Missing Mark (15 page)

“Artistic jealousy?” I asked, while thinking murder motive.

“No. No,” Jason insisted. “It’s a brotherhood.”

“Really?” I’m afraid my voice held a hint of sarcasm. “So that feud between Letterman and Leno was just a big misunderstanding.”

“Well, there’s always a little healthy rivalry,” he conceded, “but my guys love each other.” Then I wondered why he looked uneasy.

“You know what I think is funny?” I said. “The vocabulary comedians use to describe their work. Laughter seems such a gentle goal, but your terminology is so violent.”

He looked puzzled.

“You know what I mean, Jason,” I continued. “If a comic does real good stand-up, he says I
killed
that night.”

That loosened him up. Jason smiled, laughed, and played along. “And if he does bad, they say, man you
died
out there.”

“And don’t forget
punch
line,” I added. We went back and forth about the significance of
making
someone laugh, when I argued laughter should be voluntary.

“Remember some guys would
kill
for a laugh.” Jason delivered the line with just the right amount of inflection. By then he figured I might have enough material for my own monologue about how comedy can be a competitive, cutthroat business.

“I could slot you for next week’s open-mic night,” he offered. “I’ll even let your station bring a camera in if they want to cover it.”

I could tell he was still hoping to get the club’s name on the news. But I declined, explaining that I was in the middle of sweeps and only had time for work. “Those laughs we shared tonight are the last laughs I’ll have for weeks.”

Which led me back to the reason I’d stopped by the club in the first place. “Nobody seems to know where Mark is. Any ideas?”

“Zippo. I know he skipped out on his wedding. I was there with my wife, invited guests. What he does in his personal life is none of my business. I gave him space after that debacle. But the following week he was scheduled to take the stage and he no-showed me. Unacceptable.”

The penalty for missing a performance: banned from the club. No exceptions.

“Mark knew the rules,” Jason said. “I figure that’s why he hasn’t been back.”

“Could he have hooked up with a club in another state?”

“Comedy is a small world. I think I’d have heard something because clubs use referrals from other clubs. Most of the time, though, we prefer to develop our own stars.”

“TV stations are the same way,” I said. “Much cheaper to develop your own than to bring in proven talent.” Not always better, but definitely cheaper. Then stations can also promote them as hometown, a tactic viewers seem to prefer.

Jason appreciated that I understood business. “I’m just lucky that Chad was here that night to fill in. Cripes, he even had fresh material prepared.”

“Who’s Chad?”

“He was the guy Mark beat out for the warm-up act. You saw him tonight. He joked about fetishes and national holidays.”

I remembered Chad all right. He was
the
bomb.

“He still uses open-mic night to work out the bugs in his monologues. He’s probably next door at the bar.”

We walked over and found Chad surrounded by groupie chicks with navel rings peeking from under short, tight T-shirts. Jason waved him over, introduced me, and explained my mission before saying good night. Even though we’d shared some laughs, he seemed glad for an excuse to hand me off to someone else to question about Mark Lefevre.

Chad Giswold was fairly good-looking for a comedian, his only physical oddity a gap-toothed grin that was sort of endearing à la Letterman. I didn’t feel guilty staring because he was giving me an obvious once-over and his eyes were not on my smile. He didn’t believe the part Jason said about me being on TV.

“Really? TV?” Chad asked skeptically. “Well, I suppose you’re sexy in a North Dakota kind of way.”

“That’s not a real effective compliment.” I was careful not to laugh. I knew his type and suspected positive feedback would only encourage him. And I was sensitive about the fact that I hadn’t checked a mirror in nearly twelve hours. I just hoped nothing was stuck in my teeth.

“Don’t worry about how you look,” he assured me, placing his hand suggestively on my hip. “In the dark, who can tell?”

Then he offered to prove his sincerity by going home with me. I might not have had sex in nearly two years, but he didn’t make me yearn to end my libido’s dormancy.

A girlfriend once told me, after her divorce was finalized, that those court papers made her a virgin again—legally if not anatomically. And as tempting as it might have been to prove she was still hot stuff— both to herself and her ex—she needed to choose her first partner carefully, and think about what she wanted from that relationship. Her philosophy seemed just as applicable for widows.

So while Eve had been tempted by the serpent to taste the apple, I told myself I was a virgin again and made of stronger stuff. And Chad was no apple.

I showed him my press pass as proof that I was a legitimate television journalist and explained that, regrettably, in the news department, we have strict rules about sleeping with sources.

“Honest, I could lose my job.”

Chad seemed to buy that answer as the only reasonable explanation for my brush-off.

But he had nothing to offer concerning the mysterious disappearance of Mark Lefevre.

“Barely knew the guy.”

f I was infuriated at the FBI guy, that was nothing compared to how I felt after I opened the Minneapolis paper the next morning and saw the banner headline: BIG MOUTH BILLY TO BE FREED? Scooped on our own story, and not by their hotshot investigative team, either. By their
outdoors
reporter. In the world of news, that’s humiliating.

“A controversial animal rights group may have kidnapped a famed record largemouth bass and might be preparing to release it into the wild, sources tell the
Star-Tribune.”

