The Guilty - Jason Pinter [113]
Fort Sumner, ten or so from Hico and Lincoln County, but the
vast majority were from New Yorkers, Californians. She had
even received harsh rebukes from several members of
Congress, writing to say that at best her article was in poor
taste, and at worst a selfish attempt to discredit one of the most
enduring legends in history.
She didn't bother to respond to the irony of calling a mass
murderer an "enduring legend," but therein, she supposed, was
the point.
William H. Bonney, despite his violent history, was now
considered a hero, a vigilante, a romantic icon. And having
read the dozens of articles about William Henry Roberts's
deadly spree, she knew that more than a fair share of "concerned citizens" considered him the same way. Roberts was
a bandit, an outlaw. And like Bonney's Regulators years ago,
he was purging the landscape of those who poisoned the well.
Yet unlike other articles she'd written that had stirred up
controversy, there was no joy at the Dispatch at the prospect
of increased circulation. There were no high fives in the hall
or talk about holiday bonuses. Nobody from senior management had stopped by Paulina's office to congratulate her on
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Jason Pinter
a terrific story. In fact, nobody had come by at all. And if there
was one thing that frightened Paulina more than anything, it
was silence.
Ordinarily she might respond to one or more complainants, just for kicks. But today she merely forwarded all the
messages to their PR department. They'd be earning their paychecks this week. Then one e-mail popped up in her in-box
that made her forget all the others.
The sender was Ted Allen. The subject heading read We
need to talk.
She took a deep breath before opening the message.
...hurts the credibility of our newspaper...
...true or not the Dispatch had been placed under a mag nifying glass...
...witch hunt...
...my mother grew up in Texas...this is akin to pissing on
the Pope's grave...
He requested her presence in his office in fifteen minutes.
The Dispatch' s legal team and PR department would be on
hand. She had no doubt her job would be safe, but this fire
had to be handled with extreme caution.
Henry had gotten away clean. She couldn't mention his
name. If the public found out she'd received information from
a reporter at a rival paper, the Dispatch would lose its credibility faster than Jack O'Donnell downed a shot of whiskey.
Take credit for your successes, take credit for your mistakes,
hope the former outweighed the latter.
Paulina picked up her phone, dialed James Keach's extension.
"Ms. Cole?"
"Where is Henry Parker right now?"
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"I...I don't know. Work, I assume?"
"Find him. Then call me. You have half an hour."
She hung up, stood up, smoothed out her skirt and headed
for Ted Allen's office.
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There was no stopping it; the juggernaut had begun
lurching forward. Reports stated that the Dispatch was receiving more complaints and hate mail than at any point in
the last ten years. The most since they ran a story about a
presidential candidate paying off a cocktail waitress with
whom he'd had an affair. The complaints weren't about the
story, of course, but of a photo on page one in which readers
claimed they could see more than fifty-one percent of her
left butt cheek.
Nobody ever said people didn't have their priorities straight.
The gossip websites and blogs claimed that Ted Allen was
considering canning Paulina Cole. They paid her to piss
people off, under the maxim that controversy created cash,
but now it looked like she'd pissed off too many people who
spent the cash. Challenging an American legend, as well as
asserting that a beloved (and deceased) clergyman had an extramarital affair, was too much to handle.
The story on William Henry Roberts was out. It was public.
And despite the protests and pitchfork-waving townsfolk,
there would be inquiries. There would be investigations. This
kind of scandal could not be covered up.
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When I got to my desk my voice-mail light