Yesterday's News

by R. G. Belsky

  “Did you meet Elliott?” I asked.

  “Yes, when he came to get the girl.”

  “What did he say?”

  “The same thing she said. He was her uncle. He was taking care of her because her parents were away. She loved riding on motorcycles. So he brought her along with him. We talked a little while, and they both left. Him and the little girl. It didn’t seem like that big a deal at the time.”

  “What about later?”

  “I saw an article about the missing girl. Lucy Devlin. I thought she looked something like the girl I’d met in New Hampshire. I never did anything about it. I wasn’t sure and I wasn’t exactly sure what to do. Maybe I should have told someone back then. Anyway, when I heard you talking to Sandy about this yesterday, it all came back to me. I agonized about it all last night. Sandy doesn’t know I’m here. He’d be furious if he found out. He doesn’t believe in cooperating with the authorities or the media or anyone else in the establishment. But I always wondered what happened to that little girl. Is she dead? Where is she now? Was it really Lucy Devlin? It’s something that’s bothered me for a long time. I guess I finally just want to know the answers to those questions. So I decided to come over here now and tell you what I know. Before it was too late …”

  She was wrong about that, of course. It was already too late. If she’d gone to the authorities back then at the motorcycle conference, maybe they would have gotten some answers. But she didn’t. Now here she was, sitting in my office, trying to help me go down a trail for a missing girl that had grown cold a long time ago.

  “Elliott didn’t by any chance tell you his last name, did he?”

  “No.”

  “Anything about himself?”

  “He was extremely vague.”

  “You don’t know any more …”

  “Oh, I found all about him later.”

  “How?”

  “I saw him on TV.”

  “When?”

  “A year or so ago. That’s when I found out his name.”

  I sat there waiting. I realized she was probably enjoying this. Enjoying having my complete attention. I let her play it out the way she wanted.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me who he is?” she said.

  “Who is he?” I asked mechanically.

  “Elliott Grayson.”

  I thought maybe I hadn’t heard her right.

  “Elliott Grayson?”

  “Yes.”

  “The Elliott Grayson?”

  “He’s the only one I know.”

  Elliott Grayson was the federal attorney in Manhattan and also a candidate for the US Senate. Grayson had been in the headlines recently when he took down one of New York’s biggest crime families. Before that, he made a name for himself by busting up a big drug cartel. He was good-looking, charming, a regular on the TV news shows—Channel 10 included. A few months ago, he announced he was running for the Senate. The latest polls showed him winning handily. Some people were already talking about him having a future in the White House.

  “What the hell was Elliott Grayson doing at a motorcycle convention with a little girl on the back of his bike?” Big Lou asked me.

  I wondered the same thing.

  CHAPTER 9

  I CALLED ELLIOTT Grayson’s office at the US Government Building in Foley Square. I got a woman named Gwen, who said she was Grayson’s special assistant.

  “My name is Clare Carlson. I’m with Channel 10 News. I’d like to set up an interview with Mr. Grayson as soon as I can for a story we’re doing. When could I come over?”

  “What’s the story about?”

  “I’d rather discuss that with Mr. Grayson when I see him.”

  “You can tell me.”

  “I’m sorry, but I can’t do that.”

  “Why not?”

  “I want to do it face-to-face with Mr. Grayson himself.” “You can tell me,” she repeated, with more emphasis this time. “I’m his special assistant.”

  “It’s confidential.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Confidential is a term we use in the TV business for something we don’t reveal to anyone without a double secret security clearance.”

  She did not laugh.

  “There’s an opening at three o’clock tomorrow afternoon,” she said.

  “I was hoping for something today.”

  “Three o’clock tomorrow,” she said again.

  Gwen was starting to get on my nerves.

  “We’re the highest-rated news show in town,” I said, stretching the truth just a bit. “Millions of New Yorkers watch every night. This could be a great opportunity for Elliott Grayson. A chance to be seen and heard by a lot of people. I think perhaps you might want to reconsider your answer.”

  There was a pause, like she was checking something, then she came back on the line.

  “Okay, two o’clock tomorrow.”

  “The power of the press isn’t what it used to be.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That speech used to be able to buy me more than an hour.”

  “Do you want to see Mr. Grayson at two o’clock or not?”

  I said that was fine.

  I already knew a lot about Elliott Grayson. About his spectacular record of success as a federal prosecutor who had put a lot of high-profile criminals behind bars. About his run now for the Senate with all sorts of speculation on his big political future. There were plenty of stories about him that I found online and in our video files at the station. We’d been covering him big-time for a while. But what I needed to know now was what Elliott Grayson was really all about as a person as well as a politician. The kind of real, behind-the-scenes stuff that doesn’t always get printed in news articles or put on the air.

  I called Cliff Whitten. Whitten used to be a political columnist for the New York Tribune, the newspaper I worked for. But too many long liquid lunches and a few ugly confrontations in the newsroom after he’d been drinking convinced the bosses he wasn’t exactly Tribune material. Whitten got fired, drifted to the Daily News, and eventually lost his job there, too, for the same reason. Now he covered local politics for a political website.

