Six Seconds

33

Washington, D.C.

Kate Morrow knew things about Ray Tarver. And she wanted to tell Graham but was uneasy about it.

Afraid, almost.

He’d sensed it as they talked at the Washington

Bureau of the World Press Alliance wire service where

Tarver had worked. Graham was there to see Tarver’s reporter friends, like Morrow, a lifestyles writer, who’d sat beside him.

“Ray loved Anita and those kids,” she said. “They were his world.”

“I understand.”

“Under his tough-guy skin, he was actually a teddy bear.” She smiled. “He used to give me gum every day.” “Gum?”

“Bubble gum. He’d give it to me around deadline.

Used to say chewing gum kept you focused. Ray was a gum-chewer.”

Morrow’s gaze shifted beyond their small glasswalled meeting room to the newsroom and the people working before computer terminals at desks heaped with outdated newspapers, reports, press releases and takeout coffee cups.

“The guys here had written Ray off as a conspiracy junkie, a kook,” she said.

“Is that what you think, too?”

“He was a good reporter.” She let a moment pass.

“When I heard what happened in the mountains, when the story moved on the wire, I was shattered. It was so sad because Ray had just slipped away from us. It left me with a lot of questions.”

“Such as?”

Morrow searched in vain for the answer. Something was eating her up. It was in her body language, how she avoided meeting Graham’s eyes, kept twisting her bracelet chain, adjusting her glasses and clearing her throat.

“Ms. Morrow, is there something about Ray that you think I should know?”

She didn’t answer.

“Ms. Morrow-” Graham dropped his voice “-do you think someone may have wanted to harm Ray because of the stories he pursued?”

She looked at him.

“It was a boating accident, right?” she asked. “That’s what the Canadian reporters who called us for com ments had said.”

“It looks like a boating accident, but the cause of death is unclassified. What do you think, given what you know of Ray?”

“Me?” She blinked back tears. “What do I know? I write about embassy parties, diplomats, diets, decor.”

Six Seconds 217

“You said he was a good reporter. What happened to make him leave?”

“He was always chasing leads, protecting sources. Always guarded about his secret work on big stories. Some people thought he was odd and teased him about aliens, grand doomsday plots, Hoffa, Elvis. It was cruel, but by the end so many of the stories he’d promised had fallen through. He was under a lot of pressure from the editors to produce something until finally he quit to freelance.”

“And that was the last time you had contact with him?”

A long silence passed before Morrow slowly shook her head.

“Tell me about your last contact with him after he’d quit.”

“Ray wanted help.”

“What kind of help?”

“Freelancing means you don’t get a regular paycheck and you do expensive research on your own dime. Ray wanted me to use my access to our databases, to run searches of names for him through our story archives, information databases, voter lists, property, addresses, like that.”

“When was this?”

“Four, maybe five months ago. I’m not sure.”

“Did you help him?”

“You’ve got to keep this confidential.”

“I will.”

“Yes, but I got scared. My searches were flagged. Editors questioned the costs, suggested my research was off my beat. Then they issued a bureau-wide memo about costs, hinting at budget cuts, staff layoffs. Our company is losing money. My husband’s a local TV producer who just got laid off. My mother lives with us. She’s very ill and I’m not covered for all her treatment. I could not risk my job, so I told Ray I couldn’t help him anymore.”

“How did he react?”

“He begged me to help him just a bit longer, started telling me about the story he was working on, swore me to secrecy.”

“What was the story?”

“Something about some new secret weapon being developed by some Middle East extremists, or some thing.”

“Did he have any details?”

“None really. It made no sense at all. It started to sound like another one of his cloak-and-dagger esca pades, then-” Morrow twisted her ring. “He asked if he could borrow money. It was terrible. I thought he was losing it and told him to go to the Post or the Times. I told him to get a job and take care of his family. That’s the last thing I said to him.”

Morrow cupped her hands to her face.

“And now, I think of those sweet kids, Anita and him.” Morrow glanced toward the empty desk where Tarver used to sit. “I’m sorry. This is hard for me. I’ve got a lot on my plate right now and I can’t do this anymore, please.”

Graham left her with his thanks and his card.

Morrow was the last reporter he needed to see. While leaving, he was stopped by a tall man in a tailored suit and bow tie.

“You must be the mounted police officer from Canada.”

“Yes.”

“Will Blair. I saw you talking to the others about Tarver. I’m sorry I missed you but I had to step out. I’d be happy to help you.”

“Great, you want to go somewhere?”

