Cover-up

by John Feinstein

  “They never lock these rooms,” he said. He felt around on the wall until he found a light switch. The room was set up for some kind of meeting the next morning but was completely empty at the moment. They pulled four chairs into a circle and sat down.

  “Okay,” Bobby said. “What have you two gotten into this time?”

  Susan Carol walked them through the story, with Stevie throwing in details along the way. Every so often Kelleher and Mearns looked at each other and shook their heads in disbelief. Neither one of them interrupted until Susan Carol had finished her description of Vincent interrupting their dinner after Snow’s frantic phone call to Mike Shupe.

  “You guys are amazing,” Bobby said. “You remind me of that Peanuts character Pigpen, who had dirt following him wherever he went. You guys have stories—messy stories no one would believe—following you around.”

  Tamara stood up. “Too true,” she said. “But what are we going to do? We need a cleanup plan.”

  Kelleher nodded. “It’s your story,” he said, looking at Stevie and Susan Carol. “What do you think we ought to do?”

  Susan Carol looked at Stevie. “Go ahead,” he said. “This all started because you wore high heels.”

  “Nice,” she said. Then she turned to Kelleher and Mearns. “Bobby, I think you should call Dr. Snow,” she said. “For one thing, that’ll let him know the circle has widened and that there are adults involved now. Tell him the Herald and the Post are planning to do stories on Saturday in which I will describe our conversation at the party on Tuesday night—in detail. But if he’d like to go on the record, or if he can produce the documents we asked for, we’d prefer to run with the real story and not make him the focus.”

  Mearns looked at Susan Carol. “I want you to think seriously about this for a minute,” she said. “We believe you, of course. But if we accuse this guy of coming on to you, the team and maybe even the league are going to come after you. They’re going to call you a liar; they’re going to try to say you encouraged him in some way, that you lied about your age—whatever it takes to undercut you and your story. They will call you names that will make your parents very unhappy—no matter how untrue they are.”

  “And there will be people who will believe them,” Kelleher added.

  Susan Carol looked a bit stunned.

  “We aren’t trying to talk you out of anything,” Mearns said. “But you need to understand what the possible consequences of going forward are. You already found out tonight how quickly someone working for an NFL team can get to a big-time TV executive. They’ll come after you with every bit of power they have—and they’ve got plenty.”

  “What if we can get Brennan to go on the record?” Stevie asked.

  “You’ve already explained why it would be suicide for him to go on the record,” Bobby said.

  “But if they try to smear Susan Carol and he knows they’re lying, I’ll bet he’d come to her defense.”

  “Are you willing to bet her reputation, and maybe her future as a reporter, on it?” Mearns asked.

  Stevie took a deep breath. “Obviously, that’s not my decision to make,” he said.

  They all looked at Susan Carol. It was now her turn to take a deep breath.

  “How about this,” she said finally. “Bobby, you make the call first thing in the morning. See what Dr. Snow says. Then we can decide what to do next.”

  Kelleher stood up. “I think that sounds like a plan,” he said. “Let’s all get some sleep. Tomorrow could be a long day.”

  He smiled. “Friday is usually the easy day at the Super Bowl. No access to the players, or even the Dome. Just a press conference here in the Marriott with the two coaches and then one with the commissioner.”

  “Yeah,” Mearns said. “They call it his ‘state of the game’ address. Too bad he’s got no idea what the state of his game is right now.”

  15: INTERCEPTED

  STEVIE NORMALLY DIDN’T HAVE TROUBLE SLEEPING. But he found himself tossing and turning, and when he did fall asleep, he kept dreaming that Dr. Snow was trying to kidnap Susan Carol and he’d snap awake again. When he woke up a third time and saw that it was just a few minutes before six a.m., he decided to give up.

  He took a long shower, got dressed, and went downstairs to the lobby, where he bought a copy of the Indianapolis Star and then poured himself a cup of coffee from the lobby table that offered free coffee and little pastries. He plopped down on a couch, wondering if Susan Carol had gotten up to swim.

