Gretchen and the three of them sat at the table. Jaime kept her phone on the tabletop, occasionally responding to notifications as Mettner took her through a number of questions.
“How long have you worked for Trinity—Ms. Payne?”
“Three years.”
“Is she the only person you work with at the network?” Gretchen asked. “Or are you assistant to some of the other anchors?”
Jaime lifted her long blonde locks from her shoulders and fluffed them. “Just Trinity.”
“When is the last time you were in contact with her?” Mettner asked.
They had already established the last calls and texts between Trinity and her assistant from Trinity’s phone, but Mettner was covering every base. “It was like a month ago. She emailed me. By the way, I found the name of the reporter whose stuff she asked me to ship to her. Codie Lash. She used to have Trinity’s job.”
Gretchen asked, “Did Trinity replace her?”
Jaime gave her phone a quick tap and swipe. “No. Codie Lash was before her time. Besides, she was murdered.”
In the CCTV room, Josie and Noah looked at one another. Josie took out her phone and Googled ‘Codie Lash anchor’. Pictures of a woman in her forties with short brown hair and a thousand-watt smile filled the screen. Beneath was a long list of headlines, all of them reporting the same thing:
Award-winning Journalist Codie Lash Murdered on Her Way to Charity Gala.
Josie clicked on the first link and quickly skimmed the article while Mettner and Gretchen continued asking Jaime questions. There was a grainy black and white video of Codie and a man being confronted by another man in a hoodie on a sidewalk. It looked as though a surveillance camera from across the street had captured the incident. Josie squinted at her screen, but the attacker’s face wasn’t visible, and the video cut off before any physical contact between the mugger and the Lash couple took place.
“How was she murdered?” Mettner asked. “Do you know?”
“I’m not sure. I really didn’t know anything about her except what I just told you.”
According to the news article Josie had clicked on, Lash, along with her husband, had been killed during a mugging in New York City six years earlier. Jaime had probably still been in high school. No wonder she didn’t remember or even care to know the details.
Jaime continued, “Trinity asked me to see if any of her personal effects were still around at the news station. It took some digging, but I found a box of stuff from when they cleaned out her office after she died. Apparently, no one came to claim her things and whoever worked with her back then couldn’t bring themselves to throw her stuff away, so it was just in storage in the closet of one of the dressing rooms.”
“Trinity asked you to send her that box?” Mettner confirmed.
“Yeah. I don’t know why, though. I didn’t ask. She probably wouldn’t tell me anyway. She was always afraid of getting scooped if she was onto something she thought might be big. Even after she became anchor, she was like that.”
“Do you remember what was in the box?” Gretchen asked.
“Just a bunch of old stuff. Some awards she won, a sweater, some of her old notes, some hair stuff, a pair of shoes. Random stuff.”
“Besides notes, were there any documents of any kind? Any photos?”
Jaime shook her head. “I don’t think so. Oh, well, there was a picture of her and her husband in a frame. I mean, I guess it was her husband. I’m not really sure.”
“You sent the whole box to her?” Mettner said. “There wasn’t anything in particular that she was looking for?”
“She never said,” Jaime replied. “She just wanted whatever I could find.”
“Do you have any ideas of your own about what she might have wanted with Codie Lash’s old stuff?” Mettner asked.
Again, Jaime’s attention was diverted to her phone. Tap, tap, tap, scroll, tap. Then she turned back to Mettner and Gretchen. “What does Trinity ever want with anything? A story. She’s all about stories. Even now with the anchor position—I mean she’s the co-host, she doesn’t really have to chase stories, but it’s like she’s obsessed. Like she’s always afraid they’re going to take it away from her. Well, I guess they are now.”
“Because of what she said about that college kid?” Gretchen probed.
“Yeah, and because the network is trying to get Mila Kates. You know who she is, right?”
They knew because Josie had told them. Nodding, Mettner said, “Trinity was working on a