CHAPTER TWELVE
The Harper Broadcasting Center sat on the outskirts of Portland, a hulking gray structure without a shred of the glamour usually associated with television.
The building was utilitarian—slabs of concrete and steel softened only by mirrored windows that reflected the blustery mid-morning sky.
Kate and Marcus arrived just as a watery sun began to replace some very determined rain.
For a network that claimed to reach millions across the globe, the place was surprisingly quiet.
Inside, the air smelled faintly of flowers and ozone from humming equipment.
The studio floor was cavernous, banks of cameras and lights looming like silent sentinels.
Monitors glowed with test patterns, cables snaked across the floor, but there was no bustling crew, no shouted orders.
Only a few CSI technicians in disposable suits moved silently, their radios hissing with clipped voices.
William Harper was slumped at the editing desk, mouth open, chin in a pool of blood.
The man who had once filled the airwaves with his resonant, steady voice looked smaller in death, reduced, almost fragile.
On screen, Kate remembered him leaning toward the camera, sleeves rolled up, speaking earnestly about orphans in Honduras, clinics in Nepal, clean water in Bolivia.
He had positioned himself apart from the gaudy preachers with their mansions and private jets.
A practical man of good works. And yet here he was—tongue removed, body folded over his life’s work, posed as carefully as Pastor Whitfield had been.
Kate leaned in, careful not to touch. “They didn’t bother to dress it up this time,” she said quietly.
Marcus crouched beside her. “No cipher. No Hebrew letters. Just straight Bible refs. What do you think, getting impatient?”
“Or confident,” Kate murmured. “Or a different killer?”
“Really?”
“I doubt it. I’m just… y’know… thinking of every possibility.”
She copied the references into her notebook, though she had an idea what they’d refer to. Zechariah spoke of false prophets offering fake comfort. Ezekiel declared silver and gold worthless on the day of wrath. Both judgments. Both condemnations.
A CSI tech approached, pulling down their mask. It was Desiree, who’d been at the last grisly scene.
“Gotta stop meeting like this, Des.” Marcus’s voice had dropped by about an octave and a half.
“MacMarcus,” Desiree flashed a full-on smile at Marcus, then turned to Kate, more formal. “Time of death is pinned around midnight. Same as the last one.”
Kate straightened, eyes narrowing. "Midnight again. That's not a chance."
Marcus rubbed his jaw. "It's a ritual. Midnight's the hinge of the day. The moment between ending and beginning."
Kate filed it away. “There’s something else. Witches were always executed at midnight. Exorcisms were always performed then, too. And the summoning-up of demons. Their powers were believed to be at their weakest. Perhaps the killer believes them to be beyond ordinary evil, actual demons…”
She shrugged, not sure how much relevance this had. Midnight was a useful time for lots of reasons, not all of them spiritual. Fewer witnesses. Bodies at their lowest ebb…
They met LaRonne Roberts in the glass-walled production office overlooking the studio floor.
Roberts had been Harper’s producer for over two decades, a slim, elegant woman in her early fifties, silver hair cropped close, and a face more handsome than pretty.
Her expression was shaken, but composed; grief wrapped in professionalism.
Kate noticed the difference immediately. At Pastor Whitfield’s garish palace, his wife and sister-in-law had been close to hysteria. Roberts was upset and yet steady, every word measured.
"He was a workaholic," Roberts said, voice low but steady.
"Murray lived for this place. He wanted to be involved in everything—scripts, lighting, edits, appeals, even down to the fonts on screen.
He didn't trust anyone else to get it right.
We used to call him a control freak, but the truth is, he cared.
He had to know that what we put out was worthy of the people who sent their dollars, their prayers. "
Kate made notes: Ca`omplete workaholic. Control freak. Always alone on Saturdays.
“So people knew,” she said. “That he’d be here last night, working late.”
“Yes,” Roberts confirmed. “Everyone knew. Always the Saturday before a broadcast.”
Kate tapped her pen. “What about security?”
“Tight,” Roberts said. “CCTV everywhere. Entry cards on every door. We pride ourselves on that.”
But Marcus raised a hand, cutting her off. “We’ve got the feed.”
They gathered in the control booth, faces lit by the glow of monitors. One of the CSIs queued up the footage.
At 11:59, a figure appeared at the main entrance.
All in black. Helmet obscuring the face.
But stocky and short, the same physique, same pumped-up arms they’d seen on the fleeting show at Whitfield’s place.
