Just last Thursday I went to get a glass of iced tea, turned
out the pitcher was empty. Now, I know I didn’t finish that
sucker, but did I go questioning the neighbors? Nope. I
went to the store, bought another jug.”
“I have no idea how this relates to an actual human
being.”
“It’s hoopla, is what it is now,” Jack said. “You wrote
a great piece, Henry. Move on.”
“Hoopla? They didn’t outlaw that word in, like, 1800?”
“Laugh it up, tiger. A family is back together. You want
to give them closure? Right now, today, this is the most
closure they’re probably ever going to get. You think
people like Paulina Cole are going to stop calling? You
don’t think there are people out there who know the juice
that can be squeezed from this family is worth money? Just
because you think you have scruples, son, doesn’t mean
everyone else thinks that way.”
“Cop cars,” I said.
Jack looked puzzled. “Cop cars?”
“Danny Linwood told me that when he woke up, he
heard police sirens, and that he saw a cop car pull up
right where he’d been lying. I checked the newspapers
and police reports from that day, and couldn’t find
anything about any crimes reported in the vicinity of
Doubleday Field.”
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“Could have been a prank. Could have been a drunk
wandered off before they got there. The cops could have
come for any number of reasons.”
“Could be, sure. But don’t you think it’s a heck of a
coincidence that the cops are called to a scene where just
a few minutes ago, a kid who went missing for five years
appears out of thin air?”
Jack chewed on his lip, trying to figure out if there was
a way to play it like this was no big deal. I felt a lump in
my throat. This wasn’t the Jack O’Donnell I’d grown up
idolizing, the kind who asked questions until there were
no more to ask. Who dug until he hit a vein or a nerve. This
Jack seemed tired, content to be apathetic, unwilling or
unable to go that extra step.
“I’m going to look into this,” I said. “Somebody knows
who took Danny Linwood and why.” Jack didn’t say a
word, just shrugged his shoulders, stood up and walked
away. I debated following him, then decided it wasn’t worth
it.
I picked up the phone and dialed the Hobbs County
Police Department switchboard. I asked to be connected
to whoever was investigating the Linwood abduction.
Then, surprisingly, the operator hesitated.
“Hold on one moment, sir, I’m going to have to check
on that.” It seemed odd that despite the fact that Daniel
Linwood was likely Hobbs’s biggest story since, well,
Danny’s original disappearance, they couldn’t connect me
to the investigating officer right away. The operator hadn’t
been asked many questions.
“Sorry, sir, for the delay. Hold for Detective Lensicki.”
A synthesized version of “Copacabana” came over the
earpiece. It was all I could do not to slice my ears off.
Finally a man answered with a curt “Yeah?”
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“Detective Lensicki, Henry Parker with the New York
Gazette. I was wondering if I could have a minute of
your time.”
“I know who you are, Parker. I saw you yesterday at
the Linwood house. Haven’t read your article in today’s
paper. I’ll get right to it when my shift is up.” He didn’t
sound very sincere.
“Yeah, anyway, Detective, I had a question about something Daniel Linwood told me yesterday. He said when he
woke up, he heard police sirens. Now, it might have been
police, it might have been an ambulance, but I couldn’t
find any record or report of an investigation at Doubleday
Field. Could you comment on that?”
“No problem, Sherlock. There was no investigation
because there was no crime. There was no report because
nothing happened.”
“So who called 911?”
“Excuse me?”
“I assume the police had a reason to show up at Doubleday Field with their sirens on.”
“We do have routine patrols, Mr. Parker.”
“Do you usually keep your sirens on during those
routine patrols?” Lensicki stayed silent. “Listen, Officer,
I’m not trying to break your balls. I just want to know why
it seems like everything’s back to normal now that Daniel
Linwood has turned up, yet nobody’s really turning over
any rocks to find out where he went.”
“Listen here, you little punk,” Lensicki said. “You go
back to your typewriter and your fancy paper. The day you
tell us how to do our jobs is the day you see us coming
down to your office and sticking a Bic up your ass. You
want a comment about Daniel Linwood? Here you go. The
investigation is ongoing. If and when we have any news
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to report, don’t worry, we’ll make sure you and the rest of
the respected media get all the info.”
“So…can I quote you on that pen-in-ass comment?”
“I got nothing else to say to you,” Lensicki said. “You
have any more questions you direct them to our press secretary. She’s eighty-three years old and can’t see out of one
eye and I’m sure she’ll be happy to help.”
“Wow. You know, I watched Columbo, and always
thought cops were helpful and jolly.”
