Unpunished

by Lisa Black

  “There’s something of a vee furrow as well,” Jack pointed out. “Maybe he tied the knot straight back and then over time the strap stretched out, increasing the vee.”

  The ME investigator dashed his hopes. “Nope, there’s two distinct furrows—one strangulation, one hanging. Not a progression from one to the other.” With that she closed her notebook and started down the steps to get the rest of the information from the HR girl, leaving the crime scene to the cops.

  The team of Tony and Deion returned, picked up the sheet at all four corners, and maneuvered the corpse down the narrow, winding staircase. This would add another story of a retrieval in odd circumstances to their long list of tales.

  “Maggie,” Riley said, “it’s the middle of the night. Suicide call, snap some pictures, inform the grieving widow, and go back to bed. That’s how it’s supposed to go.”

  “Sorry,” she said, not meaning it and knowing he didn’t, either. Riley was already running through scenarios and suspects in his head, she guessed, intrigued and disgusted and angry at this waste of life. She had never asked Jack what Riley knew or didn’t know about his partner’s extracurricular activities, but felt sure that the answer would be: absolutely zero.

  Somewhere below them, she heard Tony and Deion bickering amiably as they negotiated the turns with their heavy and awkward cargo—such as Robert Davis had become.

  Riley said, “Okay . . . Preggers Barbie said between eight p.m. and midnight as an educated guess.”

  Jack supplied, “Supervisor Harding said the print run starts about ten. The guy wasn’t hanging here then.”

  Riley said, “Body discovered at one-thirty a.m. What, Harding never came back in here for three and a half hours? What kind of supervisor does that?”

  “He said if there’s no mechanical difficulties, there’s no reason to. His job is in the next two rooms, making sure the human beings running the cutter don’t fall into the blades and watching the binding and the moving out to the trucks. He spends most of his shift on the loading dock, according to him. We’re going to have to establish who was in the building during those hours, who had access to this room—”

  “Surveillance, videos, key card swipes,” Riley mused aloud.

  “Family. ME’s willing to call it with the wallet.” Davis’s pocket had held his wallet with his press pass, driver’s license, health insurance card, fifty-two dollars in cash, and a photo of black-haired boys. His face, mottled and swollen, tongue protruding, no longer truly resembled his DL photo; but from the shape of the nose and the color of the hair and the presence of the wallet itself, the investigator felt comfortable concluding that this man was, indeed, Robert Davis.

  His pockets had not contained a cell phone, an odd omission in this day and age.

  Riley and Jack were still adding items to their to-do list. “Office,” Jack said.

  “Immediately,” Riley agreed. “Of course, the guy’s had four hours or so.”

  “Yeah.”

  In near unison, they looked at Maggie and said her name. She raised her eyebrows.

  “We’ll need photos of the office, in case we find anything good in there,” Riley said.

  “We’ll need the surveillance video downloaded,” Jack said.

  “Got it,” she said.

  * * *

  Maggie sat in the security office with the skinny girl. Her name badge read, REBECCA. She might not look like a physical fortress, but she could operate the security footage with the deft hand of the digital-age generation, for which Maggie felt grateful. Retrieving video from surveillance systems could often turn into an exercise in frustration. While worlds better than the old and scratchy VHS tapes, digital video surveillance still existed in a developing stage. Many mom-and-pop systems had sprung up and then faded, leaving purchasers with no tech support, no manual, and no real training. Maggie would often have to start pushing buttons and locating menus and might, after a great deal of trial and error, obtain the images. Sometimes this would take five minutes, sometimes several hours. Sometimes the personnel could do it for her, and she always felt like buying them a coffee for it.

  Unfortunately the surveillance cameras covered only the outside exits, parking lots, loading dock, and public lobby. Apparently those who spent their careers keeping tabs on what other people were doing didn’t care to be watched over themselves. But then newspapers feared attacks from outside—disgruntled subjects of unflattering stories, terrorists, fanatics—not those employed to work there. Maggie seemed to be learning, however, that it had to be exactly one of those employees who had killed Robert Davis.

