The Guilty hp-2 Read online

  "Listen, I got my whole extended family just waiting to call in as soon as I hang up, and my grandma Doris is ready to hop on the plane and whack Allen upside the head. So I'll fill out your stupid forms, but I hope you're ready to repeat those directions another few thousand times this morning. So 'duly note' my ass."

  Louie sighed as the line went dead. He drained his coffee and picked up another one of the dozen lines that hadn't stopped flashing in hours.

  " New York Dispatch, how may I direct your call?"

  Paulina had just hung up the phone when James Keach appeared in the doorway. Sweat was streaking down his face, and his work shirt looked several different shades of blue.

  "This is not the time, James."

  "I need to know what to do. People are calling me asking for a statement. Some guy from the Associated Press, another one from the Times. I don't know how they got my number."

  "Our company directory isn't a secret. What are you telling the people who call?"

  "I've been hanging up on them."

  "Good," she said. "You say one word to anyone who doesn't work inside this building I'll roast your nads in my

  Foreman Grill. Now get."

  Keach disappeared.

  Paulina turned back to her computer. Her inbox had three hundred new messages, and another ten were appearing every minute. They all bore colorful subject headings like you're wrong and eat shite and die and does your mother know you lie for a living?

  Never in her career had Paulina witnessed such an onslaught of offended readers, and that was counting the time they ran a still photo from Pamela Anderson's sex tape with her nipples blocked out. Hundreds of angry readers were calling in, demanding her head, and every new message was directed at the story she'd written for today's Dispatch. The story Henry Parker had dropped on her lap. That sneaky shit knew it would provoke this response. He wanted that story to run, but didn't want the Gazette to go through exactly what the Dispatch was right now. She'd have to remember to send him a cyanide fruitcake for Christmas.

  Once the brushstrokes are painted, the picture becomes clear as a Midwestern day. One hundred and twenty-seven years ago, a lie was told, and that lie has been perpetuated for generations by deluded, smallminded townfolk whose entire lives and economies live and die on the wings of a myth. Once you know the truth of Brushy Bill Roberts's identity as Billy the Kid, once you know how William Henry Roberts burned his house down with his family inside, once you know that

  William's mother had an affair with a millionaire man of God (with his father's blessing, no less), you know that a hundred years too late, the truth has come to collect its revenge.

  Soon the facts will prove that William H. Bonney did not die in 1881 in Fort Sumner, New Mexico. He and his bloodline lived on. This country has been living in denial for years. And it is because of this veil of ignorance that nine people are dead, with another young woman fighting for her life.

  If there is any justice in the world, if the truth is regulated at all, then the entire citizenry of New Mexico, Texas and all those who convinced themselves that the nightmare was over will wake up to the violent reality and confront a demon who manifested himself right here, today.

  Never had Paulina seen such an outraged reaction from a

  "concerned" group of citizens. But to her surprise, many of the protesters were from far outside the delusions of Texas and New Mexico, and the sandblasted states who perpetrated the myth. She'd only received about twenty messages from

  Fort Sumner, ten or so from Hico and Lincoln County, but the vast majority were from New Yorkers, Californians. She had even received harsh rebukes from several members of

  Congress, writing to say that at best her article was in poor taste, and at worst a selfish attempt to discredit one of the most enduring legends in history.

  She didn't bother to respond to the irony of calling a mass murderer an "enduring legend," but therein, she supposed, was the point.

  William H. Bonney, despite his violent history, was now considered a hero, a vigilante, a romantic icon. And having read the dozens of articles about William Henry Roberts's deadly spree, she knew that more than a fair share of "concerned citizens" considered him the same way. Roberts was a bandit, an outlaw. And like Bonney's Regulators years ago, he was purging the landscape of those who poisoned the well.

