I was doing it for the right reasons.
Did doing a bad thing for the right reasons make me less of a bad person? Or did it remain the same?
Debates on ethics had no place in my previous life tangled with the Sons of Templar. Neither did they have their place in journalism. Both of them tried to live separate to the law. Journalists were bound by it a little bit more, but they were created to challenge things in our society that weren’t right.
Yeah, keep telling yourself that.
“Not exactly a secret, Walker, her having money problems,” Roger said, leaning back in his chair and unwrapping a silver package. “Nor the drugs. In fact, it was our fuckin’ team who scooped her first stay in rehab.” He popped the lozenge into his mouth. I idly wondered if that did something to his throat, eating that many medicated candies. “And the second,” he added through the sucking noise.
I leaned forward in my own chair. “Maybe so, but is it common knowledge that her drug problem had her so deep in debt, or that she tangled with those who dealt them? She organized to get drugs shipped via Sicily to the port here in L.A.” A drunken Ashlin told me all that.
Maybe her demons recognized mine, and that was the reason why she told me. Or maybe she just needed somewhere to unlock her own rattling box of grief and craziness. Whatever it was, it proved me right that girlfriends, the best of them, knew everything about someone’s life.
And Ashlin knew all about Lucinda’s.
The sucking noise stopped and Roger’s eyes bulged. “You got proof?” he asked, excitement in his voice. I was surprised he wasn’t actually rubbing his hands together in glee.
I snatched the manifest out of my bag. He leaned forward.
“I’ve seen this,” he grumbled after a quick glance.
I nodded. “I know, bear with me.”
He stayed leaning forward.
I guessed that meant he was bearing. “Okay, so a manifest is basically a list of products sent, packaged and received. Cargo on a ship.” I pulled out another fresher, less crumpled piece of paper from my bag, fresh off the Customs database, courtesy of Wire. I was sending him a pallet of Red Bull when I got home. I ran my hand over the paper. “This is a manifest from before Lucinda got tangled up with these men. Look carefully at the quantities and style codes.”
Roger being Roger couldn’t just simply crane over it; he snatched it, looking at it with an investigator’s eye that I hoped to have one day. It was looking at something and seeing beyond what most other people saw. Not unlike the way Keltan looked at me.
I banished the thought of him. It had no place in the newsroom.
Especially since it felt distinctly like I was betraying him.
“Okay,” Roger declared after looking it over.
I handed him the other. “Now this is the after.”
I knew he’d see it. It didn’t matter that it took me three days of staring at it to figure something like this out. It took him about three seconds.
“Well, fuck me,” he muttered.
“I know,” I agreed.
He placed the manifests on his cluttered desk. “Sudden hike in numbers, even that much, coupled with security tapes and even the drug record isn’t strong enough for a story,” Roger said. “Your source, she willing to go on record?”
I paused, thinking of Ashlin’s thirst for the spotlight. Then I saw the sadness behind her eyes and Lucinda’s own lifeless ones and Keltan’s warning about the dangers of this. I was willing to put myself in danger, but no way would I ever think of doing the same to Ashlin.
“I’d rather keep her anonymous,” I said.
Roger frowned. “Anonymous sources do shit for credibility,” he muttered.
I jutted my chin up. “She stays anonymous,” I repeated.
He eyed me with a heavy dose of impatience, irritation and perhaps a sprinkling of something resembling respect.
“Well, you’re going to have to find someone else who knows it all and is willing to go record. And proof.”
I nodded. “There’s more.”
“Well, fuckin’ spit it out before this world of tweets takes me into an early grave,” he ordered.
“She was talking—ranting, if my source is to be believed, and I think she is—about stopping. Calling the authorities.”
Roger’s cheeks pinched together. “And they found out, whoever these people are—”
“Old Spice and Co,” I offered.
He ignored this. “Whoever they are, they decided to off her before she could.”
I nodded. “That’s what I’m thinking. Makes more sense than a robbery gone wrong when there was nothing actually taken. Kind of needs to happen to constitute a robbery.”
Roger grinned. “Yes, it fucking does, and our reporter just happens to be the eyewitness to corroborate that.”
I grinned back. “She does indeed.”
He leaned back in his chair again. “Your source, she told the cops this?”
I nodded. “But from what I gather, the police don’t seem to take much stock of her statement, considering who she is and perhaps her blood alcohol level during their interview,” I told him for the sake of clarity.