Richard Greener - The Knowland Retribution

Macmillan, whom she expected to gloat, did not. He seemed to believe that he would get caught in the gears, and his frat-boy confidence never made an appearance. He was all about looking around the room and twisting his Cornell ring. Mel Gold, who did most of the talking, struggled to retain his sense of humor. Having said his piece, he encouraged her to “… continue looking under rocks, but do it a little faster.”

She called Laticia Glover at the Memphis Commercial Appeal. She began to introduce herself, but Glover got the stutter, “Girl, you’re in a shit-storm now.”

“Perceptive of you to point that out.” Her infrequent spasms of irritation, like the camera, helped limit her stammer.

Laticia laid it out. Harlan Jennings had been an assistant plant manager for Knowland amp; Sons in Lucas. When Floyd was promoted, Jennings was one of several assistant managers suddenly deposed. Two guys went back to working on the line. One got a job in a lumber yard and had no hard feelings. According to Laticia, Jennings punched the executive who told him Ochs had the manager’s job. That got him fired on the spot. Some weeks later, drunk as a coot, Jennings went after Ochs in a bowling ally. Threats were made and a lot of people heard them. Maybe, some thought, Jennings would eventually calm down. He never did.

The Tennessee authorities worked slowly and methodically. When the cops talked with Harlan Jennings he was drunk and uncooperative. He tried to hit an officer and went to jail for that. Four shotguns were found in his basement, two recently fired, all seized. Awaiting his assault trial, Jennings was charged with the first-degree murder of Floyd Ochs.

“They got this guy cold,” Laticia said. “They have witnesses saying one time he was shooting shotguns and laughing and saying he wished he was shooting Floyd.”

“What was he doing shooting shotguns?”

“Yeah, hold on.” Isobel heard pages turning. “I got it here somewhere. He was out at The Canyon.”

“The what?”

“A shooting place. A firing range. We’ve got a lot of them here.”

No response.

The Memphis reporter stifled a chuckle, catching the question in Isobel’s silence. “That’s what they do down here. They go out and shoot their guns.”

“You mean a canyon outdoors, where people shoot at targets?”

“A special building. Like in New York. You all go out and play racquetball. We got shooting ranges.” She laughed again. “Too bad about this Jennings thing. You were ‘in the house’ for a while. But where does it leave you now?”

“F-fuck you, Laticia,” Isobel said, as cheerfully as she could.

“Always happy to help the Times.”

“Did Jennings confess?”

“Hell, no. He says he’s innocent. Claims he’s being railroaded.” Now she let out a full, deep chuckle.

“Why’s that funny?”

“Poster boy for Tennessee crackers kicking and screaming he’s going down for a crime he didn’t commit. Tulia, Texas upside down. Gets my funny bone is all.”

“Is there anything tending to exculpate?”

“Nothing I’ve heard about. They got motive and opportunity. They got the murder weapon. Hard case to beat, Isobel.”

“Hard case to beat.” The phrase echoed after the call. Macmillan said something like that when she tried to sell her story. He told her it was a hard case to make.

As soon as Macmillan figured out that he was in the clear, that Mel Gold would catch whatever came down, and probably take more than his share, Macmillan’s other side would surface. He’d be dancing soon enough.

As she expected, Jennings’s arrest played big. This was no routine murder. This was a counter story; a harpoon in the side of a helium whale. Her own paper ran an article casting doubt on Isobel’s earlier work, without mentioning her name. But that would not take long. She expected a mea culpa on the editorial page. That would be the fat lady’s song. Once-eager new pals were already steering clear. Her private office became a no-go zone from the minute Macmillan and Gold walked out. Next day, the Washington Post and Los Angeles Times suggested that the New York Times had once again been suckered by a youngster with an imagination.

The New York Post ran a full-page headline: “Times Tainted.” This time the photo of Isobel showed her ducking paparazzi. “Fuck you,” she said, throwing a copy of that paper in her wastebasket. Other papers across the country ran stories stating as fact that Harlan Jennings’s capture disproved the three-by-one theory. Many suggested that Isobel Gitlin invented the connection, developed it like a piece of fiction, sold it to her editors (and what kind of editors were they?), and thereby hoodwinked the national press, the cable stations, the networks, and, yes, the American people.

The talking heads asked each other when would they learn? They berated themselves as too damned trusting. They wondered what would become of us all if things like this continued to sap America’s faith in its media. And who, after all, was this Isobel Gitlin? No friend of theirs, to be sure. None of them knew her.

Isobel still had her salary and her office, and Mel Gold was there to do what he could. Nevertheless, she saw herself near the end of a very short branch. That was when Walter Sherman called.

“Miss Gitlin,” he said. “We have not met, but I know that you’re right. I’d like to talk it over.”

“What do you mean you know I’m right? Right about what?”

“Hopman, MacNeal, and Ochs. I know things that you don’t. I know things that you should know. Where would you like to meet?”

“Who are you?”

“My name is Walter Sherman. Meet me in the restaurant of the Mayflower Hotel. Six o’clock. I’ll be sitting at a table next to the window facing Central Park West. I’ll be wearing a camel-hair blazer. You’ll be relieved when you see me. I’m old enough to be your father, and harmless as a pup. I know what you look like. I’ll see you come in. I’ll be dining and I hope you’ll join me… if you have any appetite nowadays.”

“Mr. Sherman,” she said. “I will have a gun in my purse. If you are f-fucking around I will shoot off your b-b-balls.”

The tables by the window are actually in the bar. The first entrance from the lobby brings you there. A single line of tables sits against the plate glass, inches from the street. The bar’s a step up. In between the tables and stools, a row of planters is filled with large, leafy triffids that keep the rooms apart. Walter watched Isobel walk past him outside, wearing a green summer dress and yellow sweater, chin on her chest, stepping quickly, hands clutching a green, beaded purse. He stood up, smiled, and waved as she moved inside.

“It’s a pleasure. I’m Walter. May I call you Isobel? Please have a seat. And please leave the gun in your purse.”

She shook his outstretched hand, sat, and felt an awkward silence roll in. He liked awkward silences. They sometimes offered a window into the subject’s state of mind. The quality of the smile, or frown, the posture, the steadiness of the gaze-there were things you could often tell from signs like that.

Walter Sherman’s own manner had nothing much to offer. He seemed relaxed but purposeful, self-assured but diffident. What he said next suggested telepathy:

“See? Old enough to be your dad.”

“I’m older than I look,” she said. “You could be younger.”

Now his pale-blue eyes showed her something nice: he was at least a little impressed. “Drink?” he said, flicking a finger. A smiling waiter leapt forward. She ordered a vodka martini. He asked for a Diet Coke.

“Is that quite fair?” she asked him.

Walter said, “I’ll have wine with dinner. We can talk about sports until then.”