Shooting for the Stars (18 page)

Chapter
33

T
HERE
was a series of emails and text messages to me from Stacy Albright too. They had begun several hours earlier and become increasingly more frantic as they went on. The last one said:
Malloy, I want to talk to you
ASA
P!
!
In addition to the capitalization and exclamation marks, she'd marked the
ASAP!!
in bold-faced letters. She'd also written the word
URGENT
at the top of the message. I had a feeling it might be important.

“What kind of a mood is Stacy in?” I asked Jeff Aronson when I got to the newsroom.

“Regarding?”

“Me.”

“Not good.”

“How not good?”

“Borderline manic, I'd say. She keeps asking for you. I don't think it's to name you Employee of the Month.”

“How can I get in so much trouble when I wasn't even here?”

“It's pretty amazing, when you think about it.”

“What did I do?”

“It isn't so much about what you did, it's all about what you didn't do.”

“The Remesch arrest?”

Aronson nodded. “We got beat on the story,” he said. “The big bosses were very unhappy about that.”

“How in the hell was I supposed to know they were going to arrest someone? I was out in California.”

“Yeah, well the editor-in-chief wanted to know about that. He said he thought you were supposed to have some kind of an in on this story because you were friends with Abbie and all. He wanted to know who the hell sent you to California and why. Let's just say he made it clear he didn't think it was a particularly good idea.”

“Did Stacy happen to mention that she'd approved my trip? That she thought it was a good idea?”

“From what I hear, that wasn't her version of what happened.”

“So the editor of this newspaper thinks I just went out there on my own and blew off the story he assumed I was working on.”

“That about sums it up.”

“And Stacy never said a word in my defense?”

“Did you really think she would?”

“I always believe in the innate goodness of my fellow human beings.”

“Stacy's not a human being,” Aronson said. “She's an editor.”

I went to see her. She was sitting at her desk with the
New York Post
website on her computer. The headline said:
COPS NAB TV STAR'S KILLER
.

“What happened?” she asked.

“My trip to California was very pleasant, thank you for asking.”

“What happened?” she repeated.

“Oh, I saw Hollywood and Vine. Went to the Beverly Wilshire where all the big producers hang out. I didn't make it to Disneyland, but maybe next time. I'll be sure to show you all my pictures
as soon as I have them developed. There's one of me standing in front of George Clooney's house and . . .”

“You were supposed to be Abbie's friend,” Stacy said.

“I was.”

“You said you had close connections to the case.”

“Yes.”

“So why is this story appearing in the opposition's paper?”

“Because I was in California when it happened.”

“Which raises the question of why you were in California when the damn story was in New York.”

“Wait a minute, Stacy—you sent me there.”

“I didn't send you. You asked me to go because you said you could get a big story out there. You said the Laura Marlowe case and Abbie Kincaid were all related. That if you solved one, you solved the other. I believed you. My mistake. While you were three thousand miles away, we got scooped on the real story right here.”

“I never said I was certain the two cases were connected.”

“Sure you did.”

“Stacy, I said I was doing the Laura Marlowe story. I said it was possible that her murder and Abbie's were related. If so, by solving the Laura Marlowe case, I'd solve Abbie's too. That's what I told you. There were no guarantees. You don't get guarantees with a story. You just follow it and see where it leads you. That's how it's done.”

She wasn't listening to me.

It was pretty clear to me what was going on here. Stacy had gotten a lot of flack from above about why we got beat on the story. She dumped the blame off on me. Maybe she knew she was lying, maybe she'd actually convinced herself that it was all my fault. You never know how a mind like Stacy's works. I couldn't fathom it.

Just a few days ago, I'd been a big star again at the
Daily News
. Front page stories on Abbie Kincaid and then Laura Marlowe. The paper loved me. The readers loved me. Stacy loved me. And now I was back in the doghouse again. Welcome to my life. You'd think I'd have gotten used to the ups and downs of the newspaper business and how quickly you can become a star and then see it all disappear in an instant. But I never have.

