Providence Rag: A Liam Mulligan Novel (29 page)

“Where’s Mary?” Mulligan called to him.

“I’m right here,” she said, walking in from the kitchen with a plate of oatmeal cookies. She placed it on the coffee table beside her husband’s murder books.

“Is it really true?” she asked. “Are they going to have to let Diggs out?”

She was still bending over the table, not letting go of the plate of cookies. She was holding her breath.

“It’s possible,” Mulligan said.

She stood slowly and said, almost to herself, “He killed my twin sister.”

“I know.”

“What if he comes after me?”

“Then I’ll shoot him dead,” Jennings said as he walked back into the living room. “I’ll fill him full of lead and dance on his fucking corpse.”

“Andy, you know I don’t like that kind of talk,” she said. “But I know I can count on my big handsome lug to keep me safe.” She turned and hugged him hard and quick. “I’ll leave the three of you alone now. What you’ll be talking about is something I don’t want to hear.”

After she left, Jennings sat on the sofa between the two journalists. Together they paged slowly through the detective’s murder books on the Medeiros and Stuart cases, looking for something, anything, they might have overlooked. It was an hour before any of them spoke.

“You know what’s bothering me?” Gloria finally said.

“What?” the men said in unison.

“The gap.”

“What gap?” Jennings asked.

“The two years between the Medeiros and Stuart murders.”

“That bothers you why?” Mulligan asked.

“We think he attacked Ashcroft first, right?”

“We’re sure of it,” Jennings said. “Just can’t prove it.”

“And that happened just a year before he killed Becky Medeiros, right?”

“That’s right.”

“Don’t serial killers usually escalate?” Gloria asked.

“They do,” Jennings said.

“So why did Diggs wait so long before his second attack?”

“I’ve always wondered the same thing,” Jennings said.

“What I’m thinking,” Gloria said, “is that maybe he didn’t.”

58

“Are the attorneys present?” Judge Needham asked.

“Felicia Freyer representing Kwame Diggs, Your Honor.”

“Attorney General Malcolm Roberts for the State, Your Honor.”

“Then let’s proceed. Miss Freyer, I believe you have a motion.”

“I do, Your Honor. I respectfully ask that this hearing be closed to the press on the grounds that—”

“Did I miss some big news this morning, Miss Freyer?”

“Your Honor?”

“Has the First Amendment been repealed?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“Then your motion is denied.”

“I would appreciate a chance to argue it, Your Honor.”

“That would be a waste of the court’s time, Miss Freyer.”

“Then I would ask at least that the television pool camera be removed.”

“On what grounds?”

“As Your Honor is aware, this matter is highly controversial. The presence of cameras can only serve to further inflame the public, to the detriment of my client.”

“Miss Freyer,” the judge said, making the name sound like something he’d found stuck to the bottom of his shoe, “are you concerned that pretrial publicity could prejudice the jury pool?”

Freyer stood there, speechless.

“Perhaps I should remind you that this is not a trial and that there will be no jury.”

“I understand that, Your Honor, but—”

Needham cut her off in midsentence.

“This issue will be decided by the presiding judge, Miss Freyer. Are you suggesting that the presence of cameras will somehow prejudice my ruling?”

“Certainly not, Your Honor,” Freyer fibbed. The diminutive judge was notorious for playing to the cameras.

“Well then, this motion is also denied. Do you have anything further?”

“Not at this time, Your Honor.”

“Very well. Mr. Roberts, you may proceed.”

The attorney general rose to address the court: “Your Honor, the People of Rhode Island come before you to request that Kwame Diggs, currently an inmate in the High Security Center of the State Department of Corrections, be ordered to submit to a psychiatric evaluation to determine whether—”

“I have read your petition and supporting briefs, Mr. Roberts,” the judge said. He turned from the attorney general and faced the camera. “Do you have anything new to add, or are you also determined to waste the court’s time?”

“Nothing further, Your Honor,” Robert said, and sat back down.

“Miss Freyer?”

“Yes, Your Honor?”

“I have read your submission as well. Do
you
have anything to add?”

“I do, Your Honor. I would ask that my client be allowed to address the court on this matter.”

“For what purpose, Miss Freyer?”

