The Guilty - Jason Pinter [55]
body of work that would pump blood and live just the way
she wanted it to. Read the way she wanted it to.
She could picture Mya Loverne's face, that poor, destroyed
face, the shell of a girl whose life's flame had been snuffed
out long before its time. So many factors had driven Mya to
the brink. Thanks to her father's chummy relationship with
most gossip columnists, the majority of his philandering never
made it to the printed page. That didn't mean it didn't ruin
many a dinner conversation, estrange a daughter in the midst
of the most difficult time of her life. Now it was time to
collect on that debt. Mya had suffered terribly. But through
pain she would regain her life. She was the victim. And the
culprit was not only her lech of a father, but Henry Parker, as
well.
Henry had fractured Mya, literally and figuratively. All her
The Guilty
165
troubles since the dissolution of their relationship had applied
leverage to that emotional fracture, spreading it until she
cracked open fully.
Paulina had dozens of pages scattered about her desk, three
empty cups of coffee strewn about. She picked up the pages,
plucked a sentence from different ones, felt her collar begin to
burn when she read over all the stories about Henry she'd written last year. Henry, who came to New York as Jack O'Donnell and Wallace Langston's golden boy. Who was accused of
murder and embarrassed the profession she'd devoted her life
to. If payback was a bitch, Paulina was its mother.
And just like Henry struck the flint that burned Mya, this
story was the spark that would burn down the New York
Gazette. The kindling was there, David Loverne a juicy log,
and she was going to blast that place apart.
Fuck Wallace.
Fuck Harvey Hillerman.
Fuck Jack O'Donnell.
Fuck Henry Parker and everything he was.
But for now, she had to keep working. Soon the paper
would be printed. Soon enough, she would burn their whole
house to the ground.
Just several blocks away, at a desk cracked and worn with
age, an old man sat typing. The desk was covered in coffee
stains and pencil markings, its owner never bothering to clean
them, believing they added personality. The corkboard above
his computer was adorned with pictures, awards, plaques,
books with his name printed on the spine, and a life dedicated
to his craft. It was here that Jack O'Donnell put the finishing
touches on his story for the next day's Gazette.
When the story was done, after he'd saved it on his word
166
Jason Pinter
processor, made sure he'd written enough inches, and combed
through to minimize any errors that would drive his editors
crazy, Jack O'Donnell sat back in his chair. He pulled a flask
of Jack Daniel's from his leather briefcase and took a sip. It
was a good story, one that dropped a potential bombshell on
the Paradis investigation. No other paper had this. It was a
Gazette exclusive.
After fifty years in news, his body still tingled at the thrill
of a good story.
Before sending it off, Jack put the final touch on the article.
Underneath the byline Jack added: With additional reporting
by Henry Parker.
And come morning, the sparks would fly.
26
I stared at the weak metal fence which contained three graves
resting side-by-side, one of which belonged to the outlaw
known as Billy the Kid. The fence was in the middle of a large
patch of dirt, surrounded by piles of flowers, photographs and
even bullets. Never had I seen such gestures for such a shoddy
excuse for a tomb.
A headstone sat behind the graves, three names engraved
on it. The stone looked fairly well-maintained, as opposed to
the rest of the mausoleum.
"The headstone's been stolen three times since 1940," Rex
said. "At some point they figured it cost more to guard the
darn thing than it did to throw up a new headstone. That's why
you see here a gate my eight-year-old niece could pry apart."
"Kind of like the security system in your museum," I said,
with more than a hint of sarcasm. Inside the cage were three
burial mounds,