Delaney said, “Marcus Whitby thought being a star reporter, he could write his own rules. It wouldn’t surprise me if he thought he could bypass Mr. Hendricks’s orders about this, too.”

“And did he?” I asked Tompkin.

“I like to feed the rumor mill as much or more as the next man, but I unfortunately did not hear the ace reporter talking to or about the Bayard empire. He was working on something he thought was pretty hot, that much I can tell you, but he made sure I never heard him actually say anything.”

“When did that start? His acting like he had something pretty hot?” Jason shrugged one slim shoulder. “A week before he died, maybe. He’d started making a lot of calls, started hanging by his phone so he could jump on it when it rang. Being a finalist for the Pulitzer gave him a taste for glory. He kept hoping he’d got that big prizewinning story in his sights.”

“Why aren’t you supposed to talk to anyone at Bayard?” I asked, wondering if I’d hear the same reason Aretha had given.

“It’s our policy with all our big competitors,” Delaney said.

“Mr. Llewellyn is the proudest man on the planet,” Jason added. “No, Delaney, that’s not an insult. It’s the truth. The Bayard policy dates from-” ` J.T, just stop it right there,” Delaney said. “We don’t need to tell every stranger on the street our business, and you know Mr. Llewellyn would say that louder than Mr. Hendricks. You hear?”

Tompkin rolled his eyes expressively, but a glance at his other coworker’s frowning face shut him up. Delaney pushed him on the shoulder to start him up the street. I followed after long enough to give all three one of my cards. Delaney let hers flutter to the pavement, but Jason and the other woman tucked them away.

I sprinted back to my car-but not in time to avoid the meter reader. An orange envelope, my chance to give the city fifty dollars, was stuck to my windshield. I swore roundly and drove over to La Llorona for a quick bowl of soup.

So who was Marcus Whitby? The warm, loving hope of his familyand Aretha Cummings-who’d come close to a Pulitzer? The competitive, uncommunicative coworker? The star who thought he could make his own rules?

Huddled up against the restaurant window, away from the noise at the

counter, I checked my messages. I had an urgent one from Harriet. When I reached her, I learned that Deputy Protheroe had come through for us: when Mrs. Whitby’s funeral director in Atlanta tried to arrange the shipment of Marc Whitby’s body, the DuPage ME’s office gave them a runaround-they needed a little more time to process the paperwork.

“Mother got so angry I blurted out that you’d done it, to buy more time for the investigation, and then I had to confess that I’d hired you, which made her really furious. I was wishing the floor would open under me when Daddy suddenly said he thought it was a good idea. He never disagrees with Mother about-about, oh, domestic things-so she was completely surprised. And then he kind of put his arm around me and said thank goodness I’d had the gumption to take the bull by the horns, that he doesn’t want a slur over Marc’s reputation on account of how he died. But-he isn’t ready to agree to an-well, to letting someone else look at Marc’s body.”