Michael Connelly: The Scarecrow

I didn’t feel the tension in my neck start to dissolve until we got back to the 110 and headed north. Then I put the fifty bucks out of my mind and started to feel good as I reviewed what had been accomplished during the trip. Wanda Sessums had agreed to cooperate fully in the investigation of the Denise Babbit-Alonzo Winslow case. Using my cell phone, she had called Winslow’s public defender, Jacob Meyer, and told him that, as the defendant’s guardian, she was authorizing my total access to all documents and evidence relating to the case. Meyer reluctantly agreed to meet with me the next morning between hearings in the downtown juvenile hall. He didn’t really have a choice. I had told Wanda that if Meyer didn’t cooperate, there were plenty of private attorneys who would handle the case for free once they knew there were headlines coming. Meyer’s choice was either to work with me and get some media attention for himself or give the case up.

Wanda Sessums had also agreed to get me into Sylmar Juvenile Hall so that I could interview her grandson. My plan was to use the public defender’s case file to become familiar with the case before I sat down to talk to Winslow. It would be the key interview of the piece I would write. I wanted to know all there was to know before I talked to him.

All in all, it had been a good trip-the fifty-dollar tariff notwithstanding-and I was thinking about how I was going to present my plan to Prendergast. Then Lester interrupted my thoughts.

“I know what you’re doing,” he said.

“What am I doing?” I said.

“That washerwoman might be too dumb and the lawyer too worried about headlines to see it but I’m not.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You’re comin’ on like you’re the white knight that’s gonna prove the kid innocent and set him free. But you’re going to do the exact opposite of that, man. You’re going to use them to get inside the case to get all the juicy details, then you’re going to write a story about how a sixteen-year-old kid becomes a stone-cold killer. Hell, getting an innocent man free is a damn newspaper cliché nowadays. But gettin’ inside the mind of a young killer like that? Tellin’ how society lets that kind of thing happen? That’s Pulitzer territory, bro.”

I didn’t say anything at first. Lester had me cold. I put together a defense and then responded.

“All I promised her was that I would investigate the case. Where it goes it goes, that’s all.”

“Bullshit. You’re using her because she’s too ignorant to know it. The kid will probably be just as stupid and go along, too. And we all know the lawyer will trade the kid for headlines. You really think you’re going to win the big one with this, don’t you?”

I shook my head and didn’t respond. I could feel my face getting red and I turned to look out the window.

“Hey, but it’s okay,” Lester said.

I turned and looked back at him and I read his face.

“What do you want, Sonny?”

“A piece, that’s all. We work it as a team. I go with you up to Sylmar and to court and I do all the photo work. You fill out a photo request, you put my name on it. Makes it a better package anyway. Especially for submissions.”

Meaning submissions to Pulitzer and other prize judges.

“Look,” I said, “I haven’t even told my editor about this yet. You are jumping way ahead. I don’t even know if they’ ll-”

“They’ll love it and you know it. They’re going to cut you loose to work it and they might as well cut me loose too. Who knows, maybe we both get a prize. They can’t lay you off if you bring home a Pulitzer.”

“You’re talking about the ultimate long shot, Sonny. You’re crazy. Besides that, I already got laid off. I’ve got twelve days and then I could give a shit about the Pulitzer Prize. I’m out of here.”

I saw his eyes register surprise at the news of my layoff. Then he nodded as he factored the new information into his ongoing scenario.

“Then this is the ultimate adios,” he said. “I get it. You leave ’em with a fuck-you-a story so good they gotta enter it in contests even though you’re long out the door.”

I didn’t respond. I hadn’t thought I was so easy to read. I turned back to the window. The freeway was elevated here and I could see block after block of houses crowded together. Many had blue tarps tied over their old, leaky roofs. The farther south you went in the city, the more of those tarps you saw.

“I still want in,” Lester said.

With complete access to Alonzo Winslow and his case now established, I was ready to discuss the story with my editor. By that I meant that I would officially say I was working it and my ace could put it on his futures budget. When I got back to the newsroom, I went directly over to the raft and found Prendergast at his desk. He was busily typing into his computer.

“Prendo, you got a minute?”

He didn’t even look up.

“Not right now, Jack. I got tagged with putting together the budget for the four o’clock. You got something for tomorrow besides Angela’s story?”

“No, I’m talking more long-range.”

He stopped typing and looked up at me and I realized he was confused. How long-range could a guy with twelve days left go?

“Not that long-range. We can talk later or tomorrow. Did Angela turn in the story?”

“Not yet. I think she was waiting for you to look it over. Can you go do that now and get it in? I want to get it out on the web as soon as we can.”

“I’m on it.”

“Okay, Jack. We’ll talk later or send me a quick e-mail.”

I turned and my eyes swept the newsroom. It was as long as a football field. I didn’t know where Angela Cook’s cubicle was located but I knew it would be close. The newer you were, the closer they kept you to the raft. The far reaches of the newsroom were for the veterans who supposedly needed less supervision. The south side was called Baja Metro and was inhabited by veteran reporters who still produced. The north side was the Deadwood Forest. This was where the reporters who did little reporting and even less writing were located. Some of them had sacrosanct positions by virtue of political connections or Pulitzer Prizes, and others were just incredibly skilled at keeping their heads down so they wouldn’t draw the attention of the assignment editors or the corporate cutters.

Over the top edge of one of the nearby pods I saw Angela’s blond hair. I went over.

“Howzit going?”

She jumped, startled.

“Sorry. Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“That’s okay. I was just so absorbed in reading this.”

I pointed to her computer screen.

“Is that the story?”

Her face colored. I noticed she had tied her hair behind her head and stuck an editing pencil through the knot. It made her look even sexier than usual.

“No, actually, it’s from archives. It’s the story about you and that killer they called the Poet. That was creepy as hell.”

I checked the screen more closely. She had pulled out of archives a story from twelve years before. From when I was with the Rocky Mountain News and in competition with the Times on a story that had stretched from Denver to the East Coast and then all the way back to L.A. It was the biggest story I had ever chased. It had been the high point of my journalistic life-no, check that, it had been the apex of my entire life-and I didn’t want to be reminded that I had crossed that point so long ago.

“Yeah, it was pretty creepy. Are you finished with today’s story?”

“What happened to that FBI agent you teamed up with? Rachel Walling. One of the other stories said she was disciplined for crossing ethical lines with you.”

“She’s still around. Here in L.A., in fact. Can we look at today’s story? Prendo wants us to get it in so he can put it on the web.”