And that another colleague is somehow involved.
Dorothy Fowler, the city editor, was the first to spot me as I came in from the stairwell. She jumped from her desk at the raft and came directly toward me.
“Jack, my office, please.”
She changed directions and headed to the wall of glass. I followed, knowing every eye in the newsroom was on me once again. No longer because I was the one that got pink-slipped by the axman. They watched me now because I was the one who might have gotten Angela Cook killed.
We entered her small office and she told me to close the door. I did as instructed and then took the seat directly across the desk from her.
“What happened with the police?” she asked.
No howyadoin’, are you all right or sorry about Angela. Right down to business and I liked it that way.
“Well, let’s see,” I said. “I spent about eight hours being questioned. First by the LAPD and the FBI, then the Santa Monica detectives joined in. They gave me a break for about an hour and then I had to tell the whole story again to the Las Vegas police, who flew in just to talk to me. After that, they let me go but wouldn’t let me go back to my house because it’s still an active crime scene. So I had them take me to the Kyoto Grand, where I checked into a room-and put it on the Times’ tab, since I don’t have a working credit card-took a shower and then walked over here.”
The Kyoto was a block away and the Times used it to put up out-of-town reporters, new hires and job candidates when needed.
“That’s fine,” Fowler said. “What did you tell the police?”
“Basically, I told them what I tried to tell Prendo yesterday. I uncovered a killer out there who murdered Denise Babbit and a woman in Las Vegas named Sharon Oglevy. Somehow, either Angela or I hit a trip wire somewhere and alerted this guy that we were onto him. He then took steps to eliminate the threat. That included killing Angela first and going to Nevada to try to get me. But I was lucky. While I was unable to convince Prendo yesterday, I had convinced an FBI agent that all of this was legit, and she met me in Nevada to talk about it. Her presence kept the killer away from me. If she hadn’t believed me and met with me, you’d be putting together stories about how I killed Angela and went off to the desert to kill myself. That’s what the Unsub’s plan was.”
“Unsub?”
“Unknown subject. That’s what the bureau is calling him.”
Fowler shook her head in stunned disbelief.
“This is an amazing story. Do the police agree with it?”
“You mean, do they believe me? They let me go, didn’t they?”
Her face colored in embarrassment.
“It’s just hard for me to get my head around it, Jack. Nothing like this has ever happened in this newsroom.”
“Actually, the cops probably wouldn’t have believed it if it had just come from me. But I was with that FBI agent most of yesterday. We think we actually saw the guy in Nevada. And she was with me when I got home. She found Angela’s body when we were searching the house. She backed me up on everything with the cops. And that’s probably why I’m not talking to you through Plexiglas.”
Mention of Angela’s body brought a morbid pause to the conversation.
“It’s just horrible,” Fowler said.
“Yes. She was a sweet kid. I don’t even want to think about what her last hours were like.”
“How was she killed, Jack? Like the girl in the trunk?”
“Pretty much. It looked that way to me but I guess they won’t know everything till the autopsy.”
Fowler nodded somberly.
“How are they handling the investigation now, do you know?”
“They were putting together a task force with L.A., Las Vegas and Santa Monica contributing detectives and the FBI taking part as well. I think they are going to run it out of Parker Center.”
“Can we get that confirmed so we can put it in one of the stories?”
“Yeah, I’ll confirm it. I’m probably the only reporter they’ll take a call from. How many inches are you giving me for the story?”
“Uh, Jack, that was one of the things I wanted to talk to you about.”
I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach.
“I’m writing the main story, right?”
“We’re going to go big with this. Main and sidebar on the front going to a double-truck inside. For once, we have a lot of space.”
Double-truck meant two full inside pages. It was a lot of space but it took one of the paper’s own reporters getting murdered to get it.
Dorothy continued the plan.
“Jerry Spencer is already on the ground in Las Vegas and Jill Meyerson is on her way up to Ely State Prison to try to talk to Brian Oglevy. In L.A., we’ve got GoGo Gonzmart writing the sidebar, which will be on Angela, and Teri Sparks down in South L.A. working on a piece on the kid charged with the Babbit murder. We have art on Angela and are looking for more.”
“Is Alonzo Winslow getting out of juvy jail today?”
“We’re not sure yet. Hopefully, it will take another day and we’ll have that to run with tomorrow.”
Even without Winslow getting out, they were going big. Sending Metro reporters out across the west and putting multiple writers on it locally was something I had not seen done by the Times since the fires ravaged the state the year before. It was exciting to be part of it, but not so exciting when considering what caused it.
“All right,” I said. “I have stuff to contribute to almost all of those stories and I’ll still pull together and write the main.”
Dorothy nodded, hesitated and then dropped the bomb.
“Larry Bernard is writing the main, Jack.”
I reacted swiftly and loudly.
“What the fuck are you talking about? This is my story, Dorothy! Actually, me and Angela’s story.”
Dorothy looked up over my shoulder and out to the newsroom. I suspected that my outburst had been heard through the glass. I didn’t care.
“Jack, calm down and watch your language. I’m not going to let you talk to me the way you talked to Prendo yesterday.”
I tried to pace my breathing and speak calmly.
“Okay, I apologize for the language. To you and Prendo. But you can’t take this story away from me. It’s my story. I started it, I’m writing it.”
“Jack, you can’t write it and you know it. You are the story. I need to get you with Larry so he can interview you and then write the story. The switchboard’s taken more than thirty messages from reporters wanting to interview you, including the New York Times, Katie Couric, even Craig Ferguson from the Late Late Show.”
“ Ferguson ’s not a reporter.”
“Doesn’t matter. The point is, you are the story, Jack. That’s a fact. Now, we certainly need your help and your knowledge of everything related, but we can’t let the subject of a major breaking story also write it. You were in police custody for eight hours today. What you told them is the basis of their investigation. How are you going to write about that? Are you going to interview yourself? Write it in first person?”
She paused to let me answer but I didn’t.
“That’s right,” she continued. “Not going to happen. You can’t do this, and I know you understand that.”
I leaned forward and put my face in my hands. I knew she was right. I’d known it before I even entered the newsroom.
“This was supposed to be my big exit. Get that kid out of jail and go out in a blaze of glory. Put the big three-oh on my career.”
“You’re still going to get credit. There is no way the story can be anything but about you. Katie Couric, the Late Late Show-I’d say that’s going out in a blaze of glory.”