  He was reading a story on why Don Meeker had surpassed Dan Snyder as the least-liked owner in the NFL when he sensed someone standing over him. “Couldn’t sleep either?” He looked up and saw Susan Carol, sipping her own cup of coffee.

  “You didn’t swim?” he said.

  She shook her head. “Day off. I told Jason I would meet him tomorrow morning instead.”

  “He seems nice. Good swimmer too.”

  She nodded. “Yeah, for an old guy.” She sat down next to him on the couch. “He told me he swims back home with Clay F. Britt.”

  “Who is Clay F. Britt?”

  Her eyes went wide. “You don’t know who Clay F. Britt is? He’s a legend. Back in the—”

  She was mercifully interrupted by the arrival of Bobby and Tamara. “I guess no one slept in this morning,” Kelleher said.

  “Did you make the call?” Susan Carol asked.

  “I thought I would wait until after seven o’clock,” Kelleher said. “Don’t want the guy to claim he told me something because I woke him up. Why don’t we get some breakfast, then I’ll call him.”

  They all agreed on that. The coffee shop was virtually empty. “Not too many early risers during Super Bowl week,” Tamara commented.

  “You see someone at this hour, they’re as likely to be coming in as going out,” Bobby agreed.

  They ate quietly, Kelleher giggling as he read the story on Don Meeker. “According to this, people who work in his house are given written instructions on how to behave,” Kelleher said. “Among them are: do not speak to Mr. Meeker unless spoken to, do not enter a room Mr. Meeker is in without permission, and never look Mr. Meeker in the eye unless he is speaking to you.”

  “Boss of the year,” Tamara replied.

  By the time they finished, it was almost 7:30. “Time to see if our boy is up,” Kelleher said.

  He took out his cell phone and walked to the front door, dialing as he went. “You guys wait inside,” he said. “No need for you to freeze too.”

  He was back a few minutes later. “He’s going to call me back,” he said. “I told him he had until noon and then we would alert our editors the story was coming. I told him not to bother calling anyone at the newspapers because they weren’t going to roll over and play dead like the TV guys.”

  “How did he sound?” Stevie asked.

  “Pissed,” Kelleher said. “Extremely pissed. Look, Tamara and I have to go to a radio studio for a show back home. We’ll call you when we hear something. Where will you be?”

  “I don’t have anything until the coaches’ press conference at eleven,” said Stevie.

  “I have to be at the Dome at eight-thirty,” Susan Carol said. “We’re supposed to interview someone for tonight’s show.”

  “Who?” Stevie asked.

  “I have no idea. I think they were trying to get one of the general managers. No players are available today, and we’ve already had both coaches.”

  “Well, keep your cells on,” Kelleher said. “I’ll call as soon as I hear something.”

  He and Mearns headed for the door along with Susan Carol. Stevie was left alone to either sit in the lobby and worry or sit in his room and worry. He opted for the room. Even after two cups of coffee, he was exhausted. It wasn’t quite eight a.m.

  Stevie didn’t even realize he had fallen asleep until the phone woke him up. He looked at the clock and was surprised to see it was almost ten. He had finally slept without having a bad dream. He picked up the phone hoping it
was Kelleher. It wasn’t.

  “Meet me in the lobby in five minutes.”

  It was Susan Carol. “What? What’s going on?”

  “I’ll tell you when I get there. Bye.”

  Stevie was tempted to take another shower to clear the cobwebs from his head, but the sound of her voice made him decide not to keep her waiting. He splashed some water on his face and grabbed his coat and phone.

  Susan Carol was walking in the door when he got downstairs. The lobby was now back to normal—packed—and she waved him in the direction of the door as soon as she saw him.

  “What’s up?” he said as they walked outside.

  He noticed she was shivering, even though it was a bright, sunny day and it felt much warmer than any day since their arrival.

  “He c-called,” she said. “He s-says he’ll m-meet with us and only us and g-give us the documents.”

  “What?! Where? When? Why?” Stevie sputtered.

  “Walk me back to my hotel and I’ll explain.”

