Hack (6 page)

Famed
New York Tribune
food critic and author Aubrey Forsythe is today to be arraigned on charges of murder and cannibalism after he killed and dined on the naked corpse of his live-in boyfriend, Neil Leonardi, after the two had a spat at their $15 million Manhattan townhouse, the
Mail
has learned.

After making a meal of his lover, Forsythe, star of TV’s hit show
Food Fight
, calmly went out to review a restaurant for the Trib, gobbling up a gourmet meal, sources said. (Cont. P2, 3, 4 & 5)

The story continued on page two, surrounded by photographs of Aubrey and Neil “at happier meals,” and contained everything I had absorbed at the murder scene and elsewhere. The mayor and governor both expressed shock, as did several lesser celebrities whose flagging careers probably needed a boost.

A box was inset into the type of my main story.

Apparently alerted by me, one of our photographers got a flash shot of a dazed, sobbing Aubrey being led from a cop car at Central Booking at 1 Police Plaza, a sad Pillsbury Doughboy emerging from a red-brick oven. There were other stories by other reporters, including a review by our “Eating Out” restaurant critic, panning the deadly dish as “unimaginative and pedestrian; a strip mall entrée unworthy of a gourmet.” One story, titled “FOOD FIGHT,” listed Aubrey and Neil’s past spats, and Neil’s apparently well-known nastiness to Skippy, as documented on their TV show. It also recapped the new, unseen video I mentioned in my story. Another piece with my byline on it was headlined “LOYAL DOG GUARDS SLAIN MASTER,” along with my photo of Skippy. Other stories featured a pop TV shrink speculating on Aubrey’s motivations, even a real-estate piece about whether the value of the townhouse would rise or fall because of the infamous act.

Wow.

I checked the other papers. Aubrey’s own newspaper, the esteemed
New York Tribune
did not cover the story at all. The
Mail
’s main competitor, the
Daily Press
, also had the story on the front page but it was very vague and contained less information than we had put on the
Mail’
s website the night before. “FOOD CRITIC NABBED. Body Found at Townhouse,” by Virginia McElhone. The
Daily Press
speculated that the victim was Aubrey’s companion but did not identify the corpse and said only that Aubrey was in custody. Not a word about cannibalism. Or cheese.

The Manhattan Criminal Courts Building was a huge, stepped ziggurat of once-white sandstone chiseled with Art Deco designs and inspiring sayings about justice. It took me fifteen minutes and three different court officers to find the right first floor courtroom. In the hall outside, a huge crowd of TV crews and photographers strained behind barricades and began filming and shooting me as I approached. They all shouted questions at once and I couldn’t understand any of them. Only one shooter wasn’t firing, a female
Mail
photographer I had seen in the office, who obviously knew I wasn’t worth wasting battery power on. Two court officers grabbed me by the elbows and rushed me through the double doors of the courtroom and escorted me to the front row, where I sat alone on an empty bench, a dark, dirty antique polished by a million butts since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in the White House.

“You the other Frank Shepherd, the new guy?” a raspy voice in the row behind me asked.

I turned and saw a short, old wrinkled guy in a black rumpled suit and loose, stained red tie, his eyes watery in the morning, like a serious drinker.

“Uh, yeah,” I replied. “Call me Shepherd.”

“Okay, Shepherd,” he said, offering his wrinkled hand for a strong clasp. “I’m Dunn. Mickey Dunn, courthouse reporter for the
Mail.
Great fuckin’ yarn, pal. Is it true you’re the new pet column guy? Whatya doin’ here?”

“Thanks. Yes. I don’t know.”

“You should retire, Shepherd,” Dunn said, guffawing. “Put you out to stud. You’ll never top today’s story, you live to be old as me.”

“Yeah, really. I wouldn’t know how. Never done this before. What’s going to happen?”

With a smile and a shake of his white hair, Dunn explained how the prisoner would come in and plead not guilty and bail would be set or discussed. As he detailed the options, I heard a hubbub and a parade of people rushed in and surrounded me on the bench. The hot redhead who had chased me from the townhouse the night before plopped right next to me, her thigh pressing against mine. I didn’t move away. Again, they all asked questions at once but I could understand her this time and caught her name.