“Surely Your Honor will want the opportunity to hear from Mr. Diggs himself before deciding whether the State’s order should be granted.”

“Miss Freyer, are you under the misapprehension that I have a degree in psychiatry?”

“No, Your Honor.”

“Psychology, perhaps?”

“Not that I am aware of, Your Honor.”

“So I ask you again. What purpose would your request serve?”

“I withdraw it, Your Honor.”

Needham turned again to the cameras.

“You will have my ruling by early next week. Court is adjourned.”

59

The publisher’s fourth–floor corner office was paneled in solid Ecuadorian mahogany. A bank of high windows looked out over a parking lot, a McDonald’s, and a neon-splashed strip club called the Sportsman’s Inn. The office was furnished with calfskin chairs and an antique cherry desk big enough to hold a map of Rhode Island its actual size. In the center of the desk, a video was playing on a twenty-seven-inch Apple monitor.

“Okay, Ed,” the publisher said. “Turn that contraption off. I’ve seen enough.”

“So what do you think?” Lomax asked.

“I think my son is turning into a damn fine newsman.”

“Yes, sir. He surely is.”

The old man opened his humidor, drew out two fifty-five-dollar Opus X cigars, clipped the ends, and handed one to Lomax. He set fire to his with a gold S. T. Dupont butane lighter and leaned over to give his managing editor a light. Then he rose from his desk chair, crossed an expanse of Persian rug, and stared out the window. For a long minute, he smoked in silence while red and blue lights from the strip club licked his face clean. With his back still to Lomax, he finally spoke.

“I need your best judgment on this, Ed.”

“Well,” Lomax said, “it’s a tough call.”

“That’s what I pay you for, Ed. To make the tough ones.”

Lomax drew hard on his cigar and blew a slipstream across the desk.

“It’s an important story, sir, but publishing it will have serious consequences.”

The old man spun on his heels and thrust a bony finger at Lomax.

“Don’t tell me what I already know. Tell me why you believe we should run this.”

“Sir?”

“I know you think we should, Ed. Otherwise you would have killed it already, and we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

Lomax dragged himself up from the plush leather visitor’s chair and joined his boss at the windows.

“Here’s how I see it,” he said. “If we suppress a story about perjury and obstruction of justice, the First Amendment purists on the staff will be outraged. One of them will leak it, and we’ll be crucified in the
Columbia Journalism Review
and every journalism blog on the Internet. But if we run the story and it leads to Diggs’s release, the criticism will be far worse. More readers will cancel their subscriptions, and we’ll probably lose some advertisers to boot.”

“And if Diggs gets out and kills somebody else?” the old man said.

“We’ll have a hard time living with ourselves.”

“What’s your bottom line, Ed?”

They both puffed again, blue cigar smoke mingling in front of their faces.

“For a hundred and fifty years, the
Dispatch
has been fearless in its pursuit of official corruption,” Lomax said. “Sometimes our stories have been applauded. Sometimes they’ve been met with howls. But we have never given in to pressure from readers or advertisers. We’ve always given the public the facts and let the chips fall where they may.”

“Things are different, now, Ed. The paper is in more financial trouble than even you know. The board is increasingly apprehensive about the losses. It has directed me to put the
Dispatch
up for sale.”

“I see.”

“Our recent circulation losses have already made several potential buyers shy away,” the old man said. “We can’t afford to lose any more readers.”

“I understand,” Lomax said. “Shall I kill the story, then?”

The old man blew three perfect smoke rings.

“Walk with me,” he said.

They stepped out of the office and strolled down a corridor lined with framed photographs of historic
Dispatch
front pages: The assassination of Abraham Lincoln. The annihilation of Custer’s Seventh Cavalry. The Battle of the Somme. The 1929 stock market crash. Pearl Harbor. The Kennedy assassination. The moon landing. The
Challenger
explosion. The election of the first black president.

The publisher opened the door to the boardroom and snapped on the lights, illuminating a meeting table surrounded by two dozen antique leather chairs. The table was big enough to land a Boeing 747. On one wall, a huge glass case was crammed with plaques, medals, and trophies.

