Crime Beat

by Scott Nicholson

  “It almost looks like you were there when they discovered the body.”

  He stopped typing and glared at me. “What are you trying to say?”

  “First on the scene. Every time.”

  “You know how it works. We don’t doctor photos, but we can doctor reality. I staged that, got the boys to show me what they did when they found the body.”

  “Before the cops got there?”

  “Can I help it if the jurisdictional dispute slowed the response time? What if she had been seriously injured and needed a transport?”

  “Yeah,” I said, laughing a little. “Maybe Hardison should put you on the payroll.”

  “Then I could only tell one side of the story,” he said, resuming his typing. “We both know things are never as they appear.”

  I wasn’t sure what he meant by that and was afraid to ask. Moretz made me afraid a lot.

  I went back into my office and finished laying out the front page. It looked great, moved a ton of copies off the racks, and elicited the obligatory call from Hardison to ask where Moretz had gotten his information.

  Another success. Then why was I feeling sick to my stomach?

  9.

  Moretz became a person of interest shortly before the fourth victim was discovered. The coincidences had piled up until even Hardison could no longer ignore them.

  When Moretz told me the sheriff had requested a private meeting, my bullshit detector started clanging. Hardison had never, in his nine years of tenure, voluntarily summoned a member of the media, with the exception of his rare press conferences.

  Sure, he always had someone phone in a tip any time a photogenic drug bust was scheduled, but he didn’t seek out bonus quality time with the press.

  “You think he’s going to give you an exclusive?” I asked.

  “It’s possible,” Moretz said, checking the battery-charge level on his digital camera.

  “But you’ve been a step ahead of his department the whole time. It’s more likely he wants to find out what you know.”

  Moretz almost grinned, and the expression was a cross between a possum’s and a caged politician’s. “We’re making him look bad, aren’t we?”

  “He’s already threatened me with a frame-up.”

  Moretz glared at me, sizing me up. Newspaper editors were like battlefield generals: they never asked their subordinates to tackle any job they wouldn’t do themselves. “Are you going to bust him on it? An editorial, maybe.”

  I waved him off. “It was veiled. Nothing solid, and his word against mine. He’s been here longer. Plus, he’s under a lot more pressure than we are.”

  That pacified Moretz, though his eyes retained the dark depth that chilled me to the core.

  “Hold a hole for me,” he said. “I’ll get a story out of this one way or another.”

  “Good. If we don’t get any fresh developments on the Rebel Clipper, we’re going to have to lead with a United Way fundraiser. And nobody buys the paper to read about charities.”

  “You got it, Chief.”

  I got busy laying out the back pages, filling up the business and religious sections first, those wonderful Friday features that failed to comfort the afflicted. Due to a server crash, I had to rig a different route to get the pages to our designers, and I was so involved in the task that I didn’t notice Moretz had returned. But his story popped up in the news budget half an hour before deadline.

  I read it cold, then IM’ed Moretz to summon him into the office. This time he sat, looking like a sullen student summoned to the principal’s office for cheating.

  “My God, John, it looks like you were interrogated,” I said.

  “It all adds up,” Moretz said. “I’m linked to each of the murders, I’m new in town, and since I got here, the sheet of unsolved crimes has tripled.”

  I’d been thinking all that myself, but to hear him say it so calmly made the notion simultaneously more plausible and highly absurd. “You know what they say,” I joked. “Murder is best conducted among strangers.”

  “Am I the first murder suspect in the history of print media to cover his own investigation? Is this a violation of journalistic ethics?”

  “You’re innocent, aren’t you?” It was a question Hardison apparently hadn’t asked him.

  “Yeah,” he said. “And I’m not officially a suspect, of course.”

  Still, you couldn’t tell by the article, which painted Moretz as living under a dark cloud of suspicion. After we’d put the edition to bed, I asked Moretz, “So, what kinds of alibis did you give the sheriff?”

