Before I Sleep (12 page)

She nodded.

He made a note of that, too. “I listen to you sometimes.”

“Anyway, I think this is linked to the shows I've been doing lately on the death penalty and John William Otis.”

When he looked up again, his eyes had grown opaque. “I heard what you're doing. Stirring up a real hornet's nest.”

“That's my job.”

He made another note. “I guess that would explain what the ‘bleeding heart’ means.”

“It was the first thing I thought of.”

He nodded. “Well, to be quite frank, there's very little chance we'll ever catch who did this. I'll talk to your neighbors, find out if anyone saw anything, but if they didn't …” He shrugged. “Like you said, it could be any one of a half million people who think Otis ought to fry.”

She managed to stifle a sigh. “Look, I'm not worried about the paint. I can have the door fixed. What I don't like is that someone made a connection between me and my radio persona, and they found out where I live. How would someone do that? The radio station doesn't let that information out.”

He nodded, closing his notebook. “You might've given that away when you told everybody you'd worked as a prosecutor on the case. Somebody might have gone to the trouble to find out your name.”

She hadn't thought of that. Damn, she hadn't thought of that.

“And of course, somebody could have followed you home from the station.”

That thought gave her chills. “Not last night.”

“It didn't have to be last night,” he pointed out. “All I can tell you is to keep your windows and doors locked, and be cautious. If anything else happens, let us know. In the meantime, we'll try to find out something about the graffiti, but I wouldn't get your hopes up.”

She nodded. “I know.”

“And you might consider doing something else on your show. If you've attracted some kind of nut, that might put him off.”

That only made her angrier. There was a little issue here called free speech.

She walked the deputy to the door. After he stepped out, he turned to face her. “Otis should fry,” he said. “It's what he deserves for killing those people.”

She couldn't even reply. Her face felt as stiff as if it were carved from wood.

She watched him walk out to his car, a young, swaggering buck in the white shirt and green pants of the Sheriff's Department. Like most cops, he walked as if he owned the world.

Well, she decided as she closed her door on the sight of him, maybe tonight she'd do a little show for him about police perjury and misconduct. She certainly had enough stories in her war chest to get that ball rolling.

And she could spend the evening imagining the smile being wiped off his smug young face.

The first thing she saw when she pulled into the station parking lot at a little after three that afternoon was the graffiti that covered the entire front side of the building.

Fry Otis
and
Burn WCST
had been sprayed in vivid red paint across the wall, along with
Kill Justice
and
Fry Carey.
A TV crew was out front, filming the building, but she hardly saw them. She pulled into a parking slot, then sat staring at the vandalized building.

She started shaking, but not from fright. Anger filled her with white heat. If she could have gotten her hands on the people who had done this, she would have put the fear of God into them. And worse, she had the sickening feeling that this was going to be the final straw as far as the station was concerned. If Bill Hayes didn't order her to stop talking about Otis, the owners probably would.

She climbed out of the car with her laptop, her sweater, and her bottled water. There was no hope of escaping recognition by the TV crew. The reporter, Adela Gutierrez, had worked with her on some promos together in the past, and of course a lot of the media people socialized at station Christmas parties.

But she
could
try to limit the damage. Before she came within camera range, she signaled to Adela that she wanted to have a private word with her. Then she turned her back so that if the cameraman tried to catch her, he'd get nothing but brown hair and the back of her white blouse.

Adela wrapped up her segment, then told the cameraman to wait and not to film anything until she told him to. Hearing that, Carey turned and walked over to her.

Adela greeted her with a smile and a handshake. “You've really stirred it up this time, Carey.”

“Looks like it.”

“You'll give me a comment, won't you?”

“Well, that depends. I haven't talked to Bill Hayes yet, so I don't know what the station's position on this is going to be.”

Adela nodded. “But you can still say what
you
think.”

“On one condition. That you don't give my real name on air. I don't want some nut to know who I really am. It would be too easy to find me.”

“That might be a little difficult, Carey. You have a personal tie-in to the Otis case, and you might put a lid on me, but somebody else will let it out. It's part of the story.”

“The story is the vandalism.”

She shook her head. “The story is that you're a former state attorney who prosecuted the case, and you still have doubts about it, doubts that you're bringing up on the air to run a marathon about Otis. The vandalism is just a sidebar.”

Carey's stomach sank. She hadn't thought her shows about Otis were newsworthy. And that was really dumb, she realized, because she had had the subjects of other shows turn up as news in print or on television; there was no reason she should have assumed that the media wouldn't be interested in this story.

Now she was facing a reporter who wanted a scoop for tonight's five o'clock news. If Adela was right about the thrust of the story here—and she probably was—then even if Carey refused to speak to her now, it would be all over the papers in the morning anyway.

“All right,” Carey finally said. “I'll answer just one question, as long as it isn't about the station.”

Adela hesitated, then nodded. “Fair enough.” She pursed her lips a moment, then turned to stand beside Carey, microphone at ready. “Mike?”

The cameraman settled his minicam more firmly on his shoulder, made some adjustment and said, “Go ahead.”

“I have with me WCST talk-show host Carey Justice. Carey, how do you feel about the graffiti? Are you afraid?”

“No, I'm not afraid, Adela. I'm angry. There's no need to vandalize private property. Whoever did this should have just called my show and spoken his piece.”

“But what about the threats against you and the station?”

Two questions, Carey thought, but decided to answer anyway. “This is just an exercise of free speech. It goes to show that feelings run high on this issue. That's all.”

Then, before Adela could ask yet another question, Carey ducked past her and headed for the door, aware that the camera followed her all the way. She could hardly wait to see how this turned out on tonight's news.

Inside, the station seemed perfectly normal. Becky Hadlov sat at the reception desk, talking on the phone. As Carey passed, Becky handed her a stack of messages, all of which were calls from reporters at area newspapers and TV stations. Great.

