Pendleton was right about Tommy’s letter to the editor. Smith called Dave a “drug fiend” and a “menace to society,” and claimed that if he won, the city would face “disaster.”
But the letter was odd. After a crescendo of invective, you expect crashing cymbals, but it ended with a whimper, a milquetoast plea to vote for anyone but Dave. Ed knew what had happened. The letter had been edited, sanitized for a family newspaper. In all likelihood, the final graf had been cut and the editor had substituted the lame closing.
Now Ed was intrigued. What had Tommy actually written? He tapped a few keys to access the letter’s complete editorial thread. It took a flashing PASSWORD REQUIRED to remind him that he no longer worked at the Horn. Now what?
Ed called Tim, whose password had also presumably been cancelled, but his friend was tech savvy and had intimated that there were back doors into the system. With Tim on the phone directing him, Ed tried A and B to no avail, but C worked and he was in.
“Dave Kirsch is a boil on the face of society. He should not be mayor. He should not be permitted to walk the streets.”
The original had more of the passion Ed expected, but also something else, the faint aroma of a threat. Ed checked the date—four days before Dave got it and right about the time Tommy went on his bender. Maybe a grudge against Dave had pushed him off the wagon. Maybe it was a coincidence that Tommy was arrested on the edge of Golden Gate Park the day after Dave was killed there. Or maybe it wasn’t. Tommy himself said he was a belligerent drunk. He’d gotten his arm broken resisting arrest. If he’d slug a cop, maybe he’d gun down an old enemy. Ed called Ramirez.