PART ONE

I searched the crevices of my wallet with my fingers. Three dollars and 75 cents sat on my dashboard, but that wouldn’t be enough to get me through the tollbooth and onto the Manitou Bridge. Just as I found the last quarter I needed, the driver behind me leaned hard on his horn. The noise shook my car and knocked over my stacks of nickels and dimes. I felt pretty frustrated as I leaned down and scooped up the coins, but I took grim satisfaction in knowing that the guy behind me had delayed himself further by being a jackass. 

Finally the transaction was complete and I could join the traffic jam. Just like every summer Sunday afternoon, the southbound lanes were packed with hungover tourists heading from Manitou Island to the mainland. 

My attention drifted away as I stopped and started in accordance with the car in front of me. I daydreamed about something terrible happening to me. Maybe the guy behind me would shoot me as punishment for taking forever at the tollbooth. Maybe a truck would push my car off the edge. Maybe an electrical storm would form overhead and strike me with lightning. Maybe I’d find the courage to pull over and jump. No matter how it happened, I’d rather die than work another day for Will Williams.

Williams, the ancient editor of the Manitou News, paid me the minimum wage, denied me any benefits, and assigned me unimaginably boring stories. I was on my way to cover a regular-season T-ball game. “The story might not make it into print, but it’s good practice for you,” Will had told me on Friday afternoon. I had no way of getting out of the wretched assignment, since Will knew I have no friends, no family in the area, and nothing better to do. 

The end of the bridge was in sight and I hadn’t been killed yet. What a waste of a trip. 

A rumble coming from under the bridge snapped me out of my reverie. The sound grew and shook the road. “IT’S THE KRAKEN!” shouted a drunk passenger of a convertible to my left. I tried not to get my hopes up.

I would’ve preferred the kraken to the police chopper that emerged from under the bridge and crash-landed on the blue sedan in front of me. I swerved around the wreck just in time.

As the traffic jam inched towards the mainland, I looked back at the scene. 

The driver of the sedan was unconscious on the ground and a flabby policeman and his German Shepherd looked around. 

After the baseball game I took photos of both teams and interviewed the coaches for the newspaper. But I knew the real story was what the cop did to that driver. I kept replaying it in my head, trying to keep the details fresh so I could turn in a Pulitzer-caliber performance tomorrow. 

When I got to the office the next morning, a piece of paper was lying across my keyboard. Below a photo of the cop and canine I’d seen on the bridge yesterday was a press release from the Manitou P.D: 

“Officer Patrick I. Gannon and his German Shepherd Dusty made a heroic arrest on the Manitou Bridge Sunday afternoon. The duo nailed vacationer Gary Epstein, “one of the most prolific speeders in Island history.” Officer Gannon pulled him over and found $10,000 cash in his vehicle. Epstein was arrested at the scene and is being held on suspicion of criminal activity.”

Under that was a handwritten note from my editor: “Put this into newspaper style. -Will”

Just like that, my front-page story, my claim to fame, my ticket out of here had been reduced to a page 10 press release. I wanted to march into my grouchy, balding editor’s office and give him a dramatic reenactment of what had really happened yesterday. Instead I took a deep breath and a sip of water and knocked on his door. 

“What do you need.”

“Hi Mr. Williams, I got the press release you wanted me to work on.”

“What about it.”

“Well, I was on the bridge when it happened, and I’m sure this release is phony.”

Then I told him what happened. 

“Where’s your evidence.”

I explained that I couldn’t take a video while driving. 

“They have evidence. You don’t. Write it as is. Then head to the jailhouse and get a photo of Epstein.”

“Can I interview him while I’m at it?”

“No need. Press release gives enough information.”

“I feel that Mr. Epstein is a key source in this story, sir,” I said, careful not to lose my temper. “We might appear biased towards the police if we don’t interview him.”

“My reporters aren’t ambulance-chasers.”

“Yes, sir,” I said politely, furious at his bad-faith argument.

I stomped back to my desk and wrote up the press release. I excluded the word “heroic,” at least. Then I drove down to the police station. 

I’d worked for the newspaper for a few weeks and conducted several phone interviews with the police chief, but I’d never been to the station before. I approached the officer at the front desk. 

“How can I help you?”

“I’m here to take a photo of Gary Epstein for the Manitou News. I’m Jonathan Wortman.”

She led me to his cell. He was covered in cuts and bruises. 

“Paparazzi’s arrived,” I joked as I pulled out my camera. “Mind if I get your picture for the newspaper?”

“Sure, but I’d like to be interviewed first.”

“I wasn’t assigned to do that.”

“So?”

“So they won’t print your statement, and I’d get in trouble if my boss found out I asked you any questions.”

