by David Pepper
“You can read it however you want. That was personal.”
“Jack, I’m reading it the way Ohio law reads it.”
Turner paused for five seconds. Complete silence. Painful silence, but I had nothing to say.
“I’m sorry, that’s all the time we have tonight. I hope you’ll come back and join us again soon.”
I could only imagine the pleasant look she was flashing to the TV audience as she said those words. Still, I forced a smile, knowing it would be the last image the millions of Republic viewers would see.
* * *
WASHINGTON, DC
“That was an ass-kicking! A well-deserved one.”
Huddled in the majority leader’s office, Stanton and Young gleefully watched Turner’s ambush. The two had returned to the office after an early evening fundraiser to witness their favorite cable anchor tear Sharpe to pieces. And she did exactly that.
Three days of furtive homework paid off. The afternoon after Stanton and Sharpe exchanged words, Stanton called on one of their research firms for a favor: “Dig up all you can on this reporter, Sharpe, and the key sources in his story. We need to rip the bark off the guy.”
Two days later, he reviewed the “oppo book” they had compiled.
Renee Jones offered such an easy target; Stanton couldn’t believe Sharpe used her. Prior firms had dug up her “radical” past, or at least photos that left that impression, during the first Obama campaign. The truth was, like thousands of others, Jones was merely a graduate student active in the Kerry campaign. But the photos looked far more menacing than that.
There was little dirt on Monroe County’s Rogers, but the damning quote appeared in a couple local papers in the 1984 Reagan-Mondale election. And unlike a criminal conviction, in the world of politics, no quote can be expunged.
And of course, Sharpe’s ’92 Democratic primary vote was a public record. Stanton had laughed aloud when his team informed him. After the reporter repeatedly had insisted he was a moderate Republican, the contradiction would crush his credibility.
They sent the book on to Turner, someone they had spoon-fed research to ever since her show took off. And she delivered.
“Turner was strong. She always is,” Stanton said, clenching his fist yet again. “That was ugly!”
“Too bad she didn’t get the child support issue in,” Young replied. “The ex clearly has an ax to grind and would look credible on TV.”
“Save that for another day.”
The truth was that this was not simply retribution. It was more important than that. More strategic.
If Sharpe had more goods on Stanton along the lines of their phone call, they needed to discredit him long before it came out.
This was a perfect start.
* * *
YOUNGSTOWN
“Dad, shake it off. Of course, people are out to destroy you. You’re an enormous threat to many powerful interests. You handled it fine.”
Thirty minutes after the interview, I was still cursing myself, furious. Not at the on-air performance. But that I had let Bridget Turner do to me what I had done to others over the decades. Called me at the last minute for the interview. Buttered me up. Made me comfortable. Then boom. All on live TV.
“Absolutely. Which is why I need to be smarter. Destroying my credibility is the best way for them to protect themselves, so they’re gonna take their shots. But I shouldn’t have made it so damn easy.”
Scott’s five-second pause made it clear that he agreed.
“Let me know how I can help, Dad. And hang in there.”
We hung up after three more minutes.
“Damn. Be smart!” Talking to myself. Again.
Jones, Rogers, the Vindicator, me. We were all political now. To those in power, we presented the threat. The opposition. So the further our credibility and integrity sank, the quicker the threat ended. And starting with the president herself, hundreds of politicians, and the powerful interests that supported them, all had a direct incentive in making that happen.
And I had made it far too easy.
At 9:40, Jones called.
“Honestly, Jack, it’s been awful. They’re digging up everything I ever did or said to paint me as some kind of socialist nut. Some of the emails have been horrific. Downright misogynistic. What’s amazing is no one has disproven the basic facts and data we put forward. And the media doesn’t even care.”
Rogers stayed up late and laughed off the blowback.
“I don’t care what those sons of bitches say about me. I’ve been through a lot worse. We know we’re right.”
Rogers was dead on.
We were right.
Simply back up the facts from the first story. Nothing else mattered. Even more important, identify the culprit behind the scheme, and fast.
* * *
I tossed and turned all night. Not from the interview. Not from the car tailing me. But from the haunting images of Joanie Simpson. And the tragic story those images—those eyes—told.
It brought me back to my own coming of age. Dad’s loss. The day politics was not what I believed and hoped it was.
And then I imagined Simpson’s disillusionment.
Hardscrabble upbringing, but educated. Passionate about her issues. Sharper on those issues than I ever had been, ready to fight for her beliefs with a fire I never had. Hustling to get to D.C. to her dream job. The halls of Congress. The highest levels of leadership.
And then learning quickly, painfully that the price of playing at that highest echelon of power, for her at least, was more than hard work. Worse than hard work. Worse than anything I had to endure.
And she kept paying that price, as Tom Stanton kept demanding it. Telling no one. Until the day she died.
Horrible.
I spent my life worked up over the gerrymandering, the pay-to-play, and the partisan nonsense. But this young woman’s life and death put a tragic face to Washington’s abuse of power in a way nothing else did.
