Well, Shafer thought, we’ll just have to fill up the tables with people who left the Gazette but stayed in Bessemer. There’s plenty of them, Will thought ruefully. The publisher won’t know the difference with a few martinis in him.
His secretary approached. “Do you want to see Jenifer Hurley now?” she asked.
“Give me five minutes, okay? Then fetch her. I need to sweep out my mental cobwebs.”
Jenifer Hurley was the reporter whose mistake had appeared the day before in the housing series. Will Shafer could see her profile as she sat at her desk some fifty feet away. She was making a big project out of scanning the paper and eating a muffin.
Trying to be nonchalant, Shafer thought. Is she scared about what I’m going to say to her? Or is she psyching herself so she won’t show her contempt for me? Both?
Will Shafer wondered if Jenifer Hurley was contemptuous of him. It was the nature of most young reporters to feel that way about high-ranking editors, especially if a reporter had the extra cutting edge that sometimes defined talent.
And Jenifer Hurley had talent, probably as much as any reporter he had known. Intelligence, drive, curiosity—she had all of those in abundance. More: she had a certain shrewdness, an alertness that seldom strayed into cynicism and never into naiveté. Will Shafer knew that because he had seen a lot of her unedited copy. Jenifer Hurley was a graceful writer whose prose was almost never elephantine or bumpy. Yes, she had gifts that could not be taught. What he hoped to teach her was a little patience.
Should he talk to her in his private office, set a few yards off the newsroom? Yes. He picked up his phone, buzzed, and instructed his secretary. “Marie, wait another few minutes, then send her in.”
Will’s office was cluttered, cramped really, with plaques and pictures on the walls and a picture on the desk of his wife, Karen, kneeling in the backyard with her arms around their young son and daughter. The view from the single window was gray: the wall of the Gazette printing plant right across the alley and if he stretched his neck, a parking lot.
Will Shafer poured himself coffee from the pot in the corner, knowing from the pot’s weight that there was plenty of coffee for Jenifer Hurley. He would offer her some to put her at ease.
“Knock knock,” Jenifer Hurley said in the doorway.
“Hi, Jenifer. Come on in and sit down.”
In the two or three seconds it took Jenifer Hurley to pass in front of his desk and settle herself in the chair, Will Shafer admired her athletic body, her wide, smooth face framed by crow-black hair, her glorious youth. She wore no makeup and didn’t need it: the ice-blue eyes that shone with intelligence and character (not to mention a trace of arrogance) were jewels enough.
She looked at him, her head slightly cocked, smiled slightly with closed lips, and waited.
“Would you like a cup of coffee? I’m having one.”
“No … well, yeah, thanks. That sounds good.”
Will got up, found a clean cup at the corner table, then saw that there was no powdered milk.
“Just black is fine,” Jenifer Hurley said.
He set the coffee down on the edge of his desk right in front of her. He thought she looked absolutely gorgeous in her tomato-red sweater and faded blue jeans. What would she think of him if she knew he was seeing a psychiatrist? That she made him wish he were young again and could ask her to go out with him? Would she?
Looking at her made him feel at once protective, so much so that he wanted to put his arm across her shoulders, and sad. Because he felt that Jenifer Hurley, were she and he to suddenly, magically, be the same age instead of two decades apart, would not give him the time of day. Might laugh at him.
“Pretty bad coffee, isn’t it?” Will Shafer said.
“I’ve had worse.”
Where? the executive editor wondered. With whom? His place or yours? Do you talk to your boyfriend about me?
“Jenifer, I had an unpleasant chat with the publisher this morning. He’s an early riser, you know.”
“No, I didn’t.”
Will saw that she was holding tight to her composure, saw, too, the vulnerability in her eyes.
“Yeah, he is. Sometimes I wish he wasn’t. He took some flak from his friends over the error in your story.” How much to tell her? As much as I can. “Jenifer, the publisher wanted me to convey to you the importance of accuracy in a sensitive story like this, and he wanted me to assure him, frankly, that I still had faith in your reporting.”
