He sighed heavily. “I can’t think of one good reason to even play footsie with defaming the guy.”
“How about this?” she said. “The cops say Kolbert fired four times, three into Rog Lewis, one into Yasmin and her baby. A minute later Kellaway enters the store and fires twice, hits her once, misses once. Finally, about a minute after that, there’s the last shot, the one that kills Bob Lutz. That’s what the forensics report tells us.”
“Okay.”
“But there’s an eyewitness—really an earwitness—who heard the whole thing. And he said it was three shots, a pause, then two, a pause, then two more.”
“So? Your earwitness was scared to death and got it wrong. Happens all the time.”
“He was texting his girlfriend. He texted her after each burst of gunfire. He was sure: three, two, two. Not four, two, one.”
“I don’t even know what that means.”
“It means there was another shot after the one that killed Bob Lutz. Explain that.”
Tim Chen couldn’t. He sat there tapping one finger against the edge of the laptop. “Did your earwitness show you the text messages, proving he heard what he says he heard, when he heard it? Did you see the time stamps?”
“No,” she admitted. “I had to pick Dorothy up from tennis camp. I didn’t get a chance to look at the texts. But I’m sure he’d share them if I asked.”
Tim nodded and said, “Okay. Well. That might be interesting. But I don’t see what it has to do with Randall Kellaway’s piss-poor military record.”
“Nothing.”
“So why denigrate his service at all? Even casually?”
“To fuck with him and see what happens. You can find out a lot about someone by fucking with them.”
“Yeah? You learn that in journalism school, Aisha?”
“That ain’t J-school, brother,” she said. “That’s old-school.”
July 12, 6:13 P.M.
THEY TAPED FOR THE O’REILLY FACTOR at the same local TV studio where they’d recorded their bits for Telling Stories and 20/20. When Rickles and Kellaway came out into the warm, smoky evening, Aisha Lanternglass was waiting for them. She cut them off before they could get to Rickles’s pickup.
“Hey, guys,” she said. “What do you say about giving your local paper ten minutes? Or do I gotta have a TV show for you to talk to me?”
She grinned to flash her very white teeth, razzing them, just one of the guys. She was trim and fit in a pair of blue jeans and a sleeveless black top, strappy sandals. She’d brought her daughter with her, which was cheap manipulation in Kellaway’s opinion. The little girl sat on the hood of the world’s crappiest Passat. Her daughter wore a crocheted beanie with a cat’s face on it, gray cat ears poking up. The kid ignored the grown-ups, leafing through the pages of a picture book.
Jay Rickles beamed, creases deepening in his seamed face. He hitched his belt up. “Aisha! I got your voice mail. Getting back to you has been on the top of my list of things to do for about three days now. You want my secretary to give you a ring, see if we can pencil something in?”
“That’s great,” she said. “If you could give me ten minutes right now, and then if we could follow up in a couple of days with a longer sit-down, that would be perfect.”
Rickles glanced at Kellaway. “We better give her her ten minutes. I’m afraid if I try to climb into the truck, she’ll tackle me.”
Kellaway found it difficult to look her directly in the face. His insides were hot, sick and inflamed. He had heard all about her article, trashing his military service first thing in the morning. They’d hashed it out on the morning news shows.
“New details have emerged about Rand Kellaway, the hero of last week’s Miracle Falls Shooting,” said the newsboy, a kid who looked like he ought to be bagging groceries, not blabbing on TV. “The St. Possenti Digest is reporting today that Mr. Kellaway was released from the U.S. military in 2003 after repeated allegations that he was guilty of using excessive force in his time as an MP. Gun-control activists have already seized on the piece to argue that Kellaway escalated the situation by entering with a loaded . . .”
Later Kellaway found a wrinkled copy of the Digest in the green room at the TV studio and read the article for himself. There was nothing new in the whole story until the last couple of paragraphs, where they made him sound like a Third World torturer instead of a soldier. A postage-stamp-size photograph of Aisha Lanternglass ran alongside the piece, grinning just the way she was grinning now.
His first thought was that George would hear all about it. Holly had e-mailed a couple days before to say that George never missed the local news now, watched the morning show before school and the evening show at dinner to see what they were going to say about his father today. Now George would hear that the army had thrown his father out because he couldn’t control his temper. George would hear that his father wasn’t good enough to serve his country. It had been all Kellaway could do to maintain his composure during the Bill O’Reilly taping.
The parking lot in front of the local studio was a wide expanse of brand-new blacktop, soft in the lingering heat of the day. The sun was still up, but it was impossible to see it. The horizon was an ocher thunderhead of smoke. Lanternglass held her phone out to record their conversation, stabbing it at Kellaway like a knife.
“Mr. Kellaway, it’s been almost a week since the shooting. I think what most of our readers want to know is—how are you doing?”
“Just fine. No trouble sleeping. Ready to go back to work.”
“When do you think that might be?”
“Mall’s opening tomorrow. I’ll be there for the first shift.”
“That’s dedication.”
“It’s called a work ethic,” he said.
“I wonder if you’ve had a chance to speak with the families of the bereaved. Have you been in touch with Mr. Haswar, Yasmin’s husband? Or Bob Lutz’s parents?”
“Why would I do that? Just to say I’m sorry I didn’t save the people you love?” Biting off his words a little.
Jay Rickles patted his shoulder. “There’ll be a time to reach out to them, for sure. Maybe after they’ve had a chance to begin the healing process—and after Mr. Kellaway has had a chance to heal himself.”
Kellaway thought there was something cautionary in the way Rickles was petting him like a dog. Down, boy. He shrugged so Rickles would stop doing it.
“I’m sure after what you’ve been through, your own family has been a source of strength,” Lanternglass said. “You have a son, yes?”
“Yes.”
“And he lives with his mother? Where is that? I’d love to know a little more about your family situation. I gather you’re separated. Are you seeking a divorce? I checked the county records—”
“Did you? Looking around for a little dirt? Who told you to start digging into the separation?”
The little girl, over on the hood of the car, lifted her chin and stared at them, her attention drawn by Kellaway’s raised voice.
“No one. We always talk to the family after something like this.”