It wasn’t Murray’s fault that his new owners preferred video to print. It wasn’t his fault that he had to scramble to keep a job, so I didn’t hold it against him that he anchored a weekly TV show on GEN. In Chicago Beat, he reported on everything from politics to the arts, but most of his shows were devoted to sensational crimes, since that’s what draws a crowd.
Despite Harold Weekes’s hearty assurance that everyone in GEN’s headquarters loved Chicago Beat, Murray’s show aired once a week in Illinois and Indiana, although Wisconsin and Michigan affiliates sometimes picked it up. Wade’s World was shown four times daily in every city, village, and farm in America.
I didn’t believe Murray’s career hung by the thread he kept claiming, but he was working in a poisonous environment. Lawlor was reported to pull in twenty million a year just from GEN, while his endorsement contracts probably tripled that figure. Other GEN cable stars made seven-figure salaries; in a milieu where the chief operating officer dismissed print journalism as “turning back the clock to the era of illuminated manuscripts,” no matter what Murray earned, he was bound to feel insecure.
I felt ashamed of rubbing Murray’s face in his troubles; I said I’d go to Lawlor’s event at the Valhalla with him. And I’d regretted it the minute I walked in the door. After the encounter with Weekes in the Valhalla ballroom I was furious.
“You could have warned me before I met your boss that you wanted my help with a story. I could have jumped in with some intelligent backup, instead of which he dismissed me as your girlfriend.”
Murray looked sheepish. “I just couldn’t find a way to propose it to you, and then Weekes popped up, and I wanted to get the idea back in front of him. You saw the first piece, looking at the returning Iraq/Afghan vets who’ve become homeless.”
“Yes, yes, I did. You did a great job with that. I didn’t know it was the start of a series, though.”
“It wasn’t,” he fumed. “I had the whole series started—I was going out to one of the state mental hospitals to look at murderers found not guilty by mental defect, I had one on the advanced practice nurses who do most of the hands-on medical care of the mentally ill homeless—I had nine shows lined up, and I had my own producer’s blessing, and then, right after the one on the vets ran, Wade Lawlor stuck in an oar at the huddle, said it was banal and a resource-eater, and Weekes axed the whole series.”
“I can’t possibly persuade Harold Weekes to listen to you instead of Lawlor,” I protested.
“No, but I was hoping you could come on board as the resident expert on evaluating criminal evidence for the segment on people found not guilty by reason of mental defect. I’ve tried pitching that again as a single episode; I put together a list of five people who’ve been held at Ruhetal or Elgin for more than twenty years, but Lawlor keeps shooting down the idea, and I never get time alone with Weekes. I was hoping if he saw you, I don’t know—”
“Even though I’m not a blond twentysomething, that my sparkling gray eyes and flawless skin would captivate him.”
Murray grimaced. “You have a way of putting things in the worst possible light, but, yeah, something like that.”
It was then, as the noise level in the ballroom had passed the dangerous decibel mark, that Petra’s call came, begging me for help. I told Murray I had a client in trouble, refused to give him details, and fled. It took a good fifteen minutes for the Valhalla valet to fetch my car. By the time I got to Mount Moriah, the girls had a substantial head start on me.
5.
STIMULATING NEWS—OR IS IT MALICE?
WHEN I GOT HOME, I CAME UP THE BACK STAIRS, WHERE I could see if lights were on in Jake Thibaut’s place. He’s a bass player who moved in across the landing from me two years ago, and we’ve been spending a fair amount of our free time with each other. Friends of his had been playing at a small venue on the northwest side, and I’d kind of hoped he might still be up—musicians keep even more erratic hours than detectives. However, his place was dark. The whole building was, except for the second floor, where the Soong family had a new baby that kept them up nights.
I slid thankfully into bed. Although I dreamed of vampires and ravens, I slept soundly until the phone woke me a little after eleven. I choked out as bright a hello as I could manage, hoping it was Jake on the other end.
“Warshawski, what the hell was going on last night?”
“Murray Ryerson.” I tried to wake up. “Now, there’s an excellent question. I still don’t understand why you brought me blind to the Wade-in last night. Thank goodness I didn’t actually touch Lawlor, but just breathing some of his CO2 nearly did me in.”
“You know damned well what I’m talking about. Why did you leave to go to a crime scene and not tell me? I looked like a total moron in front of the head of the news division when the reports came in this morning.”