Hocus

“Maybe so.” Cassidy hesitated, then said, “Just so you know, I never did believe Frank leaked that story last week.”

“That puts you in a group that’s just about the same size as the one that didn’t like the Hopalong joke.”

“No, larger than that, although it might not have felt that way to Frank. Frank’s problems with Lieutenant Carlson aren’t exactly a secret, you know. Give the others some credit for figuring out that some of the crap Frank got about that story was just political.”

I looked away. “That all seems so ridiculously petty now.”

“Yeah, I suppose it does.”

We ate in silence for a moment. I should say Cassidy ate while I stirred my soup.

“Let’s go back to what you want us to do for your newspaper,” he said.

“If Mark doesn’t know about the Riverside connection yet, let me at least tell them they need to look around out there.”

“No problem.”

“Second, let them publish any photos we can find of Neukirk and Ryan, any that show what they look like today. Ask for the public’s help in learning their whereabouts. Maybe someone saw them driving to Frank’s Volvo, or saw them after they left the parking lot of the Express. Maybe someone has seen them out shopping for groceries. You never know. This could end up helping you.”

“We will most likely be handing the photos out in a press conference anyway — this evening, if I don’t miss my guess.”

“Okay, but let me give the Express just a little more. The other media will assume that the Express is going to have some advantage with the great good fortune of having a reporter on the inside.”

“All hell is going to break loose out here, isn’t it?”

I nodded. “They’ll catch wind of this any time now anyway. Brandon’s probably calling an editor at the Californian while we sit here. But we still don’t know what Hocus wants, and I’m not likely to tell anyone other than the Express — unless it’s to Frank’s benefit to do so.”

“Why, Ms. Kelly, you surprise me.”

He didn’t look so surprised. “Do you have any problem with what I’ve proposed?”

He shook his head. “No, not really.”

I realized what I had been sensing in him for the last few moments. “You’re disappointed in me, aren’t you? You’re asking yourself how I could be thinking of writing a story about my own husband’s abduction.”

He didn’t say anything.

“Well, I don’t want to write about it. I wish I could just leave the reporting to somebody else. I wish I could believe for a minute that all of the media coverage will only be helpful, that none of my colleagues will do anything that will bring harm to Frank. But that’s not the way it works.”

“No, I suppose not.”

“John Walters won’t give up. I’ve worked with the man for years. He didn’t get to where he is today by backing down. He’ll be after me every ten minutes if I don’t beat him to the punch. I don’t need that distraction. I need to stay focused on Frank. The only way I can buy a little breathing room is to make John an offer.”

After a moment he said, “Ever hear of the Hickman case?”

I shook my head.

“Took place in L.A. in the late 1920s. One of California’s most notorious kidnapping cases, up until Patty Hearst was taken. Hickman abducted a banker’s daughter, Marian Parker. When he collected the ransom from the banker, Hickman was in a car, and Marian — she was twelve — seemed to be asleep on the seat next to him. Hickman told the girl’s father that he was just going to drive down the street a ways, and then he’d release the girl. He did. But when Marian’s father unwrapped the blanket she was in, he discovered she was dead, and that Hickman had amputated her legs.”

“This is not the kind of story I need to hear right now.”

“I’ve already told you that we don’t always have happy endings in this kind of situation — you need to accept that anything can happen. But that’s not my point. There’s more to the story.”

“Please—”

“Needless to say, there was a great hue and cry, and when Hickman was arrested in Oregon and brought back to Los Angeles, thousands of angry citizens were waiting at the train. For one week at a vaudeville stage in L.A., you could pay to hear the Oregon detectives tell the story of Hickman’s arrest. Every paper in the country sent a reporter to cover the trial.

“But one writer who was asked to cover the trial didn’t accept the invitation. Will Rogers. He wrote a letter to the New York Times. He said he wanted to die claiming only one distinction — that of being the only writer to refuse newspaper offers to cover the Hickman trial. He thought each town ought to be ashamed of the crimes that were committed there. Instead, he said, ‘Every town tries to make their murder the biggest one of the year….’ ”

I looked away from him, then said, “Yeah? Well, I can’t do rope tricks worth a shit, either.”

He laughed. “I don’t know many myself.”

I stirred my soup again. “Tell me what’s being done — I’m not asking this as a reporter, I’m asking as Frank’s wife.”

“What’s being done? You mean, aside from what you and I are doing?”