The Runaway Reporter (A Police Procedural Mystery Series of Crime and Suspense, Hyder Ali #3) (14 page)

“Well then, I guess you should go for more walks,” she said with a smile.

“I should.”

She placed breakfast on the kitchen table and then pulled out the morning’s newspaper and handed it to him.  “Hyder’s article made the front page,” she said.  “You should read it.”

Nolan looked at it and his heart sank.  Hyder had written about the side effects of prescription medication.  Nolan swallowed, pulled his shirt sleeve lower.  He didn’t want Lopez catching him wearing the patch.

“I’m glad you’re feeling better,” she said.  “Maybe today would be a good day to meet my sister.”

“Um… I still don’t think it’s a good idea,” he protested.

“Nonsense,” she said.  “In fact, I’ve already booked a restaurant.”

“You have?” His mouth went dry.

She went over and kissed him on the cheek. “Don’t worry, I know she’ll love you like I do. Now go wash up and I’ll set up the table.”

Nolan went into the bathroom and shut the door.  He pulled up his sleeve and was ready to pull off the patch, but then he hesitated.  Lopez was right, he was feeling better.  Plus, the headaches were gone and his mind was much clearer.

Maybe he could leave the patch on for a little while longer. 
What’s the harm?
He thought.

He washed up and went out to have breakfast.

FORTY-SEVEN

When Hyder reached his cubicle at the
Daily Times
, he found Veronica waiting for him.

“Good morning, Hyder,” she said with a smile.

Hyder knew why she was happy.  He had seen the morning’s paper and his article on the front page.

“We’ve been swamped with people calling about the side effects they’ve suffered from their prescription medication,” Veronica continued.  “Our lines are so busy that I’ve brought in more people to handle the calls.”

“Wow,” was all Hyder could say.

“Your article has got people talking, so much so that Julie wants to meet you.”

“Really?” Hyder was surprised.  Ever since Julie Trevalley became the publisher of the
Daily Times
, he had not met her once.  This was unusual, as Hyder was one of the paper’s biggest stars.

But it wasn’t just Hyder she hadn’t met. It was most of the employees of the
Daily Times
as well.

There were many rumors about her.  One in particular had taken a life of its own. This one involved her being hideously deformed and that she preferred to hide in her office above the
Daily Times
.  Hyder knew this was a silly reference to a children’s book where an ogre was locked up in the dungeons of the castle and not allowed to leave for eternity.

He hoped Julie Trevalley was at least allowed to go home.  He then shook his head at the absurd thought.

As he was making his way to the elevators, Lester grabbed him.  “You are really going up there, bro?”

“You heard?”

“I think everyone on the floor heard you.  So are you really?”

Hyder nodded.

“Do one thing for me,” he said.

“What?”

“Make sure to kiss her.”

“Shut up, Lester,” Hyder made a disgusted face.

“You might be the prince she’s been waiting for.”

Hyder quickly walked away, but once he was inside the elevator, he couldn’t help but laugh.

When he reached the top floor, he found his heart was beating faster than usual.  The last time Hyder was here was to meet the
Daily Times
previous publisher, John Kroft Jr.  Unfortunately, that visit wasn’t as pleasant as he had hoped for.

He was escorted into Julie’s office. The first thing Hyder noticed was that it hadn’t changed from his previous visit.

It was still massive and magnificent, and it still reminded him of offices from the 1940s.  The furniture still looked like it was from a bygone era.

His eyes moved to the wall with the framed front pages of various editions of the
Daily Times
.  There was one for the end of the Cold War. One for the fall of the Berlin Wall.  One for Tiananmen Square. All the major events the
Daily Times
had covered over the years were there.

His mouth fell. At the end was a frame with the cover of the TriGate Scandal.  It was
his
story.

“Impressive, isn’t it?” a voice said.

Instead of finding a deformed creature standing before him, he found a slim woman with round glasses and a bright smile.

“Hi, I’m Julie,” she said as she came over.

“Hyder.” He shook it.

“I know who you are,” she said.  She looked at the last photo. “I put it up there. I thought it deserved a spot of its own.”

“I don’t know what to say… except thank you,” he said.

“You don’t have to thank me, I should be thanking you,” she said.  “Without your stories who knows where we would be today.  Come have a seat. Can I get you anything to drink?”

“Uh, no, I’m fasting,” Hyder said, still not looking away from the photo.

“Oh, right,” she said.  “Veronica mentioned it to me.  How are you finding it during the summer?”

“The days are long and it doesn’t help that it’s been a very hot summer.”

“I’m sure it’ll be worth it in the end.”

“I hope so too.”

“I know you’re wondering like everyone else why I haven’t come down and spoken to the employees.  There’s a simple answer for that: You don’t need me micromanaging you.  My background is not in journalism or even print; my background is in marketing.  It would’ve made sense to bring in someone with a certain pedigree in this position, but I guess management thought it was better to bring in someone who could make this business profitable.” She paused. “You already know the change this industry is going through.  People don’t read the news just in print anymore. They read it on their computers, their tablets, and now even their phones. My job is to make sure we can get our content—by that I mean, the
Daily Times’
content—on as many platforms as possible. There’s no point in having a ground breaking story when no one reads it.  So I thought it was best to leave the people who know what they are doing alone, and focus on what I do know and that’s monetizing ad space. Plus, I wanted to give my star employee his space to do his magic.”  She smiled.

She was referring to him. Hyder smiled back.

She said, “I only called you up here to say, keep up the good work.  We’re all counting on you.”

“Thank you,” Hyder finally said.

