“I think I’m always the one to break every story. In this particular case, the story needs to be told and I want to be the one to tell it.”
He nodded and flashed a small smile. “Just be careful. If you think you’re going down to that halfway house again, take me with you. I won’t step on your toes. I promise to hang back.”
“If I decided to head back down there — and that’s a big if now because I have other things to focus on — I will enlist your services.”
“Thank you.”
“Just for this story,” I cautioned. “I reserve the right to do whatever I want in the future.”
“I agree to your terms. Now hand me those blueberries. I’m starving and you’ll need fuel for whatever you have planned for the day.”
I WENT TO THE OFFICE AND CORNERED Fish as my first order of business. He was in the conference room looking over art for the front page. He scowled when he realized who had joined him.
“You missed the reporters’ meeting this morning.”
He acted as if that was something new. “I was busy.”
His glare was dubious. “Were you chasing contacts before the sun even rose this morning?”
“First, it’s December in Michigan. We almost never see the sun rise.”
“Fair point.”
“Second, I was dealing with some ... fallout ... from last night.”
“Oh, geez.” He groaned. “Do I want to know what you were up to last night?”
“Probably not, but we’re getting into a gray area and I want to see what you think.” I shut the door. “A lot has happened.” I laid everything out precisely. When I finished, Fish looked stunned.
“Wow.”
“Yeah.” I nodded. “But I got all that information off the record, so we can’t use it yet.”
“Obviously not.”
“We’ll be able to use it eventually, so we have to come up with a plan.”
“You know as well as I do that all of this is contingent upon whether or not that undercover deputy was playing for the right side. It’s either going to be a great tragedy or karma coming home to roost. Until we know, we’re stuck.”
“That’s another reason I wanted to talk to you,” I said. “I meant to bring it up the other day but got sidetracked when you saddled me with the intern from hell.”
“She’s a nice girl and you’re a big meanie.”
“You say tomato.”
“I say that you’re a big meanie,” he countered. “You’ve crushed that poor girl’s spirit. She’s not even sure she wants to be a reporter now.”
“If she can’t take a little pushback then she has no business being a reporter.”
“You only think that because you have no fear,” Fish argued. “Other people, normal people, suffer doubt sometimes. Your ego refuses to let you believe that you’re anything other than perfect.”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
His expression was grim. “All that poor girl wants is to learn from the best, yet you refuse to spare even five minutes of your precious time. It’s disappointing.”
I knew what he was doing. Unfortunately for him, my mother had long since ascertained that shaming me was impossible. He’d yet to learn. “I’m sorry you’re disappointed.”
“So you’ll work with her?”
“No.” I was firm. “She’s annoying and this is getting serious. Eliot and I were shot at last night. Do you really want to put her at risk?”
Fish snorted. “You were in the vicinity of a drug dealer who was shot. Let’s not exaggerate.”
“It’s still a dangerous situation. She doesn’t understand how to handle herself with people she considers beneath her social level. She’ll get in the way.”
Fish held my gaze and then nodded. “Fine. I’ll keep her otherwise engaged.”
“Thank you.”
“But only until this story breaks wide open,” he cautioned. “You will be spending time with her after this, even if I have to assign you to cover sports again in an effort to keep her safe.”
“I was almost killed covering sports.”
He inclined his head. “Is that all? If you’re asking for guidance on what to do with the information you have, you’re on your own. All I can tell you is to keep at it. I want to know of anything new you uncover. The rest is on you.”
“You’re such a helpful guy.” I rolled my eyes. “That’s not all. I really do have something else I want to talk to you about.”
“I can’t wait to hear it.”
The sarcasm wasn’t lost on me, but I let it go. “You had inside information on Beau Burton back when his story first broke. I heard you talking to Marvin about it.”
He looked taken aback. “I don’t know that I would call it inside information. My wife serves on a lot of boards with some of the women scammed by Burton. It was gossip more than anything else.”
“I love gossip.” I forced a placating smile that I didn’t feel. Getting people I knew to trust me wasn’t always easy.
“I only heard stories about the women who were taken in by him,” Fish insisted. “I wouldn’t have thought it possible, but apparently they fell for his ridiculous story.”
“Were CeeCee Green and Janet Olsen on that list?”
Fish’s eyes widened. “No. Where did you hear that?”
“Directly from the source on both counts.”
“Not that I’m not intrigued to hear that story, but I thought you were convinced that Burton’s death had something to do with this drug ring.”
“I am convinced that’s why he died. I’m not ready to ignore the fact that he scammed a bunch of powerful women. If I were on the receiving end of what he did, I might want a little payback.”
“You would definitely want payback, but you wouldn’t get it by killing him. You would force him to pay in other ways.”
That was true. “What if one of these women figured out what Burton was doing and tried to hide his death behind a drug hit?”
The question had Fish raising one eyebrow. “Really? I can’t imagine CeeCee paying someone to kill extra people to get at Burton. I know her a little. She’s pretty straightforward.
