I nodded and said, “Then I’m on it.”
He gazed hard at me, his eyes moving across the features of my face. “Thank you,” he said, and those two words said enough.
He pushed himself up from the bench and added, “I’m heading into the office. I have one or two ideas left to play out. Call me if you learn anything I should know about. This is all confidential, the hostile takeover and my suspicions. Right now, Brent Cutter doesn’t even know.”
With that, he walked across the grass in his stiff, familiar gait, past the tulip beds, past the statue of George Washington on horseback, and out onto Arlington Street, the weight of a family, of a first-class newspaper, of a city, on his shoulders. As I look back at the moment, I wish I had said something more to him, wish I had thanked him in some small way for all he had given, all he had done, and all he wanted to do. But in my current state—in fact, in any state—how was I supposed to know what was about to come?
Three
ILIVE ON A HOUSEBOATin Boston Harbor, a lifestyle not entirely congruent with the fact that (a) I hate the water, and (b) I hate boats. But best as I can tell, there was a regulation passed by the National Association of American Men that when any member of our exclusive organization goes through a divorce or particularly serious breakup, regardless of whether the split is the man’s decision, mutual, or that of his mate, he must live in a virtually unbearable situation for at least the next six months, if only to give him a fuller appreciation of what he once had but will never have again. No one ever said life was easy.
Still, I don’t mean to say that I hate the water as in,I hate the water. In truth, I like the water from the perspective of the shore, specifically, say, a powdery beach with a nice lounge chair and an Igloo cooler stocked with a 6-pack of icy cold Sam Adams Summer Ale, or the dining room of an oceanside restaurant where the grilled swordfish tastes so fresh you can probably find the captain of the boat that caught it knocking back a shot of whiskey at the bar. I did that once, went out to the bar and found him, but the union didn’t prove to be quite as climactic as you might expect. Another time.
It’s funny in life how too often you want what you can’t have, and have what you don’t want, or at least it’s funny how the human mind is able to contort things to make it seem this way. As I sat on deck, my laptop computer firing up on a small table in front of me, the warm morning sun beating down on my face, I drank in for the first time the remarkable harbor vista from this little perch off Long Wharf. Gulls were floating effortlessly in the pale blue sky and alighting on the creaky wooden docks. Massive yachts bobbed in the gentle waves. And in the distance, beyond the expanse of deep blue harbor waters, jets large and small ascended from the runways of Logan Airport like words taking flight in a poem. Behind me were the towers of the city’s stunning skyline gleaming in the midday light.
But another week and I’d be overboard, nautically speaking, and just as I was starting to like it. I had lived onThe Emancipation since October, when an old college friend, retired as a hedge fund manager long before his time, headed to the Caribbean for the winter and handed me the keys as an act of charity that men bestow on each other at times of such tumult. Now, just as the weather finally made such accommodations desirable, he was due back in five days, meaning I was to be out. Another itch in the occasional rash of life.
My computer sprang to life and I logged into theRecord ’s library database. I plugged in John Cutter’s name and got several dozen hits. I scrolled though the headlines until I came to one that said, “John Cutter, LongtimeRecord Publisher, Dead of Apparent Heart Attack.” It ran on the front page five years ago this month.
The reporter detailed Cutter’s many accomplishments, quoted various civic dignitaries about his significant contribution to the city, and provided a relatively sketchy account of his housekeeper’s discovery of the body in the morning at his Four Seasons condominium overlooking the Public Garden. A Boston Police detective, a guy by the name of Hank Sweeney, was quoted on some of the particulars. There wasn’t so much as a scant hint of foul play.
I pulled up another, shorter story from the next day’s paper, this one headlined, “Cutter Autopsy Confirms Heart Attack.” It said the determination was made by the assistant state medical examiner, Justin Cobain, who was quoted saying, “It appears to be death by natural causes.”
It appears.If you’re him, why couch it. Or perhaps I was simply nit-picking through the prism of time and with the prejudice of suspicion. Still, that’s just what we do sometimes in the august Fourth Estate.
