Fury by G. M. Ford Read Free Book Online Page B

preachers.”
    Beneath the words, she thought she heard the lazy trace of a drawl. She’d noticed it before. Sometimes when they talked late at night. When he was tired and his guard was down, you could almost hear another voice.
    “Your mama had a point,” she said.
    She watched as his eyes turned inward. “I remember the first time anybody ever told me life wasn’t fair,” Corso said. “I was three or four…something like that. I was pissing and moaning about something not being fair and my aunt Jean leaned over the dinner table and told me how I might as well shut up and get used to the idea.”
    “And?”
    He made eye contact. “I didn’t believe it then and I don’t believe it now,” he said. “If I thought for a minute the world was that arbitrary. I’d go down to my boat and blow my brains out.”
    A sudden gust of wind rattled the windows. Corso heaved a sigh, cursing silently.
    “And you want me to do what?” he asked.
    She held up two fingers. “Two things. If Walter Himes didn’t kill those young women, then I want to know who did.”
    “Good thing you don’t want much.”
    “Second, while you’re looking into this, I want you to write the stories.”
    “Hawes is right, you know. Getting between the people and their pound of flesh is going to generate a lot of heat, and having my name on the byline is gonna be like throwing gasoline on the fire.”
    “I’m aware of that,” she said. “The situation, however, is desperate. We’ve reached the point where we at the Sun can no longer concern ourselves with what people may be saying about us as long as they’re saying something.”
    “It’s going to get ugly.”
    “I can handle the heat. Can you?”
    “We’re gonna find out, aren’t we?”
    She pulled a small leather-bound pad toward her.
    “How much space are you going to need?”
    “For the ‘Leanne Samples Changes Her Story’ story?”
    “Yes.”
    “With a recap…probably sixteen hundred words.”
    “If we’re upping the street run, I’m going to need it by nine.”
    “I’ll have it ready,” Corso assured her.
    “Anything else?”
    “Have somebody call Himes’s attorney of record and ask if Himes will agree to see me. Tomorrow. As soon as possible.”
    “He hasn’t spoken to the press in nearly two years. What makes you think he’ll talk to you?”
    “Have whoever calls tell the attorney about the story we’re running tomorrow morning. Tell him who wrote it. Remind him of the ‘rush to judgment’ piece. Run my famous-author status by him. See if maybe that doesn’t loosen things up.”
    “Excellent idea,” Mrs. V. said. “As I recall, he wanted to see you rather badly way back when…” She let it hang.
    “Ask if we can bring a photographer. Somebody other than Harry Dent,” he said, naming the Sun ’s ancient photo editor whose outdated noir style of photography regularly made baby showers look lurid.
    “Mr. Dent is the only photographer we have left on staff,” she said. She read Corso’s pained expression. “He had seniority.”
    “Who took the shots of the bus accident on Aurora a couple of weeks ago?”
    “A freelancer,” Mrs. V. said. “A woman named Dougherty, I believe.”
    Corso recalled the battered metro bus lying on its side. The anguished looks on the faces of the citizens who risked their lives to rescue passengers from the smoldering ruins. Pictures that seemed to jump off the page at the reader.
    “Can you get her?”
    “Miss Dougherty is…as I understand it…how shall I put this? I’ve been led to believe she’s some-what exotic and perhaps a bit…forward.” She seemed pleased by her choice of words.
    Corso chuckled. “We ought to make an interesting pair,” he said.
    “I’ll see what I can do. Anything else?”
    Corso gave it some thought. “That’s it for right now,” he said.
    “And you?” Mrs. V. asked of Corso.
    “I guess I’m headed downtown. See if I can’t scratch up a denial.” She looked at him as