“New York City coroner Ben Calducci announced the jolting results of the KEY News anchorman Bill Kendall’s autopsy.”
McBride paused. “Insert Calducci’s soundbite on the Prozac overdose causing death.
“Pickup narration in three, two, one. . . . Bill Kendall, forty-nine, was found dead in his apartment last evening by his son, William. Louise Palladino Kendall received a suicide note in today’s mail. According to his ex-wife, Kendall gave no specific reason for the suicide. Speculation is widespread as to why the anchorman would take his own life.
“Here’s where the soundbites from KEY staffers will go.”
Mack cleared his throat and continued. “Pickup in three, two, one. . . . KEY News correspondent Eliza Blake was substituting for the anchorman when word came of his death. It was she who announced it to the nation.
“Drop in Eliza’s s-o-t here.
“Three, two, one. . . . Today KEY News Washington correspondent Peter Carlson took the Evening Headlines anchor chair.
“Insert Carlson’s soundbite on his feelings.
“Three, two, one. . . . Memorial services for Bill Kendall are still unconfirmed. This is Mack McBride, KEY News, New York.”
McBride came back into the editing booth. “You want me to stay in here while you edit?”
“No, we should be okay,” said Range Bullock. “But hang around until we feed this out. God only knows if something else will happen before feed time.”
McBride left for the commissary and a cup of its trademark thin, bitter coffee as Bullock and Joe Leiding, a topnotch videotape editor, began putting the piece together. It was rare that an executive producer would piece-produce but, as Range pointed out to the night news manager, this was not a usual situation.
Leiding carefully laid the video of the coroner’s news conference over the opening sentence of McBride’s narration and then popped in the soundbite from Calducci. The doctor estimated that Bill had taken seventy to eighty 40-milligram fluoxetine tablets. Calducci explained that fluoxetine was the generic name for Prozac.
“How the hell could he do that to himself?” an anguished Bullock asked the television screen. “I didn’t even know he was taking Prozac.”
They screened the pictures of Bill’s covered body coming out of his townhouse the night before. They looked at some file video of Bill very much alive and looking fit. The blanketed body shot they used to cover the part of the narration recounting Bill being found by his son. The alive-Bill file tape they used to cover the part about Louise receiving the suicide note and widespread speculation.
They put in Jean next. Poor, bewildered Jean. God, she’ll be lost without Bill, thought Bullock. He watched Jean on the television monitor, puffy-eyed and holding a handkerchief under her nose, her hair slightly awry.
“I hadn’t noticed anything,” she was saying. “He was just as he always was. If only I had known. I don’t know what I would have done, but I would have done something. He was always so good to me.” Jean dissolved in tears.
Bullock looked at Leiding. First judgment call. Did they go for the emotion and let the whole thing run, or edit it down and just take the first two sentences? The producer decided to do something in the middle.
“Let’s take ‘I hadn’t noticed anything. He was just as he always was,’ cut out the next part and skip down to ‘He was always so good to me.’ When she starts to cry, just take a beat or two of it. It’s moving stuff, but let’s not drown ourselves.”
Leiding pushed the incue and outcue buttons on the editing console, expertly executing Bullock’s directives.
Next came a soundbite from Yelena Gregory.
“Let’s listen to her again,” said Range.
The two men watched the interview, which had been taped in Yelena’s office within the last hour. She is almost homely, thought Range as he watched her on the monitor. Yet she did have a presence. An intimidating presence which came from her position. Vague rumors circulated at KEY about some sort of Russian royalty in Yelena’s background. Range reflected that she looked more like she came from good solid peasant stock. He knew that Yelena had attended all the “right” schools, had gotten her law degree and worked her way up in corporate law at KEY before being tapped to lead the news division as its first female president. She had built a strong legal reputation and was respected by her colleagues. She dealt firmly but fairly and set high standards for herself and for those who worked under her command.
