Hard News (Rune 3)

He sat down on the bed, picturing Boggs balling the scrawny bitch while the passbook sat in a crumpled paper bag probably five feet away from them. The anger seeped away slowly, as he decided what to do.

Well, it wasn't the end of the world. It was a change of plans was all. He had to kill the girl anyway--the one on the houseboat. He might as well do that now then get down to Atlanta or Florida and take care of Boggs. It didn't really matter who he did first.

Six of one, half a dozen of another.

THE WAY PIPER SUTTON FOUND OUT WAS THE POST HEAD-line: "TV Scoop Becomes Oops." Which she wouldn't have paid any attention to, except that on the front page was a picture of Rune talking to a couple of men in suits. They didn't look happy. Rune didn't either, and now Piper Sutton joined the club.

Standing on the street corner near her apartment, she stared at the story. She'd bought the Post and then a Daily News and a Times. Ripping open each furiously, skirt and hair tousled by the wind as she stared at the smudged type. Thank God for a big assault in Central America that buried the Daily News story inside. The Times had simply reported, "Houseboat Burns in Hudson," with a reference to a possible convict's escape.

But the Times would be on the story today. How the Fit-to-Print paper loved to take potshots at the competition, especially TV.

Sutton flagged down a cab, giving up her usual mile walk to the office, and sat with the newspapers on her lap, staring out the window at people on their way to work. But not seeing a single one of them.

At her office Sutton found her secretary juggling two calls.

"Oh, Ms. Sutton, Mr. Semple has called several times, there're calls from all the local TV stations, and somebody from the Village Voice."

The fucking Voice?

"And a Mr. Miller, with the Attorney General's Office, then--"

"Hold all the calls," Sutton hissed. "Ask Lee Maisel to come over. "Get me the legal department. I want Tim Krueger here in fifteen minutes. If any other reporters call tell them we'll have a statement by noon. If any of them say they have an earlier deadline take his or her name and let me know immediately." Sutton pulled her coat off. "And I want her. Now."

"Who, Miss Sutton?"

"You know who," Sutton replied in a whisper. "Now."

RUNE HAD BEEN FIRED WORSE BUT THE SAD THING WAS that the other times she didn't really care.

She'd screwed up often in the past, sure, but there's a big difference between getting fired from a video store or restaurant and getting fired from a real job, one you cared about.

Usually she'd say, "Eh, happens," or "Them's the breaks."

This was different.

She'd wanted to do this story. Badly. She'd lived for this story. She'd breathed it and tasted it. And now not only was she getting axed but she was getting fired because the whole thing had been a complete lie. The very core, the most very basic fact was false. The worst. It was like reading a fairy tale and then the writer telling you, Oh, yeah, by the way, I was just kidding. There's no such thing as a demon.

Although she had proof there was such a thing. And his name was Randy Boggs.

Rune now stood in front of Piper Sutton's desk. Also in the room was a tall, thin, middle-aged man in a gray suit and white shirt. His name was Krueger. Lee Maisel leaned against the wall behind Sutton, reading the Post account. "Jesus Christ," he muttered. He looked at Rune with dark, impenetrable eyes and went back to the paper.

"Tell me exactly what happened," Sutton said. "Don't embellish, don't minimize, don't edit."

Rune explained about the fat man and Boggs and what happened on the houseboat. She added what Sam Healy had found out--that the police could find no leads to a Jack Nestor.

"So Boggs did it, after all," Maisel said. "There was another killer but they were partners. Jesus."

"Sort of looks like it." Rune wasn't counting "likes," "sort-ofs" and "kind-ofs." "When I saw them there, kind of hugging each other, I totally freaked. I mean ..." Her voice faded.

Sutton closed her eyes and shook her head slowly, then asked the gray-suited man, "What's the legal assessment, Tim?"

The lawyer said calmly, "I don't think we have any liability. We didn't fabricate evidence and the court decision was legitimate. I wish she"--not looking at Rune-- "hadn't gotten him released without telling anybody here. That adds another dimension."

For the first time since she'd known him Maisel turned angry eyes on Rune. "Why didn't you tell me you were going to get Boggs sprung?"

"I was worried about him. I--"

Sutton couldn't keep cool any longer. "I've told you from the beginning that our job isn't to get people out of jail. It's to report the truth! That's the only job."