1978 again if need be. Which reminds me-his offshore nephews could still be tried for murder.”
“No double jeopardy, because it was a mistrial, right?”
“Right.”
“And someone ought to be talking to Lillian Linworth now-try to find out what made her hesitate. You’d think she’d be the one asking for the test.”
I smiled. I had him, and we both knew it.
He rubbed his face. “Damn, you are a pain in the ass.”
“You say that whenever I get you to change your mind about something.”
“Hmm. You better work all this out with Mark Baker, too. And Kelly, if any little bit of this comes near the police department, or even speaks of what it did in the past, you are not writing that part of the story.”
“Absolutely not. Same rules apply.”
After another moment of brooding, he said, “You don’t like Ethan much, do you?”
“No.”
“I hear rumors about password problems on your computer.”
I narrowed my gaze.
“No one in the newsroom told me,” he said, understanding that look perfectly. “I was contacted by computer services. Which, I might add, is a damnable thing, because I would think a certain reporter would know enough to come in here and talk to me about it.”
“Would you? If I didn’t have any proof?”
“No,” he admitted grudgingly. After a long moment, he sighed and said, “Wrigley thinks we’re all getting too old. At first I thought he just wanted young women to sexually harass, since that’s a favorite pastime of his. But he thinks the world of Ethan-thinks of him as the bright new hope of the Express.”
“That’s because Ethan could be his own long-lost son. His moral twin, anyway.”
John smiled. “Maybe. Maybe. Sometimes I look at what Wrigley wants the paper to become, and I’m not sure I want to be a part of that…vision, shall we say? But then I ask myself what the hell else an old newspaperman like me could do with himself.”
“Nothing else anytime soon, I hope. You have the faith of the staff and the board, John. You know the board will oust him if need be. And if I’m wrong and they let him lead us to disaster and the whole paper is sold, then, well, we’ll leave together. I guess we can take up jumping off bridges, or something else that will provide the same adrenaline rush.”
He didn’t say anything.
“Shit,” I said, sitting down. “The board is seriously talking about selling it.”
“Shut up, Kelly. It doesn’t do either of us any good to talk about it, or the newsroom any good to worry about it. Although knowing this bunch, they’ll know about it soon enough. It’s impossible to keep a secret in the newsroom.”
“They won’t hear it from me.”
“I know.”
I looked out beyond his office, back into the newsroom. Most of the lights were out, large areas of the room lit only by the glow of one or two terminals not set to “sleep mode.” At its busiest, the newsroom was never the noisy one I had first worked in, but this quiet, abandoned space was eerily still, even by current standards. I thought of all the men and women who had worked hard as hell for low pay and little thanks, worked to pull thousands of words together to describe the day in Las Piernas, who had done that day after day for more than a century. Who would tell the story of those days if the paper wasn’t here?
I heard and felt the thrum-thrum-thrum of the presses.
Only sleeping, that’s all. The paper had gone to bed, the newsroom was asleep. In a few hours, the early staffers would arrive, and it would start all over again.
“John,” I said. “Let’s make a pact.”
I turned to see that he had been watching me all the while.
He said, “Why do I think I’d be safer making a deal with the devil?”
“I say, no surrender.”
“We both know it may not be up to us.”
“When it comes to that, fine. Not until then.”
He reached out a big paw and we shook on it.
I went through the darkened newsroom to my desk. My voice mail light was blinking, so I checked my messages. I had one from Max, saying he was sorry he missed me. He sounded happy. While I listened to it, John waved to me as he left.
The next five were the usual messages from people who held local political offices, hoping I’d give them some ink.
The last caller didn’t leave his name, and I didn’t recognize his voice. He had called at seven-fifteen. The message was brief.
“I haven’t forgotten you.”
I slammed the receiver into the cradle and backed away from the desk, as if the phone itself were the menace. I was shaking. I told myself I had had dozens and dozens of similar ones over the years. Maybe Wrigley was right, and I was getting too old for this work. I wasn’t as sure as I used to be that no harm would come to me. Harm had come to me over the years, and although I had survived it, I didn’t feel the need to welcome another visit.
The phone rang. I took a deep breath and lifted the receiver.
“Irene?”
“Frank! Oh-I’m just getting ready to leave.”
“What’s the matter?” he asked. “You sound upset.”
I never can fool him. That didn’t stop me from trying.
“Nothing, nothing. In fact, it’s the stupid sort of thing that never used to bother me at all. A crank call on my voice mail, that’s all.”
“Threatening?”
“No threats.” I told him what the caller had said.
“Did you save it?”
“No,” I said. “Sorry, I know that irritates you.”
“Just keep any others, okay?”
“How fun that will be. Where are you?”
“Just outside the front door of the Express. I’ve got the dogs with me in the car. We got tired of sitting around the house.”
“Oh?”
“Okay, I worry about you being downtown alone this late at night, and you know it. It’s a nasty night out, too.”
“To be honest, I’m really relieved you’re here. I’ll come out to where you are and you can take me around to my car.”
“Great,” he said.
I thought of the presses, then said, “Do you think the dogs would be okay in the car by themselves for a few minutes?”
“Sure, I’ll crack the windows for them and hope the seats don’t get soaked.”
“Come inside, then. I’ll meet you at the security desk.”
As I came down the stairs, I saw Frank talking to the night security guard. Frank is about six foot four, lean and muscular. He was dressed in jeans and a sweater. His hair was damp from the rain. He looked damn fine. Best of all, although I am sure that after my long day I looked completely bedraggled, he looked up at me in a way that made me wish the security guard would have to go put out a fire somewhere or something.
The guard, Leonard, is one of Frank’s biggest fans, and it was all I could do to free my husband from the clutches of that applicant to the police academy.
