Kill The Story

by John Luciew

  “I didn’t tell you everything about what happened today.” I looked directly at my mother. She was hunched over the table, me holding her forearm. “Sit down,” I said.

  “But the tea.” She looked over her shoulder at the stove.

  “Sit,” I repeated and she reluctantly lowered herself to a chair.

  “There’s a reason the head was sent to me.”

  Maggie winced and shook her head. I still gripped her arm. “Oh, Frank, I don’t want to talk about it anymore. I don’t want to think about it.”

  “There’s a killer, Maggie. He’s killed before, and they think he’ll kill again. I can’t tell you everything. Hell, I don’t even know everything. But I know one thing. I don’t think it’s safe here. Not until they catch him.”

  “And they will catch him.” Maggie tried desperately to sound optimistic but fell short. “I hear they got the FBI on it and everything. They’ll probably get him in a day or two.”

  I ignored her. “I’m part of this now, Mother. Do you think it was a coincidence that Cassie just happened to show up here tonight?”

  Maggie looked confused. “She’s your friend.”

  “She’s a reporter. A reporter for the New York Times. The media’s all over this now. And guess what? I’m the story. I’m the reporter who received a human head in the mail.”

  “You didn’t do anything wrong.”

  “I don’t know what I did. I only know there’s a killer out there and I’m on his list. And if that’s not enough for you, the media’s going to be everywhere. All over me. All over this house.”

  “So--” Maggie started then stopped. “What are you saying?”

  Just then, the kettle started to whistle. Maggie pulled away, but I kept my grip.

  “We can’t bring the girls here,” I said. “We can’t put them in the middle of all this.”

  Maggie’s head turned back and forth between me and the screaming kettle. She had a terrible look of confusion on her face, as if she were going mad. “What? Wait. The kettle.”

  “We can’t do it, Mother. We can’t bring them here.”

  She looked at me, then the kettle. “But it’s Christmas,” she said. “The kettle.”

  “No.”

  She jerked her arm away from me and shot up from the table with surprising strength and speed. She yanked the kettle from the stove and the whistle slowly died. As the sound eased, I heard her sobbing. Her hands were at her face and her shoulders were rising and falling. She stood there, at the stove, with her back to me until I left the kitchen.

  I never got to tell her that I had finally asked for a raise.

  Chapter 36

  At 4 a.m., a man purchased newspapers from a newsstand in the Harrisburg train station. He bought every paper they carried -- Pittsburgh, Philadelphia, Baltimore, all the New York City rags. And of course, the Harrisburg Herald.

  The bundle was heavy as he carried it back to his shabby hotel room over a cheap bar. But he couldn’t resist leafing through the stack as he walked. His special delivery had made the front pages of all the papers, just as he knew it would. Just as it was planned. A reporter’s decapitated head showing up at a newspaper guaranteed a front-page ride. But that wasn’t what he wanted to see.

  Back in the hotel room, he arrayed the papers on an old wooden table defaced by carved initials and whittled profanities. He flicked on the bolted-down lamp and his eyes pored rapidly over the ocean of words.

  There was nothing in any of the stories about a link with the other dead journalists. This wasn’t a surprise. He knew the FBI liked to keep such things quiet. It was enough that the reporter knew. Tellis knew, but he still didn’t understand. He didn’t see the whole story, the big picture. Best of all, the reporter couldn’t write a word of it.

  The cops would have convinced Tellis that it was in his best interest to keep quiet. They’d tell him that his life was at stake. They’d say secrecy and surprise were the only weapons against the killer, the only way to stop the murders. They’d be right about the danger, but wrong about the endgame. When the time came, the whole world would know the grand story he was writing. He would plant it himself. After all, it was easy to feed a story to the press. They were vultures. They’d devour any dead meat thrown their way. Yes, in time, he would see to it that all the necessary facts came to light. Then he’d read his own press clippings.

  But these were not his chief concerns this morning. He had a more elemental reason for being up so early and collecting the newspapers. He wanted to check the bylines.

