Executive Privilege by Phillip Margolin

Author:Phillip Margolin
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub, azw3
ISBN: 0061562734
Publisher: HarperLuxe
Published: 2008-06-10T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-four

It was the third item on the eleven o'clock news after the lead story about the arrest of the Ripper and a discussion of Claire Farrington's pregnancy. Dana Cutler heard it while she was sitting on the bed in her motel room with her back against the headboard eating another ham and cheese sandwich. She lost her appetite when the anchorwoman announced the suicide of prominent D.C. attorney Dale Perry.

According to the news report, Perry had worked until 6 P.M. then driven home. His butler said that it was unusual for his employer to come home before eight, and Perry's chef said that he hadn't prepared dinner because he had been told that Perry was eating with a client and would be home late. Perry had given his staff the night off with no explanation. Although there would be no official determination of the cause of death until the autopsy was complete, an unidentified source had told a reporter for the station that the death looked like a suicide.

A few things occurred to Dana as she considered the implications of Perry's death. According to the stories about Walsh's murder, unidentified sources had told the press that the coed had been abducted from her car in the parking lot of the Dulles Towne Center mall. If Walsh was a Ripper victim that was one thing, but if the Ripper hadn't killed her, Dana wondered how the killer knew Walsh had parked at the mall and where she was parked. Dale Perry's mysterious client knew. Dana had phoned the client with the information. With Perry dead it would be impossible to learn the client's identity.

Dana was certain that Dale Perry was no suicide and that she would die as soon as she was found by the men who'd killed Perry. Dana had been counting on selling her pictures to the president in exchange for money and a guarantee of safety, but with the president undertaking a scorched earth policy it looked like that option was off the table. What to do? Only one other option occurred to her.

The offices of Exposed, Washington, D.C.'s largest circulation supermarket tabloid, occupied two floors of a remodeled warehouse within sight of the Capitol dome in a section of the city that teetered between decay and gentrification. The inflated prices paid by upwardly mobile young professionals for rehabilitated row houses had sent rents soaring and the old established neighborhood businesses scurrying. As a result, trendy new restaurants and boutiques were interspersed with lots filled with construction equipment and abandoned storefronts.

Patrick Gorman, the owner and editor of Exposed, was a grossly obese man with heavy jowls, a massive stomach, and the permanent crimson complexion of an alcoholic. He had purchased the warehouse for a song when his only neighbors were junkies and the homeless. If he chose to sell he could make a fortune, but he had too much fun peddling phony news stories to people who needed to believe in miracles, the existence of legendary creatures, and the idea that the rich and famous led lives more unhappy and tumultuous than their own.

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