The First Victim

CHAPTER 48

She signed off the same way each day: ‘‘This is Stevie McNeal for William Cutler and all of the News Four at Five team. Have a good evening. Thanks for joining us. Stay safe.’’ By the end of any broadcast Studio A’s initial chill was tempered by the heat thrown from the dozens of overhead lights and the staggering assemblage of sophisticated electronics. The weather in the fake skyline behind the anchor desk never changed, nor did the time of day, suspending viewers in the rare Seattle sunset that sustained thirty miles visibility. The news repeated itself, the 3 Ds: death, disease, disaster. On that day the lead story concerned Klein’s death-her ‘‘questionable suicide,’’ as told by Stevie McNeal, who had witnessed the incident first-hand. Billy-Bob Cutler, with his upright, Eagle Scout look, covered a scandal at the convention center concerning catering overcharges.

Two weeks since she’d seen Melissa alive.

‘‘Clear!’’ the floor director called out sharply. ‘‘We’re black in five, four, three. . We’re out. Thank you everyone!’’

Two weeks. In some ways it felt like yesterday; it felt like years.

Billy-Bob jumped up from his chair like a quarterback breaking from the huddle. He removed his audio gear and headed straight for the exit-for a beer with his public-pats on the back on his way out.

Stevie could have removed her mike herself, but in no hurry to go anywhere, she waited for the soundman. Two weeks. Where? Why? She hadn’t left the studio all day, in part out of a concern for security, in part because of the endless meetings. Management-hoping to protect their investment, no doubt-wanted two bodyguards assigned. Stevie wanted her independence, arguing that the break-in had been coincidental and was unrelated to Klein’s death and the events surrounding her investigation; arguments that fell on deaf ears. A compromise was struck: Because she had already moved to the Four Seasons under a different name, hotel security would be provided. The police had called off the hallway guard. The station would beef up its security, something already built into the business plan, so that while she was inside KSTV she and everyone in the facility would be well protected. She was free to come and go of her own choosing-they encouraged use of the Town Car-as long as she notified security of her movements; she would carry a small GPS transmitter in her purse to identify her location at all times. In the unlikely event anything should happen to her, they would, at the very least, have a way to track her down.

These negotiations complete, the broadcast over, an entire day exhausted, she briefly settled into her office, intent to be out of there as quickly as possible and to a much needed sleep. She reviewed e-mail and phone messages. Her world crumbling, she looked around and wondered how long all this could last, how long her thirty-seven-year-old face would hold, how long her public and the station would want her. It was a vicious business. Careers were canceled with overnight ratings. Another new face was always waiting. And whereas men would work broadcasts well into their fifties and sixties, women rarely stayed in front of the camera past forty.

When she caught sight of Brian Coughlie in the control room talking to Corwin, her heart fluttered, and her first childish instinct was to hide so that he couldn’t find her. Next, terror struck her. Following her questioning by Boldt, she suspected Coughlie’s involvement, either with the importation of illegals or even possibly the deaths and Melissa’s disappearance. It had not occurred to her that with his credentials he could gain access to the station without question. She didn’t want him here. She wanted nothing to do with him!

A moment later, he stepped into her office.

Coughlie arrived at the unscheduled meeting with McNeal hoping either to scare her into seclusion and force her to withdraw from her story, or to convince her to share the VHS videotapes that Melissa had shot from the van. Her disappearance or murder would bring the national media spotlight onto the case, and he couldn’t bear up under that kind of scrutiny. He would be discovered. He hoped at the very least to reinforce his authority and stay on top of her and of what she knew.

As directed, he sat down onto a colorful chintz couch while she lightly sponged off her cosmetics in a brightly lit mirror.

‘‘I heard about the break-in,’’ he said.

‘‘I don’t appreciate unannounced visitors. At my apartment, or here at the station.’’

‘‘I’m not here as a visitor. I’m here as a federal agent,’’ he announced. ‘‘I’m here to warn you who you’re playing with.’’

‘‘To warn me? First Klein, then my own apartment, and you’re going to warn me?’’ she asked incredulously.

‘‘Offering the reward was a mistake. Maybe you meant to punish the police by flooding them with calls-you were upset over this digital tape. But instead, you put yourself at the center of it.’’

‘‘The gloves are off.’’

‘‘I hear the first officer on the scene was LaMoia,’’ he said, restructuring his line of attack. ‘‘Let me ask you this: How does a sergeant end up the first cop on the scene at that hour of the night?’’

‘‘Meaning?’’

‘‘He should have been home in bed or downtown writing up paperwork on Klein. The police have you under surveillance. What else explains a sergeant being the first officer?’’

