Unpunished

by Lisa Black

  “The killer clocked him in the head?”

  The doctor winced at her phrasing. “Or he fell during the struggle. Or got injured before the strangling for other reasons entirely. It didn’t swell much because the heart stopped beating soon after. That’s why I didn’t find a lump on the outside.”

  “Is it enough to—”

  “No.”

  “No, what?”

  “Don’t ask.” He pried off the skull cap with a metal wedge. “Don’t ask if it was enough of an injury to knock him unconscious. There’s no way for me to tell from a hematoma exactly what would be sufficient to knock someone out. Can’t do it.”

  Maggie said nothing.

  He found a slight corresponding bruise to the brain, but still refused to say whether it would have rendered Robert Davis unconscious. Maggie had been to a lot of autopsies, however, and she didn’t think much of it, either. It would have hurt, certainly, but to knock out a strong, healthy man like Davis? Not likely.

  She waited as the brain was sliced into sections, which appeared to be the consistency and roughly the shape of a huge, fresh mushroom. The pathologist moved on to the larynx, a stiff, whitish tube of about six inches. It crunched when he cut into it. He examined the blood vessels and the broken hyoid bone. He prodded at it for so long that Maggie lost her customary patience. “What do you see?”

  “Guy strangled to death.” He continued to poke. “What I can’t be one hundred percent sure of is, did he actually die when the guy strangled him, or did he just pass out and then die when the guy hung him? The hanging didn’t break his neck, so asphyxia is the cause of death. But did he die once or twice? That is the question.”

  “It’s kind of surprising his neck didn’t break after being tossed off a platform. He’s a big guy.”

  “Eh, some people are flexible.” He added a few slivers of the tissue to the formalin-filled quart container, then tossed the dissected larynx into the red biohazard bag nestled between the dead man’s legs. “Either way, it’s still homicide.”

  Maggie’s phone rang.

  “Communications called,” Carol began. She had unofficially taken over dispatching duties while Denny was home with the new baby. “They got a guy shot in an alley. Amy’s at a sexual assault, and Josh is still home with cold compresses. I bet he’s hung over. Don’t you bet he’s hung over?”

  “Nah, migraines run in his family.”

  “That boy gives me a migraine.”

  Maggie hung up, collected her tapings, thanked the pathologist, and left. Ten blocks away she could still smell wisps of death.

  Chapter 10

  The door to Roger Correa’s bungalow opened to reveal a young woman dressed in black. Black hair, black skintight sleeveless leather vest over a sleeveless black T-shirt that didn’t seem warm enough for this cool spring morning, tight black jeans, scuffed black Nikes, black hematite cross around her neck, and enough black eyeliner to have cleared out an entire shelf at Walgreens. Riley goggled. “I thought the Goth look was so last millennium.”

  The girl didn’t bat an eye. “What’s Goth?”

  “Roger Correa?” Jack asked. “Does he live here?”

  She considered this new speaker. Though skinny to the point of scrawny, she gave the distinct impression that they would not be budging over the threshold unless she decided, out of her own generosity, to let them in. “Yeah.”

  Jack enunciated with marked patience: “Could we speak with him, please?”

  Shoving herself off the doorjamb, she turned and walked back into the house, leaving them to come with her or wait as they pleased. She shouted “Roger!” loudly enough to wake the neighbors, and they followed the back of the sleeveless leather vest. It had been decorated with everything from sequins to studs to feathers, all in, of course, black.

  “That had better damn well be his daughter,” Riley hissed to his partner. Riley’s two girls were entering the teenage years and he had grown very sensitive to topics such as May-December romances, predatory old goats, and sugar daddies.

  Jack sincerely doubted the girl was Roger Correa’s daughter.

  He had expected to find Correa asleep. He didn’t know what hours a reporter usually worked but assumed they were flexible. But the man was awake, dressed, voluble, and already surrounded by his troops.