  No terrorist or fanatic or disgruntled subject had entered the building since the public lobby closed at five p.m. One reporter could be seen letting a man in a side door, but also escorted him out well before the eight p.m. print run. Usually most staff left by late afternoon, but Rebecca explained that many of the editors and copy editors worked late. Reporters might be there at any odd hour, finishing stories, doing research, or talking to people they couldn’t get ahold of during the day. Of course the whole printing and shipping staff worked at night—about fifty people if one included the truck drivers. Shipping and trucking usually stayed around the loading dock area, but they would use the restrooms and the vending area in the east break room.

  Rebecca knew her stuff, rattling all this off to Maggie without being asked. She had only been there for three months, but found the job easy and enjoyed the constant activity in the building. “A newspaper never sleeps,” she said. “But, she warned, don’t let some of these guys start talking about the old days—meaning, like, fifteen years ago for some of them. They’ll go on forever.”

  There were eight employee entrances. All were monitored with cameras. Key cards were required to unlock them, as well to get through certain interior doors of the building. The admin staff, secretaries, accountants, and whatnot did not have access to the printing area, for their own safety and for the premiums on the liability insurance. Key card swipes were not recorded or stored, so there was no way to tell who opened what door and when.

  Five extra doors were fire exits that did not have cameras but would set off alarms if disturbed. As so often happened with key card entrances, no swipe was required to exit, only to enter. If someone could get into an unauthorized part of the building—by accompanying someone else, by propping a door, by following a key card holder through the opening—they would have no difficulty leaving the area afterward.

  The Herald employed 152 people, 255 if you included the truckers and the carriers.

  Rebecca finished her summary and asked, “You want video of all the doors from eight p.m. until—when?”

  “How about now?” Maggie asked. The killer most likely would have left before the body was discovered. But then, since the person must have been an employee of the Herald, they had a legitimate reason to be here and no reason to run away. They might have sidled out a door five minutes ago. They might still be in the building.

  “That’s a lot of video,” Rebecca said. “Do you have a jump drive?”

  “Yes.”

  “How big?”

  Maggie fished a USB stick out of her camera bag. “Eight gigs.”

  “Mmm . . . that might not do it.” Maggie handed it to her and Rebecca plugged it in. Maggie watched a sped-up video of employees moving through the east parking lot. As the sun set and the night grew dark, cars and humans were reduced to grainy blobs. The system wasn’t substandard, relatively, but photography is all about light. A camera can’t do much without it. Plus there had been a steady drizzle all evening, so many staff members were obscured further by raincoat hoods and umbrellas.

  It might be possible to make a guess at who was who by matching up a general description with a fuzzy vehicle, but it wouldn’t be enough to serve as evidence at a murder trial. The visitors’ parking lot camera had a cobweb over it. The cars showed up clearly during the day, but at night, as the camera tried to focus, it chose the item closest to it, wh
ich left them with nothing but a crisscrossing of lines made white by the proximity. Occasionally the owner would stroll by on his eight legs, disproportionately huge, blindingly white, and terrifying.

  She pondered how Robert Davis had gotten to the top of that roller tower since he hadn’t wanted to kill himself. Either the killer was very strong, to carry a full-grown dead weight up four flights of steps, or he had enticed Robert Davis to come to the top with him. Or her. Maggie and the two detectives had scoured the walkway without finding a single indication of struggle—no torn fabric, no blood, no scrapes or scuffs that didn’t appear to have been there for a decade. The body had no injuries other than the neck, at least none she could see in her quick examination.