  Yet unlike other articles she'd written that had stirred up controversy, there was no joy at the Dispatch at the prospect of increased circulation. There were no high fives in the hall or talk about holiday bonuses. Nobody from senior management had stopped by Paulina's office to congratulate her on a terrific story. In fact, nobody had come by at all. And if there was one thing that frightened Paulina more than anything, it was silence.

  Ordinarily she might respond to one or more complainants, just for kicks. But today she merely forwarded all the messages to their PR department. They'd be earning their paychecks this week. Then one e-mail popped up in her in-box that made her forget all the others.

  The sender was Ted Allen. The subject heading read We need to talk.

  She took a deep breath before opening the message.

  …hurts the credibility of our newspaper…

  …true or not the Dispatch had been placed under a mag nifying glass…

  …witch hunt…

  …my mother grew up in Texas…this is akin to pissing on the Pope's grave…

  He requested her presence in his office in fifteen minutes.

  The Dispatch' s legal team and PR department would be on hand. She had no doubt her job would be safe, but this fire had to be handled with extreme caution.

  Henry had gotten away clean. She couldn't mention his name. If the public found out she'd received information from a reporter at a rival paper, the Dispatch would lose its credibility faster than Jack O'Donnell downed a shot of whiskey.

  Take credit for your successes, take credit for your mistakes, hope the former outweighed the latter.

  Paulina picked up her phone, dialed James Keach's extension.

  "Ms. Cole?"

  "Where is Henry Parker right now?"

  "I…I don't know. Work, I assume?"

  "Find him. Then call me. You have half an hour."

  She hung up, stood up, smoothed out her skirt and headed for Ted Allen's office.

  54

  There was no stopping it; the juggernaut had begun lurching forward. Reports stated that the Dispatch was receiving more complaints and hate mail than at any point in the last ten years. The most since they ran a story about a presidential candidate paying off a cocktail waitress with whom he'd had an affair. The complaints weren't about the story, of course, but of a photo on page one in which readers claimed they could see more than fifty-one percent of her left butt cheek.

  Nobody ever said people didn't have their priorities straight.

  The gossip websites and blogs claimed that Ted Allen was considering canning Paulina Cole. They paid her to piss people off, under the maxim that controversy created cash, but now it looked like she'd pissed off too many people who spent the cash. Challenging an American legend, as well as asserting that a beloved (and deceased) clergyman had an extramarital affair, was too much to handle.

  The story on William Henry Roberts was out. It was public.

  And despite the protests and pitchfork-waving townsfolk, there would be inquiries. There would be investigations. This kind of scandal could not be covered up.

  When I got to my desk my voice-mail light was blinking.

  I checked it; it was from Largo Vance.

  "Hey, Henry, I don't know how she got it or why, but I have a feeling I have you to thank for Paulina's story, you little devil you. With any luck those pussies in D.C. will have no choice but to exhume the proper body this time. If they screw this one up they'll have more important people than yours truly to answer to. Anyway, the wool's been pulled down long enough. Now catch that Roberts prick and then give me a call. I have an unopened bottle of Johnnie Walker Blue wit
h your name on it."

  Before I could hang up the phone I saw a shadow hovering over my desk.

  "Hey, Jack," I said.

  "Hey yourself. So, read any good stories today?"

  "I just got in a minute ago. Why, is something breaking?"

  "Something already broke," Jack said. He opened up a leather valise and pulled out a copy of today's Dispatch. I'd passed it on the way to work but didn't bother to buy a copy. I knew what would be on the front page, and ignoring some basic sentence structure I was pretty sure I knew exactly how the article would read. Jack opened it, spread the paper across my desk.

  Looking back at me in a salacious full two-page spread were the glistening veneers of Mark Rheingold, a faded family portrait of John Henry and Meryl Roberts with their two young children, and a photo of Ollie P. "Brushy Bill"

  Roberts at the deathbed of the man claiming to be Jesse

  James.

  The headline read: Sex, Murder, And The Gun That Won

  The West.