“And?”
Doing her best to sound defiant, Will thought. Good for her.
“So, Jenifer, I hereby convey to you the importance of accuracy in a sensitive story. And as for your reporting—”
His phone buzzed. “Excuse me, Will, Charlie Stark on line one from the composing room. He says it’s urgent.”
Will Shafer frowned, picked up the phone, and braced himself.
“Will, there’s a problem, a bad problem, in the Sunday travel section.” The voice on the other end was frantic. “The preprint is rolling right now.”
In the background, Will heard the presses, like trains in the distance. That meant he had to find out now what the problem was, decide in two seconds what to do about it, then take the heat from the publisher later—no matter which way he decided. If he stopped the presses, it would cost money. If he didn’t, another mistake would be added to the Gazette’s ever-burgeoning collection.
“Tell me in a few words, Charlie. Just tell me.”
“A name’s wrong. In that feature piece about Mrs. Wright’s trip to China. The name of one of the people is spelled one way in the story and another way in the picture caption. One of them is wrong.”
Good, Charlie. Using your common sense.
“And that’s it?” Will Shafer asked. “That’s it? Charlie, just find out which spelling is correct. Then write a correction and send it to the city desk for the main section of Sunday’s paper, so we can run the correction the same day the story’s in. Okay? Tell the city desk I said so.”
“That’s your final decision?”
“Of course—” Will Shafer stopped to put a clamp on his anger. “That’s my decision, Charlie. Talk to you later.”
He hung up, looked again at Jenifer Hurley. “Never a dull moment,” he said. “Where were we?”
“I guess you have to make a lot of decisions like that.”
Ah, he thought. A hint of respect in her voice. “Goes with the territory. Okay, so tell me how the mistake happened.”
Nothing in her explanation surprised him. She had been so busy addressing subtle points raised by the Gazette’s lawyers and, to a lesser degree, the editors that she had stumbled on something much more straightforward. She knew the difference between a guilty plea and a no contest plea, and she had screwed up.
She was sorry, and her face showed it.
The executive editor nodded, sipped his coffee, thought about what he would say. “Look, Jenifer, it doesn’t get any easier than this. You’re how old?”
“Twenty-four.”
My God, he thought. “Twenty-four. Well, if you go to a bigger paper, or one of the networks, it won’t get easier. And you’re plenty good enough so that you’ll get that chance. Sooner than you think, maybe.”
He paused, looked into her deep, intelligent eyes. He would do this right.
“With your ability, you’ll be given the more challenging assignments no matter where you go. The kind of sensitive assignments that mean lots of second-guessing from editors and lawyers. Okay so far?”
“Okay.”
Jenifer Hurley, if I could guide you and protect you, I would. “A relatively minor mistake can detract from a terrific piece of reporting. Are you familiar with the Watergate scandal?”
She smiled ingenuously. “Sort of. I mean, I’ve read a couple of the books about it, but at the time it happened I was in kindergarten or first grade, or something.”
Lord, he thought, I am old. “Two guys from the Washington Post did a wonderful re
porting job. But along the way, they made one bad mistake, about what someone had or had not told a grand jury. Anyhow, the point is, that mistake hurt them, diminished their effectiveness for a while. Uh …” I must sound pedantic, must not be getting through.
“And I have to watch that tendency in myself.”
“Yes, I think so. I mean, when you get near the finish line …” Listen to myself, he thought.
“I understand. I just have to sit my fanny down and nail all the facts cold. Every last one.”
“Right.” Should he tell her more? Yes. “With a story like this, the publisher is apt to be hesitant about going ahead because some of the people that surface in the story are going to be friends of his. That’s true of a lot of publishers, maybe most. That’s the way the world is. So it’s just that much more important to have the documentation in your hands. And use it correctly. Then, if a publisher is worried, you have the truth on your side. It makes the fight easier. And you still won’t win every round.”
“I understand.”
Did she? How much more should he say? “Anything in my little lecture that you want to ask me about?”
