Jane wore her new slacks and blouse into the office, raising eyebrows as she walked down the aisle to her desk. She dropped her laptop on a chair, set her coffee on the desk, and was just sitting down when Jack Dollinger poked his head in.
“Where have you been? No one could reach you.”
“Paris,” she answered as she sipped and then winced at the unexpected heat.
“Paris?”
“Paris, France.”
He didn’t believe her. “We called Andrews’s office. The girl said you had been there and left. She had no idea where you had gone. We were worried.”
“Just a routine assignment,” Jane lied.
Jack Dollinger still wasn’t listening. “I even drove by your place, and when I saw your car parked, I rang your bell. Then I phoned. I figured you were home sick.”
“No. I’m feeling fine.”
“Then where were you? We were all worried.”
“I was in Paris,” she answered, this time making eye contact. “Andrews had to leave in a hurry for a meeting with French officials. I went along so I could interview him on the plane.”
He smiled. “You’re serious?”
“Of course. Isn’t that the way we do business around here?”
Dollinger laughed out loud. “Roscoe has a fit if we take a taxi. Wait until he hears that you’ve taken a private jet.” He moved her computer onto the floor so he could sit. He obviously was ready for a long and adventure-filled story. Jane gave him just the highlights while she drank her coffee. She omitted the frustrating hours when she was left to cool her heels and played up the daylong private interview. She finished with an account of her holding court over an executive conference.
“You’re shitting me,” he finally decided.
Now it was her turn to laugh. “It was all so unbelievable,” she admitted, dropping her pretense of sophistication. “He acted as if I were with the Times or the Wall Street Journal.”
Roscoe Taylor made a show of checking his watch when she came into his office. “You’re five hours late, but that would be a day ago. Now you’re twenty-nine hours late. Don’t you believe in calling in?”
“I was in Paris, interviewing William Andrews,” she said smugly.
“I know! But I had to find out from some guy named Robert Leavitt. My own business editor never bothered to let me know.”
She was surprised. “Bob Leavitt called you?”
“Bob? You call him Bob! And I suppose you call William Andrews just plain Bill.”
She nodded. “That’s what he said I should call him.”
Roscoe was into his curmudgeon persona. “So you were traipsing through Paris with Billy and Bobby when you were supposed to be working on a profile of the rapacious bastard who just took us over.”
“I was working on a profile,” she answered, copying his mournful cadence.
“And may I see it?” Roscoe asked. “Or are you going to send it to Leavitt for approval?”
“It’s not finished,” she said, avoiding the fact that it wasn’t even started. “And I’m not sending it to Robert Leavitt or anyone else on the corporate staff. I’ll be showing it to you because I work for you.” She paused, and then with much less authority asked, “I still do have a job, don’t I?”
“That depends on how I like J. J. Warren’s latest attack on William Andrews.”
She went back to her office and got to work, sifting through her own research and the mountains of business data that Andrews had given her. Jane was still working when she looked up and realized that she was the only one left in the office.
She pulled the disk out of her computer and put it into her briefcase with all her notes. Then she drove home in the SUV that Art had had fixed and left at her door. She was disappointed when she found Art in her apartment.
“What are you doing here?” She breezed right past him and into the kitchen to find something to pop into the microwave.
“Thank you, Arthur, for getting my car fixed,” he said, “and for leaving it in my parking space so that I’d be sure to find it.”
She stuck her head out of the kitchen. “I’m sorry. That was very nice of you, and I really appreciate it.”
“So invite me to stay for dinner,” he called after her.
Jane returned. “I have a frozen dinner, and I have some ice cream. You can have your choice, but then you have to go. I’ve got enough work to keep me up half the night.”
“The frozen dinner,” he answered, and followed her back to the refrigerator. “Where were you last night? I called to get your okay for the repair, and all I got was your machine.”
She read the directions on the package and put the frozen dinner into the microwave. “I was in Paris.”
“Sure,” he said. “And I was at the Tony Awards giving an acceptance speech. Where were you?”
“In Paris, interviewing William Andrews. I flew over with him on his private jet.”
He could tell she was serious, so he stood at attention and smiled. “And …”
“And … I have to write the story tonight, so you’ll have to eat and run.” She took the ice cream out of the freezer. It was rock-hard, and she couldn’t make any headway with her ice cream scoop, so she put the whole package into the microwave.
“Well,” her ex-husband asked, “what’s he like? A ball of fire?”
“No,” she said. “Quite human. Soft-spoken, vulnerable, appreciative …”
“Oh, so he took you to bed?” Arthur assumed.
“Jesus, Arthur. I can’t wait until you make it past the second act. No, he did not try or even suggest anything improper. And if he had …” She seemed uncertain as to what she would have done.
“He didn’t blast you for all the things you’ve said about him?” He was smiling in anticipation.
“No! All he asked was that the piece be fair.”
Arthur rocked back in his chair: “Oh, please be gentle,” he begged, imitating a man who would ask a woman to be fair.
