Brad Parks - Eyes of the Innocent

“Of course we are. It’s one of the oldest tricks in our bag,” I explained, feeling a bit professorial myself for a moment. “We learn something that we strongly suspect is true, but we can’t prove it with enough certainty to put in the newspaper-not without major investigative resources and subpoena authority. We just don’t have those things. But the cops do. So we tip off the cops, they check it out, and when it comes back that we got it right, they leak us the story as a nice thank-you. We get to run it as a big exclusive. They solve the case. Everybody wins.”

“But how do we attribute it?”

“As ‘law enforcement sources said,’ of course.”

“But it wasn’t law enforcement sources. It was us.”

“Well, yes and no,” I said. “It was us that planted the idea, sure. But by the end, it becomes something the cops really do believe. So it’s quite accurate to say ‘law enforcement sources said.’ ”

“But isn’t that, I don’t know, like, influencing the news or something?” Sweet Thang asked. “Aren’t we making the news instead of just reporting it?”

“Well, technically?” I said, a bit stumped for how to rationalize it. “Technically, a little bit. It’s a gray area, but only slate gray, not charcoal. If our ultimate responsibility is to the public and its right to know important information, and this becomes a way to serve that right? To me it becomes something we’re obligated to do.”

Not that we brag about it, of course. Tipping off the cops is the sort of thing that could get a newspaper sued in half a heartbeat if, God forbid, we turned out to be wrong and the person in question really was innocent. A lawyer could argue the act of tipping shows malice, a key element in libel cases.

Still, this sort of interplay between the authorities and the newspapers happens all the time. Not long ago, one of our best reporters learned an ex-mayor had a warehouse full of smoking-gun documents. We knew we couldn’t get into the warehouse, but the feds could. So our reporter tipped off the feds. They raided the warehouse. We got the scoop the mayor was under investigation. The mayor ultimately went to jail. The feds looked like they were doing their jobs. We stayed well ahead of the competition on the story the whole way because, of course, the feds were feeding it to us. Again, everybody won.

Well, except the mayor.

* * *

We reached the outer limits of Baxter Terrace and I walked Sweet Thang over to Walter the BMW.

“So what’s next? Do we go down to police headquarters and file a report or something?”

“It takes a bit more finesse than that,” I said. “But don’t worry about that. I’ll handle it.”

“Oh,” she replied. “What do you want me to do?”

“Why don’t you go find Akilah’s older sister Tamikah,” I said, tearing off a piece of notepad paper and copying down the number Bertie had given me.

Sweet Thang looked uncertain.

“But what do I dooooo?” she whined.

“The same thing you did with Bertie Harris.”

“Play mah-jongg with her?”

I laughed because I thought she was kidding. But no, Sweet Thang wasn’t smiling. Silly intern. She had all the raw ability in the world but didn’t have the first idea what to do with it. She’d learn.

“No. Not mah-jongg. I meant earn her trust, like you did with Bertie,” I said. “Once she trusts you, let her tell you the story of what happened with her sister and Windy Byers. Hopefully she’ll confirm everything Bertie told us and add a few new bits of information. If we’re lucky, Tamikah is Akilah’s confidante and knows everything.”

“But what if she won’t talk to me?”

Sweet Thang pouted. I smiled and patted her on the shoulder.

“She will. People like talking to you,” I said. “Besides, if Rhonda Byers really is what I think she is, Akilah is in all kinds of trouble right now. And we’re working to get her out of that trouble. Tamikah will see that and she’ll want to help us lock up the woman who is trying to kill her sister.”

She reached out and grabbed my arm.

“I’m so glad we’re working together,” she said. “It’s, like, just amazing. You know so much. I’m learning so much more from you than I ever learned from any of my professors.”

“Well, it’s their job to teach you the rules,” I said. “You have to know what they are before you know which ones you can break.”

She nodded. I pointed down at the goose bumps that were forming on her thighs.

“C’mon, let’s get you and your bare legs out of this cold,” I said. “Call me later.”

“Okay. Bye. Thanks again for everything.”

I gave her a little wave-but not the little wave-and went to my car, pleased that I’d managed to have an interaction with Sweet Thang that didn’t feel sexually charged. Maybe I had just been misreading her intentions all along. Maybe she just flirted because it was how she related to men, and there was nothing behind it. All the incidental contact-the grabbing of the arm, the brushing of the hand-was just because she was a naturally touchy-feely person. She hugged me this morning. She hugged Bertie when we departed. She was just like that with everyone.

And sure, Tina thought Sweet Thang was trying to get me in bed. But just because Tina devoured men like they were Tic Tacs didn’t mean Sweet Thang did. She was a nice young woman who was pleased to have found a mentor, nothing more. I vowed to rinse my mind of the dirty thoughts I kept having about her and treat her with pure professionalism for the rest of our time together.

With that decided, I started driving back toward the office and thinking about the best way to approach the Newark police with my newfound knowledge. I put in a call to Rodney Pritchard, who answered on the fourth ring.

“Pritch, I need a favor,” I said.

“Don’t you always,” he replied.

“Yeah, but this time I might actually have something to offer in return. That fellow who caught the Byers case, you said his name was Raines?”

“Yeah?”

“I need a sit-down with him. The sooner the better.”

“I told you, man, he’s strictly by the book,” Pritch said. “He won’t talk to a reporter.”

“Even if that reporter has a vital piece of information on the disappearance of Councilman Byers?”

There was a brief moment of silence on the line.

“You’re not playing me, are you?” Pritch said.

“No, sir.”

“Because if you’re playing me and you really don’t have anything, I swear to God I’ll throw you in a cell overnight and tell all the fellas in the lockup we found a Klan hood in your car.”

“Pritch, trust me. Detective Raines is going to thank you for introducing me by the time this is over.”

“He better,” Pritch said. “Let me call you back.”

We hung up just as I pulled into the Eagle-Examiner parking garage. Once inside the building, I passed Szanto on his way to the three o’clock story meeting-which was basically like the eleven o’clock story meeting in its overall inefficiency, only by now the editors had eaten lunch. He flashed me a thumbs-up. Obviously, Sweet Thang’s Dad had gotten the message through to Brodie, who had eased off on Szanto.

“Grrjb,” he graveled.

Whatever that meant. I returned his thumbs-up and thought about stopping to inform him of the latest revelation about Windy Byers. But no. That would be a terrific blunder-blunderific, as it were. The last thing you want to do is give your editor a hot piece of information as he heads into a story meeting. Inevitably, he’ll share it with everyone at the meeting. And even though your story is only half-baked and not nearly ready to be put in the newspaper, every editor in the building will start running wild with it.