Smoke Screen

CHAPTER 13

FIRST, I HAVE A QUESTION FOR YOU,” RALEY SAID. “WHO was your source? Who tipped you about me and the events of that Sunday morning?”

Britt took a deep breath and released it slowly. “Jay Burgess.”

He didn’t slam a fist into the dashboard or start cursing a blue streak. Nothing like that, nothing that she might have expected. But she saw his jaw clench so tightly that even his beard couldn’t hide it. “I figured. How did that come about?”

“I met him on my first news assignment in Charleston. I was sent to report on a fatal stabbing in a seedy bar in a seedy part of town. After I’d finished doing my stand-up, Jay, who was investigating the crime scene, came over and introduced himself. He said something corny like ‘Do you come here often?’”

“You thought that was cute.”

“It was cute. We introduced ourselves, made small talk, then he asked me if I had a significant other. He said if so, he was going to throw himself off a bridge. If not, would I meet him later for a drink, in a better bar.”

“And you went.”

“He was good looking and charming. A policeman, which I considered safe. So, yes, I went and I liked him.”

He arched his eyebrow.

“No, Raley, I didn’t sleep with him that night.”

“Second date?”

She refused to be provoked. “A few days after that initial meeting, Jay called me at the TV station.”

She answered her newsroom extension with a bright and chipper, “Britt Shelley.”

“This is your lucky day.”

“I’ve been chosen to enjoy a weekend in the Ozarks to look at time-share property?”

“Better.”

“I’ve won the lottery?”

“Journalistically speaking.”

“I’m all ears.”

“I’d rather you not say my name.”

Of course she’d recognized his voice instantly, but it no longer had a smile behind it. “Okay.”

“Ever.”

That tone couldn’t be mistaken for anything except dead serious. “Are we talking about a story?” She reached for her notepad and a pen.

“A dilly. And it can’t be divulged that I’m your source.”

“Understood.”

“I can’t talk now, and not over the phone.”

They set the time for eleven forty-five that night, after the late news broadcast and giving other personnel time to leave the building and clear the parking lot.

She wasn’t surprised that Jay Burgess had called her again. She’d expected it. They’d had a good time over the first round of drinks-well, he’d had a second, but he hadn’t become intoxicated. It had been an easy, comfortable, getting-to-know-you date. Where did you grow up, attend school? Do you like sports, movies, books, spicy foods? Ever been married? Favorite vacation destination? Fantasy vacation destination?

They’d closed out the pleasant evening with his promise that he’d be in touch soon, and she’d believed him.

She had assumed that his follow-up call would be to ask her out again, not tip her to a “dilly” of a story. But she wasn’t disappointed. She was far more interested in building a faithful following of viewers than in entering into what she knew would be nothing more than a compatible fling. For both her and Jay, hormones might have become agreeably involved, but never hearts. She had determined that within half an hour of meeting him.

Over time, she’d realized that, among many young professionals on their way up, there was an unspoken understanding that any kind of romance was a frivolity. She had come to recognize men who were of a similar mind as she, those who weren’t looking for a permanent partner, those to whom dates were occasions for relaxing and unwinding, or sometimes, by mutual consent, for assuaging sexual impulses. Nothing more.

Among this unspecified group of upwardly mobile people, rarely did anyone enter into a relationship that was expected to withstand the demands of two careers and the ambitions of the individuals driving them. Lasting relationships required time and attention that was, instead, channeled into professional pursuits, which took precedence over amore.

She liked men. She enjoyed their company. Periodically she enjoyed sleeping with one. But she had moved frequently, sometimes staying at a station for no longer than a year before sending out her résumé to see if there was an opportunity for her to advance to the next level.

There had been neither the time nor the desire to develop anything more meaningful than a handful of friendships, most of which had, by her design, remained platonic and, most important, uncomplicated. She was able to give notice, pack, and leave a town without a backward glance, without regret, without a broken heart, either hers or an abandoned admirer’s.

On the horizon of her mind she would occasionally glimpse herself meeting someone irresistible, someone who would become as important to her as her work. Commitment and marriage, a sense of belonging to someone else would be nice, especially since she’d spent almost half of her life alone.