“We need to go into damage control,” Stacy said. “The
Post
won round one of the Abbie Kincaid story, but the fight isn't over yet. We still have you and your relationship with Abbie on our side to build readership and web traffic on in a bounce off the arrest. People still remember the way you cried on that webcast after Abbie's death. The video of that went viral and is still all over the net. Okay, there's a police press conference upcoming on Remesch's arrest. We'll have you liveblog it for the website, along with a biography stressing the close relationship you had with Abbie before she died. I want your byline on all of the follow-up stories on Remesch too. Maybe you can even write a first-person piece about your feelings on the ex-husband snuffing out the life of this beautiful, talented woman.”

“Why me, Stacy? I mean if you really feel I screwed up the arrest story that badly . . .”

“I need you to be the face of the
Daily News
on the Abbie Kincaid story, Gil. It's just good business.”

I stared at her.

“What about Laura Marlowe?” I said.

“What about her?”

“I found out some really interesting stuff.”

“What do I care about a thirty-year-old murder?”

“You cared before.”

“That's because I thought it was connected to the Abbie Kincaid case.”

“It's still a good story.”

I told her everything that I'd found out. About Laura's secret life as a young porn star before she made it big. About the details of her love affair with Rizzo. Most of all, about her being part of the Sign of the Z cult out in the California desert. And how there might even be a connection between the Sign of the Z cult and other killings.

But, even as I went through it all, I could tell she wasn't really that interested. Laura Marlowe was yesterday's news to her. No matter how sensational the details were, it was still about a murder that happened thirty years ago. Abbie Kincaid was today. Some editors—not many—have the capacity to see beyond the narrow confines of today's story. Stacy wasn't one of them.

“So go write the friggin' Laura Marlowe thing,” she said when I was finished.

“But I don't think it's the whole story.”

“What is the whole story?”

“I'm not sure yet.”

“So when you find out, write that too. But in the meantime, get me something to put in our paper on the Abbie Kincaid arrest that I haven't already read in the
New York Post
.”

Chapter
34

T
ELL
me about Bill Remesch,” I said to Lt. Wohlers.

We were sitting in a Dunkin' Donuts down the block from the 19th Precinct. This time I'd bought Wohlers a box of assorted glazed, sugar, and jelly donuts as a bribe to get him to talk to me. He was working on one of the sugar donuts at the moment. Some of the powdery sugar had dribbled down onto his chin and the front of his shirt. I thought about telling him he was a sloppy eater, but decided not to.

“They arrested Remesch in Milwaukee,” Wohlers said. “He waived extradition, he was flown back to New York, and he's now sitting in the Rikers Island House of Detention. He was arraigned on a charge of first-degree murder, the murder of his ex-wife. The former Abbie Remesch. Who you and I and the rest of America knew, of course, as Abbie Kincaid.”

“What makes everyone think that Remesch did it?”

“Don't you read the newspapers?”

“I work for one, remember.”

“One of your rival papers had a good story about it the other day.”

“Thanks for reminding me.”

“You got in trouble for that?”

“Let's just say my editor prefers to read her scoops in the
Daily News
and not the
Post
.”

Which is why we were at the Dunkin' Donuts this time. I figured Stacy wouldn't be as generous with me on the expense account in her current mood. So I opted for the budget interview. Jelly and glazed and sugar donuts instead of corned beef. I do whatever it takes to get a story.

“How did you miss the arrest?” Wohlers asked me.

“I was out in California on the Laura Marlowe thing.”

“Bad timing for you.”

“My editor, Stacy Albright, got in trouble with her bosses for sending me. Stacy is very ambitious. So she blamed me even though she knew all about it beforehand. You know what they say—crap like this always runs downhill.”

Wohlers shook his head. “Boy, it does sound like you really managed to get that bitch's tit caught in the wringer on this business about the Kincaid broad.”

“Uh, I don't think you're supposed to say stuff like that anymore, lieutenant.”

“Not say what?”

“Any of the three somewhat colorful—albeit offensive—­comments about women you just packed into that one sentence.”

