Before I Sleep Page 10

  Ted nodded, as did two of the other hosts.

  “Which means,” Carl continued, “that people probably aren't getting bored with the discussion. And if they're not getting bored, they're still listening.”

  The marketing director spoke again. “It only takes a few callers to light up the lines. I'm worried about the listeners, and so are our advertisers.”

  “So are the owners,” Bill said. “They suggested that Carey find something else to discuss.”

  Only the advertising people looked happy about that. Talk radio might be entertainment, but most of the hosts and producers had strong feelings about the sanctity of their freedom of speech.

  “Yesterday,” Bill continued, “I was prepared to consider the cost in terms of revenue. Today I find myself considering the cost in terms of this station's automony, and our right to broadcast whatever we choose, within the bounds of decency.”

  Carey perked up, and looked attentively at him.

  Bill waved a hand. “That graffiti really made my blood boil. I will not have our broadcast policies dictated by a group of cowardly scum who come in the dead of night to paint nasty slogans on our building. I will not have our policy decided by a few chickenshit advertisers who haven't got the gumption to support free speech.”

  “Hear, hear,” said Ted. Carl nodded approvingly.

  “So here's our policy henceforth. The graffiti will remain on the building. I'm not going to paint it over until the city threatens us with a code violation. Carey will continue to do her shows about Otis as long as she wants. And I want the rest of you to take the same tack on the air. We will not be silenced by cheap terror tactics.”

  Applause spread through the room.

  “But,” said one of the techies when the applause died down, “what about safety? Especially, what about Carey's safety? These guys could get nasty.”

  “I've already thought about that. We're going to hire off-duty policemen to provide round-the-clock security. And if any more death threats get phoned in—”

  Carey interrupted him. “Death threats?”

  Bill suddenly looked uncomfortable. Carey's producer, Marge Stanton, shifted in her seat and looked apologetically at her.

  “What death threats?” she repeated.

  Marge spoke. “We got a couple of them last night when you were on the air.”

  “Why didn't you tell me?”

  “I thought they were just some more crackpots. It's happened before.”

  “It happens all the time,” Carl said reassuringly. “To all of us.”

  “But the station has never been vandalized before. And my home was vandalized sometime last night.”

  Bill looked concerned. “Your home?”

  “Somebody spray-painted bleeding heart on my front door.”

  Bill's frown deepened. “We have a system that can track the phone numbers of all callers. We don't ordinarily use it, but we're going to start. That way if anyone calls in anything that sounds serious, the police can track it down, okay?”

  Everyone nodded except Carey, who was beginning to feel as if she were out on a precarious limb. It wasn't the first time she'd had death threats; hell, she'd even had a few while she was a prosecutor. But never before had the threat come right to her front door. Suddenly the graffiti seemed more frightening than infuriating.

  Bill looked at her, saying finally, “Your call, Carey. You can back down if you want to.”

  But she looked around at all the other faces, faces that were showing a surprising solidarity.

  “If you don't back off, we won't,” said Ted. “Hell, I'll ram it down their throats. That ought to take some of the focus off you.”

  “But you support the death penalty.”

  “Sure I do. But if you say there's a chance that John Otis is innocent, then I believe there's a chance. And while I support the death penalty, I don't ever want to see an innocent man executed.”

  “Me either,” said Carl. A couple of the other hosts nodded.

  “What's more,” Ted said, “the issue is whether you have the right to have an opinion and voice it in a public forum. As some guy once said, ‘I may not agree with what you say, but I'll defend to the death your right to say it.’ I think most of us feel the same way. Hell, that's part of what talk radio is all about. And that's something I'm perfectly willing to go to the mat over. That's the real issue here, and I think every one of us is capable of running with it.”

  “That's it then,” Bill said, clapping his hands to his thighs, indicating the meeting was over. “The station policy is that we will not back down from any issue. And I want each and every one of you to hammer on that, even if only for a few minutes at a time. As for our advertisers …” He looked at the marketing people. “You can offer them a disclaimer to be broadcast at our expense if they want it. Something to the effect that they don't necessarily support any opinions heard on the show, but that they do support the right of people to voice those opinions. Fair enough?”

  Now even the ad people looked happier.

  “Ed, you record the disclaimer. Carey, let me know your decision about whether you want to continue with the Otis thing.”

  He rose and left the snack room. The techies trailed after him, along with the advertising people until finally there were only hosts and producers left. Carey looked at them, and they looked at her.

  “I'll understand if you want to drop the topic,” Carl said. “All of us will understand. Especially since your home was vandalized. But I wish you wouldn't. Somebody has to hold back the forces of darkness.”

  Carey sat there after everyone had gone back to their work, thinking about it. It had seemed so simple when she started. She had wanted to be a voice of reason in a society that sometimes seemed to be maddened with bloodlust. She had just wanted people to take note of the fact that a man who might be innocent was about to die.

  Now this.

  Nothing in life was ever simple.

  “This is Carey Justice, and you're listening to 990 WCST, Tampa Bay's number one talk radio station. Don't touch the dial, folks, and don't pick up the phones just yet. Tonight we're going to do something a little different.

