Crime Beat by Scott Nicholson Read Free Book Online Page B

as figuring out how much Murphy was worth and how much a relative might stand to gain. We also debated whether to use quotes from Hardison or the SBI, since technically they had been talking among themselves and not on the record to Moretz.
    While I thought about it, I flipped through Moretz’s crime-scene photos to choose a centerpiece for the front. The first one on the roll caught my attention. It showed the two boys at the lake, one pointing into the water with his mouth open in surprise.
    I could have IM’ed Moretz but I wanted to see his expression, so I went back to his cubicle. He was typing like a monkey trying to copy Shakespeare.
    “John, that photo of the boys?”
    “Yeah?” he said, not looking up, his tongue poking a little from between his teeth.
    “It almost looks like you were there when they discovered the body.”
    He stopped typing and glared at me. “What are you trying to say?”
    “First on the scene. Every time.”
    “You know how it works. We don’t doctor photos, but we can doctor reality. I staged that, got the boys to show me what they did when they found the body.”
    “Before the cops got there?”
    “Can I help it if the jurisdictional dispute slowed the response time? What if she had been seriously injured and needed a transport?”
    “Yeah,” I said, laughing a little. “Maybe Hardison should put you on the payroll.”
    “Then I could only tell one side of the story,” he said, resuming his typing. “We both know things are never as they appear.”
    I wasn’t sure what he meant by that and was afraid to ask. Moretz made me afraid a lot.
    I went back into my office and finished laying out the front page. It looked great, moved a ton of copies off the racks, and elicited the obligatory call from Hardison to ask where Moretz had gotten his information.
    Another success. Then why was I feeling sick to my stomach?

 
    9.
    Moretz became a person of interest shortly before the fourth victim was discovered. The coincidences had piled up until even Hardison could no longer ignore them.
    When Moretz told me the sheriff had requested a private meeting, my bullshit detector started clanging. Hardison had never, in his nine years of tenure, voluntarily summoned a member of the media, with the exception of his rare press conferences.
    Sure, he always had someone phone in a tip any time a photogenic drug bust was scheduled, but he didn’t seek out bonus quality time with the press.
    “You think he’s going to give you an exclusive?” I asked.
    “It’s possible,” Moretz said, checking the battery-charge level on his digital camera.
    “But you’ve been a step ahead of his department the whole time. It’s more likely he wants to find out what you know.”
    Moretz almost grinned, and the expression was a cross between a possum’s and a caged politician’s. “We’re making him look bad, aren’t we?”
    “He’s already threatened me with a frame-up.”
    Moretz glared at me, sizing me up. Newspaper editors were like battlefield generals: they never asked their subordinates to tackle any job they wouldn’t do themselves. “Are you going to bust him on it? An editorial, maybe.”
    I waved him off. “It was veiled. Nothing solid, and his word against mine. He’s been here longer. Plus, he’s under a lot more pressure than we are.”
    That pacified Moretz, though his eyes retained the dark depth that chilled me to the core.
    “Hold a hole for me,” he said. “I’ll get a story out of this one way or another.”
    “Good. If we don’t get any fresh developments on the Rebel Clipper, we’re going to have to lead with a United Way fundraiser. And nobody buys the paper to read about charities.”
    “You got it, Chief.”
    I got busy laying out the back pages, filling up the business and religious sections first, those wonderful Friday features that failed to comfort the afflicted.  Due to a server crash, I had to rig a different route to get the pages to our designers, and