Watch You Die by Katia Lief Page B

me, which was definitely progress. When the newsroom door swung shut behind him, I breathed.
    “That was good,” Courtney whispered. “See? Now he’s got the message.”
    “I’m not so sure.”
    “If he doesn’t, he will soon. Just keep it up.”
    “What were you just about to say about the delivery receipt?”
    “Right! Listen: the delivery guys weren’t so smart. Wait – I’ll show you.”
    Across the room the fax machine whirred and a new arrival began to thread its way out. Courtney strode over and held the top of the paper until the bottom end was released. Then she crossed back to me and put it on my desk so we could both examine it.
    I immediately saw what she meant about the delivery guys being not so bright. One had scrawled both the pickup and delivery addresses, signed and dated it, and included their company name, Metro Trucking. Anand had neatly written the voucher number in the top right corner.
    “Picked up at ‘empty lot Pacific between 4 and 5 Aves’,” I read aloud. “There are nine empty lots on that block right now. For the purposes of this story, does it matter which one?”
    “I’m not sure. But this is pretty good, don’t you think? Anand signed it and dated it, and he’s a cop.”
    “Is he willing to go on record?”
    “For me?” She grinned. “What about Russet?”
    “Oh, I doubt it. But that doesn’t stop me from reporting what they told me. Larry confirmed they received drums of chemicals. Bruce found no record of a delivery.”
    “But your source wants to stay anonymous – he’d be the deal-breaker if we could quote him.”
    “No. I promised. Courtney, it could be dangerous for him if we go public with him as the whistle-blower. He likes his job most of the time. I think he wants to retire in peace.”
    “Right.” She stretched her long legs and crossed them at the ankle. Her strappy sandals revealed the pedicure she’d received yesterday: shimmery white.
    “I’d really like to see the city analyze the bones,” I said. “See where they came from. Whose they are. But they never will unless they admit they exist.”
    “Bones.” Courtney rolled her eyes. “New York real estate’s gotta be full of them. Bones and ghosts, you know?”
    “I think we should go to Elliot with what we’ve got. You want to write it up or should I?”
    “Me.” She stood up and pushed her chair back to her own desk. “With a shared byline.”
    While she drafted the article I researched Metro Trucking and what I found only added to the cloud of mystery: Metro was a general hauling company registered in New Jersey and owned by a second cousin once removed of none other than Tony T. But if Tony had been involved in the removal of the bones, wouldn’t he have had them disposed of? The fact that they ended up in forensics storage indicated city involvement in their transfer off the site. It just didn’t make a lot of sense to me that either the developer or the city would hire the job out to Metro Trucking, an outfit so easily connectible back to Tony that I had just accomplished it quickly on the Internet. One thing, though, was clear: this strengthened Abe Starkman’s hypothesis of corruption.
    Courtney took the new information and wove it into her piece. Five hundred words later she had a good solid draft. We emailed it back and forth, editing and polishing together, until we both felt satisfied. Our short article would lead the reader to an uneasy conclusion that the city had gone out of its way to cover up the discovery of the bones. It was unnecessary to state the obvious question: Why?
    We submitted the article to Elliot.
    He was in his office. We knew this because we could see him through the glass wall. And we knew he checked his email every few minutes when he wasn’t in a meeting. So we were fairly certain that he read our piece almost as soon as we sent it. But it wasn’t until the end of the day that we heard back from him that it had been approved for tomorrow’s