  I’d been friends with him at the Tribune. That’s all, just good friends. We’d spent many a long night drinking and having conversations about the state of the world.

  I asked him now if he wanted to meet me for a drink.

  “I don’t drink anymore, Clare,” he said. “It’s been almost three years since my last drink.”

  “Congratulations. I guess.”

  “I’m on my way to the health club right now,” he said. “We could meet there and talk. Or maybe you could join me for a workout.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding …”

  The health club was on West 14th Street. When I got there, Whitten was doing pull-ups on one of the machines.

  “I’ve abused my body for sixty years, Clare. Now I’m trying to change my lifestyle—no drinking, a healthy diet, and regular exercise. I want to see a few more elections before I die. You should try it, too.”

  “Do I look like I’m out of shape?”

  “Everybody could stand to lose a few pounds.”

  “That’s not the answer I wanted to hear.”

  I explained that I was working on a story about Grayson, and I just wanted to find out more about what made him tick. I didn’t say what the story was about.

  “Elliott Grayson.” Whitten chuckled when I was finished. He was running on a treadmill now. “The hotshot federal prosecutor. Grayson figures maybe he can do what Rudy Giuliani never quite pulled off—go from crime-busting US Attorney to the Senate and maybe even to the White House one day. And you know what? He might just pull it off.”

  “What’s the status of the election right now?”

  “You’ve got Grayson and Teddy Weller vying for the Democratic nomination. You couldn’t find two candidates at more opposite ends of the political spectrum.

  “Weller is
old school. He’s been a congressman for years. Before that, he was Brooklyn Borough President and then in the State Assembly. He’s got so many markers and chits out in the city and state for all the political favors he’s done that he ought to get enough votes just from those people alone. On the issues, he’s practically out of the stone ages. Against welfare, against sex education in the schools, against city funding going to abortion clinics, pro-death penalty—he’s a Democrat in name only.

  “Grayson, on the other hand, is the new hope for the liberals in New York City. Kind of a combination of John Lindsay and Robert F. Kennedy for the twenty-first century. He’s got that same kind of charm, that same mass appeal. Grayson walks through impoverished neighborhoods in Harlem or the South Bronx in his shirtsleeves, just like Kennedy and Lindsay once did, and the people love him. He’s made a lot of big promises for things that he’d do if elected. Funding for food programs, better schools, court reform, etcetera. He’s also very big on fighting crime. He points to his experience as a law enforcement official, and he says he can make the streets safer than they’ve ever been. A lot of people believe him.”

  “So who’s going to win?”

  “Well, Grayson’s got a big lead in the polls. Everyone is predicting a bright political future for him on the national stage.”

  “And you figure he’s a sure thing to win?”

  “Nothing’s a sure thing in politics, Clare. You know that. Grayson looks unstoppable now. But there’s still a long way to go. Anything could tilt it back to Weller before the primary election in September. A big endorsement, a misspoken word in a campaign speech, a scandal. I guess that’s what Teddy Weller is hoping for. Some kind of a big scandal or other pitfall for Grayson. It’s pretty much his only hope at this point.”

  “What about the general election in November?”

  Whitten shrugged. “The Republican candidate is Les Goodman. A longtime legislator from upstate. Not much talk about him right now since he has the GOP nomination sewed up. Goodman could surprise people for the general election in November, I suppose. But right now, it’s all about Weller and Grayson. Most people figure Grayson’s got a clear path to the Senate and a bright political future on the national stage after that.”

  After he was finished with the treadmill, Whitten moved to the swimming pool. He began leisurely swimming laps in the lane closest to the side. He was doing a sidestroke, which left him able to talk to me as he swam. I walked alongside, carrying a towel for him and shouting out questions.

  “You’ve met Grayson, right?” I asked.

  “Sure.”

  “Do you like him?”

  Whitten didn’t answer right away.

  “Is there some problem with him?”

  “Look, Clare, the truth is everything about the guy seems on the up and up. I mean he’s a hard worker, he’s smart, he’s successful, and he talks a helluva game. It’s just …”

  “What?”

  “Well, I have this feeling about him. Like there’s something missing. Or maybe something I simply don’t know about him.”

  “A dark side?”

  “I’m not saying that.”

  “Then what?”

  “I just have the feeling he’s the kind of guy that would do anything to get what he wants. His goals might be laudable. But not the way he goes about achieving them. I guess it’s a matter of the ends justifying the means for him. And that scares me.”

  When he was finished swimming his laps, he pulled himself out of the pool. I handed him the towel.

  “How far do you think Grayson would go to get elected to the Senate?” I asked.

  “Let me tell you a story. A few years ago, when Elliott Grayson was a prosecutor in the New York office, there was this family that lived next door to a mob boss named Jackie Moreno. Moreno was a bad guy. He claimed he ran a waste disposal company, but he was really a murderer, a drug pusher, an extortionist—you name it, this guy was guilty. But he was smart, too, and always able to beat the rap. People figured he was paying off cops and judges, but no one could ever prove it.

