Kill The Story

by John Luciew

  “I should go,” Cassie abruptly announced. “There’s, like, three or four other staff writers working this story. I need to check in.” Then to Maggie, “Dinner was wonderful, so much better than hotel food. I hope you didn’t put yourself out. I’d usually offer to help clean up but I’ve stayed too long already.”

  “Don’t be silly,” Maggie said, grabbing Cassie’s hand. “It was so good to finally meet you. Telly’s talked about you. I can’t say he’s talked a lot, because he doesn’t talk a lot about anything. But you were very important to him. He enjoyed working with you. He respects you. And he wants you to do well at the Times.”

  Cassie turned to me. My face felt hot and I was bracing for one of Cassie’s withering comments. She never liked sentimentality and had a way of deflecting any emotion with a well-timed joke. But not this time. She studied me, then nodded. “I’ve learned a lot from Telly, too.” She was speaking to my mother, but she was looking -- staring -- at me. “I’m a better reporter for having worked with him.”

  Maggie beamed. I didn’t know what to say.

  “See, it’s like I’ve always said,” Maggie put in. “Experience counts for something. Institutional knowledge means a lot. But try telling that to the Herald.” Maggie spoke to Cassie like a lawyer pleading a case before a jury. “You know, they still haven’t given Francis a raise?”

  “Now’s not the time for that conversation, Mother,” I firmly said, closing one of Maggie’s favorite topics before she really got rolling. “Cassie, I’ll walk you out.”

  I carried Cassie’s bag to the foyer and helped her on with her coat. She was flinging a scarf around her neck when she appraised the evening’s events.

  “I got the feeling you weren’t exactly thrilled to see me tonight.”

  “I just never know with, um,” I whispered the word, “Mother,” then jerked my head toward the kitchen. If Cassie only knew the real reason for my earlier apprehension.

  “She’s sweet,” Cassie said, pulling on knit gloves. “And she takes good care of you. Believe me, you need it. Despite all your complaining, I think you’d be lost without her.”

  “Yeah, I wouldn’t know how to celebrate.”

  Cassie punched me on the shoulder. “Oh, Tellis, you’re such a bullshitter, you know that? Besides, there’s another reason you weren’t exactly happy to see me, isn’t there?”

  I kept my expression blank.

  “There’s a lot more to this story,” she went on. “You just won’t tell me.” She looked at the floor. “So that’s the way it’s gonna be. I guess we are competitors. I just never thought it would come between us.” She was trying to act hurt.

  “Competitors?” I repeated. “I’m not even on the story. You got nothing to worry about from me.” I wanted to warn her, I really did. But I didn’t know how I could. I knew that anything I revealed to Cassie Jordan would show up in tomorrow’s Times.

  “Then why are you holding out on me?” she pleaded.

  “I- I- I’m not.” I fumbled the protest, and Cassie knew I was lying. She frowned in disappointment.

  “You’re the one who’s been bugging me to come to Harrisburg,” Cassie went on. “You talked how it was going to be like old times. Us working together again. Well, here I am. I show up on your doorstep, and all you can do is act edgy and mysterious.”

  “How do you think you’d act if a decapitated head showed up in your incoming mail?”

  “You don’t see it, do you?” Her eyes were wide with the realization. “Here I thought you were holding out on me, trying to keep the glory for yourself. But you just don’t see it. You really don’t.”

  “See what?” I scoffed. “What glory? What are you talking about, Cassie? There’s no glory in finding someone’s head.”

  “Hell there isn’t,” she confidently said. “Don’t be so naive, Telly. We’re in an age of twenty-four-hour news. It’s a murder-of-the-moment culture. This story is a natural. Hell, reporters get tips all the time. But you got a head. Everyone wants to know about you, Frank. They want to hear your story. They want to know, why you. This is Larry King time. Maybe even a book. Don’t you get it?”