  They had assembled in his living room, which no longer resembled any sort of home-like space but a staging area for journalistic battle. Card tables, end tables, and the dining table held stacks of papers, newspapers, printouts, laptops, tablets, and smartphones. The walls had been covered with bulletin boards, decorated with e-mails, flyers, photos, clippings, and hand-lettered index cards. Each had a banner at the top declaring its focus in bold strokes with a Sharpie marker: East 22nd, CM’s ads, TM, ProLabs.

  In addition to the not-Goth girl, the room contained another four people: a tall young man with black skin and a headset who barely glanced up as they walked in, his fingers flying over a keyboard so fast the individual taps combined into one solid drone; a white guy with glasses and a buzz cut who frowned at his phone as if reading a Dear John text from his girlfriend; a boy of indeterminate race, age, or socioeconomic status who, while surrounded by impressive industriousness, had enough self-assurance to lie back on some pillows next to the unused fireplace and stare at the ceiling, listening to something through earbuds; and a dark-skinned girl wearing a plain T-shirt and cardigan sweater that somehow managed to look as if it had been purchased directly off a Paris runway. None of them fit Stephanie Davis’s description of Roger Correa, who appeared that moment from the hallway.

  Though not particularly tall, he didn’t quite fit the description, either. In his forties with dark hair and a perfectly trimmed goatee, the muscles underneath his worn jeans and dress shirt hinted at a restless power. He held a coffee cup in one hand, and at his side stood a German shepherd approximately the size of a small pony, calm but watchful. Correa seemed surprised but not concerned at finding two detectives inside his war room.

  “Roger Correa?” Riley asked.

  “Yeah?”

  Riley flashed a badge. “Is there somewhere we could talk?”

  This got all the kids’ attentions. Their eyes swiveled to where the cops stood in perfect unison. Correa remained sanguine.

  “Sure. Come into the kitchen.”

  They followed him, picking through the room’s occupants—half of whom preferred the floor to the chairs as a place to sit—as if they were large and possibly dangerous birds it might be better not to disturb. Not-Goth girl, however, came with them, unwilling to let her boss or mentor or hero or whatever Correa was to her be hassled by The Man.

  The kitchen appeared more normal—table, refrigerator, sink with dirty dishes. The German shepherd took up a sentry position in the corner, next to his food bowl.

  “Tea?” Correa offered.

  Jack declined, but Riley accepted. Riley had had a seminar once that taught always to accept a witness’s or suspect’s hospitality if offered. It put them at ease and created a bond. But Jack couldn’t stomach tea, not even for the good of the investigation.

  As Correa puttered, Riley asked when he had left the Herald offices the previous day, and Correa said about five, maybe five-thirty. He had not returned. Riley explained that they needed to ask Correa some questions about Robert Davis, which seemed to perplex Correa. He had more questions than they did until Riley admitted that Davis had been found dead. Correa did not seem as shocked, of course, as Stephanie Davis, but he seemed plenty surprised. As before, Riley and Jack did not mention homicide, letting Correa think of suicide first.

  As with Stephanie Davis, Correa said, “Can’t see it. Davis thinks too much of himself. He loved being the one who said what got in and what got out, what he felt important enough for the best placement and what he put at the back of Section D. He had, shall we say, a healthy self-esteem.”

  “No arguments or conflicts with anyone lately?”

  The man didn’t chuckle, he a
ctually laughed out loud. “Conflicts? Every day. That’s life at a newspaper. It always was, but now that we’re all fighting to exist and keep our jobs and still do a halfway decent job of bringing the truth to the citizens of this fair city, there’s conflict out the wazoo.”

  The German shepherd apparently decided that first, the situation did not give him cause for concern, and second, no one seemed likely to fill his bowl in the next few minutes. He lay down, snout along two crossed paws. From his chair Jack could see part of the living room, where the dark girl continued to type with the same lightning speed as the black kid, and the one on the pillows continued to stare at the ceiling. “If you don’t mind my asking, what are you doing here? Do these people work for the paper?”

  Correa set Riley’s tea in front of him and sank his form onto a kitchen chair’s loose cushion. Holding his cup, he propped his feet on a cardboard box from Office Depot and rubbed his face with the free hand. “Let me explain the— Chaz, I’m okay, really, these guys are not going to waterboard me.”