I plugged Cobain’s name into my computer, into the library database of everyRecord for the past twenty years. The first story that popped up on my screen was his obituary from two years ago, “Justin Cobain, Veteran Coroner, at 69.” So much for the old saw, “Better late than never.”
When I typed Sweeney’s name into the system, it spit out twenty-five stories over the last decade-and-a-half, but the most recent of them appeared nearly three years ago. I retyped his name with the keyword “Obituary,” but came back with nothing, which was good news. So I called police headquarters and asked for Hank Sweeney. I heard the woman on the other end of the line type something into a computer, then riffle through what sounded like the thin pages of a directory book. Finally, she said to me, “I don’t see anyone here by that name.”
“How would I find out if he’s retired?” I asked.
“Do you know where he used to work?”
“He was a lieutenant in homicide.”
“You can try the homicide bureau. Someone up there might know.” Before I could even thank her, she transferred the call.
A gruff-sounding receptionist said, “Hank Sweeney? Yeah, he’s in Florida. I think it’s some town outside of West Palm.”
This, ladies and gentlemen, is what sometimes passes for investigative reporting, which is exponentially better than reporting about presidential stains on dresses. I thanked her and hung up.
Cops rarely—alright, never—list their telephone numbers, for all the obvious reasons. I wondered if retired cops were as private. So I was more than pleasantly surprised when I plugged his name into a phone database and retrieved one Henry Sweeney from Marshton, Florida, a town with the same area code as Palm Beach.
And here, my first key decision of the day. I decided I needed to see him, to look into his eyes as I asked him about John Cutter’s death. As a reporter, whenever you visit someone, as opposed to calling them, you make it harder for them to evade you. You’re standing right there in front of them, a live human being in need of information or a favor rather than just a distant voice on the phone. The actual brush-off requires more nerve and effort compared to simply hanging up the line. They have to ask you to leave their property or shut the door in your face—something that most people of even modest manners are not inclined to do, because such an act involves at least low level conflict. Humans are a breed that generally likes to please.
Decision number two: Though I was sitting with his phone number, I decided not to warn him of my arrival. Surprise, when used well, is an effective reportorial tool. If he knows I’m coming, he can think of a million reasons not to help me, then prepare and rehearse his evasive reply. If I just show up, there’s a reasonable likelihood of catching him off guard, such that he may blurt out something useful or simply provide me with what I need because he hasn’t had a chance to think of a reason he shouldn’t. Sounds simple, but you wouldn’t believe how many reporters don’t get it.
As my newspaper teetered on the precipice of a catastrophic sale, tomorrow I would be in Florida, knocking on the door of one Hank Sweeney, five years late, but God willing, not too late. Even if this was the wildest of goose chases, I would do this for Paul because, truth be known, I would do virtually anything for Paul.
The sun was setting and the harbor waters were making their nightly transition from blue to black as I grabbed my well-worn Spaulding basketball, headed up the rickety wooden docks and trotted across the gra
vel parking lot, Baker joyfully in tow.
I was wearing a pair of warm-up pants and an old sweatshirt on what had become our nightly routine—a walk along the waterfront to the North End, the city’s famous Italian enclave. There, we cut across Hanover Street, lined with bakeries, coffee shops and trattorias, and arrived in the yard of St. Mary’s, a tiny parochial school with an outdoor basketball court lit by two faint floodlights.
As I walked up to the foul line, Baker settled at half-court and directed his attention to a rawhide bone. My first shot clanked off the rim. Second shot: Swish. Third shot: Swish again. Not since high school in South Boston had I played competitively, and not since a year ago had I even picked up a ball. But a funny thing tends to happen on the way toward middle age: you reach out more, and you reach back, and here I was, night after night, not so much trying to reclaim a bit of my youth, but just trying to fend off the loneliness of mortality with the familiar comfort of ability. And in my day, pardon the braggadocio, I was more able with a basketball than most.
