Oregon Hill (19 page)

I manage to smoke half a Camel, crushing the rest out on the sidewalk before I trudge up the steps. The clock in the lobby says ten thirty. I’m on time for a change.

I see the publisher in Wheelie’s office. He and Wheelie are talking with the door closed, which always gets the newsroom rumor mill going. I pass Baer, and he gives me a smirk that I’d like to slap off sometime.

Wheelie frowns when he sees me and looks at his watch, although it can’t be more than 10:32 by now.

There’s a seat, next to the publisher. Wheelie motions toward it with his head, but I tell him I prefer to stand.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” Wheelie says, to open the dialogue.

Mal Wheelwright usually doesn’t curse, and it passes through my brain that he wants the publisher to think he’s the stereotype of the hard-bitten, seen-it-all newspaperman, which he is not.

The publisher is half-turned, looking at me. He looks even paler than I remember. I believe you could read our newspaper through his long, blue-veined hands if the light was right. I’ve known him since he was a pup reporter, not long out of Indiana University, but he prefers that we don’t call him by his old newsroom nickname, “Grubby.” I’d rather stick needles in my eyeballs than call him “Mr. Grubbs,” so I don’t call him anything.

“The Web guy said to go outside the box,” I explain, knowing how lame it sounds but not having a better answer.

“We’ve gotten eighty-two responses so far,” Wheelie says, “most of them wondering why we don’t put this crap in the paper.”

“I offered to,” I remind him.

“And I told you not to! This case has already been solved. We don’t deal with rumor and innuendo.”

I think about some of the scuttlebutt that some of my cohorts have put on the newspaper’s site under the guise of journalism. One of the Sarahs (but not Goodnight) has been running a kind of R-rated lonely hearts thing that all the old guys in the newsroom follow religiously.

Grubby really is sampling our Web site at three in the morning. Either that or some of these folks have actually come back from Planet Web long enough to pick up a telephone and call the publisher. Our corporate masters love reader feedback, especially if it comes from the magical world of cyberspace. They pay people to lecture us about the need for another “platform” for our “product,” but in the newsroom, we’re mostly trying to put out a newspaper, silly as that sounds.

So Grubby sees it and wakes up Wheelie, who’s now playing managing editor. Maybe my number’s up. Maybe the company’s ready to lose another human asset to make its budget this month.

Wheelie continues to hector me for a bit about going against his direct wishes, and then the publisher kind of clears his throat, just enough to make Wheelie stop talking and look at him.

“Well, Willie,” he says, “we seem to be in a bind here, because of you. I don’t like surprises. But if it’s out there, we’d better do something about it. Between you and I, I don’t like doing business this way, though.”

Between you and I. Goddamn, Grubby. If the man had spent a little more time actually learning his native tongue, maybe he’d have been a good enough reporter that he wouldn’t have traded his fucking soul for an MBA.

I’m one smartass remark from severance pay, so I dummy up. The publisher doesn’t say anything else, enigma that he is.

Finally, Wheelie breaks the silence.

“Uh. What, exactly . . . ?”

The light bulb goes on.

“You want me to write something for the paper tomorrow.”

The publisher pins me with a stare and then slowly nods his head, and I see Wheelie scowl. He will get me for this.

“Just be sure that it’s right, and be sure I see it before it runs.” He looks at Wheelie when he says this. I’m sure Grubby’s not happy, but it’s my belief that he’s seen the Big Picture: We can sell some papers if we reheat Isabel Ducharme’s murder and serve it to our salivating readers as a still-unsolved case. Our publisher is not averse to justice if it improves the bottom line.

Grubby looks at his watch, tells us he has a meeting at eleven, then stands. I’d forgotten how short he is. I resist the urge to tell him to avoid direct sunlight.

After he leaves, Wheelie lets me know exactly what kind of backstabbing SOB he thinks I am, and I take it. I really didn’t mean for him to get caught in the middle, but I don’t intend to leave Martin Fell to face official justice devoid of all the facts, either.

If he killed Isabel Ducharme, hell isn’t hot enough for him. But if he didn’t, I don’t want some bastard to get away with destroying two lives.

I have about three hours to kill, so I check my email, my voice mail, even the paper stuff that some troglodytes still send.

Nothing much there. That Nigerian prince still wants to make me rich, and somebody keeps asking me if I want a longer penis. I always answer yes, but nothing happens. The first four phone messages are two hang-ups and a couple of broadcast reminders that any unauthorized person parking in the assigned spots in the company parking garage will be publicly hanged.

The fifth and last one is from David Shiflett.

“We need to talk,” the voice says, and gives me his number at the police station.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

H
e answers on the second ring.

David Shiflett sounds cordial, almost friendly. He says he thinks it’s time we do what I suggested the other day.

“You know, have a drink, talk about old times on the Hill. That kind of shit.”

I note that he didn’t seem that taken with the idea last time I mentioned it.

“Well, I was kind of focused, on the case and all. Plus, I want to talk to you about a couple of things.”

One of those things, I’m sure, being a certain blog. People really
do
read that crap.

He suggests that I drop by his place after work.

“It’s only in the next block from your momma’s.”

I tell him I won’t get off work until after one. He says not to worry, that he doesn’t usually get to bed until three or so.

“Sometimes,” he says, “I just watch an old movie, or get on the Internet. I don’t need much sleep.”

