Макс Коллинз - You Can’t Stop Me

“I think so, but I need that plant expert you told us about last year to verify my theory.”

Harrow studied her for a long moment. Carmen might have been a slide under the criminalist’s microscope.

“Then,” he said, “once you’ve found out you’re right, you’ll hand all the information over to Shayla — correct?”

Carmen sat silently for a moment. This was her opening, and she knew it.

“If this pans out,” she said, “I’m hoping you’ll make me the reporter who covers the story.”

After a long silence, Harrow said, “You know I can’t promise you anything.”

“If you tell me you’ll try, that’s all I ask.”

She could tell he was intrigued; but was he also irritated?

Giving away nothing, he said, “And why do you think this nearly eight-month-old case is so important that it merits you a promotion from PA all the way to on-air personality?”

“It’s a juicy murder case we can feature on the live show.”

“We’ve had those before.”

“Not ones that might be related to your case, as well.”

And there it was: out in the open.

She said, “You heard the circumstances. You can see the similarities. And the link back to Iowa, or anyway the heartland, if that plant is what I think it is.”

Harrow’s eyes held hers. Was he trembling? If so, was it with anger? Had she gone too far?

He said, “You think that would influence my decision?”

She stared right back at him. “Frankly, yes.”

He began to protest, but Carmen cut him off. “J.C., I know you’re not like most people in this business...”

“And yet,” Harrow said, exasperated, “you’re trying to blackmail me.”

“I don’t consider it that.” She risked a tiny smile. “Maybe... manipulate you, a little?”

He just looked at her.

She gestured, and her nervousness showed. “J.C., you’ve told me a dozen times you believe in my potential. I’m just asking for the chance to prove you right.”

Was that a smile? Small, barely discernible, but... a smile?

She sat forward. “Give me the name of the man at that seed company, and I’ll follow the lead wherever it goes. I’ll give you the info, all the info, and you can decide who deserves the story — Shayla or me. Is that blackmail?”

He considered that, then asked, “Why didn’t you just ask me for the name of my plant guy? Make up a reason, or just not go into what you’d found?”

“I owed you more than that.”

Harrow grunted a laugh. “Call Settler Seed in Dekalb, Illinois — your old stamping grounds. The man you want is Dr. Brent Caldwell. Tell him I sent you. See what you can get, and be back here within twenty-four hours.”

She burned with pleasure, pride, enthusiasm, and outright glee, but remained coolly professional as she said, “Yes, sir.”

Rising slowly, forcing herself to move deliberately, she eased toward the door.

The sound of Harrow’s voice stopped her. “Carmen?”

Turning, she said, “Yes?”

“The killer cut off Mrs. Ferguson’s finger. My wife didn’t suffer that... indignity.”

“No.”

“But her killer did take her wedding ring.”

“Mrs. Ferguson’s killer did too — he just took the finger along with it.”

A deep crease formed between Harrow’s eyes. “Why, do you suppose?”

“If it’s the same killer... and I think it is... he’s devolving.”

“And if he’s devolving...”

“He’ll accelerate. There’ll be more killings. Soon.”

He was nodding, slowly. Then he said, “Get back to it.”

And she did.

Shortly before the special live-broadcast season finale of Crime Seen! went on air, Dennis Byrnes — early forties, close-clipped black hair, languid gray-green eyes, five o’clock shadow, thousand-dollar Armani suit (charcoal) — surveyed his kingdom.

During a broadcast, the control room was surprisingly silent but for the piped-in studio sounds, even though a dozen technicians hovered over control boards and personal monitors, the audio world sequestered in a booth off at right. The near silence was punctuated by commands from director Stu Phillips, who perched stoically in the center of the back of three tiered rows — the eye of the storm. In his late fifties, Phillips had been at both NBC and CBS, where his fortunes had fallen in favor of younger men, and thanks to the competition’s shortsightedness, UBC had snagged a real pro.

Byrnes liked to brag that “UBC is a young network, but we don’t put up with ageism,” though he neglected to mention that he could get away with paying older pros like Phillips half, or less, of what the big boys had.

Behind the director, show-runner Nicole Strickland leaned against the back window wall, her arms folded, her mouth a tight, thin, straight line. The slenderly shapely, striking woman’s tousled red hair vied for attention with her green eyes. This evening she wore a sharply cut, cream-colored Dolce & Gabbana suit with matching Jimmy Choos. Byrnes relished having a beautiful woman as his hatchet man.

Also against the back wall, in the center where an aisle cut down the three tiers of techs, stood Byrnes himself, with a perfect view of the large plasma screen (labeled: PROGRAM) above the bank of similar oversized monitors, whose screens were sectioned into eight windows reporting individual camera shots, remote feeds, and cued-up prerecorded material. The PROGRAM flat-screen reflected the finished product going out over the airwaves.

Crime Seen! had saved two very juicy cases for the finale, and Byrnes would be shocked if this were not the highest-rated episode of the season. He watched with half-lidded eyes as Carlos Moreno demonstrated that two young girls had not been kidnapped, as their mother had reported, but were murdered by her and buried on a piece of farmland owned by the mother’s parents. Footage of her arrest — not seven hours before — was the capper.

In the second segment, Angela Batten outed the CEO of an insurance company that for years had been defrauding its policyholders by substituting new language in renewal documents — just the sort of story of corporate greed getting busted that tapped into Main Street America’s rage against Wall Street. Few in the viewing audience were aware that Crime Seen! itself came to them courtesy of the big oil corporation that was UBC’s Big Daddy.

Byrnes knew these two juicy and very different stories would each be front-page fodder on tomorrow’s USA Today , with Crime Seen! getting plenty of play. He was neither psychic nor overconfident — just this morning, the network prez had been interviewed for both stories.

Finally all that remained was J.C. Harrow’s season farewell, which, as scripted, was a laundry list of the miscreants the show had helped bust, all wrapped up in Harrow’s rugged, Midwestern “I’m a victim too, but I’m getting back at ’em” persona.

With pleasure if not affection, Byrnes regarded his unlikely, ruggedly photogenic star on the monitor, where Harrow could be seen casting a film noir shadow against a brick backdrop with a single barred window — cheesy but effective.

The former lawman sported a navy blue blazer that looked unpretentious, although it was no off-the-rack number, worn over a lighter blue button-down dress shirt, open at the collar; his jeans were faded, worn — Everyman attire that Wardrobe had slaved over.

Piercing blue eyes stared out at America as Harrow said, “My colleagues in the booth are going to have to forgive me for breaking from script...”

Byrnes, paying half-attention before, suddenly stood as straight as an exclamation mark, and was heeding his star’s every word, every pause, every gesture.