Maybe this once, I could do something about it.
* * *
“What did you do to piss these guys off?”
Chief Santini called as I drove in the next morning.
“Huh? What are you talking about?”
“You’re being followed by some pretty serious people.”
“Who?”
“Well, we traced the license back to a James Dennison. Lives in suburban Maryland. We thought that was the end of the line, but then we found him listed in several law enforcement databases. See, Dennison is a former cop himself. Worked for years as a security specialist after retiring. And, get this. He’s been the chief of the security detail for Majority Leader Tom Stanton for the past four years. That may mean he’s his glorified driver, but that’s some connection either way.”
The tie back to Stanton didn’t surprise me.
“Sure is.”
“Why in the world would someone at that level be tailing you here in Youngstown?
“Like you said, I think I pissed him off.”
* * *
The next shoe dropped at 10:00 that morning.
“Jack, you need to see this.”
Mary Andres beckoned me into her office.
“What?”
“You ever read the on-line journal Scooped?”
“Sometimes.”
Scooped was an online tabloid aimed at the media. It dubbed itself a media watchdog, fact-checking stories, and calling out perceived bias or unbalanced sourcing. The journal had a gotcha mindset, eager to get in the mud if hitting “big” media meant more clicks and online advertising revenue.
Apparently, a daily paper like the Vindicator qualified as big media.
“Big story on you, and us. Not good.”
“What now?”
“They rehash all the
stuff Turner attacked you on. Jones. Rogers. Your voting history. But worse, they get into your personal history. Your child support problems in particular. Wish we had known about those.”
“Child support problems? What the hell? What do personal issues like that have to do with anything?”
“You’ve covered politics long enough to know any negative history on child support will be used to malign your character and credibility.”
“Unreal. This was decades ago. My crazy ex and I were fighting over terms, and I was struggling. I missed a few months, and she overreacted. I took care of it right away. That’s it.”
“Well, they hunted her down, and what she has to say about you is not pretty.”
Jesus. I always knew that if I ran for office, she would come back to haunt me. Never thought it would happen as a journalist.
Andres handed me a copy of the article.
Terrible.
Barbie Collins, now on her third marriage, and a horrific mother, executed a brutal takedown. “Jack was a drunk, a terrible husband, and even worse father. He left his son and me hanging, to the point that I had to go to court to force him to pay. This is one man who can not be trusted.”
“Unbelievable.”
I whispered it more to myself than to Andres.
“Jack, we think we’re going to take you off the story. Give you some time away. Last night’s interview. Now this. The publisher is worried our credibility is getting crushed by all this stuff. You look tired, beat down.”
I tried to keep my composure as she said those words. Being removed from a big story doesn’t just undermine that story, but sends a signal that a reporter is in over his head. A humiliating stain.
“You can’t be serious. If you do that, you’re retracting the story in front of the whole country.”
“People know we stand by the story. And we do.”
“Sending the writer of it to Siberia kills the story. And crushes me. You need to give me more time. I have some strong leads on who was behind the plan.” I overstated my case but was desperate. “If you take me out before we run with those, you’re basically letting them get away with a smear campaign and, worse, with stealing an election.”
“Let me talk to him one more time and see what I can do.”
Ten minutes later, she walked by my desk.
“Good news. You’ve got a week. Give us something good.”
* * *
Put the bad stuff to the side. Doesn’t matter. Focus on solving the problem.
Four names: Kelly, Ariens, Simpson, Stanton.
The first three dead, all with a connection to the fourth, who was very much alive. A mysterious fifth person had sent me the photograph of Kelly’s car. Clearly, this person knew something, maybe more than anyone else.
And Stanton was following me. An incredibly aggressive reaction to one phone call. Obviously protecting something. The problem was, none of these things tied together. Only Kelly knew of Abacus. The other two knew Stanton. I needed more than that.
So I started digging further into the Ariens-Diebold connection. If Ariens knew the voting machine industry well due to his work with Diebold, maybe he concocted the idea and brought it to Stanton. Perhaps he and Diebold worked together.
He was a D.C. lobbyist, for god’s sake. They’re capable of anything.
* * *
“You got another package, Jack. They just keep coming.”
I looked up as the paper’s receptionist dropped an envelope on my desk. I reached for it like a kid grabbing a wrapped birthday present.
The same professional package and the same typed label as the Kelly photos. Again, Bethesda post office. But the contents didn’t feel as rigid.
The fifth person, the one who knew something, was at it again. What the heck—if someone was spoon-feeding my goods to Turner and Scooped, nothing wrong with someone feeding me a helping or two.
“CONFIDENTIAL MEMORANDUM
TO: Congressman Stanton
FR: Joanie Simpson
RE: Abacus and Next Year’s Election
The following summarizes three months of research I have done into the company, Abacus. After scrutinizing Boards of Elections documents from around the country, it is my firm conclusion that Abacus, under its mysterious new leadership, is intending to alter the results of the upcoming Congressional election.”
