suspect in the maid’s killing had served time at Raiford with Gomble and even helped him with some undescribed jailhouse legal work. I reread the lines as an idea spun in my mind and then finally couldn’t be contained.
Once more I called Rachel’s pager after disconnecting the laptop. This time my fingers were shaking as I punched out the number and I could hardly keep still afterward. I paced the room again, staring at the phone. Finally, as if the power of my stare had caused it, the phone rang and I grabbed it up before it had even stopped its first sounding.
“Rachel, I think I’ve got something.”
“Just hope it isn’t syphilis, Jack.”
It was Greg Glenn.
“I thought it was somebody else. Listen, I’m waiting on a call. It’s very important and when it comes I should take it.”
“Forget it, Jack. We’re pushing the envelope. You ready?”
I looked at my watch. It was ten minutes past the first deadline.
“Okay, I’m ready. The faster the better.”
“Okay, first off, good work, Jack. This . . . well, it doesn’t make up entirely for not being first, but it’s a much better read and much better information.”
“Okay, so what needs to be fixed?” I asked quickly.
I didn’t care about his compliment/criticism parlay. I just wanted to be done by the time Rachel answered my page. Because there was only one phone line into the room I couldn’t use my laptop to connect with the Rocky and view the actual edited version of the story. Instead I called up the original version on the laptop and Glenn read off the changes he had made.
“I want to make the lead a little tighter and stronger, go right out with the fax a little harder. I fiddled around with it and this is what I’ve got. ‘A cryptic note from a serial killer who apparently preys on randomly selected children, women and homicide detectives was being analyzed by FBI agents Monday as the latest twist in the investigation of the slayer they have dubbed the “Poet.” ’ What do you think?”
“Fine.”
He had changed the word “studied” to “analyzed.” It wasn’t worth protesting. We spent the next ten minutes fine-tuning the main story, going back and forth on nit-picks. He didn’t make too many significant changes and with deadline breathing on his neck he didn’t have the time to do a lot, anyway. In the end, I thought some of the changes were good and some were made simply for change’s sake, a practice all newspaper editors I’ve worked with seem to share. The second story was a short, first-person account of how my search for understanding of my brother’s suicide uncovered the trail of the Poet. It was an understated tooting of the Rocky’s horn. Glenn didn’t mess with it. When we were done he had me hold the line while he shipped the stories to the copy desk.
“I think maybe we should keep this line open in case they come up with something on the rim,” Glenn said.
“Who’s got it?”
“Brown has the main and Bayer has the side. I’ll do the back reading myself.”
I was in good hands. Brown and Bayer were two of the best of the rim rats.
“So, what are you planning for tomorrow?” Glenn asked while we were waiting. “I know it’s early but we also have to talk about the weekend.”
“I haven’t thought about that stuff yet.”
“You’ve got to have a follow, Jack. Something. We don’t go out front this big with something and then come back flat-footed the next day. There’s gotta be a follow. And for this weekend, I’d like a scene setter. You know, inside the FBI hunt for a serial killer, maybe get into the personalities of the people you’ve been dealing with. We’ll need art, too.”
“I know, I know,” I said. “I just haven’t thought about all of that yet.”
I didn’t want to tell him about my latest discovery and the new theory I was brewing. Information like that in an editor’s hands was dangerous. The next thing you knew it would be on the daily news budget—practically the same as being written in granite—that I’d have a follow linking the Poet to Horace the Hypnotist. I decided I would wait and talk to Rachel before I told Glenn about that.
“What about the bureau? They going to let you back inside?”
“Good question,” I said. “I doubt it. I kind of got the sayonara when I left today. In fact, I don’t even know where they are. I