Unpunished

by Lisa Black

  “Maybe I will,” she said, and passed her glass over the largely clean desk. Perhaps bourbon wasn’t so bad after all.

  “You see, in the sixties and seventies the printing process changed. It began to require more skilled labor, more sophisticated machines. Small-town, family-owned papers were overwhelmed. The chains came in like carpetbaggers.”

  Maggie couldn’t hear a sound from the rest of the building. She wondered if she and Roth were the only two left in it. She wondered where Jack had gone, and what he might be doing while she drank bourbon with Franklin Roth.

  “Gannett, Knight Ridder, Tribune, McClatchy threw money at the families who were pained but relieved to sell out. By 1977, ten percent of newspaper corporations owned two thirds of the papers in this country. Meanwhile they not only bought up papers, they drove the ones they hadn’t bought out of business—lied to advertisers, spread rumors that the other paper would soon be out of business so don’t bother renewing your ad contract with them, they sold advertising space at a loss just to steal customers. Of course, once the other paper folded, rates went up and up and up, because once local concerns had no other options for ad space, they could charge whatever they wanted. I’m not making this up, young lady—”

  “I didn’t think you were,” she said.

  “—and this isn’t industry rumor or innuendo. These are documented cases, lawsuits, proven violations of antitrust laws. Check out the Salem Community Press, the Santa Fe Reporter, the Detroit News, the Green Bay News-Chronicle. Just to name a few. But what they hadn’t figured out was that readership had fallen steadily, continued to, and no one had yet faced up to it. And there’s no point in having a monopoly on a product no one is buying. That’s why in the nineties all the newspapers started to get really creative with circulation numbers.”

  Now Maggie heard the slight scrape of a footstep in the hall. “Jerry Wilton handled that for you, didn’t he?”

  Roth drained his glass. “That was part of his job. But all circulation numbers are independently verified.”

  “Right, Media Audit. But that’s only once or twice a year, isn’t it?”

  She felt rather than heard a shift in the air and figured Jack was standing in the doorway behind her. He was the only large man she knew who could walk that quietly. The sudden widening of Roth’s eyes confirmed it.

  “Wilton was cooking your numbers,” he said to Roth. “You knew that.”

  The man’s lips twisted, but he nodded.

  “Because of TransMedia?”

  “Every paper cooks their numbers,” Roth burst out. “If they say they don’t, they’re lying. We were just trying to ensure a sale. TransMedia has to buy the Herald. If it doesn’t, we’re done. All of us.”

  Maggie heard Jack move, and he dropped himself into the chair next to her. She kept her gaze on Roth.

  “And Truss?” Jack said. “He had the digital component of the paper. TransMedia would want to see strong online readership numbers, wouldn’t they?”

  Roth made a sweeping but listless toast with his glass. “Digital is the future.”

  “And they’re both dead, Mr. Roth.”

  All three people in the room stayed completely still.

  “Why is that?” Jack asked.

  Roth set the glass down, carefully, as if it might break. Then he stopped being a legend and went back to being a man. “It was only to get a good price from TransMedia,” he told them. “That’s all we wanted.”

  Chapter 44

  “We need to be bought,” Roth started. “That’s not in question. If we’re not, the Herald will be in Chapter eleven by next year. We need TransMedia to save us.”

  “So the circulation numbers—”

  “Had to look good. It’s a business investment and TransMedia is very much a business concern. They want low costs and high income. They don’t give a crap about public service or journalistic integrity. It’s all numbers, and we only have six weeks before the NAA audits our figures.”

  “So you put some sawdust in the engine to make it sound smooth,” Jack said. “Slapped on a coat of wax.”

  “That’s it. Everyone does it.”

  “Sell out to the carpetbaggers?” Maggie asked.

  Roth looked about ready to cry. “Wilde said, ‘Each man kills the thing he loves.’ Maybe it’s more that each man becomes the thing he hates.”

  “But what happens after the sale?” Maggie asked.

  The wet in Roth’s eyes disappeared with one blink. He toyed with the empty tumbler.

  Jack said, “Yeah, that’s the problem, isn’t it? What happens when this big corporation comes in, takes over, and somehow the circulation turns out to be a fraction of what they thought they were buying. They come looking for you. But you didn’t plan to be here, did you?”

  “I told them I was okay with taking retirement and letting a TransMedia guy assume the editorship.”

  “Of course you’re okay with it. Because otherwise, board meetings would have gotten a little awkward, wouldn’t they?”

  Roth said nothing. Maggie waited, still.

  “What about Wilton and Truss and—where did Davis fit in?”

  For a moment Maggie thought Roth wouldn’t answer.

  “He worked with the printing crew. He’d know how many papers we were putting out, regardless of what Jerry reported. We had to bring him in, and he was more than willing. He had expensive tastes.”

  “How do you see this playing out?” Jack pressed. “You think we’ll keep your little secret—after all, corporate espionage is a civil matter, not a job for cops. Maybe you can still pull this deal off. Or has it finally penetrated that the members of your little conspiracy have been picked off one by one, leaving . . . you. Which either makes you the killer or the next victim.”

