“What you see is what you get,” DeLuca said. “Cameras don’t lie.”
“Witnesses do,” Jake said.
Still, whatever was caught on camera could be their ace in the hole. Some of the bars that lined one side of Congress Street, not to mention the monolith City Hall itself on the other side, must have security systems. Those videos they could instantly seize.
“So we won’t transport till the ME-” Jake heard two quick beeps of a horn, Kat’s signal she was arriving. Jake knew she hated the siren. No rush for me to get there, she always said. No need to announce another death. “Speak of the devil.”
The gawkers turned, each camera and cell phone now pointed toward North Street and the blocky white van, stenciled in black letters MEDICAL EXAMINER. The right-side wheels jumped the curb onto the sidewalk. The driver’s-side door clanged open, slammed closed. Jane always referred to Dr. Katharine McMahon as one of those Russian dolls in a doll, all dark hair and red lips and curves. Jane and Kat had taken a month or so to reach feminine détente, but they were okay now. Under her white medical jacket, Jake saw that Kat’s hot pink T-shirt said LOVE IT LOCAL.
“See that?” DeLuca whispered. “You bet I will.”
“Have some respect,” Jake said.
“Why start now?” DeLuca said.
“So why’d you leave the Register?”
The very question, word for word, that Jane Ryland feared most. And the very question, word for word, that Jane had no idea how to answer.
Channel 2’s news director, Marshall Tyson, all smiles and pinstripes, office strategically landscaped with award statues and celebrity photos and one duPont gold baton, had sprung it on her, but only after an excruciating half hour of niceties and journalism chitchat, followed by a play-by-play commentary on the A-block of the noon Eyewitness News, the broadcast still under way from the newsroom anchor desk outside his corner office.
“Well, it’s complicated,” Jane began.
Complicated wasn’t even the word. It was a mess, from moment one, a mess.
Jane had walked the gauntlet of speculation, escorted by a chatty assignment desk intern, weaving through the newsroom’s warren of cluttered desks and flickering computer monitors toward Tyson’s office. Jane would be recognized, of course, from back when she was an on-air competitor. In the news business, which “talent” was “crossing the street” to a rival station was the most delicious topic of gossip, even better than who got fired for stealing promotional swag from the mail room, which reporters were getting sued, and why the noon anchor kept so many extra clothes in her office. No outsiders knew the scoop on what happened to Jane at the Boston Register last month. And how could she explain it?
In the midst of triumphant headlines at the Register, her investigation had uncovered a problem close to home. Jane proved a longtime reporter there had been fabricating stories. For years. Bad enough, but the clincher was worse. The newspaper decided to cover it up. Ignore it.
For Jane, that left only two choices.
She could be complicit. Or she could quit.
If she ratted out the paper for using fabricated stories, she’d argued, didn’t it also put articles by all the reporters in question? If the public suspected some were partly fiction, would readers ever believe anything?
So here she was, once again a victim of her own damn ethics. Here she was, at the TV station that used to be her biggest competitor, discussing her third reporting job in five years. Not the most reliable-sounding résumé for a thirty-four-year-old, even in the nomadic climb-the-ladder world of journalism.
The intercom buzzed, and Tyson’s cell phone pinged with a text.
“Sorry, Jane.” The news director tapped on his keyboard with one hand, used the other to grab his phone, tucking it under his chin. “Gotta take this.”
At least this time she wasn’t a supplicant. Marshall Tyson had called her, using a “heard you’re no longer with the paper” opening ploy in his voice mail, followed by “come chat if you’re interested in getting back on the air, if you’re not too busy.”
Busy? Jane had rolled her eyes as she listened to his message. Oh, she was busy. Busy being unemployed again. Busy facing her younger sister’s wedding this coming weekend. Busy entertaining bride-to-be Lissa, arriving in Boston this afternoon. Busy prepping to meet her sister’s fiancé, “Dan the man of mystery,” Jane privately called him, who’d arrive whenever Daniel Fasullo’s corporate jet landed from whatever exotic overseas location. Busy preparing for a trip home to the Chicago suburbs to play maid of honor.
The good news: Jake had promised to come with her to Chicago. This weekend.
Now that she was unemployed, and therefore no longer encumbered by the reporter/source prohibition against dating, she and Jake had been experimenting with going public with their… whatever it was. Relationship. Still being careful. But not always hiding.
Tyson was still deep in his phone conversation, looking out into the newsroom as he spoke. Jane followed his gaze, saw three young women at the assignment desk with two phones each plastered to their ears. Something was going on.
“When?” Tyson glanced at her, rolling his eyes in apology. She waved him off. She understood news came first. Anyway, it gave her time to think.
If Channel 2 offered her a job, did she want to go back to TV? Her bank account could certainly use the paycheck. And if the good guys quit, who’d be left? Maybe she could make a deal with Tyson to do only in-depth stories, groundbreaking investigative stuff.
Yes or no? Saying yes would mean she and Jake would have to return to the shadows. Right now, in this news director’s office, she had to decide: Love or money? Seemed like she was doomed not to have both.
But wait.
She could simply say maybe. Consider it, talk to Jake. If Channel 2 wanted her, they would wait. She mentally acknowledged her own wisdom, patted herself on the emotional back. She had control of her life. She needed to remember that.
Tyson raised a palm to her, pantomiming sorry, one moment, as he stood. His door opened. The newcomer, horn-rims and oxford shirt, clipboard, looked at Jane, assessing.
“Sorry to interrupt, Marsh, but-”
“We got anyone who can go over there?” the news director asked. He’d hung up the phone without saying good-bye. “Jane, this is Derek Estabrooks, our assignment guy. Derek? Anyone?”
“Negative, that’s the thing. Hey, Jane.” He acknowledged her with a quick up and down. “We got the morning crews doing outta-town live shots for the noon, and the next shift is the two thirty people, so we’re kinda screw-”
“You ever do freelance, Jane?” The news director, interrupting, pointed a forefinger at her. “We’ve got a big story we can send you on. Right now. You up for it? But we gotta have an answer. Right now. Yes or no?”
2
He’d gotten the shot. Totally what happened-well, not exactly totally, maybe. Bobby hadn’t been at Curley Park from the exact moment one. But how cool was it that the bus was late, and he’d been running behind for class anyway, and he always had his camera ready just in case. And blam, he’d clicked off, like, twenty shots in a row.
Had he gotten a good one of the stabbing? Of the person running away? He thought so, even just the back of him. Or her. He couldn’t wait to see, but he couldn’t take the time to check yet. If he had? This’d be big.
Bobby Riaz tried to look small and inconspicuous, his RED SUX T-shirt, with, like, the same typeface as Red Sox, so people sometimes didn’t get it, morons, was pretty much covered by his work shirt. Plus, nobody was looking at him right now. They were all looking at the dead guy under the Curley statue.