Yes, certainly, she would like to have that kind of intimacy with a man, one who would anticipate her needs, know her feelings, appreciate her ambition, receive and reciprocate her love. She would love to have children, more than one, because she wouldn’t want to leave a child of hers without a family, as she’d been left without one when her parents died.

But for now, all that could stay on the distant horizon. That life belonged to “someday.” Today, she was happy to be unencumbered.

She immediately recognized that Jay Burgess subscribed to the same policy. He was an unconscionable flirt, obviously a man who liked women but who probably would never settle for one. He was fun to be with, but woe be to the woman who fell in love with him.

But as she sat inside her car in the darkened parking lot of the television station, waiting for him to arrive, she was squiggly with the excitement of a spinster waiting on her first beau to call.

He pulled his car into the empty slot next to hers, got out, and after taking a cautious look around at the deserted lot, opened the passenger door and got in.

“Hi.” He leaned across the console and pecked her on the lips.

“I never kiss my sources, Jay.”

“Really?” His expression was one of actual surprise. “I kiss everybody. Girls, I mean.”

“I’ll bet you do,” she said, laughing. “This isn’t a scheme to get me alone and in the dark, is it?”

“That scenario has distinct possibilities,” he said, giving her a wolfish grin. “I’d definitely like to pursue it sometime.” He paused, his smile faltered. “But not tonight.”

“Then you really do have a story.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“‘Afraid so’?”

“I’m part of the story, Britt. It’s not a nice story, and before I say anything else, you’ve got to give me your word that you won’t use me as a source.”

“I already have.”

“This meeting never happened.”

“I get it, Jay. You can trust me.”

He nodded and began by asking if she’d heard anything about the recent death of a local young woman named Suzi Monroe. Britt recalled reading a story about it inside the newspaper.

“Cocaine overdose, wasn’t it? I’m vague on the details.”

“There’s a reason for that,” he explained. “The PD didn’t release any details to the media. Her death was passed off as a routine drug overdose. But there’s more to the story, much more, that we kept under wraps.”

“Who are ‘we’?”

“The detectives who were called to the scene of her death. And me.”

“Why was the information withheld?”

“Because she died in my apartment.”

The implications of that weren’t lost on Britt. She began to envision a spike in her ratings.

Jay talked nonstop for ten minutes, telling how the girl had died while in bed with one of the city’s firemen, who happened to be his lifelong friend, a man named Raley Gannon.

By now her journalistic radar was blipping like crazy. If this were fiction, the plot had just thickened.

“This is a guy who should have made every attempt to save her,” Jay said, sounding almost angry. “Except that he was so intoxicated he was unconscious.”

He went on to admit how wild the party had been, how much alcohol had been consumed. “I’m famous for my…hospitality,” he said sheepishly. “Live here long enough and you’ll learn that. But…” He hung his head, shaking it sorrowfully.

“This party got completely out of hand. I was having a whale of a time, celebrating being alive.” Here he paused and glanced at her. “You know about the police station fire?”

She nodded. “You were one of the heroes of the day.”

He appeared flattered that she knew that but continued without further comment. “I wanted this to be the best party in history. But, I should have stayed sober. I should have kept tabs on how much my guests were drinking, how drunk they were getting. I’m a cop, for crissake. Protecting people is part of my sworn duty.”

She said nothing as he castigated himself. At one of the stations where she had previously worked, an old pro had advised her that when someone had something to tell, and he was telling it without any prompting, it was better not to prompt.

“I should have especially been keeping an eye on my best friend,” Jay said. “I didn’t realize how wasted Raley was getting. I shouldn’t have let him drink that much. He’s been working too hard, taking on extra responsibility, and it’s a bad habit of his to take responsibility for every damn thing that goes wrong in the world. Planets collide, he’s at fault. It’s his nature. He’s too hard on himself.

“So here he’s got one night where his main squeeze is out of town, he can let off some steam, get a little wild and crazy for once, and…” He exhaled a gust of air. “Shit. I even goaded him into it.” He rubbed his eye sockets tiredly. “We’re both to blame. I’m as guilty as he is.”

