* * *
■ ■ ■
ANDREA’S NEW BESTIE Sathwika drove her back to the hotel so she could pick up her car, while Kenny returned to the office. He looked at the opening paragraph of his first draft. He started rewriting the text with less arrogance and more empathy. He changed the angle from crusading boy reporter trying to fight institutional authority to the framework of a woman who lost her brother fifty years ago and a family who lost a nephew a month ago. He added the speculation about Robertson, but it was his only concession to sensationalism.
It was the best thing he had ever written.
He emailed it to Janelle.
She came to his cubicle twenty minutes later holding the hand-edited printout of his article. She preferred to copyedit on the page, and he was fine with that. It was the only aspect of her performance he found charming. She waved the pages. “This is great,” she said.
“But?”
“I only have one note,” she said.
“No waffling, Janelle,” he snapped. “No worrying about how this’ll make the paper look. You know how it’ll make us look? Like we chose to get on the right side of history.”
She smiled. “You didn’t even give me a chance to say what it was.”
“Sorry,” he said, chagrined enough to muster a guilty smile. “What?”
“You used there instead of their three times,” she said. She handed him the copyedited hard copy. “Clean it and put it to bed.”
* * *
■ ■ ■
AT SATHWIKA’S INSISTENCE, Andrea met the Indian Momma Suffragette Soccer Club at three o’clock at the Starbucks in Princeton’s MarketFair shopping center. Sathwika brought Sunita Gupta, she of the phenomenal samosas and Cleon’s skull. Priya, the oldest woman from the soccer parent group, who had impressed Andrea with her disdainful coal black eyes and harsh pragmatism, was also there. They got four chais and sat down by the entrance to the mall. Andrea let them make small talk. She listened to their cadence to get a feel for how they interacted. She gauged how best to work them.
After a few minutes, she updated them. The women understood what it would mean for West Windsor and Plainsboro.
“What should we do?” asked Sunita.
“What can we do?” asked Priya, with a hint of venom in her tone.
“What you will do,” said Sathwika, “is talk to your friends and husbands. Have them talk to their friends. The Indian community should be braced for the exposure of the racist actions of our police department and people in our administration. You should explain to them that the Sasmal murder has not been solved yet, but it’s also complicated and we hope it will be soon. The process could take weeks. Steady progress has been made.”
She turned to Priya and continued, “Accept that there are fifty years of institutional racial bias staining all aspects of this case. But be very aware and make it plainly clear that it was a young African American man killed in nineteen sixty-five and a young Indian man killed now. You have a Chinese mayor who has completely supported this investigation. You have a Hispanic FBI agent leading the investigation in Newark and you have a stubborn New York Jew talking to you about it now. Though the acts were inherently racial, bringing it to light has transcended race. Keep the community calm and let the process play out.”
“What is the likelihood that a white police chief, a white former police chief, or a white farmer will be convicted of anything?” asked Priya.
Andrea said, “I guarantee we will get them to break.”
* * *
■ ■ ■
KENNY LEFT THE office at five fifteen. Benjamin Dobeck was waiting for him, leaning against his car. He was in civvies. Ken wasn’t sure if he was off duty or had been relieved of duty. More important, was he carrying a gun under his Tommy Bahama button-down shirt and Lands’ End knockabout chino shorts?
“How’re you holding up?” Kenny asked.
“You have your recorder on?”
Kenny took his phone out of his pocket and held it up to show that he didn’t.
“Off the record?” said Benjamin.
“Sure.”
He avoided Kenny’s eyes. “I knew there was something. I don’t know—some secret, I guess? How they talked sometimes. The distance between them. How hard my dad was on me when I told him I wanted to join the force.”
“I thought it was expected in your family.”
“No. Man, he was okay with me going into the army, but when I told him I wanted to join the WWPD, he was so pissed,” said Benjamin. “It was my grandfather who convinced him to hire me.”
“Your grandfather wanted to ensure there would always be someone in a position to maintain the conspiracy.”
“Maybe,” Benjamin said. “I always felt trapped between them. Nothing I could do or say has ever been enough for either of them.”