She processed all this and felt a sickening twist to her stomach, but she recovered quickly and maintained the offensive. She lied convincingly. ‘‘Of course they did. Following Klein, I requested twenty-four-hour protection. In a minute you’re going to tell me that you’ve been following me as well-and tapping my phones and bugging my apartment.’’

He tried to remain calm through this, but she took his blinking eyes as an indication of strained nerves. ‘‘It’s all one big conspiracy, right? The Chinese mob, or whoever’s behind this, has paid off everyone in law enforcement, and only the press is in the way of all this quietly disappearing from the public conscience. Is that about right?’’

‘‘You shouldn’t joke about such things,’’ he cautioned. ‘‘These people play tough.’’

‘‘Firsthand knowledge?’’

‘‘Absolutely.’’

‘‘Not hands-on knowledge, I hope.’’

‘‘You’re still joking? Are you aware of the size of the rock you’re attempting to roll over?’’

‘‘I’ll roll over any rock that I think is on top of Melissa. It’s too bad you don’t work for these people, because if you did I’d tell you to pass along to them to simply return Melissa. Give her back to me. She shows up alive on my doorstep and this story will tank so fast you wouldn’t believe it!’’ It seemed to her like a valid bargaining chip, one that he might even mistakenly believe.

‘‘Did they tell you about the raid on the chop shop?’’ he asked.

She stumbled. ‘‘Of course,’’ she lied again, working too long on her face. Her voice broke as she asked, ‘‘Does that mean what I think it means?’’

‘‘On the surface, it means her van was stolen and recovered, that’s all. In this city that would normally not constitute any kind of event. But given the rest of what we know, it holds all sorts of significance. I led that raid. The arrests were ours-federal. Chinese gang members, every last one. Connected to the illegals? Not that we’ll ever prove. But why did a gang-run chop shop have your friend’s van? Any guesses?’’

She couldn’t catch her breath. She tried brushing the spray out of her hair to cover her moment of paralysis. Two weeks. .

‘‘We won’t get squat out of any of them-guaranteed. In their world you rat, you die. Inside or out, it doesn’t matter. Rules are rules.’’

She swiveled in her chair and faced him. ‘‘Suggestions?’’

‘‘We need to join forces,’’ he suggested, not answering her. ‘‘SPD can’t help you with an illegals investigation. Have you figured that out yet? This chop shop? That was ours! They couldn’t get a warrant fast enough. That’s my point. We can move way faster than they can. We can and do take all sorts of liberties they can’t. You want to tap a pay phone? That’s us. Take them weeks to get a warrant like that. You want to raid a sweatshop? Where do you think they’ll turn? Right here,’’ he said. ‘‘We’ve got the probable cause and they don’t. Night and day, I’m telling you. You know what I think?’’ he asked, not allowing her a reply. ‘‘I think you and me should go into business together. We start with these videotapes and we work backward. I know that you probably think you’ve already done that, but we do this for a living! You want your friend back? We start there. That’s where we start.’’

Now she was without her usual stage makeup, and she felt that she looked much older. Her grim expression wedded with her exhaustion and grief to paint a picture of pain and impatience. She tore off the paper bib that protected her dress and crunched it into a ball that she held on to, so that her fist was tight and bloodless.

He announced, ‘‘I think you should turn the VHS tapes over to me and take a vacation. I’ll push to gain access to the digital tapes as well. You leave town for a while. Long enough for us to make it safe for you around here.’’ This, she decided, was an intentional emphasis. He was threatening her. He, too, had taken the gloves off.

‘‘And if I stay?’’

‘‘After what you’ve been through?’’ he asked. ‘‘Who can protect someone that well? You don’t know these people like I do. These gang members are worthless excuses for human beings. Ask Boldt. . LaMoia. . they’ll tell you the same thing. One mistake, a bullet through the back of the head. Pop!’’ He clapped his hands loudly, jangling her nerves. ‘‘That’s all. No explanation. No remorse. You want to challenge those kind of people?’’

‘‘Comes with the turf. You challenge them on a daily basis, right? You look healthy to me.’’ She met eyes with him and would not let him go. ‘‘How’s that work?’’

‘‘They smoke a federal agent and they’ll never sleep. A reporter? Your friend Melissa knows how they feel about reporters.’’

‘‘So why not use me as bait?’’ she suggested.

‘‘It isn’t done. You’re a civilian. We don’t put civilians at risk. Not ever.’’

‘‘Do you think she’s dead?’’ she asked bluntly. ‘‘If it was you running things, for instance. . Would you have killed her by now? What would you do with her?’’

‘‘Me?’’ he blurted out.

