Sandra Brown - Smoke Screen

“That scenario has distinct possibilities,” he said, giving her a wolfish grin. “I’d definitely like to pursue it sometime.” He paused, his smile faltered. “But not tonight.”

“Then you really do have a story.”

“I’m afraid so.”

“‘Afraid so’?”

“I’m part of the story, Britt. It’s not a nice story, and before I say anything else, you’ve got to give me your word that you won’t use me as a source.”

“I already have.”

“This meeting never happened.”

“I get it, Jay. You can trust me.”

He nodded and began by asking if she’d heard anything about the recent death of a local young woman named Suzi Monroe. Britt recalled reading a story about it inside the newspaper.

“Cocaine overdose, wasn’t it? I’m vague on the details.”

“There’s a reason for that,” he explained. “The PD didn’t release any details to the media. Her death was passed off as a routine drug overdose. But there’s more to the story, much more, that we kept under wraps.”

“Who are ‘we’?”

“The detectives who were called to the scene of her death. And me.”

“Why was the information withheld?”

“Because she died in my apartment.”

The implications of that weren’t lost on Britt. She began to envision a spike in her ratings.

Jay talked nonstop for ten minutes, telling how the girl had died while in bed with one of the city’s firemen, who happened to be his lifelong friend, a man named Raley Gannon.

By now her journalistic radar was blipping like crazy. If this were fiction, the plot had just thickened.

“This is a guy who should have made every attempt to save her,” Jay said, sounding almost angry. “Except that he was so intoxicated he was unconscious.”

He went on to admit how wild the party had been, how much alcohol had been consumed. “I’m famous for my…hospitality,” he said sheepishly. “Live here long enough and you’ll learn that. But…” He hung his head, shaking it sorrowfully.

“This party got completely out of hand. I was having a whale of a time, celebrating being alive.” Here he paused and glanced at her. “You know about the police station fire?”

She nodded. “You were one of the heroes of the day.”

He appeared flattered that she knew that but continued without further comment. “I wanted this to be the best party in history. But, I should have stayed sober. I should have kept tabs on how much my guests were drinking, how drunk they were getting. I’m a cop, for crissake. Protecting people is part of my sworn duty.”

She said nothing as he castigated himself. At one of the stations where she had previously worked, an old pro had advised her that when someone had something to tell, and he was telling it without any prompting, it was better not to prompt.

“I should have especially been keeping an eye on my best friend,” Jay said. “I didn’t realize how wasted Raley was getting. I shouldn’t have let him drink that much. He’s been working too hard, taking on extra responsibility, and it’s a bad habit of his to take responsibility for every damn thing that goes wrong in the world. Planets collide, he’s at fault. It’s his nature. He’s too hard on himself.

“So here he’s got one night where his main squeeze is out of town, he can let off some steam, get a little wild and crazy for once, and…” He exhaled a gust of air. “Shit. I even goaded him into it.” He rubbed his eye sockets tiredly. “We’re both to blame. I’m as guilty as he is.”

“For Suzi Monroe’s death?” She couldn’t help herself. The question popped out before she could stop it.

“For the way she died, yeah.”

Shocked by the admission, she listened as he detailed how this Raley Gannon had got blitzed on margaritas and taken the equally drunk Suzi Monroe to Jay’s guest bedroom.

“Did you supply the cocaine, Jay?”

“No! Christ, no. And knowing Raley as I do-I’m telling you, he’s a freaking Boy Scout and always has been-I would swear on a stack of Bibles that Raley didn’t do any drugs with her. I would come close to swearing that he wouldn’t allow her to do any, either. I think what happened is exactly what he said. They had sex a couple of times, he passed out, and didn’t know anything until he woke up the next morning and found her dead.”

“What do the investigators think?” Britt asked quietly.

“The same.”

He told her that the district attorney himself was carefully reviewing the case, but that he doubted it would result in Raley Gannon’s being charged with a crime. The autopsy revealed no evidence of foul play except for a lethal ingestion of cocaine, which in all likelihood was self-administered.

“We didn’t supply the drugs, and we didn’t push that stuff up her nose. What’s eating at me is keeping our involvement hush-hush. It feels furtive. It smacks of a cover-up, and I can’t, in good conscience, participate in it anymore.”

He was right, it was a great story, the kind that an investigative reporter usually had to dig for, Woodward and Bernstein style. Amazingly, it was being served to her on a silver platter. She, the rookie. She, the one trying to earn her spurs in a TV market of respectable size and reputation.

She wondered if she was dreaming. But, no. When she reached out to give Jay Burgess’s arm a consoling squeeze, it was tangible. “What happened wasn’t your fault, Jay. The individuals who stumbled into your guest bedroom were adults. They were responsible for their own actions.”

“I know that, but-”

“Actually it’s a credit to your character that you’re shouldering some of the responsibility, much less coming forward and telling me about it.”

He glanced at her and gave a weak smile. “So what’s it to be? Forty lashes, or a hundred Hail Marys?”

She smiled but was all seriousness when she said, “The story needs to be told.”

He sighed and leaned back against the seat. “That’s why I’m here. Meeting you the other night was like providence or something. Like you were sent so I’d do what my conscience was dictating.”

“The story will have explosive impact. You realize that, right? Especially for your friend. As you said, he’s supposed to save people.”

“That’s why I and the other detectives kept it quiet in the first place. It’s going to create a shitstorm for Raley, and he’s a hell of a guy. Truly,” he said, detecting the skepticism behind her frown.

“Everybody likes Raley. He’s a stand-up guy. This is going to damage him, and he’s taken it so hard already. I mean, this girl was in bed with him, and she fucking died.” Looking at her directly, he said, “I don’t want him ever to know that it was me who blew the whistle. It would destroy our friendship.”

“I understand, Jay. But you also have to understand that once the story of his complicity becomes public knowledge, it can’t be recalled like a bad batch of canned beans. It can be denied, or refuted, or debated, even retracted, but it’ll still be hanging out here, forever.”

“I know what you’re saying. Hell, I know there will be fallout, for me, too. But I’m at the point where I say, bring it on. My conscience won’t let me live with this subterfuge any longer.”

Britt stopped talking and took a deep breath, then looked over at Raley. Throughout the telling, he hadn’t moved. She leaned toward him now, much as she had that night in her car with Jay, and laid her hand on his arm.

“His contrition, his willingness to assume some of the blame for Suzi Monroe, placed me in his camp immediately. It made him a sympathetic and totally credible source, Raley. I didn’t question him because he was implicating himself as well as you. Why would he put his neck on the line, expose himself to public censure, if what he was telling me wasn’t the absolute truth and a matter of conscience?”