  “The usual. Working late, watching TV alone in my apartment, going for long walks in the park.”

  “Jiminy Christ, that sounds like the kinds of activities a serial killer would list on his resume. And I suppose they have physical evidence linking you to each murder?”

  “Well, I was present at each scene, wasn’t I?”

  “Good point. I wouldn’t put it past the sheriff to haul you in, even though you’re innocent.”

  “Sure. It would get people off his back and he’d show up the state boys by cracking the case while they were still dancing around the Attorney General on jurisdiction issues.” Moretz sounded equal parts cop and equal parts lawyer, with a little mystery novelist and conspiracy theorist thrown in.

  “And it would sell a ton of papers,” I said wistfully.

  “A win-win,” Moretz agreed. “Would I still be on salary while I was sitting in jail and filing a daily update?”

  “There’s a statute that prevents a prisoner from profiting from his crimes.”

  “You mean like Lindsay Lohan didn’t? Besides, I wouldn’t be convicted. I’m innocent, remember?”

  “You’re right,” I said. “It doesn’t seem fair that everybody benefits from a crime except the criminal. A property owner gets an insurance check, lawyers get more billable hours, police get overtime, and the media sells advertising with scare headlines.”

  Moretz squinted. “Chief. You’re serious.”

  I shrugged. “We’re here to serve the public.”

  And sell papers.

  And, if possible, piss off Kelsey Kavanaugh.

  To make the plan work, Moretz and I had to drop a little extra evidence. I didn’t want to get him in a situation where he’d be denied bail, but I also needed something strong enough to make him a legitimate suspect.

  Finding a pair of clippers in his desk drawer did the trick.

  10.

  The SBI was a little dubious, noting that such commemorative nail clippers could easily be ordered on the Internet for $4.95 plus shipping. Besides, Moretz was well groomed, despite that darkness about his eyes that made him look slightly wild and unpredictable.

  But Hardison ran with it. He announced that “a closer look was being taken” at a person of interest. Kavanaugh broke the story, reporting that John Moretz had been seen leaving the sheriff’s office.

  I had to bite my lip a little to see it go out across the Associated Press wire. I could have scooped everyone, of course, but then the smoking gun would have pointed back to me. No, to sell this one, I had to act surprised.

  The district attorney even got into it this time. He was a short man with a walrus mustache who was fiercely loyal to the Republican Party. However, he never pushed a case he was likely to lose.

  His usual tactic was to bluster around and wave his arms, then claim the defendant’s attorney had requested a delay. Since all the judges were Republican, the paperwork always looked good, and sometimes they all went months without actually having to work.

  I could have taken on the court system in an editorial, but no one really cared if the courts did their job. After a few continuances, victims often got tired of wasting their time and asked the D.A. to drop the charges, or else the court happily accepted a plea agreement that often doubled as a future civil settlement.

  For the Moretz incident, the D.A. even posed with Hardison for Kavanaugh’s photo, which ran in the state news se
ction. The D.A. was quoted that he was behind Hardison all the way and was prepared to prosecute as soon as the sheriff was confident of his evidence.

  Kavanaugh played the angle just as Moretz and I had planned: a reporter had moved to a small town and, finding success and attention after a few sensational crime stories, had become a little unhinged and decided to up the ante. If Moretz had been satisfied with that first murder, he likely would have gotten away with it for quite a while, Kavanaugh’s article implied. But hungry for attention, he’d gone for the second.

  Even then, Kavanaugh wrote, investigators had nothing really linking Moretz to the two crimes besides coincidental timing. Then came the third victim, and practically everyone in town was under suspicion. The coverage implied that Sycamore Shade was populated by a bunch of inbred hillbillies who were only barely literate, and Moretz would have never gained a readership without a few screaming headlines.

  Kavanaugh’s article didn’t mention me, though she’d asked me a few questions for deep background. Apparently Hardison had played it close to the vest and hadn’t told her who had tipped the deputies.

