Bury the Lead

6



ON THE WAY TO MEET with Daniel Cummings, I reflect on why I’ve been in a foul mood lately. I’m not big on self-reflection, so I try to get this session over while sitting at one traffic light.

I quickly come up with four possibilities. One, I need to get back to some real work. Two, I’m thirty-seven years old and beginning a midlife crisis, whatever that is. Three, I miss Laurie terribly. And four, Laurie doesn’t seem to miss me nearly as much. I don’t know which of those is true, but the one I’m rooting against is number four.

The meeting with Cummings is unlikely to bring me back to the ranks of the smiling humans. I have a vague consulting role, in an area of the law that I am neither expert at nor interested in. I’m sorry that I took it on at all, though Vince really didn’t give me much of a choice.

Cummings keeps me waiting outside his office for fifteen minutes while he talks on the phone. This is not a good way to start a lawyer-client relationship, but the way I’m feeling it’s an excellent way to end one.

He finally comes out to get me, a hint of an insincere, apologetic smile on his face. He holds out his hand. “Daniel Cummings.” His tone and manner are such that he might have said “Prince Charles.”

I shake it. “Andy Carpenter” is my clever response. We’ve met once before, but if he doesn’t remember it, then I’m not going to give him the satisfaction of revealing that I do.

“We’ve met before, haven’t we?” he asks.

“I don’t think so,” I say, starting this relationship off on a mature note.

“Come in.”

He leads me into his office, points to a chair, and offers me something to drink. I choose a Diet Pepsi, and he has a mineral water. He’s about six one, with hair so lightly colored that at first glance it looks like he’s going bald, though he isn’t. He has chiseled good looks; he’d be a natural as a Russian movie star.

I don’t know how much Vince is paying his reporters these days, but there is no way that journalism is Cummings’s only revenue source. Sell his suit, shoes, and watch and you could buy something with bucket seats. And he looks comfortable in them, like there are plenty more just like them back home in a walk-in closet the size of North Dakota.

“I don’t know if Vince told you,” he says, “but I’m not keen on the idea of you getting involved in all this.”

I’m not quite ready to share anything Vince told me. “Why is that?” I ask.

“Because I can handle it on my own, and I’m afraid you’ll get in the way. And nothing personal, but defense attorneys are not my favorite group of people.”

“That must keep them up nights,” I say as dryly as I can manage.

His grin is without humor. “I wouldn’t know.”

“It’ll help me avoid screwing things up by knowing what it is I’m dealing with. So why don’t you start at the beginning?”

He gives me a brief rundown of the events, providing little more than I got from reading the stories. The killer contacted him by phone at the office after the first murder, praising the reporter’s “understanding” of his work.

“Why did he think that?” I ask.

Cummings shrugs. “I don’t know. Maybe I accidentally wrote something that hit him close to home. Maybe he just liked my style. I’ve made something of a study of the criminal mind, but I can’t quite read them.”

“But he told you he would be communicating through you exclusively?”

Cummings nods. “His exact words were, ‘You will reveal me to the world.’”

“So you went to the police.” I already knew that he did, so I’m just trying to move the story along.

He nods. “Of course. The first thing they did was tap my office phone, but they neglected to cover my home phone, which is where he called the next time. Our local police strategists leave something to be desired.”

“Any idea how he got your number?”

He shakes his head. “None.”

“You said you were afraid I would get in the way. Can you be more specific?”

“If you’re looking over my shoulder, it will make it harder for me to do what I want to do.”

“Which is?” I ask.

He looks me straight in the eye. “I’m going to catch the son of a bitch.”

Just then the phone rings. I see him take a nervous breath before answering it. Every call could be the killer. After a moment he picks up the receiver. “Hello?”

He shakes his head slightly, telling me that this isn’t the call. “I’m leaving now,” he says into the phone before hanging up. He stands, grabs his jacket, and heads for the door. “There’s a press conference in twenty minutes.”

I start following him, even though he hasn’t asked me along. “Are you covering it or part of it?”

He smiles the first genuine smile I’ve seen. “Good question.”

We take separate cars to state police headquarters in Hackensack. Because the murders have been committed in three different communities, no one department has jurisdiction, and the state cops have taken over. Even though they’d never admit it, the mayors of the towns in question are breathing a sigh of relief. Real pressure is starting to mount to catch this guy, and the intervention of the state cops takes them off the political hook.

I get stuck in some traffic behind Cummings, and by the time I arrive he is already up on the stage with the state police brass. I take a spot along the side of the room, as the press mills about, waiting for the conference to begin.

“This is a new one for you, isn’t it, Andy?”

I look up and see Pete Stanton, a Paterson police lieutenant and my closest and only friend in the department.

“What is?” I ask.

“Usually, you wait until we identify and catch the scumbags before you represent them.”

I shake my head. “A lawyer can go broke waiting for you idiots to make an arrest. So I’ve already got myself a client.”

“Who?”

I point to the stage. “The intrepid young reporter. And the newspaper he represents.”

Pete was the detective assigned to the first murder, before anyone had an idea that there was a serial killer on the loose. Since I’m basically in an information-gathering mode at this point, I might as well start pumping good old Pete.

“You guys making any progress?” I ask.

“There are a number of leads that we’re aggressively pursuing along with our colleagues in the state police,” he says. “We’re very confident.”

“So you’ve got nothing.”

“Not a f*cking thing.”

“You still working the case?” I ask.

He nods. “Barely. Mostly, we just admire the professionals.” He points to the brass on the stage. There’s a rivalry between the state and local police forces that will last until eternity.

“Piss you off, does it?” I ask.

He shrugs. “Temporarily. As soon as the killer moves into New York or Connecticut, it’ll be interstate and the feds will move in. Then the state a*sholes will be on the outside with us.”

“It would be nice if one of you actually caught the bad guy,” I say.

“Wouldn’t make your client too happy.”

“Which means . . . ?”

Pete nods toward Cummings on the stage. “Look at him. He’s a star. You think he wants this to be over so he can go back to being just another typist?”

I have to admit that, though Cummings isn’t grinning and giggling, it does seem that he’d rather be on that stage than in the gallery down here with his colleagues.

Captain Terry Millen of the New Jersey State Police starts the session with a statement about the latest murder. He then refuses to answer just about everything the media throw at him, expressing his confidence that they’ll understand he can’t reveal information about this ongoing investigation. With that as the ground rule, there was no reason to have this session at all. Did he think he was going to be asked how the Giants will do on Sunday?

Frustrated by the lack of answers they are getting, two reporters direct questions to Cummings. He toes the party line, claiming that Captain Millen has asked him not to respond. Other than getting some television face time, there was no reason for Cummings to have been here at all, but he certainly doesn’t look put off at this total waste of his time.

I would like him a hell of a lot more if he was annoyed.

Like I am.