  “You've probably heard by now that the offices of WCST were vandalized. Apparently some people don't like the fact that I've spent the last four shows talking about John William Otis and the death penalty. Apparently some person didn't think it was enough that he could vote against me by switching to another station. He didn't think it was enough that he could call in and express his own views and argue with me.

  “Instead he tried to frighten me, and tried to frighten the station into dropping the subject altogether.

  “Well, you know what? John William Otis has only seventeen days left to live and I happen to think it's worth some public discussion when we, as a society, set out to take a man's life on circumstantial evidence. Now maybe you don't think so. Or maybe you think I'm crazy. That's your right, and all you have to do is pick up the phone and say so here, where everybody who's listening can hear you.

  “But it's my right to speak my piece, and I'm going to speak it.

  “And that's what this show is really about tonight. It's about free speech in this country, and whether we're going to give in to terrorists who want to silence us. WCST has decided that the station will not be silenced on this issue. I've decided that I won't be silenced on this issue.

  “And with me tonight are three other WCST hosts and our station manager. They don't agree with my opinions, but feel just as strongly as I do that we can't allow terrorism to silence any of us.

  “With me in the studio are Kel Murchison, Carl Dun-leavy, and Ted Sanders, familiar to many of you from their popular programs. Also with us is Bill Hayes, our station manager. Bill, I believe you wanted to open this evening.”

  “Thank you, Carey. I want to make it perfectly clear to our listeners that WCST is solidly behind free speech on the airwaves. It is our policy that neither our hosts nor our station will give in
to efforts of any kind to silence us on issues that we feel are of public interest. We most especially won't give in to cowardly public interest.

  “It is the position of WCST radio that our entire purpose is to present a variety of opinions to the public. In fact, that's what talk radio is all about. If we start allowing a small group of people to dictate what is and isn't suitable subject matter, then we won't be talk radio anymore, we'll be propaganda radio.

  “This station is not about to allow that to happen.”

  Carey cut straight away to commercial, and Kel looked over at Bill. “So that means I can talk about the poor quality of the pasties the girls at After Midnight wear?”

  Bill rolled his eyes, and everyone else laughed, easing some of the tension that had inexplicably built.

  During the next segment, each of the other hosts voiced his view about the vandalism in a give-and-take discussion among themselves. After the next break, the phones were opened.

  The first two callers offered strong support for the station's policy. Carey found herself thinking that this was going to be an awfully boring show if nobody but cheerleaders called in. What she needed was one of her favorite wackos to call in and argue against the policy.

  The third call woke them all up.

  “Go ahead, caller.”

  “I'm gonna kill you, you fuckin’ bitch!”

  Carey hit the disconnect and the dump button at the same time, silently repeating the caller's words to tell the computer just how much to excise out of the tape delay. The listeners wouldn't even know something had happened, although the computer would now subtly slow down the broadcast until it had once again built up the delay.

  As soon as she released the dump, she punched another call button. “Caller? Are you there?”

  “Yeah, I'm here,” said the familiar voice of one of her favorite wackos, J.D. from Lutz. “Y'know, all this highfalutin talk about freedom of speech is just a load of bull.”

  “You think so, J.D.”

  “I know so! Freedom of speech is only to protect the citizens from government interference. It don't give no radio station any right to say anything if the people don't like it.”

  “The people can always change the station.”

  “Yeah, that's the same crap they say about television. Turn the channel if you don't like it. You ever tried to turn the channel, Carey?”

  “I don't watch much, I'm afraid.”

  “Well, give it a try sometime. It's the same crap on every channel. People wearin’ no clothes, people swearing and cursin’ words I don't want my kids to hear. Put on a kids’ show and you know what you find?”

  “Afraid not, J.D.”

  “You find some Spic teachin’ ‘em all to talk Spanish, that's what. And it's the same with the damn radio. I change the stations and what have I got? That crazy music teachin’ the kids to love the devil. Or that highbrow crap that sounds like a bunch of old ladies with a bellyache. Or some preacher trying to steal the last ten bucks off some widow.”

  Carey didn't dare look up. She could hear the stifled laughs from the others in the studio with her. “Gee, J.D., it sounds like you don't like very much.”

  “I'm particular about what I do with my time.”

  “I can see that. But is it really so bad if your kids learn a couple of words of Spanish?”

  “I don't want them leamin’ no furrin words! English is good enough for American kids. You start givin’ them Spies an inch, and they'll take a mile.”

  “Well, they were kind of here before us, J.D. And there's an awful lot of them living here now. It would be neighborly to learn a few words of their language.”

  “Neighborly? What's that got to do with it? They're livin’ in the U.S. of A., and we speak English here. They don't like it, let ‘em go back to Cuba.”

  “Some of them have been living here longer than we have.”

  “So what? We own it now.”

  “You know, J.D., you're the kind that gives redneck a bad name.”

  “So I'm a redneck. And I'm damn proud of it.”

