"I didn't say it's not worth checking out." His voice rose a notch to a level signaling indignation. "Of course, you check it out. Get on the phones, check it out. But I'm not sending you off on a national tour on the basis of what you've got now."

He swiveled in his chair so he could check his computer for pending messages. There were none. He turned to face me again.

"What's the motive?"

"What?"

"Who'd want to kill your brother and this guy in Chicago? It doesn't make- How come the cops missed this?"

"I don't know."

"Well, you spent the day with them and the case, where's the hole in the suicide? How could someone have done this and just walked away? How come you came away yesterday convinced that it was suicide? I got your message, you said you were convinced. How come the cops are convinced?"

"I don't have any answers for that yet. That's why I want to go to Chicago and then to the bureau."

"Look, Jack, you've got a cushy beat here. I can't tell you how many times reporters have come in here saying they wanted it. You-2' :'Who?"

"What?"

"Who wants my beat?"

"Never mind. It's not what we're talking about. The point is, you've got it good here and you get to go anywhere in the state you want to go. But for this kind of travel, I've got to be able to justify it with Neff and Neighbors. I also have a newsroom full of reporters who would like to travel every once in a while on a story. I would like them to travel. It helps keep them motivated. But we're in an economic downturn here and I can't okay every trip that gets proposed."

I hated these sermons and I wondered if Neff and Neighbors, the managing editor and editor of the paper, even cared whom he sent where as long as they got good stories.

This was a good story. Glenn was full of shit and he knew it.

"Okay, I'll just take vacation time and do it myself."

"You used everything you had after the funeral. Besides you're not going to run around the country saying you're a RocAy Mountain News reporter if you're not on an assignment for the Rocky Mountain News."

"What about unpaid leave? You said yesterday that if I wanted more time you'd work something out."

"I meant time to grieve, not go running across the country. Anyway, you know the rules on unpaid leave. I can't protect your position. You take a leave and you might not have the beat when you come back."

I wanted to quit right there but I wasn't brave enough and I knew I needed the paper. I needed the institution of the media as my access card to cops, researchers, everybody involved. Without my press card, I'd be just some suicide's brother who could be pushed aside.

"I need more than what you've got now to justify this, Jack," Glenn said. "We can't afford an expensive fishing expedition, we need facts. If you had more, I could maybe see going to Chicago. But this foundation and the FBI you could definitely do by phone. If you can't; then maybe I can get somebody from the Washington news bureau to go over there."