  He smiled when he was sure one name was absent. Tellis’s name could not be found above any of the stories in the Harrisburg Herald. The reporter’s name was in the stories, rather than atop them. In these stories, Tellis was described as a “veteran journalist.” But the Reader knew these were merely fancy words for a hack who never advanced. Upon finding the decapitated head, the reporter was described as being “shocked,” “unsteady” and “reluctant” to talk about the incident. This meant that Tellis had had a few belts from the bottle after making the discovery and was a little out of it. Tellis’s actual quotes were even more inept.

  The only other story to quote Tellis directly was carried in the New York Times. The account used similar code words for the reporter’s sorry status and predilection for alcohol, but it did so with a touch more reverence. Then again, the man would have expected nothing less from Cassandra Jordan. He had followed the journalistic partnership of Tellis and Jordan with great interest. It was fitting that she was back in Harrisburg. Perhaps he could work her into his final story, as well.

  Yes, he thought, that would be quite something. A story for the ages. And it had already begun. The grand reversal was in motion. He had stripped Tellis of his byline. And now the reporter was about to become prey of the pack. The man knew all too well of the pack’s voraciousness. How its numbers made it bolder, more arrogant and supremely rude.

  The media pack trampled reputations along with flowerbeds, as its members camped out on lawns and stood vigil around front porches. It intimidated, accused and stalked. It frightened young children who ran to their fathers to ask why all those people were outside their homes. The pack kept turning up the pressure -- more than enough to break a person, to smash an upstanding man into the ground. It did all of this until one of two things happened. Either the pack got what it wanted or something else came along that interested it more. A whiff of fresh meat would send it scurrying off to hunt someone else. These were the only things that could drive it away.

  Oh sure, the man had fantasized about other ways of driving away the pack. He had ruminated on such things many times. The inspiration came to him at the height of the Washington, D.C., sniper case. People were dying, the cops were scrambling and the pack was growing ever larger in number and ever more insatiable in its appetite.

  But the pack could do little more than report rumor after rumor and leak after leak in the case. All the while, it was waiting. It longed for the next shooting, the next innocent person to be gunned down. It pined for the obligatory press conference that would follow.

  After one such murder, the media horde stood outside the county municipal building waiting for the police chief. As the man watched the live television coverage, all he could think was what rich targets all those journalists made. They were just standing there, with their notepads, microphones, cameras and tape recorders. If the snipers had been bolder, they would have turned their high-powered rifle on the press. That would have been quite something. Surely, it would have sent the pack scrambling. How comical it would have been to see such a spectacle. How the public would have delighted in it. How the cops would have enjoyed it. Hell, even the press would have loved it. The ones who survived, anyway.

  It would have been a fantastic story. In the end, that was all the media really cared about.

  Now, however, the man had other uses for the pack. He had directed it to a target of his choosing. He had trained its beady eyes and salivating mout
h on the most unlikely of subjects -- the hack reporter. He had turned the tables on Tellis. The reporter would see how it felt to be hunted with a notebook and a camera. He’d find out what it was like to open his door to an army of relentless questioners, a legion of self-appointed arbiters of fact. Let Tellis see what it felt like to be a prisoner of the pen.

  The man, for one, wasn’t about to miss it. He had a forged press pass to gain admittance. He had a pen and notepad, the tools of the scribe’s trade. And he had the sloppy-casual clothes -- the uniform of the print media -- to blend in.

  Today, he would become a reporter. And Tellis would become the prey.

  Chapter 37

  I had shattered Maggie’s Rockwellian dream of the perfect family Christmas in our long-empty, spiritless house. The blow seemed to knock all the life out of her. In past disagreements, I could always count on a verbal barrage and a burst of emotional pyrotechnics. Not this time.