  “I know quite a few rednecks who don't feel the way you do.”

  “Well, I don't. You wanna live here, you gotta live the American way.”

  “But Americans come from all over the world, J.D. From every place you can think of.”

  “So? That don't mean they don't have to be American when they get here.”

  “So what you're saying is that you don't believe in free speech?”

  “Oh, I believe in free speech all right. Course I do. That's the American way. But it don't mean some Goody Two-shoes like you can get on a radio station and tell us all the law is wrong.”

  “Why not? You're getting on here to tell us it's right, aren't you? Isn't that what free speech is about?”

  “It ain't about criticizing the guv'ment or the American way.”

  “But if we never criticize, then we don't really have free speech, do we?”

  “You just don't get it, do you? I'm tellin’ you, love it or leave it. You don't like it here, move on. But don't sit there at your fancy microphone fillin’ the airwaves with crap about how the law is doing somethin’ wrong. Otis murdered those people, and if the state don't fry him, I might get a mind to go huntin’ him with my shotgun. Scum like him don't deserve to live.”

  “On that score, I think a lot of people agree with you, J.D.”

  “Course they do. That's why we got the law.”

  She cut him off and moved on to the next caller. To her relief, the show picked up after that, and the issue had become free speech and whether she had a right to exercise it about the Otis case. It put an interesting spin on a subject that even she had realized was apt to wear thin before long.

  It helped, too, that the other hosts joined in, giving a different direction with their divergent opinions. At the first news break, Bill rose to leave and told them all to keep it up.

  “It's hot,” he said. “It's really hot. Good going, guys.”

  “I thought you were going to stay,” Carey said.

  He shook his head. “I'm going to find out about that caller who made the threat.”

  “It was just a crank,” she said. But the truth was, she didn't quite believe that. Not when she had graffiti on her front door.

  “Maybe. But somebody's gonna put the fear of God into him.”

  “He's right, Carey,” Carl said after Bill left. “Somebody should at least check into it. It won't hurt.”

  “If somebody really wants to kill me, I don't think they're going to announce it on the radio.”

  Kel gave a snort of laughter. “Hey, you used to work with criminals. You're not going to tell me they weren't stupid enough to do just that.”

  Carey wished she could disagree with him, but she couldn't. In her experience as a prosecutor, she'd learned just how dumb some criminals could be.

  The thought was enough to keep her from going outside to have a cigarette.

  CHAPTER 8

  17 Days

  When she emerged from the station that night, the first person she encountered was the off-duty cop Bill had promised would be there. The next person was Seamus Rourke.

  He was leaning against his car, wearing white shorts, a black polo shirt, and Top-Siders. He had the sexiest legs she'd ever seen on a man, and if she hadn't known better, she might have wondered if he was wearing those shorts on purpose.

  “What's up?” she asked as she approached.

  “Oh, a little of this and a little of that. I heard about the death threat you got tonight. I also heard that it hasn't been the first one.”

  “Who the hell told you that?”

  He flashed a smile. “Ve haff eyes everyvhere.”

  “Right.”

  “So okay. Your station manager called to report the threats, and a little birdy mentioned it to me.”

  “No secrets in the St. Pete Police Department, huh?”

  “Nary a one. We have the best grapevine this side of prison. Anyway, I d
on't like the idea of you going home alone tonight. I figured I'd ride shotgun. Especially since your place was vandalized last night.”

  She put her hands on her hips. “Just when did I become the major subject of discussion on the police grapevine?”

  “Along about the time you started saying maybe John Otis was innocent. Come on, Carey, you had to know you were going to get attention with this stunt.”

  “It isn't a stunt.”

  He shrugged. “Bad choice of word. My point is, when a former prosecutor starts saying the system screwed up, a lot of people get interested. Cops. Prosecutors. Assholes with a kink. You name it. You made the five o'clock news, the six o'clock news, and the ten o'clock news tonight. Your name seems to be on every tongue. Which helps lubricate the grapevine.”

  “Well, I can look out for myself. I've been doing it for a long time, Seamus.”

  “Yup. And I'm a male chauvinist pig who thinks a guy with a gun is better protection than an attitude. So sue me. And cut out the bravado. If you've got half a brain in your head—and I know you do—you ought to be relieved that you don't have to go home alone tonight.”

  She hated it when he was right. So she looked him over, as if making an assessment. “I don't see your gun.”

  “It's in the glove compartment.”

  “I feel ever so much safer.”

  “I knew you would. I'll follow you. Just don't try to lose me. It aggravates me when people do that.”

  “Aren't you going to check out my car first?” she asked, with an exaggerated bat of her eyelashes. The worst of it was, as annoyed as she was at him for scaring her by taking the threat seriously, he was still making her want to laugh.

  “I already did, Counselor. Let's go.”

  She did feel a whole lot better knowing he was behind her as she drove up I-275. Much as she had been refusing to face it, the fact was that dread had been steadily building in her since the threatening phone call. She'd been playing mind games, trying to pretend she didn't care, but the tightness in every one of her muscles told her that her body wasn't listening.