Free Outburst by R.D. Zimmerman

close attention. As soon as the segment ended, he picked up.
    “Tom, it was quite a horrible and shocking evening, as you can well imagine,” he said into the stick microphone, keeping his conclusion tight and tossing it back to Rivers.
    “Were you threatened as well? Did you sense any danger to yourself?”
    “I'm never comfortable, Tom, when a loaded gun is present.” Okay, thought Todd, time to make himself look great. “A total of two shots were fired, one of them directly at me.”
    “And what did you do?”
    “I dove to the side. Fortunately, the strength of the storm was just hitting, which made it very difficult for the perpetrator to take careful aim.”
    “My word, how terrible.”
    Out of nowhere, Nan, the evening producer, broke in, shouting into Todd's earpiece, “Love it, love it! Your fans are gonna be weeping, Todd!”
    “Thank God,” said Tom, “you weren't injured as well.”
    And now, Todd thought, time to set the bait. “I can say only one thing: The killer of Officer Forrest must have a distinct and definite death wish. To gun down a cop is an inordinately stupid thing to do, simply because it means that the perpetrator will always be hunted, and be hunted by professionals with guns.”
    “Absolutely.”
    “And that, of course, implies that the perpetrator values his own life least of all.” Aware that anchor Tom Rivers never made anyone but Tom Rivers look good, Todd felt it necessary to toot his own horn, saying, “To conclude, tonight the police are following several leads in the case. Given what I was able to tell them, the authorities are looking for white male, trim, and not too tall. At the time of the shooting he was wearing a yellow rain slicker.”
    “What about Mark Forrest? Did he have any idea what this was about before he was shot? Did he say anything to you that indicated he was in danger?”
    “No, actually, he didn't.”
    “Todd, thank you very much, and all of us here at WLAK Channel Ten are relieved that you were not injured in this as well.”
    “Thank you.” Todd smiled and said, “For WLAK TV, this is investigative reporter Todd Mills reporting live from the Mississippi River in downtown Minneapolis.”
    Todd stood still until Bradley looked up from his camera, giving Todd a big thumbs-up. Okay, the hook was baited and set. Now all he had to do was wait and see if there were any bites.
    After all, there was nothing that made a killer more angry than a reporter who made him look like an unsophisticated fool doomed for failure.

9
     
    It was borderline hot, and the man in the parked white car had both the front and rear windows completely open in hopes of catching that hint of a breeze, the one that had just started flitting about the city as day faded into evening. He wanted to run the airconditioning—the humidity was so damn high that his shirt was sticking to the back of the seat, which drove him nuts—but he didn't dare. No, he didn't want to turn on the engine, for a parked car with a running engine might attract attention, and the last thing he wanted was for someone to notice him.
    It was a quiet street, half of it still lined with tall, graceful elms, the other half replanted with spindly little things—maples, he thought. No, wait a minute, he thought, peering at the pathetic branches. Those were ash.
    Whatever.
    But it was a quiet neighborhood, of that he was most definitely sure. In the sixty minutes he'd been sitting out here, there'd been no kids about, which relieved him, for the last thing he wanted was a group of kids racing up and down the sidewalks, taking note of the stranger on the block. He was pleased as well that even on such a warm night there wasn't anyone lingering on any of the front porches of these solid, wood-framed houses. Couldn't he therefore infer that empty-nesters and single people lived here?
    Well, there was at least one single person, of that he was sure: a gay man who lived on the second floor of that duplex just up on