The Guilty (2008)
Page 3
Some reporters always keep pace.
Some reporters are always one step ahead.
What kind of reporter are you?
“Good. Then Evelyn will be expecting your copy in
sixty minutes.”
“I’m a lucky man.”
Evelyn Waterstone was the Gazette’ s battle-ax of a Metro
desk editor. All stories that focused within the five boroughs
were doled out by her, met with her approval, and she had
final edit. She was notorious for fighting for front-page space,
claiming that New York was the country’s central nervous
system, and that most relevant stories stemmed from there.
So far she had treated me with kid gloves. Which left me
uneasy. She always seemed to be much tougher on the other
young journalists, the interns, the people who hadn’t paid
their dues. The fact that she liked me was fairly disconcerting. Like someone who smiled to your face while they held
a Ginsu behind their back.
“Leave out the stuff about slug caliber and shooter vantage
points,” Wallace said. “Too much conjecture. Let the Dispatch
be forced to make retractions. We need to play this clean.”
“I’ll get it done,” I said, trying to convince not only Wallace
but myself.
“Don’t worry, I spoke to Evelyn before you got here.
She’s aware of the time-sensitive nature, and is waiting for
your e-mail. I’m asking you to play in the same scuzzy
ballpark the Dispatch does, only you bat clean. You have an
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hour. Find an angle the Dispatch will miss. The entire country
is going to be talking about Athena’s murder, and we need to
give them something nobody else will. I don’t want any
baseless conjecture. I don’t want any name-calling. I don’t
want to stoop to their level. I want you to report this story the
way a Gazette reporter would.”
I nodded. Had no intention of doing it any other way. Since
I returned to the Gazette full time, I’d worked my ass off in
an effort to prove I could hack it at that level. My first goround had been sidetracked by a slight case of murder. I’d
spent the better part of a year trying to live down my own
story, and now it was time to return to what I did best. To what
I was born to do. Find the stories nobody else could.
I looked back at the crime scene. Saw where the body had
fallen. A ballistics expert used a pencil to trace an invisible
line from the top of a brownstone several blocks away to the
spot where the bullet had struck Athena. This club had
security cameras outside, meaning Athena’s death had undoubtedly been captured live and in color.
All those cameras. All those witnesses. No doubt a dozen
people or more had taken cell phone photos and videos of her
murder. Who knew how many ghouls would post them publicly? Whoever had killed Athena couldn’t have picked a more
public place. It was as if the killer wanted people to see it, to
record it, to spread his mayhem. It didn’t make my job any
easier, that’s for sure. There would be a cacophony of noise
tomorrow, and I needed to find a pitch that could rise above it.
I looked at the brownstone being eyed by the tech. Checked
my watch. Under an hour to find a story. Didn’t have to be
the whole ball of yarn, just a strong thread. Sometimes a
thread was all you needed.
4
I pushed my way through the throng of eager reporters. Felt
more than one elbow jab my ribs. I wasn’t naive enough to
think they were accidental. Much of the NYC press corps still
burned because of the publicity I’d received from my murder
rap. Grizzled vets who resented the book and film deals I’d
turned down. It was a Catch-22. They would have hated me
just as much if I’d taken the money. The spotlight of fame
exposed every jealous and spiteful emotion from those who
wished they had it, and from those who wanted nothing to do
with it.
I saw Curtis Sheffield on the cop side of the tape, holding
back photographers and issuing “no comments” like they
were going out of style. Curt Sheffield was a young black
officer, two years out of the academy and the kind of cop
who’d be one of New York’s finest for years to come. Fit, tall,
with a smile that got female witnesses offering more than their
side of the story. I’d interviewed Curt a few months ago for
a story on the NYPD’s developing new body armor, how the
upgrade was long overdue, and how based on gunshot wound
studies the new vests, when implemented across the country,
would likely save up to thirty lives a year.
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Curt was glad the department finally kicked in the dough
to save lives, but offered sincere remorse for the lives that had
already been lost. He’d been honest and eloquent, and it was
clear the public good was his passion. The department had
recognized this—and recognized that his face would look
good on a poster—and within weeks Curt was the centerpiece
of a new NYPD recruitment campaign.
Despite our naturally combative professions, I considered
Curt a friend. He was a great source because he knew any information he passed along would be treated with respect. A
few weeks after the recruitment drive started, Curt admitted
that most cops weren’t big fans of do I know you looks. They
don’t like getting recognized in movie theaters or getting
asked for autographs. So we had something in common.
Curt saw me as I battled the wave of gawkers barricaded
behind police tape. He walked over fast, a stern look in his
eye.