  “Anyway, one day Moreno’s neighbor just disappears. He’s a guy named William Granger, and he’s as straight as Moreno is crooked. Runs his own accounting firm, he and his wife are active members of the local church, he’s a great father to their three kids … all in all, just an upstanding citizen. Only he got in this fight with Moreno. It was over something stupid, like somebody’s trash can was in the wrong spot or one of the kids was playing on the other’s lawn or whatever. But it escalated to the point where they started exchanging blows, right there in Granger’s driveway.

  “It turned out Granger was a pretty good fighter, and he tagged Moreno with a haymaker that knocked him on his ass in front of the whole neighborhood. This was very humiliating for Moreno, who always acted like a tough guy. He screamed at Granger in front of maybe a dozen people that he was a dead man.

  “The next night, Granger never came home from work. His abandoned car was found a few blocks away. A witness said she saw him being dragged from his car and thrown in the trunk of a Cadillac. She got the license plate number, which turned out to belong to Moreno’s company. He was arrested, and it seemed like an open and shut case for Grayson, who was the prosecutor. I mean, Moreno threatened the victim and one of his cars was seen kidnapping him.

  “Only the jury came back with a not guilty verdict. It turns out—even though they could never prove it—that Moreno bought off members of the jury. After he was acquitted, he had a big victory celebration at his house. Next door, poor Granger’s wife and kids had to listen to him and his friends partying over the fact that he got away with murder. The wife goes to Grayson in tears. She asked him how such a horrible injustice could happen. He said he sympathized with her pain and anguish, but there was nothing legally that could be done.

  “Except a funny thing happened afterward. Moreno got stopped in a routine traffic patrol by federal officers doing terror checks. They didn’t find any terror materials in his car, but they did seize a large amount of heroin. Moreno insisted it wasn’t his and claimed the federal officers planted it. He got convicted this time and sentenced to five to fifteen years in Sing Sing for drug trafficking. Two weeks after he got there, someone stabbed him to death in the prison rec room. No one ever found out who did it.

  “I was interviewing Grayson one day and I asked him about the Moreno story. I said that some people believed it was payback for the William Granger murder. That the federal officers stopped Moreno on Grayson’s orders, put the drugs in his car, and fixed it so he would definitely go to prison this time. Grayson just laughed, but he never denied it. He could have, but he didn’t. That’s when I realized what he was doing. He wanted me to believe the story was true. He wanted everyone to believe he was capable of doing something like that. Moreno was a bad guy. Now Moreno was gone. Grayson got rid of him.”

  “The ends justified the means,” I said.

  “Exactly.”

  I wasn’t sure how this fit into the Lucy Devlin case. But what if Grayson had something to hide? Some secret that might prevent him from being elected to the Senate? How far would he go to prevent that secret from ever being revealed?

  There was another possibility, too.

  “What about his opponent, this Weller guy?” I asked Whitten. “How far would he go to be elected?”

  “Teddy Weller—to paraphrase infamous Charles Colson of Watergate fame—would shove his grandmother in front of a bus if he thought it would help him to get elected.”

  “You said he needed a miracle—some kind of huge scandal to derail Grayson—to win the primary. Do you think he might deliberately smear Grayson and try to plant some kind of incriminating evidence against him, even if he knew it wasn’t true?”

  “In a heartbeat.”

  “So, basically,” I said, “you got two guys who would go to any lengths to win?”

  “I think that sums up the situation pretty well.”

  “Beautiful.”
/>
  “Clare, that’s what makes politics so much fun to cover.”

  CHAPTER 10

  MAGGIE LANG SAID she needed to talk to me urgently when I got back to the station.

  “I assigned someone to check out the records for the motorcycle thing in Mountainboro,” she said when we met in my office. “I thought there might be a lead for a good follow-up story to your Anne Devlin interview. I didn’t find anything too interesting there. No real trouble. Just the usual—a few busts for drugs, disturbing the peace, that sort of thing. But then we kept going, and we did find something that had happened in Mountainboro. A few years ago, a guy who owned some land not far from where the motorcycle gangs met sold it to a developer who wanted to build a mall there. They started digging and that’s when it happened.”

  “They found a body buried there?” I said.

  It seemed like a logical guess.

  “Six of them.”

  “Men? Women?”

  “Six children. Three boys, three girls. Ages ran from six to thirteen.”

  “Could any of them have been …”

  “Lucy Devlin? No. They identified all the remains through dental charts and missing persons records and stuff like that. There was a big federal task force involved. The feds coordinated the whole thing. It was a big deal for a while.”

  “Was there ever any suggestion there might be more bodies?”

  “There was a massive search at the time. They dug up much of the area—everything they could get to, anyway. If there were any more bodies around there, no one ever found them.”

  “Did the investigators think the killer—or killers—murdered all six children at one time? Or maybe that it was a burial ground for a series of killings over a period of time?”

  “Hard to say. The remains were too old to ascertain any kind of time of death. But the victims all seemed to have died of different kinds of injuries. Stabbing, beating, strangulation. Which suggests it wasn’t just one killer, but a series of them. Or else someone who liked to vary their pattern from victim to victim.”