Charm City

Chapter 26

Tess ended up staying at Colleen Reganhart's until dawn broke. She had postponed leaving after Whitney's exit, stalling to make sure there would be no awkward encounters at the elevator, or on the street. Then, just when she thought it was safe to go, Colleen began retching. Her old college instincts kicked in; it was inhuman to leave someone alone in that condition. Fortunately, tending to Esskay had inured Tess to cleaning up after others. It was almost refreshing to deal with a mess that required nothing more than paper towels and some Lysol.

She sponged off the sofa and Colleen's face, then helped her upstairs, to a bedroom as barren as the rooms below-a bed, a nightstand, and several stacks of newspapers. At least the plain white sheets felt expensive, and the duvet was real goose down. She tucked Colleen in, positioning a plastic wastebasket next to the bed, then went downstairs and made a pot of coffee, resigned to a long night. Luckily, Old Mother Reganhart's cupboard was not quite bare-she had a pound of Jamaican Blue coffee and ten packs of Merits in the freezer, an almost empty carton of half-and-half in the refrigerator, and an economy-size box of microwave popcorn on the counter.

Tess passed on the popcorn, finishing off the Milanos while reading one of Colleen's books, a collection of Molly Ivins columns. The Blight had never run the tart Texan's work, their loss. "Too funny and too smart about politics," Whitney had explained. "Women pundits are supposed to be uterus-centric. Besides, the problem with funny women is that the next joke might be about penis size, and we just can't have that, can we?"

She smiled in spite of herself, wondering how long Whitney's voice would live in her head, how many more times she would think of something funny or trenchant, then realize the observation belonged to Whitney. Maybe it was a good thing Whitney had sold her soul, throwing a couple others in for good measure, to get the Tokyo job. Baltimore was too small a town to hold two friends who couldn't be friends anymore.

"Any coffee for me?"

Colleen's voice had the rough-hewn rasp one would expect from someone who had been on both sides of a tequila bottle in the last twelve hours, but it was otherwise pleasant. Tess found a Beacon-Light mug in the sink, rinsed it out, and poured her a cup.

"I'm afraid I used the last of the half-and-half."

"That's okay, I take mine black." Cory gulped the coffee as if it were medicine she had to force down. "Where's Talbot? She contract this job out to you?"

"She left first and I was about to leave, but you-you weren't feeling very well. I thought someone should stay here, in case you did an Edgar Allan Poe. Although they say he died from rabies now, not in a drunken stupor."

"Kind of you," Colleen said, in a tone that made clear she didn't necessarily respect kindness. "But I don't remember much about last night, except for the quitting part. That was fun."

"Whitney said you threatened Lionel Mabry, too."

"Threatened him? All I did was rattle off a series of large, ungainly objects I wanted to insert into a particular orifice. I'm sure Lionel was shocked, but I doubt he actually feared for his life."

"You might be able to take your resignation back, under the circumstances."

"I don't want to. Better to leave now than wait until Lionel forces me out. The Washington Post has been flirting with me, maybe I can consummate the deal with them before word leaks out about my protégé's spectacular fall. I wouldn't be a managing editor, but I'd still be moving up, and on."

Colleen's face was streaked with make-up, her black hair still had traces of dipping sauce on the ends, and her red wool dress was so creased and stained that it was beyond the help of any dry cleaner. Yet she looked happy, as if giving up the fight for her job was a relief. She had been so lost inside protecting her position that she had lost sight of her other options. It was like watching a blind person recovering her sight.

"I guess I'll head on home."

"People are going to think you had a much more interesting night than you did," Colleen said, gesturing at Tess's Saturday night date garb. "Hey-did I say anything when I was out last night?"

"No, except for several exhortations for me to fuck myself."

"Did I…ask for anyone?"

"Whitney said you asked to speak to me, but you were beyond speaking when I showed up." Tess picked up the empty half-and-half container, shaking it in front of Colleen before pitching it into the trash. "But a black coffee drinker who keeps a carton of this around obviously has someone in her life."

"Could be for cooking," Colleen ventured.

"Sure, it makes a great sauce for microwave popcorn."

Colleen narrowed her eyes at Tess. "You are a pretty good little detective-even if you never did figure out who put that story in the newspaper."

"Everyone assumes Rosita did it."

"I know she didn't."

"How can you be so sure?"

Colleen opened the freezer and pulled out a fresh pack of cigarettes, bending over a burner on her gas stove to light one. A crack addict couldn't have looked much more blissed out at first puff.

"Because I did." Another drag, another little orgasmic sigh. But she obviously enjoyed Tess's dismay even more than she enjoyed the nicotine.

"You're the managing editor, why would you have to stoop to such a cheap trick? You call the shots down there."

"You'd think so, wouldn't you? But Five-Four wanted to kill the story, and Lionel was willing to do what was necessary to make Five-Four happy. They thought it was bad PR if we derailed the deal. Five-Four actually said as much to me. ‘We don't want to be a bad corporate citizen.' Total Chamber of Commerce mentality. And Sterling was no help, he was such a sanctimonious shit about the whole thing. ‘Don't you believe in redemption, Colleen? Don't you believe men can change?' As a matter of fact, I don't. Look, I'm sorry Wink offed himself, but we did the right thing. The people have-"

"Please don't say ‘right to know,' or it might be my turn to vomit."

