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Clark looked off into the distance.
“I’m so sorry, Jack.”
“Don’t be.”
“No matter what anybody says, Styebeck’s a suspect. That’s a fact. And it remains a fact unless they clear him or charge him.”
Clark pressed her hands against the bench, leaning on it hard as she stood.
“At that meeting,” she said, “I was afraid that they were not going to look hard at Styebeck and I started to feel guilty.”
“Why?”
“When I’d heard these stories about Styebeck before, I did nothing. Now …” She turned away. “Jack, if you saw the crime-scene pictures of what Bernice Hogan’s killer did to her … I can’t explain it. Dammit, I helped you because I believed it was the right thing to do.”
A few tense moments passed.
“Thank you for protecting me.”
She touched his shoulder, offered him a weak smile, and then made her way to her car.
Gannon watched her drive off.
He sat alone in the Garden of Consolation, where stone angels watched over him and the dead as he contemplated his next move.
His cell phone rang.
“It’s me,” Adell Clark said. “Just heard on WBEN that there’s a news conference at eleven on the Hogan murder, out at Clarence Barracks.”
“Any idea what it’s about?”
“I don’t know, maybe they’ve got a break in the case.”
“Thanks, Adell. Gotta go.”
As he jogged to his car, Gannon checked his watch. He had just enough time to get out there.
12
The lot at Clarence Barracks was filled with TV trucks and news cars from the Buffalo News, WBEN, Niagara Falls, Batavia, Lockport, campus newspapers and the community Hornet chain, when Gannon arrived.
Indignation pricked at him when he saw a car from the Buffalo Sentinel. Who’d they send? Walking by the Sentinel’s Saturn, he glanced inside for a clue as to who it might be. He saw nothing. Forget it. Besides, he was here on his own, a freelancer.
Inside, he went to the woman at reception, who’d replaced the one he’d encountered earlier.
“I’m here for the news conference.”
“Just sign in and go that way,” she said.
Nearly two dozen news types were stuffed into a small meeting room. A forest of TV cameras on tripods lined the back. Operators made final adjustments as reporters in folding chairs gossiped, gabbed on cell phones, checked Berrys or made notes.
At the head of the room, three men and one woman, each stern-faced, sat behind a table heaped with microphones and recorders.
Bernice Hogan looked upon the gathering from her Buffalo State ID photo, which had been enlarged and posted on the big tan tackboard behind the officers.
A few hundred yards from the room where Gannon stood was a church and the upscale neighborhood of Serenity Bay, with its custom-built homes, clubhouse, tennis courts, beaches and residents who had little interest in the region’s latest murder.
While a few miles west, hidden in the woods near Ellicott Creek, was the shallow grave where Bernice was found.
A sad juxtaposition, Gannon thought, looking from the picture and opening his notebook.
“Let’s get started,” the white-haired man at the table said. “For those who don’t know me, I’m John Parson, captain in command of Troop A, Zone 2. To my left is Lieutenant David Hennesy. To my right, from our Bureau of Criminal Investigation, Investigators Michael Brent and Roxanne Esko, who are heading the investigation into the homicide of Bernice Hogan.
“Lieutenant Hennesy will give you a status update, then we’ll take a few questions.”
Hennesy summarized the case.
“To date we’ve received twenty-seven tips and are following all leads. Of importance are reports of a blue truck, a big-rig tractor without a trailer, possibly with unique markings on the driver’s door. It was seen several times in the Niagara-Lafayette area of Buffalo, prior to Bernice Hogan’s disappearance on the tenth of this month. If anyone has information on a vehicle fitting this description, we’re asking them to call us.”
Murmurs rippled across the room and pages were flipped.
A blue rig. This was new.
“Thank you, Dave,” Parson said. “We’ll take a few questions now. Yes, Cathy from the Observer.“
“Do you have more details on the blue truck?”
“The driver is believed to have had conversations with Bernice Hogan before her disappearance. However, we have no description on the driver, or the year and model of the truck. So we’re appealing to the public.”
“Hold on a second,” Gary Golden, a TV reporter, held up a copy of the Buffalo Sentinel. “With all due respect, seems we’re avoiding the elephant in the room. Is Detective Karl Styebeck of the Ascension Park Police Department your prime suspect? Yes or no?”
After a chorus of throat clearing and an exchange of glances among the four police officials, Michael Brent leaned into the microphones.
“Detective Styebeck is not the focus of this investigation.”
“Is he now, or has he at any time, been a suspect?” Gannon said from the back.
Heads turned to Gannon.
“He is not the focus of this investigation,” Brent said.
