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Pullman, Washington

T hey’ve got to say something… They’ve got to say something… They’re looking incompetent…

Evan Ellis isn’t just working his sources; he’s watching the coverage of them.

It’s not good.

A TV segment on the evening of November 14 from reporter Rania Kaur on Spokane–Coeur d’Alene KXLY Channel 4 is typical:

“At the home where the students were killed, a bouquet of flowers rests on a rock right at the front. Joanna Perez was among the students who dropped off a bouquet and teddy bear at one of the memorials,” Kaur said.

Perez said that Ethan was in the same college program as she was. “He was kind of, like, in some of my classes. And some of my friends knew him so it just kind of hit close,” she said.

“As Moscow police continue their investigation,” Kaur said, “Perez is grappling with what happened.”

“It’s just, like, scary and frustrating,” the student said, “because we want, like, answers to what happened, but they’re holding back a lot of information from us.”

Ellis dials Thompson for the umpteenth time.

For once, the prosecutor picks up.

“Bill, you’ve got to get ahead of this. You’ve got to say something. You’ve got to give a press conference. It’s coming down hard.”

Thompson is calm. “I know. We’re working on it.”

That in itself is shocking to the reporter. In thirty years, Bill Thompson has never made any public remarks about an investigation until it was over.

Ellis pushes on, asking the pertinent question that everyone is asking.

“Can you explain to me how we’re supposed to say there’s no threat to the public when obviously you haven’t arrested anyone?”

Thompson is still calm. “I can’t explain that right now. But there isn’t.” The prosecutor pauses. “You just have to trust me.”

The reporter is frustrated. “Bill, you can understand how this doesn’t seem to make sense.”

“I understand. I understand your frustration, but I can’t explain it to you either off the record or on the record.”

Ellis knows the prosecutor well enough not to push this any further. He understands that Thompson has his reasons for everything he does.

But all the other journalists racing into Moscow from New York and everywhere else, spilling out of the Best Western, the Monarch, and the Hattabaugh hotels—they don’t know these people the way Ellis does.

They don’t know a damn thing about this place.

It would be easy for an outsider to underestimate Bill Thompson just by his appearance. At first glance, he has the look of an old-fashioned gold prospector.

Ellis is worrying about more than simply getting this story. He starts to wonder about whether the story has the potential to destroy the very people who ought to be driving it.

If the prosecutor or the police chief doesn’t speak quickly, other people—people who know nothing—will create an alternative narrative. What happens if the public starts to believe the wrong narrative? If they start to feel the prosecutor and the chief don’t know what they are doing?

Ellis shakes his head.

That would be a very bad outcome indeed.