  Not-Goth girl gave both cops a sharp look to say she would be monitoring their behavior, but returned to the living room.

  Correa started again. “Let me explain the state of independent journalism in America today. Newspapers existed to ‘comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable,’ as Mary Jones said, and survived on advertising. Ads and classifieds paid the bills. Profit margins weren’t huge, but were acceptable, back when not every human being felt they had a God-given right to live like Donald Trump. Along comes the Internet. No one needs classified ads anymore, and advertisers can use websites and review sites that are free and live forever in cyberspace, not thrown out with the recycling that evening. Advertising revenues plummet. At the same time, because since the eighties or so papers are owned by big corporations, modest profit margins are no longer acceptable. They have to be big profit margins, and maintained no matter how revenues fall. Hell, in 2008, Gannett slashed ten percent of its workforce when they were still making eighteen percent! McClatchy slashed a third when they were making twenty-one. So costs must be cut, which to corporations means they cut staff and product—not, of course, their bonuses. You know what is first to get the ax? Investigative reporting. It’s the least cost-effective type of content in any newspaper—any news outlet, period. Editors and producers can pump months of salary, overtime, and expenses into a topic and then have it not pan out. They may not get a usable story—wasted money, in their eyes. Corporations hate to waste money that could be going into shareholder dividends instead.”

  He had obviously been preaching this gospel for quite some time, and to anyone who would listen. Jack and Riley listened.

  “They increase the fluff—what the Kardashians are wearing to the Oscars, what Princess Kate feeds her royal baby—not only because that’s what Americans, who now have the attention span of the average gnat, want to read, but because it’s cheap. That’s why you see a lot of guest pieces, or consultants—especially on broadcast news—people who are there purely to pump the agenda they’re paid to pump whether it’s via a remote head shot with a microphone or a press release that we reprint verbatim. It’s ready-made content, it looks good, and it’s free. But is it real news? Hell no.”

  Riley nodded. “That explains a lot.”

  Jack couldn’t tell if he meant it or just wanted to play Correa a bit, because, in truth, it did explain a lot.

  “So the paper pays me to clean up this spoon-fed stuff and make it look real, and write fluff, and maybe sometimes go out and see what’s actually happening as long as I don’t turn in any overtime or expenses. But to do my job, my real job, which is to look past what the people in power tell us they’re doing, with taxpayer money and resources and goodwill, to what they’re actually doing, that isn’t in the budget.”

  The German shepherd sat up, yawned, and wandered out to the living room.

  “And that’s what these kids here are working on?”

  “Right. Citizen journalism. They come in before school and their jobs and their dates and coordinate, research, write up their notes. They work on their lunch hours, after work, in the middle of the night when they can’t sleep. Their families call it a hobby or an obsession or a calling, depending on their level of indulgence. And they do it for no other reason than the good of the people. I can’t pay them a penny. I can’t put them on my byline, because the paper refuses to admit they exist. I can’t even keep them in coffee—they have a kitty to support that. And I’m afraid, gentlemen, that you’re looking at the future of journalism.”

  They heard the front door open and close. “Melanie,” Correa told them. “She’s a doctor at Metro.”

  Jack peeked into the living room. Not-Goth girl peeked back, but the richly dressed female had disappeared. He made an attempt to steer the conversation back to the murder. “So, Robert Davis. Did he know about your unofficial staff?”

  “Sure. I don’t make it a secret that I have help with my stories, that I need help with my stories because the paper gives me nothing. Corporate didn’t want to hear the details, but they were fine with the work. You know why?”

  “Because it’s free.”

  “Yep. As long as the readers aren’t told that most of their real news is coming from unpaid volunteers with no training or accountability, everybody is happy.”

  “So, Robert Davis—”

  “A copy editor,” Correa sneered. “He couldn’t make it as a reporter so he stays in the office. Look, a copy editor can do a great job, a vital job. They can put everything together, they can make it look great, they can make the layout make sense, they can give you a headline that both describes the story and pulls readers right into it. Or they can be a corporate hack who kills anything that might make the corporation’s subsidiaries lose business. Robert Davis was that kind of copy editor.”