  The news that it was no longer safe for my ex-wife, daughter and granddaughter to visit us for the holidays left Maggie hollow. She finished the dishes in silence, then sought solace upstairs. I listened as she closed, then locked, her bedroom door. These were small, subtle sounds, but they spoke as loudly and powerfully as any slamming door. It struck me deep. I felt a penetrating ache at the sad realization that no matter how hard I tried, nothing ever seemed to go right.

  I renewed acquaintances with my old friend, the living room couch. A bottle of whiskey on the coffee table kept me company. I flicked on the television, but avoided the news channels. I pulled down the afghan from the back of the couch in case I drifted off. I flipped mindlessly through the channels until I felt absolutely nothing.

  Mine was a short and fitful sleep. It ended early the next morning, shortly before dawn, when a burst of light startled me awake.

  The light streamed in through the front window where the drapes were only partially closed. It was a quick flash that had been bright enough to penetrate my closed eyelids. But by the time I awoke, it was dark again. Not exactly dark. The bluish light before dawn.

  I would have guessed an intense burst of lightening but it was mid-December. I attempted to rise from the couch, but pain shot up my stiff back and resonated in my joints. I did manage to lift my head to better see out the window. I thought I glimpsed a shadow in the early light. Some kind of movement just outside my front window, which was set at eye level to someone standing on the sidewalk.

  I pushed myself off the couch, wrapped the afghan over my shoulders for warmth and shuffled softly to the window.

  I heard a sound, the sandy scuffle of shoes on cement. But it was too early for the guy from next door who spent fifteen minutes each morning warming up his car.

  I moved closer, reached a hand to the curtain and pulled it aside.

  Just then, there was another explosion of light. It had the force of a physical assault. I recoiled, my hands in front of my face.

  I opened my eyes again, but this time I was completely blind. I didn’t know what to do. I waved my hands in front of me, trying to feel my way around. I knocked over a vase from atop of the TV instead. Then I walked a shin into the coffee table, spilling the open bottle of bourbon and shooting intense waves of pain up my leg. The air filled with the sharp stink of sour mash whiskey as I hopped on one foot, holding my throbbing shin.

  Next, I stumbled into the Christmas tree. Ornaments cascaded to the hardwood. The delicate glass ones popped with sounds similar to a toy gun. I moved in the other direction and put my foot through a wrapped box containing what felt like a sweater.

  Still, I was determined. I lumbered through the archway and made the left toward the stairs. If there was some crazy killer stalking my house, at least I’d go down fighting. At least I’d die protecting my mother.

  At the top of the stairs now, I ran down the hall to Maggie’s bedroom door. My eyesight was slowly coming back. My vision was speckled with red, white and green dots, but I could see the doorknob. I grasped it and turned. It was locked. I was not welcome, but I didn’t care. I banged on the door and yelled for my mother. “Maggie.”

  I heard movement -- the shuffle of slippers, the slow turn of a lock. Maggie slowly opened the door.

  “What is it?” she asked in an annoyed whisper as she eyed me up and down. I was still squinting and tinsel was hanging off of me from my brush with the Christmas tree. Maggie raised her nose and sniffed the air.

  “You smell like booze.” She was still whispering, though we were both wide awake by now. It was contagious, I guess, because I found myself whispering back.

  “I spilled a bottle,” I said.

  “Crawled in one is more like it. What do you want?”

  “There’s someone outside.”

  “You’re crazy.”

  I didn’t respond. Instead, I pushed past her and went to the window overlooking the street. Her bedroom looked down at the front stoop. I tugged on the blind, then guided it up. I pressed my nose against the frosted glass, then wiped a hand over it so I could see better.

  I was peering down at the tops of at least twenty heads. TV trucks clogged my narrow, one-way street. Men hefted cameras on their shoulders. Television reporters held foam-covered microphones under their chins as they talked and gestured to cameras. And the offending print photographer was leaning up against my front window, his high-speed camera to his face.

  The adrenaline from my body’s fight-or-flight response drained from me. It was replaced by rage. I looked down at my peers, my colleagues, myself. And I hated what I saw. I wanted them gone.