For twelve pages, the memo described the history of the company and its pattern of acquiring locations in swing districts. It read like my own story, except that Joanie Simpson penned her memo before the Abacus plot took place. She also spent more time detailing how even the latest electronic voting machines might be manipulated to alter election results.
Undated, this was clearly a draft. Handwritten corrections appeared on about half the pages, but only sparse changes, one or two words at a time. So it appeared to be close to a finished product, a final edit. A quarter-sized wine stain bled through the lower right-hand corner of the memo’s first three pages, and all pages were creased right down the middle. Probably folded and tossed.
The last two pages comprised an appendix listing the Abacus districts she had identified. Helpfully, she also included dates when Abacus had moved its machines into each district. The most recent date listed was eighteen days before her murder.
The memo raised several questions. As always, I jotted them down in my notepad:
1.Simpson researches Abacus. Why? What prompted research in the first place?
2.Simpson finalizing memo 18 days prior to death. Did she deliver to Stanton? Did share it w/ anyone else?
3.Who sent this? How did they get this draft?
The wine stain suggested Simpson was working on the draft at home, something I might do. The fold suggested she discarded it after making her edits. Who would have had the ability to retrieve a discarded memo from her home? Did they discover it before she died? After? And who in the world sent it to me?
Bottom line, this was clear proof that a second person, Joanie Simpson, had learned about Abacus. And like Kelly, not long after that discovery, she died a violent death.
Chapter 39
PHILADELPHIA: 90 days after the election
Click.
Kelly froze.
He was a lifelong gun owner, so the cocking of a revolver was a familiar sound. The cylinder that pressed against the back of his head was wide enough to be a .44. In the right gun, a bullet that size could drop a Cape buffalo. So he didn’t move.
A deep voice spoke.
“Start the car. Then drive out of the parking lot slowly, normally. Don’t do anything stupid. And do exactly what I say.”
Having just put the key in the ignition, Kelly followed the instructions. Saying nothing, he drove off the Abacus lot.
“Hand me your phone.”
“My phone’s dead.” A lie, but it was the first thing he thought to say.
“I don’t give a shit. Give me your phone. And no more talking.”
Kelly reached into his left pocket, took out his phone, and lifted it back over his left shoulder. A hand snatched it out of his grip.
“Now follow every instruction I give you.”
He did so. After a few miles, the intruder barked, “Pull over here.”
Kelly turned into an empty parking lot off the road. Spooked by the location, he reviewed every option available.
Crash the car and hope to recover more quickly than his unwelcome passenger.
Jump out, run like hell and roll the dice that the gunman was not a great shot.
Attempt to overpower him.
Or cooperate and hope for the best.
Right when he decided the second option offered his best chance of survival, the gun barrel crashed into the back of his skull.
Chapter 40
YOUNGSTOWN-WASHINGTON: 154 days after the election<
br />
“Do you know anything about Lee’s relationship with Tom Stanton over the years?”
I was just south of Pittsburgh, on my way to D.C. to barge in on Stanton in person. In between Buffett and the Eagles, I had dialed Jody Kelly.
“They were pretty close early on before Tom changed. Both were moderate, and both would work across party lines to keep the extremes in their party at bay. We went out to dinner with Tom and Irene a few times in D.C. and always had fun. That’s one reason Lee was so furious about the visits Tom made late in the campaign, and how nasty they got. We both thought it was way out of line.”
“Do you know if they talked since the election?”
“Lee mentioned a few times that he felt bad about how ugly it got between them, including in that one story you wrote. He wanted to make amends if he could.”
“Do you know if he did?”
“Not that I know. Tom was from Philadelphia, right? Do you think that’s who Lee visited the day of the crash?”
“I really don’t know. But I have some evidence that he might have. Looking into it now.”
I switched topics.
“Do you remember when you first tried to call him that afternoon?”
“Yes. It was about four. And it kept going straight to voicemail the rest of the evening. His phone was constantly running out of juice, but he always kept a charger in his car. So even when his phone died, he’d immediately charge it and call back once he returned to his car. I knew something was wrong when he never called.”
Four would have been around when Kelly’s Escape sat outside Stanton’s home. So his phone had already died by then. But it clearly worked around 12:28, because that’s when Kelly left me a message.
“Do you have access to his phone records?”
“Lee’s? Of course, we had a family account.”
“If you’re okay with it, can you see who he called that final day and send it to me?”
Ten minutes after I walked into my Hampton Inn room in suburban Maryland, she called back.
“I went online and checked our bill. The morning drive was so early, he didn’t call anyone for a few hours. At about 9:30 a.m., he made a couple calls. I recognize those numbers as a couple of his former aides. And that makes sense, because, at the funeral, both said they had chatted with him that morning. Just catching up. It also looks like he left a message for his brother, who lives in Jersey.
