Crime Beat Read Free Page A

Moretz didn’t show any flicker of excitement. Even veteran reporters got a rush from a potentially ace story. But Moretz was as cold as three o’clock ink.
    “Details,” I said. In a newsroom, you don’t waste words. You want them on paper instead of evaporating in the air before someone could pay for them.
    Moretz consulted his note pad. “Simon Hanratty, 22, 2753 Terrace Trace Apartments. Found dead at the scene from a single gunshot wound to the head. Looks like the body was dumped at a remote campground near the national forest. No murder weapon recovered. The vic was set to graduate from community college in May.”
    “Any leads?”
    “It’s pretty fresh. Sheriff said the case is officially under investigation and he can’t comment.”
    “Damn. He always says that, right up until the case goes before the grand jury.”
    Moretz grinned that lopsided grin of his, the one that suggested he’d been eating crow and had found it palatable. “I worked on him a little. Told him I respected his need for confidentiality but the public would want some answers. Plus I told him I’d be in trouble with my boss if I couldn’t feed you any details.”
    “You made a plea to his humanity? This is the sheriff we’re talking about.”
    “It worked,” Moretz said. “The murder apparently occurred at about 9 a.m. Cops got a description of the car from a neighbor. Looks like the murderer picked up Hanratty at his apartment, took him out to the woods, killed him, and drove away. The sheriff figured the press could help put out the word on the car.”
    “One hand washes the other.”
    “And they both end up red.”
    I frowned. Reporters who went in for poetic metaphors couldn’t be trusted. But Moretz had been a blessing so far. I just hoped our good luck would continue. “Okay, let’s get it together for Friday. Times like this, I wish we were a daily.”
    “I can get 20 inches out of what I already have. Chances are there will be more breaks by tomorrow, assuming the sheriff will return my calls.”
    The sheriff had mastered the trick of passive voice, which neatly deflected and weakened any possible action he might have to take. His was a world where mistakes had been made and consequences would be faced once responsible parties had been found. How could we resist making life hard on him by asking him for comments?
    “Go for the throat,” I said.
    Moretz started toward the door, heading for his desk.
    “John,” I said.
    He turned, hands in his jacket pockets. His eyes were dark and blank, empty as caves.
    “You’ve turned in two above-the-fold, front-page stories in your first two editions. Good work.”
    He shrugged. “That’s what you hired me for, isn’t it?”
    And out the door.

 
    3.
    By Friday, he’d gleaned a little more from the sheriff. The car had been discovered in a parking garage down in Charlotte. Out of our jurisdiction, but the case was local, so the car would end up back here eventually for tests. We got a photo of it from the Associated Press, which also ran Moretz’s photo of the body huddled under a blood-stained tarp as cops worked the crime scene.
    The edition that hit the street sold 6,000 copies. Not much compared to the Washington Post , but considering our circ had been sliding to the mid-fours, I called it a major step up.
    Saturday morning, I went down to the drugstore grill to bask in renewed respect. The Picayune had been formed in the ashes of the Civil War and had sprung up to rival a Union-leaning paper. In the old days, it wasn’t unusual for a small town to have three or four papers, each championing a different cause.
    More people read papers then, although fewer people could read. Go figure.
    At any rate, my paper had a proud tradition that had been tarnished in the era of media mergers, Internet start-ups, local cable advertising, and the inexplicable staying power of the town’s AM radio station, which mostly broadcast Rush Limbaugh and other pre-packaged shows