  They set off, and Susan Carol began slowly. “There are two stories to tell,” she said. “I’ll go in order because it’s easier.”

  Stevie nodded, so she continued.

  “When I got over to the Dome, Tal was all excited about who he’d gotten to be our guest for tonight.”

  “Let me guess,” he said. “Dr. Snow.”

  She shook her head. “Better. Don Meeker.”

  Stevie almost tripped. “What?! Little Donny doing a TV interview?”

  “It’s better than that,” she said. “Apparently the deal they made was that he had approval over all the questions. Remember how we used to do our interviews? We’d just ask whatever came into our heads, right? Not today. The questions were all set up for us on the prompter when we got there. And if you ask me, Meeker didn’t just approve the questions, he wrote them. My first question—I am not making this up—was ‘Mr. Meeker, why do you think the media refuse to write or talk about all the work you’ve done for charity over the years?’”

  “Oh God,” Stevie said. “What else?”

  “Everything was like that. Jamie had to ask one about the media being jealous of him because he’s a self-made billionaire, and I had to ask about his ‘brilliant’ free-agent signings that people kept giving credit to Eric DaCosta for.”

  “Why credit the general manager when you can credit the owner, right?”

  “Exactly. I mean, it was sickening. Meeker was practically cuddly, talking to us like we were a couple of little kids and explaining just how mean all these people have been to him. When he left, I told Tal that I thought the whole thing was a disgrace.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “He said we had an exclusive no one else in town had and that I should spare him my teenage righteous indignation.”

  “What an idiot. Did you point out that an infomercial hardly qualifies as an exclusive?”

  “Hang on, I’m coming to the important part. I go and get my makeup off and I’m thinking I need a long bath just to get all the slime off me, when I turn on my phone and there’s a message from Snow.”

  Stevie had almost forgotten there was a part two to this story.

  “I call him back, and he says to me he won’t deal with Bobby because Meeker really hates him and he doesn’t trust him.”

  “Well, that’s a bunch of—”

  She held her hand up. “I know. Just listen. He said he’ll only meet with us, that if Bobby or Tamara show up, he’ll walk and take his chances.”

  “That sounds like a trap if I ever heard one,” Stevie said. “Keep the adults away.”

  “That’s what I said to him. He said he doesn’t want to risk being seen with Bobby or even talking to him again. He said there was no point giving us proof and being pegged as a source. He’ll give us the test results, but Bobby can’t mention him in the story.”

  “Huh—there’s a certain weird logic to that….”

  “Yeah. So he’ll meet us at eleven o’clock at this place called Union Station. It’s one of those old train stations they built into a mall. It’s only a couple blocks from the Canterbury. It will be crowded, which means I’ve got to go put on a big coat and a cap or something so people won’t recognize me. You probably should wear a hat too just to be safe.”

  “Hang on a minute,” he said. “We need to at least tell Bobby what’s happening.”

  They were walking into the lobby of the Canterbury. Susan Carol nodded. “You’re right. Why don’t you call Bobby while I go upstairs and change. See what he thinks we ought to do to cover ourselves.”

  She left him in the lobby. Stevie walked back outside to call Kelleher. When he explained the latest plot twist, Bobby let out a long whistle. “That definitely sounds like a setup,” he said. “Even in a crowded mall, I don’t like it. He’s clearly up to something. Problem is, Tamara and I are tied up here for another hour. Maybe you should call Snow back and postpone the meeting.”

  Stevie was shaking his head, even though Bobby couldn’t see him. “We do that, he’ll figure we’re on to him and he might bail out completely,” he said. “We need to go, but we need to go with some protection because—” He stopped. A light had just gone off inside his head.

  “Stevie?” Bobby said.

  “Yeah, sorry. I’ve got an idea. Let me call you back.”

  He hung up and thought for a second about waiting for Susan Carol to come back downstairs. He decided against it—time was of the essence—and quickly dialed Eddie Brennan’s cell phone number. Brennan picked up on the first ring. “Stevie, what’s up?” he said.