"Well, they do," Colleen said defensively. "The taxpayers were going to end up paying for this, they always do. Jesus, how many more sports teams is this town going to crawl into bed with? Doing the wave while Baltimore burns. As if four-dollar hot dogs sold by someone making three-fifty an hour could save the local economy."

Tess wasn't really listening to Colleen. Her mind was back at the Blight, at Dorie Starnes's elbow as she led Tess through the process, showing her how the trickery had been accomplished. The story was overset, so the last five lines had to be cut. And then there was Leslie Brainerd, complaining peevishly about his editor. "He cut it from the bottom."

Of course.

"I should have known it was an editor from the beginning. You bit the story from the bottom to make it fit. No reporter would do that to his own copy, not even Rosita. And you kept trying to fire me because you were worried I might figure it out if I stayed around long enough."

Colleen suddenly wasn't so chummy. "That's a cute line of reasoning, but it won't prove anything, and I'll say you're a liar if you tell anyone. Besides, there's a confidentiality clause, remember?"

"That can't keep me from going to Sterling, or Lionel Mabry."

"Lionel won't care-he just got two troublesome females off his staff for the price of one." Tess hadn't thought about that. Could Lionel be even more devious than she suspected? "As for Sterling, he'll be too busy moving into my office to worry about how it happened."

Colleen sipped her coffee, obviously quite pleased with herself. This had not been an accidental confession in a moment of weakness and vulnerability, Tess realized. Nor had it been a secret gnawing away at her. Colleen just wanted the last word, a final triumph over Tess.

"Don't you even feel guilty that your do-it-yourself Page One indirectly ended Rosita's career, while you'll be able to bounce back without a mark?"

Colleen laughed. "If I had any talent for self-reflection, I would have quit this business long ago."

There was one person who would care. Two, possibly-Tess felt close enough to Sterling to know he would be interested in the truth, even if he couldn't change anything that had happened. But it didn't seem particularly urgent that she tell him. He was a smart man. He probably knew how ruthless Colleen was, and how shrewd Lionel was, if not every specific detail of their various manipulations.

But there was someone else who really needed to know, or wanted to, someone she could tell without breaching the confidentiality clause. Tess allowed herself a catnap, then drove to the Beacon-Light's offices. Her pass was still good, although it didn't matter, as the security system was on the fritz again. The security guard had simply left the door propped open, then disappeared.

Even on a Sunday morning, system manager Dorie Starnes was in her office, tapping away.

"You want something?" she asked, refusing to look up from the monitor. "I thought your work was done here. I've already cleaned out your computer files."

"It wasn't Rosita who pulled off the computer stunt that got the Wink story in the paper. Colleen Reganhart did it. She told me so herself, then told me she'd never admit it to anyone else. She's planning to leave here for another job, so I guess she figures she doesn't have anything to lose."

"Really?" The tempo of Dorie's tapping changed. It was more frenzied now, more purposeful. "Oh dear. I just accidentally erased what appeared to be Colleen Reganhart's résumé from her personal directory. And there goes her computer rolodex. Dear me. I do hope she had back-ups, but I have a feeling she never heeded all my warnings about securing files. Aw, wouldn't you know? I printed out all her messages by mistake, including some from Guy Whitman. ‘Doggie style?' I don't know what that could be about. Oh, and I printed their messages out on every darn printer in the building, too. They'll probably get mixed up in the daily budgets." She shook her head in mock disappointment. "Dorie, Dorie, Dorie, you are such a butterfingers."

So Whitman was Mr. Half-and-Half. "How long have they been having an affair?"

"Off and on since she came here. Every now and then, she catches him sniffing around someone else and they break up in a flurry of e-mail. But he always comes back. He has to-she's the boss."

"Was he sleeping with Rosita, too? She alluded to some impropriety when they fired her, and Colleen assumed it was Whitman."

"What do you think I do, spend my entire day spying on people?"

"Exactly. Especially if you suspect someone of messing around with your precious system. I bet you turned Rosita's files inside out, looking for clues."

"Touché." Dorie's pronunciation was flawless this time. "But if Rosita was carrying on with Guy, she didn't leave a trail. She was pretty cagey all around, I admit. I erased her electronic files after they fired her Friday. They were indecipherable-no names, no phone numbers. I couldn't make heads or tails of 'em. And there's nothing to retrieve from the hard drive, not that I can find."

"I guess when you're making it up, it's better to keep things a little vague. Are there still copies of her notes in the system?"

"Our procedures clearly state that stuff goes to the trash. It's long gone. Why would you want to see them, anyway?"

"Curious, I guess. I'd like to know if she really did have any leads on Wink's death, or if she was backpedaling to save her job."

Dorie reached into the collar of her Ravens sweatshirt and pulled out a long chain with a small key on the end, which she used to unlock the bottom file cabinet. Tess glimpsed dozens of manila folders, bursting with documents. Dorie pulled one out, then slammed the drawer shut.

"I made printouts," she said. "Force of habit. If they ever come for me, I'll know how to keep my job."

"I didn't know they taught blackmail at Merganthaler Vo-Tech."

"Let's just say I acquired some real-life skills that I wouldn't trade for a Harvard MBA."

Tess handed Dorie one of her business cards. "Let's keep in touch. I have a feeling you might have skills that might come in handy."

Dorie scanned the card into her computer, then tore it into fourths and dropped it in the wastebasket.

"Paper is so dangerous," she explained.