Sweet Anger(14)
The whole thing was insanity, lunacy of the highest caliber, political and professional suicide, yet like a sap he had gone and done it anyway.
He had fallen in love with the enemy.
Chapter Three
WHEN KARI RETURNED TO WBTV, THE NEWSROOM WAS buzzing. Some big story had just broken and she had a fair idea what it was. As she passed clusters of people conversations ceased. Covert, speculative glances were cast at her. Everyone already knew.
She went to her cubicle and carried on as though nothing were wrong. Let them talk, she thought. Hunter McKee, in his attempt to win public approval, would make a monumental fool of himself. Accusing Thomas Wynne of misappropriation of community funds was preposterous! Everyone would laugh at McKee, scorn his petty unfounded allegations, just as she had.
“Hi, baby.”
She had a smile ready; albeit a stiff one. “Hi.”
Pinkie glanced over his shoulder. Private conversations were hard to come by in the beehivelike room. “It’s no longer a mystery why McKee wanted to see you.”
Her chin tilted at a proud angle. “No.”
“Word just came down. They arrested Parker at home, Haynes on the golf course. ’Course they’ll be out on bond in a matter of minutes. Still, helluva mess for city hall.” He placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. “Helluva mess for you.”
“Why?” she asked defensively. “If there was a scam, Thomas certainly wasn’t involved.”
“Is that what McKee told you? That Thomas wasn’t involved?”
Pinkie’s eyes were as fair as the rest of him, a pale, almost transparent blue. They could be compelling. As they were now. She looked away from them. “No. He thinks Thomas was in on it. The man’s a fool.”
“Foolish maybe, but chivalrous. I never heard of a public official warning the kinfolks beforehand that someone in the family was about to be zapped.”
“Nor did he. He wanted me to give him information.” She stood and began to pace the small cubicle that was barely large enough to contain her desk and chair. “He actually thought I would help him get a conviction on the others. Can you believe that? The gall of the man? He wanted to have a court reporter take my statement so he wouldn’t have to subpoena me.”
Pinkie fanned out the match he had just used to light his cigarette and dropped it into the wastebasket. His eyes never left Kari’s face. “So he was extending you a courtesy.”
“Like hell he was,” she said acerbically. “He probably thought that as an emotionally weakened widow, I’d break down, blubber out all Thomas’s dark secrets. What he doesn’t understand is that Thomas didn’t have any secrets, dark or otherwise. He’ll find that out soon enough and then he’ll look like an idiot.”
“You’re sure of that?”
“That he’ll be made to look a fool?”
“No. That Thomas didn’t have any secrets,” Pinkie said quietly.
Kari spun around to face him, ready to do battle. For several tense seconds she stared at him defiantly, daring him to expound on that theory. Finally Pinkie looked away. Kari dropped into her chair and gave him her back.
“I’m sorry, sweetheart. We’ve all been thrown out of whack. This is a sonofabitchin’ thing to happen to you so soon after …” He laid his hands on her shoulders and administered a gentle massage. Her muscles were knotted with tension. She had just begun to get a handle on things. Now this. He didn’t know whom he would rather strangle first, Wynne for doing whatever the hell he had done, or McKee for making his widow pay for it. “Why don’t you go home? We’ll fill your segment with a human interest piece tonight.”
“Not on your life,” she said tightly and stood up abruptly, throwing off his comforting hands. Her eyes were brilliant and fierce. “I don’t want to give Mr. McKee the satisfaction of thinking he’s frightened me. He’ll be watching tonight and my smiling, shining face is going to be on that television screen. I’m not guilty of anything and neither was Thomas. And if Mr. McKee thinks I’ll skulk around as though we were, he has another think coming!”
Kari had deluded herself into believing that if she bluffed her way through it, ignored it, it would go away. She hadn’t counted on the scope of the scandal. It rocked the foundations and rattled the rafters of city hall. That evening’s Denver Post carried the full story, disclosing the estimated amount of money involved based on figures provided by the D.A.’s office.
Apparently Pinkie had warned the station’s reporters to lay off her, but other media reps weren’t so restricted. As she left the building, she was swarmed by reporters from the newspapers and other television stations. She said nothing, only shoved her way to her car. Anger and fear were warring forces inside her. Her hands trembled as she drove home. Her heart was pounding.