  “A lot,” Stevie answered. “No time to really explain now, but we may have a way to get this story without needing you as a source. But we could use some help.”

  “Name it.”

  Stevie quickly explained to Brennan about the meeting with Snow and their suspicion that it was a trap.

  “Don’t go,” Eddie said.

  “We have to,” Stevie said. “Maybe he has the test results on him. Maybe if he makes a mistake of some kind, then he’ll have to give them to us. If we don’t go, we’re nowhere.”

  “What do you need me to do?” Brennan asked.

  “Is there any way you can send a couple of your security guys to Union Station? Have them follow us in, and if they see anything going on, they can jump in and stop it.”

  “Bad idea,” Brennan said. “Snow will recognize them, and then he’ll figure that I sent them since he knows I’ve been talking to you during the week. What you need are some security types he won’t know. Hey, wait a minute….”

  “What?” Stevie asked.

  “I’ve got an idea,” Brennan said. “It may be a little risky, but it could work.”

  “I’m listening,” Stevie said.

  Susan Carol came back downstairs just as he was hanging up with Eddie Brennan. “You reach Bobby?” she asked.

  “Yes, and he can’t come,” he said. “But we’ve got backup. Come on, I’ll tell you about it while we walk over.”

  They walked briskly in the direction of Union Station. With the sun out, even though the temperature was still in the low forties, people were clogging the streets. They walked up the steps to the shops level of the mall, which was teeming with people too.

  Snow was waiting near the pizza place he had mentioned, looking a little out of place in a dark sports coat. He wasn’t wearing a tie, but he was wearing a scowl. There were no hellos and no small talk.

  “Okay, Dr. Snow. We’re here,” Susan Carol said. “Where are the documents?”

  “You can’t possibly expect me to just hand something like that to you right here in front of all these people, can you?” he said.

  Stevie’s trouble antenna went up. “You’re the one who picked this place.”

  Snow was looking around as if he were afraid he had been followed.

  Susan Carol said firmly, “Look, doctor, if you were bluffing or something…”

  “I’m not bluffing,” Snow said, dropping
his voice to a whisper that could barely be heard above the din. “One of my partners is here with me.” He looked around again. “He’s on the other side of the mall, near the movie theaters. It’s quieter there. He’s got the documents. Let’s walk.”

  “After you.” Stevie walked as slowly as possible. “This place is enormous,” he called up to Snow. “Where are the movie theaters?”

  Snow glared at him and kept walking. Even with her cap on, Stevie noticed that Susan Carol drew some curious glances, the kind that said, “I think I know that person, but I’m not sure why….”

  They rounded a corner, following a sign that said UNION STATION CINEMAS—PARKING GARAGE.

  The crowds thinned noticeably. They came up on the movie theater area—which was empty since, according to the sign out front, the first shows weren’t until one o’clock. There was no one in sight.

  “He probably walked down the hall or something,” Snow said. “He paces when he’s nervous.”

  “Well, then he’ll pace back here by the theater soon, right?”

  “Let’s just walk around the corner and see if he’s there,” said Snow.

  As they rounded a corner, Stevie saw two men step from the shadows. They were both huge and looked familiar. In a split second, he knew just who they were: Don Meeker’s bodyguards.

  “About time,” one of them said.

  He took Stevie firmly by the arm, while the other one did the same to Susan Carol.

  “Okay,” Snow said. “Just stay calm and you’ll be out of here in about five minutes.”

  16: GOAL-LINE STAND

  THE TWO BODYGUARDS led Stevie and Susan Carol a few yards farther down the hall to a door marked NO ADMITTANCE. One of them opened the door and pushed them inside.

  The room was dimly lit with packing boxes on the floor and more boxes stacked on shelves around the room. There was a small table in the middle. It looked to Stevie like a combination storage/break room for the people who worked at the mall. There was no one inside.

  “Have a seat,” one of the bodyguards said, shoving Stevie in the direction of a chair. Stevie sat. Susan Carol was seated in much the same manner an instant later. Snow walked around to the other side of the table looking very smug.