I moved over to the corner of the foul line and began pumping jumpshots, grabbing the rebound, dribbling out to the opposite corner and shooting again. It was an act of blessed simplicity, yet one with an almost endless possibility of either error or accomplishment. You set, bend your knees, jump, flick your wrist such that your shooting hand is parallel to the ground at follow-through, then you watch the ball float through the cool, dim evening air, either to rattle off the unforgiving rim or nestle into the inviting net. Fortunately the latter was more my destiny than the former, on the court and, if you don’t mind, in life.
Five, ten minutes later, my blood was pumping. Another ten minutes and I felt a nice warm sweat coating my cool forehead, then my lower back. The shots, for whatever it’s worth, were falling like snow on the Rocky Mountains.
Flynn fakes right, dribbles left, stops and shoots. Bang! Fans, he’s hit yet another J and the kid is on a capital-T tear.
Dribbling back to the top of the key, my mind invariably, inevitably wandered to my story on Governor Lance Randolph. What I had was compelling evidence that he had inflated his conviction rate from when he was the Suffolk County district attorney—an embellishment that helped him win his first gubernatorial campaign six years ago. He was, his campaign literature repeatedly proclaimed, the most successful prosecutor in Massachusetts, a no-nonsense, tough-on-crime, new-age Democrat uniquely able to lead the state through any stretch of unexpected tumult. Now I wasn’t so sure.
Of course, when I began reporting the story, I had no idea that Randolph would be nominated as the attorney general, which elevated it to national importance. We love collecting hides in this business, and I already have some impressive ones on the wall, but it would certainly be nice to add that of a presidential appointment.
Flynn steals the inbounds pass, stops and pops at the top of the key, and swish! Folks, the guy has taken this game into his own hands and it is truly a sight to behold!
The story was now important enough that I was willing to share—an unusual accommodation for me, considering I don’t usually like sharing so much as a thought. I had called friend and newsroom colleague Vinny Mongillo that afternoon with two requests: first, I wanted him to probe some of his many police sources for information about Randolph’s prosecutor days, and second, in complete confidence, could he please do what we in the news biz call a scrub of Terry Campbell. I didn’t tell him that Campbell might someday soon be our ultimate boss, but I would. I would.
Flynn brings the ball down court against double-team pressure, slides through two defenders, wheels into the middle and lofts a fifteen-footer toward the hoop. Bang! Ladies and gentlemen, with just two minutes remaining in a tie game, there are no words that can describe the magic going on right here on this court tonight!
I’ll admit, I never had the chance to get to know John Cutter particularly well, though I do know he was a great publisher, and while he was running the paper and Paul Ellis was next in line as the company president, they were an unbeatable team. His reputation—John’s—was that of a brilliant man with a dose of the family’s trademark paternalism, but also subject to bouts of occasional depression. Paul Ellis, a retired army general, arrived at his family’s paper to provide some balance and guidance to his older cousin. The two became famously close and John’s death hit Paul hard—so hard that he even offered John’s eldest son, Brent Cutter, the presidency of the company after his father’s death.
With just fifteen seconds left and the championship game still tied, Flynn is dribbling out the clock, weaving in and out of his hapless opponents who haven’t been able to stop him the last seven times down court. Eight seconds. Flynn fakes to the basket and pulls back. Six seconds. He dribbles around the top of the key. Four seconds. He jabs right, whirls left and launches an eighteen-footer. Bang! Ladies and gentlemen, Jack Flynn
of South Boston has hit a buzzer-beating jumpshot to win this epic game!
I turned around to see Baker standing at half-court, his blond fur uncharacteristically sticking straight up on his back, staring and growling at the dark shadows of the school. To put this into context, I’d heard him growl exactly once before in his life, when I brought home a blonde with a better-than-average chest who patted him—before he growled—with an outstretched arm, like some non-dog people do. “Is he friendly,” she asked, nervously.
“Not as friendly as me,” I replied. And at that exact moment, the dog growled and the relationship was effectively over. I told Baker he owed me the $184 I had just spent on dinner, but he didn’t seem to understand, or maybe he just didn’t care.