  Technically, detectives would have needed a search warrant, but I reasoned that Moretz’s desk was the newspaper’s property and therefore I had a right to prowl in his top drawer. I’d been looking for scanner codes, I’d told Hardison, when I’d discovered the pair of clippers lurking in a tray full of bent paper clips.

  Hardison didn’t make the arrest, though. He was content at that point to imply Moretz was under a watchful eye. Moretz had been advised not to leave the county until the investigation was complete. Such vague instructions meant nothing, but it made a good wrap for Kavanaugh’s story.

  Moretz was back on duty the next day. I’d been forced to run the wire story Kavanaugh had written, but I also hashed out a little column on “Innocent until proven guilty.”

  No one really put stock in that phrase. Injustice was such a part of the collective experience that I could just as easily have entitled it “Guilty until high-priced lawyers bribe the judge.”

  “What do you want me to write, Chief?” Moretz asked. His desk had been emptied by the cops, but he had a fresh composition book and a few pens in his pocket.

  “We’d better keep you low profile for a while,” I said. “There’s a chili cook-off to benefit the garden club.”

  Moretz grinned. “No chance of any arsenic sliding in with the cumin and garlic powder? With some fingernail clippers spread among the cooking utensils?”

  “A reporter can always dream. But I guarantee you it will be the most widely read puff piece of the year. You’re a celebrity now.”

  “Yeah, a legit person of interest.”

  Of course, Moretz’s previous stories on the murders had become hot property, so much so that the publisher took the unprecedented step of firing the presses back up and printing second runs of each of the issues. Since collectors were ordering multiple copies on the off chance that Moretz got the needle, demand was through the roof.

  Or at least out the back door. Nelson, the head press operator, had been caught loading up a stack in the bed of his pick-up. But times were good, so the publisher laughed it off. Kavanaugh sent me a couple of belittling e-mails, calling our coverage “sloppy” and “yesterday’s fish wrap.”

  I texted her back, saying she was cute when she was channeling Ann Coulter.

  Of course, there was no way Moretz could afford an attorney on a reporter’s salary, and we weren’t about to send the corporate lawyer into the fray. As far as the Picayune and its parent corporation were concerned, Moretz had not in any way acted on behalf of his profession in committing whatever he had or hadn’t committed. And I’m sure the firm billed the company four figures to issue that assessment.

  The publisher asked if I thought we should sideline Moretz until the investigation was complete. His implication was that we might get a black eye in the community for harboring, or at least tolerating, a felon.

  When I pointed out that our circulation had increased 125 percent since Moretz had arrived, which likely meant performance bonuses for the entire staff, he softened a little. Funny how journalistic prudence gives way to the weight of a wheelbarrow full of dollars.

  For his part, Moretz played it cool around the office. Brianna, the front-desk clerk who took phone messages and classified ads, batted her fat, fake eyelashes at him but he didn’t seem to notice.

  I don’t know. Maybe he was homosexual. He never said anything about a wife or kids, and any man who reaches 30 without a track record must have something wrong with him.

  Except me, of course. I’m just fine.

  Baker and Westmoreland got past their jealousy enough to welcome Moretz fully into the fold, even taking him to lunch one day, though they neglected to invite the sports guy. They asked him for tips, and their copy actually got stronger as a result.

  I was almost starting to believe in this “teamwork” stuff.

  Then Kavanaugh gave me a call and accepted that offer for dinner.

  11.

  The lasagna sat heavy on my stomach as I swilled my iced tea. I’d chosen Roman Joe’s, an Italian joint with red-and-white checkered tablecloths and candles with electric teardrop bulbs. Joe was American enough to sell beer and pizza but added a few bucks to your tab because he occasionally waltzed through with an accordion, singing an off-key version of “That’s Amore.”

  Kavanaugh was as cold as the frozen cubes tinkling in my glass. She’d had spaghetti, and a little tomato sauce stuck to her chin.