“For Suzi Monroe’s death?” She couldn’t help herself. The question popped out before she could stop it.

“For the way she died, yeah.”

Shocked by the admission, she listened as he detailed how this Raley Gannon had got blitzed on margaritas and taken the equally drunk Suzi Monroe to Jay’s guest bedroom.

“Did you supply the cocaine, Jay?”

“No! Christ, no. And knowing Raley as I do-I’m telling you, he’s a freaking Boy Scout and always has been-I would swear on a stack of Bibles that Raley didn’t do any drugs with her. I would come close to swearing that he wouldn’t allow her to do any, either. I think what happened is exactly what he said. They had sex a couple of times, he passed out, and didn’t know anything until he woke up the next morning and found her dead.”

“What do the investigators think?” Britt asked quietly.

“The same.”

He told her that the district attorney himself was carefully reviewing the case, but that he doubted it would result in Raley Gannon’s being charged with a crime. The autopsy revealed no evidence of foul play except for a lethal ingestion of cocaine, which in all likelihood was self-administered.

“We didn’t supply the drugs, and we didn’t push that stuff up her nose. What’s eating at me is keeping our involvement hush-hush. It feels furtive. It smacks of a cover-up, and I can’t, in good conscience, participate in it anymore.”

He was right, it was a great story, the kind that an investigative reporter usually had to dig for, Woodward and Bernstein style. Amazingly, it was being served to her on a silver platter. She, the rookie. She, the one trying to earn her spurs in a TV market of respectable size and reputation.

She wondered if she was dreaming. But, no. When she reached out to give Jay Burgess’s arm a consoling squeeze, it was tangible. “What happened wasn’t your fault, Jay. The individuals who stumbled into your guest bedroom were adults. They were responsible for their own actions.”

“I know that, but-”

“Actually it’s a credit to your character that you’re shouldering some of the responsibility, much less coming forward and telling me about it.”

He glanced at her and gave a weak smile. “So what’s it to be? Forty lashes, or a hundred Hail Marys?”

She smiled but was all seriousness when she said, “The story needs to be told.”

He sighed and leaned back against the seat. “That’s why I’m here. Meeting you the other night was like providence or something. Like you were sent so I’d do what my conscience was dictating.”

“The story will have explosive impact. You realize that, right? Especially for your friend. As you said, he’s supposed to save people.”

“That’s why I and the other detectives kept it quiet in the first place. It’s going to create a shitstorm for Raley, and he’s a hell of a guy. Truly,” he said, detecting the skepticism behind her frown.

“Everybody likes Raley. He’s a stand-up guy. This is going to damage him, and he’s taken it so hard already. I mean, this girl was in bed with him, and she fucking died.” Looking at her directly, he said, “I don’t want him ever to know that it was me who blew the whistle. It would destroy our friendship.”

“I understand, Jay. But you also have to understand that once the story of his complicity becomes public knowledge, it can’t be recalled like a bad batch of canned beans. It can be denied, or refuted, or debated, even retracted, but it’ll still be hanging out here, forever.”

“I know what you’re saying. Hell, I know there will be fallout, for me, too. But I’m at the point where I say, bring it on. My conscience won’t let me live with this subterfuge any longer.”

Britt stopped talking and took a deep breath, then looked over at Raley. Throughout the telling, he hadn’t moved. She leaned toward him now, much as she had that night in her car with Jay, and laid her hand on his arm.

“His contrition, his willingness to assume some of the blame for Suzi Monroe, placed me in his camp immediately. It made him a sympathetic and totally credible source, Raley. I didn’t question him because he was implicating himself as well as you. Why would he put his neck on the line, expose himself to public censure, if what he was telling me wasn’t the absolute truth and a matter of conscience?”

“Because he knew it was my head that would be chopped off. Not his. His timing was no accident, either. No doubt he wanted to get in your pants as soon as possible-”

She angrily yanked her hand away from his arm.

