To Catch the Moon (31 page)

They all took seats on the upholstered chairs
and small sofa in Lovegrove’s corner office. The thought raced
across Milo’s mind that this must be what it felt like to be the
defendant in a court trial, though here Lovegrove served as both
judge and jury. Milo was his own defense counsel and no doubt
O’Malley would play the role of prosecuting attorney. It made Milo
think of Alicia Maldonado, whose opinion of him by now must be
rock-bottom low. At the moment, he couldn’t say he deserved
otherwise.

Lovegrove kicked off the proceedings. “Milo,
can you explain what happened yesterday?”

“I can explain it, Richard, but I won’t try
to excuse it.” He glanced at Cohen. “Knowing I would be on the West
Coast over New Year’s, Stan alerted me to the latest round of
terrorist warnings issued by the FBI and the Department of Homeland
Security. I have to admit that, given the history, I didn’t think
they would amount to much. In fact, Stan didn’t, either. He and I
discussed that.” Milo paused, and the older newsman nodded
agreement. “But I certainly understood that it is only when the
government takes a threat very seriously that it goes beyond
warning law-enforcement agencies and actually alerts the public.
And in this case, of course, the threat was directed not only at a
specific target but during a specific time frame.”

“The point is,” Cohen interrupted, “that I
told you I might need you. Who gives a shit how likely it was
whether I would or not? You agreed to make yourself available, so I
didn’t line up a fallback. I shouldn’t have needed one.”

Milo watched Stan Cohen struggle to control
his anger. Clearly he’d taken some heat for Milo’s failure to show.
Great
. Milo had few allies at WBS to begin with, and now
he’d turned the domestic news producer into an enemy.

“Again, Stan,” he said, “I will not try to
excuse my behavior—”

“You damn well better not.”

“Stan.” That warning came from Lovegrove, who
then turned again to Milo. “What exactly is the reason Stan
couldn’t reach you?”

Milo had decided in advance that he would
stick as close to the truth as possible but omit those details he
could avoid divulging. He’d vowed he would not outright lie, a
strategy born less of morality than pragmatism. He’d learned as a
teenager that an invented story invariably had holes.

“The reason,” he said, “is both simple and
inexcusable. I turned off my cell phone.”

“You turned off your cell phone.” O’Malley
repeated Milo’s words with obvious derision. “How did you expect to
be reached with your cell phone turned off?”

Milo could feel the back of his neck getting
hot but said nothing, judging it best not to joust with O’Malley.
If he started, he might not be able to stop. And if there was one
thing he had to do during this inquisition, it was to keep his
cool. If he could manage that, he might be able to keep his
job.

Giordano jumped in. “I take it you had a
social obligation New Year’s Eve, Milo?”

“I did.”

This was territory Giordano understood. His
“social obligations” at any given time consisted of a minimum of
two mistresses and his legal wife in the co-op on Park Avenue.

“And I imagine,” Giordano went on, “you did
not want to have the evening’s festivities interrupted?”

“Heaven forbid,” O’Malley cut in.

“I didn’t, but let me repeat, that is no
excuse.” Milo focused on Lovegrove, the man who more than anyone
else held Milo’s fate in his hands. “I understand my obligation to
make myself available whenever news events warrant. Particularly
when I say I’ll be available. I absolutely respect that obligation,
Richard,” he added, despite an audible snort from O’Malley’s
direction.

“As I see it,” Cohen said, “the problem is
that the entire system breaks down when correspondents aren’t where
I need them when I need them. This time I had to rely heavily on
affiliate reporters, and Farley was forced to hire a Lear to get
down to Pasadena from Sun Valley. That took time and it cost
money.”

For a moment, Milo remained silent.
I am
so hosed
, he thought. He had the most pathetic excuse in the
world. The only weaker excuse would be the unvarnished truth.
Well, guys, I don’t know what to tell you, but the woman I slept
with New Year’s Eve, who happens to be the widow of the guy whose
murder case I’m covering, turned off my cell phone because she
wanted to make sure our sexual antics didn’t get
interrupted.

What could he do but reiterate his apologies?
“Again, Stan,” he said, “I’m sorry. Believe me, I know it was a
serious lapse of judgment to turn my cell phone off, but it
happened only once and it won’t happen again. You have my promise
on that.”

