The Guilty hp-2 Page 8

  Aid Society had taken a beating in the press for their alleged inability to protect children whose parents were already the recipients of numerous abuse complaints. Because of this they were looking for fresh blood, cowboys and cowgirls who wouldn't stand for red tape.

  Amanda worked long hours, alongside several other lawyers who were appointed "law guardians" by the court. It was incredibly enriching work for her, I knew. But spending all day every day around troubled and abused children took its toll.

  Sometimes she would come home, crawl into bed and appear on the verge of tears. She was too strong for that, though. She knew her tears were trivial compared to the reality of the situation. And her energy was better focused outward than in.

  "You know, I sit there sometimes," she continued, "and I want to scream. Not that I really hate the guys I work for, but in these cases you need to throw the book against the wall and just holler. Right and wrong doesn't stem from legal precedent."

  I felt her staring at me, waiting for a response. I didn't want to talk about my day, but had to bite my tongue not to erupt. I hated making Amanda feel like my troubles were any more important than hers, but I couldn't focus on anything but this story.

  "I have a lot of work for tomorrow," I said. "I'm pretty sure whoever's responsible for these murders is using an antique rifle or a replica, something that hasn't been used in a long time. There are thirty-two gun shops in the five boroughs alone, so I have my work cut out for me."

  "You should talk to Agnes Trimble," Amanda said, sighing, wiping her mouth as a tomato spurted juice onto her plate. "She was my American History professor at NYU. Brilliant woman, but she scared the hell out of us during student conferences.

  She kept half a dozen model guns in her office, you know, like some people keep snow globes or toy fire trucks. She knows more about guns than Al Gore knows about the environment.

  Belongs to the NRA, all that good stuff. I can call her if you'd like, she should be in the city for the next few weeks and I'm sure she'd be happy to talk to you. Who knows, maybe she can help."

  "Actually, yeah. That'd be a huge help," I said. "Thanks."

  Pinter, Jason – Henry Parker 02

  The Guilty (2008)

  "No problem."

  We sat there in silence as I listened to Amanda chew.

  "Did you see him die?" she asked me. There was a corner of lettuce sticking out of her mouth.

  "No," I said. "I just saw what happened afterward."

  Amanda chewed more.

  "You don't want to know," I said.

  "No," she replied. "Guess I don't."

  As I got up and tossed the rest of my dinner into the garbage, the buzzer rang.

  "Are you expecting anyone?" she asked. For a moment, my heart hammered. I could picture Mya waiting downstairs.

  "No," I said. Amanda looked at me for a moment, surely knew what I was thinking. We walked to the window.

  Though we had no doorman to announce visitors, our apartment overlooked the building's entrance vestibule. Handier than an eye slot.

  I grunted and heaved the window open, reminding myself to wipe down the grease and grime later, and poked my head outside. Looking down, I saw a man wearing a gray trenchcoat and hat. He looked up.

  "Let me the hell up, will you?"

  "Who is it?" Amanda asked.

  "It's Jack," I said with more than an ounce of relief. I closed the window and pressed the door release button.

  "Doesn't he have his own home? What's he doing here at this hour?"

  "I have no idea." I'd worked with Jack for over a year, and never once had we seen each other's apartments. I pictured his clean, full of polished wood and cracked books.

  Shelves lined with erudite literature and snifters of amber liquid, a fire roaring as he puffed a pipe and wrote great news of the day.

  I looked around my apartment. Wondered if his vision of mine contained empty bottles of Pepsi and a subscription to

  Glamour.

  "Quick," I said. "Hide stuff."

  I picked up all the girly magazines, food wrappers and rubber bands I could find and threw them in the trash. Which was already overflowing with girly magazines, food wrappers and rubber bands.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Amanda, baby," I said, taking her hands in mine. "I idolized this man growing up. He's probably the only man

  I've ever dreamt about. And now he's coming up to my apartment." She eyed me like I'd just insulted her mother. "Okay, forget I said that. Just help."