On the screen, Yelena was giving the official view. Kendall was a first-rate journalist, he would be sorely missed. Then she looked down at the blotter on her massive glass-topped desk and began to fiddle with a paper clip. “You know, I played golf with Bill a few weeks ago at the company outing. He seemed”—Yelena groped—“like Bill. Nothing was amiss. If anything, he played better than usual.” She rambled on, angrily distracted. “Of course, it was on his membership at one of those dinosaur, yet unfortunately not extinct, clubs that only allow male members. But that’s a different issue.” Yelena took a deep breath and let it out. “I don’t know, I just don’t know. You name it, I thought I’d seen it. Nothing much surprises me at this point. But this . . . this hits you in the gut.”
“Pick up from ‘I played golf and let it run to ‘in the gut,’ ” Bullock instructed Leiding. “Take out the part about the sexist golf club. How’re we doing on time?”
Leiding looked at his counter. “A minute fifteen.”
“Good. Use some setup video from last night’s broadcast to cover Mack’s sentence about Eliza’s substituting and announcing the death. Then lay in her reaction today.”
The two men watched as a misty-eyed Eliza Blake soundbite was edited into the news story. “It just strikes me as incredibly sad that Bill was so overwhelmed that he felt there was no other way than to take his own life,” she said. “Bill was well liked and respected around here. It’s a big, big loss for all of us. I am going to miss him very much.” Eliza wiped the corner of her eye with the tip of her little finger.
Range stared at the video image of Eliza. Some thoughtful soul had made copies of the Mole article and tacked them on bulletin boards around the broadcast center. Eliza must feel horrible. He silently admitted to himself that, as a result of the Mole article, he was scrutinizing her, watching for weakness. It probably wasn’t fair, but that was the way it was. And he’d bet that, despite her protestations to the contrary, Yelena was watching for soft spots, too.
“Okay,” Range continued. “Now, wallpaper the sentence about Carlson taking over with some video from tonight’s broadcast, then drop in the Carlson bit about feeling like LBJ after Kennedy was assassinated and wanting to do his best, cover the last part about the memorial service with some more pictures of ‘Bill looking great’ file tape and freeze the last shot.”
God almighty, Pete Carlson is the new Bill Kendall. How am I going to deal with that pompous ass, Bullock wondered.
Chapter 18
There must always be an exchange. The voices told him so.
He had waited all day—waited for night to come. The homeless man pushed his cart into a dark alleyway between buildings on East Eighty-eighth Street. He ripped through the plastic garbage bag at the bottom of the cart, feeling the smooth, cool animal heads inside. Finally, he came upon the thin steel rod of the screwdriver and the roundness of the can of spray paint.
Poking his head from the alley entrance, he looked up and down the block. Once the lone person walking a dog disappeared around the corner, the man crept from his hiding place.
The shiny doorknocker came off easily.
“Tit for tat, tit for tat. Spray them an elephant, this for that.”
Chapter 19
The yellow cab let Eliza out in the rain on the corner of Eightieth Street and Lexington Avenue. She walked quickly toward Dr. Karas’s office, her trenchcoat flapping against her legs, whipped by a wind that felt more like March than May. She pulled her collar up around her face, eager to get to cover.
When she first came to see him, Dr. Karas, with his shaven head, had reminded her of the Great Oz in The Wizard of Oz. A giant brain with no body, godlike, possessing all the answers. That was when she’d been at her weakest and neediest. As therapy went on and Eliza progressed and became stronger, she realized that Dr. Karas was human. He still had that big brain, though, and she trusted him. Completely.
She sat in the straightbacked armchair and stared for a few moments at the green rug with black flecks that carpeted the austere office. Dr. Karas was seated in his customary place across the desk. He waited for her to start.
“Thank you for seeing me on such short notice. But I needed to talk.” She lit a cigarette.
“I’m glad you called. Of course, I know about Bill.”