The microwave pinged. She took out the steaming dinner and the soupy ice cream. He looked at the dinner. “What is it?”
Jane studied the dinner and then went to the trash can, where she had tossed the box. “It’s a delicious beef fillet with a medley of garden vegetables.”
“Wonderful,” he said, setting the formed plastic dish on the table. “And the wine?”
“There’s a bottle in the refrigerator door.”
“No,” he said. “That’s a white and the entrée demands a red. Then it has to have time to breathe.”
She leaned back against the sink with the ice cream container in her hand. “It will have to breathe on your time, Arthur, because I need you out of here in exactly ten minutes.” He began picking at the beef fillet.
“Oh, I found those disks I was missing. They were in the glove compartment of my car. Sorry about the confusion.”
“There wasn’t any confusion,” she answered while licking the spoon. “I knew I didn’t have them.” She dropped the container in the trash and went to her desk. She was busy working when Arthur came out of the kitchen and picked up the pages she had already printed out. He took them to a soft chair, where he slouched with his legs over the arm. He chuckled at one sentence and smirked at another, then re-read the pages.
“This is good stuff. Not as acerbic as the other pieces, but you’re not backing down a bit.” He stood behind her so that he could look over her shoulder. “Where are you planning on working after he cans you?”
“Good night, Art,” she said without looking up from her work. “And I really do appreciate your getting my car fixed.”
He picked up his jacket, which he had tossed half on the sofa and half on the floor. “Thanks for dinner,” he said on his way to the door. “My only suggestion would be that you put a thin slice of lemon in the finger bowls. And maybe a napkin!”
Jane listened to the door click and then broke out laughing. Arthur could be a lot of fun, and he was generous to a fault. But he needed a mother more than he needed a wife. He was sinking and looking for someone he could hold on to.
Did he really think that the piece she was writing would get her fired? It was scrupulously accurate in the details and neutral in tone. She thought she was correct in telling her readers that her suburban newspaper chain was too small to get Andrews’s attention. His subordinates wouldn’t challenge its news policies and business practices unless it lost money or incurred the wrath of the FCC. In that case, they would break up the chain and sell off the offensive pieces just as they would change the office furniture if it began to look shabby. But as to the larger picture, she quoted the government’s misgivings about media conglomerates that dominated markets. William Andrews, whether he intended it or not, was a dangerous man.
Would he be angry when one of his own properties wasn’t spouting the party line? Had he expected that she would get with the program when he took the time to wine and dine her? Would he actually fire her just to still her disturbing clucking at the back of the coop? She would be very disappointed in him if he proved to be so petty.
But she would be equally disappointed if he simply ignored her or judged her work too unimportant to be of concern. She had a quality act, even if it was on a very small stage. She had done her homework, given him his opportunity, and then set down the facts as she saw them. It was good journalism, and William Andrews ought to respect professionalism and recognize quality even when the report was not entirely to his liking.
So what response did she hope for? Maybe a comment passed through Robert Leavitt and Roscoe Taylor that she had done a good job. Or maybe a note from Andrews himself, a routine thank-you written by his secretary and signed by him. Something that might say, “Your profile in the such-and-such edition was well presented. While I cannot agree with many of your conclusions, I can’t help but admire the professionalism displayed.” A typical example of personalized corporate indifference.
She knew she wouldn’t be fired. Roscoe would quit before he would obey an order to give her a pink slip. But there were other ways of punishing her if the great man wasn’t pleased with what he read. Andrews could easily merge her paper with another in the chain to bring her under a more compliant editor. He could promote her to a dead-end job in circulation or put her in charge of something inconsequential like community events.
On any scale, the downside risks of her story were heavier than the upside potential. Her implied alliance with the executives in Paris as well as pure self-interest suggested that she should eliminate the sniping and give more weight to the company line. After all, the world wasn’t going to stop turning because of anything printed in the Southport Post. The only thing clearly at issue was her relationship with the new management and its impact on her career.
But she couldn’t do it. She could be dead wrong and still be a journalist. But if she tilted the truth one way or the other, she would stop being a reporter and become a pamphleteer. Public relations executives were paid to paint and polish their company’s actions until they were nearly unrecognizable. Journalists were supposed to cut through the camouflage and find the hidden agenda. If she tried to win the favor of Andrews and all the other passengers on his corporate jet, then she might as well join them and get in on the perks. A reporter didn’t need the love of the people she covered. What she needed was their respect.
Jane sat across from Roscoe while he read her story, searching his face for his reaction. He chuckled. Did that mean he was pleased, or had he found something ridiculous? He frowned. Was something disturbing or just incomprehensible? She had no idea until he turned over the last page.
“Pretty good!” he allowed, which from Roscoe was heady praise. “I think it’s the best one in the series. You’re less testy and more scholarly. More newspaper and less tabloid. Overall, I like it.”
She smiled appreciatively. “So, any suggestions?”
“Just one. Print it!”
“As is?”
“Is there something you’re not sure about?”
