“Good. Because he shouldn’t get away with it,” I reply, headlights, taillights blazing in the dark, and a text from Lucy lands on my phone.
What a coincidence （not）， she writes.
When I click on the file she’s sent, I understand why traffic is at a standstill with news helicopters hovering. A group of anti–police brutality protesters are marching through the wealthy neighborhood of Aurora Highlands just south of Pentagon City.
“There’s maybe a couple hundred people so far,” I inform Benton. “And it would appear this is related to an attempted break-in at Dana Diletti’s house early this morning.” I continue scrolling through news feeds, and what’s flashing in my mind is the timing.
Lucy’s right, what a coincidence. How convenient that someone should try to break into the celebrity TV journalist’s home even as she’s working on a big story about the Railway Slayer. While covering Gwen Hainey’s brutal murder, the reporter herself is being hunted perhaps by the very same psycho killer.
“Or I assume that’s the implication,” I say to Benton.
“That’s what it’s sounding like,” he agrees, and thankfully the traffic is starting to move again. “But it doesn’t mean someone didn’t try to break into her home.”
“Apparently, Aurora Highlands is where she lives.” I’m reading on the Internet. “And her burglar alarm went off around two o’clock this morning.”
“The first I’ve heard of it, and that was more than fourteen hours ago,” Benton says. “Why all the hoopla now? What else has happened?”
“As we speak, she’s holding a press conference in her front yard, the protest obviously organized to coincide with it.” I continue passing on what I’m learning.
The police have responded to contain what’s sounding like a manufactured situation that’s creating havoc for area commuters. I have no doubt it’s intentional, I say to Benton as I continue glancing through the latest accounts while we creep across the bridge.
“The gist seems to be that she’s accusing the police of mistreating her,” I add. “Targeting her because she dares to report the news accurately, to criticize the police and those in power.”
I play a live video clip so we can hear what she’s saying.
“。 . . The police came eventually.” Dana Diletti is standing outside in the glare of television lights not far from here. “The two officers were, well, let’s just say they didn’t seem happy to see me, making sure I knew they don’t watch my particular brand of reporting.”
Dressed in jeans, a raincoat, she has little if any makeup on, looking more like a neighbor than a famous journalist, a strikingly tall and beautiful one. Surrounded by her crew, she tells her inflammatory story as dozens of police officers in riot gear keep a wary eye on the growing crowd, many people angrily fist-pumping, carrying flags and signs.
“。 . . Let me just say it required considerable effort on my part for them to take the situation seriously,” Dana says earnestly, staring into the camera. “Or worse, as if it didn’t matter what might have happened to me, that maybe I don’t belong in this upscale neighborhood.”
She accuses the police of refusing to request that an investigative unit be summoned to check for evidence. The responding officers saw no need to dust for fingerprints, swab for DNA, take photographs or do anything else, she claims. They left after searching her house, making sure no one was inside it. Or so they explained.
“But that’s not what they were really doing,” she dramatically declares. “Their gloved hands were rifling through my closets, drawers, cupboards and other places that had nothing to do with someone trying to pry open my bedroom window. In the process setting off the alarm, thank God. Because I was right there in the dark, sound asleep in bed.”
She blatantly states that the police searched her place without a warrant, treating her like a suspect, not a victim. Their only interest was prurient details they could gossip about while hoping to find drugs or other contraband, illegal weapons, who knows what? All to discredit and destroy her, she’s adamant.
“Finally, after calling the mayor to complain,” she adds, “five hours after the fact, an investigative unit showed up where I live.”
She looks back at her lovely antique brick house decorated for the holidays, on a generous lot thick with old hardwood and fir trees.
“And they found it necessary to remove the entire window, making it impossible for me to stay here . . .”