“Hey, back off,” he said, approaching a grizzled paparazzo
trying to sneak his camera beneath the tape. He eyed me,
popped his head to the left. Come over here.
I followed him off to the side. Another cop held back the
masses so we could talk in private.
“You believe this shit?” Curt said. “Don’t know what’s worse,
cleaning up this mess or having Athena Paradis’s stupid song
stuck in my head while her blood is drying on the sidewalk.”
“I’d say they’re both pretty bad.”
“Yeah. Pretty bad,” he said, distracted. He was chewing
gum. His jaw was working overtime, anything to keep his
mind occupied.
“So you assigned to this mess?” I asked.
“You aren’t assigned to shitstorms, they just happen to rain
when you’re walking by.” Curt smacked his gum.
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35
“Big story,” he continued. “Not just any girl got killed
here tonight.”
“Don’t I know it.” I leaned in. “Listen, man, if I had to
guess, Athena was killed by a high-powered rifle. Highcaliber slug.” I pointed at the outcropping of rooftops surrounding the Kitten Club. “Your killer shot from the roof of
one of these buildings. Guess it’s up to your forensics and
spatter people to figure out the angle and trajectory.”
“Like Deadwood out here. Everybody saw everything, but
nobody saw nothing. Know wh
at I mean?”
“Yeah. Figure some sick asshole with a video cell phone
will upload this to YouTube any minute now.” I looked around,
saw half a dozen half-drunk and half-asleep club goers fiddling
on cell phones and BlackBerries. “Maybe sooner than later.”
Curt kept chewing, nodded. “You see that building over
there?” He flicked his head north.
“Which one?”
“Don’t know,” he said, eyes locked on to mine. “Maybe
redbrick or something.”
I looked again. There was a redbrick building two blocks
north and one block west of us. I could make it out through
the early morning haze.
“Seen a lot of my boys in blue checking it out. Trying not
to cause a stir.”
“That right?”
Curt nodded. “Hate to see those cockroaches at the
Dispatch get the brass ring. You know they had a reporter over
here from their gossip section, offered to write me up as one
of NYC’s hottest bachelors if I planted a bug in our briefing
room? Fucking parasites.”
“Hell, you’d be lucky to break the top hundred.”
“Yeah, tell that to my girlfriend. I’d be on patrol with a
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GPS monitor up my ass the second she thinks my eyes start
wandering.” Curt looked around, coughed into his hand.
“Can’t say I was a fan of Athena’s, you know, work, but
Christ, the girl was only twenty-two.”
“No kidding,” I said. We stayed silent for a moment, then
I remembered my deadline. “Hey, drinks on me this week. If
I don’t hit my deadline which is in, oh about six minutes, I’ll
be out of work and you’ll have to pick up the tab.”
“Then get the hell out of here.” He clapped me on the
shoulder. “Take it easy, Parker.”
After saying goodbye I hung back for a minute. I didn’t
want to let anyone else know I had a possible scoop. Then I
waded back into the soup of reporters, stuffed my hands in
my pockets and headed north.
Two patrolmen jogged by me. I slowed down. There were
several cops huddling outside of the redbrick building Curt
had pointed out. As I got closer I heard radio activity. I stopped
at the corner and peeked around.
A cop stood by the awning, a walkie-talkie in his hand. A
plainclothes cop, probably from Forensic Investigation, strode
up and spoke to him for a minute, then ducked inside. I took
a breath, waited until the cop was alone, then rounded the
corner and approached him.
“Help you?” he said. Nothing to see here, move along.
“Henry Parker, New York Gazette. ” I showed him my press
credentials. Might as well have been a slab of lemon, the way
his face scrunched up.
“Go on, get out of here.”
“Something going on inside this building?” The cop locked
eyes with me, then spoke deliberately.
“You know you don’t have a whole lot of fans in the law
enforcement community.”
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I nodded. Even though charges had never been brought for
the murder of Officer John Fredrickson, if not for me he’d still
be alive. And even though he was dirty as sin, that was something no cop or Fed would ever forget.
“Crime scene is over on Thirteenth.” He jerked his thumb
back where I’d come from. “You want a better view of the
crime scene, might I suggest walking to the middle of the
Brooklyn Bridge and then jumping off.”
I laughed, pretended it didn’t affect me. “I saw several
officers entering and exiting this site.”
“You saw wrong.”
“Officer…” I said, looking at his badge. “Officer
Lemansky. I know this is the building the killer shot Athena
Paradis from. You and I both know this murder is going to
make both of our lives a living hell until the killer is caught.
