Let Me Whisper in Your Ear (14 page)

Leonard clicked off the electric mixer, picked up a shiny spatula and began to rhythmically smooth the fresh icing over a yellow tube cake.

Another prosperous year lay before him. He was grateful.

46

Monday, January 3

J
OEL
M
ALCOLM WAS
not in when Laura reported to the
Hourglass
offices the next morning, but his pretty secretary, Claire Dowd, was expecting her.

“Joel is at Lincoln Center,” Claire told Laura. “He wanted to attend to some of the details of Gwyneth's memorial service himself.”

“That's quick,” Laura said with some surprise.

“That's Joel,” the secretary said matter-of-factly. “If something is important to him, he takes care of it right away.”

Laura nodded. “So should I come back later?”

“No. Joel said you should see Matthew Voigt. Down the hall, the last office on the left. And there's a staff meeting at three o'clock in the conference room.”

Laura walked slowly down the
Hourglass
hallway, a hallway so much quieter than the others in the Broadcast Center. This was an insulated world, the world created by Joel Malcolm, a world protected by the tremendous amount of money it made for
KEY News.

Laura took a deep breath as she reached Matthew Voigt's office.

Matthew was on the telephone and scribbling notes on a yellow pad. His dark head looked up as he sensed Laura standing in the doorway. He smiled, motioned for her to come in and pointed to a gray couch that hugged the wall across from his desk. Laura took a seat on its edge.

As she waited for Matthew to finish his conversation, Laura scanned his small work space. An autographed Bruce Springsteen concert poster hung on the wall behind his cluttered desk. Two Emmy statuettes rested on a crowded bookcase. A gym bag and a pair of worn Nikes were tossed in the corner.

“It's not much, but it's home.” Matthew grinned as he hung up the phone. “Welcome to
Hourglass.
”

Laura laughed. “Listen, having an office of my own has been a big dream of mine. I've only worked in a communal newsroom where you're lucky to get your own drawer. I think your office is great.”

“Well, that's a good thing, Laura, because then you won't be too disappointed in the closet you've been assigned to work in. Space is at such a goddamned premium around this place. Come on, I'll show you. It's around the corner.”

Laura followed Matthew to her new office. He opened the door for her and switched on the light. The room did not seem that much smaller than his office, though only a desk and chair furnished it now. She could not wait to add the touches that would make it her own.

“It's fine. Absolutely fine,” Laura declared with pleasure.

“You're easily pleased. I like that. We have a lot of prima donnas around here. They drive me nuts,” he said, shaking his head. “Now let's go back to my office so we can talk. Or better yet, want to take a walk with me to the cafeteria? I'm dying for another cup of coffee—I need the strong stuff, and Claire's coffee up here is more like weak tea.”

Once they were settled in a booth at Station Break with two cups of high-test steaming before them, Matthew broke the news. He would be working with Laura on the Palisades Park story.

Laura's first reaction was one of disappointment and it showed in her facial expression.

“But it's
my
story,” she protested.

“Of course it is. You came up with the idea. But you're in the big leagues here, Laura. I'd think you'd be glad to get all the help you can. Not to mention that usually
Hourglass
segments are worked on for months and months. This one has to be put together in only six weeks. Didn't Joel tell you that he wants to run this during the February sweeps?”

She nodded, staring into her Styrofoam coffee cup.

“Come on,” he prodded. “I'm not going to bigfoot you. You'll get your credit. Just think of me as your mentor. God, that sounds old. I'm too young to be anybody's mentor.” He laughed and took another sip of his coffee.

What choice did she have? If Joel wanted Matthew to oversee the Palisades story, that was the way it was going to be. Maybe it wouldn't be such a bad thing. It would take some of the pressure off. It could be worse. Joel could have assigned another producer to the story with her, a producer she wouldn't like as much as she was beginning to like Matthew.

“Okay,” she answered determinedly. “Where do you want to start?”

“You tell me, Laura. It's your piece.”

So she recounted for him the story as she knew it so far. He listened intently. When she was finished, he asked her questions.

“I'm thinking about who we want to interview for this. Of course, we'll want to talk to the investigators who worked on the case then, if any of them are still around. And we'll try to track down the friend of the boy who disappeared that night. And the dead boy's parents, if they'll talk.” Matthew drank the last of the coffee from his cup. “I've been thinking, you mentioned at the party that your father ran the roller coaster at Palisades. He might be a good one to start with. I bet he could give us a lot of colorful stuff on the amusement park, as well as what he remembers from the time of Tommy Cruz's disappearance that last summer.”

Laura hesitated. The thought of Matthew Voigt meeting her father wasn't an appealing one.

“Problem?” he asked.

“No. Of course not.”

47

T
HE
H
OURGLASS
STAFF
gathered in the large conference room, awaiting the arrival of their executive producer. Laura took a seat against the back wall. She wondered if she looked as nervous as she felt.

As she tried to keep the foot at the end of her crossed leg from shaking up and down, she realized that she recognized about half of the people in the room as those who had been there when she had done her internship. But there were many people she did not know. Most were busy talking to their neighbors and Laura listened to snippets of different conversations.

“Joel must be beside himself. What is he going to do without her?”

“I saw him at lunch. He looked just fine to me.”

“If I know Joel, he has a plan.”

“Watch out. This isn't going to be pretty.”

As the executive producer entered the conference room, the conversations ceased. All eyes were on Malcolm, dressed in a gray cashmere sports jacket, black turtleneck and black trousers, and carrying a can of soda as he strode to the front of the room.

“We all know why we are here,” he began. “We've lost Gwyneth. I'm sure every one of us is struggling with our own personal feelings about her death. She was a legend in our industry, an extremely talented professional with whom each of us was privileged to work. She was also a true friend, a commodity that is pretty damned scarce these days.” He stopped to take a swallow of his Diet Coke.