“Do you have anything you want to ask me?”

Hyder had still not recovered from seeing his front page on the wall, so he couldn’t think of anything worth asking.  “Um… no, I’m good.”

“Thanks for coming, Hyder.”

When Hyder was back on the third floor, Lester grabbed him.  “So, did you kiss her?”

“I don’t kiss and tell,” Hyder replied.

Lester looked at him, horrified.  “You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”

Hyder laughed and told him exactly what transpired between him and Julie.

“Well, then,” Lester said.  “This is a cause for celebration. Why don’t’ the three of us go for dinner tonight, my treat?”

“
Three
of us?” Hyder was confused.

“You, me and Bianca.”
“Who’s Bianca?”

“My girlfriend, remember?” He smiled.  “She’s itching to meet you.”

Hyder looked at him, intrigued and bemused.  “Who not,” he agreed.

FORTY-EIGHT

Nolan and Lopez were in the coroner’s office, waiting for Herb Lafferty to finish working on a cadaver.

Whenever Nolan came here, he found the coroner’s office dingy and suffocating. 
In medieval times this place would have been referred to as a “dungeon
,
”
he thought.  How Lafferty managed to come to work, day after day, and not be drinking regularly was beyond him.  Nolan would have not only hit the bottle, he would have downed pills with it too.

Lopez, on the other hand, looked at ease.  It was as if she was able to tune out her surroundings and just focus on the task at hand.  It was her resolve and determination that he admired the most.  She wouldn’t let anything, even her emotions, get in the way.

If she was uncomfortable, she wasn’t showing it.

Dr. Herb Lafferty came out and said, “Oh, the happy couple.”

Lafferty was in his sixties, bald, and he walked with a limp.  It was a skydiving accident that had damaged his left leg to the point where it was never the same.

“How’s he been treating you?” Lafferty asked Lopez.

“Good, but he’s still a work in progress,” she said, glancing over at Nolan.

“Be gentle but firm,” Lafferty said.  “You don’t want to push too hard, but you also don’t want to give him too much leeway.”

Nolan looked at both of them, astonished.  “I’m right here, you know.”

“And sometimes make him feel like he’s in command,” Lafferty said.  “It’ll keep his self-esteem and confidence up.”

“Thanks, I’ll keep that in mind, Herb,” she said with a smile.

Nolan couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Can we talk about the victims,
please
?”

“We’ll talk in detail later,” Lafferty said to Lopez.

When Lafferty had moved away, Nolan leaned in and whispered, “When did he become
Herb
?”

“Ever since we started going on coffee breaks.”

Nolan was shocked. “I hope you don’t talk about
me
?”

“What else do we have in common but you?”

Lafferty waved them over.  He was holding a file in his hand.  “Do you guys want to see the bodies?”

Before Lopez could say yes, Nolan said, “No, I saw enough dead bodies at the scene.”

Lafferty shrugged.  “The death of the first victim, Irma Ronston, was immediate, and caused by a puncture in her heart.  Bernard Haddon died from massive blood loss, which was caused by multiple lacerations over his upper body.  Rudy Ross Jr. died of a single stab wound to the neck.”

“Did he commit suicide?” Nolan asked.

Lafferty was already aware that Rudy was the suspect, so this was a logical question, considering it was he who had committed the other murders.

“At the beginning, I thought so too, but the way the knife was thrust in the neck—from down up—it gave the indication that someone else pushed it in.  If someone did want to commit suicide, it would be so much easier to make a slice across the neck, thus cutting the main artery, or even insert it from the side into the neck, and this would sever the esophagus.”

“But we found Rudy’s hand on the weapon, and also, the forensics report only showed his fingerprints on it,” Nolan said.

“I’m going out on a limb here, but I think the other victim, Brendan Haddon, may have wrapped his hand over Rudy’s hand while he was still gripping the weapon, and then pushed it into Rudy’s body. It would explain why Rudy was still holding the weapon when you found him.  Plus, Brendon was the one who had made the 9-1-1 call, which meant he had to have killed Rudy first in order to make it to the telephone.”

Lopez nodded.

Nolan then asked, “Is it possible that drugs might have played a role in what happened?”

“I read that article in the morning paper too,” Lafferty said.  “It's a great article on drug reactions and their side effects, but I’ve never seen or heard a drug that could make someone commit murder.”  He picked up a toxicology report. “Once we found out all three victims were part of a drug study, it was our duty to look into it further.  They all showed signs of elevated serotonin, which, as you know, is a mood booster, but nothing that would make someone do this horrible crime.”

Nolan nodded.

“We went a step further and contacted Devon Pharma to get the ingredients of the drugs the victims had been taking.” Lafferty continued.  “Naturally, they relented, which was understandable. They wouldn’t want their research getting into the hands of their competitors.  But after a bit of hand wrangling and some assurances, they sent us the list, and I can tell you, it’s nothing we haven’t seen before.”

“Then what’s so special about it?” Lopez asked.

“It’s not in the ingredients,” Lafferty said.  “It’s the way it is administered.” Lafferty then went on to explain how the tiny needles in the patch released the drug whenever the victim required it.  Nolan had already heard the explanation from Dr. St. Claire during his visit to Devon Pharma, so he tuned it out.  Lafferty finished by saying, “This is the future of drug delivery.”

“Thanks, Herb.” Lopez said.  “We really appreciate your input on this.”

“No problem, Marina,” he replied. “I’m glad I could help.  And call me if this one gives you a hard time.” He jerked his thumb in Nolan’s direction.