“Blow it out your ass, Parker.”
“‘Detective has strange ass fetish.’ That’s my headline
for tomorrow. What do you think?”
Unsurprisingly, the line went dead. I felt good about
myself, not just for pissing off a cop but because Lensicki’s
standoffishness made it clear the Hobbs County PD wasn’t
serving and protecting quite as strenuously as their job description called for. Somebody called 911 to alert the cops
to Danny’s whereabouts when he woke up, and if Lensicki
wasn’t interested in digging, I’d be happy to pick up his
slack.
I debated calling Curt Sheffield to get his take on it.
Curt was a young African-American officer with the
NYPD. We’d grown close over the past few years, mainly
due to our unwanted celebrity, our respect for our jobs and
our admiration for a good pint. He’d been a source on
numerous stories, and I was happy to repay him with a few
good shout-outs for his squad. That’s what was most important to Sheffield. That the job was given as much
respect as possible. I was happy to help, because they
needed all the help they could get.
In the aftermath of 9/11, NYPD recruit applications had
dropped more than twenty-five percent. And while the police
force still had approximately fourteen applications for every
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spot they needed to fill, a drop in overall applications meant
a drop in quality of applications. That’s why a cop like
Curt—young,
good-looking and ambitious—found himself
on every recruiting poster between here and Hoboken.
Many blamed lack of recruits on the NYPD’s staggeringly low starting salaries—just $25,100 during the first
six months on the job, a salary that would make most
janitors shake their heads. Having young men like Curt on
the force showed those quality applicants that the best, the
brightest and the most appealing citizens made up the
NYPD. What pissed Curt off was that he was a damn good
cop, yet on the street he was treated like Mickey Mouse.
Kids and their parents recognized him from posters. He
spent more time signing autographs than patrolling his
route. I tried to get him to keep things in perspective, but
unlike many cops, Curt’s celebrity didn’t go to his head.
He wanted to stay behind the scenes. Just like a certain
reporter who desired celebrity as much as he desired
rickets.
I called Curt’s desk, got a message saying that today
was his day off. Which meant he was probably sitting on
his couch watching SportsCenter and eating one of those
meat-lovers pizzas that contained a little over eighteen
thousand calories per slice. If I had Curt’s dietary habits
I’d look like Norm from Cheers, but the guy had the metabolism of a Thoroughbred. He could eat a cow smothered in steak sauce and not gain an ounce. Sometimes life
wasn’t fair.
I tried his cell phone. Curt picked up on the third ring.
There was a pause between “Curt” and “Sheffield.” I must
have caught him in the middle of a burp.
“Hey, man, it’s Henry.”
“S’up, Parker?”
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“Let me guess. You’re on your fifth slice and third
SportsCenter rerun of the day.”
“Nope. Gloria’s got me on a health kick. She made me
some spelt toast with peanut butter, mint jelly and honey.
For lunch I got a bowl of plain oatmeal with some raisins
and soy milk in the fridge.”
“Sounds like a delicious colon-cleansing meal.”
“Yeah, it’s, uh…it’s really tasty.” I tried to stifle a laugh.
“Dude, if I don’t get, like, something that used to moo in
my system soon, I’m gonna start pissing soy beans.”
“I do owe you a meal or two, but I’ll own up later. I got
a question for you. When you’re investigating a disturbance, what happens if it’s a false alarm? Like a burglary
or break-in is reported, but when the boys in blue show up
there’s no evidence of anything illegal?”
“It’s investigated, man. Every one. Can’t say they spend
a ton of time on it, but you gotta make sure it was a false
alarm. God forbid it turns out you just missed a clue or
someone really needed help and you left instead of lifting a
finger.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“What’s this about, bro?”
“Not sure yet. I have a few questions about the Daniel
Linwood disappearance that nobody’s in a rush to answer.”
“Kid who got kidnapped then dropped out of the sky,
right?”
“That’s the one.”
“I feel for that family, man. Nobody deserves to go
through that. My mom used to hyperventilate if I came
home half an hour late from school, let alone five years.
Good luck, Henry. If anyone’s gonna get those answers it’s
you, you tunnel-visioned asshole. And hey, don’t forget
about your tab. Steak and a beer within the week.”
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“You can count on it.”
I hung up and ordered a pizza to be delivered to Curt’s
house. I just hoped he’d finish it before Gloria got home,
otherwise he wouldn’t be around long enough for me to
repay the rest of the tab.
There had to be more to the Linwood story. Something
I’d missed, perhaps. Something in Daniel’s voice, his
word, his cadences.
