Silencing Sam (23 page)

“So what happened in there?” I asked.

“It's complicated,” he repeated.

“I'm a smart reporter,” I told Jeremy. “No matter how complicated this mess is, I'm confident I can follow it.”

He paused, like he was trying to figure out just where to begin.

“How about if you start out telling me whose kid that was?” I said. “Or should I save time and suggest it was Sam's?”

He shrugged but didn't say anything.

“Don't make me play twenty questions, Jeremy. Or you'll never get home in time for dinner.”

Two months ago, he explained, Sam had stopped at Daisy's flower shop for the first time since they'd broken up nearly two years ago. He needed a bouquet delivered and thought enough time had passed that he could give her the business without a fuss. The baby was asleep in a playpen by the cash register.

“Sam did the math and decided he was the father,” Jeremy said. “But Daisy refused to discuss it.”

“The Sam Pierce I knew didn't seem the paternal type.”

“He felt it might be his only chance to raise a child. He
thought he could do a better job than his own parents did.” He said Sam hired a lawyer, demanded a DNA test, and vowed a custody fight for visitation.

I followed Sam's dad onto a freeway ramp, hoping they weren't driving the six hours back to Chicago tonight.

“Is this why you two broke up?” I asked.

“He felt his odds in family court were improved without me.”

“Brutal.”

Jeremy nodded.

“So why were you at this legal meeting?” I asked.

“I handled Sam's finances.”

He explained that Sam died without a will. Under the law, if baby Jimmy was his son, Jimmy would inherit the entire estate. If Sam was not his father, the estate would go to his parents. Estranged or not.

“Sam's mother is praying for a DNA match,” he said. “She'd rather have a grandchild than the money.”

“Can't be much money,” I said. After all, Sam worked for a newspaper—a dying industry. I noted some symmetry.

Then Jeremy informed me that Sam actually had a considerable estate from all his speechwriting.

“What speeches?” Occasionally I spoke before civic groups or journalism classes, and all that usually netted me was a thank-you and perhaps a luncheon buffet. The long-term hope was that the audience would become Channel 3 viewers.

“Sam wrote speeches for many corporate executives. General Mills. Best Buy. Medtronic. 3M. His rate was ten grand.”

The number was such a surprise, I almost rear-ended the vehicle driven by Sam's dad. I slammed on my brakes, skidded to safety, then looked to see if Jeremy was joking. He wasn't.

“That rate seems on the high end to me,” I said.

“I've seen the checks. Apparently he was worth it.”

I asked who, for example, Sam had written for recently and was impressed when Jeremy named a top CEO.

“He also wrote speeches for some politicians, but not very often.”

I was about to point out that such moonlighting might have posed a serious conflict of interest for Sam's “Piercing Eyes” column when his parents suddenly slowed down for an exit off the freeway. I hung back as they turned onto a frontage road. When they pulled into a hotel parking lot, I pulled into a gas station across the street and watched them carry luggage inside.

Jeremy used that opportunity to open the car door and tell me he was catching a cab.

For the next ten minutes, I tried to come up with a believable way to approach Sam's parents for an interview. Generally, I pride myself on being creative in the field, but my earlier graveyard rendezvous with Sam's mother made another encounter impossible.

I considered cruising by uptown florists to look for Daisy but decided she had probably closed the shop by now and would likely be in a more approachable mood tomorrow.

Instead, I headed back downtown to the station. Traffic was now flowing better in that direction. The newscast was ending as I walked in the back security door. Nobody asked me where I'd been. So I ducked into my office before anyone thought about it.

I called another of the pistol-packing felons on my list. “Hello, I'm conducting a news survey about Minnesota's conceal-and-carry permit system and whether any improvements might be made—”

He hung up on me as abruptly as if I was hawking magazines or asking for used clothing donations.

Just for the heck of it, I called the CEO whose speech Jeremy
said Sam had written. I was connected to the company communications director and told her I'd like to talk to her boss about Sam Pierce's speechwriting abilities.