  Just then, Maggie turned on a light. The illumination through the upstairs window caught the eye of one of the reporters. She pointed, and soon the eyes and cameras of the entire pack were trained on the bedroom window. Quickly, I grabbed the blind and pulled it down. I turned to Maggie. “Shut it off. Shut it off.” It was the combination of a whisper and a shout.

  She flicked off the light. “What is it? What’s going on?”

  I stood to the side of the window and slowly raised the blind. I could see the pack of journalists, but they couldn’t see me.

  “Exactly what I was afraid of,” I said, still looking down at the tops of all those heads. “Exactly why we can’t bring the girls here.”

  Maggie crept closer. She walked up behind me and leaned toward the window. She looked down at the pack, then at me.

  “What do they want?” she asked.

  “Me,” I said. “They want me.”

  I was enraged enough to fling on my robe, fly down the steps, open my front door and tell them all to go to hell. I’d yell and scream, and they’d point their microphones and cameras at me to record every last idiotic moment. It was what they wanted.

  No, I thought. There was only one way to do this, and I’d need help. I made a phone call, then cut the wire on the doorbell to stop it from ringing. Maggie went around the house, closing all the drapes and curtains. She swept up the broken glass from my blind rampage through the living room and mopped up the booze from the coffee table. Fresh from showering and dressing, I found her in the kitchen slumped over a cup of black coffee. I reached in the cupboard for a mug and joined her.

  “I’m sorry about all this, Mom,” I said. “I really am.”

  She didn’t look up from the black abyss of her coffee cup. “I can’t live like this,” she said. “I just can’t do it.” Her voice was shaky, quivering with emotion.

  I touched her hand. “You won’t have to, mother. When the press sees me leave, they’ll lose interest fast. They’ll start thinking of other places where they can ambush me. Most likely, they’ll go to the paper. That would be my guess.”

  “You mean they’re going to keep following you?” She looked up. Her eyes were red-rimmed with heavy bags underneath.

  “They’re gonna try. But it won’t be easy. I called Dave Langhorne. He’s gonna help me out.”

  “Eventually, they’ll come back,” she said. “They’ll come back here, won’t they, Francis?”


  “Probably. They’ll keep after me until something bigger happens or there’s another break in the case.”

  Maggie looked down again. “I don’t think I can handle it. I want to be able to come and go in my own home. I want to be able to open the drapes and put up a wreath if I feel like it.”

  “I know, Maggie. I know. That’s why you should go to Florida.”

  She raised her head, her expression brightening.

  “Go see the girls,” I said. “Send them my love.”

  “You could come, too.” Her voice was hopeful again. “We’ll have Christmas down there. So there’s no snow. So what? Lexi can see snow next year. We could still be a family.”

  I squeezed my mother’s hand. “We are a family, Maggie.”

  “Then you’ll come?”

  “I’d love nothing more,” I said, then stopped. “But I can’t.”

  “Yes you can. You’ve been working too hard. You deserve a break. You said yourself that the paper won’t let you write about the murder investigation. You don’t really need to be here. They owe you the time.”

  “They’ll find me, Maggie,” I jerked my head toward the front window. “I have to stay here and finish this.”

  “What about Christmas?”

  “The best part will be knowing that you and the girls are together.” I smiled. “That you’re safe and that you’re happy. That’s what I want. That’d be the best Christmas present.”

  “I’ll miss you, son,” she said. “We’ll all miss you.”

  “Me, too.”

  Chapter 38

  Langhorne showed up fifteen minutes later, announcing his arrival with a couple of short bursts from his siren. He and a couple of uniformed officers had no trouble clearing a path through the pack of press. The detective knocked on my front door and I turned the deadbolt. I opened the door, careful to stay behind it and out of camera range. My attempt at stealth did little to quell the enthusiasm of the pack. As soon as the door cracked open, the mob of gathered reporters let loose with a chorus of questions. They all shouted at once and no single question was intelligible. It was just one angry wall of sound, all directed at me.