I tell him I’d rather just come by the station and talk there, that I need plenty of sleep.

He laughs and suggests that I come on over now.

“I’m gonna give you a rain check on that visit, though,” he says. “We can catch up, like you said.”

I’ve dropped by Fourth Precinct headquarters a couple of times since I started my second stint on night police. Cops are much more likely to talk to you at the crime scene if you had a cup of coffee with them and they kind of know your name.

I haven’t seen Shiflett there, though. When I find his office, I realize that it’s because he usually has the door closed, as it is now.

I knock, and Shiflett opens it, leads me into an office only big enough for his chair, a desk and the chair facing him on the other side. He is almost comical, trying to fit his massive frame into the tiny room. His shoulders are nearly as wide as the little desk. He was always a big boy. He’s about six-four, and he must go 280, without any noticeable fat. I do not see doughnut crumbs on his desk. At Thomas Jefferson High, he was all-region offensive and defensive tackle, and he looks like he could kick that kid’s ass right now, even if he is fifty-two years old. His hair has a little gray, but he could pass for ten years younger.

He gets us some coffee, closes the door again, then sits there and tries the old cop trick of keeping quiet until the suspect can’t stand the silence any longer.

Trouble is, it’s an old reporter trick, too, and we wait each other out.

“Well,” he says at last, then lets it sit there.

I give in.

“What’s up?”

“Just wondering about a couple of things,” Shiflett says.

He pauses again and gives me The Stare. He could, as a kid, head off just about any fight he wanted to head off by just looking at the other guy. There was something in David Shiflett’s eyes that sent a warning signal nobody but a drunken masochist would ignore. I used to try to emulate it, practicing in the mirror when I fancied myself a tough guy, too, but it never really worked. I always had to use my fists to get the point across.

The thing is, sometimes he didn’t want them to back off. I knew a boy in the same class as David—so three years ahead of me—who lost an eye because he wouldn’t back down when Shiflett challenged him on some matter so minor that nobody could remember later exactly what it was.

“Somebody told me about that thing you put on your blog. About Fell not being guilty and all.”

“I didn’t say he wasn’t guilty. I said . . .”

“I know what you said.” Shiflett leans forward, and he’s definitely giving me the stare now, and he looks like he wants to leap over that tiny desk. “I read the fuckin’ thing, Willie. What the fuck? Where do you get this shit?”

I tell him I can’t tell him where I got it.

“So you can just write stuff, and not even have to tell who told you? That’s just gossip.”

I think about telling him that it was just a blog, not like it was in the newspaper, but I self-edit, realizing how lame it sounds.

“Who is she?”

I know what he means, and I tell him I can’t say.

“You know,” he goes on, settling back a little in his chair, “cops do stop sometimes when they see something unusual. They might even give some drunk-ass student a ride back to campus. I’ve done it myself. Everybody has.”

“My source says this girl looked a lot like Isabel Ducharme.”

“My ass. Half the girls on campus look like her, on a dark street at night. Was she sure it was the same night, even? It’s been almost two weeks.”

“Pretty sure.”

“Pretty sure? Listen, man, we’ve got this fucker nailed.” Shiflett starts ticking off the reasons on his beefy fingers, slamming them down on his desk one at a time. “He assaulted a woman before. He was banging the Ducharme girl. He had an argument with her. He has a history of lurking around, picking up young girls. And he confessed to me. I don’t give a fuck if it isn’t on tape. He did it.”

With that last, he slams his whole fist on the desk. I’m wondering if it isn’t time to mosey on out.

“I’m just trying to make sure.”

“Don’t worry about making sure, Willie. We get paid to make sure.”

He gets a grip and lowers the volume.

“Listen, I’ve done a dozen cases like this over the years. I know he did it, and I know he said he did it. Don’t screw this up. It ain’t that complicated.”

I mention Mrs. Fell, and how her story and her son’s jibed.

“Good God,” he says, “of course she’s going to try to save his ass. You think they didn’t get together and cook that story up?”

He leans forward again.

“How would you like it,” he asks, “if it was your daughter? She’s a student there too, right? Don’t you want to see justice done?”

I ask him about the rumors that there’s no visible evidence in the car.

“That’s still being investigated,” he says. “We’re satisfied with what we have so far.”

Then, Shiflett asks me something I’d been expecting.

“Did she . . . was your so-called witness able to identify the cop she thought she saw?”

He’s trying to sound casual, kind of tidying up his desk while he asks it.

I tell him that she couldn’t, just knew it was a cop.

He nods.

“Well, like I said, it could have been anybody. It probably wasn’t even the right night.”

He asks me if we’re going to continue to write “that crap.” I tell him we’re going to write something.

“Well,” he says, standing, “you’d better be sure about what you write. You make me look like shit, arresting the wrong guy and all, you’d better have your ducks in a row. There could be consequences.”

I’m forty-nine years old, and David Shiflett, when he puts his big right paw on my shoulder, still makes my sphincter clench.

“You know what I mean?”

I start to move away, have my hand on the door, but he puts his hand against it to keep it closed.

“Thing is,” he says, standing far too close for comfort, “I can’t even be sure it was a ‘she.’ Could have been a ‘he.’ Could be some bullshit of yours.”

I can see that, like me, he knows more than he’s letting on.