  I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. No, that’s wrong. I could believe it. In fact, Cassie was probably right. I just didn’t want to believe it. I didn’t want to deal with it. Not only might there be a killer stalking me, now the media pack would be on my trail, too.

  “That’s why you came here tonight, isn’t it?” I said. “To get my story?” My head bobbed with understanding. I raised an accusing finger. “That’s why you got up from the couch every ten minutes. It wasn’t to go to the bathroom. It was to sneak off somewhere to jot down what I said. You couldn’t bring yourself to do it in front of my face. You couldn’t pull out your notebook in front of me, could you? Why didn’t you just keep a tape recorder in your pocket?”

  “It’s illegal to tape someone without their knowledge, Telly,” Cassie coldly said. “I thought you’d remember that.”

  “Oh, I remember. But I never thought it would come to that, not with us.”

  “I’m a reporter, Telly. Just like you. I’m a reporter first, last and always. I’m a good one, too. But you already knew that. There was a time you liked that about me.”

  I looked at her. “I still do.”

  “Then tell me your story,” she pleaded. “Your editors are right, Telly. You are part of it now. You can’t write it yourself. So who better than me?”

  I couldn’t hold her eyes, not while she was trying to play me like that. Like one of her distraught victims on her murder and mayhem beat for the New York Times.

  “I already told you everything. Back when I thought I was talking to a friend. A friend who came to dinner. In my home.” My words were halting. “And you already wrote it all down. Tomorrow morning, you’ll put it in the paper. And you’ll bring a hundred reporters to my door.”

  Cassie looked sheepish but she wasn’t about to apologize. Not for what she did or who she was. “That’s not necessarily a bad thing,” she said. “The publicity, I mean. Million-dollar movie deals have been made of less.”

  “I don’t want that. You should know that about me. You were right about one thing, though. There’s more to all this. That’s what I want. I want the whole story. You and I, we could work it together. But only if you agree not to print anything until we know everything.”

  She looked away. “I can’t do it.”

  Then I understood. “You can’t because you already promised your editors you’d have the interview -- my interview -- for tomorrow.”

  She didn’t respond. Her silence said everything.

  “You don’t know what you’re doing,” I said. “Some things are more important than the story. You’ve got to be careful. You’ve got to be safe.”

  “I’m always safe.” Cassie tried to smile but looked confused. She didn’t know what I was trying to tell her. She didn’t know that it was a warning. A warning that she, too, could be in danger.

  “No, you don’t understand--” I began.

  “Look, I gotta go.” Cassie cut me off and reached for the doorknob. She started to turn away, then stole a last glance, trying to read my expression. “I’m gonna be in Harrisburg for a while. We should get together.”

  “On or off the record?” I shot back.

  She cracked a mocking smile. It was a smile that seemed to resent what she was doing, even if she couldn’t help herself. “Hey,” she shrugged. “I’m a reporter. It’s nothing personal.” She turned away and left.

  “Yeah,” I whispered as the door closed. “But it should have been.”

  Chapter 35

  That night, I locked up the house tight, using the deadbolts on the doors, the push buttons on the doorknobs and even the old chain locks. I checked the locks on the window sashes, too, fingering each one and feeling the cold seeping in through the thin panes.

  Even as I did all this, I knew it wouldn’t do any good. Things had been set into motion that couldn
’t be stopped by deadbolts and battened-down windows. There was a killer at work. The national media had been stirred. And I was the link.

  I didn’t know what I should fear more -- the murderer or the media. The killer was one or a few at most, depending upon the various theories of the case. But the media traveled in packs. And the pack would be at my door. I realized this as I stood in my darkened living room, the relentlessly optimistic lights of the Christmas tree providing the only illumination.

  I looked at the tree. It was decorated thickly with ornaments, tinsel and garland. A large number of wrapped presents had been carefully arranged underneath.