A ripple of discomfort ran through the room,
though Milo noted O’Malley didn’t seem to participate. Lovegrove
crossed his arms over his chest and frowned, Giordano examined the
ceiling, and Cohen noisily cleared his throat.

It was Lovegrove who broke the silence, with
a comment that both confused and unnerved Milo. “If this were the
first time I’m sure we’d all be looking at this differently.” Then
he pressed his intercom button. “Rachel, have McCutcheon and Nguyen
arrived?”

Mac and Tran? Milo struggled not to show his
shock. What were they doing here? Clearly they were surprise
witnesses, summoned to court to blow the case wide open, but to
what transgression could they testify? Then Milo remembered, and
his heart sank.

The two walked in—Tran shuffled, really—and
Milo felt a surge of guilt at being the sort of correspondent who
forced his crew into playing snitch. He rose to greet them, shaking
their hands in turn. Tran wouldn’t meet his eyes. Mac shot him a
look that reflected such a complex brew of emotions Milo couldn’t
immediately parse them, and wasn’t sure he wanted to. Anger?
Disappointment? Disdain?

Mac and Tran claimed the last two empty
seats. The workmen of the news business, they were outfitted in LL
Bean cords and flannel shirts. To Milo’s eyes they looked strangely
bereft without their gear.

Lovegrove cleared his throat. “I wanted Mac
and Tran here today because Robert believes they can shed some
light on the situation, given an incident last weekend.” He shifted
his eyes to O’Malley. “Robert?”

Here it comes
, Milo thought. He felt
as if he were on a jetliner that had gone into a death spiral. He
was powerless to save himself. The only question was how painful
the end would be.

O’Malley clearly was trying to look somber,
but to Milo his glee was evident. “Last Saturday, Milo, you were
scheduled for a 9 AM flight out of San Jose down to San Diego. For
a
Newsline
shoot.” O’Malley turned to Mac. “Tell us what
happened, Mac.”

Mac shifted on the small sofa. He looked down
at the carpet, where Tran, too, was staring. “Milo missed the
flight,” he said. “For a while we couldn’t reach him.”

“Did you know where he was?” O’Malley
asked.

Mac hesitated, then, “We knew he wasn’t in
his hotel room.”

Milo jumped in. “I did miss the flight, but I
caught the next one and we finished our shoot with no problem.”

“Yes.” Tran looked up. “The interview went
fine. We had no problems.”

Milo shot Tran a grateful look but O’Malley
went on as if Tran hadn’t spoken. He pulled what Milo could see was
a
Newsline
location log from a sheaf of papers and displayed
it in Milo’s direction. “After the shoot, you immediately flew back
to the Monterey Peninsula, didn’t you, Milo?”

“Of course I did. Because Treebeard was being
arraigned.”

“Oh, so that’s the reason?” A malevolent
light gleamed in O’Malley’s dark eyes. “Where do you stay while
you’re in town, by the way?”

“I don’t believe that’s any of our concern—”
Giordano began, but O’Malley cut him off.

“It sure as hell is if it affects whether or
not he makes call times.”

Lovegrove raised his hands. “All right,
gentlemen.”

But O’Malley wouldn’t let up. This time he
looked at Tran. “You knew where Milo was when he missed the San
Jose flight, didn’t you?”

Tran said not one word. The silence deepened,
lengthened, like a stream of water strengthening into a creek. Milo
felt a fresh surge of hatred for O’Malley at that moment. O’Malley
knew full well that Tran felt a profound loyalty to WBS, the
network that had lifted him out of a ravaged Vietnam thirty years
before. Tran would not willingly betray a correspondent, yet his
deeper loyalty lay with the network.

“Tran?” Lovegrove asked, and Milo felt a
looming dread.

Tran looked up, his features stony. “I didn’t
know where he was.”

“But you suspected,” O’Malley said.

“That’s enough,” Milo said. “Stop badgering
him, Robert. I’ll tell you where I was, since you’re so all-fired
interested in knowing. I was in Joan Gaines’ suite in Pebble
Beach.”

For a second there was silence, though Milo
could swear he heard the words
Pretty-boy Pappas!
ricochet
off Lovegrove’s creamy office walls. O’Malley looked around the
room as if trying to assess the impact of this sordid revelation.
To Milo he seemed almost grotesquely excited to see his pretty-boy
characterization take such solid and irrefutable form. But little
reaction was visible on any man’s face, which worried Milo even
more. Apparently he was past the point of surprising anyone with
anything he did.

