Cold Open · A Sam North Mystery

Jack Steele was at the top of his game. Anchor of Steele Yourself, the nation’s number one rated cable news show. With a gorgeous young wife and a Fifth Avenue apartment, he was a bona fide member of the “Had It All Club.” Until he turned up floating in the East River.

The cops are calling it a suicide, but Steele’s widow, Robbie, is convinced he was killed. Convinced enough to call the reporter who broke the news, Sam North, and let him know he was wrong, despite the suicide note Steele left behind. Sam meets Robbie and next thing he knows, part of him believes maybe Steele was killed. The other part thinks Robbie Steele is nuts.

Sam is a story-hungry cable reporter too young to be in the twilight of his career, even though it’s looking that way these days. He’s willing to take a chance on Robbie, ask around a bit, see if maybe there’s something there. Hell, if Robbie Steele is right, he’s looking at the biggest story of his career.

Problem is, once Sam starts asking around people start telling him the same thing–Robbie Steele is flat out crazy. He hears if from the sleazy TV consultant who had been working with Steele to get the ratings up. He hears it from Steele’s power broker agent who thinks Robbie is a gold digger. Worst of all, he hears it from his boss, Ross Clayton, president of Liberty News. It occurs to Sam that it’s not a good thing to have the guy signing your checks questioning your judgment.

But the more Sam asks around about what was going on in Jack Steele’s life, the more things start happening to him. Things like a fedora-wearing thug telling him to leave it alone. Things like the window of a passing car being lowered and shots being fired. It’s enough to give a guy a complex.

Sam keeps asking questions and then starts connecting dots, and all the dots lead him to Buck McConnell. Buck is one of the Texas McConnells, a family who’ve built themselves a nice little empire in the energy business. But Buck is one of those guys who is long on arrogance and ambition, but short on brains. Might not be so bad if Buck was happy to be a middle-aged guy running the company his dad and granddad built. But no, Buck has it in his head that he should be leading the country. Yup, as in President of the United States.

Sam can’t quite figure out how, but he has a real strong gut feeling that Buck is involved in the sudden passing of his colleague Jack Steele. Sam turns up the heat on Buck, asking questions and being a nosy reporter. One source leads to another, and then another, until Sam comes across a successful Wall Streeter who knows a little something about Buck McConnell. A little secret McConnell has kept buried for forty-years. A secret that would keep McConnell out of the White House.

As Sam closes in, he discovers maybe, just maybe, Jack Steele didn’t kill himself after all.