The Guilty - Jason Pinter [11]
the murder of John Fredrickson. When I was on the run, when
the whole world saw me as a murderer, other than Amanda I
was the only one who knew and believed in the truth. The
article was in response to those who'd been so quick to pass
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judgment, including the Gazette' s own Paulina Cole. I was
happy to hear when she left for the Dispatch. I couldn't
imagine going to work every day, sitting next to someone who
printed such vileness without knowing the truth.
When the world assumed I was guilty, they looked at me
as a degenerate, someone to whom committing murder was
justified.
And now a killer had taken my words, used them to support
whatever twisted reasoning goes through the mind of someone willing to steal an innocent life.
The killer knew he was guilty. Only he didn't care. He had
a cause. Causes don't simply end. Murderers don't simply
lose interest. There were more victims out there.
"This came out well," Wallace said, mainly to fill the
silence. We both knew the copy wasn't great, but contained
all confirmed and pertinent facts and was as good as could
be expected from a reporter running on Red Bull and a
deadline.
He put the papers down on top of a copy of the morning
edition of the Dispatch. Wallace had it delivered every day,
though I couldn't remember him ever reading it.
The headline read, HEIRESS WHACKED: Police Search
For Sex Symbol Shooter. It was actually one of their more
subtle headlines.
"I give them ten points for alliteration," I said. "'Search For
Sex Symbol Shooter.' Almost poetic."
"Take off several thousand for subtlety," another voiced
chimed in. I turned around.
Jack O'Donnell walked into the room, half a dozen newspapers under his arm. He looked well rested, energized.
"Least someone around here caught forty winks," I said.
"I think I caught forty winks total my first five years on
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Jason Pinter
the job, don't complain to me about sleep." He took the papers
from under his arm, and I recognized the running heads of
what looked like the morning edition of every major paper in
the metropolitan area, as well as a few nationals. He tossed
them on Wallace's desk one at a time, giving us a chance to
read each headline.
I wasn't aware newspaper fonts could run that big.
"You have no idea how much it cost us to dump our page
one and get the Paradis story in there," Wallace said. "None
of them report anything substantial. That'll come tomorrow.
With any luck we'll sell enough papers today to make up for
the printing and shipping delays."
"Even in death Athena breaks the bank," Jack said. "You
know some asshole found a highball glass from last night that
still has Athena Paradis's lipstick on it? Bidding on eBay is
up to ten grand. I'm thinking of joining the fray, resell the
glass during the trial and retire."
"This case will never go to trial," I said, a sick feeling in
my stomach.
"And why not?" asked Wallace.
"Fools with a cause don't go quietly. They don't put their
hands behind their back, and they don't care about their
Miranda rights. This guy's in it until the end."
"Let's hope you're wrong," Wallace replied. "Right now
all we can do is our job. So let's talk."
Jack flicked my ear as he walked by. "What, no iPod
today?"
I sighed, played along.
"I usually take it off when I get to the office."
"Hard to concentrate when listening to Bee-yonk, right?"
I didn't correct him, frankly would have felt like an idiot
telling him the correct pronunciation was Beyonce. A few
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months ago, I made the careless mistake of going to the
bathroom and leaving my iPod on my desk. The mistake
wasn't leaving it out in the open, but trusting someone like
Jack to act like an adult. By the time I got back to my desk,
Jack had scrolled through my entire playlist and taken votes
from the entire newsroom as to which artists I should delete
from the hard drive permanently. The results were tabulated,
and for a week after that he would ask for the player to see if
I'd complied. Finally I removed