  The dog wandered back in again, carrying a leash in its mouth. It presented said leash to its owner. Roger took it, looped the strap over a cabinet knob, and told the animal, “Ten minutes. Maybe fifteen.”

  The dog returned to the living room.

  “What kind of subsidiaries?”

  “The Herald is owned by The Phoenix Group. They also own MegaTheaters, Division Outdoor Advertising, and Smith-Gifford, which is basically a headhunter firm for lobbyists. So MegaTheaters gets cheaper advertising for their cinemas in our entertainment section, Smith-Gifford’s politicians get gentler treatment in our news section, and our story about price fixing by Division Outdoor got trimmed to a blurb and buried at the back of B. And that’s how things are done in this age of maximum profits and minimum public responsibility.” The front legs of his chair hit the floor with a thump when he stood up to pace, as if only physical activity could soothe his agitation. And made himself another cup of tea while at it.

  “So,” Riley said again. “Robert Davis. Did you see him yesterday?”

  Correa retraced his movements for them, a confusing trail through the Herald building and surrounding city, but it summed up as encountering Davis only once since the previous morn. Correa had figured out how the county property manager had translated the overbilling for the ad space into cash in his own pocket—by creating a phony repair firm and having the finance unit write checks to same. The checks went into an account created by the manager, and he split his withdrawals with the various building managers. It wasn’t enough to retire to Aruba with, but it was enough for an extra car or an extra apartment or a set of braces for one or two of the kids. Davis refused to run the story because Correa had only a shredded bank statement, pulled out of the manager’s garbage and painstakingly pieced back together by one of his protégés.

  “Only a bank statement,” Correa scoffed. “You know what I’d call the phony company’s bank statement? I’d call that proof. Wouldn’t you call that proof?”

  “Yeah, I would.” Riley must have felt that a good eruption of righteous indignation would prompt more spontaneous statements, the kind that were admissible even when right
s hadn’t yet been read. He egged the reporter on. “But Davis didn’t think so?”

  “He gave me some song and dance about needing documentation linking the manager to the phony business, which I’ve got, but in bits and pieces. I was going to get it together today, leave him no excuse not to run it in tomorrow’s edition. More tea?”

  “No, thanks. Why do you think he dragged his feet?”

  “Because he walks tall but has a spine of overcooked rotini. Because he enjoys making guys like me jump through hoops, because pretending that he’s upholding some kind of standard means he doesn’t have to face the fact that he just likes making guys like me jump through hoops. But mostly because he’s buddy-buddy with the city manager’s office and happy to let them spoon-feed us content that’s easier and cheaper than paying guys like me to go out and get the whole story. The city manager’s office is still sensitive about any scandals, since they exist only because the county voted to get rid of the old council system because of their thirty or forty or fifty years of scandals. They’re usually grateful for our help, of course—thank you for letting us know this guy has been robbing us blind, but we’d rather keep this little matter in-house, you know. Except the whole point of a newspaper is to let things out of the house.”

  “Davis didn’t see it that way?”

  “Davis aspired to be a corporate flunky, because corporate flunkies keep their jobs when pains in the ass like me get pink slips. Which isn’t stupid, I guess. Davis wasn’t stupid.” He ran a hand through his hair, which made it both stand up and stick out at odd angles. Then something occurred to him, just as it had to the editor. “Why all the questions? I mean, tragic and all, but some guy offs himself and you guys spend all morning doing a psychological autopsy? Since when?”

  “We check out every death,” Riley said. “But in this case, we’re not so sure Davis did this to himself.”

  Roger Correa had no poker face. His eyes bulged, he leaned forward, he sucked in breath. “You mean someone wrapped a rope around Davis’s neck and then tossed him off a printing tower platform? Seriously? Wow”—he sat back, a look of near ecstasy illuminating his face—“what a story. Murder in the print room. Copy editor becomes a subject of his own paper. . . . It would be a better story if it were a reporter. Hell, it would be a better story if it were me.”