He sighed. “I thought journalists were free thinkers, but I guess they’re mindless slaves to authority just like everyone else.”

“You don’t know me at all. I wouldn’t paint with such a broad brush.”

“Fine. Hand me the brush you polish your editor’s shoes with!” He slammed his fist on the wall. “Or do you use your tongue for that?”

“I wish I could interview you and write everything I saw happen to you on the bridge yesterday!” I said hotly. “But I have other considerations. You’re like every other source; you see me as some publicity servant, not as a real person!”

“Wait — you saw what happened?” He chuckled. “Why are we fighting? We’re on the same team!”

“Yes, but I’m on the bench for this game. I need to keep this job to eat and —” I thought of Rasmussen. “I have to consider my future.”

Epstein looked disappointed. “How about we do an interview and you publish it somewhere else. I’m sure you have a five-subscriber Substack.”

I actually did have one, so I agreed. I pulled out my tape recorder and hit play. Epstein started talking about the crash, but I steered him in a different direction. “Why do you think the cops were after you?”

“Speeding.”

“Cut the crap. Is there something that you know or did that would piss off the hotel-government complex?”

He worked downstate for Kory Industries, the company that bought the Manitou Hotel. The hotel had been family-owned for generations, but the latest heir, Alex Figero, didn’t have kids or interest in the family business, so a few years ago he sold it. A few weeks ago, Figero died when a microwave fire spread to the rest of his house. With his will burned to a crisp and no surviving relatives, the lawyers reportedly handed over the estate to the government. 

“I know all this. I wrote an article about it. What do you have to do with it?”

Epstein was a low-level spreadsheet man. The day after the death, he noticed some “crazy irregularities” in the numbers. Revenue had skyrocketed despite the fact that the hotel hadn’t opened for the season. He told his boss, who said the numbers were a mistake. Then Epstein came up here for his week-long vacation at the Manitou.

“I guess they were afraid of what I had found out,” he concluded.

“What did you find out?”

“Well, I think what I found out is that Kory killed Alex because they had a way to claim his estate.”

“Are you sure the cops brutalized you because of that?” Neither of us could say for sure. I’ve heard that cops up here, especially a seasonal pig like Gannon, are notoriously dickish, manhandling people for nothing more than drunk and disorderly conduct. The police took extra care of the hotel, too: I’d seen cops stationed by the hotel pool to ward off ragamuffins. Still, what Gannon did yesterday was nasty even by those standards. 

“And what about the $10,000 in your car?”

Epstein lost it to civil asset forfeiture, he explained. He’d withdrawn the sum to make a down payment on his daughter’s car. To seize it, Gannon just had to claim suspicion that the money was associated with criminal activity. That way the judge had a more solid reason to deny bail. That seemed pretty likely to me.

My lunch hour was almost over, and I had to make a call before returning to work, so I stopped the tape recorder. I wrote my number on a piece of paper and gave it to him.

“Put this in your prison wallet and call when you can. I’ll do some investigating. If we can make some kind of connection, I think we have a big story — I mean a big case on our hands.”

Privately, I wasn’t so sure. A clerical error and a handsy cop weren’t much in the way of leads. I wanted to pursue it anyway, so back in the car I dialed up someone who would know how. 

“Go for Rasmussen.”

“Hi Dr. Rasmussen, this is Jonathan calling from Manitou Island.”

“You’ve got the wrong number.”

“It’s Jonathan Wortman, sir. From your senior seminar at Columbia.”

“Wortman …”

I felt sad and surprised that Michael Rasmussen had forgotten me so quickly. Just a few weeks ago we’d co-written a story for the Columbia student newspaper about OSHA violations in the dining halls. He said it was the first time he’d shared a byline with a student in a decade. He also put me on to the job on Manitou Island and wrote my letter of recommendation. I thought we had a good relationship, but he’d forgotten all about me before my diploma even arrived in the mail. 

“I’m just pulling your chain! Jonathan Wortman. How’s it going, buddy?”

I smiled. Rasmussen didn’t just remember me — he liked me. 

“I’m good — I mean well,” I stammered. Talking to a Pulitzer winner and my role model of 10 years never failed to make me nervous. 

“Williams giving you some good assignments out there?”

“Very good. Thank you again for helping me get this position,” I lied. 

“Good, good. Now I gotta hang up, because I’m about to get into an elevator.”

“Wait-could I ask you a quick question about a story?”

“Go ahead,” he said with more than a trace of impatience. 

I told him about Epstein’s arrest on the bridge and my interview with him.

“The problem is that I don’t know what to do next.”

“Talk to Will about it and let me know what he says. I really gotta g—”

“Will doesn’t want me working on this. But I think it’s worth pursuing because the people of Manitou have a right to know what’s going on.”

