"You're okay?"
"I'm all right. I found out something about Lance Hopper's killing. It wasn't an accident. Randy and Jack were hired to kill him."
"What are you talking about?" The voice was sharper now; his mind was in gear. He was a journalist probing for facts.
"It was a professional hit."
"But who'd want Lance dead?
"It was--" Now Rune's voice cracked too and the reason it did had nothing to do with being tired. She repeated in a whisper, "It was Piper."
chapter 31
"WHAT?" MAISEL CLEARED HIS THROAT.
Rune heard the rustling of cloth. She pictured the producer sitting up, putting his feet on the floor, feeling for slippers.
"Piper hired them to kill Lance."
Again, a pause. He was waiting. She heard him clear his throat again then cough. "This isn't funny."
"It's true, Lee."
"Come on, Rune. Why would she want him dead?"
"Somebody took all the Randy Boggs files and tapes out of my desk. Everything was gone."
"Who?"
"Danny Turner, the head electrician on the set, told me it was Piper."
Maisel didn't answer.
Rune said, "And remember, she didn't want to do the story in the first place, she tried to get me to stop? She was going to send me to London? That was to get rid of me."
Maisel snapped, "What I was asking was why she'd want Lance Hopper dead."
"Because he was going to fire her. I went through her personnel file--"
"You what? How?"
"I just did.... Anyway, you know what I found? That Hopper tried to fire her a year before he died. Piper filed two EEOC complaints against him. They were both dropped but there's lots of memos--it was this huge war."
"Rune, people don't kill people for jobs."
"Maybe not usually--but you know Piper and her temper. You told me that her job was her whole life. And how much does she make? A million a year? That's enough to kill somebody for."
"But how is she going to find professional killers? This is just too--"
"What were some of her assignments?" She continued, "In Africa, in Nicaragua, the Middle East. She could've met some mercenaries. The fat guy--Jack--he looked just like a soldier. And he probably hired Randy to help him."
Maisel considered this. He was less skeptical than a moment ago. He said, "Keep going."
Rune felt like a juggler. It was tough to keep all the parts of the story in the air at once. "When Mr. Frost, the new witness, died? It wasn't an accident at all. Piper knew his name. She saw it from my story. She sent that fat guy to kill him. And then what happens? All the cassettes disappear. And she knew where I'd put the duplicate cassette of Frost. And she'd know how to get into the computer and steal the master."
She felt the silence from the other end of the line-- his concentration as he weighed her words, the shock. But maybe also the excitement reporters must feel when they first sniff a lead to a hot story. When he spoke it was almost as if to himself. "And she was pretty smooth when she ad-libbed the broadcast."
Rune said, "Like she'd known all along she was going to have to do it."