Read Online The Scarecrow by Michael Connelly - Free Book Online

made was to take my name off the byline.
    “Why, Jack?” Angela protested. “We reported this together.”
    “Yeah, but you wrote it. You get the byline.”
    She reached over to the keyboard and put her hand on top of my right hand.
    “Please, I would like to have a byline with you. It would mean a lot to me.”
    I looked at her quizzically.
    “Angela, this is a twelve-inch story they’re probably going to cut to eight and bury inside. It’s just another murder story
     and it doesn’t need a double byline.”
    “But it’s my first murder story here at the
Times
and I want your name on it.”
    She still had her hand on mine. I shrugged and nodded.
    “Suit yourself.”
    She let go of my hand and I typed my name back into the byline. She then reached over again and held my right hand once more.
    “Is this the one that got hurt?”
    “Uh…”
    “Can I see?”
    I turned my hand over, exposing the starburst scar in the webbing between my thumb and forefinger. It was the place the bullet
     had passed through before hitting the killer they called the Poet in the face.
    “I saw that you don’t use your thumb when you type,” she said.
    “The bullet severed a tendon and I had surgery to reattach it but my thumb’s never really worked right.”
    “What’s it feel like?”
    “It feels normal. It just doesn’t do what I want it to do.”
    She laughed politely.
    “What?”
    “I meant, what’s it feel like to kill somebody like that?”
    The conversation was getting weird. What was the fascination this woman—this girl—had with killing?
    “Uh, I don’t really like to talk about that, Angela. It was a long time ago and it wasn’t like I killed the guy. He kind of
     brought it on himself. He wanted to die, I think. He fired the gun.”
    “I love serial killer stories but I had never heard about the Poet until some people said something about it today at lunch
     and then I Googled it. I’m going to get the book you wrote. I heard it was a bestseller.”
    “Good luck. It was a bestseller ten years ago. It’s now been out of print at least five years.”
    I realized that if she had heard about the book at lunch, then people were talking about me. Talking about the former bestseller,
     now overpaid cop shop reporter, getting the pink slip.
    “Well, I bet you have a copy I could borrow,” Angela said.
    She gave me a pouting look. I studied her for a long moment before responding. In that moment I knew she was some sort of
     death freak. She wanted to write murder stories because she wanted the details they don’t put in the articles and the TV reports.
     The cops were going to love her, and not just because she was a looker. She would fawn over them as they parceled out the
     gritty and grim descriptions of the crime scenes they worked. They would mistake her worship of the dark details for worship
     of them.
    “I’ll see if I can find a copy at home tonight. Let’s get back to this story and get it in. Prendo is going to want to see
     it in the basket as soon as he’s out of the four o’clock meeting.”
    “Okay, Jack.”
    She raised her hands in mock surrender. I went back to the story and got through the rest of it in ten minutes, making only
     one change in the copy. Angela had tracked down the son of the elderly woman who had been raped and then stabbed to death
     in 1989. He was grateful that the police had not given up on the case and said so. I moved his sincerely laudatory quote up
     into the top third of the story.
    “I’m moving this up so it won’t get cut by the desk,” I explained. “A quote like that will score you some points with the
     cops. It’s the kind of sentiment from the public that they live for and don’t often get. Putting it up high will start building
     the trust I was telling you about.”
    “Okay, good.”
    I then made one final addition, typing –
30
– at the bottom of the copy.
    “What does that mean?” Angela asked. “I’ve seen that on other stories in