You’re damn right, Jane thought. I’m not sure that this won’t be a career-limiting event. But she shook her head. “No. It’s all accurate.”
“Then print it. That’s what we’re supposed to do around here.”
The day it appeared, Jack Dollinger took her out for a beer and a sandwich in a tavern by the railroad station. “Quite a treat,” she told him. They usually ate in a coffee shop across the street. Dollinger raised his glass. “A great job,” he toasted. “You took the measure of our new owner and found him lacking.”
Jane struggled with her first sip. “Is that the way you read it? That I found him lacking?”
He nodded. “Sure! Not lacking in business skills or corporate avarice. But lacking in responsibility to the community. And that’s a hell of an indictment for a man who wants to control all our public communications.”
She set her glass down. “Oh, Jesus,” she mumbled, and her head fell onto her hand. “An indictment?”
“Isn’t that what you intended?”
She shook her head slowly. “No. I have nothing against him. I just wanted to be fair.”
“You were fair,” he assured her. “The man is heartless, and that’s what you said.”
“No!” She had raised her voice and she was surprised at her own vehemence. She finished in a softer tone. “He’s far from heartless. He’s permanently crippled by guilt over his wife’s death.”
Dollinger put on a skeptical expression. “You mean that business up in the woods when his wife was shot? Let me tell you, we never heard all the facts about that little affair. The stuff about some outsider breaking in was pure horseshit. It was an inside job. William Andrews knows damn well who shot his wife.”
“What are you talking about?” she challenged. “How would you know?”
“I was with the New York Post at the time,” Jack Dollinger began to explain. “Believe me, when we saw dirt, we dug. And when the dirt was on the rich and famous, we dug even deeper. That whole affair was one big cover-up!”
“Jack, I just spent two days with the man. He’s not part of any cover-up.”
“Maybe not personally,” Dollinger countered, “but the people in his company were. This was a hick town with a one-man police force. Andrews’s people had that poor rube of a sheriff so intimidated that he was afraid to talk to his wife, much less to the press.”
“The state police were called in?” Jane said, repeating information she had gotten out of newspaper files.
“Sure they were. Hours after the shooting. And after about six inches of snow came down so that they had no chance to track the so-called intruder. Then the governor, who just happened to have the endorsement of the Andrews television stations, pulled them off the case. Did you know that there wasn’t even an autopsy? Some local doctor filled out the death certificate. No competent medical examiner ever saw the body.”
Jane became argumentative. “I suppose you’re going to tell me that Andrews did it himself.”
Jack shrugged. “Maybe.”
“Well, for your information, Andrews was hit by the same shotgun blast that killed his wife. That would be quite a trick, wouldn’t it? Being on both sides of the trigger at the same time.”
“We heard that he had been scratched. But even that was impossible to prove. The doctor bandaged him up, and then they whisked him off to a private hospital.” Jack paused while the waitress set down their sandwiches. Then he went on. “Didn’t Ted Kennedy claim he was injured in Chappaquiddick? Hell, he even had the gall to wear a neck brace at the inquest.”
Jane was defensive of Andrews. “He wasn’t just bandaged, Jack. He nearly bled to death. He and his wife were together, and they were both shot.”
Jack shrugged. “Okay, you may be right. It’s just that none of us ever bought that business about the intruder whose tracks were covered by the snow.” Then he conceded, “But that’s beside the point. I liked the piece and I thought you got it just right.” He again lifted his beer glass. “Congratulations!”
Jane tried to enjoy her sandwich, and when they returned to the office, she could only manage to dabble in her work. Jack Dollinger’s comments had disturbed her, which only proved how much she had been taken by William Andrews’s charm. There was no other reason she should care whether all the facts on an old, unsolved crime had ever been brought out into the open. She wanted William Andrews to be an innocent and suffering victim. If he had covered up evidence or faked his own injuries, then he would be an accomplice to murder.
Bob Leavitt had been first on the scene. Andrews had told her that. But how long was it before the police arrived? Snow had covered up his tire tracks and footprints, so he must have been there for quite a while. It was possible, even likely, that Leavitt had acted in his friend’s best interest and done all that he could to sanitize the crime scene. But why would it need to be sanitized? An intruder had shot a man and his wife together in a remote lodge. There probably wasn’t anything more that a small-town sheriff could reveal. And what was wrong with a governor using his influence to keep the state police from harassing one of his friends? Andrews had seen his wife shot to pieces and had been seriously wounded himself. Perhaps all the governor was doing was saving the victim further pain. Nothing would be gained by passing around crime-scene photos of his dead wife or dragging him in for questions that he had already answered.
But still, Jack Dollinger was an experienced journalist with a nose trained to detect the faintest hint of deceit. And Jack could still remember even the most insignificant details of events he had covered years ago. If his recollection of the murder of Kay Parker suggested a cover-up, then maybe she should do a little more digging. That night she went online to major city dailies to see what information they might still be holding on a crime that was eight years old.