  For the next minute, we scrambled around the room tidying up as best we could. In those sixty seconds, our onebedroom apartment went from resembling a tsunami-affected college dorm room to resembling an apartment lived in by two people who cleaned dishes after using them.

  I heard a knock at the door. I looked around, panicked, then threw myself onto the worn polyurethane sofa and crossed my legs. Amanda glared at me.

  "You expect me to open the door?"

  "Would you mind?" She gave an exasperated sigh.

  "Just so you know, you're sleeping on the couch tonight."

  She went to the door. Peered through the eyehole for dramatic effect. "Who is it?"

  "Now it'd be some coincidence if it was someone other than the guy who was just downstairs," Jack said, his voice muffled by the door.

  Amanda unlocked the door and opened it. Jack was breathing heavy, the trenchcoat seeming to weigh him down. He took off his hat, a few loose gray hairs sticking to it.

  "You must be Miss Davies," he said.

  "That's right."

  "Charmed." He took her hand, kissed it as he looked into her eyes. She smiled demurely. "Henry here talks about you nonstop."

  "Is that so? Well, at least one man here can call himself a gentleman." She led him into the apartment. "Can I get you a drink, Mr. O'Donnell?"

  "Please call me Jack. And I'll take a Jack as well, if you have one, on ice." Amanda and I looked at each other. "It's been a long day."

  Amanda disappeared into the kitchen. She came back with a glass full of brown liquid over ice. "Seagram's Seven.

  All we had."

  "Do nicely," Jack replied. He moved over to the couch, let out a groan as he sat down. "How you holding up?"

  "Me?" I said incredulously.

  "Heard you were at the Franklin-Rees building when…it happened."

  "Nearby," I corrected. "I'm holding up fine. Jeffrey

  Lourdes is the one who was shot."

  "Murder has a ripple effect, gets a lot of people wet," Jack said. "You better than anyone should know that."

  Jack took a sip of his Seagram's. His cheeks were red, eyes tinged with veins. I wondered whether he was simply fatigued from taking the stairs, or if that Seagram's wasn't his first cocktail of the evening.

  "I'm fine," I said. "Really."

  "You know they haven't found a quote at the scene of

  Lourdes's murder," Jack said. "The first two were left in such prominent locations, either he dropped the whole thing, or…"

  "Or he just didn't have time."

  "You have to wonder, really, what kind of person walks up to a man in broad daylight and shoots him in the head."

  "Same kind of person who shoots an unarmed woman and a cop from a distance," I said. "They're not dealing with your average run-of-the-mill lunatic. This guy has an agenda."

  "You think so?" Jack said.

  "Well, look at his targets. Athena Paradis, Mayor Perez and

  Jeffrey Lourdes. Remember, Joe Mauser was a mistake. All three of those people are celebrities, in some form or another.

  He's not killing random people, he's killing people whose deaths would pretty much dominate news coverage. I mean, just look at the Metro papers the last few days. Athena,

  Mauser and tomorrow Jeffrey Lourdes will be everywhere."

  "What do you make of the gun?" Jack asked, another nip of brown disappearing down his throat.

  "I really don't know," I said. "Seems like he's usin
g some sort of antique, something with a meaning. Don't quite know what yet, but Amanda has a contact from school who might be able to shed some light. I spoke to Lourdes's assistant at the scene. She got a quick glimpse of the killer and a partial of the murder weapon. Unfortunately she couldn't ID the actual shooter, and her police sketch is more vague than a

  Rorschach. Because of the chaos at the Franklin-Rees building, the guy was able to escape in the stampede."

  "Mayor Perez, Athena Paradis and Jeffrey Lourdes," Jack said. "Not exactly three people you could imagine having brunch together on a Sunday morning."

  "But someone sees them fitting in the same pattern."

  "In this city," Jack said, "there's no shortage of people like those three. People who hog the front page. And though our great police force is locked up tighter than my grandma's cooter when it comes to terrorism, there's no defense for a sick fuck who wants to kill one person at a time."

