Neely Tucker - The Ways of the Dead

After a while, Winters said, “I just can’t believe that.”

R.J., seated beside Sully, shook his head. “Never heard anything like it. Not in this town, on tape.”

“He’s unhinged,” Eddie said.

“Caged,” said R.J. “Bear in a cage.”

The morning meeting for the paper hadn’t even taken place, and it was clear this was going to dominate the day. Lewis, the attorney, chipped in, “His Supreme Court bid ends the instant we publish this. Probably his judicial career. Also, if you’re looking for the definition of clear and actionable damages-”

“I know,” Eddie said, waving a hand, “I know.”

Melissa cleared her throat. “I hate to be the wet blanket again, Eddie, but to what end do we publish this? Are we insinuating that he had something to do with her disappearance? That he actually killed her? It seems to me that would be the implication of any story we write. I think we have to keep in mind that there’s the danger of his history with Sully, and then this one-potato, two-potato trick he just pulled with the recorder. I’m not saying-”

“You’re not saying anything!” R.J. thundered. “I don’t give a goddamn about the recorder being on or off. What we’ve established is that Noel Pittman left her job at two thirty in the morning and, for more than a year, that was the last known sighting of her. Now, after her corpse has been recovered, we find out that she placed a call to the chief judge of the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia eight hours after she was last seen. I don’t care if it was for coffee or coitus. What we’re saying is that the chief jurist of the courthouse at the foot of Constitution Avenue did not bother to inform the police or Pittman’s family of that call, or of their relationship. That is the point, and that is what will keep him off the Supreme Court, and possibly have him expelled from the bench. Because he should be.”

It was quiet again, and then Edward spoke.

“Well, here we are again. Sullivan, as much as I admire your work, I do not admire-and we do not print-gotcha journalism. And that’s what that stunt with the second recorder amounts to. Given your history with him, it looks like you set him up. And the matter of the pictures and his payment may be a correct hunch, but it’s nothing we can prove.”

“I did-” Sully said, but Eddie cut him off.

“That said, R.J.’s point carries the day. Once Pittman was missing, Reese had an obligation to go to the police. We can demonstrate, to a clear and convincing standard, that he did not inform them. It may or may not be obstruction of justice, but it clears the bar of public interest. If his daughter’s death matters, so does that of Noel Pittman.”

He looked at the room, people sitting still, looking back at him.

“Which makes it news,” he said. “And I want it for tomorrow. Where are you in the writing?”

“About thirty inches in,” Sully lied. “And for the record, I didn’t set him up. I was working with a recorder and a backup. It’s not even uncommon.”

“And you had one on the table and one in your jacket. Don’t bullshit me, Sully. Moving on. You’re at thirty inches. What’s it worth?”

“Am I including the other missing girls, or is this just the judge and the dancer?”

“Mention Escobar, Bolin, and Williams somewhere up high for neighborhood context, and maybe you can loop back in late for another couple of grafs. But this is about Noel Pittman and David Reese.”

“Then I think it’s sixtyish.”

“Good. You’re sure on the police, that they haven’t heard of this?”

“It’s news to the head of Homicide, who would know. He wants us to have it come from the chief, though. I’ll call him in a minute.”

“Okay. Now, if Reese releases their tape of your interview with him later today as some sort of preempt, and tries to make it look like you jumped to a conclusion about a murder investigation, I’ll have a very short conversation with him and Joe Russell about your second tape.”

Lewis coughed and said, “Does that mean you’re going to threaten them with releasing Sully’s tape?”

“Absolutely not,” Eddie snapped. “It means if I hear so much as a peep out of either one of them, I will release Sully’s tape.”

U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Chief Judge David H. Reese, widely viewed as the Republican favorite for the next Supreme Court opening, had a relationship with a missing Howard University student and spoke with her eight hours after she was last seen, phone records, documents and interviews show, and he has not disclosed that information to police.

Noel Pittman, 25, disappeared after leaving work at the nightclub Halo in the early-morning hours of April 25 of last year. Her decayed corpse was discovered last week in the basement of an abandoned house in the 700 block of Princeton Place NW, a few houses down from where she lived and directly across an alley where the judge’s daughter…

This was on the computer screen, Eddie sitting at the copy chief’s desk, reading over it, his fingers on the keys but only moving the cursor back and forth. Melissa, R.J., Sully, Lewis Beale, and editors from photo and layout were arrayed in a semicircle behind him. It was nearing eight p.m., deadline for the first edition.

“Do we have it from the police, formally, that he didn’t tell them?” Edward asked.

“A statement from the chief is coming,” Sully said. “They’ve been stiffing me on it all day. I gave them until eight or said I would go with the chief had no comment, but police sources have confirmed it.”

“Then let’s soften that to ‘apparently’ didn’t tell the police, until we get the confirmation or the nonstatement. And make that lede two sentences.”

He kept reading, eyes not lifting from the screen. “And I want you to show Lewis your documentation and your notes. With all due respect, I’m also going to ask him to call Lorena Bradford to verify the phone information.”

“Sure.”

A few minutes and quiet remarks to the copyediting staff later, he half spun in his chair away from the computer and looked at the assembled. “It’s solid. Hard to believe but equally hard to dispute. Let’s keep going through it.”

The mini conference broke up.

Sully went back to his desk, a printout of the story in hand, and found, lying on his keyboard, a package that a news aide had left. It was a large envelope from Lorena-the complete chronology she’d worked up. Pushing it aside for now, he got a red pen and went through the story, testing every assertion of fact against his notes, putting a red check over each when he verified it. The room was quiet, and he worked without interruption. Lewis waddled by, terse, hurried, and Sully looked up. He was surprised to see that more than an hour had passed.

“The old lady across the street? Show me the notes. And the sister’s number.”

Sully gave him the numbers for both, Lewis nodding, writing the numbers on his legal pad, and left.

The newsroom population was thinning out, it was down to the late-night metro editor and copy editors and layout artists. He leaned back in his chair, stretching, nerves jumping. Either his career or David Reese’s was going to be over in twenty-four hours. There wasn’t much way around it.

To the right of his keyboard, underneath a flurry of papers he’d gone through in fact-checking, was Lorena’s manila folder. Yawning, he tore it open and pulled the thick chronology out. “Just in time!” was written in a sticky note attached to the front page in Lorena’s swirling hand. She’d dropped it off downstairs earlier, her note said.

When he pulled it out, a smaller sheaf of papers fell out onto the floor. They were held together with a paper clip, and he bent over to pick them up.