“That’s not a denial,” Kip Ramon, from the Buffalo News, said.
“Reports suggesting Karl Styebeck is the key suspect and focus of this investigation are wrong,” Parson said.
“Do you have other suspects? This mysterious blue truck, for instance?” That question came from Pete Martinez from the Sentinel.
“As Dave said, we’re following nearly thirty tips and we have some promising leads.”
“Has Karl Styebeck been ruled out?” Gannon asked.
“We’ve answered that,” Parson said.
“Sir,” Gannon pressed, “you have not answered that question.”
“Has Karl Styebeck been questioned?” Golden asked.
“We’re not going to publicly discuss all details of this case.”
“So you have questioned him?” Golden said.
“Next question,” Parson said, pointing to a reporter from one of the Niagara Falls news stations. “Go ahead, Loretta.”
“Did you find any DNA, fingerprints or usable trace evidence?”
“We’re not going to go into that here,” Parson said. “I think we’ll conclude this for now. We’ll keep you apprised of any developments.”
Several reporters tried to get in last questions. The investigators waved them off as they gathered file folders and left the room. As the conference broke up, Martinez called to Gannon, pointing outside to talk privately.
Martinez was a seasoned general-assignment reporter who could cover anything, a good-natured guy who got along with everyone, including Gannon. They walked alongside the building, to the rear, where they could be alone.
“You’re playing with fire being here, being suspended and all, Jack.”
“Guess you heard what happened?”
“There are no secrets in a newsroom.”
“Well, my story’s not wrong, Pete.”
“I’m not going to judge you, buddy,” Martinez said. “Before you got here, I was talking with Golden and Ramon from the News. Seems nobody can find Styebeck. Any chance you could share any other contact data, Jack?”
“I don’t have anything, sorry. I’m here as a freelancer.”
“Really, for who?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“Watch yourself. You’re persona non grata.” Martinez looked around, then stepped closer and dropped his voice. “Nate fully intends to run a retraction if you don’t give up your source. That’s what I’m hearing.”
“I can’t do that, Pete.”
Martinez’s cell phone rang. “I don’t care what you do. I’m just keeping you posted.” Martinez shook Gannon’s hand, answered his call as he headed for his car.
Gannon reviewed his notes, considering the new lead on the blue truck as the sunlight dimmed.
“Well, look who we have here. Mr. Jack Gannon, the legend who almost won a Pulitzer. At last we meet, in the flesh.”
Michael Brent and Roxanne Esko were now standing next to him. He glanced around. No one else was in sight. Esko had car keys and a file folder in her hand.
“Quite an interesting story in your paper today,” Brent said. “Unnamed sources say the darnedest things. Well, we heard something, too.”
Gannon let Brent fill the silence.
“We heard you got fired or something for writing fiction. Care to comment?”
“I stand by my story. I trust my source. It’s that simple.”
“No, it’s not,” Brent said. “Because you and your ‘source,’ whoever they are, don’t have a clue about what’s going on. You don’t know jack shit, Jack.”
Gannon flipped to a clear page, poised his pen.
“Why don’t you enlighten me, Investigator.”
Brent stared at Gannon’s notebook, then at Gannon.
“Enlighten you? I think you have a hearing problem. Seems when you called me, I told you to hold off with your little tale there, said you’d save yourself a lot of grief.”
Gannon shrugged.
“So, how’s that grief working out for you today, Slick?”
Gannon didn’t answer.
Brent’s jawline tensed, then relaxed as he stepped into Gannon’s personal space.
“You’d better get ready for more grief,” Brent said, “because I’m going to find out who your source is, and when I do, I’m going to make sure they face the consequences of obstructing our investigation.”
13
Gannon left that mess with the state police behind him in Clarence and drove to the Great Lakes Truck Palace at Interstate 90 and Union Road.
He needed to check out the revelation on the mystery rig.
After navigating his small car through a realm of eighteen-wheelers, with their hissing brakes and diesels spewing black smoke, he parked at the office of general manager Rob Hatcher.
“I’ll help you if I can. A crying shame about that girl,” Hatcher had said on the phone.
Gannon knew him from earlier stories he’d written on a couple of bad wrecks and had called him after the news conference.
Now, with Gannon watching him, Hatcher clicked his pen repeatedly as he gazed upon Bernice Hogan’s picture in the Sentinel, which was spread across his service counter.
“So, you really think a cop did it?”
“He’s a suspect.”
“Well, two state police investigators came in three days ago, maybe four. They asked us to help them locate a blue truck.”
“Did they say why?”
