Read Online Silencing Sam by Julie Kramer - Free Book Online Page A

my stories—there’d even been occasional advertising boycotts—but at least I’d never been the subject of a fatwa.
    A copy of
The Satanic Verses
sat on a bookcase in the other room, grouped with my collection of other controversial fiction like
Harry Potter, The Catcher in the Rye, Lady Chatterley’s Lover,
and
The Da Vinci Code.
    â€œAn odd thing happened at the station today,” I said.
    I ran my fingers through Garnett’s graying hair as I told him about Clay’s gun, but Garnett shrugged off the incident. He carried a Glock himself and didn’t understand why more people didn’t—as long as they weren’t convicted felons. He figured Clay to be a show-off for flashing the weapon at me and probably not much of an actual shot.
    From his résumé tape, Clay hadn’t seemed much of a crime reporter, either. Noreen likely fell for him because he included standups on horseback and a news feature on why armadillos are adorable. He’d clearly researched and exploited her weakness for animal stories.
    Noreen probably also jumped at the chance to add a man to the news staff cheap. Women outnumber men three to one when it comes to TV news résumé tapes because we’re willing to work for less and put up with more to break into the business.
    But when I’d gone to his former station’s website and viewed some of his old stories online, I realized Clay wasn’t the himbo I’d first thought. He’d broken some news on a school district bribery scandal. And he’d also landed a compelling interview with a death row inmate.
    I hated to admit it, but Clay had the makings of a real newsman. I was beginning to suspect his cocky cowboy attitude just might be a ruse to get opponents to underestimate him.
    Since both recent homicides—Sam’s and the headless woman’s—happened in the same jurisdiction, most likely he’d gotten close to one well-placed source.
    â€œI got a couple of leads on his mystery informant,” Garnett said. He’d learned one of the Minneapolis Police homicide investigators grew up in Texas. Between the gun and that good-ole-boy fact, Channel 3’s new reporter could have hit the jackpot in source development and murder timing.
    â€œBut there’s an even stronger possibility,” Garnett said. “Your pal was in a closed-door meeting with the police chief the other day.”
    â€œChief Capacasa? He was probably screaming at Clay about the whole mess. He hates reporters.”
    â€œMaybe not all reporters. Maybe just you.”
    Minneapolis police chief Vince Capacasa and I had a history of creative skirmishes, so he was always snarly around me. But I could envision a scenario of him throwing some choice newsmorsels to a rookie, like Clay, to make him indebted down the line, and maybe to make a veteran, like me, look like I was losing my touch.
    â€œIt’s all making sense.” Understanding his source made his scoops less galling and my misses less vexing. I appreciated Garnett’s input on his old career cronies.
    These days, he wasn’t sharing many juicy details about his new job at Homeland Security. Most of the time, he said, it wouldn’t be stuff that interested me. But once he hinted that the folks running the operation weren’t the brightest bulbs. And I wondered if he regretted his vocation change. Especially after two flashy party crashers infiltrated a White House state dinner and ridiculed the very idea of security on the federal level. Sometimes, I even got the impression the high-tech toys the feds had access to didn’t interest Garnett as much as playing old-fashioned cops and robbers.
    I wondered what he knew about cell phone bombs, so I brought up the wind turbine blasts.
    â€œDo you think a terrorist ring might be behind them?” I asked. “Domestic? International?”
    He shrugged. “Cell phone bombs sound sophisticated, but