Blake Pitch's Arc

Chapter 4 of 8

Blake stared at the message until the screen went dark. Ask Andrews who paid his father's killer. He set the phone face down on the mural photo. If the tip was real and he ignored it, he was building a block with a man who had reasons Blake didn't know. If the tip was a lie and he chased it, Keith would walk and take the twelve families with him. He could not ask Keith. He could not send staff. Anything on a city phone would leak by morning. He needed a question that didn't look like his question. The school news kid had left him a voicemail last week asking for a sit-down about the East Side. Blake had ignored it. Now he called back. Lucas Andreas answered on the first ring, his voice high and quick. "Mayor Pitch." "You still want that interview?" "Yes." "Not with me. With Keith Andrews. I'll set it up. You ask what I tell you to ask." A pause. "Okay." "One question in the middle. About his father. Ask if the case was ever closed. Nothing else about it. Then move on." "Why?" "Because I need to know how he answers, not what he answers." "Okay." Blake called Keith and framed it as a favor to a kid reporter. Keith agreed in four words and hung up. They met at the storefront block the next afternoon. Lucas wore his school badge and held a spiral notebook with both hands. Blake stood across the street by his car and watched through the window of the shuttered market. He could not hear them. He watched Keith's hands. Lucas asked his questions in order. Blake counted them on his fingers. On the fourth, Keith's shoulders dropped a half inch. He answered short. He did not look away. He did not touch his watch. He did not shift his weight. He said something else and then put his hand flat on the table, palm down, and left it there. Lucas closed the notebook. Keith walked him to the door and shook his hand. Blake drove Lucas two blocks and pulled over. "What did he say?" "He said the case is still open. He said he stopped asking the police about it six years ago." Lucas looked at his lap. "He said he doesn't know who did it. I believed him." "Why?" "He didn't try to make me believe him." Blake let him out at the corner. He sat in the car another minute. The tip was bait. Someone wanted him to break with Keith before the block broke ground. He knew who. He pulled up the blocked number and did not reply. Then he called Keith back. "I want to announce the twelve families by name next week," Blake said. "On the block. With you next to me." "Then be there Tuesday," Keith said, and hung up. Blake set the phone down. The photo of the mural was still on his desk. He moved it to the center.