“-but that wasn’t his primary reason for contacting you at that particular time. The scandal hadn’t yet produced the desired result. I was on suspension, but not fired. Hallie was upset and hurt, but accepting of my explanation. Our relationship still had a fighting chance of surviving. Cobb Fordyce was reluctant to charge me with a crime.

“If things had been left alone, I would soon have been able to salvage my reputation and start rebuilding my life. I’d be damaged, but not destroyed. But that wasn’t good enough,” he continued angrily. “I had to be eradicated. In order to do that, Jay had to go the distance and expose the ugly truth, even if it meant admitting to being a careless host.” He made a scoffing sound to underscore his sarcasm.

“I didn’t realize I was being manipulated,” she said.

“No, you just took his story and ran with it. Minutes of airtime were devoted to how drunk I was, how irresponsible I’d been not to realize that ‘my date’ was snorting huge quantities of cocaine in combination with drinking alcohol. And who was the supplier of the cocaine? You made sure to raise that question in the minds of your viewers, without flat-out accusing me of giving it to her.

“You interviewed people who were at the party and said they saw me leading her out to the pool. A lie, by the way. It was said we swam naked. Maybe we did. I didn’t remember. I think if I’d tried to swim, I would have drowned, but…”

He shrugged. “I couldn’t swear to anything. My defense was that my memory had been wiped clean by a substance secretly put into my drink. But Jay, my bosom buddy, had advised me not to use that defense because if I did I’d look like a drug user as well as a heavy drinker.”

“You could have called me, told me your side.”

He scoffed at that, too. “And of course you would have believed me.”

No, she wouldn’t have. She knew she wouldn’t have.

As though reading her mind, he laughed with scorn, but she refused to apologize again. She’d admitted that her reporting had been slanted. She’d said she was sorry; he had rejected her apology. Time to move on.

But before proceeding, she let a few moments pass to clear the air. Then she said, “Jay wanted to halt your investigation.”

He gave a curt nod. “He knew I’d trained as a cop first. I think he always resented that, but who knows. Maybe not. Anyway, I was getting close to discovering something he didn’t want discovered.”

“Like what? The cause of the fire?”

“I knew the cause. No question. Somebody set fire to papers in a trash can.”

“As simple as that?”

“No, not quite so simple.” He hesitated, as though he would go into more detail, then changed his mind. “My investigation was incomplete and inconclusive. At the time of Jay’s party, there were outstanding questions I never received answers for. After I was ousted, Brunner went with the explanation given him, made the official ruling. People accepted it and embraced the heroes.”

“The heroes.” She ticked them off her fingers. “Pat Wickham and George McGowan.”

“Who were the two hungover but Johnny-on-the-spot detectives called to investigate Suzi Monroe’s death.”

“Cobb Fordyce.”

“The DA, who didn’t press criminal charges but publicly commended the fire chief the day my dismissal from the department was announced.”

“And Jay.”

“Who was the best person I ever knew at covering his ass.”

The picture that began to form in her mind wasn’t very pretty. “Are you saying the four of them orchestrated the thing with Suzi, even going so far as to make sure she snorted a lethal amount of cocaine, in order to stop your investigation?”

“You’re the hotshot reporter, what do you say?”

“Are you disputing that they were heroes?”

“There’s no disputing that,” he said. “Hundreds of witnesses saw them carrying people from the burning building, reentering it several times to bring people out.”

“Then why were they threatened by your investigation? Why would they go to such lengths to stop it? They wouldn’t. Unless…”

When she didn’t speak for several seconds, he prodded her. “Unless?”

Her mind was now speeding along a track. “Unless your investigation was about to expose something that happened before the fire.”

He sat silently, giving her time to sort it out.

“That’s it, isn’t it? You were about to discover something that wouldn’t just take the glint off their heroism but cancel it.” Talking fast now, trying to keep up with her thoughts, she said, “That would make sense. They went to all that trouble, risked incriminating themselves in Suzi Monroe’s death, to keep you from finding out something very, very bad that only the four of them knew.”

“One for all, all for one,” he said bitterly.

“Jay was about to tell me their shared secret. That night at The Wheelhouse. Wasn’t he? He was about to unburden himself, for real this time.”

