Tess Gerritsen - Presumed Guilty

“Is there something I can do for you?” Jill asked politely.

“I–I came to get my things.”

“Yes, of course.” Jill shot a disapproving glance at the other employees, who were still gawking. “Are we all so efficient that we’ve no more work to do?”

At once everyone redirected their attention to their jobs.

Jill looked at Miranda. “I’ve already taken the liberty of cleaning out your desk. It’s all in a box downstairs.”

Miranda was so grateful for Jill’s simple civility she scarcely registered annoyance that her desk had been coldbloodedly emptied of her belongings. She said, “I’ve also a few things in my locker.”

“They should still be there. No one’s touched it.” There was a silence. “Well,” said Jill, a prelude to escape from a socially awkward situation. “I wish you luck. Whatever happens.” She started back toward her office.

“Jill?” called Miranda.

“Yes?”

“I was wondering about that article on Tony Graffam. Why it didn’t run.”

Jill looked at her with frank puzzlement. “Why does it matter?”

“It just does.”

Jill shrugged. “It was Richard’s decision. He pulled the story.”

“Richard’s? But he was working on it for months.”

“I can’t tell you his reasons. I don’t know them. He just pulled it. And anyway, I don’t think he ever wrote the story.”

“But he told me it was nearly finished.”

“I’ve checked his files.” Jill turned and walked toward her office. “I doubt he ever got beyond the research stage. You know how he was, Miranda. The master of overstatement.”

Miranda stared after her in bewilderment. The master of overstatement. It hurt to admit it, but yes, there was a lot of truth in that label.

People were staring at her again.

She headed down the stairwell and pushed into the women’s lounge. There she found Annie Berenger, lacing up running shoes. Annie was dressed in her usual rumpled-reporter attire — baggy drawstring pants, wrinkled cotton shirt. The inside of her locker looked just as disorderly, a mound of wadded-up clothes, towels and books.

Annie glanced up and tossed her head of gray-streaked hair in greeting. “You’re back.”

“Just to clean out my things.” Miranda found the cardboard box with her belongings stuffed under one of the benches. She dragged it out and carried it to her locker.

“I saw you at the funeral,” said Annie. “That took guts, Mo.”

“I’m not sure guts is the word for it.”

Annie shoved her locker door shut and breathed a sigh of relief. “Comfortable at last. I just had to change out of that funeral getup. Can’t think in those stupid high heels. Cuts the blood supply to my brain.” She finished lacing up her running shoe. “So what’s going to happen next? With you, I mean.”

“I don’t know. I refuse to think beyond a day or two.” Miranda opened her locker and began to throw things into the box.

“Rumor has it you have friends in high places.”

“What?”

“Someone bailed you out, right?”

“I don’t know who it was.”

“You must have an idea. Or is this your lawyer’s advice, to plead ignorance?”

Miranda gripped the locker door. “Don’t, Annie. Please.”

Annie cocked her head, revealing all the lines and freckles of too many summers in the sun. “I’m being a jerk, aren’t I? Sorry. It’s just that Jill assigned me to the trial. I don’t like having to drag an old colleague across the front page.” She watched as Miranda emptied the locker and shut the door. “So. Can I get a statement from you?”

“I didn’t do it.”

“I’ve already heard that one.”

“Want to earn a Pulitzer?” Miranda turned, squarely faced her. “Help me find out who killed him.”

“You’ll have to give me a lead, first.”

“I don’t have one.”

Annie sighed. “That’s the problem. Whether or not you did it, you’re still the obvious suspect.”

Miranda picked up the box and headed up the stairs. Annie trailed behind her.

“I thought real reporters went after the truth,” said Miranda.

“This reporter,” said Annie, “is basically lazy and angling for early retirement.”

“At your age?”

“I turn forty-seven next month. I figure that’s a good age to retire. If I can just get Irving to pop the question, it’ll be a life of bonbons and TV soaps.”

“You’d hate it.”

“Oh, yeah.” Annie laughed. “I’d be just miserable.”

They walked into the newsroom. At once Miranda felt all those gazes turn her way. Annie, oblivious to their audience, went to her desk, threw her locker keys in her drawer and pulled out a pack of cigarettes. “You happen to have a light?” she asked Miranda.

“You always ask me, and I never have one.”

Annie turned and yelled, “Miles!”

The summer intern sighed resignedly and tossed her a cigarette lighter. “Just give it back,” he said.

“You’re too young to smoke, anyway,” snapped Annie.

“So were you once, Berenger.”

Annie grinned at Miranda. “I love these boy wonders. They’re so damn petulant.”

Miranda couldn’t help smiling. She sat on the desktop and looked at her ex-colleague. As always, Annie wore a wreath of cigarette smoke. It was part addiction, part prop, that cigarette. Annie had earned her reporter’s stripes in a Boston newsroom where the floor was said to be an inch deep in cigarette butts.

“You do believe me, don’t you?” asked Miranda softly. “You don’t really think…”

Annie looked her straight in the eye. “No. I don’t. And I was kidding about being lazy,” said Annie. “I’ve been digging. I’ll come up with something. It’s not like I’m doing it out of friendship or anything. I mean, I could find out things that could hurt you. But it’s what I have to do.”

Miranda nodded. “Then start with this.”

“What?”

“Find out who bailed me out.”

Annie nodded. “A reasonable first step.”

The back office door swung open. Jill Vickery came out and glanced around the newsroom. “Marine distress call. Sailboat’s taking on water. Who wants the story?”

Annie slunk deep in her chair.

Miles sprang to his feet. “I’ll take it.”

“Coast Guard’s already on the way. Hire a launch if you have to. Go on, get going. You don’t want to miss the rescue.” Jill turned and looked at Annie. “Are you busy at the moment?”

Annie shrugged. “I’m always busy.”

Jill nodded toward Miles. “He’ll need help. Go with the kid.” She turned back to her office.

“I can’t.”

Jill stopped, turned to confront Annie. “Are you refusing my assignment?”

“Yeah. Sort of.”

“On what grounds?”

Annie blew out a long, lazy puff of smoke. “Seasickness.”

“I knew she’d confuse you, Chase. I just knew it. You don’t understand her the way I do.”

Chase looked up from the porch chair where he’d been brooding for the past hour. He saw that Evelyn had changed out of her black dress and was now wearing an obscenely bright lime green. He knew he should feel sorry for his sister-in-law, but at the moment Evelyn looked more in need of a stiff drink than of pity. He couldn’t help comparing her to Miranda Wood. Miranda, with her ill-fitting black dress and her windblown hair, so alone on that cemetery hillside. He wondered if Richard ever knew how much damage he’d done to her, or if he’d ever cared.

“You haven’t said a word since you got home,” complained Evelyn. “What is going on with you?”

“Just how well did you know Miranda Wood?” he asked.

She sat down and fussily arranged the folds of her green dress. “I’ve heard things. I know she grew up in Bass Harbor. Went to some — some state university. Had to do it all on scholarship. Couldn’t afford it otherwise. Really, not a very good family.”