Becky put her hand over the mouthpiece of the telephone. “Bill wants to see you.”

Of course Bill wanted to see her. He was probably going to read her the riot act. In fact, it wouldn't surprise her if he asked her to pay for repainting the front of the building. Anything seemed possible today.

“He's in the snack room,” Becky called after her.

Carey switched directions and headed toward the back of the building. The snack room was usually empty at this time of day, but this afternoon it was crowded. A surprising number of show hosts were there along with Bill, as were some of the advertising and marketing people, a number of the producers, and some of the techies.

Carey stopped short. “Did I miss a meeting notice?”

Bill shook his head and pointed to an empty chair. “We're talking about the graffiti.”

“Oh.” She sat, putting her laptop, sweater, and bottled water on the table. She had the uncomfortable feeling that Bill was about to make an example out of her. Well, she told herself, she could always find another job.

“As I was saying,” said Frank Villiers, one of the marketing people, “we're already getting ads yanked from Carey's show. National advertisers don't seem to be too concerned yet, but local advertisers are bailing out. If she stays on this topic, we'll lose an awful lot of revenue over the next few weeks.”

“And it's impossible to tell how many listeners we're losing,” said the marketing director. “We're not due for another ratings sweep for five weeks.”

“She was topping the ratings in the last sweep,” said Ted Sanders, a surprising ally from Carey's perspective. They were poles apart, politically. “I wouldn't be all that sure that a lot of people are turning her off. She's always discussed controversial issues from a liberal perspective. And the conservatives seem to love to argue with her.”

Carl Dunleavy, the afternoon host, spoke. “I think we need to be reasonable here. Carey's been pushing an important issue into public awareness. And I think all of us who have shows have been seeing spillover into our programs.”

Ted nodded, as did two of the other hosts.

“Which means,” Carl continued, “that people probably aren't getting bored with the discussion. And if they're not getting bored, they're still listening.”

The marketing director spoke again. “It only takes a few callers to light up the lines. I'm worried about the
listeners,
and so are our advertisers.”

“So are the owners,” Bill said. “They suggested that Carey find something else to discuss.”

Only the advertising people looked happy about that. Talk radio might be entertainment, but most of the hosts and producers had strong feelings about the sanctity of their freedom of speech.

“Yesterday,” Bill continued, “I was prepared to consider the cost in terms of revenue. Today I find myself considering the cost in terms of this station's automony, and our right to broadcast whatever we choose, within the bounds of decency.”

Carey perked up, and looked attentively at him.

Bill waved a hand. “That graffiti really made my blood boil. I will not have our broadcast policies dictated by a group of cowardly scum who come in the dead of night to paint nasty slogans on our building. I will not have our policy decided by a few chickenshit advertisers who haven't got the gumption to support free speech.”

“Hear, hear,” said Ted. Carl nodded approvingly.

“So here's our policy henceforth. The graffiti will remain on the building. I'm not going to paint it over until the city threatens us with a code violation. Carey will continue to do her shows about Otis as long as she wants. And I want the rest of you to take the same tack on the air. We will
not
be silenced by cheap terror tactics.”

Applause spread through the room.

“But,” said one of the techies when the applause died down, “what about safety? Especially, what about Carey's safety? These guys could get nasty.”

“I've already thought about that. We're going to hire off-duty policemen to provide round-the-clock security. And if any more death threats get phoned in—”

Carey interrupted him. “Death threats?”

Bill suddenly looked uncomfortable. Carey's producer, Marge Stanton, shifted in her seat and looked apologetically at her.

“What death threats?” she repeated.

Marge spoke. “We got a couple of them last night when you were on the air.”

“Why didn't you tell me?”

“I thought they were just some more crackpots. It's happened before.”

“It happens all the time,” Carl said reassuringly. “To all of us.”

“But the station has never been vandalized before. And my home was vandalized sometime last night.”

Bill looked concerned. “Your home?”

“Somebody spray-painted
bleeding heart
on my front door.”

Bill's frown deepened. “We have a system that can track the phone numbers of all callers. We don't ordinarily use it, but we're going to start. That way if anyone calls in anything that sounds serious, the police can track it down, okay?”

Everyone nodded except Carey, who was beginning to feel as if she were out on a precarious limb. It wasn't the first time she'd had death threats; hell, she'd even had a few while she was a prosecutor. But never before had the threat come right to her front door. Suddenly the graffiti seemed more frightening than infuriating.

Bill looked at her, saying finally, “Your call, Carey. You can back down if you want to.”

But she looked around at all the other faces, faces that were showing a surprising solidarity.

“If you don't back off, we won't,” said Ted. “Hell, I'll ram it down their throats. That ought to take some of the focus off you.”

“But you support the death penalty.”

“Sure I do. But if you say there's a chance that John Otis is innocent, then I believe there's a chance. And while I support the death penalty, I don't ever want to see an innocent man executed.”

“Me either,” said Carl. A couple of the other hosts nodded.

“What's more,” Ted said, “the issue is whether you have the right to have an opinion and voice it in a public forum. As some guy once said, ‘I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.’ I think most of us feel the same way. Hell, that's part of what talk radio is all about. And that's something I'm perfectly willing to go to the mat over.
That's
the real issue here, and I think every one of us is capable of running with it.”

“That's it then,” Bill said, clapping his hands to his thighs, indicating the meeting was over. “The station policy is that we will
not
back down from any issue. And I want each and every one of you to hammer on that, even if only for a few minutes at a time. As for our advertisers …” He looked at the marketing people. “You can offer them a disclaimer to be broadcast at our expense if they want it. Something to the effect that they don't necessarily support any opinions heard on the show, but that they
do
support the right of people to voice those opinions. Fair enough?”