The article didn’t name names, not even Channel 3’s, but the story regurgitated all the stuff I’d heard the night before about ecoterrorists being America’s most destructive domestic enemy.

I was reaching for the phone to scream things at the FBI guy that I couldn’t say on television, except I still couldn’t remember his name. I fumbled with my purse for his card. Then the phone rang with Noreen on the other end telling me to get in to work pronto and start preparing a story for the noon report. Too late for me to appear on the morning news.

“That jerk!” I felt on the verge of hyperventilating.

“We’ll deal with him later.” She hung up.

I didn’t bother to take a shower. I was too busy trying to rewrite the story in my head so I could take rightful credit for the break in the case. The newspaper didn’t appear to have a copy of the actual letter, which gave me an edge in terms of props. True, I wouldn’t able to sit on the news set and wave the original. I’d have to settle for a high-quality photocopy and the video Malik shot. But our promotion department would make certain viewers knew which television station turned the original note over to authorities like a good corporate citizen.

I
WAS ON
deadline, so I almost didn’t answer my desk phone. Voice mail picks up on the fifth ring and I could delete it at my leisure. But I caved at the fourth ring because asking a reporter to ignore a ringing phone is like asking a fox to ignore a rabbit, or a news director to ignore ratings, or a politician to ignore a parade.

“Riley!”

The voice on the other end of the line was Toby Elness, my pet-loving source who first introduced me to Shep. He was saying something about only being allowed one phone call. Ends up, he was in jail as a suspect in the kidnapping of Big Mouth Billy Bass.

“Why are you calling me?” I yelled.

“You know I’d never hurt any living animal.”

“What I know doesn’t matter, Toby. You should be calling a lawyer.”

“I don’t need an attorney. I’m innocent.” Then I thought I heard him mumble, “This time.”

He explained that the Animal Liberation Front was a leaderless resistance of like-minded souls whose members helped mice escape from laboratories or freed deer from game farms.

“But we’re being set up here,” Toby said. “We wouldn’t harm other fish just to save one.”

He made sense, sort of, but I was no expert on the group’s ideology and truth be told, even though Toby had brought me a monster of a tip about pet-cremation scams last year, I still thought him slightly wacko when it came to animal rights. I enjoy a good steak and if turning rats into medical guinea pigs finds a cure for cancer, what’s wrong with that?

“You know the police are probably taping this whole conversation,” I warned him. Law enforcement isn’t supposed to listen in when inmates speak with their attorneys, but cops have no such prohibition about eavesdropping on criminal suspects talking to reporters.

“Doesn’t matter to me. I haven’t told you anything I haven’t already told the police.”

“What else have you told them?”

“That amateurs sent you that note. When our members want to claim responsibility for success, they anonymously notify our press office which sends out news releases electronically with photos and video attached as proof. We don’t use glue and scissors to get our message out.”

“You have a press office?”

“We’re very well organized.”

“You know I’m going to have to report your arrest.”

“Go ahead. We don’t receive nearly the media attention our cause deserves.”

Hmmmm … I had a feeling that was about to change and wondered whether the Animal Liberation Front might have something else to gain from the disappearance of a champion bass. Like having their name on the front page instead of buried in the back of the Metro section.

A computerized voice came on the line and told us we had only one minute left before our call would end.

“Well, Shep says hi,” I told Toby. Since I wasn’t sure when I’d get home, I’d brought Shep to work with me. Now he was sleeping by my feet. Snoring, even. Hard to imagine he was comfortable amid all the phone, computer, and audio and video cables snaked under my desk. But he and the dust bunnies had apparently made friends.

“Shep’s there? Put him on.” Toby sounded less businesslike and more joyful. “I want to talk to him.”

I nudged Shep in the ribs and held the phone down. “How you doing, big guy?” I heard Toby make what sounded like kissy noises. “Do you miss me?”

Shep barked enthusiastically several times before the line, thankfully, went dead.

I
TOOK
S
HEP
to the alley behind the station for a quick bathroom break before going to Noreen’s office to tell her the latest news about Toby.

We’d need to decide whether to actually name him in the story or to simply report that a member of the Animal Liberation Front was in custody in the Billy Bass Case. Legally we could use his name. He had been arrested. That was a fact. But Channel 3 and most of the other mainstream media in the Twin Cities had long held an ethical standard of only naming suspects actually charged in crimes. Because if he was arrested—then released—who could restore his reputation?

In high-profile cases, that standard was starting to slip away because of the advent of so many online news outlets crying out for immediate content. To compete, traditional media organizations were becoming more ruthless. So the newsroom policy had morphed into not naming suspects unless it was a really,
really
good story.

Noreen had company in her glass-walled office and as I got closer, I realized her visitor was the FBI guy. He either had a closetful of dark-gray suits or was wearing the same one from yesterday.

“You got a lot of nerve coming back here,” I told him as I walked in.

Before he could answer, Noreen explained that Agent Jax (oh right, that was his name) was here at her request. “Agent Jax was just telling me how unhappy he is about the leak in the case.”

Agent Jax nodded. “Loose lips can jeopardize Operation Piscis Absenti.”

I wanted to let him have it right then and there, right smack in those loose lips of his. But I suspected Noreen would prefer a verbal punch, so I simply stated, “I think we all know where the leak came from.”