They were quiet for a moment.
“What were you going to the station for last night?” asked Kenny.
With that, a wall seemed to go up around Benjamin. He shifted off the side door of the Prius and started to walk away.
“Why were you waiting for me now?” asked Kenny.
Benjamin stopped. Considering the offer?
“Say it, Ben. Say it on the record. Make the right choice and protect yourself.”
Benjamin laughed. It was the sound of a man who knew he had absolutely no way to win, but never had anything worth losing to make winning worth the effort.
“Protect myself,” he said through bitter laughter. “That’s funny.”
* * *
■ ■ ■
THE INDIAN MOMMA Suffragette Soccer Club broke up at ten minutes after five. Andrea picked up the kids from their various hideouts and then picked up Jeff at the train station.
They turned onto Abbington Lane and saw a West Windsor squad car parked in front of their house. Andrea held her breath. No siren lights. She exhaled.
“What is it?” asked Jeff.
“Protection,” she said.
Pulling into the garage, she saw Officer Patel get out of his car in her rearview.
As Jeff took the kids inside, she walked out to greet him. “Officer Patel.”
“Mrs. Stern,” he said. “I’m here to keep an eye out.”
“Thank you for your help,” she said. She looked at this kid. He was only a few years younger than she was, but she felt a hundred years older. “I’m sorry I kind of threw you and Officer Wu under the bus.”
He smiled. “We deserved it, ma’am. I was terrified that morning. But I have another three weeks on the job, so I’ve pretty much seen it all by now.”
She liked that response, self-deprecating, but laced with a subtle fuck you.
Inside, Jeff asked, “How did it go?”
“It’s just a precaution. Nothing is going to happen.”
“I’m actually a bit relieved to have him here,” he said. “They decided on Papa John’s. Sorry.”
Once they settled into the house, he said, “So how did everything go today?”
“Not bad, actually. Overall, everyone was pretty cooperative, all things considered, and the FBI was really efficient.”
“So, this is over now, right?” Jeff asked.
Andrea wanted to lie to him and to the kids, but she chose not to.
“No,” she said. “Now is when it actually begins.”
46
KENNY was awakened at 9:35 in the morning by the ringing of his phone. The caller ID showed a number he recognized. He cleared his throat before tapping the screen.
“Lee,” he said.
“Kenny, this is Kimberly Walker from NJ Advance Media,” said the voice on the other end.
“I know who you are, Kim, and I know where you work.” He lifted himself up and sat on the edge of the bed. He scratched his balls. He had to pee. He wondered i
f she would hear him over the phone if he went to the toilet and peed. Deciding he didn’t care, he got up and walked to the bathroom.
“Well, Ken, we received an advance on the story running in your paper today and my editor, Clark Werner—do you know him?”
“He’s not one of the editors who fired me, so . . . no.”
“Clark wanted to see if you’d be interested in fleshing out your story with us. We’d work together—you bring what you have to the table and then we’d build on that.”
“Really?” he asked, feigning extreme delight.
“I could come down this afternoon and go over everything with you,” she said.
“Hmm,” he said. “Let me give you and Clark a little bit of what NJ Advance Media gave me.”
He lowered the phone just as a stream of pee erupted from him. The sound was unmistakable.
He flushed the toilet and hung up without saying another word.
* * *
■ ■ ■
AT 1:10 P.M., Kenny got a call from NJTV news. The managing editor praised the work he’d done for the Princeton Post. He said Kenny was making quite the comeback. Then he asked if Kenny would be interested in doing an on-air piece about the situation in West Windsor.
“Like I’d be the on-air reporter for the piece?” asked Kenny.
“Yeah,” he replied. “I’d partner you with a seasoned producer, but yeah.”
“And you guys still aren’t paying, are you?” Kenny asked.
“Um, no,” stammered the man, whose name Kenny had already forgotten. “No, we pay if it gets a pickup fee from a cable network or a stronger online platform.”
“I understand,” said Kenny. “Tell you what, when you have more subscribers than Myspace currently has, give me a holler.”
He hung up.
