The Mourning Mail (FINAL)

Chapter 16

Our server brought our entrees, asked Marci and me if we wanted anything more, and left us to continue our conversation.

Dad had failed twice to generate any response from the police based on Brian's letters. So, before I came today, I made a plan to approach Marci from a different perspective. If Brian's correspondence proved truthful, it described links between his murder and another. But I had nothing else yet to confirm the other homicide—likely the wife, but....

Brian's letters told an exciting and emotionally appealing story, even if the crimes he described didn't happen exactly as he said. Those would be in play as symptoms of his mental health issues in that case. It made sense to frame my questions to Marci as two separate topics that I could later glue together if circumstances warranted.

We got back to the answer to her last question. "Well, Marce, now that I'm no longer paycheck-to-paycheck and free to manage my career, I want to do a story on spec," I said. "Something where I can go deeper without worrying about editorial or commercial restrictions."

"Our butterfly spreads its wings...," my friend said with a grin.

"Something like that," I replied with a laugh. "I'm looking at two different story angles. One of them is a human-interest story about a man by the name of Brian Pierce. A month ago, someone beat him to death and left his body in an alleyway downtown."

"Unfortunately, that happens a lot. What makes his situation unique?" Marci asked as she nibbled a warm breadstick.

"His family's grave is close to Mom's and Dad's. I have a series of intimate letters that Dad found where Pierce was writing to his sister, describing his decisions and behaviors. Some of those things could have been pretty dicey if they were factual or if he acted on them. For example, he claims to have witnessed three people moving a body."

"Yeah, that's a little different—might have something to do with why someone killed him," Marci mused.

"What he wrote about was bad enough that Dad called the police here twice about the letters. But the department wasn't interested in them."

"Your father wasn't one to waste the department's time," Marci acknowledged, some concern reflected in her voice. "And that doesn't sound like something they should have blown off. I am sorry they didn't take him seriously."

"To be fair, he didn't have a lot he could give them to go on. Maybe there's nothing there, but it would've been nice if they'd at least looked into it. Pierce's story intrigues me because he seems like a good guy at heart but is badly flawed. One of those stories that never gets told but should."

"Why do you think that is?" Marci asked as she picked at her salad.

"Ivory-tower elites rarely dip their toes into the real lives most of us experience. Yet they've imposed upon society the idea that to qualify as a victim, someone must be pure and innocent. They prefer a child or a young, beautiful, blonde woman with ample breasts."

"We see that with how much interest the media expresses in certain of our cases," Marci said.

"That means justice gets meted out in individual situations only to the same degree that the sufferer makes for a perfect victim," I continued. "The same is true of which page in the newspaper they choose to print your story. Very few of us are perfect. So, only a tiny percentage get either frontpage attention or the justice to which the Constitution entitles us, at least theoretically."

"I dated a lawyer for a while," Marci said, "and that attitude gets slammed home during negotiations for civil case settlements. The lawyers openly debate how sympathetic a litigant comes across as a strength-of-case matter."

"I want to tell Pierce's story contrasted with what might have been," I replied, "without trying to paint him as the perfect victim. Instead, show him as a regular, defective human being. But stuck in an environment where there is no way to avoid completely the truly evil set of characters he got tangled up with. Maybe revisit our definitions of victimhood by applying them to someone more like ourselves."

"I can see where you might go with the human-interest aspect..." Marci said. "Even as a police officer, I could relate."

"There's been nothing in the news with any details about how the Pierce case is going. How I will write the story depends on the likely outcome. I just wanted to know if the detectives are actively pursuing it. If so, do they have enough yet to charge anyone?"

"I don't know myself, but that's right up my alley. I'd be happy to find out; it shouldn't take long," Marci said. "Is that all you need?"

"That'll help a lot," I said with a grateful smile.

I felt a brief twinge of guilt that I hadn't shared more with Marci about Brian's letters or told her how they might relate to my next ask. But I had to look at it from Marci's professional perspective. She'd have to consider those letters and the connection as evidence and motive. She'd be required to make her superiors aware of them, and I was sure I'd get a lecture about potentially obstructing justice.

Dad had twice offered them, and the police had twice turned them down. Their refusals led directly to my investments of myself and my time in them. I wasn't ready to give up the letters just yet. As a professional journalist protected by the shield law, my situation was different than Dad's. I certainly didn't want to make the evidence the subject of another conversation with anyone in law enforcement, even a friend, until I was ready. Not until I had enough that they couldn't refuse to address it a third time. I trusted Marci to do her part. But I knew she had no authority to push anything forward within the department once anyone down the line dropped the ball.

"I've got another story," I said, ostensibly changing the subject. "It stems from a rumor on the street about a doctor who killed his wife, but no one can find her, dead or alive. I don't know if there's any basis for it, but I wanted to check it out. I googled what I had but got back too many hits, and I couldn't filter out all the movie, book, and social media references."

"Hmmm, a doctor being investigated for possibly killing his wife? That one should stick out a little more," Marci said, cocking her head as if trying to recall it.

"I thought there might be an ongoing investigation, maybe one that isn't solid enough yet to have made the media. I need to find out if anyone has reported a doctor's wife missing or found murdered. Or simply that the wife died, and the circumstances were suspicious, or someone could have manipulated the situation. Anything that might have resulted in a body someone would want to hide."

"'Doctor' could mean many things," Marci pointed out. "A medical doctor, a dentist, a PhD in some other field, or just somebody's nickname. An egotistical blood bank phlebotomist lying in his Match.com profile? Maybe he's just a guy working in a machine shop who someone thinks is smarter than the rest of the employees."

"Now that you put it that way," I admitted, "it might be a taller order than I thought. But my information says he has some kind of degree."

"Believe it or not, that does ring a bell," Marci said, her brow furrowed, "but I can't put my finger on exactly why. I'll ask around."

"Thanks, Marci, I'd appreciate that so much," I said. "The problem with freelancing and not having to answer to a boss is there's too much freedom. Hard to know the best place to spend your time on a story so that you end up with something to show for it."

With that, we turned away from business and finished our meals, sharing rumors and opinions about people, places, and news items. As I paid and Marci was leaving a tip, she said, "I'll call you as soon as I have something, and we can get together then."

"I'm looking forward to that," I said as we parted ways. I didn't tell Marci that I'd be waiting with bated breath for her call. Unnecessarily pressuring your friends won't make you very popular.

But everything I wanted to do with these stories depended on what she turned up.