“See that medal right there?” the old man said. “It’s the Pulitzer Prize George Boyle won in 1919 for exposing corrupt military contractors during World War One. It was just the third year the Pulitzer was awarded. That one up there? It’s the Pulitzer Mulligan won twelve years ago for blowing the lid off bribery in the state court system. That’s the last Pulitzer Prize the paper won. Probably the last we ever will win.”

They smoked in silence and peered into the case, their eyes moving across three more Pulitzer medals and scores of plaques, trophies, and framed certificates for excellence in feature writing, beat reporting, hard news coverage, photography, and investigative reporting. Polk, Hillman, Livingston, National Headliner, Overseas Press Club, Ernie Pyle, and Robert F. Kennedy Awards. Goldsmith Prizes. Batten Medals …

“A grand legacy,” Lomax said.

“And a lot to live up to,” the old man said. “If
The Providence Dispatch
is to pass into history, I will not have it cowardly slink into the darkness. Run that baby, Ed. Page one, with a second-coming headline.”

“Yes, sir. I’ll have it ready to go for Sunday.”

“Make it a week from Sunday,” the publisher said. “I’ve got some arrangements to make first.”

“Yes, sir.”

“And, Ed? Be sure to post the videos on our Web site.”

“All of them, sir?”

“All of them. The one with Diggs’s poem should be accompanied by a sensitive-content warning. I trust you to handle that with the appropriate discretion.”

July 2012

Freedom is tantalizingly close now. He stares at the bars of his prison cell and imagines them dissolving, sees himself strutting out of the prison gate. No cuffs binding his hands. No leg chains hobbling his gait.

He pictures himself shopping for his murder kit. Rubber gloves. A glass cutter. Condoms. A Buck knife. In his mind, he caresses each of the items, then carefully packs them in a small black valise.

His lawyer says he shouldn’t get his hopes too high. Legal hurdles remain. A judge might order him to take a psychiatric evaluation. But he beat the headshrinkers once before. He can do it again. The hot little ho is probably screwing that reporter right now. He imagines catching them in the act, a knife singing in his hand.

He thinks about the other blessings freedom could bring. Finding Susan Ashcroft and finishing the job. Plunging his blade into Connie Stuart’s twin sister, a thrilling way to reenact his finest moment. Walking down a city sidewalk stinking with blondes, picking one out, and following her home. So many honey-haired bitches to choose from.

His thoughts drift to the one-eyed photographer, the way she shivered when she took his picture last fall. He knows her name. It was right there, under the photo in the newspaper he read in the prison library. Gloria Costa.

He wonders if she can still weep out of both eyes.

60

Mulligan worked the phones all morning, trying to flesh out an advance about Judge Needham’s pending ruling on a psychiatric evaluation for Diggs.

The sheriff’s department confirmed that in the last five days, sixteen bomb threats had been called in to the Providence Superior Court building. Felicia Freyer reported that someone had slashed the tires on her Acura MDX. And Needham’s secretary said the judge had received thousands of e-mails and a bulk mail bag full of letters in the last week. Some of them urged the judge to “do the right thing.” Others threatened him with dismemberment or death if he didn’t.

No, the secretary hadn’t sorted through them all. No, she couldn’t read any of the letters or e-mails to Mulligan. She had turned them all over to the police, who had asked her not to release anything to the press for fear that publicity would “bring more squirrels out of the woodwork.” That was a bizarre way to put it, but Mulligan decided to use the quote. He figured readers would know exactly what she meant.

The Boston Globe, The New York Times,
The Associated Press, and four national TV news organizations were planning coverage of Needham’s ruling, and both Greta Van Susteren and Nancy Grace, who Mulligan doubted had ever even
been
to Rhode Island, were already tweeting about the case.

A “Keep Kwame Diggs Locked Up” Facebook page now had 53,612 followers—not nearly as many as the Texas hold ’em poker,
Family Guy,
or Vin Diesel fan pages, but still impressive.

Two years ago, Lomax had ordered the whole news staff to sign up with Facebook and Twitter to keep track of stuff like that. Mulligan had reluctantly complied, but his Facebook profile was nearly devoid of personal information. Under Religion, he had typed, “None of your business.” Under Politics, he had listed, “Disgusted.” And under Favorite Quotes, he’d posted: “‘Fuck this yuppie journalism shit’—the late Will McDonough, a reporter’s reporter.” He’d left everything else blank.