“Something funny?” Rita scanned the desk.
“Actually, no.” Joel frowned. “We make our money on advertising here. We’re not after the Pulitzer Prize. We’re here to stay in business. I let him talk me into that damned series and the whole time I was on the verge of getting an ulcer. Bobby was the kind of reporter who made me nervous.”
Rita smiled. “Yes, he was. I think that’s why I liked him so much. He was always making somebody nervous.”
“So, is that all? Got lots of stuff to do. Deadline’s Thursday, you know.” Joel’s body was already departing.
“One more thing.” Rita said.
“Ok.” Joel halted where he was, but did not come back to conversational range, staying poised for quick departure.
“Anything unusual in Bobby’s last few weeks?”
Joel’s abbreviated laugh emitted again. “Everything about him was unusual. But the most annoying thing—I don’t know if it’s important—he changed his mind at the last minute on the final piece in the series.” Joel paused. “Never said why. Just came in and told me. We had a fight about getting this thing in on time. He said he’d have it after the weekend.”
“The weekend he died?” Rita said.
Joel nodded.
“What was the new story?”
“Don’t know. Don’t know. Never said.” Joel inched away.
“Did he say he was meeting somebody in West Virginia?”
“If you knew Bobby Ellis, you’d know he wouldn’t tell you shit. Drove me crazy. My theory is he was meeting a source, but then after what happened, I just assumed . . .”
“Yeah, I know.” Rita nodded. “But did you tell the police about your theory that he was meeting a source and died in the process?”
“What police? Who’s to tell? Look, I’ve got to get some figures for the publisher’s meeting this afternoon. Take your time with the desk, call me if you want to talk some more.” The words trailed after as Joel hustled off.
“Sure, sure.” Rita imitated Joel’s quirky response.
She sat at the desk and went through the papers on top. Then she flicked on the computer and found it organized much as the one at Ellis’ apartment—only on this machine individual files were stored at a high capacity serving computer connected to all the other PC’s in the office. The latest was the story on Brett Hillman and his PAC money. Nothing came after that.
“So, what the hell was the last story?” Rita said to herself. “And what made it so important he had to switch from his original plan?”
In the hanging file drawer, Rita found folders with information on the four parts of the series. She found nothing on the fifth.
♏
Rita stood at her bedroom window. Morning again. Red splashed across the black horizon as hearty stars held fast and blinked their light-year fires to the sleeping earth. She had been dressed for an hour.
The Great White Hunter took his usual turn around her ankles and she leaned down to scratch his eager head. Then he scampered off and down the stairs as his signal he was ready for breakfast.
“How can you eat that stuff so early in the morning?” she asked as she forked dark tuna into his bowl.
The Great White Hunter buried his head into his meal as his answer.
“To each his own.” Rita laughed and slid the covered tuna can into the refrigerator. For herself it was coffee and juice this morning. She really wanted a piece of chocolate cake, but it was better not to keep it in the house. She’d only eat it.
Karin had gone back home. All had been quiet on that front for days; nothing from the maniacal Dr. Demento. The silence was starting to make Rita twitchy.
The phone rang. She glanced at the clock. It was a little after six.
“This is your local police,” said Mary Margaret.
“Something wrong?” Rita asked.
“Not a thing. But you know how wannabe nuns keep their habits. I get into the office early to do my paperwork and drink my coffee.” She cleared her throat. “I wanted to catch you before you took off for Charlestown.”
“Why? You find something?” Rita set down her coffee cup and slid a note pad in front her.
“Found a lot of things.”
“You planning to tell me or tease me?” She tapped her pencil on the counter.
“You be careful when you go interview that Skippy Lockerman. Ok? He’s got a rap sheet from here to eternity. Nothing light on there either. Everything from statutory rape to assault with a deadly weapon and of course, his main business, drugs.”
“He sounds like a busy boy.” Rita said.
There was a long pause.
“Rita, if you are going to go—and God knows I know the answer to that—you have to carry a weapon.” Mary Margaret’s voice was stern.
“I have one.”
“You’d use it?”
“If I had to. In the work I’ve done so far, I’ve never felt the need to carry it.”
“Carry it today.”
“Smooth.”
“I’m asking you to carry it, Rita.” Mary Margaret paused. “I know how you feel about that and I know it has to do with your father—and that night. But I don’t want to have to come and get your body. You hear me? I couldn’t live with myself.”
“I’ll think about it,” Rita promised.
“Thinking is not what this is about,” Mary Margaret said. “Drawing that gun and using it is pure instinct, survival instinct.”
“Ok, ok, I’ll carry it. You sound like Beverly, you know that?” Rita closed her eyes as she hung up the phone.
The drive to West Virginia would have been easy and peaceful without the harness and weight of the 9mm Glock. It was a reminder of responsibility, a reminder of mortality and split-second decision making.
She remembered her father’s holster. When she was little and ran to him when he came home from his shift, she would pat the oily blue-black revolver at this side. He would smack her hand then lift her to comfort the tears.
“No, no,” he said then. “This is not for you. This will hurt you.” And though he had not used it, the pain it caused remained.
