C Corwin - The Cross Kisses Back

Aubrey swiveled back and read:

Detective Grant refused to discuss publicly the evidence that lead to McGinty’s arrest. Nevertheless, from a variety of sources the Herald-Union has been able to piece together the chilling story of a murder painstakingly planned and meticulously carried out.

That story actually may have begun three autumns ago on the campus of Kent State University, where McGinty was just beginning her senior year.

McGinty, like many students in the journalism department, worked on The Stater, the daily campus newspaper. Like other students, she planned to use those stories to get her first job after graduation.

“The better your stories the better your chance of landing on a big paper,” Dr. Edward Firestone, faculty advisor for The Stater, told his student reporters again and again.

Three weeks into the fall semester, the university’s famous black squirrels began dying. Their carcasses were found in flower beds and at the base of the huge oaks that dot the sprawling campus.

The carcasses of 22 squirrels were found before campus police announced that the squirrels died after eating ears of corn laced with chlordane, a powerful chemical used to control crickets and other insects.

I don’t know how fast Aubrey was reading, but I was well into Dale’s background on how the squirrels were first brought to Kent when she started laughing. “This is some real crap reporting, Marabout,” she said.

Dale smiled and motioned for her to read on:

“I remember that Aubrey handed in a completed story on the squirrel deaths before the editors could assign somebody to cover it,” Firestone told the Herald-Union. “We were impressed with her initiative and gave her the green light to cover the story the rest of the way.”

In all, McGinty wrote 16 stories about the squirrels, including one detailing the campus police department’s inept handling of the investigation.

No suspect was ever identified and the poisonings stopped before the semester ended.

According to college transcripts, McGinty took an elective course in criminal toxicology during the spring semester of her junior year.

Patrick Byner, dean of Kent’s Criminal Justice Studies program, told the Herald-Union that it is rare for students not majoring in law enforcement to take what he called “such an arcane, graduate-level course.”

Byner said the course deals with techniques for investigating deaths by poisoning.

Aubrey smirked at what she’d read. “You can’t print innuendoes like these.”

“We were pretty close to printing yours,” Tinker answered. “Anyway, we hope that by the time this goes to press you’ll have confirmed them.”

Aubrey turned back to her computer screen, as anxious as the rest to read what came next, I think:

During the spring semester McGinty applied at a number of larger newspapers, including the Herald-Union. She did not receive an offer from any of those papers, however. Three months after graduation she accepted a job with the small daily in her hometown, the Rush City Gazette.

According to Gazette Managing Editor Marilyn Morely, McGinty made no secret of her desire to move on to a larger newspaper as rapidly as possible. “She tried to make even the most routine stories seem important,” Morely said.

One story that wasn’t routine was the murder of Rush City High School football coach Charles “Chuck” Reddincoat. A month after police charged the father of a boy dropped from the team for harassing younger players, McGinty presented evidence pointing to what police admitted was “a more likely suspect.”

Dale’s story went on to recap Aubrey’s investigation into the coach’s murder. How, based on her information, police found bloody overalls and a gun at a hunting cabin in Coshocton County. How that evidence led to the arrest and conviction of the cheerleading advisor’s jealous husband. How Aubrey had spent the night following the murder at a motel just three miles from the hunting cabin.

Aubrey sighed sarcastically. “You have descended into the ooey-gooey depths of innuendo again, Marabout.”

Dale was enjoying himself. “You’ll be happy to know that the police in Rush City are already taking another look at the case.”

Aubrey answered coldly. “Are they?” She resumed reading:

McGinty’s coverage of the killing, and the police department’s arrest of the wrong man, were among the clippings she sent to the Herald-Union ’s newly appointed managing editor, Alec Tinker.

“I was very impressed,” Tinker said. “She was just the kind of reporter I was looking for. I promised her a job as soon as there was an appropriate opening.”

Can you imagine how hard it was for Dale to write that part of the story? Calmly taking notes while Tinker all but admitted he forced him off his beat? So he could replace him with a younger and more energetic reporter? I was so proud of Dale at that moment. We all kept reading:

Tinker and McGinty kept in touch for more than a year, exchanging e-mail messages and periodically having lunch. Last August he told her a police reporter’s job would be available shortly after the first of the year.

“I had decided to reassign a number of reporters and considered Aubrey as my number one candidate for the police reporter position,” Tinker acknowledged.

Aubrey started nodding, the way any reader thoughtfully nods when he sees where a story is headed. “So after killing the squirrels and the football coach, I killed Buddy Wing, for the good clips?”

“Are you sure you don’t want to stop here and talk to Detective Grant in private?” I asked.

“And miss the rest of Dale’s brilliant reportage?”

She pronounced that last word, reportage, as if she was a snooty French cabaret singer.

She continued reading.

We all continued reading.

Saturday, March 17

I left my house as soon as it was light outside and crept through rush hour traffic toward the interstate. The roads were clear but there was snow in the brown clouds rolling out of the southwest, the direction I was heading. Thank God I had a Thermos of hot Darjeeling tea.

I-491 wound through the hills south of Hannawa for several miles before connecting with I-71, the wide asphalt spine that runs down the center of Ohio from Cleveland to Cincinnati. Just north of Jeromesville it started to rain, humongous drops that overpowered my wipers and made me feel like I was driving under water. I slipped in behind a semi pulling a trailer stacked with new Jeep Cherokees. I was content to stay behind him all the way to Columbus if that’s how far he was going. I remembered how Aubrey McGinty had talked about getting an SUV someday, a bright yellow one, after she got her Visa card under control.

It was hard to believe that a full year had gone by since Aubrey first dragged me to the Heaven Bound Cathedral to start her investigation into the Buddy Wing murder. Who would have guessed it was Aubrey herself who painted that poisonous cross on his Bible, and filled his water pitcher with water laced with lily of the valley?

I might never have acted on my suspicions about Aubrey if Dale Marabout hadn’t quit the way he did. It had stirred me up something terrible. I went to Bob Averill’s office thinking my only motive was to get his job back. But I wasn’t in there two minutes before I was spilling the beans.

After I’d convinced Bob that Aubrey might be the real killer, he called Tinker up to his office, so I could convince him. At first Tinker resisted the possibility. He’d recruited her after all. But as I went through the bits of evidence I’d collected, he began to see journalistic gold. “If you’re right, we’ve got a huge story about how we brought one of our own to justice,” he said. “We’ll be up to our necks in awards.”