“But, my friends,” he continued, “this, of course, does not mean the end of
Hourglass.
To the contrary. Some may find me crass to say this, but Gwyneth's death will mean higher ratings for
Hourglass.
At least initially. Just out of curiosity, more viewers will tune in than ever before. And we are going to capitalize on this opportunity.”

Someone coughed and broke the thick silence that engulfed the room. Laura wondered if the other people sitting there were as creeped out by what Joel was saying as she was. She shot a look in Matthew Voigt's direction. He was staring intently at Joel, but didn't look like any of this was bothering him.

“Every single person in this room is expected to do his or her part toward holding on to this new audience. I want us to move toward February sweeps forcefully. When the ratings are tallied next month, it is my goal not just to beat
60 Minutes,
but to have
Hourglass
command the highest advertising rates on TV.

“To this end and, of course, in Gwyneth's memory,
Hourglass
will be conducting its own investigation of Gwyneth Gilpatric's death. We should be ahead of the police. We
will
be ahead of the police. Viewers will look to us for the latest breaks in the case. And we
will not
disappoint them. Every week, we are going to have something new. Something nobody knows. Something the audience can't get from any other source.”

Joel nodded at his secretary. “Claire?” he prompted.

The secretary passed out sheets to those assembled. Laura scanned the written outline of the month's
Hourglass
shows. Joel expounded on what the staff was reading.

“First, our next show is just two days away. The audience is going to watch just because it is the first show without Gwyneth. Eliza Blake, who, of course, will continue anchoring
KEY Evening Headlines,
will, for the foreseeable future, be taking Gwyneth's place as
Hourglass
anchor. At the end of this week's broadcast, we will promise to have exclusive new information on the case in next week's show.”

“Shouldn't we be absolutely sure we can deliver on our promise before we make it?” someone asked bravely.

Joel shot the questioner a withering look. “We already have our exclusive, but I'm not going to divulge what it is at this time. In the weeks that follow, however, I'm expecting this staff to come up with new material for our continuing investigation.”

Laura's stomach was in knots. What had she gotten herself into by coming here? She wished she could make herself invisible as she felt Joel's eyes bearing down on her.

“Before we break up here, everybody, I'd like to introduce, to those of you who don't know her already, Laura Walsh.”

Everyone turned to stare at Laura and she felt her face flush.

“Laura comes to us from the Bulletin Center, where, I might add, she—amazingly—had Gwyneth's obit ready to go. I expect Laura's prescience and industry to be of great benefit to
Hourglass.
Welcome aboard, Laura.”

Welcome, indeed.

48

D
ESPITE THE BITING
January wind, Homicide Detective Alberto Ortiz, his hands on his hips, stood with his overcoat wide open outside Gwyneth Gilpatric's apartment building on Central Park West. It was a bright, sunny winter afternoon and he stared up toward the top of the massive building, shuddering as he tried to imagine what the final moments of the famous anchorwoman's life must have been like as she sailed through the dark night to her violent death.

Ortiz was more and more certain that Gwyneth Gilpatric had not taken her own life. While the autopsy showed that she had been drinking, the study of her body showed signs of a struggle. There were marks on her upper arms and there was skin under her fingernails. DNA results were not back yet, but the detective felt sure that it would turn out that the skin was not Gilpatric's. Decades of experience told him that this was a homicide.

Ortiz had volunteered for New Year's Eve duty, covering for a younger detective who usually worked the overnight shift, but desperately wanted the holiday night off. The senior detective had been glad to do it. Divorced and with no one special in his life, he had no plans for that evening. He remembered what it had been like when he was a young cop, what a drag it was when Michael was young, to always work the holidays. It had taken a toll on their family life. Now Ortiz was just past his fiftieth birthday and his son was grown and out on his own, but he had seniority, the best shift, and he could get time off pretty much whenever he needed it.
Screwy system.

Ortiz's voluntary good deed had led to the biggest case of his career. When the call came in to the squad, Ortiz briefly felt sorry for the young guy who was out somewhere partying, but would find out in the morning that he had missed the opportunity of a lifetime. A case like this one made a career.

Ortiz was just a few years from retirement and he hoped this murder might be his defining legacy. He had a solid reputation, but he'd never had such a high-visibility case. He was determined to find out what had happened to Gwyneth Gilpatric, not only to feed his hungry midlife ego, but because he hoped Michael would be proud of him. Things between the two of them had not been good since the divorce. Ortiz knew that Michael blamed his father and the police work for the dissolution of his parents' marriage.

Patting back the wind-blown wisp of graying hair that remained on the top of his balding head, Detective Ortiz walked the last steps down the sidewalk to the entrance of the apartment building. He entered the lobby, identifying himself to the doorman, who called upstairs to announce his arrival.

“Go right up, sir.”

How some people live!
Ortiz marveled as the elevator doors opened onto the expansive foyer.
This hallway is bigger than my first apartment.

The large Christmas tree still stood eerily in the entrance hall. Gilpatric's maid, Delia Beehan, was halfway through taking down the luminescent ornaments. Packing boxes and tissue paper lay on the floor beneath the tree.

Wiping her hands on her apron, Delia greeted him. “Detective.”

“Miss Beehan. Thank you for making yourself available.” As he shook her cold hand, he thought he felt it trembling.

“We can talk in the living room if you'd like, sir.”

The detective followed her and took a seat at the edge of the large white down-stuffed sofa and briefly fantasized about lying down on it with a beer on a Sunday afternoon to watch the Giants game.
Heaven.

“I know you were very upset when we talked the night of the party, but I have a couple of things I hope you can help me with now, Miss Beehan.”

The maid nodded solemnly. “I'll try, sir.”