It’s 10:45 before I get home. Someone has stacked the newspapers neatly in front of my door. It unlocks flawlessly and the inside of my loft looks exactly as I left it. Amber has taken Heather to a safe place. Maybe when she dries out she’ll remember more. Amber told me she had been laid off from the paper. I told her I was sorry—she was a good newspaperwoman. I gave her back the Airweight .357 and told her how I had used it. Amber looked like the most beautiful creature ever to walk the earth. I will not let myself wonder what she thinks or feels for me, will not do an autopsy about our meeting in person again after so many days—it was a reunion that could be nothing more than professional, given the circumstances. I will not let her have that power over me. It was one reason why I preferred to see more than one woman at the same time—if one kicked me to the curb, it wouldn’t destroy me. Now I can only rely on will. The story is all that matters.
I drop my duffel on the bedroom floor, strip out of the suit I bought in Phoenix, take a hot shower, and change into jeans and a sweat shirt. I retrieve my new MacBook Pro from under the bed and download the story from the file I sent to my Gmail account. Amber said she loves the story. But my email shows no takers for it.
There is little on my home answering machine but one message from the cops asking me to call them, that I have been reported missing from the ferry, and another one, frantic, from Melinda Stewart. Nothing else. I always told myself that the acclaim I received over the years, all the speaking engagements, all the friends and invitations to dinner parties and cocktails—it would all stop the moment I was no longer a columnist for the Seattle Free Press. It hurts to know how right I was. The machine didn’t even hold a message of concern from any of the other editors in the newsroom.
It’s about the time when the last edition has pretty much been put to bed. Only a skeleton crew will be left in the newsroom. I call Melinda and she immediately starts crying uncontrollably.
I can’t tell her everything. There’s not enough time and she might still be in danger. So I give her the bare-bones account—“short-cut it for me,” a gruff old editor used to tell me—and I describe the story I have produced.
“My God…”
“I can’t get it published,” I say. “Nobody will even respond to me. Nobody will run it.”
She says, “I’ll run it.”
***
I go to the paper to walk her to my place. Seattle’s a pretty safe city, but I don’t want Melinda walking through Pioneer Square at this time of night. As I walk up the hill, I see the big neon sign proclaiming the newspaper’s name in the same font that appears on the front-page flag. Steam boils out of a manhole in the middle of the street. Rainwater sits in the ruts of the asphalt. I wait outside for her. Nobody will know me at this time of night.
Then I see Zimmer, the maintenance supervisor. But he’s seen me first, and then we are face-to-face. His complexion drains to a graveyard gray and he stares at me. He looks like he’s seen a ghost. I nod to him. He just stares. His large brow gleams with sudden sweat and his neck tendons pulse. Then he hurries past me, down the hill.
Melinda Stewart comes out of the employee entrance, wearing a turtleneck sweater and a long coat. She runs to me and covers my face with kisses. She holds me so tightly my ribs are about to break. Oh, my god, it feels good to be held. We walk back to my place in silence, where I have a bottle of wine and a hot pizza waiting. Then we get down to business. She sits at my desk before the MacBook. I pull up a chair beside her and keep quiet. Melinda puts on her glasses and gives the story a long first read, saying nothing. It takes her thirty minutes and two slices of extra pepperoni. She has never edited me before, but I’ve watched her work. She’s one of the best in the newsroom. One of the best in the business. Wickedly smart. Wise in the craft and in handling writers. I know I won’t be flying without a net.
That’s a good thing. Highly sensitive stories such as this would normally go through a dozen editors and probably be lawyered, as well. That’s the care that distinguishes us, at our best, from most blogs. But there’s no time. No time and no support. So Melinda and I will do it together, just us, with the skills we’ve built over long careers and the trust of a friendship nearly as long.
When she says, “This is good,” I know I’ve earned it.
But we’re only getting started. We go section by section, then graf by graf. She asks great questions, gently encouraging me to make improvements—my way, not the way she might do it if she were the writer. She helps me see a couple of holes and plug them. We go through documents and sourcing, slowly and carefully, as she challenges each assertion.
By 3:30 the energy we both generated to work over the story is fading. The wine bottle is empty. “It’s a great story,” she says, and kisses me. But it’s a friendship kiss, nothing more. And I don’t push it. The sexual vibe between us has been fading for a long time. Maybe it’s menopause. I’m so grateful for her friendship. She agrees it must run for Wednesday’s newspaper, November 10th.
I call a cab and walk her to the curb. “How can you get this in the paper? Olympic will cut it off at the publisher’s office. The M.E. will never go for it.”
“I’m not going to ask him. I’m the night news editor,” she says simply. “I’m just going to put it in.”
“They’ll fire you.”
She smiles sadly. “We’re all going to be out of work soon enough. Nobody’s going to buy the newspaper. That’s the skinny I’ve heard from very good sources. They’re going to close it. Let’s go down fighting.”
Chapter Forty-five
Tuesday, November 9th
I sleep late without dreams. Then I shower, dress, and take the bus to West Seattle. It’s cool and rainy, my weather. Melinda Hines’ condo looks fine and her plants are thriving. The plastic container on the balcony looks untouched, except for the fine layer of moisture on the lid. I pull it off, remove the garden tools, and lift out the plastic bag. Inside, the Coach briefcase is dry and smooth. The files are undisturbed. I’ve gathered so much information since I hid it, I doubt these papers will be any use.
Still, they’re copies of what I gave the Praetorian crew, and as I go through the last checks of my story I’ll want every document at the ready. This is a story that will get you sued. And if Melinda succeeds in sneaking it into the paper, the Free Press may not even stand behind me. My only hope is that the reaction to the story will be so explosive, the newspaper won’t have a choice. For a few moments, I linger on the balcony, looking across Elliott Ba
y at the city. Downtown looks more beautiful than any postcard.
***
Back in my loft, I spend the afternoon triple-checking every sentence. My normally neat desk is trashed with files, documents, printouts. So is the floor in a four-foot semi-circle around it.
Who, what, where, when, why.
I still don’t have the “why.” Olympic International has been profitable all through the recession. Not spectacular—its margins actually trailed its peers in some quarters—but respectable. But the paper trail makes clear that most of the money hasn’t come from its timber or paper operations. It’s come from defense—and much of that money was never accounted as such in the company’s reports, much less in Pete Montgomery’s conference calls with analysts or PowerPoint presentations. Olympic has kept enough of its old businesses alive to provide camouflage, but it’s essentially become a massive defense contractor. Before Animal Spirits LLC ever took a stake in Olympic, it had been taken over by Praetorian.
Why? Why hide the sources of money? And could you conceal it from the ratings agencies, the accountants, regulators—well, history shows you could, as long as you made or beat your quarterly earnings estimates by Wall Street. Olympic did that. And it was a dull company headquartered way off in the Pacific Northwest. Not covered by either Seattle newspaper.