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Kelli waited, holding her breath.
“Comprehensive,” Prunie said.
Kelli flinched. That was it? She had worked her ass off on that piece.
“Concise, highly readable-in fact, unputdownable. Excellent.”
Kelli let out her breath. “What a relief!” she said.
“Did you think I wouldn’t like it?”
“I hoped you would.”
“You’ve done an outstanding job. It covers all the bases, doesn’t criticize anybody, and, I assume, it’s accurate.”
“I can back up every statement in it.”
“I like the photographs, too, particularly the one of the corpse in the hall with a foot sticking out from under the blanket.”
“That was as close as I could get,” Kelli said.
“You didn’t quote Barrington on anything.”
“He wouldn’t talk to me.”
“And the shot of the boy and girl consoling each other was perfect. You didn’t use her name in the piece.”
“I don’t know her name,” Kelli lied, “but I’m not sure I would have run it anyway. She’s a high school kid, and I don’t think anyone will recognize her from that shot.”
“That’s very sensitive of you,” Prunie said.
“Who should I send it to at Vanity Fair? Graydon Carter?”
“No, don’t jump the line. Let me send it to a senior editor I know, and if she likes it she’ll send it to the executive literary editor, and if he likes it, he’ll send it to Graydon. That way, everybody gets credit for liking it.”
“That sounds smart.”
“I assume you have another copy?”
“In my computer.”
Prunie typed a letter to the Vanity Fair editor on her personal stationery, then wrote a name and address on a slip of paper and handed it to Kelli. “Messenger it over, and don’t use a Post messenger. There’s a service downstairs in the building, and keep a receipt. I assume you didn’t write any of this at your desk here?”
“No, I did it all at home, and on my personal computer. And I gave the initial story about the killing to the paper.”
“Good. Now get going.”
Kelli downed the rest of her coffee, went back to her desk, found a non- Post envelope, took the package downstairs, and shipped it.
Tim Rutledge checked out of the New Jersey motel where he had stayed the night and drove into Manhattan. He dropped his luggage, except for one bag, at a small hotel on West Forty-fourth Street, parked his car in the Hippodrome Garage, then walked the block back to the hotel, carrying his largest duffel.
He checked into the hotel, having earlier phoned a reservation, and a bellman took him upstairs to his room. It was of a decent size, decently furnished, with a flat-screen TV, a comfortable bed, and chair. He unpacked his clothes, then opened the large duffel.
He removed and put away the clothes in that bag, then put on a pair of latex gloves from a box he had bought at a drugstore, then finally took from the duffel an elongated package, wrapped in sturdy brown paper and packing tape. Using his pocketknife, he cut away the paper at one end, then shook the contents out onto his bed.
The contents consisted of a used, 12-gauge Remington police riot gun, with a truncated, eighteen-and-a-half-inch barrel. He had bought it from an individual at a gun show in Virginia, before he had driven north out of the state. He found the box of double-ought shells he had bought. And loaded the weapon, leaving the chamber empty. He wouldn’t need more than one or two rounds, he figured.
He took some tissues and wiped the shotgun clean of any stray prints that might have found their way to it, then returned the loaded weapon to its paper wrapping, now a sheath, from which he would fire it. Therefore, there would be no gunpowder residue on his hands or clothing, and, of course, no fingerprints on the shotgun or the shells. When he had completed his mission, he would dispose of the weapon in a dumpster at some construction site and it would vanish into a landfill somewhere.
