The Last Scoop

by R. G. Belsky

  “I’m familiar with many of the people from our high school that stayed in Eckersville after graduation,” Parkman said. “Why don’t I focus on reaching out to them? You two—and everyone else—can try to track down all the ones who’ve moved away. Does that sound like a plan?”

  “Still going to be a helluva job talking to 700 men,” Manning grunted.

  “Actually, only 699.” Parkman smiled. “I went to Eckersville High, too, back then, remember? And you’re already talking to me. That’s one less person we have to find.”

  “I like a glass-half-full kind of guy,” I told him.

  “Did you know Dale Blanchard at all?” Manning asked.

  I’d already asked Parkman that question. But Manning, like the good FBI agent he was, asked it again in hopes of jogging something from Parkman’s memory that he might have forgotten over the years.

  “Like I told Ms. Carlson, I was just a freshman. All of them—Blanchard, Becky Bluso, the Lofton woman—were older. They had no time for me. I saw them in the hall sometimes, but I don’t believe I ever said a word to any of them. I do remember Blanchard being with Teresa Lofton a few times. They were a very attractive couple.”

  “But you never saw Blanchard with Becky Bluso?” I asked.

  “Not that I remember.”

  “And Blanchard wasn’t ever a suspect in the Bluso murder investigation back in 1990?” Manning wanted to know.

  “I can only go by the reports I’ve seen from back then. They might have looked at him as a potential suspect, but they were looking at a lot of people as potential suspects. None of it ever led to anything. Until now. But, at least with this confession on his deathbed that you’ve got now, we can pretty much close the book on the Becky Bluso murder. That’s a big deal for this town. It was the only unsolved murder case in our history.”

  “Now all we have to do is solve nineteen more murders,” I pointed out.

  “Let’s get started,” Parkman said.

  It was late that evening by the time Manning and I left the Eckersville Police Station. We’d been going through hundreds of names, sending emails, and reaching out by phone and even sending police officers to knock on doors of addresses in Eckersville. We’d found a few people who remembered Dale Blanchard, but nothing that really helped.

  Manning and I agreed we should get some rest—then start fresh in the morning.

  We’d both rented separate cars at the airport. I started walking toward mine now.

  “Do you want to get dinner before we go back to the hotel?” Manning asked.

  “No, I’m fine. I’ll get room service there.”

  “I saw a steak place down the road before.”

  “Steak?”

  “Probably better food there than you’ll get from room service.”

  “I have trouble saying no to a good steak.”

  “Cool. Let’s take my car. You can leave your car here. Then I’ll drive you back to the hotel afterward.”

  “How will I get back here in the morning?”

  “We’re staying at the same hotel, Clare. I’ll give you a ride.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Hey, we’re a team, right?”

  CHAPTER 55

  THE RESTAURANT TURNED out to be one of those chain steak places you see a lot throughout the country once you leave New York City. That was fine with me. The steak was good, the portions big, the prices reasonable—and they served alcohol. All I needed to make me happy right now. Plus, I had Scott Manning with me.

  I tried my best to keep the conversation about business while we ate and drank beer.

  “What do you think?” I asked him about the long-ago Eckersville High student who Blanchard might have confessed his murder to.

  “It’s like looking for a needle in a haystack, Clare. No, worse than a needle in a haystack. With a needle in a haystack, you’ve at least got a chance of getting lucky. This seems hopeless.”

  “So why are you even here looking for him with me?”

  “You know the answer. It’s what we do in law enforcement on a cold case like this where there’s not many fresh leads. We check out everything no matter how much of a waste of time it might seem. Then we eliminate that possibility and move on to something else until we find the answers we’re looking for.”

  I nodded. It was the same way I worked as a journalist.

  “Even if we do find this guy, it’s probably crazy to hope that he turns out to be the one who committed the other murders like Bluso everywhere else,” I said.

  “I’m not sure that part is so crazy. I’ve been thinking a lot about this scenario, and it does make a kind of weird sense. The murders all seem the same, except the DNA from the first one is different. But there must be some kind of connection between Becky Bluso and the other women who were victims.”

  He took a big drink of his beer.

  “All we have to do is find this guy, which is probably impossible. Then get him to confess he’s a mass murderer. Then we can wrap this all up and go home. Like you said, it should be easy.”

  He smiled at me. I smiled back.

  “And if that ever happens, let’s hope the FBI doesn’t leak it to another media outlet before I can go on the air with my own story, huh?”

  Manning sighed. We hadn’t talked about that much. I knew Manning wasn’t responsible for the leak, it had been Wharton or someone else at the FBI. But I was still furious at the FBI because of it. And Manning was the only FBI guy here with me right now to complain to.

  I asked him if he knew any more about what had happened.

  “I don’t think it was Wharton who did it,” Manning said. “Oh, he didn’t want you as part of the investigation. And I know he didn’t like you. At least not at first. But I’ve talked to him and I think he’s gotten a certain amount of grudging respect now for the information you’ve given us.”

  “Are you saying Wharton likes me?”

