The second goal was to attend Sheriff Brown’s press conference on the stalker. Quinn leaned back in his chair. Well, maybe “stalker” was a little strong. Peeping-Tom, perhaps? It didn’t matter. The story had provided him with fodder for two months. A man, always hiding in shadow, spying on houses in Leesburg’s outskirts. More than a dozen people thought they had caught a glimpse of him, and on at least two occasions, police had been called out to find evidence of an attempted break-in.
It was, sad to say, Quinn’s favorite story at the moment. He had slim pickings in the town itself and crime was usually crowded out by Kyle. But Kyle had dismissed the stalker story as unimportant-a phantom no less-and so it had become Quinn’s. And if now it was a story “with legs,” it remained in Quinn’s purview.
He hated the idea that he could be territorial-he despised Helen’s insistence that any article on the board of supervisors go through her first-but good stories were hard to come by.
Though he was not expecting much, he assumed the sheriff would face the normal angry parents and concerned citizens during the conference. Enough for a story. Enough so that Quinn actually had something other than business to write for the week.
He sighed. It was not supposed to be like this.
The phone startled him out of his reverie and for a minute he glared at it like it was some strange alien being. It was so early in the morning, who the hell would be calling him?
“Quinn O’Brion,” he said, picking up the line.
There was silence on the other end.
“Hello?” he asked again.
“Quinn,” the voice said. “I didn't expect you to be there.”
It took a second for Quinn to place the voice.
“Then why were you calling now, Gary?” he asked.
They both knew why. Gary was notoriously hard to catch on the phone, mostly because he hated talking to the press. Quinn was an exception. But Gary still felt that every conversation with Quinn endangered his job with the Leesburg police.
He was probably right.
“Uh…” Gary drifted off.
“It doesn’t matter,” Quinn said quickly, worried Gary would hang up.
“What's going on?”
There was a long silence on the other end.
“Gary?” Quinn asked. “You still with me?”
“Yeah,” Gary said finally. “I’m here.”
“Cat got your tongue?”
“The press conference is off.”
“What? Why? Did they catch him?” Quinn asked hopefully. His pulse quickened as he smelled a good story.
“If they caught him, don’t you think there would be a bigger press conference?” Gary said. “They certainly wouldn’t cancel it.”
“So what’s going on?”
“I’m not sure.”
Quinn waited. This was the best policy with squirrelly sources. Secretly they want to talk. It is just a question of pausing long enough for them to spill it all out.
“There is a lot of commotion,” Gary said after some time had passed.
“What kind of commotion?”
“It’s very hush-hush,” he said. “They won’t tell anybody anything.”
“What do you mean by commotion?”
“Yesterday, they called in a bunch of guys,” Gary said. “But they never told us what it was for. A lot of us were just standing around with nothing to do.”
“So they called in a lot of guys on a Sunday and then didn’t do anything with them?”
“About right,” Gary replied, keeping his voice low. “And then…”
Quinn paused again. It was all he could do not to ask more questions, but he paced himself. It wouldn't do to rush this.
“Then Stu came out. You know Stu, don’t you?”
“Brown’s deputy? The one always hovering around him that looks scared of his own shadow?”
“Er… yeah,” Gary said. “Anyway, Stu came out and told the boys to go home. Said it was a mistake made by a dispatcher or something.”
“That’s weird, but I guess it’s possible…”
“Well, we all thought so too, but… then he said something weird,” Gary said.
The conversation drifted to silence.
Finally Quinn couldn’t take it anymore.
“What did he say?”
“He said that we shouldn't mention this to anybody,” Gary replied. “He said it would be embarrassing if everybody knew about it.”
Quinn laughed.
“Who gives a shit if the dispatcher called in a few guys for no reason?”
“That’s what we thought,” Gary said.
“And then Stu called a couple guys back. Johnny Redacker and the Kaulbach kid. They looked confused and went into his office. We caught up with them later and Kaulbach looked sick.”
“What do you mean?”
“We were at the bar…”
“On a Sunday?”
“Hey, we already had to come into work, why not?”
“Fine, fine,” Quinn said. “What do you mean sick?”
“I was telling you,” Gary said.
“Okay,” Quinn said.
“No sense in me talking to you if you are just going to interrupt,” Gary said again.
“Okay,” Quinn said. “I’m sorry.”
Gary waited.
“I’m really sorry,” he said again.
Gary cleared his throat and continued.
“Kaulbach and Redacker came in and the two of them were all sullen and quiet. That isn’t like Johnny at all, of course, and we were all curious to know what the hell was going on, so we started asking them questions. But they wouldn’t say nothing. Johnny started giving us the procedural bullshit, you know, ‘It’s against policy,’ all that jazz. I swear he is to big for his britches ever since Stu promoted him. Last week, he actually told me…”
“Gary?” Quinn interrupted. It was best to keep the guy on track.
“Right, right,” he said. “So Johnny is clamming up and the whole time Kaulbach looks like he is going to faint or something. Finally, he excuses himself. I went after him, because the kid is new, you know?”
“Also you thought he might spill his guts?” Quinn asked.
“Well, that is what he was doing,” Gary replied. “He was puking his lungs out. I mean really just pouring it out.”
“Okay,” Quinn said. “You don’t need to paint a picture.”
“I asked him if he was okay, you know, after he finished, and he said he was. I asked him what had happened and he said, ‘Stu said we could lose our jobs if we said anything.’”
“That it?”
“Well, then this morning I get in early and I find this voicemail from Stu. It said the press conference today is canceled, and if anybody asked why, I was to tell them that Brown is sick or something.”
“Pretty lame,” Quinn said. “And since when do you handle press? You won’t talk to Kyle so…”
“That cocksucker,” was all Gary said.
“I know what you think of him,” he replied.
“What I think of him? That asshole nearly cost me my job,” Gary said.
“I know, I know…”
There was a significant pause.
“I don’t know why I was in charge of press today,” Gary finally said. “Maybe Fred really is out.”
Or maybe not, Quinn mused. Fred Tipper had a reputation as a leaker on the police force. This was mostly undeserved, since his job was to talk to the press. Or more specifically, Kyle. Gary, on the other hand, had handled press only a few times and his dislike of Kyle Thompson was well known.
Gary didn’t really like any reporters. The only reason he tolerated Quinn was because of a single favor more than a year ago.
“You know something more,” Quinn said. It was not a question.
“Christ,” Gary replied, but said nothing.
“Look, I really appreciate what you’ve said so far,” Quinn began.
“Bullshit,” Gary said. “Bullshit. Reporters are all alike. You butter us up or you dress us down, but you don’t really give a damn. You just want information. You just want a story.”