But that wasn’t my chief motivation for the investigation. In our last meeting together, Rasmussen had told me that if I wrote something that attracted national attention, I’d get promoted to the Metro desk of the New York Times. He was the editor of the desk, so I knew he meant it. 

“Think outside the box. Remember what I did with the cookies.” 

He learned every source’s favorite dessert and served it at each interview. He ate some himself so it never looked like a quid-pro-quo.

“I don’t think this cop is going to give it up for a cookie,” I said, half-joking. “And even if I manage to interview him, I don’t know how I could publish it.”

“Well, do you want me to connect all the dots for you? Should Daddy come over there and write the whole story for you?” He’d rarely spoken to me like that before. My face turned red with shame.

“I’m-I’m sorry, sir. I’ll figure it out myself. After all, that’s the only way I can get to the metro desk.”

I wanted to mention the promotion, just to see if Rasmussen still thought about it.

“Uh, right. I’m hanging up now.”

I tried to think outside the box all afternoon, but I couldn’t come up with anything better than food. When work got out I headed to the diner, picked up a couple burgers and milkshakes, and drove to Gannon’s house. (The newsroom has a directory of all city officials.) 

Gannon lived in the middle of nowhere, at least a mile away from anyone else. I parked across the street from the house and set the food and my tape recorder on the table on his porch. About 30 minutes later he rolled up in his squad car. I started the tape recorder. He approached the porch, wearing a scowl as big as my smile. 

“What the hell are you doing on my property?”

“Officer Gannon, I’m Jonathan Wortman with the Manitou News,” I said, going for a handshake. 

“Well, Wartface, I’ll be calling your editor first thing tomorrow to complain about your trespassing and soliciting!”

“Please, Officer, I was sent to interview you about yesterday’s bridge arrest. I thought we could have some dinner and talk about it.”

“Read the press release. Now get bent!”

I should have panicked at the thought of Gannon calling Will and getting me fired. But the pressure made me come up with a pretty good idea. I knew I couldn’t let Gannon endanger my career, and my strong dislike for cops was bubbling up. 

“I won’t be civil with you for much longer, Officer,” I said. “The people of Manitou need answers.” 

“You don’t care about the people. You and the rest of the liberal media just want to defund the police!”

“I didn’t ask for psychoanalysis,” I said, secretly pulling a straw out of the milkshake behind me. “You’re going to tell me why you really nailed Epstein, who burned down Alex Figero’s house, and everything else I want to know.”

As he started to respond, I whipped the straw from behind my back and stabbed it into his left eye. He howled in pain, stumbled, and fell, hitting his head on the porch deck. The straw was lodged at least a centimeter deep in his eye. As I kneeled over him I felt calm and powerful, ready to strike again. 

“Let me clean that wound for you, Officer,” I said, and I tipped some of the chocolate milkshake into the straw. He screamed in pain as the liquid made contact with his bloody eye. 

“Tell me why you really arrested Epstein,” I said, relishing the situation.

“It was speeding, I swear!”

“Call me ‘sir.’” 

“It was speeding, sir, I promise.”

“Who burned down Alex Figero’s house?”

“He did! It was an accident! He put a bean burrito in the microwave and fell asleep!”

“Now convince me you won’t call my boss or take any other course of retribution against me.”

“I swear, sir. I swear I’ll leave you alone if you leave me alone.”

“Everything you’ve told me has been a lie,” I said, rising to my feet and wiping my fingerprints off some high-touch surfaces. “Unfortunately for you, that means I can’t trust your promise.”

“Sir, please! I promise!” squealed Gannon, as he tried to get up.

“Stay on the ground. Kiss my fucking feet.”

“Yes sir.” And he did it. I loved every second of it. I’d spent my whole life waiting in line for a three-second sip at the water fountain. It felt so good to get out of that line. 

“Enough.” I kicked him hard in the face and he fell back to the deck. I unhooked his nightstick from his belt. He tried to say something, but only blood and whimpers came out. 

“Thank you for your time, Officer. Goodnight!” 

I hit him six times. He was dead after the fourth. I grabbed a lighter from my glovebox and set fire to the wooden deck. As the flames spread I pulled the straw out of his eye, collected the food and my tape recorder, and headed home. 

A lesser reporter would have concluded the investigation then and there. But I was so deep in the flow that my next great idea occurred to me mere minutes after I’d arrived at my apartment. I smashed the tape recorder and threw the pieces in the trash. Now I could decide the truth, and my version was grand. Kory Industries really had burned down Figero’s place, Epstein was pulled over because he knew about it, and an anti-corporatist rebel returned the favor by burning down Gannon’s house. That story would get Rasmussen’s tongue wagging.