Hack by Kieran Crowley Read Free Book Online Page A

Manhattan townhouse, the
Mail
has learned.
    After making a meal of his lover, Forsythe, star of TV’s hit show
Food Fight
, calmly went out to review a restaurant for the Trib, gobbling up a gourmet meal, sources said. (Cont. P2, 3, 4 & 5)
    The story continued on page two, surrounded by photographs of Aubrey and Neil “at happier meals,” and contained everything I had absorbed at the murder scene and elsewhere. The mayor and governor both expressed shock, as did several lesser celebrities whose flagging careers probably needed a boost.
    A box was inset into the type of my main story.
    ----
RECIPE FOR MURDER
    crushed garlic
    ½ cup of olive oil
    ½ stick of butter
    lemon zest
    parsley
    grated Parmesan
    boneless rump filet of Neil Leonardi
    capers
----
    Apparently alerted by me, one of our photographers got a flash shot of a dazed, sobbing Aubrey being led from a cop car at Central Booking at 1 Police Plaza, a sad Pillsbury Doughboy emerging from a red-brick oven. There were other stories by other reporters, including a review by our “Eating Out” restaurant critic, panning the deadly dish as “unimaginative and pedestrian; a strip mall entrée unworthy of a gourmet.” One story, titled “FOOD FIGHT,” listed Aubrey and Neil’s past spats, and Neil’s apparently well-known nastiness to Skippy, as documented on their TV show. It also recapped the new, unseen video I mentioned in my story. Another piece with my byline on it was headlined “LOYAL DOG GUARDS SLAIN MASTER,” along with my photo of Skippy. Other stories featured a pop TV shrink speculating on Aubrey’s motivations, even a real-estate piece about whether the value of the townhouse would rise or fall because of the infamous act.
    Wow.
    I checked the other papers. Aubrey’s own newspaper, the esteemed
New York Tribune
did not cover the story at all. The
Mail
’s main competitor, the
Daily Press
, also had the story on the front page but it was very vague and contained less information than we had put on the
Mail’
s website the night before. “FOOD CRITIC NABBED. Body Found at Townhouse,” by Virginia McElhone. The
Daily Press
speculated that the victim was Aubrey’s companion but did not identify the corpse and said only that Aubrey was in custody. Not a word about cannibalism. Or cheese.

12.
    The Manhattan Criminal Courts Building was a huge, stepped ziggurat of once-white sandstone chiseled with Art Deco designs and inspiring sayings about justice. It took me fifteen minutes and three different court officers to find the right first floor courtroom. In the hall outside, a huge crowd of TV crews and photographers strained behind barricades and began filming and shooting me as I approached. They all shouted questions at once and I couldn’t understand any of them. Only one shooter wasn’t firing, a female
Mail
photographer I had seen in the office, who obviously knew I wasn’t worth wasting battery power on. Two court officers grabbed me by the elbows and rushed me through the double doors of the courtroom and escorted me to the front row, where I sat alone on an empty bench, a dark, dirty antique polished by a million butts since Franklin Delano Roosevelt was in the White House.
    “You the other Frank Shepherd, the new guy?” a raspy voice in the row behind me asked.
    I turned and saw a short, old wrinkled guy in a black rumpled suit and loose, stained red tie, his eyes watery in the morning, like a serious drinker.
    “Uh, yeah,” I replied. “Call me Shepherd.”
    “Okay, Shepherd,” he said, offering his wrinkled hand for a strong clasp. “I’m Dunn. Mickey Dunn, courthouse reporter for the
Mail.
Great fuckin’ yarn, pal. Is it true you’re the new pet column guy? Whatya doin’ here?”
    “Thanks. Yes. I don’t know.”
    “You should retire, Shepherd,” Dunn said, guffawing. “Put you out to stud. You’ll never top today’s story, you live to be old as me.”
    “Yeah, really. I wouldn’t know how. Never done this before.