“Good guess,” he said, again with that bitter tone. “He’d been given only a few weeks to live. Before he met his Maker, he wanted to clear his conscience. And who better for him to tell? You, his personal herald, who’d done such a good job for him before. Although, this time, he probably would have made you promise to withhold the story until after he died.”

“So what was it?”

“What?”

“The secret? What had those four done, or not done, that they didn’t want exposed? You were on the brink of finding out, right? What was it? Do you know? What do you suspect?”

He merely stared back at her, saying nothing.

“Ra-ley?” she exclaimed with exasperation. “What questions were you asking that were never answered? What was bothering you? Something about an arrest report, right? In your conversation with Jay, when he called you about the party, you told him you needed paperwork on one of the casualties, right? You were missing something. What was it? Where was your investigation going?”

He shook his head. “Un-huh.”

“Un-huh?”

“Un-huh. I’ve told you what you need to know, and that’s all I’m going to say about it.”

“What? Why?”

“Because I still don’t have all the answers myself, and I don’t want to hear myself quoted on the news tomorrow morning.”

“I won’t be on the news tomorrow. I’ll be in jail, defending myself against a murder charge.”

“Oh, I have every confidence in you, Miss Prime Time. You’ll find a way to get on camera with a microphone. Even from jail.”

“Insult aside, I wouldn’t quote you. If I was able to get before a camera, I’d say my information came from an unnamed source.”

“You won’t say anything, because I’m not telling you any more than I’ve already told. It’s all speculation anyway, and you should have corroboration. Isn’t that the golden rule of sound, reliable journalism? Always have the corroboration of at least two sources?”

She heard the taunt behind the words. “You’re still pissed at me,” she said accusingly. “That’s why you’re withholding information, isn’t it?”

“It’s as good a reason as any. Don’t forget your purse.” He opened the driver’s door and stepped out.

For several seconds she remained looking at the vacant space behind the steering wheel, then she picked up her handbag and clambered out. When she dropped to the ground, the soles of her feet were pricked by stalks of dry weeds.

She didn’t realize how dark it had become until she picked her way around the hood of the truck, trying to avoid stepping on anything hurtful. Raley had the beam of an industrial-strength flashlight aimed into the toolbox attached to the back of the cab and was digging through wrenches and pliers and such.

“What are you doing?”

“Looking for your car keys. I dropped them in here last night.”

“Your behavior is childish. And criminal.”

“Criminal? How’s that?” Metal clattered against metal as he continued to search amid the tools.

“Jay was silenced, wasn’t he? Just like you were silenced five years ago. Someone drugged me, like they did you, then killed Jay, like they did Suzi, and left a scapegoat that can’t remember. That’s your theory.”

“Right.”

“Then by keeping what you know or suspect to yourself, you’re impeding the investigation into Jay’s murder. That’s obstruction of justice.”

“Wrong. I’ve assisted the investigation. Why do you think I kidnapped you? I did it so you could use what I’ve told you to steer Detectives Clark and Javier toward the surviving heroes, George McGowan and Cobb Fordyce. One of them snuffed Jay.”

“George McGowan is a former cop and Fordyce is the attorney general of the state.”

“I didn’t say it would be easy.”

“Those detectives won’t listen to anything bad about Jay. He’s their idol. Without proof, they’ll never believe that Jay was involved in a conspiracy and cover-up, especially not with those other two men.”

“That’ll be a tough sell all right, but I’m betting you can convince them.”

“You could help me convince them.”

“I could.”

“But you won’t.”

“No. I won’t.” When he pulled his hand from the toolbox, her key ring was dangling from his index finger. He extended it to her; she snatched the ring. He said, “I’d like my shirt back.”

She hesitated, then dropped her handbag to the ground, rapidly undid the shirt buttons, and shrugged the garment off. He took it from her and tossed it through the open driver’s door into the cab, then reached for her windbreaker in the bed of the truck and passed it to her. “You probably should sterilize that before you wear it again. Delno’s hounds-”

She yanked it from him and threw it back where it had been. “Raley!” Her voice cracked with impatience. “Why didn’t you expose Jay and the others five years ago?”