“You’re a
Daily Press
reporter?” I asked her, making her face light up.

It was a nice face and the rest was very nice, too.

“Yes, I’m Ginny McElhone,” she beamed. “They call me ‘Ginny Mac.’ Are you a friend or family?”

“Turn it off, Ginny,” Dunn interrupted. “He’s with me. He’s the new guy. Name’s Shepherd. He kicked all of your asses.”

They all groaned. Ginny’s sweet look vanished and was instantly replaced with one of deep hatred. She withdrew her thigh.

“That was you?” she demanded. “And I chased you? Motherfucker!”

I thought she was going to hit me but I was saved by a court officer who banged on a wall and yelled, “All rise!” We all rose, as a middle-aged black judge in black robes entered and took a seat at the head of the court, behind a small placard that read H
ON
. J
OSEPH
B
EAN
, and told us to take our seats. As if on cue, a short round guy in a navy suit strode into the court. I recognized celebrity defense lawyer Roland Arbusto, who looked like a big silk bowling ball, with a purple tie and wavy black hair. Arbusto worked the room as if he were at a party, greeting the judge, shaking a court officer’s hand and waving to the press corps in the front row. For a few minutes nothing happened, until a clerk called out Aubrey’s name and he was led in handcuffs through a side door to one of two wooden tables in front of the judge and seated next to Arbusto. He was wearing the same clothes as the day before but the starch had gone out of them, and him. His eyes were red from crying. Arbusto slapped him on the back and whispered something in his ear.

“Well,” said Dunn in his wrinkly voice. “If the trial took place on a see-saw, we know who’d win.”

At the other table, two attractive women in power-dress suits were conferring over a file. One, with bright red hair and looking just as impressive as when I’d seen her on television, was the Manhattan DA, Krystal Ryan.

The clerk read out the charge of First Degree Murder and Unlawfully Dealing with Human Remains.

“How do you plead?”

“Totally, completely, without a shadow of a doubt not guilty,” Arbusto bellowed.

Dunn, Ginny and the other reporters were writing down what everybody said in their notebooks. I couldn’t write that fast, so I just listened.

“Is that less guilty, say, than a simple ‘not guilty,’ or the same?” Judge Bean asked sarcastically.

“My client is as innocent as it is possible to be,” Arbusto responded. “He has never been arrested before and I demand he be released on his own recognizance, Your Honor.”

“On a First Degree Murder charge?” the judge asked, with a gentle smile. “Well, before I do that, Mr. Arbusto, if it’s alright with you, I would like to hear what our distinguished District Attorney has to add on the subject. Ms. Ryan?”

Ryan stood. “Your Honor, Mr. Forsythe is charged with capital murder and one of the most repugnant acts human beings are capable of, a crime of a barbaric and inhuman nature. I would describe our case as very strong and to even suggest bail is obscene.”

“What repugnant act are you referring to, Ms. Ryan? I notice you are charging him with First Degree Murder. On what grounds?”

“I would rather not disclose our entire case at this juncture, Your Honor, but we have irrefutable forensic evidence and even videotape to prove our case. Mr. Forsythe is a danger to the community and possibly to himself and The People demand he be held without bail.”

“If you want me to deprive this defendant of his liberty before trial, you had better tell me on the record why he is charged with First Degree and what this barbaric and inhuman crime is.”

The DA sounded reluctant. “At this point, subject to further testing and investigation we believe Mr. Forsythe is not only guilty of a senseless slaying, but of the savage crime of cannibalism, Your Honor.”

A gasp of pleasure came from the hungry reporters, as they ate up every word.

“But he is not charged with that because there is no such crime in New York State,” Judge Bean said.

“Correct, Your Honor,” Ryan said.

You learn something every day. Manhattan was a tough town. You could eat someone in Manhattan and not even get a ticket. The judge seemed to be having fun.

“I object, Your Honor,” boomed Arbusto. “If there is no such crime in this state, how can Ms. Ryan use it as sole justification to keep my client behind bars? My client is draped in the cloak of presumed innocence as he stands before this court. I demand reasonable bail.”

The reporters had stopped writing for a moment, grinning at one another. I guessed that this was not the first time Arbusto had made similar arguments.