I took the tape recorder from my desk, rewound the tape
and pushed Play. I listened to the whole tape again. And
when it was finished, I was pretty sure I’d discovered one
pretty big question. Not to mention an explanation as to why
I was confused by certain aspects of Danny’s statements.
One huge question had been asked by Danny Linwood
himself. Only the boy didn’t even know he was asking it.
8
Paulina Cole forwarded three e-mails to her assistant,
James Keach, then turned off her computer and put on her
Burberry trenchcoat. James had asked several times if he
could leave for the day, but each time Paulina answered
him by not answering him—ignoring him was her favorite
form of communication—and he soon slunk back to the
cubicle zoo where the other peons sat and stewed. It had
become somewhat of an amusing ritual. At the end of each
day Paulina would send whatever hate mail she received
to James, who would make copies for three departments:
Human Resources, Public Relations and the Dispatch’s
editor-in-chief, Ted Allen. Paulina had requested the
Dispatch print her e-mail address at the end of every
column. She invited readers to write in, and in fact went
home depressed on the days where she got no hate mail.
Pissed-off folks tended to be more vocal than satisfied
ones, so the next day she would try even harder to kneel
on the public’s pressure points.
She sent the e-mails to HR because it was mandated by
corporate. PR wanted it in case any public figures wrote
in. Ted Allen demanded it because he liked nothing more
than employing a reporter who so riled up readers that they
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took time out of their busy (or tragically not busy) day to
pen her a missive so vile that they would tell all their
friends to buy the paper to see what that bitch wrote.
When the media reporter for the New York Gazette had
questioned Paulina’s ethics in reporting on a congressman she’d allegedly had a romantic liaison with years
back, Cole responded in her column questioning the
reporter’s manhood. More specifically, she stated her
doubt that his manhood was longer than his pencil’s eraser.
Both she and Ted had gotten a kick out of it, and HR
needed a new folder to house all the letters she received.
Naturally, the paper sold 50,000 more copies that day than
the previous one, and her story was linked to by dozens of
influential media Web sites. Nobody was better at riling
up the bourgeoisie than Paulina Cole, and in today’s
America people paid good money to be pissed off.
Paulina began her career in journalism nearly two
decades ago working in the Style section at a New York
alternative weekly paper. Boring easily of reporting on
asinine trends and mindless models, Paulina took a job on
the news desk at the New York Gazette. Widely considered
one of the city’s most prestigious dailies, it was at the
Gazette where Paulina first made a name for herself. And
while her progress at the G
azette matched her drive, she
quickly tired of the politics and backroom handshakes that
were staples of the old boys’ club. Wallace Langston and
Jack O’Donnell were dinosaurs, analogs in a digital world.
The newsroom needed a swift stiletto in the ass, but they
were too busy sniffing brandy to realize the world was
passing them by. And when Wallace brought in Henry
Parker, then stood by him when the weasel was accused of
murder, it sickened Paulina more than anything in her career
had before. And she was not a woman who sickened easily.
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Leaving the Gazette was the easiest decision she’d ever
made. To her, that newspaper represented everything
wrong with the current system. Old. Stale. Clueless about
technology, and out of touch with the average reader.
People wanted pizzazz, something to shock them, something to ignite their senses. They didn’t care about politics
unless there was sleaze behind the suit. Didn’t care about
crime unless it was a celebrity drunk behind the wheel. So
Paulina was happy to dig and dish the dirt. She was happy
to be hated by the highbrow, embraced by the lowbrow.
But everyone had an opinion.
Once safely nestled in the bosom of the New York
Dispatch, Paulina had made it her goal to not only boost
the paper’s circulation rates, but to do it at the expense of
the Gazette. She would topple their leaders, set fire to the
old guard and burn the paper to the ground. She’d laid the
groundwork with her articles focusing on Henry, to the
point where nearly half the city would answer “Henry
Parker” when asked what was wrong with the current state
of journalism.
But Henry was young. Not yet thirty, his proverbial
balls had not yet dropped. Going after him was like
shooting a fish in a barrel, and its ripples wouldn’t travel
far. To truly bring down the Gazette, she had to stop
worrying about the epidermis, and instead dig down to its
skeleton. The old guard. The reporter the paper staked its
very reputation on.
Jack O’Donnell.
For years Jack O’Donnell had been the public face of
the Gazette. He’d won countless awards, brought respectability, integrity and readership to Wallace Langston’s newspaper. Yet during her tenure there, Paulina had
noticed the old man begin to slip. His reporting had been
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shoddy, numerous quotes and sources had to be spiked by
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