“What’s the matter, pal,” I asked as I, too, probed the shadows with my eyes. I saw nothing.
Baker looked at me as if I was some sort of gold-plated idiot, then looked back toward the redbrick building. I squinted and stared harder, making out a small alley between the brick school and the sandstone chapel. Baker inched toward the dark and I called out, “Who’s there?”
Silence, which is precisely what I wanted to hear. “Lie down, Baker,” I said. He ignored me, so I turned toward the basket and took another jumper, then another, missing them both. When I glanced back at Baker, he was still creeping toward the dark, growling harder now, his fur still on end. I was setting myself up to take a foul shot when a voice crashed through the lonely night air.
“Does he bite?”
Unfortunately, it wasn’t the blonde talking—the only thing I was sure of, because the voice was every bit a man’s. I whirled toward the shadows, but still didn’t see anyone. As I stared more intently, a figure emerged from the black into the hazy peripheral light, a large man wearing a baseball cap—the Detroit Tigers, as a matter of fact—slung low over his face.
“Sometimes,” I replied, my tone a mix of suspicion and curiosity. Baker continued to edge toward the man, who was now standing still. I called out, “Who are you?”
“Mike,” he replied. “My name’s Mike. Can you call the dog off, man?”
I ignored his request and said, “What are you doing here?”
“I hang out here,” he said, talking to me but staring at my dog. “Can you please call your dog off.”
Not in his canine lifetime had anyone been in such fear of old Baker, who usually greets strangers by rubbing himself against their legs or dropping his tennis ball at their feet in hopes of engaging them in a game of catch.
“What do you want?” I asked him. I was standing twenty feet away, holding the basketball against my hip. The man was standing helpless a few feet from the building. Baker was somewhere between us, fixed on this man named Mike, growling up a veritable storm.
“I want you to get your dog away. Then I wanted to know if you had any game in you.”
“You’re going to play in those?” I asked, incredulously. The man was wearing a pair of battered work boots. Baker inched closer still.
“C’mon, the dog, man. The dog.”
“Baker,” I said, not very sternly, or at least
not sternly enough. “Come here.”
He ignored me, which didn’t particularly surprise or bother me.
The man’s face was dark, but I could vaguely see his eyes fixed on Baker’s, who was, in turn, fixed on his. Before I found myself in a lawsuit in this overly litigious society, I stepped toward my dog, grabbed his collar, and whispered soothingly, “Sit, pal. Time to sit down.” He did, but his eyes never left the intruder, or at least what we both suspected was an intruder.
“Thanks, man,” he said, sounding relieved. “You got a little one-on-one in you?”
The guy emerged fully into the faint floodlight. He was slightly taller than me, probably about six foot three. He had skin pocked by acne scars, brownish hair that fell from beneath his cap in greasy strings, and a tattoo on the right side of his neck that looked to be a bird, an eagle.
“A quick one,” I said.
He walked over to the side of the court and peeled off his denim jacket. He held his hands out for the ball, and when he got it, he dribbled twice, hard, and took a shot that slammed off the backboard and rim. Just from that one errant jumper, I knew he couldn’t play, first because he stared at the ball while he dribbled it, and then because he surged forward when he jumped. I decided to dispatch him quickly.
“Game to five,” I said, “winner’s out. You start.”
He took the ball, barreled toward the right and threw up a flailing layup that hit the backboard but never the rim. I rebounded it, cleared and tossed in a fifteen-foot jumper, nothing but net. One zip.
Next play, I faked right so hard that when I cut back left, he tripped over his own boots and sprawled across the pavement. I laid it in with ease. Two zip.
I stayed silent, mostly because I didn’t particularly want to antagonize a tattooed guy who appeared from the shadows of the night on a lonely basketball court. Mrs. Flynn didn’t raise any fools, and neither did I. Baker was usually a fine judge of character, and he didn’t appreciate our newfound company one little bit. As a matter of fact, he stood at half-court intently watching every move we made. Watch dog. I liked that.
The Nominee Page 3