  The presents reminded me of the day three years ago that I learned I had a granddaughter. I had discovered gifts for a little baby girl hidden away in a closet in the spare bedroom. Maggie had been in secret touch with my family during her winter stays at her condo in Daytona. Throughout the years of my estrangement, Mother had been seeing Evelyn, Jessi and now my little granddaughter, Lexi, while I remained a stranger to them.

  Perhaps I didn’t deserve a second chance. I had ruined things with my daughter long ago. Sure, I was drinking too much. Evelyn and I were divorced by then and we hadn’t uttered a civil word to each other in years. Jessi was living with her mom, and my biggest involvement in her life was writing the child support checks. Then out of nowhere, my daughter asked me to do her a favor. She was thirteen.

  It was career day at Jessi’s school, a seventh-grade ritual at the middle school in which all the kids coaxed their parents to come in and talk about their jobs. Jessi called it show-and-tell for parents. A torture session was more like it. The doctors and lawyers flaunted their nice suits and fancy watches as their proud children beamed. And the first question out of every kid’s mouth was, ‘how much money do you make?’

  I knew what I was in for when Jessi asked me to make my presentation in front of her class. So I had a few drinks before hand. A little liquid courage before submitting to the excruciating embarrassment of that teen-age inquisition. It couldn’t hurt, could it?

  I felt the pressure as I stood in front of Jessi’s classroom, looking out at all those young, empty faces. They appeared a bunch of soulless zombies. Their eyes were glazed over and their faces were absent of all expression.

  I was nervous, but I assured myself that I wasn’t the problem here. It was the kids. They were all the same, always so tired and bored. Hell, they were bored before I even opened my mouth. But that wasn’t the worst of it.

  It was the room itself. It was so damned hot. To this day, I remain convinced that my presentation would have gone off without a hitch had it not been for the old radiators in that classroom. It was the first really warm day of spring, but those radiators were still pumping out the heat.

  I felt sweat trickling from my temples so I grabbed the cloth hankie in my pocket and mopped my brow. I slipped off my suit jacket and draped it over a chair. As I patted my brow again, I saw a couple of the kids smiling. I paid no mind. I was feeling a bit better. I could do this.

  I coughed to clear my throat, then stepped behind the podium, grasping it with both hands. I launched into my speech:

  “Being a journalist -- a newspaper reporter -- is one of the noblest professions there is.”

  As my eyes scanned the room, I spotted some acne-faced kid in the third row snickering and pointing at me. He used a hand to cover his mouth as he whispered something to the girl next to him. No sooner than that, she was giggling, too.

  I looked around to find Jessi. She was in back wearing the generic jeans with the elastic waistband that I’d bought for her at K-mart, even though Evelyn had informed me in no uncertain terms that Jessi hated them with a passion. Yet, there she was, wearing them. For me. It meant something. I still had a chance with her.

  My lips curled to approximate a grin in hopes my daughter would return it. I needed it so bad. I needed something, anything. But Jessi just sunk lower in her seat. And those goddamn old radiators were still cranking the heat. I was suffocating. My armpits were a river. I started to feel lightheaded.

  It was the heat, had to be. I’d had a few drinks over lunch at the Pepper Grill, and I’d stolen a few nips from my flask out in the school parking lot. But that was just to relax. To get comfortable, so I could give my spiel and get the hell out of there. But the godforsaken heat, it was really doing a number on me.

  I pressed ahead anyway, bound and determined to get through this.

  “Unlike a lot of the other professions you’ll hear about today, newspapering is something you can try right now,” I said, pulling at my collar and cracking another uneasy grin.

  “You can work for your school newspaper here and again in high school and college. Perhaps, you could do some freelance writing for your local newspaper while attending college and even make a little money on the side. After all, when it comes to newspaper writing and reporting, there’s no substitute for experience. All you need to get started is pen, paper and an inquisitive mind.”

  I reached a hand to my shirt pocket and plucked out my pen, holding it aloft as a visual aid. As soon as I did this, half the class broke into laughter. The kid with the acne was pointing again.

