Metsy Hingle - Deadline

“I am…was a friend of your father’s,” the woman corrected. “And I’m calling you because Jody didn’t kill himself like they said. They murdered him and made it look like a suicide to keep him quiet.”

Tess squeezed her eyes shut a moment, fighting back the images that flashed through her mind—images of herself awakening from a bad dream, of entering the den and seeing the father she adored kneeling over her mother’s body, covered in her blood. Shaking off the memory, she said, “How Jody Burns died is of no concern to me.”

“But he was your father.”

“He ceased being my father the night he killed my mother,” Tess informed her, making her voice as cool as her heart for the man she’d once called “daddy.”

“But he didn’t kill her.”

Tess started to tell the woman that she was wasting her time, that Jody Burns was no innocent. After all, she should know, Tess reasoned, since she was the one who’d found him still holding the bookend in his hand that he’d used to smash in her mother’s skull. But before she could get the words out, a knock sounded at her office door.

“Hey, Tess,” Jerry Wilson said, sticking his head inside the door. “You’re up in fifteen.”

“I’ll be right there.” When the door closed behind him, she said, “I have to go.”

“But what about your father? Don’t you want justice for him?”

“Some would say he got the justice he deserved—even if it came twenty-five years late,” Tess countered, recalling her grandfather’s words when they had first learned of Burns’s death.

“Then they would be wrong,” the woman insisted. “Jody Burns didn’t belong in that prison. He was not the one who killed your mother.”

“A jury thought otherwise.”

“The jury was wrong. And your father was going to prove it, too. That’s why he was killed and it was made to look like a suicide.”

Jerry tapped at the door again. “Tess.”

“Coming,” she said.

Regretting that she’d allowed the conversation to even get started, and aware that she needed to get to the set, Tess said, “Listen, I have to go.”

“That’s it? Aren’t you going to do anything?”

“No.”

“I would have thought you would want justice.”

“I’m all for justice. But there’s nothing I can do.” Softening, she said, “Listen, if you really believe what you’ve told me, then you should contact the police.”

“The police! They’re the last ones I can go to. Oh, God, this was a mistake. I never should have called you.”

“Wait!” Tess had been an investigative reporter long enough to recognize panic in the woman’s voice. “What do you mean you can’t go to the police?”

“Because I can’t risk it. If he was to find out that I knew…No, I can’t take that chance.”

Oh, what she wouldn’t have given to see the woman’s face, Tess thought, to be able to look into her eyes, read her. “Listen, if you’re in some kind of trouble—”

“I’m not. At least not yet. But if he finds out that I know and that I called you, God knows what’ll happen to me.”

Tess could practically taste the woman’s fear. “If who finds out? Tell me who it is that you’re afraid of.”

“I can’t. I’ve already said too much.”

“Then tell me who you are, how to reach you,” Tess said. “I’ll help you.”

“The only way you can help me is if you finish what your father started. Don’t let him get away with murder again.”

“Again?” Tess repeated.

“God, don’t you understand? The person who had Jody killed is the same one who killed your mother. And unless you do something, he’ll get away with it this time, too.”

But before Tess could demand more information, the connection was severed and a dial tone buzzed in her ear.

“Good afternoon. This is David Rabinowitz with the noon report for Channel Seven News. At the top of our news is this morning’s emergency landing of an American Airlines 747 at Reagan International Airport following reports that a bomb was on board.”

Veronica “Ronnie” Hill sat back in her chair in the control room at Channel Seven News and studied the studio monitors. As the show’s producer for the past ten years, she watched the broadcast with a critical eye. The new anchor was a good choice, she decided, satisfied with his delivery. While his boy-next-door good looks would certainly appeal to the female viewers, the fact that he’d reported sports for a rival network would draw in the male viewers. All in all, they were counting on seeing a jump in the ratings with the new guy on board.

“To give us an update on the situation, we’ll go live to Reagan International Airport where Tess Abbott is standing by,” David said.

Ronnie frowned when it took an extra two seconds for the monitors to do a split screen. Then the screens split in two with a view of David seated at the studio news desk on the left, and a view of Tess standing outside the airport complex on the right. But it was Tess on whom Ronnie focused. She made a dramatic image, Ronnie thought, with her booted feet planted firmly on the ground. An early-October wind whipped her mocha suede skirt against her legs and her dark hair swirled about her face and shoulders. Behind her, crash trucks zoomed by, followed by a swarm of military vehicles and more cars with flashing lights. To her left a jumbo jet bearing the American Airlines logo sat idle and detached from the jetty. Hordes of personnel flocked around the plane.

“Tess, this is David in the Channel Seven studio. Can you give us an update of what’s going on out there at the airport?”

“Well, David, as was reported earlier, an American Airlines flight that was en route to La Guardia Airport in New York made an emergency landing here at Reagan International around nine-fifteen this morning after a passenger on the plane informed a member of the airline’s flight crew that there was a bomb aboard the aircraft,” Tess began her report.

“All right, go to a full screen of Tess,” Ronnie whispered.

As though the cameraman could hear her, the monitor switched to a full-screen view and zoomed in on Tess. Holding the microphone in front of her, she ignored the noise and activity behind her and looked directly into the camera. “My sources tell me that it appears that the bomb threat was a hoax. No bomb or any explosives were found on board the plane. I’m also told that the passenger has since confessed to being despondent, having recently broken up with his girlfriend. He now says he claimed to have a bomb on board in order to get his estranged girlfriend’s attention.”

“That’s some attention getter,” David remarked.

“Unfortunately, it’s probably going to get him the wrong kind of attention,” Tess replied. She pushed the hair that blew across her face out of her eyes. Without missing a beat, she continued. “Because the federal authorities now have him in custody and will be charging him.”

“Do we know who the guy is?” David asked.

“The authorities haven’t released his name yet,” Tess said, her voice strong and sure above the scream of the wind and the noise around her. “But according to an unnamed source, the person in custody is a thirty-two-year-old male who boarded the flight in Virginia.”

“What’s it like there inside the airport, Tess?” David asked.

“I’d call it controlled chaos, David. As a safety precaution, two of the terminals were vacated before the American flight landed, and all incoming and departing flights were suspended.”

“There must be a lot of unhappy travelers, not to mention some crazed ticket-counter agents,” David commented.

“Well, as I said, it’s chaos, but it’s controlled. In addition to the displaced passengers from the American flight that was deplaned, we have a lot of passengers whose scheduled flights have been suspended. So there are a lot of people waiting inside the terminal,” Tess explained with a nod of her head to the airport complex. “And they’re unsure if, or when, they’ll be able to continue with their travels.”