TV reporter Riley Spartz publicly clashes with local gossip writer Adam Lorenzo and throws a drink in his face after he implies in his newspaper column that she cheated on her dead husband. When the gossip is found shot to death, she is shocked to be charged with murder. Though the victim was widely despised, police seem unwilling to look any further for suspects, and Riley must use her skills to secretly investigate the case before it's too late and she winds up in jail.
Everyone focuses on revenge as the motive in the gossip homicide, but Riley discovers the murder might actually have been a preemptive strike by new Channel 3 reporter Clay Burrel, after the gossip columnist stumbled upon evidence that could prove the reporter killed his wife-for ratings.
Release date:
May 26, 2010
Publisher:
Atria Books
Print pages:
352
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It felt satisfying to leave a funeral with dry eyes.
I wasn’t mourning a young life taken too soon. I wasn’t mourning a tragic loss to senseless violence.
He died old. In his sleep. In his own bed. Just the way we’d all like to go.
For the last decade, he’d been a reliable source of scoops around city hall, so I’d paid my respects. I didn’t stay for the ham-sandwich-and-potato-salad lunch in the church basement; I needed to get back to the station before my boss realized I was gone.
As I reached the parking lot, I heard my name. I’m Riley Spartz, an investigative reporter for Channel 3 in Minneapolis. People recognize me frequently. Sometimes that’s good. But not this time.
I turned and saw a short man with perfect hair and stylish clothes, waving at me from behind the hearse.
“We have nothing to talk about,” I said, continuing to walk—but faster—to my car.
“How can you be so sure?” He ran to catch up to me, his cologne getting stronger as he got closer.
As a policy I didn’t speak to Sam Pierce, the local newspaper gossip writer, but I shouldn’t have been surprised to see him lurking outside the church. He liked sneaking into funerals and later listing in his column who cried and who didn’t. Who wore black and who didn’t.
“Let’s talk about what’s going on in your newsroom,” he said. “I hear that new reporter from Texas started today.”
Sam liked to hit fresh TV blood with some cruel observation in print soon after they arrived. Maybe something mortifying they did at their old company Christmas party—like sitting on a supervisor’s lap. Maybe something embarrassing that happened the first day on their new job—like mispronouncing a local suburb, perhaps Edina—during a live shot. Sam adored branding newcomers as outsiders.
“I heard some interesting things about his marriage,” he continued.
I ignored him. Sam Pierce was a verbal terrorist.
A lot of what he wrote simply wasn’t true. When pressed, he’d admit it, justifying publication with the explanation that, unlike me, he was not a reporter and didn’t have to prove anything was true. He just had to prove people were gossiping about it.
Often he purposely refrained from calling the subject for confirmation or reaction. Otherwise, he might officially learn the morsel was false and have to kill the item. That would create more work, hunting down last-minute trash to fill his gossip column, “Piercing Eyes.”
Sam’s newspaper photo was cropped tight around a pair of intense eyes. The design achieved a striking graphic look for his column, plus it gave him the anonymity that allowed him to show up in places he’d normally have been unwelcome if recognized.
Sam had adopted a media technique used by the newspaper food critic to help keep her face incognito while dining. He appeared as a frequent radio talk-show guest but avoided television interviews like birds avoid cats.
Because I was part of the local press corps, I could pick Sam Pierce out of a crowd but was always surprised how few public figures recognized him. Until it was too late.
“It might be in your best interest to cooperate,” Sam hinted to me. “Think of it as buying goodwill to keep your own transgressions out of the newspaper.”
“You’ve got nothing on me.” I climbed into my car.
“Don’t be too sure. I have my sources.”
“Not only do you have nothing on me,” I said, “you have no sources.”
Then I slammed my car door, drove away, and hoped it was true.
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