“Remand,” the judge said and banged his gavel. “Return date on Friday, in this part. Court adjourned.”

Some reporters stampeded from the courtroom, others were busily using their smart phones to send the news to their offices.

“What’s ‘remand?’” I asked Dunn.

“Remanded without bail. He stays in jail,” said Dunn. “I’ve got to go to the press room and file this so they can get it up on the web. Can you cover anything outside, whatever Arbusto and the DA say?”

I said I would. The DA repeated almost word for word what she said in court and I wrote it down this time. She only said one thing that was different.

“This heinous crime shocks the moral conscience of our society and must be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law—no matter how rich or powerful the defendant might be,” she said.

Arbusto waited until she was done and then gave his own impromptu press conference in the hallway, with reporters shouting questions.

“Why did your client eat his victim?” a TV reporter asked.

“I assume you are referring to the fiction in today’s
New York Mail
? My client did not cannibalize anyone, nor did he kill anyone, nor did he commit a crime of any kind. He is a victim, who will sue the city for a huge sum for false arrest. But that is for later. Right now, the real killer is roaming the streets of this fair city. What are the police going to do about it? We demand action. Meanwhile, I will appeal this ruling to the Appellate Division. Thank you.”

Again, the reporters and photographers smiled. They had obviously heard this speech before, too. We all followed Arbusto out of the building and watched as he got into a waiting Rolls Royce limo driven by a chauffeur. As the press mob broke up, I noticed Ginny standing right in front of me, glaring.

“Thanks for not hitting me,” I said to her.

“Thanks for tricking me.”

“I tricked you?” I asked, amazed. “I don’t even know you. How did I trick you?”

“By pretending to be a relative or something at the scene last night.”

“I didn’t,” I replied. “I told the cops the truth and I let them believe what they wanted to believe. It was kind of tricky, I guess.”

“Are you really their pet columnist?” she asked in disbelief.

“Yup. Never had a lesson.”

“I reported you to DCPI,” she smiled. “They’ll take away your press card.”

“No they won’t. I don’t have one. What’s DCPI?”

“Deputy Commissioner of Public Information, the PR people at Police Headquarters.” They were the ones who gave Ginny and her colleagues zilch while I was inside getting my big scoop.

“My boss threatened to fire me this morning if you beat me again,” she told me, fixing me with a hard stare. “That’s not going to happen.”

“Sorry. Hey, a little friendly competition never hurt anyone, right? How about I buy you a cup of coffee?”

She ignored my peace offering. “Don’t do it again. I’m warning you.” Her face was completely calm, absolutely serious.

“You’re warning me? Okay, forget the coffee. You are a piece of work. What’s your problem?”

“You,” she said, turning and walking quickly away.

Aubrey’s block was still closed off but, instead of dozens of reporters, photographers and video crews, today there were hundreds of them, their vehicles being held at bay by cops behind blue barricades. The clogged streets looked like an auto lot for TV satellite trucks, with microwave giraffe towers extended into the air like electronic erections. Famous faces were repeating my story into lenses, live and on tape in the warming sunlight, as I walked by. There were just as many members of the public milling around, gawking at the celebrity broadcasters and buying Mongolian barbecue sticks from a street vendor cart.

One network anchor was holding up the “NEIL PARMESAN” front page and chuckling at the tabloid tackiness, as if he was above it all. He incorrectly told his viewers that a source had told him the
Mail
reporter, meaning me, was a friend of the family—as if that explained how I got the story, instead of Mr. Famous Anchor. When he said “friend of the family” in a sarcastic tone, it sounded like he was implying I was also gay. Tacky.

As I passed the food cart, the barbecue smell hit my nose and my mouth watered. It smelled great but I was now a tabloid hack on a mission and lunch would have to wait. I found the same black cop, Officer Gumbs, at the sawhorse barrier and he let me right through, which sparked a media stampede as I walked quickly to the townhouse. Ginny Mac appeared in layers of pink and white that could have been a very short dress or a long shirt. She tried to follow me, shouting to the cop that she was with me. When Officer Gumbs looked at me for confirmation, I shook my head and shrugged. They had to carry her off, screaming and cursing like a pink lunatic.