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It wasn’t the media circus they had anticipated it would be. It was much worse. The streets around the police station and town hall were choked with satellite trucks. News organizations from CNN to the BBC to TMZ to PBS had set up temporary outposts in Paradise. Although Jesse had played a big part in unleashing the beast, even he was surprised by its appetite. He’d worked in L.A. and understood that people had a fascination with lost treasures, rumors, and celebrity, but Terry Jester wasn’t King Tut, nor was The Hangman’s Sonnet master tape the Dead Sea Scrolls. Yet just the possibility that the tape might resurface after forty years had created a feeding frenzy.

What surprised Jesse even more was the media’s apathy toward human life. No one at the press conference seemed to care about the fact that Hump Bolton had bled to death in a Southie bar or where King Curnutt’s body had been discovered. No one was interested in the fact that Maude Cain’s murder and Rudy Walsh’s assault were now closed cases. Maude Cain, Curnutt, Bolton, and Rudy Walsh had been reduced to sideshow status at the circus. They mattered only as adjuncts, as bit players in the drama of the tape. The press were far more interested in Jesse’s mention of the dragonfly ring and its pending return to the Cain Museum than they were in the lives and deaths Jesse described to the assembled crowd.

“No one ever lost a bet underestimating human decency,” Nita Thompson had said to Jesse at one point in the proceedings. “Believe me, I know. I work with politicians.”

Mayor Walker was nowhere in sight, of course. That was part of the deal Jesse had made with her. For her backing, allowing him to handle things his way, Jesse had agreed to be out front and to take the flak. But the mayor had sent Nita Thompson along to keep an eye on him and to protect her interests.

There were several questions about Evan Updike. Oh, the press was very interested in him, and that was great with Jesse.

“I don’t mind telling you that Mr. Updike seems to have vanished. The last best photo we have of him is from the mid-eighties. Here are some images we do have of him.” Photos, both black-and-white and color, appeared on a screen off to Jesse’s left. “These photos are downloadable off our website. Any help we receive from the public about his whereabouts is appreciated.”

After Updike’s images went up, there was finally some interest in Maude Cain, Curnutt, and Bolton. But most of the questions were hypotheticals. Why did Updike choose to do this now? When do you think the tape will finally resurface? Who actually owns the tape? Will Terry Jester come out of seclusion if the tape reappears?

When the press conference was finally winding down, cell phones began ringing, trilling, and buzzing. Even the reporter asking the question stopped midsentence to check her phone. Jesse looked back at Nita Thompson, who shrugged. Jesse, not prone to overreaction, got a sick feeling in his gut remembering how all the cell phones in the room had gone off simultaneously in the immediate wake of the Boston Marathon bombing.

“Okay,” he said. “Someone tell me what’s going on.”

Several of the correspondents turned their phones around to face the lectern, but it was impossible for Jesse to make out what they were showing him. It was only when Ed Selko stepped up to the microphones and handed Jesse his phone that he finally understood. He felt a great sense of relief at what he was shown. There were no explosions, no bodies, no sirens, no panic. On Selko’s screen was an image of a metal reel. On top of the metal reel was a crinkled piece of masking tape, and on the masking tape, written in very faded black marker, were with the words THE HANGMAN’S SONNET MASTER.

Jesse turned to Nita Thompson and said, “It won’t be long now.”

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