I didn't have much hope of getting a call back. So when it happened almost immediately, I was flustered, especially by his angry tone.

“What kind of a shakedown is this?” the head of one of Minnesota's Fortune 500 companies screamed in my ear. “First him, now you.”

“Excuse me?” I said, trying to understand what he was talking about.

“Don't play dumb with me. Just know if I hear from you again, I will call the police.” Then he hung up.

A half hour later, I got a call from one of the name partners of Minneapolis's largest law firm. Because he handled corporate, not criminal, law, we didn't know each other, but he had something he wanted to discuss.

I smelled a story. I needed a story. I offered to come over right away.

When I walked in, even though it was after business hours, I saw legal associates hunched over their desks, desperately working to make partner. The economic downturn was causing many companies to balk at the concept of straight billable hours from their attorneys, and the only legal business on the upswing was bankruptcy filings.

The first thing Bryan Streit told me was that he was representing Mr. CEO about “our matter.”

“My client is sorry he lost his temper and asked me to assure you he doesn't want to involve the police.”

Sometimes when I don't know what a source is talking about, I bluff that I do, hoping to get clarification. This wasn't
one of those times. I was blunt. “I don't know what you're talking about.”

“Let's stop playing coy. Mr. Pierce may have preferred referring to it as a ‘speech,' but hush money is hush money. What's your price for keeping this quiet?”

Suddenly I suspected Sam was not just a catty gossip but also a calculating extortionist. And I decided to try my bluff tactic.

“So Sam wrote a ‘speech' about your client's personal life and sold it to him?”

“Don't play dumb,” he said. “All that talk about how much my client thought the ‘speech' was worth? And if my client didn't want the ‘speech,' maybe it would make a good newspaper column. Pierce called it a speech to make it sound like a business transaction, but it was straight-up blackmail.”

It sure was.

“We don't know exactly how you came to have possession of this confidential information.” The lawyer seemed to be hinting I must have stolen some file after killing Sam. “But my client continues to want to keep the issue about his life private.”

“This is a misunderstanding.” I explained about running across his client's name while doing research about Sam Pierce and being curious about the payment. “I have no idea what secret your client is hiding, and frankly, I don't want to know.”

That last bit wasn't actually true. But if his client's skeleton was newsworthy, and if I ever unearthed it, buying my silence wasn't an option. My hunch was it probably had something to do with sex. Maybe Sam's target was a closeted gay.

Mr. CEO's attorney seemed unsure whether or not to believe my professed ignorance. He was skeptical when I refused to accept a check for “my discretion.”

As I walked back to the station, I wondered how Sam decided which people to sell “speeches” and which to simply surprise
with an item in the newspaper. I'd been featured numerous times in “Piercing Eyes,” and he'd never offered me the speech deal. Of course, I'd have gone straight to his boss before paying him ten grand.

Sam was taking a risk each time he played his game. If he approached the wrong mark, he could have wound up fired.

Or dead.

The next morning, while eating burnt toast and drinking juice, I heard a heavy knock and loud, unwelcome words: “Police officer. Search warrant.”

When I opened the door, Minneapolis police frisked me through my frizzy bathrobe, then waved a warrant for my home and car. They didn't include my desk at Channel 3, most likely to avoid a First Amendment battle.

This meant legal work for Benny, not Miles.

My criminal attorney rushed over and reviewed the probable-cause affidavit attached to the warrant. He noted the cops had already subpoenaed my phone records and discovered several calls to both my house line and cell phone that went unanswered the night of Sam Pierce's murder—despite my telling police that I'd been home during that entire evening.

“See, Riley, this is why I didn't want you to let them interview you,” Benny said. “Not only do you not have an alibi for the night of Sam Pierce's murder, your whereabouts seem inconsistent with your official statement.”

“I was too upset to talk to anyone that night. I crawled into bed and ignored the phone.”

