Free No Stone Unturned by James W. Ziskin

it.”
    “He’s lucky if he spelled her name right,” I said, reaching into my purse for my own copy. “I’ve got everyone scooped on this. Mr. Short can’t take it away from me.”
    Charlie frowned. “Don’t count on it. You know he doesn’t like you. And after you showed up Walsh today at the sheriff’s office, he’s just looking for one good reason to fire you.” Charlie pushed George’s copy across the desk to me. “Read this, then tell me if you’ve got something better.”
    The article stated the facts: the twenty-one-year-old daughter of State Appellate Division Judge Harrison Shaw had been found dead Saturday in Wentworth’s Woods, north of New Holland. The sheriff’s department and state police were treating the case as a homicide. Walsh described the condition of the body and the pelvic gash, and he quoted the coroner on the cause of death. He made no mention of the IUD—neither had I—nor that the judge’s missing car had been found.
    “I’ve lapped him three times,” I said, sitting on the corner of Charlie’s desk. He glanced at my bare knee, and I pulled my skirt down to cover it.
    “Like for instance?” he asked.
    “I found Judge Shaw’s Lincoln at Phil’s Garage,” I said. “And I traced it back to the Mohawk Motel where Jordan spent part of Friday night. She would have spent all of Friday night there, by the way, but she was murdered in room four.”
    Charlie raised an eyebrow. “What else?”
    “I found the bloody tissue in the trash. From the gash in her pelvis. Then I spent an hour talking to her dad over a couple of cocktails, and I had a long chat with an old flame of hers who saw her minutes before she went to Mohawk Motel. One of the last people to see her alive. And I interviewed the innkeeper, who identified Jordan Shaw from a photo I showed her. I’ve got more than a full day on George. Read my story if you don’t believe me.”
    Charlie took my copy and rifled through it. When he’d finished, he settled back into his chair, thinking about what I had written.
    “We may have to hold back on some of the coroner’s findings,” he said. “I don’t think we can get away with saying there was semen inside her unless we say she was raped. And we can’t say that because it’s not true. I want to tip-toe through this minefield, Ellie; Judge Shaw is an influential man.”
    “Charlie, I just came from his house. He knows what I know, that I’m from the paper, and he didn’t ask me to hold back on anything. As it is, I promised Fred Peruso I would keep quiet on the IUD.”
    “The what?”
    I had to explain to Charlie what it was and that it had been found in Jordan Shaw’s uterus.
    “It may have to come out later,” I continued. “But for the time being, I don’t see what purpose would be served by including it in the story.”
    Charlie conceded. “Okay, I’ll back you up on this one, as you wrote it. But take the advice of an older hand, and have another look at what you wrote about Frank Olney. He won’t give you the time of day once he reads that. You make him look like a bumpkin lost in his own cornfield. Granted, it’s a fair depiction, but if I were you . . .”
    I saw his point. I could blur the focus on a sentence or two, making it appear that the sheriff had found the car and the tissue, or that they had come into his possession, without ever saying so in explicit terms. At the least, the public would conclude that Frank Olney was in charge of his own investigation. I was sure I could benefit from that.
    After doctoring my references to Sheriff Olney, Charlie and I selected eight photos for the story, three of which would anchor the front page: the crime scene; the sheriff looking grimly determined and capable, above a caption of “I’ll get the guy who did this”; and the portrait of the victim herself. My headline stretched across the top of the page—two inches high—with my story and byline in tow. In deference to the judge’s reputation,