Be Mine by Rick Mofina Read Free Book Online Page B

assure her she was safe.
    “It’s going to be okay,” he said.
    “I know.”
    But Tom saw the concern rising in her eyes.
    “Covering crime, getting close to horrible things, it’s my job. It’s
what I do.”
    “I know. It’s fine. I’m okay. Really.”
    Ann no longer wanted him to quit. She didn’t want him to stop being
what he was. Her therapy sessions had helped her accept that.
    “Ready, Mom.” Zach slung his pack over his shoulder, hugged his dad,
and thudded to the door.
    “Give my love to Molly.” She kissed Tom good-bye.
    He switched off the set, then made one futile sweep of the house for
the card before leaving.
     
    On his way to the Star , he decided to swing by Hooper’s
neighborhood and knock on a few doors.
    A retired lawyer was convinced he’d seen a man leaving the apartment
just before Molly found him. “A white man with a dark shirt,” he told Tom. But
he was unsure of the time. A few doors down a mother with two small children
thought she’d seen a white man in a light-colored shirt near Hooper’s place.
    Tom wasn’t sure what to make of it when he got to his desk and began
prospecting through his notebooks, newspapers, press statements, and cassette
tapes for the card that had accompanied Molly’s flowers. He was rifling through
it all when Simon Lepp appeared holding a file.
    “What’ve you got there?” Tom asked.
    “I was in the news library, going through some of Hooper’s cases,
then I tried calling around to see if there was any bad blood. It’s something
worth checking.”
    “Sure.”
    “Tell me, do you know if they’re going to release what they found at
the scene?”
    “What do you mean?”
    “Trace evidence, anything from the forensic or ballistics report. I
know this stuff from the science beat.”
    “Depends. Usually they hold back on that kind of thing.”
    “I’m just wondering what motivated this homicide.”
    “Maybe the guy who killed Hooper is a nut job.”
    “Could be psychotic. Maybe,” Lepp said. “Maybe not. Could be
Hooper’s death is related to something entirely different.”
    “Such as?”
    “A message, a lesson? Maybe it was to settle a score.”
    “A score with who?” Tom said.
    “Maybe it’s related to one of his old cases.” Lepp shrugged.
    “Maybe.” Tom gave up searching for the card and went to the newsroom
kitchen for a coffee. Hank Kruner, a weathered old copy editor who’d worked
under Pepper on the national desk, pulled him aside to offer some free advice.
    “Heard what happened the other day with you and Pepper and the
scanners.”
    “Did you?”
    “Irene hates to be challenged. And you not only challenged her,”
Kruner said, “you averted a disaster that was her doing. Violet was not pleased
about us being so late on that cop murder. You proved Irene wrong. Again. Like
you did with your undercover story when she was on national.”
    Tom nodded.
    “Watch your back with her,” Kruner said. “Watch it good.”
    Back at his desk, Tom’s line rang. It was Irene Pepper, demanding he
come to her office. When he arrived she swiveled in her high-backed chair,
tapping her pencil against her nails.
    “I’d like to change our approach to the Hooper murder,” she said.
    “Change it how?”
    “You agree this story is huge.”
    “Absolutely.”
    “I want you to lead a reporting team on it.”
    Tom said nothing. Her pencil tapping stopped as she assessed him.
“I’ve recently discovered something about you,” she said. He noticed a
personnel department folder on her desk. “You’re one of the highest paid
reporters in the newsroom.”
    She let the fact hang in the air.
    “Well, there’s my Pulitzer nomination, the fact that I break
national exclusives, and, oh yeah, Violet Stewart gave me a raise so I wouldn’t
take offers from other papers.”
    “Ancient history. What’ve you done lately?”
    “I don’t know what you’re getting at,” he said. “Just let me do what
I’m paid to do. Let me chase the