“Now’s not good for me. I’m meeting a senator. I suggest you come to the Wandering Eye tonight around seven. I’ll get you an address.”

“The Wandering Eye?”

“It’s the church we attend religiously for spiritual renewal. To others, it’s a bar.”

Graham spent the afternoon in his hotel room making calls and writing up interview notes. Then he checked with Calgary for any developments. Tarver’s body had still not been located and the search operation was winding down.

In the cab to the bar, he considered the case as he looked out at Washington’s landmarks. Was he crazy to think the Tarver tragedy was anything more than a wil derness accident involving the family of an oddball reporter who believed in conspiracies?

Was he compensating for losing Nora?

Glancing up at the Washington Monument, he set his doubts next to the facts: Ray’s missing laptop, the stranger, the notation of Blue Rose Creek and Emily Tarver’s last words.

Don’t hurt my daddy.

Should he ignore those circumstances?

Graham wasn’t sure. He wasn’t sure about anything as he stepped from the cab. The bar was northwest of Dupont Circle at the edge of Georgetown. Richard Nixon greeted him from the poster on the wall of the bar’s entrance.

Looked like a news shot from his resignation address.

Watergate.

Started out as a far-fetched story no one believed, Graham thought before he heard his rank followed by his name.

“Corporal Graham, please join us.”

Three of the reporters he’d met earlier-Al Sallard, Michael Finch and Will Blair, his bow tie undone- were ensconced in a large cushioned, high-backed booth.

“Where’s Kate Morrow?” Graham settled in.

“Working late. Couldn’t make it.” Finch, who cov ered the White House, sat up. “So tell us, sir, why aren’t you wearing red and a Stetson?”

“And where’s your horse?” Sallard winked. “You’re supposed to be mounted. I bet women like that phrase.”

Graham smiled at the forest of empty glasses on the table and explained that the red serge and Stetson were largely ceremonial. For the most part, Mounties pa trolled in cars and wore daily uniforms, or detectives wore plain clothes, like most major forces.

“But you always get your man, that’s your motto?” Finch asked.

“No, that’s Hollywood’s motto. Just ginger ale for me,” Graham told the waitress. “Our company line is, ‘Maintain the Right.’”

“So you learn enough about the sad case of our friend Ray?” Sallard said.

“I think I’m getting a picture.”

As the evening progressed, the reporters colored that picture.

They told Graham that Tarver was a loner obsessed with phantom conspiracy stories culled from tips, rumors and wild theories gathered from other likeminded reporters-“they must have a club”-and dis credited intelligence officers around the world. Trouble was, Ray’s work consisted of more theories than facts. It reached a head when editors suspected he was exag gerating his claims to the point of near fabrication so that he could secure a book deal.

A publisher’s fact-checker had called the bureau after Ray submitted an outline and a few chapters, propos ing some blockbuster on harvesting human organs. That led to a review of some of Ray’s previous news stories and more questions. That led to trouble.

Ray was forced to quit. That was the real story.

“It’s so damn tragic,” Finch said, “because Ray Tarver used to be a great reporter, a helluva digger before he lost it and became a newsroom joke.”

“What do you mean, he’d become a joke?”

“We called him, ‘What’s-The-Frequency-Ray?’” Blair said. “You know, it comes from what the nut job in New York had asked Dan Rather. Something like, ‘Kenneth, what’s the frequency?’ just before he attacked him.”

The evening evolved into a eulogy of sorts as they toasted and traded Tarver stories, like the one where he was convinced the Russian Mafia controlled the White House.

Or, how about the time Tarver was trying to infiltrate a cult and had the bureau install a special secret phone line so he could pose as a lost soul. “Yes, brother, like the Good Book says, I believe in the power and the glory,” Sallard bellowed.

Then there was the one about blood-drinking Sa tanists who were burying sacrifice victims under fresh graves and how Tarver drove all over half a dozen states chasing hillbilly sources who were playing him for free beer, burgers and cigarettes as he helped them dig holes in cemeteries looking for evidence.

That’s how much of the night went with Graham as sessing their regard for Tarver and its significance to his case until his cell phone went off around 11:30 p.m.

The number was blocked.

He excused himself and took it privately.

“Corporal, this is Kate Morrow. I need to talk to you some more about Ray.”

“Okay, want to set up a time for the morning?”

“No, I’d prefer to meet you tonight. Privately. No one must know. It’s about the last story he was working on.”

“What about it?”

“I didn’t tell you everything.”