  “I didn’t kill anyone!” He looked from Jack to Maggie. “I had no reason to, and I would . . . I would never have done that.”

  “So you’re next.”

  The man’s shoulders sagged. “Yes, probably. I don’t know.”

  Jack said, “Expensive tastes? Why does that figure in?”

  “I’m just saying . . . Bob couldn’t afford to lose his job. . . .”

  Maggie heard Jack exhale as he made the leap. “You were going to get a kickback. TransMedia was going to pay you off to put this deal through.”

  Roth said nothing. He seemed to be holding his breath.

  “You weren’t looking for a savior out of the goodness of your heart. You were doing it for a fee. The Herald could—”

  Roth banged the glass on his desk. “Don’t tell me about my heart! I put my heart into this paper for twenty-five years, and into other papers before that! Of course I care about the Herald. Why do you think I did all this just to save it? But . . . I needed to save me, too. I’m too old to start over and I don’t want to. So I wanted to pad my pension a bit. The objective didn’t change.”

  “The objective? You really have become a businessman.”

  Maggie asked, “How was TransMedia going to pay you to lie to them?”

  “Not to them,” Roth admitted. “It—look—it was a deal. They buy the paper; I help smooth their way. That was all. The paper has to be bought or it’s going to die, but they’re tired of swooping in to save people’s asses and being greeted with pitchforks and torches as if they’re the devil. I convince the people here to take the buyout without all the drama, the paper continues, everyone wins.”

  “Except TransMedia, which buys a lame horse,” Jack said.

  “And your employees, whose jobs are slashed and their equipment harvested,” Maggie said.

  “Or we go into Chapter eleven by next year,” Roth reminded them. “There are no good choices here, don’t you get it? The good old days are not coming back. Unbiased, online news might survive if publicly subsidized, because it will never pay for itself. Newspapers aren’t going to survive at all.”

  “Fascinating,” Jack said. “But we still got a lot of dead people here, whose deadness has
not yet been explained. Who else knew about this?”

  “That’s it. Just the four of us.”

  Maggie didn’t believe him. He had just confessed to a crime, despite all his justifications. He might be trying to protect his last partner—or partners.

  Or he wanted to keep those partners free and unencumbered so that he could take care of them, just as he’d taken care of Truss and Wilton. But why? Surely the buyout wouldn’t happen now. He could not possibly keep the truth from TransMedia, unless he killed both Jack and Maggie right then and there.

  Jack pressed. “There had to be other people. Assistants. IT guys. Secretaries.”

  “No one! We never even talked about it here, only when we’d meet at Great Lakes Brewing. We’d even get a private area there. Everything was oral. No memos, no e-mails, no phone calls.”

  “Davis made a lot of phone calls, especially to Truss.”

  “Davis was an idiot.”

  “What about your publisher?” Jack asked.

  Roth made a sound that sounded both relieved and derogatory. “Him? He has no clue what goes on here. He would sign anything I handed him.”

  “Low cost, high income,” Maggie said. “Truss and Wilton bumped up the income. Who did you get to lowball your costs?”

  “Nobody.”

  Jack said in a warning tone, “Roth—”

  “Me, okay? I told you, editors have been doing the publisher’s job for probably twenty years now. I handle the business end, spend more time on it than the journalism side. I shaved the costs.”

  “Shaved. I like that,” Jack said.

  “I estimated bids for paper and ink that were more optimistic than what we would probably end up with.”

  “Bully for you. Still not buying it, though, that the trail ends here. If there’s another conspirator on the loose—”

  “Stop saying that. We’re not conspirators.”

  “I hate to be the one to point this out, but conspirator is exactly what you are. I’m sure TransMedia would agree.”

  “And the SEC,” Maggie added.

  “Yes, regarding the stocks.”

  Roth gazed blankly across the desk. “Stocks?”

  Jack told him, “Wilton had been buying up Herald stock, assuming the price would take a leap after the TransMedia sale.”

  Roth’s eyes narrowed. “That was stupid. That’s the kind of thing that lands you in court. . . .”

  “He had someone else buy it for him.”

  “Oh. Well . . .”

  “Now you’re only sorry you didn’t think of it yourself, aren’t you?” Jack asked. “What about Stephanie Davis?”

  Roth’s face, which had been pasty, whitened further.

  “That wasn’t my fault,” he said.

  Chapter 45

  “I didn’t kill her!” he still insisted ten minutes later. “I didn’t kill anyone!”

  Jack said, “You just told us you went to Tower City to meet with her, where she proceeded to blackmail you.”

  “Bob had made notes about the number of papers printed that he got from Harding and how much we should increase it to look competitive with other papers. Idiot.” Suddenly Maggie saw past the old-school reporter and caught a glimpse of the hard businessman, with nothing but contempt for an underling who couldn’t follow a simple order. “All he had to do was back up whatever we said when the TransMedia goons asked him for confirmation.”