“No. Thank you for being so understanding.”
“My job. I’m treating you as you deserve to be treated, based on your overall reporting. Which is excellent.”
“Thank you.”
“So write a correction. No apology, just a correction. Two or three paragraphs, whatever you need. And instead of running it on the Local Page, we’ll tuck it into the jump of your next housing story, as a box.”
“All right. Thank you.”
“Go and sin no more. And keep up the good work.”
Then she was gone. Will Shafer spun around in his chair and looked out the window, blinking hard. He finished his coffee slowly.
An hour or so later, when he was at his desk on the news floor, a middle-level editor approached. He was frowning and holding a copy of that day’s paper folded open to a particular page.
Trouble, Will Shafer knew.
“Will, take a minute to read this three-paragraph story where my thumb is.”
The executive editor read. It was a seemingly routine item from the police blotter, about a car smacking a tree the night before. But the driver was identified as Jacob Frank, and Shafer figured he had to be attorney Jacob Frank, for years Bessemer’s William Kunstler, an advocate of left-of-center causes and defendants and a frequent critic of the police.
“This is who I think it is?” Will said.
“Right. The problem—”
“Wait a second.” Shafer cut him off; he wanted to react as a reader might, without any input on what might be wrong with the story. “Okay. The last paragraph quotes the cops, or one cop, as saying there’s gonna be an investigation for possible drunk-driving charges, and that the front seat of the car was ‘littered with empty beer cans.’”
“Right, Will. That’s, well, accurate in a way, but—”
“What’s this ‘accurate in a way’ shit?” Shafer felt his arm hairs rising in anger and alarm. “Wait, before you tell me, let me ask. Shouldn’t we have waited until DWI charges were filed before mentioning that angle?”
“Yes, Will, but there aren’t any DWI charges.” The subordinate editor’s face was sad and pale.
“Hit me with it,” Shafer said.
“Jacob Frank just took the curve too fast and brushed a tree. That’s all, bad driving. He was cold sober. He called this morning to complain. He was furious. Says we can check his story with the cops. I did, and he’s right, and we’re wrong.”
“Then what’s this about the front seat ‘littered with empty beer cans’?”
“The front seat was littered with beer cans because he was on his way to buy some beer and—”
“And he was just taking his empties back.”
“That’s it.”
“Even as you and I do.”
“Yes.”
“Jesus Christ Almighty. So we said something true but totally misleading and unfair.”
The other editor nodded his head sadly.
“Ed Sperl?” Shafer demanded.
“Ed Sperl.”
“Oh, for God’s sake. He knows better—” Shafer stopped. It was not that Ed Sperl didn’t know any better; on the contrary, he had probably known exactly what he was doing. The cops had used him, probably with his enthusiastic cooperation, to embarrass a lawyer whom they considered a pain in the ass.
“Sperl filed the story at the end of the day yesterday,” the subordinate editor said. “It just sort of got sent through … you know …”
“Yeah, I know. Untouched by human minds.” Will closed his eyes, felt his head starting to ache.
“Something wrong, Will?” Ed Sperl said. He was standing close enough for Shafer to smell the peppermint that was supposed to conceal the odor of the previous night’s beers.
“Plenty. In my office.”
Shafer went in and sat down. So did Sperl, without being invited.
“Bad story today,” Shafer said. “That item about Jacob Frank. Just plain unfair. Why, Ed?”
“Jeez, Will, I’m sorry. It’s easy to see in hindsight, I guess. And I should have. The cop on the scene went too far with what he told me. I let my guard down. The cop’s been around a long time—”
“Probably since the antiwar protests,” Shafer said. He wanted to say more, but he bit his words off. He wanted to call Ed Sperl a liar, say that he knew he hadn’t let his guard down at all, that he had done what he intended, and that it was unconscionable. Say it, the executive editor told himself. Say it.
Sperl canted his head slightly, as if in mock contrition, but his eyes were cold. Measuring me, Shafer thought.
