“No. The story wasn’t about me.”
“This is all about you, and your readers should know it. Your article puts the heat on my client to withdraw from the game.”
“How does it do that?”
“You know how. And don’t expect me to spell it out for you so that you can twist it into some nifty quote in tomorrow’s newspaper.”
“I’m not being coy. I’m really at a loss. How does my truthful article about a meeting between your client and Sally Fenning put the pressure on him to renounce his inheritance?”
“Don’t change the subject on me. You should have disclosed your bias.”
“This story was not inspired by bias. It came from a reliable source.”
“That’s the whole point. The source could have had the same bias. Are you really that stupid, or are you just pretending to be?”
“Don’t insult me, Swyteck.”
“Then get off your J-school soapbox and play straight.”
“I’m not going to tell you who my source is.”
“Fine. But you should at least consider the possibility that the whole story is a plant.”
“Planted by whom?”
“By one of the other potential beneficiaries. Any one of them could have simply made the whole thing up and manipulated you and the Tribune into printing something that would disqualify Tatum from inheriting under the will. It’s like Colletti said at the meeting: It just improves everyone’s odds.”
“My source is not another beneficiary.”
Jack stopped at the crosswalk. He hadn’t expected her to tell him anything, and he certainly hadn’t expected that. “How do you know?” he asked.
“I don’t normally go to the police about my stories, but when Rudsky turned up dead last night, I made an exception. Now that I’ve told them, I might as well tell you.”
“Tell me what?”
“A man called me a couple weeks ago. He’s my source.”
“I’ll ask again: How do you know he isn’t one of the other heirs?”
“Because he wants to split the pot with me if I win. Another beneficiary wouldn’t need to strike that deal. They’re already in the game.”
“Well, I’m not going to argue with that, but you’re proving my other point. This person-your source-is clearly biased. He has a stake in your winning the jackpot, so naturally he would say anything that would hurt Tatum and force him to renounce his inheritance.”
“You’re absolutely right.”
“I know I’m right. A newspaper like the Tribune shouldn’t run a story based on a single source who has no credibility.”
“The Tribune would never do that. That’s why I went out and got a second source.”
He paused, almost afraid to ask. “Who?”
She let out a condescending chuckle and said, “Normally I’d tell you to shove it in response to a question like that. But you and your cocky ‘My Client Is Wholly Innocent’ attitude have me pissed enough to tell you this much: If my source were any closer to you…well, let me put it this way, I don’t think there is anyone closer to you.”
Jack was silent, as if she’d just punched him in the chest.
Deirdre said, “Now if you’ll excuse me, I have a deadline to meet.”
She hung up, but Jack didn’t move. He stared at his phone, still trying to comprehend what she’d just said, and the thought sickened him: No one closer.
A transit bus rumbled past him, leaving him in a black cloud of diesel fumes. He hardly noticed. “Holy shit,” he said as he slipped his cell into his pocket.
Forty-five
The conversation with Theo did not go well.
He’d get over it, for sure, and Jack hadn’t been all that accusatory anyway. The more thought Jack had given it, the more impossible it seemed. No way was Theo going to rat out his brother to anyone, much less an overly ambitious reporter. But Jack felt as though he had to at least touch base and completely rule him out as “the source” before confronting the person that Deirdre Meadows had assumed was closer to Jack than anyone else.
“Kelsey?” he said with surprise. “I didn’t know you were coming in today.”
She hadn’t been on the work schedule, but she was in Jack’s office seated on the couch waiting for him when he arrived. “Can I talk with you a minute?” she asked.
“Sure.” Jack pulled up a chair and straddled it, facing her. He’d rehearsed his delivery during the drive into the office probably a dozen times, but he could see from the expression on her face that he was conveying some awkward vibes. “Kelsey, before we go off in some other direction, there’s something I need to know.”
“Please. I know what you’re going to say. This morning-today’s newspaper. The article about Tatum.”
“Yes?” he said tentatively.
Kelsey took a breath, obviously struggling. “I don’t know how to say this to you.”
Jack felt a pain in his stomach, sickened by the thought, but the words came out in anger. He looked her in the eye and said, “Did you talk to Deirdre Meadows?”
She blinked twice, then averted her eyes. And he knew. He wasn’t trying to be judgmental, but he couldn’t help shaking his head in disbelief.
“Why?” he asked.
When she looked up, tears were welling in her eyes. “I was afraid to tell you. I knew you’d think I was an idiot. She tricked me, Jack.”
“Tricked you? How?”
“She called and told me that she already knew that Tatum met with Sally before she was killed. She had all the details that Tatum gave us-the rainy night, the meeting at Theo’s bar where she tried to hire him to kill her. The thing she had dead wrong was the timing. She claimed to have it from a reliable source that the meeting took place less than twenty-four hours before Sally turned up dead. I told her that her source was wrong. And then she got nasty.”
“What do you mean, nasty?”
“She made it absolutely clear that unless I told her differently, she was going to print the story as written: Tatum and Sally met twenty-four hours before her death. I told her she really needed to talk to you, but she said you hadn’t returned her call and she was on deadline.”
“So what did you tell her?”
“I was totally firm. I said, ‘I can’t tell you whether there was a meeting or not. All I can tell you is that there definitely was no meeting twenty-four hours before Sally’s death.’”
“Good answer.”
“But she wasn’t happy with it. She said, ‘Tell me when it happened, or I’m sticking with twenty-four hours.’ I didn’t know what to do, but in the heat of the moment I couldn’t imagine that the smart thing was to stand aside and let her print something I knew was false. So I told her it wasn’t twenty-four hours. It was more like two weeks.”
Jack groaned. “Damn it, Kesley, how could you not have known that she was fishing for confirmation that the meeting had taken place at all?”
“Because she already knew everything about the meeting.”
“She made you think she knew about it. All she had was a rumor. She couldn’t print that. She was bluffing. But after talking to you, she had a source.”
“I’m so sorry.”
“I’m sure you are. But for God’s sake, you can’t let a reporter manipulate you like that.”
“I don’t know what to say. I screwed up. You have to know that I haven’t exactly been in my best frame of mind lately.”
“We’ve all been through a lot.”
“No, you don’t understand.” She sniffled and said, “That man threatened Nate.”
“What?”
“The man who attacked me outside the law library. He said that if Tatum didn’t drop out of the game…” Her voice cracked, as if she couldn’t even say it.
“He’d do what?”
“He said-” She glanced at the framed photograph Jack kept on his desk, her boy perched on Jack’s shoulders. Her lips quivered as she said, “He told me Nate would go the way of Sally’s daughter.”