“You were with her New Year’s Eve, too,
weren’t you, Milo?” O’Malley asked. “And you turned your cell phone
off because you didn’t want your little soiree to get cut
short.”

“Joan and I are old friends,” Milo went on,
though his words sounded hollow and pathetic even to his own ears.
“We’ve known each other for a long time.”

“Her husband was killed on December
twentieth, isn’t that right?” O’Malley said. “And you stayed
overnight in her suite exactly one week later? You must be old
friends.”

“That’s enough, Robert.” Lovegrove’s tone was
sufficiently stern that O’Malley actually did shut up. Then Milo
felt Lovegrove’s gaze come to rest on him. He had the strange sense
that the verdict—or was it the ax?—was about to come down.

Lovegrove seemed to weigh his words
carefully. Through the double-glazed windows, Milo heard the wail
of sirens. An emergency somewhere else in Manhattan. Milo wondered
whether it, too, was self-induced.

Finally Lovegrove spoke. “I’m giving you one
more chance,” he said, and for several seconds Milo was so grateful
he couldn’t speak.

Stunning. Unbelievable. He wasn’t getting
fired. He would come out of this after all. Finally he found his
voice. “Thank you, Richard. I very much appreciate it. Thank
you.”

“But make no mistake,” Lovegrove went on,
“this is your last chance. While I agree with Al that generally
speaking it is not the network’s business how our correspondents
conduct their personal lives, you’re on shaky ground here. Your
focus should be covering the murder trial, yet your involvement
with the victim’s widow has caused you to go AWOL twice in one
week.” He paused. “Would you rather I removed you from the
story?”

“No, Richard,” he heard himself say, “I would
rather stay on it,” and he knew every executive in that office was
relieved to hear that answer. They all craved the ratings draw of
the love triangle.

Lovegrove nodded. “Fine. But until this story
is wrapped, I want you to maintain an arm’s-length relationship
with Mrs. Gaines. After that, what you do is your business. But
make no mistake, I don’t want any behavior on your part to give
even the appearance of a conflict of interest.”

“I understand, sir.”

“You should be adhering to a high standard of
ethical behavior, Milo. You’re one of the news division’s most
visible faces. I would even go so far as to say you’re one of its
most beloved personalities. You should be above reproach.”

Milo nodded. He agreed. And thank God he was
a “beloved personality,” as Lovegrove put it, because that was the
only thing that had kept his ass from getting canned. There was
some value after all to being WBS’s stud correspondent, beefcake
disguised as a reporter, who brought in the female demographics
Newsline
needed to stay on top.

“Milo,” Lovegrove said, “I mean it when I say
this is your last warning. If there is one more mistake, of any
kind, you will be out of this network. Do we understand one
another?”

“We do, sir. Thank you.” And with that Milo
rose, shook Lovegrove’s hand, nodded at everyone else, and walked
out of the office. He was saved, but only just.

If ever there were a case where it made
sense to do a plea bargain
, Alicia thought,
this is
it
.

The red numerals on her digital desk clock
read 4:10 PM. It was Monday afternoon. Outside her office, January
sun poked feebly through the overcast sky, a laughable antidote to
the frigid air whistling down Alisal Street. Commuters tromped
noisily past Alicia’s window, bundled against the chill. No doubt
they hoped their buses for once would be on time and not leave them
exposed on the corner, where their foot stomping would be a
staccato counterpoint to Alicia’s thoughts.

Uppermost among those was Theodore Owens III,
the likely plea bargain, and her immediate problem.

She squinted into the middle distance, her
mind reviewing what she had learned in the twenty-five minutes
she’d allotted his case so far. She was heavily reliant on the
police report on this one, which she hated. Sure, most cops did a
good job, but they were wildly overworked and tended to draw quick
conclusions from sketchy evidence. Usually they got everything
right but not always, which was why Alicia liked to do some of the
footwork herself. But in this case what choice did she have? She
was “balls-out,” as Penrose liked to say, on Treebeard, leaving her
almost no time or energy for anything else. Let alone a case that
screamed both misdemeanor and deal.