man might have been my father-in-law.
I tried not to think about how it would leave Mya without a father.
I tried not to think about Paulina's article, written before
Loverne's death. The two had to be related. I was still stunned by the audacity and hatred steaming from Paulina's article, but
Wallace assured me that I would face no repercussions from Gazette management, and if need be they would defend me, publicly. I declined. They'd done enough of that already. After the debriefings, Wallace and I met with the Gazette' s legal team to draft a response for any reporters looking for a quote.
The letter was brief. It said that Paulina's story was careless and inflammatory, and any more attempts by this allegedly balanced news organization to libel without facts would be met with legal reprimands from the Gazette, and moral reprimands from readers who wouldn't tolerate muckraking.
That part was BS. Readers loved muckraking and, as much as it pained us, we knew Paulina's article would sell newspapers.
The details of David Loverne's murder were gruesome in both their brutality and efficiency.
After Paulina's story ran in the Dispatch, in which she alleged that Loverne's history of infidelity would soon come to light, the press corps descended on the man's apartment building eager to take photographs of drawn curtains, berate cleaning ladies and doormen, and try to scrape up the scraps
Paulina had left under the table. When a person was accused of wrongdoing, people didn't try very hard to photograph their good side.
Around five o'clock, Loverne left to attend a previously scheduled fund-raiser. He was swarmed by dozens of reporters. In what would be viewed as a colossal blunder, Loverne had no private security, and the elderly doorman was easily overmatched. As Loverne attempted to push his way through, a lone rifle shot shattered the commotion, blood splashed against the glass doors, and David Loverne died.
The photographers spent their entire rolls shooting Loverne's body, the blood pouring from his chest, as well as the rooftop where it seemed the shot had come from. Several photographers even tried to bully their way into that very building to either catch the culprit or take photographs of the crime scene before the police arrived. Thankfully that doorman was a former cop, realized what was going on and locked the doors.
The shooter was long gone. But by the time the police arrived, hundreds of photos of Loverne's body were circulating among newsrooms, tabloids and the Internet.
I called Curt Sheffield to get the lowdown. He told me one of the investigating officers mentioned that another note had been left by the killer, but it was being kept quieter than a mouse fart. He didn't find it amusing when I asked him if he could hold a megaphone to the mouse's ass to hear it better.
'Doesn't matter if I tell you,' Curt said. 'Guy's as vague as my little sister when I ask her how a date went.'
'He didn't leave a note with Jeffrey Lourdes. Now he changes his tune and leaves one with David Loverne. This is my ex's father, man, cough it up.'
'Again,' Curt said, 'you use this before it's made public,
I'll string you up to a lamppost. The note was just one line.
It read, 'Because I had the power.' That's it.'
''Because I had the power'? That's pretty vague. What's it mean?'
'You're the reporter,' Curt replied. 'You ask me, this guy's been watching too much David Lynch.'
As soon as I hung up with Curt, I did a search for that quote, only adding 'William H. Bonney' to the search field.
What came back was most certainly not vague.
In 1878, corrupt sheriff William Brady arrested Billy the
Kid under the auspices of helping the Kid arrest John
Tunstall's killers. When a reporter asked the lawman why he would arrest Bonney, a seemingly innocent man, Brady replied simply, 'Because I had the power.'
The connection was no longer a secret. This killer wanted us to know he had a foot in the past. The notes and public executions were garnering more media attention than anything I'd seen since coming to the city. Only not exactly in the way I expected.
The country was captivated by these murders, and the obsession had grown with every shot. Internet sites receiving millions of hits a day were all but praising the murderer.
Paradis, many said, was single-handedly responsible for the downfall of popular culture, and, many said, morals and ethics, as well. David Loverne had long claimed to uphold traditional family values, only in reality he had more sexual partners than the average Mormon. Mayor Perez-the intended target-another empty suit full of insincere promises. Jeffrey Lourdes, once a respected visionary, had been reduced to common gossip and smut peddler.
I couldn't believe these attitudes were so prevalent, that murder was being looked at by some as a reasonable means to an end. But they were. Somehow the man destroying lives was actually endearing himself to the public, by eliminating those deemed to be making our society ill. When I read those articles, shook my head at the stories, I knew what the link was. Why the man was killing who he did.
He was an avenger. A Regulator. Killing those who needed to be killed for the greater good.
Could there really be such a large portion of the population convinced that these murders were a good thing? Was it just cynical ghouls who would never know what it was like to lose a daughter, a father, a husband? That the person committing these crimes was not someone to erect a statue for, but rather a gallows?
I thought about Rex. Something was still troubling me about our conversation, but in my rush to return to New York
I hadn't been able to follow up. Before I left, he mentioned a name. Brushy Bill. It sounded familiar for some reason, and
I made a mental note to follow up with Rex later on. I had a full night ahead of me. I wondered when Amanda would be home. I missed talking to her, and hoped to God that everything Jack told me the other day could be chalked up to the ramblings of an old, lonely man. That just because he was going to die alone didn't mean I would. Amanda had saved my life; was my life. And I wouldn't give that up without one hell of a fight.
But then I rounded the corner to my apartment and saw the one thing I never expected to see. I stopped on a dime. Couldn't move. I didn't know what to do or what to say. Whether to go forward and confront it, or to turn and run. The anger inside me rose up, threatened to consume everything, but her tears, the misery etched on her face, they drowned it all out.
So when I saw Mya Loverne standing alone in front of my building, wearing an old sweatshirt, her eyes bleary and red from crying, I didn't know whether to scream at her, or to gather her in my arms and tell her everything would be all right. Like I should have done the night she got hurt. Like I hadn't done for her since.
'Henry,' she sobbed, taking a tentative step toward me. I couldn't move. All I could do was stare at the woman who'd shared my bed so many nights, whose hand I'd held and caressed, who just the other day had thrown me under a bus driven by Paulina Cole. A girl who had just lost her father to a heartless monster. I didn't know what to say to this girl. But then I found myself taking a step forward.
'Henry,' she said again, the sobs now racking her small body. Mya looked like she'd lost at least twenty pounds since
I'd last seen her, and she was a slim girl to begin with. She looked malnourished, pale, like she had given up on herself.
'Henry, I didn't mean to. I didn't mean to say all those things, they just happened. Henry, I'm so sorry. Please, my father, I don't know what to do.'
My heart broke as I watched this, this shell of my former love. I took another step toward her, and she did the same.
'My dad,' she cried, her voice interrupted by staccato sobs,
'my dad was killed. Oh God, Henry, please say something.'
I took another step. I could feel her breath, caught the faint whiff of perfume sprayed on long ago and never washed off.
Her hair was a ragged mess, her eyes streaked and bloodshot.
