One night in Portland an alert police reporter for the Oregonian (circ. 230,238) noted that there were suddenly no detectives around police headquarters. Sniffing a story, he demanded an explanation from the police chief. The chief kept mum a secret that was being withheld even from the paper's night city desk: detectives were out guarding the Oregonian's Reporters Wallace Turner and William Lambert and their families while the pair were digging into one of the messiest official scandals in Northwest history.
The big story broke in April, and by last week it had state officials, from the governor down, involved in the...