.

  “I was freaking out while I was on the plane,” she said as she plopped Indian style onto the floor. “That never happened to me before.”

  “Are you sure he was following you?” Jonas asked as he knelt beside her.

  “Are you sure somebody killed a guy in Pittsburgh because you called him?” she shot back.

  Neither spoke for a minute. After several patrons eyeballed them on the floor Jonas stood up and pretended to browse through books. Reno reached up and he pulled her to her feet. “Sorry for what I said,” she told him. “I’m just freaked.”

  “It’s okay. Are you hungry?”

  “No. Let’s just get out of here.”

  “What makes you so sure he was following you?” he asked as they left the shop. “Maybe you were just going to the same place.”

  “No way. He followed me all around the airport in Austin. I was testing him. Wherever I went, he went. If I made a wrong turn, he did too. When I went into the ladies room he hung around at the door by the men’s room. He’s an amateur but he was definitely following me.”