"No, I'm out from Denver."
"Well, what can I do you for?"
"I need to talk to Nathan Ford or maybe whoever is directly handling the police suicide study."
"Police suicide. That's an FBI project. Oline Fredrick's the researcher handling that with them."
"Yes, I know the FBI is involved."
"Let's see." He picked up the desk phone but then put it back down. "You know, you didn't call ahead on this, did you? I don't recognize the name."
"No, I just got into town. It's a breaking story, you could say."
"Breaking story? Police suicide? That doesn't sound like deadline stuff. Why the hurry?"
Then it struck me who he was.
"Did you used to work for the L.A. Times? The Washington bureau? You that Michael Warren?"
He smiled because he, or his name, had been recognized.
"Yes, how'd you know?"
"The Post-Times wire. I've been scrolling it for years. I recognized the name. You covered Justice, right? Did good stuff."
"Until a year ago. I quit and came here."
I nodded. There was always a moment of uneasy silence when I crossed paths with somebody who had left the life and was now on the other side of the line. Usually, they were burnouts, reporters who grew tired of the always-on-deadline and always-need-to-produce life. I once read a book about a reporter written by a reporter who described the life as always running in front of a thresher. I thought it was the most accurate description I'd read. Sometimes people got tired of running in front of the machine, sometimes they got pulled in and were left shredded. Sometimes they managed to get out from in front of it. They used their expertise in the business to seek the steadiness of a job as a person who handled the media rather than was part of it. This is what Warren had done and somehow I felt sorry for him. He had been damn good. I hoped he didn't feel the same regret.
"You miss it?"
I had to ask him, just to be polite.
"Not yet. Every now and then a good story comes along and I wish I was in there with everybody else, looking for the odd angle. But it can run you ragged."
He was lying and I think he knew I knew it. He wanted to go back.
"Yeah, I'm beginning to feel it some myself."
I returned the lie, just to make him feel better, if that was possible.
"So what about police suicides? What's your angle?"
He looked at his watch.
"Well, it wasn't a breaking story until a couple days ago. Now it is. I know you only have a few minutes but I can explain it pretty quickly. I just… I don't want to be insulting but I'd like for you to promise me what I say here is in confidence. It's my story and when it's ready, I'm going to break it."
He nodded.
"Don't worry, I understand completely. I won't discuss whatever it is you are going to tell me with any other journalist unless that other journalist specifically asks about the same thing. I may have to talk about it with other people here at the foundation or in law enforcement, for that matter. I can't make any promise in that regard until I know what we are talking about."
"That's fair."
I felt myself trusting him. Maybe because it is always easy to trust somebody who has done what you have done. I also think I liked telling what I'd learned to somebody who would know its value as a story. It was a form of bragging and I wasn't above it. I started.
"At the start of this week I began working on a story about police suicide. I know, it's been done before. But I had a new angle. My brother was a cop and a month ago he supposedly committed suicide. I-"
"Oh, Jesus, I am sorry."
"Thank you, but I didn't bring it up for that reason. I decided to write about it because I wanted to understand what he had done, what the police in Denver said he had done. I went through the routine, pulled clips on a Nexis search and, naturally, I came up with a couple references to the foundation's study."
He tried to surreptitiously look at his watch and I decided to get his attention.
"To make a long story short, in trying to find out why he killed himself I found out he didn't."
I looked at him. I had his attention.
"What do you mean, he didn't?"
"My investigation has so far determined that my brother's suicide was a carefully disguised murder. Someone killed him. The case has been reopened. I have also linked it to a supposed cop suicide last year in Chicago. That one also has been reopened. I just came in from there this morning. The cops in Chicago and Denver and I think that somebody might be moving around the country killing cops and making it look like suicide. The key to finding the other cases may be in the information collected for the foundation's study. Don't you have all the records on cop suicides for the whole country over the last five years?"
We sat in silence for a few moments. Warren just stared at me.
"I think you better tell me the long story," he finally said. "No, wait."
He held up his hand like a crossing guard signaling stop, picked up the phone with the other and pushed a speed-dial number.
"Drex? Mike. Listen, I know this is late but I'm not going to make it. Something's come up over here… No… We'll have to reschedule. I'll talk to you tomorrow. Thanks, bye."
He put down the phone and looked at me.
"It was just a lunch. Now tell me this story of yours."
A half hour later, after he had made some calls to set up a meeting, Warren led me through the labyrinth of the foundation's hallways to a room marked 383. It was a conference room and already seated there were Dr. Nathan Ford and Oline Fredrick. The introductions were quick and Warren and I sat down.
Fredrick looked like she was in her mid-twenties with curly blond hair and an uninterested air about her. I immediately paid more attention to Ford. Warren had prepped me. He said any decisions would be made by Ford. The foundation director was a small man in a dark suit but he had a presence that commanded the room. He wore glasses with thick black frames and rose-tinted lenses. He had a full beard of uniform gray that perfectly matched his hair. He didn't move his head as much as he did his eyes when he followed our movements as we entered and took seats around the large oval table. He had his elbows on the table and his hands clasped together in front of him.
"Why don't we get started," he said once the introductions were over.
"What I'd like to do is just have Jack tell you both what he told me a little while ago," Warren said. "And then we'll go from there. Jack, you mind going over it again?"
"Not at all."
"I'm going to take some notes this time."
I told the story in pretty much the same detail as I had with Warren. Every now and then I would remember something new and not necessarily significant but I would throw that in anyway. I knew I needed to impress Ford because he would be the one to decide whether or not I got Oline Fredrick's help.
The only interruption during the telling came from Fredrick. When I spoke of my brother's death, she mentioned that the protocol from the DPD on the case had been received the week before. I told her she could now toss it in the trash can. When I was finished reciting the story, I looked at Warren and raised my hands.
"Anything I missed?"
"I don't think so."
We both looked at Ford then and waited. He hadn't moved much during the telling. Now he raised his clasped hands and gently bumped them repeatedly against his chin as he thought. I wondered what kind of doctor he was. What do you have to be to run a foundation? More politician than doctor, I thought.
"It's a very interesting story," he said quietly. "I can see why you are excited. I can see why Mr. Warren is excited. He was a reporter for most of his adult life and I think the excitement of the story remains in his blood sometimes, possibly to the detriment of his current profession."
He didn't look at Warren as he delivered this blow. His eyes stayed on me.
"What I don't understand, and therefore the reason I don't seem to share the same excitement as you two, is what this has to do with the foundation. I'm not clear on that, Mr. McEvoy."