  Not Paulina's finest hour as far as headlines went, but she more than made up for it with the story. I scanned it quickly while Jack stood there. She covered all the important bases: Mark Rheingold's affair with Meryl Roberts, the fact that John Henry likely knew about it and approved.

  And their son William's disgust at the shaming of Billy the

  Kid's legacy.

  "You have any idea where Paulina got these leads?" Jack asked. "Seemed to me you were on top of this story a week ago, and all of a sudden Jackie Collins is scooping you."

  I held up my hand, still sutured together. "In case you forgot,

  I had a bit of an altercation a few days ago. Oh yeah, my ex is in intensive care. Oh yeah, and I broke it off with Amanda. So pardon me if I've been off my game for a few days."

  "Come on, kid, I don't buy that for a second. Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying you haven't had, you know, stuff on your mind, but the day you get scooped on your own story is the day I start drinking wine coolers and dating British women."

  "What do you want me to say?"

  Jack looked me in the eyes. I held his gaze, unsure how to respond. Then he stepped back.

  "You don't need to say anything. I know what you did."

  "Really? What's that?"

  "Doesn't matter. I understand why you did it. But if you ever fucking do it again, I don't care if you're Bob Woodward the second or spawn of Jimmy Breslin and Ann Coulter, I'll stuff your body down the trash compactor and make sure you never work at this newspaper again. Understand me?"

  "I don't know what you're talking about."

  "Of course not. Glad to see you understand. If Wallace asks-which he will-tell him exactly what you told me."

  "I will."

  "And Henry," Jack said, his eyes growing soft. I'd never seen the man show a tender side, and it unnerved me. "I want you to know I'm sorry about Amanda and Mya. I know I said some things a while back, I don't know how much you actually listened to and how much you passed off as the loony ramblings of an old idiot, but everyone lives their life differently. I never found the same kind of happiness a lot of others have, but that doesn't mean what I did is the right way to live."

  "Right or wrong, you made a career to be proud of."

  A small choking sound came from Jack's chest.

  He said, "You know what I consider the best story I ever wrote, Henry?"

  "It wasn't Michael DiForio?"

  Jack laughed. "No offense to the guy who tried to rub you out, but not even close. No, it was February third, 1987. Not just because that's the day Liberace died-not a lot of people paying attention to human interest stories that day-but I wrote a piece about a woman in Nebraska who'd lost her husband to cancer and her son to a carjacking. Childless and widowed at forty-one. She'd never worked a day in her life, and suddenly decided to join the police force, and became a cadet on her forty-second birthday. Her name was Patti

  Ramona, and I remember she told me that if she saved just one life doing her job, if she prevented one family from going through what she went through, then their deaths wouldn't sting so much."

  Jack coughed into his hand.

  "A week after the article came out, I got a letter from a man in Idaho, Robert something, his name escapes me. Robert had lost his wife and daughter and had been dying of loneliness for a decade. Robert told me the moment he finished reading my story he went out and became a volunteer firefighter. He said thanks to Patti he knew his life could still have a purpose.

  You see what I'm saying, Henry? You don't need a whole city to remember you. If you make your mark on just one person, change one life for the better, that's the noblest thing you can ever do. It's easy to be a celebrity. It's harder to actually mean something."

  He clapped me on the shoulder and left without saying another word. I watched him turn the corner and disappear.

  And then I was alone.

  Sitting at my desk, my mind was blank. I didn't know what to write about. I stared down at the paper Jack had left on my desk. My phone was silent. E-mail inbox empty. I had a sudden and terrible feeling of deja vu, remembering walking the streets of Manhattan after Mya had been attacked a year ago. Getting drunk and hoping the needle in a haystack would cross my path. I remembered the anger and sadness, a dangerously potent mixture. I felt that way now.

  It was easier when there was a story. Something to focus on, something to prevent my mind from wandering. But right now all I could focus on was that emptiness. And hope it didn't consume me.

  And suddenly everything changed.

  I saw Wallace running from his office down the hall.

