My boss may have hated me, but the people meters loved me. And our overnight news ratings were tanking since my ouster from the anchor desk. I figured I had at most forty-eight hours before Noreen dragged me back in front of the teleprompter, so I’d better enjoy my reporting time in the field while I could.
My dad called to say that something was happening at the wind farm. Lots of security. Limos. Dark suits. Dark glasses. Even snipers.
I called Wide Open Spaces to see if this was the protection their officials had been alluding to earlier. If so, it seemed a belated gesture of security overkill. The energy company blamed the fuss on the Secret Service. Apparently the king of Saudi Arabia and members of the royal family wanted to tour an American wind farm up close before they flew home.
“A little field trip to check out their energy competition,” the manager said. “We’re happy to assist.”
Visualizing Middle Eastern royalty walking amid giant wind turbines, the station decided that a picture was worth, if not a thousand words, at least thirty seconds of video.
Being out of town would also keep me out of reach of Clay. I’d made knowing where he was part of my routine. And I had nothing to worry about today. The assignment desk told me that my story could run a little longer than usual because Clay had just gone home sick.
The FAA had closed off airspace around the wind farm. So again, no Channel 3 chopper. Malik and I drove fast, not sure if we’d even make it for the money shot.
Predictably, Malik insisted on napping during the drive. So I used the time on the road to call Sally, my Texas Facebook friend, and tell her I could find no trace of Jolene.
She thanked me for staying in touch. “That other reporter promised to call back but never did.”
I couldn’t believe it. After all I had done for her, she was talking to other media. I was plenty pissed. “What other reporter?” I asked.
She said he was called Sam Pierce.
I wasn’t sure I could drive straight the rest of the way, I was so shocked.
Apparently, the gossip columnist had cold-called Sally, looking for scuttle on Clay his first week on the job. So that’s how he always got dirt on the new reporters. Probably phoned door-to-door in their old neighborhood until he found something embarrassing.
“What did you tell Sam about Clay’s marriage?”
“That I couldn’t reach my friend.” She paused like she was replaying the conversation in her mind. “That it seemed strange she wouldn’t have called me once they got settled.”
“Can you remember anything more specific?”
“I might have called him a bully.”
“Anything else?”
“I might have called him a bad husband.”
I could only imagine Sam’s glee at having hit the gossip jackpot with Sally Oaks. “You knew you were talking to a newspaper guy, right?”
“Yes, but I saw him as my only way to get her a message. He seemed so willing to help.”
And she might have sensed a chance to retaliate against Clay.
“When did you talk to Sam?”
Their discussion had happened the day before Sam’s murder. I reminded myself I had every incentive to try to pin that homicide on someone else. I’d gone through heaps of suspect names that ended up nowhere. This could have been more of the same. But I didn’t think so.
I thought Sam had been getting too close to Clay’s secret.
I couldn’t much blame the cops for having the motive wrong in Sam’s homicide.
I had the motive wrong, too.
From the very beginning, the police investigation moved in the direction that the gossip columnist’s murder was for revenge.
Now an entirely different purpose emerged: perhaps the killer needed to keep Sam quiet. Maybe the fatal bullet was a preemptive strike to keep word of Clay Burrel’s missing wife out of the newspaper.
I should have realized that Sam’s death, as a payback crime, would have been unusual because journalists are more at risk before a sensitive story airs, not after. I should have remembered the best time for a scoundrel to stop the presses is before they roll, not after. Afterward the culprit is generally too busy worrying about going to jail, or losing a business, or holding a marriage together, to focus on the luxury of revenge.