  “I wouldn’t go that far. Let’s just say he’s not your enemy anymore.”

  “Damn. I was hoping it was Wharton that was responsible. He’s so easy to hate.”

  “My guess is it was one of the other people on the task force. Someone you met at one of those meetings. You didn’t make many friends in that room. A lot of people there didn’t like you.”

  “I tend to have that effect on some people.”

  We both had had quite a bit to drink. At one point, the conversation began moving away from pure business.

  “Kind of interesting to see a small-town police department up close, huh?” Manning said. “I know Parkman probably envies my job as a big-city FBI agent. But I kind of envy his, too. Being the police chief of a little town can be very comfortable and rewarding. You know everyone, everyone knows you. There’s not a lot of crime to worry about. Must be kind of like an Andy Griffith of Mayberry life. Maybe even get to go fishing with your family like Andy did. I never had any time for fishing with my family. I’ve always been too consumed with my job.”

  “Do you really think you could be happy in a small town like Eckersville?” I asked.

  “I don’t know. Maybe. My wife sure would be. She wanted me to get out of the NYPD, and now she wants me out of the FBI. She likes the quiet life where we live in Staten Island. I’m sure she’d love a town like this.”

  His wife. There it was again.

  I finished off the beer in front of me. “I think we should probably head back to the hotel now and get some rest. We’ve got a big day ahead of us tomorrow.”

  Our rooms were on the same floor, several doors apart. He walked me to my door and waited while I used the key on it.

  “Well, good night, Clare.”

  “Good night.”

  “I … I … well, I just want to say I’m glad we’re working together again like this. I know I was a bit difficult with you when you first came to me with the serial killer information, but I realize now that we’re both professionals. We’ve been able to move past all the personal things that went down between u
s and do our jobs. I’m happy about that.”

  “Me, too, Scott.”

  Then he began walking toward his own room. And I let myself into mine.

  All very professional.

  I got undressed, lay down on the bed, and tried to go to sleep. I couldn’t. I turned on the TV to a newscast, which showed a reporter talking about traffic jams on some bridge I’d never heard of. I thought about ordering something from room service, but I’d already eaten a big steak dinner and drank too much.

  There was a knock at the door. I pulled my clothes on and walked over to it.

  “Who’s there?”

  “Scott.”

  I opened the door.

  I’m not really sure what happened next. All I remember is there was a lot of kissing, hugging, and taking off of clothes. I’m not sure which one of us started it, or if we both did it simultaneously. Then we were on the bed, making love. Mad, passionate love. The kind of love I’d remembered having with him the last time we were together.

  So much for the Walls of Jericho.

  When it was over, we both lay there in the hotel bed for a long time without saying anything.

  He finally spoke first.

  “About my wife and us … I want you to know …”

  “Shh,” I said, putting my finger on his lips. “Don’t say it.”

  “What?”

  “Don’t tell me how you’re thinking about leaving her again. How you really want to be with me instead. How you feel guilty about doing this to her again, but you’re more attracted to me. Let’s not go there, Scott. Let’s accept this for what it is. A wonderful moment. You’re not going to leave her for me. You know that, and I know it, too. And, even if you did, you’d be so guilt ridden about it that you and I probably wouldn’t last any longer than any of my marriages did. We’ve got tonight, and this is a pretty good night. Let’s leave it like that.”

  He fell asleep a while after that. I looked over at him and wondered if we’d ever be together like this again. I reached over, kissed him gently, put my arms around him, and hugged him. He stirred slightly in his sleep and moved closer to me. I held onto him as tightly as I could until the first rays of morning sunlight began coming through the window.

  CHAPTER 56

  THE NEXT MORNING, Manning went back to his own room to shower and get dressed. Then we met at a coffee shop in the hotel for breakfast. After that, he drove me back to my car that I’d left in the parking lot of the police station. Neither of us said anything about the night before. It was as if nothing ever happened. I wanted it that way, and I think he did, too.

  The plan for the day was he’d go back to the station to work with Chief Parkman and his people to try to identify more Eckersville High students from 1990 who might still be in the area. At the same time, Manning was working with the task force at FBI headquarters to locate students who had moved to other places throughout the country.

  I had a different lead to check out. I’d gone on my computer that morning and discovered that one of the students from back then now operated a hardware store right here in town. I called and got a phone answering message saying the store opened at nine a.m. I drove there to wait for the store to open and interview the owner in person.

  The name of the store was Elliott’s Hardware, and it looked like the kind of place you’d expect in a small town like Eckersville. You don’t run into a lot of hardware stores in New York City. People there buy their hardware tools in big chain stores or else ask the super to fix stuff, I guess.

  Elliott Hardware—like a lot of the rest of Eckersville—was a throwback to a part of America that was rapidly disappearing.

  I introduced myself to Larry Elliott, the owner, as soon as he showed up to open the front door. He was a pleasant enough looking man, but noticeably overweight and had thinning hair. I’d found a picture of him from the Eckersville High yearbook online back at the hotel. He looked a lot better at eighteen than he did now. But I suppose that’s true of all of us.

