She raises her eyebrows. “But you don’t think it’s important to push for this?”
I swallow, shift in my seat. I can hear in her tone that she’s annoyed, defensive, and I can’t blame her. Around the office, I’ve heard the snarky remarks: that the Baltimore story is “too dead now to even attempt reviving,” that Salem must be “running out of original content.” It’s like everyone’s forgotten what they owe to Salem, to the Baltimore story—the serialized podcast that started the fashion for that sort of storytelling. On our last day in the office, during a meeting about download numbers across our platform, another senior producer—one who has made his career on serialized, narrative true crime over the last five years—had wished us luck on our “goose chase” before reminding us not to go over our per diem. As far as he’s concerned—as far as everyone in the business is concerned, maybe—the Baltimore podcast wrapped up compellingly, if not neatly. The man primarily known for grifting powerful women disappearing on one again. In a way, it was a fitting conclusion, even if Salem’s never let it go.
“Because itisimportant,” she says, before I can even attempt an answer.
She pushes her plate out of the way and leans forward, setting her elbows on the table. “Let me ask you something, Hawk.”
“Sure,” I say, like I’m agreeing to another selfie. But Salem never makes small requests, never asks small questions. I listened to the original Baltimore podcast, and that’s what had made her so good.
“Where’s football fall on a list of the top five problems facing our country right now?”
Harder than a selfie.
But not too hard, because I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about this.
The three years I spent mostly hiding out, after I sent those posts out into the world and they exploded onto people’s feeds in every corner of this country and beyond. The two years I spent getting my master’s in journalism, once I finally got my head together. The months I’ve spent as a new hire at Broadside, getting my feet wet, trying to find a way into the kind of opportunity I need to tell Cope’s story.
“Doesn’t make the top ten. But I’d say it’s got something to say about stuff that’s on that list, actually.”
“Yeah?”
I nod. “Masculinity, and how people define it. Mental health. Corporate greed. Appetites for violence. Nationalism, and not the good kind. If there is such a thing.”
She smiles, approving.
“Right. And so, this story you have in mind. The podcast you want to do about what happened to Copeland Frederick. Do you want people thinking it’s a ten-episode series about some dumb jock who lost his way? Some guy who couldn’t handle all the success in the world? Someone weak who wasted talent that other people would kill for?”
I don’t really have to answer. I know what she’s getting at. For all those nasty remarks I’ve heard about Salem over the last couple of months, I’m certain she’s heard worse about me. ThatI’msome dumb jock, some roided-up former athlete who let loose his temper once on social media and now thinks he can be a journalist. That I’ve only got one idea, one point of view, and it’s better suited to a cable sports network than it is to anything that’struehuman interest.
That there’s nothing to me beyond who my best friend was, and why he died.
“No,” I say anyway.
“Right, well, the Lynton Baltimore story isn’t just about a grift. It isn’t just about him moving around, changing his identity, making new selves everywhere he went. It isn’t even about him making off with artwork or jewelry from some minor royal family’s collection, or about any of the other heirlooms or money he managed to wheedle out of the various women he was involved with over the years.”
She pauses, points her index finger down at the table, pressing it into the surface to emphasize her point.
“It’s about thestorieshe tells those women. It’s about how he creates a certain self to suit them, how he makes promises to them about all the things they’ve been taught they need from a man. Protection, affection, respect. He tells them the same story society’s been telling them, in one way or another, forever. And then when he leaves them, he takes away so much more than their money.That’swhat the Baltimore story is. And it’s important.”
I nod, doing my best to mask the surprise I feel at how passionately she’s said this. Maybe people at work would’ve talked less shit if she showed this kind of heat about why it’d be worth it to continue working this story all these years later. But she never did. Instead she talked about download numbers for the original Baltimore series, or about the places it’d shown up in the news the past few months as it comes up on its ten-year anniversary. She connected it to the success of any number of other current series—podcasts, documentaries, biographies—about grifters.
For the first time since I saw that storm on Jess Greene’s face, I get curious again. In a different way, sure—one that doesn’t feel as if my heart is about to beat out of my chest.
But in a way that I know is better for the job.
Still, when I open my mouth to speak, I can’t be sure if I’m talking about the story.
“I still think the sister will be a problem.”
Salem raises an eyebrow.
I clear my throat, try to forget about the storm.
“She doesn’t want to talk, and she doesn’t want her sister to talk. Tegan still seemed determined in front of us, but who knows what their relationship is behind closed doors. Families are complicated. Theirs more than most, I’m pretty sure.”
“Oh, I’m pretty sure, too.”
Salem says this as if she’s excited about it. But for the first time since yesterday, she looks worried, too. She’s down to the dregs of her coffee and we’ve been in this diner for nearly an hour, which means we’re looking at almost a full day since we showed up on Jess Greene’s doorstep. Every hour that passes where we don’t hear from either her or Tegan doesn’t bode well.
