in his office, a tidy second-floor room with two chairs, a metal desk, and a spectacular view of the bay. “I was assigned to Skell when he lived here. I'll do whatever I can to help you.”
“What do you know about Neil Bash?” I asked.
“The shock jock?”
“Yes. What can you tell me about him?”
Saunders was animated and didn't appear to enjoy sitting down. I recognized the trait and followed him to the window. We both stared out at the bay's choppy water.
“Bash was a twisted guy,” Saunders said. “He seemed to get his kicks out of making his listeners uncomfortable. One time he had a hog castrated on his show. The station got fined two hundred grand by the FCC.”
“Was he arrested?” I asked.
“Believe it or not, he didn't break any laws. The hog was to be castrated anyway. Bash just played it on the air.”
A team of rowers with a coxswain passed by the building. When they were gone, Saunders said, “Okay, so how are Bash and Skell connected?”
“They lived in Tampa at the same time, and now Bash is promoting Skell on his radio show in Fort Lauderdale while attacking me.”
Saunders's eyebrows went up. “Sounds like you're onto something.”
“I hope so,” I said. “I heard Bash got run out of Tampa a while back. Something to do with an nderage girl. Is he a pedophile?”
“He never showed up on our radar.”
“Do you remember what the deal with the girl was?”
Saunders crossed his arms and gave it some thought.
“No, but I know someone who probably does,” he said.
Saunders picked up the phone on his desk and called a feature writer at the
“That was about three years ago,” Haber said. “If I remember correctly, one of the newscasters over at Fox broke the story.”
“What happened?” Saunders asked.
“A sixteen-year-old cheerleader at Plant High School accused her history teacher of having an affair with her,” Haber said. “Somehow, Bash got the girl to call his show, then tricked her into saying that she'd initiated the relationship and that the teacher wasn't to blame.”
“How did Bash do that?” I asked.
There was a pause as Haber dredged his memory.
“It had something to do with the equipment Bash had in his studio,” the reporter finally said. “I don't remember how, but he used a piece of equipment to get the girl to say things that she really didn't mean to say.”
“You're saying he manipulated her answers,” I said.
“That's right,” Haber replied.
“Wouldn't the girl have known what Bash was doing?”
“Somehow she didn't know. From what I remember, Bash did something that was really clever.”
“Was this a live show?” I asked.
“Yeah, it was live,” Haber said.
I thought back to Melinda's call-in performance to Bash's show the day before. Her answers had sounded strained, and there had been pregnant pauses between them. I wondered if this played into what Haber had just described.
“Who was the reporter over at Fox?” Saunders asked.
“Kathy Fountain,” Haber said.
Saunders glanced at me. “I know Kathy. Want to take a ride over to the station and have a chat with her?”
“Absolutely,” I said.
“We need to run,” Saunders told Haber. “Thanks for your help.”
“Anytime,” Haber said.
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE
I followed Saunders to the Fox News station on bustling Kennedy Boulevard. The building was sleek and ultramodern, with large tinted windows that faced the street and a hundred-foot-tall white tower with the station's number, 13, printed on its side. My impression of Tampa as a sleepy burg was changing, one piece of architecture at a time.
I parked in the shaded Visitors parking area. Buster was still put out, and he refused to make eye contact with me.
Saunders and I went through a revolving door into the building's main reception area. The receptionist was a white-haired guard with an engaging smile. A small sign on his desk said Director of First Impressions. Saunders asked to see Kathy Fountain while displaying his badge and laminated ID. The guard pointed at the flat-screen TV hanging over our heads.
“She's in the studio doing her show. I'll tell her assistant you're here. Please have a seat.”
We sat on a leather couch and watched Kathy Fountain interview two guests in her studio. An attractive woman in her early forties, she was blond and fair skinned, and had the sympathetic manner of someone who'd raised kids.
At one o'clock her show ended. Sixty seconds later she was standing in front of us, out of breath.
“Hello, Scott,” Fountain said. “Is something wrong?”
“We need your help with an investigation,” Saunders said.
“Certainly,” she said.
“This is Jack Carpenter,” Saunders said. “He's working with me.”
A flicker of recognition registered in Fountain's face, and I was glad that I was with Saunders, and not by myself.
“I'd like to talk to you about Neil Bash,” I said.
Fountain rolled her eyes. “Neil was one sick, sick man.”
“So I hear.”
“Has he done something wrong? It wouldn't surprise me.”
“Yes,” I said. “Is there someplace we can talk in private?”
“My office. Follow me.”
Fountain took us to her office on the other side of the large mazelike building. The shades were drawn, and the air-conditioning was turned down low. A family photo sat on her desk, confirming my earlier suspicions. Saunders and I remained standing, as did she.
“Gary Haber at the
Fountain crossed her arms in front of her chest, and her pleasant demeanor vanished. “A local high school girl had an affair with her history teacher. One day the affair became public, and the history teacher was arrested. Somehow, Bash got the girl to call his show. Although the show was broadcast live, there was a fifteen-second time delay on the broadcast, which let Bash bleep out crank calls and obscenities. Bash used that delay to manipulate the girl's answers. He asked questions like ‘You asked your history teacher to sleep with you, didn't you?’ The girl said no, and Bash said, ‘So you didn't ask him to sleep with you?’ The girl said yes, and Bash would bleep out the first answer and substitute the second. It made listeners think the girl had said yes to the first question, when she
