Carl Hiassen - Basket Case

Yet she loves him still.

"Here's our exit," I inform Emma, who engages the ramp at a gut-puckering velocity.

"Right or left?"

"Left. Guess who showed up in the newsroom yesterday—Race Maggad his own self."

"Again?" Emma's brow furrows attractively.

"We had a conversation that he will likely recount as unsatisfactory. He demanded an advance peek at the MacArthur Polk obituary—"

"Which you haven't finished."

"Or even started! I told him he couldn't preview it under any circumstances. Rules are rules."

"The CEO of the publishing company—you told him that?"

"Emphatically. Two more lights, Emma, then hang another left."

She's gnawing on her lower lip, a job I would gladly (here I go again!) undertake. "What did he say? Did he mention me?" she presses on.

Once upon a time I wouldn't have hesitated to tell Emma that the chairman of the company had botched her name, but now I don't have the heart. "He'll be speaking to you shortly," I say, "about my impudence and so forth. But he did provide a dandy quote for the story. Old Man Polk would blow out an artery."

"Dammit, Jack," says Emma.

"Oh, come on. You can handle young Race."

"That's not the point. Why do you insist on causing trouble?"

"Because he's a phony, a fop, a money-grubbing yupster twit. And he's murdering this newspaper and twenty-six others, in case you hadn't noticed."

She says, "Look, just 'cause you've given up on your own career—"

"Whoa there, missy."

"—doesn't give you the right to sabotage mine."

Sabotage? A scalding accusation from mild-mannered Emma. Of all my schemes to rescue her from the newsroom, sabotage was never once contemplated.

"You think I want to spend the rest of my days doing this?" she says. "Editing stories about dead scoutmasters and bromeliads?" (Emma is also in charge of our Garden page.)

"How can Maggad blame you? He's the one who's too scared to have me canned," I point out. "His lawyers think it would look punitive, after our dustup at the shareholders' meeting. They fear it would generate unwanted notice in the business columns."

"They're afraid you'll sue him," Emma says flatly.

A station wagon hauling a raucous, elementary-school-age soccer squad has stalled in front of us at a traffic signal. That, or the beleaguered parent at the helm has simply bolted from the car. To soothe Emma, I decide to risk a confidence. "What if I told you it won't be long before I'm out of your hair for good. I can't say exactly when, but it's almost a sure thing."

"What in the world are you talking about?"

The station wagon is moving again, Emma accelerating huffily on its bumper. I'm tempted to share the delicious details of MacArthur Polk's offer, but the old loon could easily change his mind—or forget he ever met me—before taking to his deathbed for real. Moreover, I'm not wholly confident that Emma wouldn't spill the beans to young Race Maggad III if the corporate screws were applied.

"Are you job hunting?" she asks me closely.

"Slow down. It's that white house with the blue trim."

"Jack, tell me!"

She wheels into Janet Thrush's driveway, stomps on the brake and whips off her sunglasses. There's nothing for me to do but kiss her, very briefly, on the lips. No retaliatory punch is thrown.

"Come on," I say, stepping out of the car, "let's go commit some journalism."

Janet's banged-up Miata is parked out front but she's not answering my knock. Emma says we ought to bag it and come back later, but I've got a bad feeling—there's a fresh pry mark on the doorjamb. Cautiously I twist the knob, which falls off in my hand.

"What're you doing?" Emma says.

"What does it look like?"

Stepping inside, I break into a sickly sweat. The place has been looted. Half a dozen times I call Janet's name.

"Let's go, Jack." Emma tugs anxiously at my shirt. This isn't as safe as boarding Jimmy Stoma's boat. This time the cops haven't been here ahead of us; only the bad guys.

Janet's makeshift TV studio has been demolished. The tripod racks are down, lightbulbs shattered on the floor. A couch is overturned, the ticking slit open with a knife. Her computer operation—keyboard, monitor, CPU, video camera—is gone.

I expect the rest of the house to be in shambles, but it's not. Emma stays on my heels as we move wordlessly down the hall; at each doorway I pause to gather a breath, in case Janet is lying lifeless on the other side. Oddly, nothing in the kitchen, the bedrooms or the closets appears disturbed. A light is on in a bathroom and cold water runs from a faucet in the sink. I turn it off.

"Maybe she wasn't here when they did this. Maybe she's okay," Emma whispers.

"Let's hope." But I fear that even if Janet Thrush is alive, she's not all right. Her Miata shouldn't be parked in the driveway, and the intruders should have gotten farther than the living room. Something worse than a burglary happened here.

"Jack, we'd better go."

"Wait a second. Let's think this through."

We're sitting side by side on the end of Janet's queen-sized bed. Somewhere in another room a phone is ringing and ringing—Ronnie from Riverside, maybe, or Larry from Fairbanks. Doesn't matter because the computer line is disconnected, and Janet's gone. Emma says, "You know why I think she's okay? Because we haven't found a purse. She must have taken it with her, which means she's probably just fine."

I'm not persuaded. Why would a woman returning to a ransacked house flee with her handbag but leave the car?

Emma follows me out the front door. When we arrived I didn't look closely in Janet's convertible, but now I see why she didn't drive it away. The glove box is ajar, the carpeting over the floorboard is ripped back and both bucket seats have been wrested off their mounts. Whoever broke into the house started first with the Miata.

Which means Janet most likely was at home, inside, when they came through the front door.

"Shit." I kick another dent in the car.

"You think it's the hard drive they were after?" Emma's voice is shaky.

"That'd be my guess."

"You ever had this happen before—a source disappearing like ... ?"

"No, ma'am." The wise move is to call the cops anonymously from Janet's phone, pretending to be a concerned neighbor, then depart swiftly. There's no point trying to explain our presence here to detectives Hill and Goldman. Emma agrees, not eager to involve herself, or the Union-Register, in a possible kidnapping investigation. We're hurrying up the steps toward the house when she suddenly stops, pointing into a flower bed. Carefully I reach through thorny bougainvilleas and pick it up—Janet's toy Mi6, the prop for her SWAT-Cam costume. I hold it up for Emma's inspection, saying "Don't worry, it's not real."

"Is this hers?"

"Yup."

"What in the world does she use it for?"

"She performs on television," I say, "sort of."

Before we re-enter the house I take out a handkerchief and wipe my prints off the doorknob; likewise the faucet in the bathroom. In the kitchen I Saran-Wrap my right hand before using the wall phone to dial the sheriff's office, Emma pacing in the living room. No sooner have I hung up than I hear her twice cry out my name.

She's rigid when I reach her side. "What is that?" she says hoarsely.

A dark stain on the carpet, recognizable to anybody who has covered a homicide. I hear myself saying, "Oh no."

"Jack?"

I grab Emma's arm and lead her outside and place her in the passenger seat of the Camry. She assents numbly when I tell her I'll do the driving. I take it real easy down the interstate, checking the rearview every nine seconds like some kind of paranoid coke mule. Emma's clenched left hand, as pink as a baby's, is on my knee.