  A pinpoint of blood on one of his fingers probably came from a scratch on his throat as he tried to pull the strap away from his larynx, but Robert Davis had been a nail-biter, chomping them down too short to do much damage to himself or the strap. Unfortunately that meant he hadn’t done much damage to the killer, either, and they would not be likely to find the killer’s DNA on Davis’s hands. His clothing showed no tears, and his battered sneakers had so many scars it would be impossible to tell if any were fresh. So she assumed, pending the ME’s report, no protracted struggle. Either the killer had been very strong, or Davis had already been weakened, maybe by a blow to the head, maybe drunk or drugged.

  Or he hadn’t minded dying.

  Security associate Rebecca interrupted Maggie’s thoughts. “If it’s okay that I ask, why do you need all this? I mean, I’m sorry the guy killed himself, but what is video of people coming in and going out going to tell you?”

  The staff had not been told that the suicide had actually been a homicide. Jack and Riley thought that detail might best be withheld for a while. “It’s just dotting i’s and crossing t’s. When did he get to work? Was he visibly upset when he came here? Just—details.”

  The slender girl pursed her lips and clicked her mouse.

  Chapter 5

  Jack took in the office as Riley talked. The managing editor for print was obviously the top guy in the building. His office spread twice the square feet of the others they’d passed, and was positioned at high noon in the upper oval, looking down on the reporters’ bullpen. This part of the building stretched its elevation enough above the printing room to have windows open to the sky. The occupant would have a skewed view of the lake, but the windows would backlight him every morning in brilliant beams until he resembled Jesus emerging from the tomb on Easter morning. Not that Managing Editor Franklin Roth resembled that deity in the least.

  Dressed in worn slacks and a wrinkled dress shirt with a stain on the pocket, gray hair awry, Franklin Roth sat behind his desk rubbing one eye and looking as if he had rolled from bed into his car. He probably had—it was three o’clock in the morning. The HR “girl,” by contrast, a well-put-together fiftyish brunette, had brushed her hair into a quick chignon, applied a base coat of makeup, and pulled on a blazer over pressed slacks before arriving. Such were, Jack thought, the differences between men and women. Or perhaps between professions—press people always seemed to take pride in looking a little scruffy.

  “How long had Robert Davis worked here?” Riley asked, after thanking them both for coming in at such a godawful hour.

  “Fifteen years,” HR answered, holding the dead man’s personnel file. “First as a classifieds editor, then a reporter for a while, then a copy editor for Business and Classifieds and then for News.”

  “Any recent disruptions to his job? Was he in danger of getting fired, demoted?”

  “No,” she said.

  Jack asked the editor for confirmation.

  “No, he wasn’t.” Roth paused to slurp coffee out of a mug dwarfed by his large hands. His denial sounded less than definite, so the cops gave him the staring silence until he added, “Two years ago we cut one third of our newsroom staff. Layoffs and pink slips are a constant fear when you work in a business that a grade-school kid can tell you is on its last legs. The online stuff hasn’t found its rhythm, and print hasn’t turned a profit in years. The upcoming generations don’t read anymore, and half their teachers will tell you they can’t but have to be passed to the next grade anyway. There’s wars going on while all the public wants to hear about is who wore the most hideous gown up the red carpet and the latest all-time best diet. Hell, who doesn’t want to commit suicide these days?” He sipped with an air of despondence, then noticed the cops’ expressions and got back on track. “But there weren’t any layoffs planned, and I had no problem with Bob’s work.”

  Riley said, “And you are—forgive me if this is blunt—the boss of this paper, right?”

  “No. Yes—you could call me the functional boss. The actual boss is the publisher, Jon Tamerlane, but he’s not around much.”

  “Trust-fund baby,” the HR girl supplied, probably so Roth wouldn’t have to. “This paper is only one of his concerns. He spends most of his time in the south of France, researching alternate energy sources or the next great wines or whatever.”

  “Okay,” Riley said, “so you’re the boots on the ground. Did you know Davis well?”

  “Worked with him every day since he got here, about fifteen years ago.”