All differences aside, the story is huge, and it won’t go away
just because you tell me to. Whether it’s the Gazette, the
Dispatch or the National Enquirer, you’re going to have reporters up your ass until this psycho is caught. Do you read the
newspaper?”
He nodded. “So what?”
“So you must have read that story the Dispatch ran last
week. Detective Pedro Alvarez, killed in the line of duty. Did
you know him?”
Lemansky’s silence was an affirmative.
“So you know the Dispatch ran a front-page story two
days after his death. About his mistress. Lena something,
right?”
Officer Lemansky sniffed. He shuffled his feet.
“Fucking parasites,” he said. “Madeleine deserved better
than seeing her family’s name dragged through the mud.” He
looked at me. “Alvarez was a good cop and a good husband. If
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it wasn’t for people like you he’d still be remembered that
way.”
I had my opening.
“I don’t work for the Dispatch. I’m not interested in smear
campaigns and ruining families to sell papers. If you don’t talk
to me, another reporter will get the story. You’ve read the
Gazette. So you can talk to me right here, right now, or I can’t
promise what tomorrow’s headline will be in the Dispatch.
But I can promise you what the headline will be in the
Gazette. ”
Lemansky was searching my eyes for the truth. Whether
he could trust me. I knew he could.
He nodded. “I give you something, it came from an anonymous source. I get quoted, or you do anything to go back on
what you just said, I don’t care if the papers start claiming
we’re fucking aliens from Mars, you’ll get a mouthful of
broken teeth before you ever get another story.”
I said, “You have my word.”
He looked around. I thought about Curt. Knew the cops
just wanted to make sure the right thing was done.
“Forensics is saying they found a note scrawled up on the
roof, below the ledge they think the shooter rested the gun on.
They’re analyzing it, but they say he wrote in block using a
Sharpie so it’s pretty much useless. They’re sifting through
about a ton of loose gravel up there, could take days to find
anything else.”
“The note,” I said, speaking softly, half to calm the cop and
half to slow down my heart. “What did it say?”
The cop looked around again. He reached into his pocket
and pulled out a folded piece of paper.
“Some lab rat passed copies around, asked if anyone had
ever heard of someone talking like this before. I didn’t know,
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39
but…” He licked his lips. His eyes danced around, like
somebody was about to leap from the morning shadows.
He handed it to me.
“Get out of here,” he said. “And remember what you said.”
I nodded, took the paper and walked off.
I waited until I’d gone about three blocks and was out of
the line of sight from the building. Then I opened my hand.
It was a simple piece
of paper on which was written a
single sentence. And if Lemansky was correct, besides a
murdered girl, this was all the killer left behind.
I read the sentence. Felt my breath catch in my throat.
Right then I knew why Officer Lemansky was scared. I knew
what my angle was. A chill of fear ran up my spine, similar
to the one I felt last year when I was accused of murder.
And I knew that Athena Paradis wouldn’t be the last
victim.
5
I was sitting in Wallace Langston’s office as he read a
printout of the article. My palms were coated with sweat
and my eyelids felt like they were being dragged down
with two-ton weights. Evelyn had posted the text of my
article at 4:22 a.m., holding it up just to confirm my source.
When I told her the quote the killer had left at the scene,
she paused.
“Why do I recognize that line?” she asked.
I took a breath before answering. “Because I wrote it.”
The slip of paper Officer Lemansky gave me had one
simple sentence on it. It read:
The only difference between the innocent and the
guilty is that the guilty are the only ones who believe
in their cause.
I had written that line several weeks after being cleared of
the murder of John Fredrickson. When I was on the run, when
the whole world saw me as a murderer, other than Amanda I
was the only one who knew and believed in the truth. The
article was in response to those who’d been so quick to pass
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judgment, including the Gazette’ s own Paulina Cole. I was
happy to hear when she left for the Dispatch. I couldn’t
imagine going to work every day, sitting next to someone who
printed such vileness without knowing the truth.
When the world assumed I was guilty, they looked at me
as a degenerate, someone to whom committing murder was
justified.
And now a killer had taken my words, used them to support
whatever twisted reasoning goes through the mind of someone willing to steal an innocent life.
The killer knew he was guilty. Only he didn’t care. He had
a cause. Causes don’t simply end. Murderers don’t simply
lose interest. There were more victims out there.
“This came out well,” Wallace said, mainly to fill the
silence. We both knew the copy wasn’t great, but contained
all confirmed and pertinent facts and was as good as could
be expected from a reporter running on Red Bull and a