Kill The Story

by John Luciew

  I was staring off somewhere. An image of Hammond Hollister was flickering on the living room TV. Maggie was studying me. But I didn’t see any of it, really.

  Finally, I spoke.

  “Eddie’s daughter. She’s dead. She died in that fire in Baltimore. He wants me to write her obit.”

  Chapter 10

  I expected to be the only soul in the newsroom early on a Sunday. But Wally Greenfield was there, too, working on his beloved images at the very same computer where I’d left him the night before. This time, however, he had a helper. His lethargic bloodhound, Marx, was sprawled on the floor at the photographer’s feet. The dog’s loose, baggy flesh oozed onto the low-pile carpet. I wondered how Wally had gotten his mutt past the twenty-four-hour security. He must have smuggled Marx up the back steps, figuring he’d be in and out before the Sunday crew started shuffling in.

  “Lemme guess,” I said as I neared the art department on the way to my own cubicle. “He’s a news hound, right?” I jerked my chin toward the lazing canine. “Probably has his own press pass and everything. Shit, he probably gets paid more than I do.”

  Wally jumped a bit at the sound of my voice. Just as I thought. He hadn’t expected another human in the newsroom for at least another hour or so.

  “You’re not gonna bust me, are you, Telly?” he said. “Marx was in the apartment practically all day yesterday. So much was going down, I couldn’t get away to let him out. By the time I got home, he was really depressed.”

  I looked at the dog’s droopy face, his double chin resting on a paw. “How could you tell?”

  “Oh, I can tell,” Wally assured me, nodding. “He’s very expressive and very, very moody. So you’ll give me a break?”

  “You got nothing to worry about from me, kid,” I said. “Neither does your dog. ‘Sides, I still owe you one for running the photos to Langhorne. By the end of the day, I think I was more tired and depressed than your dog there.”

  “No problem.” Wally returned to the computer screen. “The detective’s all right. For a cop, that is. Turns out he’s a movie buff. We were talking Scorsese.”

  “What?”

  “Martin Scorsese. Mean Streets. Taxi Driver. Raging Bull. Telly, you gotta know Scorsese?”

  “Wait a minute,” I said as something clicked. “Taxi Driver? Wasn’t that the movie Hinckley was trying to imitate when he plugged Reagan?”

  “That’s right.” Wally sounded pleasantly surprised at my knowledge of film trivia. “Hinckley had a thing for Jodi Foster, who played a young hooker in the movie. DeNiro was the would-be assassin. Cool flick.”

  “Is it just me, or does what happened yesterday seem similar?”

  “To Taxi Driver?”

  “No.” I waved a hand, irritated. “To the hit on Reagan. Both happened at a Hilton Hotel following some kind of speech or event in one of the ballrooms. And the shooter made his play for both politicians as they were leaving.”

  Wally cocked his head, unsure of where I was headed. “I guess so,” he tentatively said. “So what are you saying? You think Hinckley did it? I hear they’ve been lettin’ him out on unsupervised visits. You think he’s back in action hunting down right-wing politicians?”

  Wally sounded way too over-eager, as if he hoped it were true.

  “No, I don’t think it was Hinckley.” My words were sharp, but I wasn’t annoyed at Wally, just the fact that my theory sounded so outlandish. “But maybe someone with an appreciation for history. Both Reagan and Hollister are right-wingers, like you said. I guess I’m just looking for connections. I wish Dykstra were still around. He had the dumb luck of being one of the few journalists outside the Hilton when Reagan was hit. It made his career. With his ego, he loved talking about it, too. Probably had the whole story rehearsed down to the last detail. Maybe he’d find a connection.”

  “That’s freaky, man,” Wally said, turning to me.

  “What?”

  “That this reporter-dude got killed at an event so similar to one that made his career.” Wally’s eyes widened at the cosmic implications. “It’s so circular. So symmetrical. The Karma is very, very deep here.”

  “Yeah, so’s the bullshit,” I said. “What does Langhorne think? I hope you two film buffs found time to talk about something besides your favorite flicks. We gotta real-life version of the Manchurian Candidate here.”