  "Lourdes," I said, "was surrounded by a hundred people when he died. His shooting caused a stampede. It couldn't have been any easier for the killer to disappear than if Scotty had beamed him aboard the Enterprise. "

  "Nobody disappears," Jack said, swallowing the last of the whiskey. "It's our job to find out what rug they're hiding under."

  "I'm on it," I said. "You know the last quote he used. When he killed Joe Mauser." I'd told Jack about my tip.

  "I'll let them know what bad means," Jack said.

  "I looked it up," I said. "Guess quoting a junior reporter just wasn't scary enough, he had to upgrade to sicker game."

  "Billy the Kid," Jack said. "Carruthers scowled during his statement, like he couldn't believe this thing could get any more macabre."

  "He's moved on from quoting me to quoting mass murderers," I said. "Forgetting for a moment my disgust at being in that company, if the killer does see himself as some sort of avenger it probably means there's a longer list of people this guy doesn't like."

  "Billy the Kid," Jack said. "You know the Kid, or whatever the hell his real name was, pretty much started the trend of yellow journalism. His estate should get royalties from the

  National Enquirer and Weekly World News. Reporters and hack novelists all over the country tripped over themselves to drool over this guy. Made him out to be some kind of hero.

  Some kind of Robin Hood. Idolizing celebrities practically began with the Kid."

  "You think that's how this killer sees himself? Offing the rich and famous to help the poor?"

  "Remember he also quoted your ass," Jack said. "Let's just hope all he's got is an affinity for scary words. In the meantime, we need to stay ahead on this story."

  "Stay ahead? What do you mean?"

  He took another sip and looked at me. And for the first time since I'd known him, Jack O'Donnell looked worried.

  "Paulina," he said.

  "What about her?"

  "She's selling newspapers."

  "Well, that's her job," I said. "From what I hear she just didn't fit at the Gazette. "

  "Maybe not," Jack continued, "but if the Dispatch beats us to this story, they could see a double digit circulation growth by the end of the year." I stayed silent. "What that means, in lay terms, is we'd be fucked."

  I considered this. "I know the Dispatch' s circulation is up since she joined the paper, but I mean…"

  "There's been a three percent swing this week alone,

  Henry. Whether it's our reporters getting beat to the punch or her articles attracting our readers, it's happening. These three murders are the biggest story of the year, everyone with a pen and a brain trying to get a piece. There's going to be a clear winner and loser here. We need to make sure we're not the ones holding the silver."

  "They weren't beating us to the punch when I reported

  Athena's murder the morning she died," I said, my voice coming out angrier than I'd hoped.

  "That was days ago, Henry," Jack said. He sighed, sank into the couch. "Since then it's neck and neck. Nobody is getting new scoops. So it comes down to juice, plain and simple. Paulina has it, we don't. People want salacious stories, headlines in bold, and photos of celebrities in bikinis. Only thing that can distract them from that is real, honest-to-God news. And until we get that, we're going to get creamed every day. If two people are tied during the race, everyone stares at the one wearing flashier clothing."

  "I prefer jeans," I said.

  "Don't be a smart-ass. And listen, Henry, you should be aware of it…Paulina knows you were at the crime scene today. Knew it before we did, actually."

  "What-how is that possible?"

  "I think she has some chumscrubber tailing you. But she's mentioning it in tomorrow's article on the Lourdes murder, claiming you always find yourself at the scenes of brutal crimes. Between Fredrickson, Mauser, your quote being found at Athena's crime scene and being seen talking to a witness today, she's got enough paint on her brush to level some pretty brash accusations."

  "That was a coincidence. I was talking to a friend. Any decent reporter would have done the same thing."

  "A friend. You mean the cop."

  "Yes, a cop friend, Curt Sheffield."

  "I know Curt. Seen that recruiting poster everywhere but my refrigerator."

  "Whatever," I said. "Bottom line is I have a lead on a hell of a story."

  "You know, I thought you might."