‘‘Hypothetically,’’ she acknowledged unflinchingly.

He stared back at her, trying to read in her face what she knew.

She said, ‘‘If anything has kept her alive, it’s that they haven’t found the second digital tape. Without it firmly in hand, they’d be stupid to kill her. She’s the only one who knows where it is.’’

‘‘If there’s anything they want from her, they’ll simply torture her and get it,’’ he said flatly. ‘‘These people do not play fairly.’’

Not taking her eyes off him, ‘‘But they don’t know her, do they?’’

‘‘Don’t they?’’

‘‘Her parents were great heroes in China. They survived seven months of torture by the Mao regime. Seven months of it! They’re legends. Melissa’s family honor is at stake. Do you understand? To the Chinese, family honor is everything. She won’t talk. And then they’ll have to make a decision. Kill her, and risk never finding that tape, or wait her out. What do you think?’’

‘‘I know all about the Chinese and their families,’’ he said a little too defensively.

‘‘So if she doesn’t talk?’’ Stevie asked.

‘‘You should take a vacation, a leave of absence. The only thing they would want from you is silence. I’d think about that if I were you.’’

Coughlie dragged himself forward to the edge of the couch. ‘‘If you stay, you’re making a mistake,’’ he warned.

‘‘If they let her go, then that’s the end of it,’’ she repeated.

‘‘You need to tell them, not me,’’ he said.

‘‘You have sources,’’ she pressed. ‘‘Connections. You said so. You told me you did.’’

He stood and paused at the door. ‘‘It doesn’t work like that,’’ he told her.

She spun back around to catch his reflection in the mirror. ‘‘Help me,’’ she pleaded. ‘‘I’ll keep my word on this.’’

‘‘If that break-in taught you anything, it should have been that it’s too late to negotiate. Just ask Klein.’’ He paused there at the door. ‘‘You take care of yourself,’’ he advised, turning his back on her and walking away.

When the receptionist rang almost immediately, Stevie was convinced that Coughlie wanted another chance at her. The announcement that Boldt was in the lobby surprised her. She asked that he be shown back to the set because she wanted to meet him on her turf for a change. A minute later, her head still spinning, he entered the enormous studio, taking in every detail as if a student.

‘‘Did you cross paths with him?’’ Stevie asked Boldt.

‘‘Who?’’ Boldt asked.

‘‘Brian Coughlie. He came to tell me I should leave town.’’

‘‘Did he?’’ Boldt pondered this. ‘‘Not the worst advice. We can hardly arrest him for that.’’

‘‘I offered my silence for Melissa’s safe return.’’ She kept Boldt standing because she didn’t want him to stay long. They talked between two of the large robotic cameras facing the backdrop of the Seattle sunrise that needed a few thousand watts to look realistic.

He said, ‘‘When a victim lives through what you went through, we call her a material witness.’’

‘‘Is Melissa dead, Lieutenant?’’ The only question that mattered. The one that haunted her.

‘‘We need to work together. To trust each other. You need it for the sake of your safety. I need it if we’re to find Melissa. I have reason to believe that they may not have found her yet.’’

‘‘But you found her van,’’ she said flatly, surprising him with her knowledge. ‘‘Why the hell didn’t I hear about that?’’

‘‘Coughlie?’’ he asked, wondering about her source.

She fumed. ‘‘I should have been told.’’

Boldt shook his head. ‘‘Not without ground rules laid. He’s playing us against each other. You see that? I need to know everything you two have shared. We could be way off base with him.’’

She studied him. ‘‘I can go along with that.’’ She added, ‘‘So what is it you want from me, Lieutenant? Why the visit?’’

He met eyes with her. ‘‘Police pressure isn’t always the most effective. The press has powers that we don’t.’’

‘‘You see? You hate us until you need us.’’

‘‘Are you so different?’’ he asked.

‘‘You ask around about Lou Boldt,’’ she said, ‘‘and you get back this guy larger than life. As a reporter you don’t trust those myths. Those guys don’t exist anymore. They lived in another era. White walls and wide lapels.’’

‘‘And if you ask around about Stevie McNeal,’’ he said, ‘‘you hear that she’s much more than a pretty face, that she’s one of the few anchors in this town who’s capable of reporting a story, not just reading into a camera.’’

‘‘What is it I have to do?’’ she asked.

‘‘You have to use that anchor chair to force someone’s hand.’’

She debated this long and hard. She looked at him curiously, cocking her head as if getting a better view. ‘‘I’ll do whatever it takes.’’

Boldt reached into his pocket and pulled out the digital tape confiscated in the sting. ‘‘Let’s get to work,’’ he said.