  Evelyn followed from Metro, her short legs having trouble keeping up. Then two more got up and ran after them. Frank

  Rourke ran past my desk. I grabbed his shirtsleeve.

  "What's going on? Where's everybody running to?"

  "Anonymous tip just came in, there's a hostage situation going down. Some maniac took a girl."

  "Where?" I asked.

  "Downtown," he said. "199 Water Street." Then he ran off.

  I couldn't breathe. 199 Water Street. That building housed the New York Legal Aid Society. Where Amanda worked.

  But the stringers…there was no police activity. Yet everyone at the news desk knew about it. What the hell was happening?

  My heart racing, I picked up the phone and dialed Curt

  Sheffield's cell phone. He picked up, said, "This is Sheffield."

  "Curt, it's Henry. Have you heard anything about a hostage situation down on Water Street?"

  "That's a negative, nothing's come over the radio, and I'm downtown right now so I would've heard something. Why, what's going on?"

  "I don't know," I said. "Somebody called in an anonymous tip about a hostage in the building where Amanda works. But if it hasn't been reported to the cops yet… I'll call you back."

  I hung up, dialed Amanda's number at the office. We hadn't spoken in days. I didn't know how she'd sound, what to expect, but I needed to know what was happening, that she was all right.

  I regained my breath when the line picked up and I heard

  Amanda's voice say, "New York Legal Aid Society, this is

  Amanda."

  "Amanda, it's me."

  "Henry…hi…"

  "Listen, is everything okay over there?"

  "Of course it is, what do you mean?"

  "Are you in trouble? Have you seen or heard anything strange?"

  "Other than your calling me just now, I was having a pretty uneventful day."

  "Thank God."

  "Thank God I was having an uneventful day?"

  "No, not that at all, I…well, yeah…I'm just glad you're safe."

  "Safe? Why wouldn't I be? If there's something I should know-"

  And that's when I heard a woman scream over the phone, followed by a gunshot so loud it rattled my teeth. I recognized that sound. I'd heard it this week. It was the sound of a Winchester rifle. William Henry Roberts was in Amanda's offic
e.

  "Amanda? Amanda! What's happening? "

  "Oh God, Henry, there's someone here- help us! "

  The line went dead.

  I leapt up, heart hammering. I had to get down there.

  Everyone was piling out the door, going to the scene of the crime.

  And then it hit me, just what he'd done.

  He called us. William Roberts.

  You write about history. I am history.

  55

  At first Amanda thought that the sound of shattering glass came from outside. A construction crew had been tearing up the building across the street for what seemed like a decade, and anything more than a dropped pen in their office was cause for excitement. But then she recognized

  Darcy's high-pitched voice as she screamed for help, and

  Amanda knew that whatever was happening was happening terrifyingly close.

  Then she heard the gunshot, a blast so loud it seemed to shatter the air, and for a moment she heard nothing but ringing in her ears. When her hearing returned, Amanda heard Henry on the line.

  "Amanda? Amanda, what's happening? "

  She didn't know what she said next, or if she said anything at all, but suddenly Amanda was scrambling away from her desk, trying to bide her time while figuring out what the hell was going on.

  She crouched down, surveyed the office.

  Their suite housed three shared offices and one large conference room, as well as a smaller waiting room by the elevator.

  The waiting room door was made of glass. The others were metal. She immediately knew that the breaking glass was the sound of somebody crashing through the waiting room door.

  She wondered how he'd gotten past the security guard downstairs-waited until he'd gone on break? Or something more horrible?

  Oh God…

  She heard another scream, someone yelled, "Get away from me!" and then Amanda heard a loud thud like something heavy had hit the floor.

  She saw Phil the intern run past her muttering, "Sweet

  Jesus, sweet Jesus," over and over again. Amanda still couldn't see what was happening, but if praying to Jesus or any other deity meant she'd make it out of the building alive she'd happily renew her faith in the Lord.