“It took me months to figure out that I’d been duped. I think I began to see the light about the time he started fucking my fiancée. Then when I thought it all through, what could I prove? Not a goddamn thing, and moments ago you yourself cited what a commodity proof is when it comes to a criminal investigation.

“My reputation and credibility had been shot to hell. Who would believe that I’d been drugged to produce a total memory loss? All Fordyce-the legal eagle of the bunch-had to say was that he’d already heard that lame defense and dismissed it out of hand. I had nothing to work with, Britt. And besides…”

“Besides, what?”

He gnawed the inside of his cheek, then said, “I didn’t want to believe my friend would do that to me. I’m still reluctant to believe it. In my gut, I knew it, but my mind wouldn’t accept it. And every once in a while, I would almost convince myself that I was delusional. I would try and talk myself into believing that bitterness and professional jealousy had caused me to turn heroes into monsters. For five years I’ve been second-guessing myself.” His eyes refocused on her face. “Then, yesterday morning, I saw your press conference. I knew I’d been right all along.”

“Absolutely,” she said vehemently. “What happened to me is confirmation of what happened to you. The similarity of our stories can’t be denied or ignored. We’ll go to the police together.”

“Sorry. You’re on your own.” He dug into his shirt pocket, pulled out a folded piece of paper, and handed it to her.

“What’s this?”

“Directions home. It’s a little tricky driving these back roads after dark, but if you follow these directions you won’t get lost. Eventually you’ll get to Highway Seventeen. Hook a left. That’ll take you straight into Charleston. Drive carefully.” He turned away.

“You’re a coward.”

His right foot was already in the cab of the truck, but he turned his head and looked at her over his shoulder. She almost withered in the heat of his fierce expression, but held her ground. “With very little resistance from you, Jay stole your reputation, your career, and Hallie. Why didn’t you fight for her at least? Maybe that’s what she wanted you to do. For that matter, when you were being bashed in the media, why didn’t you come to me and insist on being given equal time?

“Instead you slunk away into the woods, grew a beard, and became a hermit whose only confederate is an old man with fleas and body odor. True, you had no solid proof of what these men had done to you. But I think that’s a flimsy rationalization. Shutting yourself off from the rest of the world is hardly an act of courage, Fireman Gannon. It’s giving up. It’s surrender.

“I don’t think you spend your time out there in that remote cabin plotting your revenge. Not at all. I think you spend your time licking your wounds and feeling sorry for yourself. You’ll never be vindicated because you haven’t got the nerve to try. It’s safer to stay in your lair than it is to come out and fight for the justice you deserve.”

By the time she finished, she was breathing hard with righteous indignation. Raley hadn’t moved a muscle during the diatribe. Now he withdrew his foot from the truck’s cab and slowly advanced toward her. “You think you know me?”

She set her chin defiantly. “I think I’ve got you pegged perfectly. You say you want revenge on everyone who brought about your undeserved downfall. Well, this is your chance to get it.”

He narrowed his eyes and studied her for a moment. “You know, you’re right.” Moving suddenly, he placed his hands on her shoulders, backed her into the side of the pickup, and moved in close. “Your clever mouth helped bring about my undeserved downfall.” He fixed his gaze on her lips, which had parted in surprise when he grabbed her. She closed them now. He smiled, revealing teeth, but it wasn’t a pleasant expression.

“Believe me, Britt Shelley, star of Channel Seven live-coverage news, in the past twenty-four hours, I’ve fantasized taking liberties with your mouth, the way it took liberties with my life five years ago. Revenge? Oh yeah. I’ve thought of a dozen ways to hush you up, and all of them were dirty.”

He leaned in, pressing her between him and the side of the truck, his mouth coming within a hairbreadth of hers. “But I wouldn’t touch you. Never. Not because I’m too much of a coward, and not because it wouldn’t give me pleasure, but because I don’t like you. Mainly though…” He paused, the green eyes shifting back up to hers. “Mainly because Jay had you first.”