“Well, the cops think the calls went unanswered because you were busy killing Sam.”

In the affidavit, the court bailiff also verified tension and sharp words between the gossip columnist and me hours before the homicide. Of course, the police made much of my guilty plea for assault.

“Luckily, none of this is enough to actually charge you with murder,” Benny said. “Please assure me they won't find any evidence while searching your house or car.”

“Absolutely not. It's going to be a waste of their time. I'm innocent. So I have nothing to fear.”

We both sat on the porch—him in a lawyer suit because he was a lawyer, me still in my bathrobe because the cops wouldn't let me upstairs to change into something less comfortable. Some neighbors glanced over at the squad cars, one marked, one unmarked, as they left for their jobs. An elderly couple undertook yard work, probably as an excuse to keep a curious watch on the happenings outside.

Meanwhile, the cops examined my car and house. The main item they were looking for was a Glock handgun. They came up empty but took other items like my hairbrush, toothbrush, and some clothing.

“They're hoping to link your DNA to the crime scene,” Benny said.

I shook my head. “Not going to happen, but at least this way they can eliminate me.”

“I like confidence in a client, but promise me you won't do any media interviews. Nada. All that does is make my job harder.”

I understood Benny's point, but there's a public relations strategy that journalists call getting out in front of bad news. That means announcing your own trouble before the media finds out. Sort of like late-night host David Letterman gaining sympathy for sexual high jinks by sharing his extortion tale in front of a live studio audience.

“What if I just give a statement?” I asked Benny. “No questions.”

“Any statements to be made, I'll make them.”

Because I wanted to keep top defense attorney Benny Walsh as my lawyer, I raised my palm in a solemn pledge.

Until then, I'd been observing the police proceedings with more professional interest than personal worry. Calling Noreen, I told her why I'd be late, and she told me the station didn't need any more of this kind of publicity. Then she quoted more clauses from my personal services contract about “public morals” and actions that “reflect unfavorably on her employer.”

I just sat there and took it because I didn't have a choice and figured it wouldn't last for long.

“Are our competitors likely to find out?” Noreen asked.

Typically the media doesn't learn about search warrants being executed until after the fact, when the paperwork is filed with the court. So any beat reporter who made daily rounds would eventually find the story. Of course, with the recent newsroom cutbacks, those checks often get nixed in favor of more easily obtained fresh content.

“Chances are, someone inside the cop shop will leak it,” I said. “Maybe even the chief.”

“In that case,” she said, “we better be first. I'll put Clay on it.”

I had no objection to Channel 3 going on the record with the story. Best that the station didn't appear to be hiding negative news. But even though Clay and I were starting to get along, he was the last reporter I wanted covering me. He'd likely try to turn it into the lead story. I know I would, if the newsmaker wasn't me.

“Because the search isn't going to yield anything useful for prosecution, maybe it's best, Noreen, to just make the story an anchor reader rather than assign a reporter.”

“No, Riley, Clay's been covering the gossip homicide from the start. He's got the big-picture perspective.”

He's also got a big mouth, but I held back sharing that view with Noreen because the homicide investigator in charge came over. I told my boss I had to run but would be in the office shortly. The cop handed me a copy of the paperwork outlining what their team had confiscated.

“Hey, why'd you take my pink jacket?” I asked. It wasn't like it had bloodstains or anything. And I'd started to appreciate the color for standups. “When am I going to get it back?”

He didn't answer, simply pointed to the blank line that needed my signature and date.

Less than an hour later, I arrived at Channel 3 and, under orders from Noreen, made Clay a copy of the pages, which he eagerly grabbed from my hands.

He shook his head as he scanned the search warrant. “Well, little lady, seems to me you have more of a talent for making news than covering it.”

“And you have no talent at all,” I responded. “Seems to me if you're such a well-connected crime reporter, you'd have aired an exclusive on this search warrant already without my help.”