My desk phone rang and I looked over to see Angela Cook’s name on the caller ID screen. I was tempted to let it go, to maintain focus on my story, but I knew it would ring through to the switchboard and whoever answered would tell Angela that I was at my desk but apparently too busy to take her call.
I didn’t want that, so I picked up.
“Angela, what’s happening?”
“I’m over here at Parker and I think something is going on but nobody’s telling me shit.”
“Why do you think something’s going on?”
“Because there’s all kinds of reporters and cameras coming in.”
“Where are you?”
“I’m in the lobby. I was leaving when I saw a bunch of these guys coming in.”
“And you checked with the press office?”
“Of course I did. But nobody’s answering.”
“Sorry, that was a stupid question. Um, I can make some calls. Stay there in case you need to go back up. I’ll call you right back. Were they only TV guys?”
“Looked like it.”
“You know what Patrick Denison looks like?”
Denison was the main cops and crime reporter for the Daily News, the only real print competition the Times faced on a local level. He was good and every now and then broke an exclusive I would have to chase. It was a reporter’s worst embarrassment to have to follow a competitor’s scoop. But I wasn’t worried about getting scooped here, not if the TV media was already in the building. When you saw TV reporters on a story, that usually meant that they were following yesterday’s news or were headed to a press conference. The TV news in this town hadn’t had a legitimate scoop since Channel 5 came up with the Rodney King beating tape back in 1991.
After hanging up with Angela I called a lieutenant in Major Crimes to see what was shaking. If he didn’t know, then I would try Robbery-Homicide Division and then Narcs. I was confident I would soon know why the media was storming Parker Center, and the L.A. Times was the last to know about it.
I talked my way through the city secretary who answers phones in Major Crimes and got to Lieutenant Hardy without much of a wait. Hardy was less than a year in the job and I was still doing the dance with him, slowly procuring him as a trusted source. After I identified myself, I asked what the Hardy Boys were up to. I had taken to calling the detectives in his command the Hardy Boys because I knew giving the lieutenant ownership of the squad played to his ego. The truth was, he was simply a manager of people, and the investigators in his command worked pretty autonomously. But it was part of the dance and so far it had worked.
“We’re laying low today, Jack,” Hardy said. “Nothing to report.”
“You sure? I heard from somebody else in the building that the place is crawling with TV people.”
“Yeah, that’s for that other thing. We’ve got nothing to do with that.”
At least we weren’t behind the curve on a Major Crimes story. That was good.
“What other thing?” I asked.
“You need to talk to either Grossman or the chief’s office. They’re having the press conference.”
I started to get concerned. The chief of police didn’t usually hold press conferences to discuss things already in the newspaper. He usually broke things out himself—so he could control information and get credit if credit was due him.
The other reference Hardy had made was to Captain Art Grossman, who was in charge of major narcotics investigations. Somehow we had missed an invitation to a press conference.
I quickly thanked Hardy for the help and told him I would check with him later. I called Angela back and she answered right away.
“Go back in and head up to the sixth floor. There is some sort of narcotics press conference with the chief and Art Grossman, who is the head narc.”
“Okay, what time?”
“I don’t know yet. Just get up there in case it’s happening right now. You didn’t hear about this?”
“No!” she said defensively.
“How long have you been over there?”
“All morning. I’ve been trying to meet people.”
“Okay, get up there and I’ll call you back.”
After hanging up I started multitasking. While putting in a call to Grossman’s office I went online and checked the CNS wire. The City News Service operated a digital newswire that was updated by the minute with breaking news from the city of angels. It was heavy with crime and police news and was primarily a tip service that provided press conference schedules and limited details of crime reports and investigations. As a police reporter I checked it continuously through the day like a stock market analyst keeps his eye on the Dow crawl at the bottom of the screen on the Bloomberg channel.
I could have stayed further connected to CNS by signing up for e-mail and cell phone text alerts, but that wasn’t the way I operated. I wasn’t a mojo. I was an oldjo and didn’t want the constant bells and whistles of connectivity.
However, I had neglected to tell Angela about these options. And with her spending the morning at Parker Center and my spending it chasing the Babbit case, nobody had gotten any bells or whistles, and nobody had made the old-fashioned manual checks.
I started scrolling backward on the CNS screen, looking for anything about a police press conference or any other breaking crime news. My call to Grossman was answered by a secretary but she told me the captain was already upstairs—meaning the sixth floor—at a press conference.
Just as I hung up, I found a short blurb on CNS announcing the eleven A.M. press conference in the sixth-floor media room at Parker Center. There was little information other than to say it was to announce the results of a major drug sweep conducted through the night in the Rodia Gardens housing complex.
Bang. Just like that, my long-term story was hooking nicely into a breaking story. The adrenaline kicked in. It often happened this way. The daily grind of the news gave you the opening to say something bigger.
I called Angela back.
“Are you on six?”
“Yeah, and they haven’t started. What’s this about? I don’t want to ask any of these TV people, because then I’ll come off as stupid.”
“Right. It’s about a drug sweep overnight in Rodia Gardens.”
“That’s it?”
“Yeah, but it could go big because it’s probably in response to the murder I told you about yesterday. The woman in the trunk was traced back to that place, remember?”
“Oh, right, right.”
“Angela, it connects with what I’m working on, so I want to try to sell it to Prendo. I want to write it because it will help set up my story.”
“Well, maybe we can work on it together. I’ll get as much as I can here.”
I paused but not too long. I had to be delicate but decisive.
“No, I’m going to come over for the conference. If it starts before I get there, take notes for me. And you can feed them to Prendo for the web. But I want this story, Angela, because it’s part of my larger story.”
“That’s cool, Jack,” she said without hesitation. “I’m not trying to bogart the beat. It’s still your baby and the story is yours. But if you need anything from me, just ask.”