They carried a pizza box. Harper emerged from the stairwell, his gait weary but purposeful, heading for the lobby.
“His regular order,” Roberts whispered. “Meat feast, Swiss cheese, extra jalapenos. Every Saturday night.”
On screen, Harper reached for the box. The figure yanked it back, dropped it deliberately on the floor, and shoved Harper out of sight of the cameras.
Kate’s stomach clenched. Silence followed. Six minutes ticked by, the lobby empty except for the forlorn pizza box on the tiles. Then the helmeted figure returned, bent, picked it up with care, and walked calmly into the night.
The room was still. Even the hum of equipment seemed to dim.
Marcus broke it. “They wanted us to see that.”
Kate turned to Roberts. “Recognise the box?”
“It’ll be Wiseguys on Huntley Street. The whole outfit runs on Wiseguys pizza. If we ever had to relocate…” Her words died away, realising that, down to the pizza, nothing was ever going to be the same again.
“Did Harper make enemies?”
Roberts hesitated. “Murray could be abrasive. He held everyone to the same high standards he set for himself. But he wasn’t arrogant.
If he was wrong, he apologized. He valued input from everyone, and that wasn’t just words.
He believed in doing good at every level.
Like, we had a couple of summer interns this year.
Just kids. We couldn't pay them, against the law.
One kid got a ride in with her Dad every day.
Murray found out the other one was having to pay bus fare.
So he bought him a pass for the last three weeks.
So it was fair. He cared enough to do that, and he didn't do it so that everyone knew. It was on the qt.”
Kate frowned. This account was radically different from what she’d learned from Whitfield’s worshippers, who spoke of him as a saint. This felt more credible, yet... something else. Polished? Prepared? As if Roberts had rehearsed her lines.
It wasn’t a eulogy, though. It lacked the hyperbole of Whitfield’s disciples. The intensity, too. Kate knew she was ghostbusting, as Marcus called it, chasing the non-existent, seeing signs and hints that others pragmatically dismissed.
Before she could press LaRonne further, O’Malley arrived with his finance team, laptops and folders spilling across a table. His eyes landed on Kate, hard and unflinching, and he stalked right over so fast that Kate found herself backing up a few paces.
“O’Malley, what’s bitten you?” Marcus growled. O’Malley didn’t even glance at him.
“You arrested Martinez!” he hissed. “Now I’ll probably have to walk away from the group myself. It’s been made clear that no-one there trusts me now.”
Kate blinked. “Wait—I thought you were pointing me to the group because there might be suspects in it.”
His voice cracked like a whip. “Ridiculous! I wanted you to see the lives ruined by Whitfield. By men like him. To see the damage, the struggle to rebuild. If you’d done that properly, you’d know none of them could’ve killed him.”
Kate swallowed hard. “I’m sorry, O’Malley. You know we have to look at every angle. And Hector’s in the clear now.”
O’Malley didn’t soften. He buried himself in unpacking his box, but his voice carried: “Harper was different, yes. No palace. No hillbilly hokum about the stock market or the power of prayer. No army of concubines answering the phones. But don’t think that makes him clean.
Twice, the IRS received a tip-off about him cooking the books. Twice, he came out squeaky.”
Kate arched a brow. “Squeaky clean?”
“No.” O’Malley shook his head. “There are three verdicts in this game: bent, not bent, and bent but we can’t prove it. Harper was definitely the latter. Until now. Maybe.”
Marcus returned with an update. “Pizza was ordered at 11:40. Meat feast, jalapenos, Harper’s regular.
But the delivery guy, by the name of Meng Lo, got mugged.
Took his bike and the pizza. Had to walk back to the shop and report it.
They called Harper at 12:15 and again at 12:25, to explain. No answer.”
“So the killer knew his routine,” Kate said. “Studied it. Planned around it.”
“The CCTV goes back a month,” Marcus added. “We might catch them casing the place.”
Kate nodded. “Do it.”
Winters herself arrived on-site—a rare move. Her presence meant pressure. Religious leaders, politicians, senior cops—all demanded progress. The President’s words echoed like a warning: Strike at a nation’s faith, and you strike at its heart.
Kate squared her shoulders, refusing to let the weight show.
It was O’Malley who finally extended the olive branch. He set aside his spreadsheets. “Harper wanted to know who reported him to the IRS. He found out. Dr Angela Phillips. Former medical missionary, turned anthropologist-activist.”
Kate leaned forward. “And?”