Speak Ill of the Living by Mark Arsenault Page B

asked.
    Eddie kept his eyes on the keyboard. “Deadline makes me deaf.” He typed some more, and then added: “This place is peaceful compared to the newsroom I used to work in.”
    â€œOh yeah, you worked for
The Empire
, man, that rag.”
    Eddie finished a final sentence, and then cracked, “I was young, I needed the money.” He smiled and handed Bobby the modem cord.
    After he transmitted his story, Eddie relaxed with coffee and a rumpled newspaper left behind by an earlier customer. It was the current edition of
The Second Voice
, gamely reporting the reappearance of Roger Lime, a week after every other paper in America had the story. Lew Cuhna had run the photograph the kidnappers had released, under the double-decked banner:
    Thought to be Murdered Last Spring Bank President Held for Ransom
    The story was a week late, but at least Cuhna had used his own byline on it, and had done a competent job with the writing.
    The noon news was starting on TV.
    â€œCould you turn this up, Bobby?” Eddie asked. “That’s my competition.”
    Eddie had little tolerance for local TV news, and the noon broadcasts were usually the worst. The TV anchormodel teased the rehashed material from the night before—a bar stabbing, a man who found his class ring twenty years after he had lost it down the toilet, and the Red Sox rain-out in Texas. Then she began a breathless reading of the morning’s one fresh story:

    Local coroner Dr. Alvin Crane was found dead at his home this morning, the victim of an apparent suicide. Crane has come under fire in the past week over his misidentification of the skeletal remains of kidnapped financier Roger Lime…
    Bobby Perez pointed to the TV. “This your story, Eddie?”
    â€œYeah, but they don’t have half the material I have. They’ll be updating their six-o’clock report with my exclusive stuff.”

    Sources close to the investigation say that evidence found at the scene suggests that the doctor was despondent about his mistaken work on the Lime case, and perhaps other cases going back forty years…
    Eddie clapped his hands on his head.
    How did TV news get that info?
    Eddie was the only reporter to read the note.
    Lieutenant Brill!
    He knew Eddie was about to break the story, so he leaked Eddie’s scoop.

    Dr. Crane was pronounced dead at the scene, after a local freelance journalist, Edward Bourque, discovered his body while at the house to ask Crane for an interview…And now a check of the weather…
    Eddie was slack jawed. Most reporters despised becoming part of a story. Those who didn’t became columnists. Eddie had never wanted a column. If Eddie became too closely identified with the death of Dr. Crane, no news organization with any ethics would pay him to write about the case.
    Bobby grinned and slapped Eddie on the shoulder. “You’re famous, man. So you found him, huh? And the old man—he was dead?”
    Eddie frowned and then downed his coffee. He thought about the noise he had heard at Dr. Crane’s place. His palms grew damp reliving the feeling of Crane’s skin, the fading warmth left behind by a life that had hastily departed.
    â€œYeah, he was dead, all right,” Eddie grumbled, “though just barely.”

Chapter 6
    Eddie’s
Washington Post
was a mess again in the morning, parts of it missing. He made a mental note to call the delivery service. He often made mental notes about trivial items, and rarely followed up on them. He could never remember mental notes. For important stuff, he wrote real notes. A mental note was Eddie’s way of telling himself that an inconvenience wasn’t important enough to do something about. A few more days without the classified section, and he’d write himself a real note.
    General VonKatz was at Eddie’s feet, screaming about the dry kibble in his bowl.
    â€œI’ve got nothing to share,” Eddie told