  “Yeah, right.” Wally swung his attention back to the computer screen as if suddenly remembering his work. “Langhorne went over every image. Even asked where I was when I took each shot. He sketched out a map of the entire courtyard and had me point to the places where I was shooting.”

  “Glad to hear Langhorne’s so artistic,” I said, not sure what it all meant. “Where’s he going with all this?”

  “Not sure. Not a hundred percent.” Wally manipulated his computer mouse. “He asked me to blow up a few of the images. I’m gonna run them over, soon as I’m done.”

  “What’s he looking for?” I was more intrigued.

  “He kept talking about the shots, where they struck,” Wally said, then shrugged. “He said all the shots were short. That the shooter was aiming too low.”

  “So the guy was a bad shot. So what?”

  Wally turned. “That’s exactly what I said. But Langhorne said a bad shot would have shot low, then overcorrected and fired high. None of the shots went high. Langhorne was really big on that. Like it told him something.”

  “Told him what exactly?”

  “Don’t know for certain.” Wally returned his focus to yet another image of yesterday’s tragedy glowing on his screen. “He never came out and said it. But from everything he talked about, I think Langhorne’s considering another motive for the shooting. Maybe he doesn’t think the shooter was gunning for Hollister.”

  Christ, I thought. that would turn the whole story on its head. At the very least, it would sure disappoint Hammond Hollister. He’d come off as an overzealous politician exploiting someone else’s tragedy for political gain. He’d come off that way because I’d make sure of it. That’s the way I’d write it.

  “Who?” I demanded. “If Langhorne doesn’t think Hollister was the target, who was?”

  Wally again broke his stare from the screen. “Don’t know for sure. The reporter, I guess.”

  Chapter 11

  I was back at my desk and on the phone within seconds. Events were moving swiftly now, and I had much to do. I needed to see Dave Langhorne as soon as Wally finished with the pictures. Later, I had my grim appointment with Eddie Moore. I would write his daughter’s obituary. But right then, I could think only of Cassie Jordan. The break in the case was my bait to lure her back to Harrisburg. She would think I was doing her a great favor by revealing what I had learned. But I was merely serving my own interests.

  I punched in the cell phone number she had given me. Cassie answered on the second ring.

  “Jordan.”

  “Cassie, it’s Telly. I got something for you.” I was so eager to tell her, I was damn near breathless.

  “Better than forty-eight corpses? I doubt it.” Her voice was tired and flat, as if she were on automatic pilot.

  “What?” I felt my heart sinking.

  “Listen, Telly. I can’t talk. My plane’s boarding any minute.” She was all business.

  “You’re leaving Arkansas?” I found myself shouting over the tenuous cell phone connection.

  “Yep. Little Rock’s history. I’m on a layover in Cincinnati.”

  “On your way here?” I could hope.

  “Close. Baltimore. I got a 3 a.m. wakeup call from an editor about the club fire in Fells Point. Biggest since the one in Rhode Island. I gotta turn around a victims’ story for Monday. Damn, I hate burn wards. Absolutely hate them.”

  “What about Harrisburg?” I asked.

  “Harrisburg’s on hold for now, but keep me posted.”

  “Hey, one of the fire victims is from here--” I began, then heard a garbled airport announcement.
r />   “They’re calling my flight. Gotta go. People are dying to see me. Call me tonight.”

  Just like that she was gone. The needs of the news would keep her away from me again. Perhaps, it was just as well. I had my own story to worry about. I went over to get Wally. I wanted to get down to the crime scene and back before 1 p.m. Despite everything, I would not keep Eddie Moore waiting.

  Yellow crime scene tape barricaded a wide swath of Market Square. The Hilton’s main entrance remained closed. Guests were reduced to entering through the attached parking garage. Federal agents and lab techs were crawling all over the scene. Hollister’s speaking podium stood abandoned. Plastic numbers marked where the bullets had struck. There was a rust-colored blood spot where Wayne Dykstra had died. Meanwhile, the entire plaza remained adorned with joyless holiday decorations and littered with debris, the items still lying right where they’d been dropped in the mad panic following the shots.

