It was time to tell Martin Sandoval, the photo editor.
That morning, Tommy met with Sandoval and the publisher. The executive editor—never a friend to Tommy—was purposefully excluded.
“So, this son-of-bitch is targeting college boys?” the publisher, a man in his late sixties with a gray crew cut, said, pushing back his chair. His fingers were tapping on his desk as he rolled the wheeled chair from side to side.
“Yes,” Tommy said. “Specifically, frat boys.”
“Is that the only connection between the victims so far?”
Parker nodded. “And they are all from different frat houses.”
The publisher trained his steely gaze on Parker. “How close are you? What do you got?”
“Confirmed by police. Quote from FBI specialist brought in. Interviews with friends at frat. Interviews with friends they were with that night. Family interviews. All but today’s victim. I’m meeting them in two hours. Once I plug their interview in, we’re good to go,” Parker said. “Rock solid.”
“We go big–front page, top of the fold. Tomorrow,” the publisher had made up his mind quickly. “It’s only a matter of time before this goes viral. Digging up bodies of dead teenagers is not something anyone is going to be able to keep under wraps. St. James, you get a byline. Now, get to work. Sandoval, work on the inside spread. I want photos of all the victims and brief bios.”
The publisher turned away and looked out his window. He was done.
Parker and Tommy worked late into the night.
Meg lingered around the photo department, pretending to find things to do until about nine. Finally, after numerous attempts to interject herself into Parker and Tommy’s conversation, she got tired of Parker’s inattention and went home.
“The bloom’s off the rose?” Tommy said gesturing to Meg’s form retreating out the back door.
“Huh?” Parker looked confused. Then he realized what Tommy was getting at. “Yeah. She’s a little too intense for me. Actually, I’m a little afraid to totally break it off. She’s unusually—actually creepily—close to her brother. Maybe Flowers in the Attic-close, I’m not sure. And he’s a loose cannon. Just got out of lock down. He pushed me up against the wall and said if I didn’t help Meg keep her job here I’d have to answer to him.”
“What the hell?”
“He was especially angry that you had this assignment instead of Meg. He kept saying it was for her. That it was for her.”
“That’s whacked,” Tommy said, a shiver running down her bare arms. “For her, huh?”
The phone rang and Tommy was distracted from her wariness about Meg and Meg’s weird brother.
As the night went on, Parker and the editors hashed over every word while Tommy and Sandoval examined every possible picture.
“You can’t run that one,” Tommy said, putting her hands on her hips.
“It’s your best shot.” It was a shot of the coroner’s officials loading a body in a body bag into a van with an opened casket and open grave nearby.
“It will kill the parents to see that as an eight by ten.”
“You’re right.”
“How about the shot of the detective overseeing them carrying the casket from the grave over near the car. It says the same thing but doesn’t shout it. No lumpy body bag.”
“Okay.”
Tommy also called Costello.
“Tomorrow.”
He sighed. “Okay. I’ll warn everyone.”
The next morning, the story had gone viral.
Although no other print media had the story, every TV and radio station in the state of Minnesota was holding up the Twin Cities News or reading it verbatim.
Parker and Tommy monitored the coverage from the newsroom while working on other assignments. In newspaper, you were only as good as your next story.
Tommy was busy putting together a photo essay on a new art exhibit when Parker called her. He was across the newsroom standing up at his desk.
She picked up the phone. “Look,” he said.
He pointed to the big TV screen that took up one whole newsroom wall.
And just like that, the story had gone national. All the national morning news shows were reporting the slayings. Soon, calls came in asking for Parker to be on the air the next morning to talk about the slayings.
But Parker was busy writing about the uprising from parents of college kids. Concerned mothers and fathers from across the country were talking about pulling their children out of the university.
One mother had actually made her daughter drop out and fly home to Virginia just that morning.
University officials were furious. At the police. At the newspaper.
That afternoon, the publisher, Parker, and Tommy met with the school president in the newspaper conference room. There was nothing good about that. He accused them of spreading unfounded rumors and instigating widespread panic. Tommy was usually accused of those exact actions at least two or three times a year. What else was new?
For one, the publisher had her back.
By the time they left the meeting, Tommy’s stomach was grumbling. In the chaos of the past twenty-four hours, she’d completely forgotten to eat.
“I’m starving.” Tommy said, grabbing her bag and walking out. She was nearly to her Jeep when the beefy blond cop in an unmarked Crown Victoria gave her a jaunty salute. She’d forgotten. She was being tailed. She decided to ignore him. No sense encouraging him.