And years later when alcohol had overcome him with unpredictable fits of rage or maudlin philosophizing, he would lecture through his crying jag. “Heavy destiny,” he would say as he unstrapped the side holster and laid the revolver on the table for display. “When you draw it, you have to understand that everything changes—forever.”
Deep in her memories, Rita almost missed Lockerman’s Mobile Homes as she cruised West Virginia’s Route 340 through Charlestown. It was a bare dirt lot with a trailer office and tattered red plastic flag bunting. Mobile homes and RV’s lined the frontage and packed into an aisle between them and the office.
When Rita pulled in, a man and woman talked to another man in a baby blue Western style jacket with rhinestones on the front. He had on a white cowboy hat, high heeled snakeskin boots and looked like a rat dressed for Halloween.
“Be right with you, Miss,” the rat called when Rita got out of the car.
From the office a huge animal slouched out the door. His face was blank as if nothing in the surrounding registered on his brain. He had hands like sledge hammer heads and a thick jaw stubbled with a day or two of beard. He wore a plaid jacket and a pair of baggy, double-knit, grey pants.
“He’ll be right with you.” This person said to Rita.
She walked over to inspect a used RV to get away from this man, but he shadowed her. There was that scent of cigarette smoke she’d noticed lately. No one here on the lot was smoking.
“Now how can I help you?” The rat had let the couple escape without signing any papers.
Rita explained who she was and why she was there. She held out her hand. The rat, who was Skippy Lockerman, eyed her then glanced and nodded at the behemoth standing behind Rita.
“This here’s Big Earl. Shake her hand, Earl.”
Earl crushed Rita’s slender fingers until she grimaced. “Hey, Earl, I need these
for later. Thanks,” she said when he released her. She kept a wary eye on him while she addressed Skippy.
“So you think I done in ole Bobby?” Skippy drew out a cigar the size of a horse’s leg. Big Earl lit it with a purple Bic.
“I don’t know.”
Earl’s eyes narrowed and Rita took a step back.
“Well, I didn’t. You see, me and Bobby was friends and he owed me some money. What’s more, he was payin’ it back. I weren’t about to kill no golden goose, you know.” He puffed the cigar and blew smoke at Rita.
“Do you know of anyone who might have wanted to kill him?” Rita asked. Earl edged closer.
“Nope, can’t say as I do.”
“Did Bobby mention anything or anybody unusual about a story he was working on?”
“Bobby and me, we had a different level of communication, you might say. He didn’t talk to me about no stories or writin’.”
Rita stared into Skippy Lockerman’s glinting black eyes. “And where were you the night Bobby died?”
Earl’s belly shoved against her arm, but Rita wasn’t moving.
“I was over to the bingo hall. I run the games there of a Saturday night.” Lockerman smiled at Earl. “You can ask Deputy Lamar if you want to, he was on duty there.”
Rita stared up at Earl then back to Skippy. She took out a card and handed it to Lockerman. “If you think of anything that might help me catch the killer of your friend, give me a call.”
“Now I’ll surely do that,” Lockerman grinned. “Always eager to help out the law.” He pointed to Rita’s car. “Earl, why don’t you help the lady with her door there.”
Earl lumbered to the Jeep and ripped the driver’s side door open. Rita backed toward it so that she could keep both Skippy and Earl in clear view.
“Thanks,” she said to Earl who maintained a death grip on the door handle. He slammed it shut when she was barely inside.
As she drove off the lot, she noticed the dent just at her side window. Earl’s thumb had left an impression in the metal.
Chapter 20
“Hello?” Rita sat at her desk at home. For the first time that afternoon she looked up to realize how dark it was. The extension lamp had lulled her into a false sense of daylight. She hadn’t noticed how chilly it was either.
“Hello?” Karin VanDreem’s footsteps padded on the farmhouse wooden stairs.
“Up here.” Rita pulled her wrist in front of her eyes to see her watch. “Damn.” She had been going to have dinner ready at seven. It was ten after. She sprang out of the room, the Great White Hunter leaping out of her way.
She nearly collided with Karin at the top of the stairs. Rita grasped her by the shoulders as she tottered backwards.
“I’m sorry,” Rita panted. “God, time got away from me. I was going over Bobby’s last stories.”
“It’s ok,” Karin laughed.
“I’m sorry.” Rita repeated as she lowered her eyes.
“We’ll call in Chinese. No big deal.”
Later they sat in the kitchen with their Chinese picnic spread before them. Rita had built a fire in the ancient woodstove and the house was warming with the heat and scent of burning oak.
“Any noises from Dr. Demento?” Rita asked.
“Nothing,” Karin said. “All quiet.”
“It makes you nervous.”
“It makes me nervous.” Karin confirmed. “But I guess he really did go to England.”
Rita swirled her chopsticks in the sesame noodles on her plate
“Can’t make me happy, can you?” said Karin. “Afraid when he’s up to something. Afraid when he isn’t.”
“Who says he isn’t? Besides, I like having you for a house guest.”
Karin tilted the teacup at her lips, her eyes set on Rita. “Let’s switch topics. How’s the Bobby Ellis case?”
