The Guilty - Jason Pinter [7]
every day of her life.
Police were questioning several young men and women
who were sitting on the sidewalk, leaning against an ambulance. They looked visibly shaken. Eyes red, heads down.
Confidence sucked out of them. Several were crying. I
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wondered whether they were crying due to the horror they'd
just witnessed, or because the world had been robbed of
Athena Paradis.
"Cops aren't going to get anything from witnesses who were
inside the club," I said. "Figure at least fifty paparazzi outside,
all those strobe lights, every single eye was focused on her."
"How can you be so sure?" Wallace asked.
"'Cause mine would be. You tell yourself you could care
less about celebrities like Athena Paradis, but it's damn hard
to turn away. And this was her scene."
I thought of Mya. Wondered if she was near here when she
called. I hoped she'd made it home safe. I debated calling her
just to be sure.
"This is page one," I said to Wallace.
"We're too late for the print edition," he said. "I want your
copy on the Gazette website in an hour. And I want updates by
the time Al Roker is smiling his way through the weather report."
"Awful generous deadline of you."
Wallace looked at me. "We mishandle this story in any
way, the Dispatch will cannibalize our circulation rate and
spend all winter bragging about its superior reporting."
"They couldn't report their way out of the 6 train," I said,
expecting a laugh, but receiving none.
"Doesn't matter," Wallace said softly. "Story like this, it's all
about how sensational you can make it. Who runs the cover
photo of Athena in the most revealing dress. Gets the best quotes
from her exes. Finds the most salacious angle to play up, even
if it turns out to be bogus later on. You know Paulina will be all
over this."
"So what do you want me to do?"
"You know the sign I keep by the elevators to all our news
divisions, right?" I nodded. The sign Wallace was referring
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to was simply titled The Three Types of Reporters. It was a
piece of paper containing four short, handwritten sentences.
Some reporters are always one step behind.
Some reporters always keep pace.
Some reporters are always one step ahead.
What kind of reporter are you?
"Good. Then Evelyn will be expecting your copy in
sixty minutes."
"I'm a lucky man."
Evelyn Waterstone was the Gazette' s battle-ax of a Metro
desk editor. All stories that focused within the five boroughs
were doled out by her, met with her approval, and she had
final edit. She was notorious for fighting for front-page space,
claiming that New York was the country's central nervous
system, and that most relevant stories stemmed from there.
So far she had treated me with kid gloves. Which left me
uneasy. She always seemed to be much tougher on the other
young journalists, the interns, the people who hadn't paid
their dues. The fact that she liked me was fairly disconcerting. Like someone who smiled to your face while they held
a Ginsu behind their back.
"Leave out the stuff about slug caliber and shooter vantage
points," Wallace said. "Too much conjecture. Let the Dispatch
be forced to make retractions. We need to play this clean."
"I'll get it done," I said, trying to convince not only Wallace
but myself.
"Don't worry, I spoke to Evelyn before you got here.
She's aware of the time-sensitive nature, and is waiting for
your e-mail. I'm asking you to play in the same scuzzy
ballpark the Dispatch does, only you bat clean. You have an
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hour. Find an angle the Dispatch will miss. The entire country
is going to be talking about Athena's murder, and we need to
give them something nobody else will. I don't want any
baseless conjecture. I don't want any name-calling. I don't
want to stoop to their level. I want you to report this story the
way a Gazette reporter would."
I nodded. Had no intention of doing it any other way. Since
I returned to the Gazette full time, I'd worked my ass off in
an effort to prove I could hack it at that level.