  Jack surveyed the office as Roth spoke. He had expected to see a wall of framed photographs of Roth with famous people and poster-size sheets of front pages, but the one set of shelves held only battered books, what seemed to be family photos, and various mementos from an autographed baseball to a troll doll. A single shelf reluctantly conceded to prestige: It bulged with at least twenty different plaques, awards, and ribbons, all crammed together and with engravings he could not make out from where he sat. The oversized gold medals, however, he recognized—they were Pulitzers. He counted four. He guessed those made Franklin Roth something of a living legend in journalistic circles.

  “What was his beat?” Riley asked, attempting to use the lingo, which made Roth smile.

  “He was a copy editor. He checked over other people’s beats. He wrote headlines, captions, designed the font sizes, did the layout. He handled the Local section, though he had taken over Nation and State when Jerome was out or on vacation. He was good. Not the best I’ve ever seen, but good. As I said, I had no problem with him or his work.”

  “Who did?” Jack asked.

  Roth hitched one ankle up to the opposite knee and poked at an ear with a finger. If he hadn’t been such a large, portly, gruff-looking man, Jack would have accused him of fidgeting. “We’re in the news business. Everyone gets mad at you at some point in this job, or you’re not doing it right.”

  “Who’s been mad recently?”

  Another pause, but it seemed Roth only wanted to marshal his thoughts. “A copy editor decides what goes into the paper, whether it’s on page one above the fold or buried in a lower corner on eight. They write your headline—which is an art in itself—and your photo captions, and say whether it screams or whispers.”

  This seemed to surprise Riley. “I thought you did that. I mean . . . the editor . . .”

  Roth chuckled. “A long time ago when papers were smaller operations in smaller towns, yes, the editor did all that. But for many years it’s been the copy editor, while my job has shifted into the business end of things and, every year, further away from the writing end.” He appeared unhappy about that, but shook it off and went on. “A copy editor checks facts—within reason. With a daily there is no way a copy editor has time to double-check every name or date or number. He can hold or cut the story if he thinks a reporter has played a little fast and loose with the truth. He can even change the copy, the text, if he thinks something is too wordy or too opaque or just could be said better. That makes reporters crazy. They’re writers, after all, and every writer thinks every word they write is sacred. It’s okay for them to change it, fifty times if necessary, but for someone else to change it is like your neighbor French-kissing your wife—it simply isn’t right.”

 
The HR woman, whose eyes had been glazing over, woke up and snickered at this.

  “Okay,” Jack said. “Did Bob Davis kiss someone’s wife?”

  “Uh, yeah. Pretty regularly. Most copy editors will change text and then kick it back to the reporters to get their ‘approval,’ even though they don’t need to. It saves face all around, and give-and-take is a normal part of newspaper writing. We all tell one another how to write something better all the time. Davis felt comfortable with making changes that the reporter didn’t see until it showed up on their doorstep the next morning. Mostly minor stuff. Word usage. Bob hated italics with a passion and resisted the change to ‘shined’ instead of ‘shone.’ That kind of thing.”

  “Any arguments? Between him and the reporters under him?”

  “Mmm . . . don’t say ‘under him’ if you talk to any of them. Reporters don’t work for the copy editor. Most of them feel being a copy editor is a demotion from reporter. They have different jobs, that’s all. Arguments? Every day. Writers don’t like their headline, don’t like how many words were cut, don’t like which words were cut, think the caption doesn’t explain the photo or feel he cropped the photo too much. That’s part of normal life at a newspaper. It’s the process and everyone knows it.” He seemed to remember that they were talking about a suicide, and added, “Nothing worth killing yourself over. He hadn’t acted depressed or anything. Not that he and I were best buddies. Nation and State keeps me pretty busy, what with the terrorists and the DC politics and our senators. I spend more of my time on that end.”

  “So no big blowups recently?” Riley pressed. “No reporters in screaming matches?”

  Again, Roth hesitated. The HR woman shot him a conspiratorial glance. Jack knew what he said next would be a massive understatement. “He may have been getting frustrated with Correa.”

  The cops waited.