Be Mine Read Free

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manager, she never overspent her budget.
    “Excuse me, Irene?” Tom knocked on her open door. “We know about
this murder in Upper Market, right?”
    “Just a sec,” she said into the phone. “Bobby checked it out this
morning. It’s a suicide.”
    “No, it’s a homicide. Where is he?”
    “I’m
sure it’s a suicide. Bobby wasn’t feeling good. I let
him go home.”
    “So no one’s on the scanners?”
    “The new intern comes on in an hour. I’ve got to finish this call.”
    Back at his desk Tom took a deep breath, then dialed a police
number. While it rang he searched through his clutter for a fresh notebook and
came across the managing editor’s recent memo demanding to know why the Star was missing breaking news stories. Irene Pepper is why, he thought. She didn’t
think it was important to keep the interns handcuffed to the damn scanners like
Bob Shepherd and every other editor in the country did.
    “Vickson,” a voice growled over the line.
    “Hey, man, it’s Reed. I need a favor.”
    “Don’t we all?”
    “Buddy, can you help me out on a 187?”
    “And how may I enlighten you?”
    “I’m hearing some chatter on one in the Clayton, Short area of Upper
Market. Can you tell me, is that one a grounder or what?”
    “Hold on. I’ve got to put you on hold.”
    Tom took a hit of Colombian coffee from his FBI mug, then looked
back at Ann, and their twelve-year-old son, Zach, smiling from framed pictures.
God, the hell he’d put both of them through over the years.
    Some days Tom questioned if his job was still worth it as he
reflected on the keepsakes at his desk. The faded clip from the Tribune in Montana with the head FORMER GREAT FALLS NEWSPAPER BOY PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST. Tramping
through Great Falls, the Trib bag knotted over his shoulder, the smell of crisp
editions, newsprint blackening his hands with each paper he’d deliver. Dreaming
under the Big Sky of being a big city crime reporter. Some of the happiest days
of his life.
    There was the old snapshot of a younger Tom in front of the Golden
Gate Bridge with the gang from AP ’s San Francisco Bureau. The Associated
Press was his first major job in the business after college where he’d met
Ann. They got married and moved to San Francisco where she started her first
children’s clothing store and he started with AP . It was where his
reporting on West Coast crime networks earned him a little glory as a Pulitzer
finalist.
    Then the Star hired him.
    It was funny. In the last few years Tom had reduced his inventory of
treasured tearsheets. Gone were the grisly front-page stories he’d displayed
like blooddripping trophies. He no longer needed the validation. His success at
covering tragedies had bestowed him with its own honors: the healed scars of a
fractured marriage and a craving for Jack Daniel’s whiskey whenever a trip into
the abyss overwhelmed him.
    During his worst time Ann had begged him to quit news reporting,
stay home, and write books. But he couldn’t quit. Ever. Yes, his job had
exacted a toll on his family. But over the roller-coaster years since he’d become
the Star ’s chief crime features writer he’d gotten a handle on his life.
He’d broken a succession of major exclusives. Most drew national recognition
for the paper. He was good. Once he locked on to a story he was relentless. It
was in his blood. Being a crime reporter was what he’d dreamed of doing since
he was a kid delivering newspapers in Great Falls.
    “Still there?”
    “Still here.”
    “That 187 in the Clayton and Short area is a homicide at the home of
an SFPD officer.”
    “What?”
    “You heard me. Here’s the address.”
    “Is the officer the victim or the suspect?”
    “Victim.”
    “Who is it?”
    “That’s all you get from me. I advise you to get over there. It’s
getting old. Every news team in town has been there for hours.”
    Tom slammed down his phone, turned, and saw Pepper headed his way.
    “That 187 is a police