Rita watched her chopsticks twine the noodles into knots. “I’m chasing my tail.”
“Can you talk to me about it?” Karin set down the teacup.
“I have squat on this case.” Rita stabbed the chopsticks into her pile of noodles.
“You said you spent the afternoon checking his last series of stories.”
“I was looking for some hint at who might have been pissed off enough to kill him. Maybe a story where there could have been more than he reported or a reputation that was trashed and burned,” Rita could feel that furrow of frustration cleaved into her forehead.
“And?” Karin asked.
“The first story was about the Pentagon’s black budget, their secret treasury for covert activities they conveniently neglect to tell the public about. Bobby dredged up some weirdo projects straight out of X-Files . I think it went over the head of his readers. Reaction consisted of one form letter from some junior undersecretary at DOD. I wrote this off as a catalyst for nothing but a George Lukas movie.”
“The stories were all the same?” Karin rested her chin in her hand in a thoughtful pose.
“The second was a little harder hitting and a little closer to home. That was about selling pollution credits.”
“Ok,” Karin said. “This one loses me.”
“Oh, the Clean Air Act created this monster system that when one air polluting industry reduces its emissions below its designated standard, it can ‘sell’ those extra reductions to a heavier polluter.”
“This doesn’t make much sense to me,” Karin said.
“Apparently not to anyone else. Another form letter of protest—this time from Potomac Edison. No heavy breathing here either.”
“Third story?”
“News control by advertisers and major public radio and television supporters.” Rita grasped the chopsticks and twirled the noodles again.
“Number four.”
Rita looked up with shiny eyes. “A better possibility for getting under someone’s skin. Bobby got some good information on funny money that’s going to Brett Hillman. Hillman got pissed.” Rita dropped the chopsticks and doubled her fist and feigned a right cross. “At the press conference, Hillman punched Bobby, called him names, threatened him. Not only that but Hillman’s chief aide, Peter DeVane started growling at Bobby too. Lots of poison pen stuff on this story.”
“That seems a promising start. Have you talked to them yet?” Karin asked.
“No, those two are next on my list.” Rita stared past Karin. “But the interesting thing is the fifth story.”
“Which was?”
“Don’t know. I talked with Joel Stone at the Monitor and he said Bobby changed his mind just before deadline. He never told Stone what the story was about though. He said he’d have the story done right after the weekend—of course Bobby didn’t make it through that weekend.”
“Maybe there was something in that last story,” Karin said.
“I’m going to check out Hillman and DeVane first.” Rita reached for one of the paper Chinese food containers to snap it closed. “But I’m also going to do my damnedest to find out what that last story was about.”
Karin gathered up the plates she and Rita had used. She put the dishes into the sink and started running water.
“I don’t have a clue,” Rita called from the refrigerator as she stuck the leftovers inside.
“Sure you do. Not the smoking gun, but they’re the next ones in this round of questions. That’s what it’s all about, isn’t it—process of elimination?”
Rita stood beside her as steamy clouds drifted up from a soapy pool of dishwater. “You’re just so damned clever.”
“Capitol Hill tomorrow?” Karin handed Rita a rinsed plate for drying.
“Yes, and more than that.” A smug smile wavered on Rita’s lips. “I have an idea that I hope will bring the killer to scope me out.”
♏
Outside the Capitol, vans with microwave saucers clustered like covered wagons around a campfire. Technicians with headphones trailed serpents of black wire as they adjusted their dishes to the heavens and spun the dials on the interior transmissio
n panels. Television reporters smoothed their hair and jotted script notes. Behind the media troops, roped off by bored policemen, stood herds of gawkers who awaited their opportunity for fleeting fame on the eleven o’clock news.
The national healthcare bill had emerged with a key change in coverage for prescription drugs. The bill’s detractors had swarmed to the inception site screaming about Rosemary’s baby, while staunch supporters in Congress forged a protective chain of government-speak to stave off the attack. The developing spectacle promised a field day for newsmongers.
Rita snapped her press pass onto her lapel and pulled her collar closer around her neck. When she’d left home, it appeared the November morning would spread into a temperate blue-sky afternoon. Now clouds curled over the sun; the wind kicked scrap paper across the sidewalks and damp cold settled like marsh fog.
“Now what was it you wanted to ask me?” Kate Harrigan asked. Harrigan and Rita had worked together in the past. She was covering today for CNN .
“I want to run a trial balloon,” Rita answered as she swept her vision across the multitudes where she herself used to wait for battle.
“Don’t you miss it?” Kate cupped a Styrofoam coffee container with red and ungloved hands.
Rita jammed her hands in her pockets. “Sometimes.”
“Don’t give me that. I know you as well as anybody. You’re an excitement junkie, pure and simple.”
“Ok, I miss it.” Rita turned her head to study the television logo on the van behind which she and Kate took shelter from the wind.
“You could come back,” Kate said.
“I’m not travelling backward anymore in my life.”
“Hey, it was a detour, now you can get back on the straight and narrow.”
DRIVEN: A Rita Mars Thriller Page 16