  Wally and I walked south down Second Street, the photographer’s dog, Marx, in tow.

  “I’m gonna break out in hives,” Wally shuddered. “Too many FBI in one place for me.”

  I ignored the joke, studying the red plastic numbers marking the bullet strikes. The numbers -- four in all -- were concentrated in a small area at the front of the press section. All but one fell short of the wooden podium. And the lone bullet that did strike the podium, did so less than a foot from its base. In other words, all the bullets fell short of their assumed target -- Sen. Hammond Hollister.

  City cops were relegated to perimeter patrol. They were stationed along the rope line, which extended across Second Street and snaked around the entire intersection with Market Street. I scanned the scene through squinted eyes, looking for Langhorne among the sentries. I didn’t see him.

  As we drew nearer, I noticed a dark, lanky figure leaning against a wall outside the city government center. City hall was located across Second, diagonal to the hotel. That was where the tall black man was picking sunflower seeds from a plastic bag and popping them into his mouth. He had a perfect view of the crime scene, and he was watching the activity as if it were entertainment. No doubt a comedy of errors, as far as Det. Dave Langhorne was concerned.

  I nudged Wally, pointing out Langhorne. We crossed Second Street before becoming caught up in all that crime scene tape and getting shooed away by pissed-off city cops who felt they should be on the other side of the barrier, working the case.

  “You look busy,” I called to Langhorne. The detective didn’t break his stare. I knew Langhorne had grown accustomed to being kept away from hot crime scenes. He had been excommunicated by his own police force for running afoul of Harrisburg’s all-powerful mayor.

  Langhorne spat an empty shell from his mouth. “Just givin’ our boys there a chance to catch up.” He raised his chin toward the Feds. “They’re startin’ to figure it out. Had the lasers out and everything. Real fancy shit.”

  “Lasers?” I asked. But Langhorne seemed more amused by Marx, who was using his high-powered snout to sniff the array of empty seed shells at the detective’s feet.

  “Yeah,” Langhorne said, splitting another seed between his teeth. “They use the lasers to trace the trajectory of the bullets. The shooter was over there.” Langhorne jerked his head left, up Second Street.

  I swung my gaze to the skeleton of structural steel that would become Harrisburg’s newest high-rise. A big billboard in front of the construction zone proudly proclaimed, “Harrisburg -- A City on the Move.” The building was being hailed as another shining example of economic development under Mayor Mark Riddell. The skeletal tower was located two buildings down from city hall, on the opposite side of Second Street from the Hilton.

  “Shooter was four stories up, at the southeast corner of the structure,” Langhorne continued. I slipped a notebook from the back pocket of my pants and plucked the pen from behind my ear. “It’s a perfect view of the plaza. Totally unobstructed. From that perch, he had a clear line of fire to the podium. The target would have been in a little bit of shadow, but that’s it. Shooter had a bird’s eye view of the whole thing. He was above the crowd, above all the protest signs. And with the senator standing on that raised platform, the shooter had a perfect target. Hollister woulda stuck out like a sore thumb.”

  Langhorne glanced up and noticed my furious scribbling. “The fuck you doin’?”

  “Just jotting a few notes.”

  “Uh-uh. No way, man,” Langhorne recoiled, holding out both hands. “All info gots to go through the Feds. Don’t drag my ass into this.”

  I glanced over my shoulder at the agents milling around several hundred feet away. “The Feds are too busy looking up each other’s assholes,” I said. “They’ll think it was one of their own who leaked, anyway. They’d never conceive of a city cop putting it together. Be too damaging to their egos. Besides, I’ll attribute everything to a source close to the investigation.”

  “I ain’t that close,” Langhorne insisted. “This here’s about as close as I’m gonna get.”

  “Close enough for me,” I said. “Between your insight and that agent friend of yours, I’d say you know more than just about anyone else around.”

  “That’s true,” Langhorne shrugged. “Then again, that’s always true.”

  I chuckled, returning my pen to the pad. “So how’d the guy get up there?”