  “So, you want to talk,” I said.

  “I thought I’d bring this to you first, since we go way back,” she said. She was having her second Bud Light, and she punctuated her sentence with a belch.

  “Yeah. I appreciate the respect.”

  “So, what did your background check on Moretz turn up?”

  “My what?”

  “Check. You looked him up before you hired him, of course.”

  I clacked the cubes in my glass. “Sure.”

  “So you know about the rap sheet.”

  “Everyone deserves a second chance.” I was dying to know what she was talking about. Hardison might have fed her some information under the table.

  “A little bit risky. I mean, I could see letting shoplifting slide, or even a Driving While Impaired. But aggravated assault is pretty serious when you’re expected to earn the public trust.”

  “The past is the past. His clips were solid.”

  “Recent past. He pled down on the charge, got six months’ probation and 200 hours of community service. Didn’t the gap show up on his resume?”

  I didn’t want to admit that he’d put in his hours on a publication serving Medicare recipients. I’d assumed he was on salary, but he must have been working with the threat of jail time over his head.

  “Well, I never did get the full details,” I said.

  Roman Joe came over, smelling of garlic, and asked how our food had been. Kavanaugh said “Swell” and ordered another Bud Light.

  “You’re one of those who never scratches beneath the surface,” she said. “It’s the hallmark of somebody like you.”

  “Somebody like me?”

  “Somebody who gets stuck at a small-town paper. You fight for a couple of years, write editorials criticizing the town council, launch a couple of investigations, but it all comes to nothing. You can’t get any letters to the editor coming in, and the corporate heads don’t have your back. On the tough stories, they sell you down the river to the Chamber of Commerce.”

  “You fight the good fight where you can.” I hope I wasn’t whining.

  “Yeah, but then you get comfortable. The Picayune’s supposed to be a stepping stone, but you didn’t make the break when you should have. After five years in a job like that, you either change careers or settle in. And we know which road you followed.”

  “What’s all this got to do with John Moretz?”

  “Shows how soft you are. If you were on yo
ur toes, you would have nailed him for a con man. Instead, you practically roll out the red carpet. And if it turns out he killed these three women, then you have blood on your hands.”

  “Whoa, whoa, whoa. Don’t start believing your own press releases. Moretz was only brought in for questioning. He wasn’t even ‘brought.’ He drove himself to the sheriff’s office and walked out clean. If the sheriff had anything, Moretz would be behind bars right now.”

  “Moretz has experience.”

  “Wait, you’re saying he came here just to get away with murder?”

  “No, I think he came here to get a job, blend in, put on a façade of respectability. But a man with a violent streak doesn’t wash it out so easily. Hell, who knows? He might have been a serial killer in California and just skipped out before the trail led to his back door.”

  I had to admit, California was the serial-killer capital of the free world. But Moretz, despite his mysterious, elusive nature, just didn’t give off that vibe. I could sense he was a powder keg when somebody lit his fuse, but he had managed some stressful stories. The Wilbanks pervert case was enough to make anybody crack, but Moretz had turned in his copy with nary a hiccup.

  “That past arrest of his? What did you find out?”

  She grinned around her beer foam. “He broke a man’s arm at work.”

  “Fighting, huh?”

  “Not really. It was his editor at the San Obispo Courier-Times. The editor changed his headline, made his hard-hitting investigative series on the massage industry seem like a lighthearted romantic comedy, and Moretz walked in and swung a laptop at his head. If the editor hadn’t lifted his arm in self-defense, Moretz might have been staring at a murder conviction.”

  The lasagna was like a sack of cement in my guts. “He’s an exemplary employee.”

  “Best cover for a killer. That’s why we always get those neighbor quotes that go ‘I never would have suspected.’“

  “If the cops had anything on him, they wouldn’t have let him walk out of the building. That was just a dog-and-pony show to buy some time.”

  “Is that why you didn’t cover it?”