Yesterday's News

my personal life’s a mess. All I want to do, all I ever wanted to do, is be a good reporter, and now you won’t help me either.”
    Rust turned sideways, snatching off the glasses with her left hand and clamping the right to her face to dam the tears. I opened three drawers before I found the Kleenex box I knew I’d bought weeks ago. I pushed it toward her. She crumpled one, then came back for another. The tears and tissues savaged her mascara.
    Putting her glasses back on, she said, “I need somebody to look into the man’s death, Mr. Cuddy. I understand it’ll cost money, but I owe him that much.”
    She looked up at me with the defiant dignity of a high school girl who doesn’t have a date for the prom but decides to go anyway. Wrecked makeup and all, it gave her a surprising air of attraction.
    “Ms. Rust—”
    “Please, call me Jane.”
    “Jane. I’m not saying I’ll accept the case. Police anywhere take a dim view of a private investigator poking into a killing. But I’m willing to hear more first if you’re willing to tell it.”
    She nodded. “The head porno guy is named Gotbaum. I can write all this out for you with first names and addresses and all. My source... my source’s name was Coyne, Charlie Coyne. He was kind of a messenger, carrying some of the stuff. He... they found him in an alley behind one of the bars in the part of town... the part we call The Strip. Kind of like your Combat Zone up here.”
    “Topless bars, peep shows, that kind of thing?”
    “Right, right. When the city fathers, and I emphasize the gender, decided that it would cost more to close them down than hem them in, a decision was made to sacrifice three blocks down near the cannery. It was called The Strip long before I ever came to town.”
    “When was that?”
    “When?”
    “When you came to town.”
    “Oh, about two years ago. I worked in Florida , then South Carolina , then New Jersey before I came up here.”
    I thought it sounded like a lot of stops for someone so young, but I let it go. “How was Coyne killed?” Rust bit her lip, and then I thought the tears might be back on the way. “Knifed. And robbed. Hagan said Charlie was mugged by a derelict and closed the book on it.”
    “Hagan?”
    “He’s the detective captain. In line for chief.”
    “And you don’t believe him because...“
    She regained a little fire. “I don’t believe him because his ex-partner is a guy named Schonstein, or ‘Schonsy,’ as he is affectionately called.” Rust made the last sound like the deepest insult one could inflict. “And, surprise, surprise, guess who the cop is that Coyne told me was on the take?”
    “Schonstein.”
    “Right. But not Schonsy.”
    “I don’t get you.”
    “The cop with his hand out is Detective Mark Schonstein. Schonsy’s son. Hagan’s old partner’s son. Smell anything now?”
    “Schonsy Senior still on the force?”
    “Retired. Disability pension a while ago.”
    “And you figure one of the cops killed Coyne to keep him from...”
    “From talking to me.”
    “But he’d already talked to you, right? The night of the raid, I mean?”
    “Yes, but I kept after him on it. I wanted to have a story so well documented that even the cops couldn’t sweep it under the rug. And if my editor wouldn’t run it, I’d find somebody who would.”
    “How did the cops know that Coyne was your source?”
    “I don’t know. That’s one of the things I need you to find out.”
    When I didn’t go on, Rust fidgeted. Finally I said, “Who did you tell, Jane?”
    She shook her head.
    “Come on. How am I supposed to find the leak if you won’t—”
    “I can’t, I just can’t! I have to know if one of them... I have to know without telling you. It probably wasn’t even professional to tell.... Look, if I was... if Charlie was betrayed that way, I want to know you found it out independently. Don’t you see?”
    “I see that you didn’t want your editor to know the name of your source, but that you did tell others. If you don’t tell me who the possibilities are, my hands are pretty much tied.”
    “The people I told wouldn’t.... They couldn’t have told the police about Charlie. I’d feel worse than I do now if I hired you and you made them feel like I suspected them. Besides, I’m sure the cops found out Charlie was my source some other way.”
    “Well, would Charlie have told anyone?”
    Suddenly Rust dipped her head forward, middle fingers rotating gently at the