Blayney went to the men’s room, washed his hands, finger-combed his hair, and straightened the camera hanging from his neck.
Then he left the club through the back door that opened onto the wide deck fronting the marina. He was imagining the smoking interview he was about to have with Harry Chandler.
Blayney had grown up in Chicago, and after graduating from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern, he had gotten off to a fast start at the LA bureau of the New York Times. Six months ago, he got the offer from the San Francisco Post to aggressively report on crime, and he’d moved up the coast and into a job that fit him like the cover of darkness.
Now he had a prominent platform to do whatever it took to crush the Chronicle ’s dominance in crime reportage and establish himself as a player on the national stage.
Today, Blayney was as stoked as he’d ever been in his life. Yesterday’s ruckus at the Chandler house was the start of a monster story that had legs up to the moon. He’d flattered a traffic cop and gotten a tip, and as far as he knew, he was the first journalist to learn that several heads had been dug up at the Ellsworth compound.
By itself, this information was tremendous on every level, and he was just getting started.
A half hour ago, Blayney had followed Lindsay Boxer from the Ellsworth compound. As soon as she got into her car, he’d been sure that she was going to the yacht club to interview Harry Chandler.
He took his time, and as he headed into the marina, Blayney saw Boxer leaving the slip where Chandler’s boat was docked. Her head was down, her blond hair hanging in front of her eyes as she talked on her phone. Blayney thought of Lindsay Boxer as a character in his story; she was a good cop, but what really got him going was that she was emotional. If he dogged her, she would react and probably lead him into the heart of the story. She could be the heroine or the screwup on both of her active cases. He really didn’t care which.
Either way, Lindsay Boxer had taken him to Harry Chandler.
He took a couple of pictures, but she didn’t notice him.
“Nice one, Sergeant,” he said quietly. “I think you made the front page.”
Chapter 25
Blayney immediately recognized the man heading up the gangway to his yacht wearing denim and walking with a swagger. It was a thrill to actually put his eyes on the actor in real time, real size, the man whose face had been ubiquitous on Court TV for almost two years, a guy who possibly had killed his wife and gotten away with it.
Blayney wanted an interview with Chandler as much as he had ever wanted anything in his life. He pointed his camera and took another couple of shots, then called out, “Mr. Chandler.”
Chandler turned to face him, taking a solid stance on the dock. His hands were curled into fists.
“Yes?”
Blayney opened the unlocked metal gate, said, “Mr. Chandler, I’m Jason Blayney, with the San Francisco Post. I’d like to talk to you.”
“You’re a reporter?”
“How do you do, sir? Mr. Chandler, I’m wondering if you can tell me what’s going on at your house on Vallejo? I’d like to be your advocate, Mr. Chandler. Help you get your side of the story out — ”
“Get off this dock. This is private property.”
Chandler pulled his phone out of his hip pocket, called a number, and said, “This is Harry Chandler. I need security.”
“What I’ve heard is that a number of human skulls have been exhumed from your backyard, Mr. Chandler. Would you care to make a comment?”
Chandler said, “Don’t point that camera at me. I have no comment on or off the record, you get me?”
Blayney moved closer to show that he wasn’t backing down. “Did you kill your wife ten years ago, Mr. Chandler? Did you bury her in your garden? Are any of your past girlfriends buried there too, sir?”
Chandler reached out and grabbed Blayney by the front of his shirt and back-walked him to the edge of the dock. Holding the reporter, Chandler almost pushed Blayney off, then jerked him back to safety, looked down at the collapsed shoulder, and said, “Don’t ever come here again.”
“You’re acting like you have something to hide, Mr. Chandler,” Blayney said, stumbling and pressing forward at the same time.
Chandler said, “Wow, are you stupid.”
The actor shoved the reporter toward the edge again, still holding on to the front of his shirt.
“Don’t do it, Mr. Chandler. My camera. It cost me two thousand dollars.”
Chandler snatched the camera off Blayney’s neck, then pushed the reporter into the water.
The water was shocking, but Blayney was loving this encounter. He spat water, then started laughing. He popped his shoulder back in, then swam to one of the davits and wrapped both arms around it. A life preserver splashed into the water and Blayney grabbed it.
He was still laughing when he called out, “I like how you express yourself, Mr. Chandler. Illegal actions are better than a quote.”
Blayney found a rung of a rope ladder and hauled himself out of the bay, thinking, Oh man, how great is this? Harry Chandler had assaulted him.
He would have given a year’s salary for a picture or a witness. But anyway, the entire incident confirmed the monster quotient of this story.
He picked his camera up off the dock, snapped off some shots of Harry Chandler’s back. Life was good.
Chapter 26
Bec Rollins, a PR biggie from the mayor’s office, was waiting for me when I got back to the Hall. She was sitting in Conklin’s chair.
Bec was intense, fierce, and she didn’t waste time.
“Hi, Bec, what the hell is wrong? And don’t say everything, because that’s my line.”
She gave me a fleeting grin, said, “Sit down, Lindsay. I think you want to see this.”
She showed me her iPad, and I saw a picture of me on the dock walking away from the camera.
“Wait. Where did that come from? This was taken today.”
Rollins scrolled down, showed me the headline on Jason Blayney’s article: “Heads Unearthed at Harry Chandler’s Pad; Boxer Investigates.”
I said, “What?” and began to read. My case was all over the Web. “Bec, Blayney knows what I know. Heads unearthed. Chandler’s house. Chandler’s boat. Someone leaked. But it wasn’t me.”
“I know, I know,” Rollins said. She took back her gizmo, said, “Here’s the thing, Lindsay. Blayney is a juvenile viper. He’s got a license to harass and nothing to lose. I don’t need to tell you how he can spin this story, poison any potential jury pool. He can make things hard for sources to come forward.”
“I’m not cooperating with him, Bec. I didn’t see him.”
“Gotcha. But be aware of him. Here’s what he looks like.”
She showed me the picture of a man in his twenties, dark hair, narrow eyes, a lot of teeth. He looked like a wolverine.
“He’s going to confront you, count on it. When he does, you’ve got to be wise and cool and act as if you’re approachable — but don’t tell him anything unless Brady says okay first.”
“Brady has talked to Blayney. Did you know that?”
“Yes. I knew. Let Brady do the talking for you on both of your cases. And here’s the other thing. Your friend Cindy.”
At the mention of Cindy’s name, my partner left the break room and came toward our desks. Bec Rollins leaned in and finished what she was saying.