  Langhorne looked down at Marx again, this time tossing him a couple of fresh seeds.

  “Perp used bolt cutters on a chain lock on the construction gate. There’s a lift, ladders and catwalks to get him to the perch for the shooting. I doubt he used the lift. Too much noise, too much attention. Probably climbed up the ladder with a pack on his back, took advantage of a more sheltered area to assemble his weapon, then tip-toed out to where he’d have his best shot.”

  “Only he missed,” I put in.

  Langhorne shook his head. “Not this guy. He’s too good. Too slick. He brought down exactly what he was aiming at. The bullet pattern shows that. Those fancy FBI lasers show that. And those pictures your photographer got in that envelope show that.”

  The detective nodded at the package in Wally’s hand. The photographer handed it to Langhorne.

  “Thanks, Travis,” Langhorne said, making his right hand into a gun and letting his thumb fall to mimic firing it.

  “Travis?” I swiveled my head between the both of them, wondering how tight they had become.

  “Just a nickname between us Scorsese buffs,” Langhorne smiled. “After all, your boy there’s a shooter, just a different kind.”

  “You lookin’ at me?” Wally began mimicking DeNiro, only Wally was wielding a camera, not a pistol. “I’m the only one here. You must be lookin’ at me?”

  I interrupted his bad acting. “Back to the real shooting. So Dykstra was the target? That’s confirmed? The FBI signed off?” I pressed for verifiable facts.

  Langhorne cracked a sly grin. “They don’t like it much, but they got no choice. Case is a whole lot sexier if they got an assassin gunning for a senator. That way, more agents get their names in the paper. More careers get made. But the evidence is what it is. And it all points in the opposite direction. The reporter was the target. A real shame for the Feebs. Case is just not the same. Sorry, Telly, but you journalists are a dime a dozen.”

  “But why?” I asked. “Why Dykstra?”

  Langhorne shrugged. “It’s not like you guys make a whole lot of friends. Way I hear it, the guy pissed off lots of people in Philly. Had a hard-on for the entire city administration. Thought the police department was corrupt, too. Pick your suspect. This should be a real fun case.”

  Fun wasn’t the word I would have used.

  Chapter 12

  I had a helluva story now. The stranger it got, the better it was. And nowhere would the news that Wayne Dykstra was the actual target have more impact than in the wood-paneled Senate offices of Hammond Hollister. I’d start there, with pleasure.

  But that would be just the be
ginning. I’d need to get on the Internet to review all of Wayne Dykstra’s stories and columns for the past year, at least. I needed to see what sensitive buttons he’d been pushing. Then, I’d contact Dykstra’s friends and family. Under the guise of an ex-colleague expressing sympathy, I’d troll for information about any unpublished stories the reporter had been working on. In short, I’d be looking for anything that could have gotten him killed. I’d do all of this delicately. There were the fragile feelings of the family to consider, but that wasn’t my main concern. I didn’t want the real reason for my inquiry getting back to Dykstra’s former colleagues at the Philadelphia Inquirer. I wanted the scoop for myself. While the Inquirer was busy churning out sentimental tributes to a fellow journalist felled in the line of duty, I’d be breaking the story that Wayne Dykstra was the intended target of an assassin’s bullet. Lastly, I’d check in with the FBI for the official line. I’d do this as late in the day as possible, so as not to tempt the famously secretive, slow-moving agency to make a general announcement about the shift in the investigation. Then I’d have the exclusive.

  It all started with Hollister. Fresh from his triumph on Meet the Press, I was about to burst his political bubble and take him down a few pegs in the polls. All the political mileage he hoped to gain from being the target of an assassination attempt would be lost. And I’d be the one pulling the rug out.

  Back at the office, I printed out an Associated Press story summarizing Hollister’s appearance with David Gregory. The story was replete with self-serving quotes from the senator. I’d throw them all back in his face. But first I’d have to get him on the line. This was no small feat when it came to any national-level politician. The fact that it was a Sunday doubled the odds against me. My only hope was Hollister’s press secretary, Jerry Kerr. I’d been able to barter with him before. I just hoped he remained willing to deal.