“It just seems like some sort of bad dream. One minute, everything seems to be going pretty well. I have my life basically on track again. I’m feeling good, Janie is healthy and happy, work is going really well, John is popping up in my mind less and less. Even the dreams are stopping. I’m feeling as though I’ve weathered the storm. That I’ve survived. Then, bang!” Eliza snapped her fingers. “Bill’s dead and I’m announcing it to the entire country. And then not only is he dead, but it turns out that he killed himself. And, at the same time, the intimate details of my life are smeared across a national newspaper for anyone who wants to take a look.”
She pulled a copy of the Mole story from her bag and handed it to Dr. Karas. She studied his face while he scanned the article. She noticed the corner of his mouth twitch slightly. Finishing, Karas looked up through his wire-rimmed glasses, expecting her to continue. He didn’t have long to wait.
“Nice, huh? What in hell is going on? Bill was one of the most decent men I’ve ever known. It makes me sad. No, it makes me angry that he was so depressed or so desperate about something that he would choose to end his own life. Why?”
Leo Karas knew why but could not answer. Not waiting for a response, Eliza reflected, “You know, for protection, I have a gun, well hidden, at the top of my closet. But no matter how bad things got, and they got pretty bad after John’s death, I never once seriously thought of killing myself. Poor, poor Bill.”
Karas listened.
Eliza shook her head slowly back and forth and took another drag on her cigarette.
“And why did this article on me come out now, of all times? The whole thing happened four years ago. Four years ago! Why is somebody digging this up now?
Leo Karas had his suspicions.
At the end of their session, Eliza asked, “By the way, the show wants to do a piece on suicide. Not Bill’s specifically, but suicide in general. Would you mind, terribly, if I brought a crew over and interviewed you?”
Chapter 20
Detective Bob Colburn had twinkling eyes, an easy smile and a receding hairline which he was not crazy about. He also had a job to do. Catch the graffiti artist who was scarring up some of the most expensive real estate in Manhattan.
The 19th Precinct had been deluged with angry calls. Townhouse owners were enraged over the vandalism. Though all the affected property appeared to be in the same Upper East Side neighborhood, no one outside of police circles had put together the common denominators. The graffiti always reflected the animal doorknocker stolen from the nearest townhouse.
At first, Colburn had been less than sympathetic to his wealthy callers.
“What did you say he painted on your wall, ma’am?”
“It looks like a unicorn.”
“A unicorn? Like a horse with a horn on its forehead?”
“Yes, like the one on the Bloomingdale’s bag.”
Now, this.
Last night, someone had taken the brass knocker from Bill Kendall’s townhouse door. In its place, the thief had spray-painted a primitive version of an elephant.
Detective Colburn picked up the phone. It could be just a coincidence. After all, the KEY News anchorman’s death had been ruled a suicide. But just to cover all bases, Colburn wanted to fill in the guys in Homicide about his search for the thief/graffiti artist.
Chapter 21
It’s going to be a media field day! Win has to be in Washington for the Senate vote. He’s the sponsor of the goddamned bill. You have to be our representative. We need a presence there.” The campaign manager’s voice burned in Joy’s ear.
Bill Kendall’s funeral. Joy closed her eyes, holding the receiver tight, imagining Nate Heller pacing around his office, puffing furiously on his Camel.
“Everyone and his mother will be there. You can bet your life it will be the lead story on all the network evening shows. You’ve got to go. I want you to show up in the videotape. Most likely they’ll mention you by name as one of the participants. Joy, we need all the positive exposure we can get.”
Joy knew she could not win this one even if she wanted to. “Okay,” she answered resignedly. “When and where?”
“Monday morning, eleven o’clock, in Newark, New Jersey, of all places. Go figure. Bill Kendall, the premier anchorman, closes out the show in that armpit.”
Joy pictured Nate shaking his head and grimacing on the other end of the phone. The conversation concluded, Joy rose and instinctively went over to the closet and walked inside. She did not turn to select from among the daytime suits appropriate for a funeral. Instead, she went to the evening dresses. She pulled out the simple black Ralph Lauren evening sheath, the one she had worn that night. She held the dress close and caressed it. She pressed it to her nose and inhaled. The scent of Jean Patou’s “Joy.” Bill had commented on it that first night. She could remember it all so vividly. Seventeen months ago. December in Washington at the Kennedy Center.
