around town cap in hand.”
“Maybe not, but Warren told me that on Wednesday, Graham Meighen approached him personally asking for a donation.”
“And … ?”
Zack chortled. “Warren told Meighen to go to hell, that he was supporting me.”
“And we missed the moment,” I said. “Let’s at least celebrate it. I haven’t had an Old Fashioned in twenty-five years. Why don’t you pick up a jar of maraschino cherries on your way home and we’ll go crazy.”
CHAPTER
5
Jill Oziowy called just as I was putting the casserole in the oven for dinner. As always her voice was vibrant. Jill set her own course, and she had a gift for taking people where she wanted them to go. “I watched the podcast of Zack’s news conference this morning,” she said. “It piqued my curiosity, so I pulled up our coverage of the Cronus murder. Gruesome stuff going on out there in the Queen City.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” I said.
“Fill me in.”
I gave Jill the condensed version of all that had happened from the time Cronus warned us that a child would be abducted from the R-H opening. When I finished, she said, “Sounds like a story to me.”
“A story that continues to unfold,” I agreed. “I hate loose ends, and there are many, many loose ends here. The problem is I don’t have time to follow them up. Scott Ridgeway, our current mayor, is a lightweight. Everyone knows he’s a puppet for the developers, but he’s affable; he’s enthusiastic about all the ceremonial stuff mayors have to do, and until the Racette-Hunter opening, he’d never met a camera or amicrophone he didn’t like. He was scheduled to speak that night and he froze. His campaign manager had to literally push him onstage, and when Ridgeway just stared at the audience, his campaign manager had to haul him off. The mayor has been AWOL ever since.”
“No candidate disappears for two full days during a tight campaign,” Jill said.
“No, and Zack just learned that Ridgeway’s cash cows are getting skittish. The
Leader-Post
is doing some polling today and tomorrow, and Milo O’Brien, our political gun for hire, thinks we may be pulling ahead.”
“You don’t sound exactly jubilant,” Jill said.
“I’m not,” I said. “I’m worried.”
“Come on, Jo, you’ve been doing politics for a long time. You’re too smart to get sucker-punched.”
“In an ordinary election, yes. But from the time Cronus warned us that a child would be abducted, this has not been an ordinary election. Jill, I think there’s a connection between Ridgeway’s campaign and Cronus’s murder.”
“You think they had him killed?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that Cronus had me take a buddy photo of him with Zack and Brock Poitras, the candidate for city council in our ward. Cronus sent out the photo with a cryptic message – all numbers, seemingly random. Within twelve hours he was dead.”
“I’m coming out there,” Jill said,
“Are you serious?”
“You bet I’m serious. It’s been a long time since I’ve done real journalism. This smells like a red meat story, and I want to be the one doing the reporting.”
“This may get ugly.”
“It couldn’t be any uglier than what’s going on here.”
“Trouble in the halls of Nation TV ?”
“Just our biennial bloodletting.”
“And you’re caught in the middle?”
“I’m the target. Yet another young turk has been brought in to save the network. He wants Nation TV to pull back on hard news and focus on ‘lifestyle programming’ so we can capture the eighteen to forty-nine demographic. Same old, same old – shorter segments, less analysis, more focus on self-help, home improvement, and fun. He’s getting a lot of support from the brown-nosers upstairs. I seem to be the only one standing in his way.”
“Hey, déjà-vu all over again,” I said. “Remember the water-skiing squirrel?”
Jill chuckled. “God, I’d almost forgotten. Same situation. Different young
“Maybe not, but Warren told me that on Wednesday, Graham Meighen approached him personally asking for a donation.”
“And … ?”
Zack chortled. “Warren told Meighen to go to hell, that he was supporting me.”
“And we missed the moment,” I said. “Let’s at least celebrate it. I haven’t had an Old Fashioned in twenty-five years. Why don’t you pick up a jar of maraschino cherries on your way home and we’ll go crazy.”
CHAPTER
5
Jill Oziowy called just as I was putting the casserole in the oven for dinner. As always her voice was vibrant. Jill set her own course, and she had a gift for taking people where she wanted them to go. “I watched the podcast of Zack’s news conference this morning,” she said. “It piqued my curiosity, so I pulled up our coverage of the Cronus murder. Gruesome stuff going on out there in the Queen City.”
“You don’t know the half of it,” I said.
“Fill me in.”
I gave Jill the condensed version of all that had happened from the time Cronus warned us that a child would be abducted from the R-H opening. When I finished, she said, “Sounds like a story to me.”
“A story that continues to unfold,” I agreed. “I hate loose ends, and there are many, many loose ends here. The problem is I don’t have time to follow them up. Scott Ridgeway, our current mayor, is a lightweight. Everyone knows he’s a puppet for the developers, but he’s affable; he’s enthusiastic about all the ceremonial stuff mayors have to do, and until the Racette-Hunter opening, he’d never met a camera or amicrophone he didn’t like. He was scheduled to speak that night and he froze. His campaign manager had to literally push him onstage, and when Ridgeway just stared at the audience, his campaign manager had to haul him off. The mayor has been AWOL ever since.”
“No candidate disappears for two full days during a tight campaign,” Jill said.
“No, and Zack just learned that Ridgeway’s cash cows are getting skittish. The
Leader-Post
is doing some polling today and tomorrow, and Milo O’Brien, our political gun for hire, thinks we may be pulling ahead.”
“You don’t sound exactly jubilant,” Jill said.
“I’m not,” I said. “I’m worried.”
“Come on, Jo, you’ve been doing politics for a long time. You’re too smart to get sucker-punched.”
“In an ordinary election, yes. But from the time Cronus warned us that a child would be abducted, this has not been an ordinary election. Jill, I think there’s a connection between Ridgeway’s campaign and Cronus’s murder.”
“You think they had him killed?”
“I don’t know. All I know is that Cronus had me take a buddy photo of him with Zack and Brock Poitras, the candidate for city council in our ward. Cronus sent out the photo with a cryptic message – all numbers, seemingly random. Within twelve hours he was dead.”
“I’m coming out there,” Jill said,
“Are you serious?”
“You bet I’m serious. It’s been a long time since I’ve done real journalism. This smells like a red meat story, and I want to be the one doing the reporting.”
“This may get ugly.”
“It couldn’t be any uglier than what’s going on here.”
“Trouble in the halls of Nation TV ?”
“Just our biennial bloodletting.”
“And you’re caught in the middle?”
“I’m the target. Yet another young turk has been brought in to save the network. He wants Nation TV to pull back on hard news and focus on ‘lifestyle programming’ so we can capture the eighteen to forty-nine demographic. Same old, same old – shorter segments, less analysis, more focus on self-help, home improvement, and fun. He’s getting a lot of support from the brown-nosers upstairs. I seem to be the only one standing in his way.”
“Hey, déjà-vu all over again,” I said. “Remember the water-skiing squirrel?”
Jill chuckled. “God, I’d almost forgotten. Same situation. Different young
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