Bryan Gruley - The Hanging Tree

“Excuse me?”

“You wouldn’t happen to have something to gain from a finding that your cousin was actually murdered, would you?”

“No,” I said, without thinking. Then I remembered the life insurance policy. My mother would benefit, but of course I was living with my mother, so-but how the hell would Kerasopoulos have known about the policy?

“Enough on that subject. Were it our only problem.”

He grabbed the papers, flipped them over, and shoved them across the table at me. The word COMPLAINT blared from the top of the cover page. Haskell v. Media North Corp. et al. included as defendants the Pine County Pilot, a number of contractors I had quoted in my stories, and me. I looked first for a docket number, which would have indicated that the lawsuit had actually been filed. There wasn’t one. I quickly skimmed the next twelve pages.

The lawsuit asserted that my stories had maliciously defamed Laird Haskell and, in doing so, deprived him of the ability to complete a project-the new rink, of course-in which he had invested considerable amounts of his own time and money. He was seeking damages in excess of $10 million. Just seeing that number, I thought, must have puckered Kerasopoulos’s wide butt.

I actually smiled. “He hasn’t actually filed it yet, has he?”

“Does this amuse you somehow?” Kerasopoulos leaned into the table, his face reddening. “A libel verdict against this company could render-”

“This is bullshit.” I slid the papers back. “He’s just trying to scare us into paying him a pile of money he desperately needs.”

“Let me assure you-”

“He hasn’t filed yet, right?”

“No, he has not. But I assure you that Mr. Haskell is dead serious.”

“Uh-huh. Have you seen today’s Detroit Free Press? Or don’t you read papers that don’t cuddle up to advertisers?”

He gave me one of those long, hard, penetrating looks that men who imagine themselves to be powerful give to men who don’t burden themselves with such illusions. It told me that the answer to both of my questions was no.

Kerasopoulos didn’t reply, though. He sat up straight and smoothed his tie across his torso.

“Well, Gus,” he said, “I’m afraid we can no longer tolerate your particular brand of journalism. Perhaps you found it easier to practice in Detroit. Although, as we both know, things didn’t work out so well for you there either.”

OK, I thought. My time at the Pilot was up. What did I need it for anyway? How could you tell anybody anything when the next paper was always three or four days away? And it wasn’t like the weekly paycheck of $412.50 was going to make me rich, even in Starvation Lake.

“Let’s see,” I said. “The feds are coming down on Haskell but we should be afraid of him. Gross margins are through the roof but you’re whacking the Pilot budget. Shit, Jim, you should be grateful for a big bad libel suit. It gives you the perfect excuse to shut the Pilot down.”

“We’re done here.” He picked up the papers and stood.

“You can make a big show out of firing me, wait a few weeks, then tell the good people of Starvation Lake, Sorry, this libel suit is too much for your little rag and its subpar profit margins, we’ve got to shut it down. Then you throw a few hundred grand at Haskell to make him go away-if he’s not in jail by then-and your year-end bonus will be secure. Great plan.”

“I would fire you this minute if the lawyers would let me.”

“Go ahead. Stand on principle, Jim. Or is now not really the time?”

The door behind him opened. A slender young man in a security guard’s uniform stepped into the doorway and stood with his hands folded at his belt. He had a badge but no gun. He also seemed to be trying to grow a mustache, without much success.

“This gentleman will show you out,” Kerasopoulos said. “You are hereby suspended from your job indefinitely, pending further consideration by the Media North board of directors. In the meantime, you are barred from the Pilot newsroom and any of its facilities. We will arrange for you to collect your personal items in due time. In the meantime, please do not attempt to contact any of the newspaper’s employees, including Mr. Beech. If you choose noncompliance, rest assured we will promptly take appropriate legal or other actions.”

“Other actions?” I said. “I thought you were just a lawyer.”

He glared at me one last time and left the room.

The fuzzy-lipped rent-a-cop placed a hand on my elbow and led me silently to the elevator, down to the first floor, and across the lobby to the glass double-door entrance. Outside, a thin gray sleet had begun to fall. As I started out the door, I turned to the guard. “I hate fucking Traverse City,” I said.

“Have a good day,” he said.

My windshield wipers made slurping slaps as I steered my pickup past the fudge shops along the bay east of Traverse. I turned on the radio, thinking naively that I might catch a bulletin on Haskell’s IRS troubles. A country song came on. Despite myself, I laughed. I had nearly lost my job and my girlfriend. “Good thing I don’t have a dog,” I said aloud.

What was I going to do now? A newspaper reporter wasn’t much without a newspaper. Even if I did get to the bottom of Gracie’s death, who was I going to tell? Not Michele Higgins, that was for sure. There was my mother, of course, and Mrs. B. They would listen and tell their bingo and bowling and ceramics partners only those things they wished to believe. And those women and men in turn would translate only those things they wished to believe, until it all became a fiction.

But there was Dingus, of course, who could do the right thing. And there was Darlene. Maybe. Besides, a man had pissed all over my notebook. I had to know why.

My phone rang. I snatched it off the console, hoping Darlene was calling to say she had lost her temper.

“Did you hear about Laird Haskell?” Philo said.

I didn’t answer right away.

“Gus?”

“Yeah. On the libel suit? Or the IRS?”

“Pardon me?”

“Never mind. You go first.”

“All right. I hear he’s going to do some sort of mea culpa at today’s town council meeting.”

“Who told you that?”

“Let me put it this way. At first I was told not to bother with the council meeting and instead cover a girl’s volleyball match at the high school.”

“I remember.”

“Then I got a call about fifteen minutes ago saying go to the council meeting.”

Of course, I thought. Kerasopoulos had made his secretary run out and get him a Free Press. Then he called Haskell or Haskell’s attorney.

“So Uncle Jimbo’s running coverage now, huh?”

“I didn’t say that, but… Gus?”

“Did you see the Free Press this morning?”

“I have it here on my desk. But listen-”

“I’m afraid I can’t help you any more, Philo. Your dear, fat-assed uncle just told me I’m no longer welcome at the Pilot. I’m reckless and irresponsible. If I were you, I think I might just go to the high school. Tough to be reckless and irresponsible covering volleyball.”

“Gus, would you please just shut the hell up and listen?”

It was the second time I had been told to shut up that morning. By members of the same family no less.

“Sure,” I said.

“I went through those documents you FOIA’d.”

He pronounced it FOH-ahd. “FOY-uhd,” I corrected him.

“OK. You told me to call if I found something interesting.”

“Right. But I’m not supposed to be talking to you.”

“I need to talk to you about these documents.”

“Go ahead.”

“I can’t now. I have to go take a photo of a new pizzeria.”

At the Pilot, we routinely published photos of new businesses, the owner smiling in front of a burger stand or a real estate office. They were essentially free ads, handed out in the expectation that the business would reciprocate by buying an ad or two. Some did, most didn’t.