“Why not?”

“It's against the rules.”

“What rules?”

“The rules of political correctness.”

“There's rules?”

“Oh, there's rules.”

“What are they?”

“I'm not sure. They keep changing. But I'm pretty sure it's illegal to say ‘tit caught in a wringer,' ‘bitch,' or ‘broad' about a woman in the twenty-first century.”

“So call a cop,” he shrugged.

Wohlers took another bite of a donut. This time jelly spurted out onto his face and the front of his shirt. I decided I had to say something. He wiped some of it off his face, but he used his sleeve to do it. Now there was a combination of sugar and jelly on that too. He was rapidly becoming an environmental hazard.

“Anyway, we got a break when one of the bellhops at the Regent remembered seeing Remesch there the night that Abbie was killed. He identified a picture of him, then later picked him out of a lineup too. The bellhop can even put him on the same floor as the room where Abbie was staying. That means Remesch had the opportunity to kill her.

“Then we talked to some of the people from Abbie's show, and they said he'd showed up there too. That's probably why she was carrying a gun. She was afraid of her ex-husband. He told a lot of people that she'd ruined his life, and that someday he'd make her pay for it. He was mad because she'd trashed him on national TV. That's what we call motive.

“Finally, we sent cops to go talk to him in Wisconsin. They got a search warrant and checked out his house and his auto repair shop. There was nothing at the house, but they found a .45 caliber revolver hidden at the bottom of an oil drum in the shop. Ballistics tests confirm it was the same gun used to kill Abbie Kincaid. That's the means. Motive, means, and opportunity. We've got 'em all. End of story.”

“That's very good thinking,” I said.

“Yeah, it was fine police work.”

“Almost too good.”

“What do you mean?”

“Doesn't it seem just a little too easy?”

“Huh?”

“Why'd he take the gun back with him to Wisconsin? I mean he
presumably had to get it on a plane—which isn't an easy thing—or else drive all the way back with it. He must have known that if he was stopped it would connect him with the murder. And he had to know too that somebody was going to be looking for him. He was her ex-husband, and ex-husbands of a murder victim are always on the list of possible suspects. So why didn't he just dump the gun in New York so it couldn't be used as evidence against him? That would have been the smart thing to do.”

“Remesch isn't exactly the smartest guy in the world,” Wohlers said.

“And what about this witness who says now he saw him at the hotel? You canvassed that place at the beginning, and no one saw anything. Suddenly this guy remembers Remesch and picks him out of a lineup. That seems awfully convenient, doesn't it?”

“So what are you saying? That cops planted the gun in Remesch's auto shop? That we came up with a phony witness to frame him? C'mon, it was a clean bust.”

“I'm just asking some questions,” I said.

Wohlers finished off the last of the donuts. He wiped some of the residual sugar and jelly from his mouth onto his sleeve. I took it as a sign that I'd gotten pretty much everything out of him that I was going to get.

“Why are you so interested in figuring out some reason why Remesch didn't do it?”

I wasn't sure about that. I just knew that it somehow didn't feel right to me. I didn't understand a lot about what was going on here, but everything I'd found out still made me believe that there had to be some connection between what happened to Laura Marlowe thirty years ago and Abbie Kincaid. That theory fell apart if Remesch was the killer.

I looked down at the empty box of donuts. I'd only gotten to eat one before Wohlers finished them off. It was very good. And I
was still hungry. I looked up at the counter and saw a line of about a dozen people waiting to order. I thought about how much I wanted another donut and weighed that against what a pain in the ass it would be to wait on that line for it. My life is an endless series of hard choices.

“It was a good bust,” Wohlers repeated. “We got the gun, we got a witness who puts him at the scene, and we know he'd threatened her in the past because of what she'd done to him. We've got the right guy.”

“You're sure about that?”

“Of course we're sure.”

I didn't say anything. I just stood up to go back on line for another donut.

“You don't believe me?”

“Yeah, I guess so, except . . .”

“Except what?

“The police were sure about Ray Janson thirty years ago too,” I said.