Cold Open, A Sam North Mystery Read Free Page B

is fine.”
    “Sure. If you say so,” he said.
    “Has his wife been told?” I asked.
    “You ever see her, Sam? Quite the looker. A yoga instructor. Page Six calls her the Yoga Babe.”
    “I need you to focus, Pep,” I said.
    “How come I don’t have a wife like that?” he asked. “Half my age and a yoga babe.”
    “Has she been told yet?”
    “Yup. Guys practically tripped over themselves to get uptown and break the news to her.”
    “Any idea what happened here?”
    “Well, if I had to make a guess, I’d say Steele’s lungs filled up with water.”
    “Thank you.”
    “Not a problem.”
    “For real now.”
    Rinaldi paused before speaking. “You going to protect me on this one, right, Sam?” he asked. “This is so frigging high profile, it’s not funny.”
    “Consider yourself protected,” I said. “What happened?”
    “From what I hear, there were no signs of a struggle or anything like that.”
    “Accident?”
    “Yeah, maybe he tripped over his ego. Or his wallet.”
    “There has to be something more, Pep. Come on.”
    Rinaldi went quiet for a moment.
    “I’m not going to screw you,” I said.
    Townsend was in my ear. “Ninety seconds, Sam. You got to get set.”
    “Word is they found a note,” Rinaldi said.
    “Suicide?”
    “No, a thank-you. To the cops, for pulling his fat ass out of the river.”
    “You got to be kidding me. Jack Steele killed himself?” I asked.
    Charlie poked his head out from behind the camera and stared at me.
    There was no answer from Pep, which I took as a bad sign.
    “Pep, I’m going to say police found a suicide note. That works, right?”
    “Yeah, you’re good. I haven’t seen the note, but we found one in the apartment.”
    “What’d it say?”
    “Good-bye, cruel world.”
    Townsend was frantic now. “One minute away, Sam. You got to turn that mic on. We need an audio check.”
    “I got less than a minute, Pep. Anything else? Who called it in?”
    “Garbageman. Private hauler. Stopped there to take a piss in the river and saw it,” he said.
    “Ouch.”
    “Yeah, guy makes a living pissing on people and gets pissed on when he goes. Little irony for you, huh?”
    Townsend and Jennings were both screaming in my earpiece as panic reigned in the control room. I ended the call with Rinaldi and with thirty seconds to go, Townsend went over the plan a last time.
    “We’re coming to you right at five, Sam. No anchors, no intro. No nothing. A cold open,” he said. “Commercial ends and boom, you’re up.”
    I took a deep breath and Townsend counted me down.
    “In ten … nine …”
    It was seconds to five a.m., and my head throbbed.
    “Eight … seven …”
    The collar on my dress shirt was damp with sweat and matted against the back of my neck.
    “Six … five …”
    I heard the dull thumping of a traffic chopper overhead and prayed no one else was onto this.
    “Four … three …”
    I turned my head to try to loosen the muscles of my neck.
    “Two … one …”
    I took a breath and locked on the camera as Townsend yelled in my earpiece.
    “Go!”

Chapter Five
     
     
    “I’m Sam North on the East Side of Manhattan with breaking news. Liberty News anchor and host of Steele Yourself , Jack Steele, is dead.”
    I paused for a beat and hoped I was right. Hoped this wasn’t actually the fat guy in accounting somewhere.
    “A New York City Police Department source confirms that Steele’s body was found floating in the East River here at the end of Twenty-third Street early this morning.”
    I turned and walked back the few steps to the edge of the parking lot, and Charlie moved with me. He went past me and shot straight down into the dark water so people could see the rotting pilings as I spoke.
    “Steele’s body was found floating right here in this spot among those posts you can see sticking up out of the water. The body was discovered by a private sanitation worker.”
    Charlie came off the river, took a few steps back, and I was