Rick Mofina - Into the Dark

If reporters failed to break huge, shocking stories, they were fired. Harding hated every bit of it and got the chance to leave the sleaze behind when he broke a huge story about corruption in Hollywood. It resulted in a job with the AllNews Press Agency, the global wire service, first at its head office in New York.

Then Harding was forced to go to the dreaded Los Angeles Bureau, where he was expected to deliver huge stories.

So here I am in L.A., months without scoring a big story.

Harding rubbed his chin.

He had the idea of trying to pull off an exclusive, looking into homicides for any new breaks. In the past couple of weeks he’d put in calls, even sent letters with his card, to the LAPD, L.A. County, the FBI fishing for leads.

Nothing happened until now, when he got a call from Tanner.

Harding had to land a good story.

Sure, other people had it harder and he’d faced worse. He was reflecting on a few of the tense moments he’d had on assignments over the years when something vibrated near his heart.

He reached into his jacket for his phone and checked his messages. He had an urgent one from his boss, Magdalena Pierce, the L.A. Bureau Chief. She’d told him earlier that she disdained gritty crime stories and was reluctant to give him the morning for this meeting with an L.A. County detective. Her new text said:

We’ve just learned that a studio is under investigation for tax evasion. We need you here, pronto.

Harding rolled his eyes. Same old, same old. Magda just didn’t get it .

“Excuse me, Mark Harding?”

“Yes.”

He put his phone away, shook hands with a man he’d pegged at his age but about six feet. He was wearing a crisp shirt, tie, sidearm.

“Joe Tanner. Thanks for coming. Sorry to keep you waiting.”

“Sure. Look,” Harding said, “forgive me, I don’t mean to sound rude, but my bureau chief’s yanking my chain. Could we do this another time?”

“You have to go? You just got here.”

“Yes, I apologize.”

“I see.” Tanner was taken aback. “I’m sorry to hear that. Well, I suppose I could always call the Associated Press or Reuters.”

No, Harding could not let that happen.

“Hold on, wait. Can you give me a bit more so I can get my editor off my back, something to convince her this is more than a local Crime Stoppers type of cold case, something that holds national interest?”

“This concerns a number of homicides,” Tanner said.

“ Homicides? Plural?”

“That’s correct and only one other person outside this building knows what I’m going to tell you.”

“Who’s that?”

“The person who committed them.”

“Jesus,” Harding said. “Let me call my desk.”

Commerce, California

Tanner escorted Harding beyond the homicide squad bay to the Cold Case Unit and a staff kitchen that was heavy with the aroma of freshly brewed coffee.

“How do you take yours?”

“A little of both,” Harding said. “I’m curious. Why did you decide to call me?”

“You showed some initiative with your letter, looking to do something on homicides. And I needed to be sure I went to the right guy for this.”

“How am I the right guy?”

“We needed to go to a wire service, because their stories go everywhere. I needed someone I could trust.”

“How did you decide that?”

“I remembered you from way back with the Hollywood Washington corruption story when you were with that awful rag, Rumored Today. ”

Harding had uncovered corruption and bribery between production companies, some owned by Hollywood’s biggest stars and lawmakers in Washington, D.C.

His solid reporting had forced the national mainstream media to follow and credit Rumored Today. As the pressure for an investigation mounted, one angry superstar implicated in the scandal used a film premiere to humiliate Harding during a press conference where he was surrounded by reporters who were ignoring publicists’ demands they only talk about the new movie.

The enraged star singled out Harding.

“There’s the little sewer-dweller. Look at the tiny troll.” The star, who was over half a foot taller, stepped closer to tower over him. “Your stories are crap, Harding. Garbage. And when this is over, I’ll still have enough money for a thousand lifetimes, but as long as you live-” the star patted the top of Harding’s head as if he were a lapdog “-people will look down on you. You should get those teeth fixed, buddy.”

Embarrassed, Harding kept his cool while the star was globally chastised online and on news shows. Harding’s reporting led to a federal investigation. Several people were charged, convicted and jailed and the star who had demeaned Harding narrowly missed being charged and going to prison for his role in the corruption scheme.

“I knew some of the investigators on that one,” Tanner said. “You stood your ground with egocentric stars.” He handed Harding a mug of coffee that had a bulldog insignia on it. “You’ve sure gotten around over the years. How long you been back in L.A.?”

“A few months.”

Harding stared into his coffee for a few seconds.

Tanner let a moment pass before saying, “Let’s get started.”

He led Harding down the hall to an empty squad room.

“This is my partner, Harvey Zurn.”

Zurn was in his late fifties and had the warmth of a ball-peen hammer. Harding offered his hand and Zurn crushed it in his. His dark eyes burned into Harding over a thick dark moustache. The room’s blinds were drawn, dimming the light. Updates on a handful of murders written in a felt-tip pen ran across the board on one wall. Faces of the dead stared down from photographs. A laptop sat on a table, a large screen hung over the far wall.

“As I was saying earlier, we discovered some disturbing elements in several homicides and we want to reach out to the public, through a story by you,” Tanner said.

“What did you find?”

“I’ll get to that. We’re dealing with five specific unsolved homicides throughout greater Los Angeles, going back six to ten years. Find a seat. I’ll give you an overview.” Tanner settled at the laptop. “The first victim…”

A key clicked and the screen filled with the title One over a clear color photo taken in a wooded area. The corpse of a naked white woman rested on the tall grass, with her hands bound behind her back and a cord stretching from there to wrap around her neck. A clear plastic bag covered her head.

“Leeza Meadows. Age twenty-one. A birdwatcher found her body November 9, 2003, at the edge of Santa Clarita. She had been sexually assaulted, among other things, as you can see here.”

The screen filled with an enlarged photo of her head. Harding stared, blinked a few times then started making notes as Tanner continued.

“She was last seen leaving her job at the Misty Nights Bar amp; Grill. Leeza never went anywhere without her cell phone. It was not found at the scene. Two weeks after her body was discovered, someone used Leeza’s cell phone to call her home. Her father answered. The caller never spoke but her father insisted someone was on the line, refusing to answer his questions. Investigators determined the call was made from downtown L.A., but that’s as far as they got. No other calls were ever made on the phone, which is still missing along with a second item.”

“Which is?”

“We’re not saying. That item is holdback, a key fact known only to a few investigators and the killer.”

“Do you suspect it was the killer who called?”

“That’s one theory,” Zurn said.

Tanner’s laptop displayed another victim’s image, labeled Two, which showed a woman’s naked torso, on its back, in a shallow grave.