Justice at Risk by John Morgan Wilson Page B

.”
    “Does it make you wistful for the old days, Justice?”
    “Not at all. To my utter amazement, I’m a documentary writer now, getting a new start.” I glanced across at Peter. “With an ace associate producer to show me the way. Right, Peter?”
    He turned an endearing shade of crimson, and stared at a sprig of parsley on his otherwise empty plate.
    “I’ll do my best.”
    Templeton fixed him with her lively dark eyes.
    “I hope Ben leaves you enough time for a social life, Peter. You know the old adage about all work and no play.”
    We all smiled, while the busboy warmed our coffees and cleared away our empty plates.

Chapter Ten
     
    On Monday morning, I arrived at New Image Productions to find three boxes of labeled videocassettes waiting for me in the office I was to share with Peter Graff.
    Graff detailed the drill.
    “These are all three-quarter-inch dubs that you can view on your VCR at home if you’d like. The master tapes are all in the library on beta, which is half inch. Each tape is numbered. For example, Joffrien-l. That would be the first reel from the Oree Joffrien interview.
    “When you view the tapes, you’ll see a time code burned in along the bottom, which tells you where you are within the tape, broken down by hour, minute, second, and split second. When you find a sound bite or section of footage you think you might use in your show, make a note of the tape number, along with the general beginning and end time, so we can find the bite later for transfer and digitizing purposes.”
    I scanned the three boxes, calculating roughly a hundred videocassettes.
    “I have a feeling I’m going to be watching a lot of television.”
    He laughed.
    “Viewing and selecting footage is a big part of the job. Could I make a suggestion?”
    “Of course.”
    “Look first at what Tommy already selected. He wasn’t too good at the writing part, but he had a great visual sense. You may find that a lot of what he’s already picked out is stuff you can use. Then you can start going through the rest of the tapes to see what else you might want, or make a wish list of things you feel you still need.”
    “So I don’t just sit down and write the script first?”
    “I don’t want to tell you how to work, Ben. You know a lot more about writing than me.”
    “Peter, help me out here.”
    “If it were me, I think I’d want to get a pretty good idea of what kind of visuals were available, or within our budget range, before I started writing. I think that’s what most of the writers do.”
    There was a knock at the door. It was Denise, Chang’s assistant.
    “Cecile wonders if you could stop by her office for a moment.”
    “Both of us?”
    She nodded, backed her wheelchair up, turned, and we followed her to the end of the hall. Chang sat on the edge of her desk, propped up on slim legs and high heels. Her face was solemn, almost ashen.
    Sitting on the couch was a heavyset woman with messy blond hair that showed dark roots, and golden brown eyes that were moist and jumpy. She was wearing pale lavender warm-ups that looked as though they might be from Kmart, and a pair of walking shoes that needed washing. As we entered, she put her hands on her big thighs and heaved her body up, then tugged her warm-up top down around her broad hips.
    Chang slipped off her desk and joined us.
    “This is Melissa Zeigler. Miss Zeigler, Benjamin Justice, Peter Graff.”
    Graff and I waited out a brief silence, while Chang grew uncharacteristically uneasy.
    “I suppose I should just say it straightaway—there’s been another murder.”
    “Connected to Tommy Callahan’s death?”
    “Possibly. Melissa and the victim were engaged to be married. Melissa has some information—well, I’ll let her tell it. She came here asking to talk with anyone who knew Tommy.”
    “That would be Peter, not me.”
    “I thought you might be able to speak with her, Ben. Since you and Peter went together to the motel last Friday. We