  The good news is that he was happy to talk to me. He told me how his father had owned this store for many years before him. How he had left Eckersville to go to college, but then returned to take over the business when his father retired. How successful the business had been since then. He proudly took me around the store, showing me a lot of tools and gadgets I didn’t really understand, but pretended I did.

  There is a pace to every interview. A good journalist knows this, and I’d figured out a long time ago not to rush to ask my questions. You let the person you want to interview talk for a while, make them feel comfortable—and then switch to the questions you really want the answers to.

  When it came time to ask about Dale Blanchard, I used the same approach I’d been doing with other former Eckersville High students. I didn’t tell him the real reason for my interest in Blanchard. I said I was a journalist working on a story about forgotten war heroes. And I wanted to find out more about the brave young man who had given his own life to save a fellow soldier.

  He said he remembered Blanchard very well.

  “Dale was a bit of an unforgettable character to me,” Elliott said. “He was kind of like a Fonzie character … you know, from the Happy Days show. Super-cool. The girls loved him; they always flocked around him. But he was weird. He had a really bad temper, and an ugly side that scared people. He could be friendly one minute, then explode in a tirade the next minute.

  “I used to try to hang around him. Mostly because he was so popular with the girls, I guess. It wasn’t just that he was so good-looking, as I recall now. There was also this sense of danger about him that made him even more intriguing to people. Especially the women. A lot of girls seemed to really get off on that with Dale.”

  “Was one of those girls Teresa Lofton?”

  “Sure, I remember that. He and Teresa were an item. I used to run into them together, her hanging on his arm. But then Dale joined the Army after he graduated. Never saw much of him after that. Until I heard he had died.”

  I tried to ask the next question as casually as I could.

  “Did Blanchard ever tell you anything—give you any kind of information—about anything he might have done wrong here in Eckersville before the Army?”

  “Like what?”

  “Just asking.”

  “No, I can’t think of anything like that. But I wasn’t that close to him. I wanted to be, but a few of the other guys spent more time with him back then in high school.”

  “Do you remember any of their names?”

  “Sure, give me a minute. Oh, let me show you something, too. If you’re writing about Dale and what he did during that war, you might be interested in this.”

  He opened up a drawer in a filing cabinet and took out an old newspaper. It was yellow and tattered, but you could still read it. The headline said: “Memorial Service for Slain Eckersville War Hero.”

  The story detailed the facts of how Blanchard died in Iraq. Plus, more about him attending Eckersville High School. And there was also a description of the memorial service that had been held to honor him in death.

  There was a picture, too. It showed Dale Blanchard’s casket draped in an American flag. There were several young men standing next to it. The caption didn’t identify the men, just said they were pallbearers. I looked at the faces. I recognized one of them.

  “Isn’t that Jeff Parkman, the police chief?” I asked Elliott.

  “Yep, that’s Jeff.”

  “Why was he part of the honorary pallbearers at the service?”

  “Remember I told you about the young guys who used to follow Blanchard around and wanted to be like him? Jeff Parkman was one of them. God, he used to be around Blanchard all the time back then. Everything Blanchard did, Jeff would try to do it, too. He worshipped Blanchard. Always wanted to be like him.”

  Elliott chuckled at the memory. “Who would have ever thought that Jeff would grow up to be the police chief here now?” he said.

  I called Manning on his ce
ll phone and told him everything I’d found out.

  “Parkman said he hardly remembered Blanchard, that he never really knew him. Elliott says they were very close. That Parkman always wanted to be like Blanchard. Tried to do everything Blanchard did. Why would Parkman lie to us about that?”

  “Are you thinking … ?”

  “Maybe one of those things Jeff Parkman did like Blanchard was murder.”

  “Jesus.”

  “Let’s see what more we can find out about Parkman. See if it links him up in any way with The Wanderer murders. You can check with your FBI people back in New York and in Washington. I’ll ask around town here. Send a picture of Parkman to the Miami bureau, too. They can run it past the victim that survived, Dianna Colson. See if she recognizes him as the person who attacked her.”

  “Don’t forget she thought she recognized Danziger, too.”

  “She ‘sort of’ recognized him. I think we pushed her to make her identify Danziger as the killer. It won’t hurt to see what she says about Parkman. He could be the guy we’re looking for.”

  “Let’s not get ahead of ourselves, Clare. That’s what happened with Danziger. We still don’t have any real evidence …”

  There was a muffled sound on the phone, and I realized it was Manning talking to someone else. Then he came back on the line.

  “I’m here with Chief Parkman now,” he said. “We’re going through all those files looking for something helpful.”

  “You can’t talk anymore?”

  “That’s right.”

  “I’ll be in touch later.”

  A few hours later—after a trip to the library where I read old stories written in local media about Eckersville’s police chief and conversations with city officials and other people in town—I had a better take on him.

  Jeffery Alan Parkman had graduated from Eckersville High three years after the Becky Bluso murder. He’d come from a broken home. His father disappeared even before he was born. His mother worked as a waitress in several local restaurants before losing the jobs because of a drinking problem. Drugs, too.