  “Annoying. You figured a squirrelly guy like him would never hold up under questioning or through the storm that would flatten this place once the ink dried on the deal with TransMedia. Oh wait, you didn’t intend to still be here when that storm hit. You and the others would have taken your blood money and skedaddled.” Jack’s voice grew even harsher. “What happened when Bob’s little wife figured out what was going on? Did she demand an explanation? Or a cut?”

  “Both,” Roth said, slumping back in his chair.

  “You agree to meet, tell her whatever she wants to hear so that she leaves quietly and then catch up with her in the parking garage.”

  “No! I told her she could have his cut, no problem. I-I didn’t care by that point, just wanted to get the sale done and over with. And she did have two kids to raise.”

  “What about now?” Jack said, his voice low. “You intending to pass Bob’s money along to his orphaned children? That would be mighty nice of you, man.”

  Roth stared at them both. “I’m sorry for his kids. But I didn’t kill Bob and I didn’t kill Stephanie. I don’t know who did.”

  “Who else here would have picked out these three particular guys to off? Is that pure coincidence?”

  “I don’t know! All I know is that I didn’t kill anyone!”

  Jack stood. “Mr. Roth, I have a feeling I’ll be seeing you again before long.”

  The man’s face went slack, elongating every wrinkle and worry line until he seemed to age before their eyes. She could see him try to rally, to inject a bit of bravado as he stated: “I’ll be here. Tomorrow’s paper still has to get to the streets.”

  But his voice quavered, and again his eyes filled with tears.

  * * *

  Maggie followed Jack to Rebecca’s office. The young security guard seemed as weary and shell-shocked as Maggie felt. Maggie curled up on a worn couch with holes in the cushions that Rebecca had salvaged from a laid-off Features editor, and tried not to fall asleep. It was only nine-thirty p.m., but it felt like the wee hours of a cold morning.

  Jack sat on one of the task chairs. Riley was off obtaining an arrest warrant for Franklin Roth. After listening to Jack’s summary of Roth’s statement, both cops agreed that it would be the logical next step.

  Though neither, Maggie thought, seemed completely convinced of the man’s guilt.

  Rebecca skipped through the video coverage as quickly as she could without missing any quick movements. The quality of the video had not improved in the day or two since Maggie had last viewed it, though Rebecca had gotten a cleaning crew around to take care of the spiderwebs. But the resolution limits and low light after sunset kept the system’s abilities in check. To make the images worse, it had been drizzling rain off and on all evening, so many employees of the Herald approached the doors under umbrellas or raincoat hoods, as effective as a ski mask for concealing face, hair length and color, sometimes even gender. Rebecca did what she could to guess at the identities, but only in a few cases that showed a distinctive car or coat could she be sure.

  “I’m not liking it.” Jack spoke to no one in particular after ten minutes in deep thought. “Why would Roth kill off his coconspirators before the deal went through? He needed them to rope in TransMedia.”

  “They really are going to buy us?” Rebecca asked, trying to catch up. Her job would be at stake as much as anyone else’s.

  Maggie said, “Don’t know. TransMedia might step back and rethink investing in a place with a series of murders.”

  “This is a newspaper,” Rebecca reminded her. “If it bleeds, it leads. I heard that our circulation spiked over the past week. One more murder will probably seal the deal.”

  “Maybe not once they find out all the stats that Roth and company fed them were lies. They’ll have to start over from scratch, have every penny independently verified.”

  “I guess you’ll see how much they want this paper,” Jack told Rebecca. “And we’ll see whether the killer nixed the deal or saved it.”

  Maggie said, “And which did they intend to do? I still think it’s more likely to scare TransMedia away. Either way we’re left with: Who knew? Roth says no one else. Who would Stephanie Davis have told about her blackmail plot? She had no confidantes here, and she said she hardly had family.”

  Jack said, “So he lied. He’s protecting the fifth member, the one who’s stayed under the radar until now.”

  “If the TransMedia deal falls through, there’s nothing to protect. They’d be unlikely to be prosecuted for attempted fraud—it wouldn’t be worth TransMedia’s time. Plus you m
ade it clear to Roth that you intend to arrest him for murder. If he could steer us toward another suspect, don’t you think he would?”

  “Depends on how much he cares for number five, and how good he thinks our chances of a conviction are. With what we’ve got, his lawyer will get him out on bond. Then all he has to do is alibi for one of the murders and he can walk.”

  “True, but—”

  “There’s Ty coming in,” Rebecca said.

  They looked at the screens. The tall man arrived during a break in the rain and had hustled up to staff entrance number three, flashed his ID card at the scanner, and turned the latch. Jack made a note of the time.

  Maggie finished her thought. “But what if he isn’t the killer and neither is number five, if number five exists? What if someone did want to kill the deal? Someone was aware of this conspiracy the whole time, but Roth didn’t know it.”

  “Who?”

  Maggie rubbed her forehead. “That’s the question. Kevin Harding might have somehow found out that Davis reported more papers printed than he knew to be true. Roger Correa was already keeping tabs on Roth. Jerry Wilton felt confident enough to invest in stock—who knows how else he had tried to capitalize on the situation? Truss . . .”