There had been a private reception prior to the Kennedy Center Honors. Joy knew there would be many beautiful women dressed in elaborate and expensive dresses at the prestigious function. She had opted for the black sheath.
Bill had used it as his conversational gambit. “Understated elegance,” he’d said, nodding toward her in appreciation. “You look lovely tonight, Mrs. Wingard.” He stood before her, dazzling in his tuxedo.
“Thank you, Mr. Kendall.” Joy smiled.
“Call me Bill, please,” said the anchorman. He took a sip of his drink. “I suppose you must be busy now, with the race starting to heat up.”
Joy thought before answering. “To tell you the truth, Win and his team are busier than ever. And, yes, I suppose I am more tightly scheduled than usual. But so far, so good. I’m not overwhelmed. Actually, the occupied time is good for me.” She leaned toward him and finished softly. “Less time to think.”
Bill had looked back at her with recognition in his eyes. It was not the first time she had seen the anchorman in person. In fact, she had smiled at him across a round table at a White House dinner just a few months earlier. But each had concentrated on conversation with their respective dinner partners and that had been that. Joy had been relieved at the time. She was extremely wary of the media, and by saying nothing to the man she had no chance of misspeaking.
But at the Kennedy Center that night, she found herself wanting to talk, wanting to connect with this attractive man with the deep brown eyes.
“Before we go a word further, is anything I say on or off the record?”
“Whichever you prefer.”
“I think off would be best.” She had a feeling she could say things to this man that she wouldn’t normally say. There was something about Bill Kendall that made her want to let her guard down.
“Politics acquires a life of its own, doesn’t it?” Bill said. “I suppose every field is like that. I know TV news is. Even though I am the figurehead, the one around whom the troops rally, there are many times rather than feeling I am calling the shots, that I feel controlled by events and other people.”
“Yeah, but at least you don’t have to deal with a campaign manager.” Joy spoke unthinkingly and wished that she could take the remark back. She was always so conscious of presenting a united front. Why did sh
e just say what popped into her mind with this man?
But Bill had laughed heartily. “Oh yes, Nate Heller. He is a character, isn’t he? Determined, focused, driven. Look, better to have him on your side than on the other guy’s. And since Heller is a born worrier, let him do that for you.”
“If only it were that easy,” she said quietly.
Bill looked hard into her face. She didn’t even know this man. Why was she opening up to him? Why did she feel she could trust him?
The chimes rang, signaling that it was time to proceed to the theater and honor five of America’s best and brightest.
“I’ve enjoyed talking with you, Mrs. Wingard.”
“Joy, please.”
He took her hand and shook it, holding on a moment too long, and smiling warmly.
“Joy,” he repeated.
The next week KEY News had called and said that Evening Headlines wanted to do a segment on prominent Washington wives. Mrs. Wingard was one of the women who Bill Kendall would like to interview. Win and Nate had loved the idea.
The KEY entourage had invaded her office. A cameraman, a soundman, a producer named Mary Cate Ryan, and Bill Kendall. Nate Heller and Kathy, Joy’s secretary, were also there to watch. Immediately, Bill had put Joy at ease. He told some self-deprecating joke, they had all laughed and the tension was broken. Joy was fascinated watching Bill, the professional, in action. Obviously having done his homework, he asked insightful questions. He drew her out, following up on her answers with other, more probing inquiries. At the end of the half hour she felt exhilarated.
A few days later, Kathy had buzzed her on the intercom. “Bill Kendall is on the line.” Joy found herself smiling as she picked up the receiver.
“Just wanted to let you know personally that you’re on tonight.”
“How’d I do?”
“We’re always our own worst critics, so you’ll have to make your own judgment. But I thought you came across very well. Anyway, I’ll be in Washington again next week. I was wondering if you’d like to have lunch?”
Do You Want to Know a Secret? Page 7