  "That gun, the one the killer is using, there's a reason he's using it. I'm going to find out what that is. Paulina doesn't have that. Combine that with this new quote, it's going to fit somewhere." I sat there silent. Watched Jack rattle his empty glass.

  Then he stood up, tipped his cap at Amanda, nodded at me.

  "Find the story," Jack said. "Behind every murder is a motive. The cops don't care about that right now, they just want the man. Motive will come later, once they can be sure there aren't any more high-caliber bullets aimed at anyone's skull. So keep on keeping on."

  "I will."

  "Important work is silent until it needs to be heard. Keep that in mind. Other people want this story, too." Then he left.

  I turned to Amanda. "Your history professor," I said. "You think she's still awake?"

  18

  The headline read, Head Of Franklin-Rees, Now Without

  A Head.

  Even I was shocked by the tactlessness and audacity of the

  Dispatch' s front page. The lead story, naturally, was the murder of Jeffrey Lourdes, accompanied by a gruesome photo of the man's legs with blood pooling around them. In Technicolor.

  The paper neglected to mention how Jeffrey Lourdes had revolutionized the magazine industry in the early seventies with several titles that captured the zeitgeist with aplomb and erudition, how he'd mentored many of the country's most talented writers and journalists from scruffy-haired hipsters to men and women who changed the face of American culture. Instead the Dispatch focused on rumors of money laundering, infidelity, drugs and under-the-table deals. It noted how, over the last decade, Lourdes had been accused of letting his legacy go to seed, eschewing strong journalism for salacious stories and shoddy reportage that his younger self would have thrown in the fire. It also noted how, despite

  Lourdes's rumored twenty-million-a-year salary, circulation for Moss was way down, and the magazine had long ago ceded any cultural impact.

  They would have had you believe Lourdes was as dirty as they come, a common rat working in an ivory tower.

  Our article for the Gazette painted a more accurate, more even picture. Giving Lourdes credit where he deserved it. I expected the Dispatch to kick our asses at the newsstand.

  If I didn't know any better, the Dispatch was suggesting that the magazine industry was better off with Jeffrey Lourdes dead.

  At the same time, I knew I was on to something, that there was an even bigger story surrounding the deaths of Athena

  Paradis, Joe Mauser and Jeffrey Lourdes. I needed to find out why someone had murdered a famous socialite and a publishing magnate, and tried t
o assassinate a government official mere days apart, and why the killer seemed to be using weaponry and ammunition completely impractical for someone who was smart enough to carry the murders to their grim conclusion.

  I'd spent all night poring over the details given by

  Lourdes's assistant regarding the gun she saw, the man she saw wielding it, as well as the info Curt Sheffield gave me about the ammunition caliber. At eleven-thirty I'd left a message for Professor Agnes Trimble. I name-dropped

  Amanda, her former student, said I needed to talk to her about an important story. She called me back within fifteen minutes.

  "I don't have much of a nightlife," she'd said. If what

  Amanda said was true, and she collected firearms, I wasn't totally surprised. But could a college professor help paint a clearer picture of a murder suspect?

  I squinted as we walked toward the subway. Agnes was expecting us at eight-thirty sharp. Not much of a nightlife, didn't care much about sleeping in. No wonder Amanda liked her so much.

  "So you're sure Trimble isn't just someone who has a strange gun fetish," I said. "You really think she can help?"

  "No, I just like spending my free time with old teachers,"

  Amanda offered. "Trust me, if this thing has a trigger, she can help. Not that you learned anything at whatever that school was."

  Guess it was that simple.

  We took the 4 train down to West Fourth street and headed toward the NYU College of Arts and Sciences, located in downtown Manhattan by Washington Square South.

  "You know, I did go to a pretty good college," I said.

  "According to who, U.S. News and World Reports? Please.

  They know as much about academia as I know about horticulture. Most Ivy Leaguers are the kind of students who work twenty hours a day to make a three-point-eight, then get hit by a bus on your first day of work because you don't have enough common sense to know that red means 'stop.'"

  "I've never been hit by a bus," I replied.

  "Right. You just got shot."