No, Will could not say what he meant. He could reprimand Ed Sperl, could write a note to put in his personnel file. But he could not tell Ed Sperl that he had the integrity of a reptile, because he couldn’t prove it.
“I’ll try to see that it doesn’t happen again,” Sperl said. “Learn from my mistakes, and all that.”
And all that, Shafer thought. He studied the man sitting across from him. In a way, Ed Sperl was a throwback, the kind of reporter who had been far more common thirty or forty years before: twice divorced, hard drinking, deeply cynical, way too friendly with the police.
More than that. Ed Sperl had a totally thick hide; it was not so much that he suppressed his emotions, Shafer thought, as that he had none. No, that wasn’t quite true. He felt excitement, from going to homicide scenes, studying accident pictures, perhaps from reading supposedly secret grand jury testimony from rape victims.
Sometimes Ed Sperl reminded him of a shark—ruthless, primitive, predatory. The image fit: just as the shark had not changed much over the years, so had Ed Sperl not changed much. He had always been slightly overweight from drinking, slightly red faced, and he had a crew cut.
He was dangerous. Sometimes Will Shafer wondered how much Sperl knew about him.
“Okay, Will?”
“What?” Shafer had drifted away for a moment.
“I said, I’ll talk to the cop who gave me the bum steer, and I’ll see that it doesn’t happen again.”
What’s the use, Shafer thought.
“Should I call Frank and say I’m sorry?” Sperl said.
“No. I will.”
“Okay. But I’ll tell the police chief his patrolmen have to be more careful what they say. I have to see the chief this afternoon about some tickets his men have been laying on the Gazette.”
Ah, yes. The editor got the message, a little reminder that the Gazette usually got lenient treatment when its delivery trucks sped through city streets or double-parked. And that Ed Sperl was the publisher’s conduit to the police brass. Yes, that was a big part of Ed Sperl’s power. Will Shafer also suspected Sperl might have fixed up some tickets accumulated by the publisher’s family.
“Anything else, Will?”
“No. That’s it. I don’t want this kind of thing to happen again.”
>
Ed Sperl was out of the office before Will finished his sentence.
Will swiveled around in his chair and stared out the window for a long time. He did not blink.
“I’m out here.”
Will Shafer heard Karen’s voice from the redwood porch deck; his wife had heard him come in the front door. He set his briefcase on a chair and draped his suitcoat over it.
“Hi,” she said as he slid open the screen between the dining room and deck.
“‘Lo.”
“Long day, huh?”
“Is it that obvious? Hey, nice.” He had spotted the tray on the table; it held bottles of gin and tonic water, glasses, a dish of lime wedges, and a bucket of ice. Behind the table was a covered grill that gave off wisps of smoke. Barbecued chicken.
“Hi, Daddy.” His ten-year-old son, Brendan, waved at him from the round above-ground pool at the end of the yard. The boy smiled beneath his diving mask.
“Hi, sport. Where’s your sister?”
“Hi, Daddy.”
“There she is,” Will said, affecting a father’s gaiety. “Hi, Cass.”
But the nine-year-old, wearing a snorkel as well as a mask, was submerged already, literally swimming circles around her older brother. The girl had inherited her mother’s physical grace, the boy his father’s awkwardness. Ah, well, they were both intelligent.
Karen handed him a gin and tonic, and he kissed her on the cheek, hoping she did not detect his lack of enthusiasm. A silly hope, he realized.
“Tell me about your day if you want,” she said, sitting in a folding chair a few feet from the grill.
Will Shafer sat down in the chair’s twin and told her about his conversation with Grant Siebert, whom she had never met, and about Ed Sperl’s despicable behavior.
“Can Jacob Frank sue?” Karen asked.
“Hmmmm. Well, he could, but he probably won’t. One, since he’s a lawyer, he knows as well as anyone that he’d have to prove actual malice to collect, since he’s a public figure, and malice is awfully hard to prove. More to the point, it probably wouldn’t be worth the hassle—”
Night of the Ice Storm Page 9