  I looked at the instrument in my hand only to discover that it was oozing thick, gooey blue ink. Then I looked down at my shirt to see the round blue stain that had bloomed at the bottom of my left breast pocket.

  The entire class was laughing now. Roaring, in fact.

  In that moment, it seemed as if the temperature had shot up another ten degrees. I looked out at the faces -- their open, howling mouths, their pointing fingers directed at me. Suddenly, I felt unsteady on my feet. I dropped my leaky pen and grabbed for the podium with both hands, just to hold on. Even then I was wobbly, swaying back and forth.

  I looked again at the class. The kids’ mouths were still open but I couldn’t hear them anymore. I couldn’t hear anything. My head was swimming. It was the goddamn heat. Had to be.

  I felt myself letting go of the podium. My knees were folding underneath me. I was falling.

  The whole world went white.

  When I awoke, the classroom was empty, except for the female teacher near the door. Mrs. Clark, I think it was.

  I lay on the floor near the podium. The old asbestos floor tiles felt wonderfully cool against my back. But I had a sour taste in my mouth and sniffed a foul odor in the air. I turned my head to the side and saw a lump of sawdust next to me. Then I heard Mrs. Clark’s heels clicking on the floor as she walked toward me.

  I squinted up at the husky teacher standing over me. Her arms were crossed. My senses were coming back, one by one. My head began to pound unmercifully.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “You passed out,” she answered. “Good news is, you were a hit. Kids got a real kick out of it. A couple of them thought you were dead. Don’t know if any of them will want to be reporters, but they won’t soon forget your, er, presentation, shall we say.”

  I closed my eyes. Jessi, I thought. I fucked up in front of Jessi.

  “What’s that smell?” I asked.

  “That would be you,” she said. “You puked on the floor, right in front of the whole class.” The teacher was completely dispassionate, but her words had bite. “But don’t worry about it, Mr. Tellis. We’ve got sawdust for that. Usually, we need it for when one of the kids has the flu or something. But it works just as well for their drunk fathers.”

  That was the last time I ever saw my daughter in person. I’d see pictures now and then, but Jessi made her wishes very clear and I never pressed. Soon after that unpleasant episode at career day, Evelyn took a job at some resort in Florida and they moved south. Deep down, I believe it was really Jessi who wanted to move -- a daughter fleeing the embarrassment of her father.

  Now I was in danger of losing still more precious time with her. Another Christmas, to be exact.

  Our little tree, which was trying to be so much and make up for so much lost time, would not
see a family gathered beneath it on Christmas morning.

  “Not this year,” I whispered. “Not like this.”

  I heard the clatter of dishes from the kitchen, along with the gentle melody of Christmas music playing on the radio. How to tell Maggie? How best to break her heart? After all, she had arranged all this for me.

  I walked silently to the kitchen and stood in the archway. Mother was rinsing plates under the tap, then stacking them in the dishwasher. She moved with the efficient and practiced rhythms of a professional homemaker. Taking care of family was all she ever wanted. I was about to take away her dream of a reunion.

  “Mother, we should talk.” My voice was hollow. I moved listlessly to a kitchen chair and gestured for Maggie to join me.

  “Do you want some coffee?” she asked.

  “Maybe some tea. That would be better.”

  Maggie took the kettle off of the stove and held it under the tap. She clicked on the burner and the gas flame whooshed to life. “Just be a minute,” she said over her shoulder as she reached into the cupboard for mugs and tea bags.

  “It’s so nice having company around the holidays,” Maggie said. She put a dry tea bag in each of the mugs. “Don’t you agree?”

  I mumbled a response.

  “That Cassandra is so very bright,” she went on. “Pretty, too. And she looks up to you, Francis. That says something. I just don’t understand why she goes by Cassie, instead of Cassandra. It’s such a pretty name.”

  Maggie placed cream and sugar on the table. I reached for her arm before she could escape to another task. Sometimes I wondered if she kept moving to avoid dealing with things.