The Reporter Read Free Page B

Poole’s retreat for a few seconds, a tall woman in Harry Potter glasses, her hair pushed up under a floppy
     poor-boy cap, inserted herself squarely between the coffin and the widow. With pad and pencil poised, she asked, “How do you
     feel, Mrs. Nathanson?”
    Janet felt a stab of discomfort. A reporter. Not television; there was no camera. Print. The L.A.
Times?
The
New York Times,
perhaps? Or
Variety?
The woman presented no credentials. Before Janet could respond, a burly man in jeans and a rumpled T-shirt jumped in front
     of them to the edge of the grave, hoisted a camera, and snapped off a series of flash-popping pictures as the coffin, with
     film legend Jack Nathanson in full-bodied view, descended into the ground.
    Amid a cacophony of outraged protests, the man whipped around and said to no one in particular, “Sorry, I gotta bring in his
     box shot.” With that, clutching his camera, he ran across the sodden grass toward a waiting van, funeral guests shaking their
     fists after him, Joan Collins among them, someone shrieking, “…fucking tabloid vermin!”

3
    P igs!” Debra Angelo had muttered in the backseat of the sheriff’s radio car. “How
could
you do that in front of my child? I didn’t kill the sonofabitch.”
    They took her to the sheriff’s station in Malibu, venue of the crime, where she was booked, printed, strip-searched, and photographed.
     Next, they transported her to the Sybil Brand Jail for Women in East Los Angeles, where superlawyer Marvin Samuels was already
     waiting with bail money, having been alerted to her crisis by a friend at the funeral who happened to have a cell phone in
     his pocket and great affection for Jack Nathanson’s first wife.
    Everyone knows there’s no bail on a murder rap in L.A. County, and nobody knows what Marvin Samuels did to get Debra Angelo
     out on bail—beg, plead, promise, bribe—but get her out he did, on a million dollars’ bond. By the time the two walked out
     of Sybil Brand, a sizable contingent of media had gathered outside, flashbulbs popping, minicams cranking—this was hot stuff!
     Debra said nothing; you never heard her curse when there was press around.
    Marvin, who loved the press, courted the press, shot some bon mots their way with his big teddy-bear smile. “No waythey’ll make this stick, lads and ladies. Tell me,” he fired at them, squeezing Debra’s shoulders, Debra in the too-tight
     designer suit, the too-high heels, the major hair, “does this look like a murderess to you?” Then he ushered her into his
     waiting limo and they screeched off.
    Samuels had learned that they’d found Debra’s fingerprints on the murder weapon.
    “Of
course
my fingerprints are on the fucking gun,” she told him. “It’s
my
gun, for God’s sake. I take target practice. Ask Tony Morano at the Lakeside Gun Club. My fingers are all over the damn thing
     all the time! If I’d killed the shithead, do you think I’d be dumb enough to leave the fucking gun on the fucking floor next
     to his fucking head?”
    Still, Marvin thought, Marvin who had been there through the mutual carnage that was the Nathanson vs. Angelo divorce-and-custody
     trial—still, Debra’s fingerprints were found on Debra’s gun, which killed Debra’s ex-husband in Debra’s house.

4
    W e should have brought a crew,” Maxi said to Wendy. The two had ducked into Taglio’s, a little bar near Forest Lawn, after
     the funeral.
    “Yes, but with our budget cuts, I wouldn’t put in for a crew for Madonna’s funeral, let alone for some has-been’s. Excuse
     me, Maxi, but Jack Nathanson was a has-been. Besides, we don’t even
cover
celebrity funerals anymore. Well, maybe Madonna’s—”
    “But with Jack, there’s always a story,” Maxi broke in. “His funeral was more bizarre than the Ayatollah’s. If you didn’t
     think there’d be a story, what were we doing there?”
    Wendy laughed out loud. “You know damn well what we were doing there, Maxi—you