Maybe he should have taken Kim up on the NJ Advance Media offer.
No, he thought. No! He knew a better opportunity would come from this story, and jumping at the first chance, especially in a field he’d already played on, would be the wrong choice. He decided to shower and go into the office.
* * *
■ ■ ■
AFTER DROPPING RUTH at That Pottery Place, Sarah and Sadie for extended time at the Little Gym, and then Elijah at an afternoon session of soccer camp, Andrea rushed to the Plainsboro Police Department. Ramon would be joining them in their interrogation of Bill Mueller, and she wanted to get there before he did.
By the time she arrived, Ramon and Chief Ambrose were already stepping out of the interrogation room. “Sorry, I’m late,” she said.
“He must have known you were coming,” Ramon said. “He’s going to talk.” His cell phone rang. Checking caller ID, he said, “Excuse me.”
Ramon listened for a few moments and ended the call by saying, “Schedule something for right now if you can, since we’re here already. If not, tomorrow morning.”
He pocketed his phone and looked to Andrea with a smile. “Eversham’s lawyer called the office. She’ll talk tomorrow.”
“Now let’s see who talks the most,” said Andrea.
* * *
■ ■ ■
AT THE OFFICES of the Princeton Post, Kenny kept refreshing the Google search bar. Janelle had fielded no further calls from media outlets seeking to bask in his magnificence, which had made his perpetual self-doubt flare up.
Finally, the phone rang in her office. She emerged moments later and said, “I have CNN on hold. They want you for a segment on CNN Tonight with Don Lemon.”
“I want a car to take me to the studio.” As she disappeared back into her office, Kenny called out, “And I want dinner included.”
* * *
■ ■ ■
A LITTLE AFTER ten that night, Andrea finished putting the kids to bed and sat down on the couch in the family room. Jeff sat in his recliner. He was checking international trades on his phone.
“Do you mind if I put on CNN?” she asked.
He looked up, half paying attention.
“Kenny is going to be on,” she said.
That piqued his interest. “He’s going to be on TV and not you?”
“I can’t talk about ongoing investigations,” she said. “He benefits from talking.”
It was ten minutes after the hour. She hoped they hadn’t missed Kenny’s segment. The show had likely led with national news. After the half-hour break, Kenny came on the split screen from the studio in New York. He was wearing a sports coat and white button-down shirt. His hair was combed. He looked smart, comfortable, and professional.
Kenny provided a brief, concise history of West Windsor and Plainsboro as farm communities that had become engulfed by a housing boom. He described how the murder of Satkunananthan had led to the discovery of a long-buried murder victim and a criminal conspiracy.
“He makes it sound like he did it all himself,” muttered Jeff.
“You had a little help, though, right?” asked Lemon.
“An old friend of mine worked the investigation with me,” he said.
“Not just an old friend,” said Lemon. “A woman with some notoriety.”
Jeff looked at Andrea with a mixture of childish excitement and dread. “They’re talking about you.”
They are, she thought, but Kenny wouldn’t be.
“She was involved in the Morana case in New York City,” Kenny replied. “She worked with the FBI on that case, but she chose to be a homemaker and didn’t continue in law enforcement.”
That one stung, she thought.
“She prefers her anonymity, Don,” Kenny continued, and that was enough for Don to drop the subject of Andrea Stern.
The rest of the interview was a blur. Mention was made of Governor O’Malley and the Pfizer scandal and Kenny’s redemption. The segment ended with Lemon thanking Kenny for his hard work on breaking the story.
As a commercial for a prescription medicine droned on, Jeff said, “He totally made it about himself.”
Giving Kenny a benefit of the doubt she didn’t feel he deserved, Andrea said, “He needed a win.”
“Yeah, but to not even mention your name . . .”
“Would you really have wanted him to?” she asked.
“No, I guess not,” Jeff said. “But I figure it’s going to happen anyway. Whether it’s a slow drip or a fire hose, people are going to talk.”
After a few seconds, Jeff asked if he could put the game back on. Andrea was mulling whether she wanted people knowing about her involvement. Did she need the confused, hesitant looks from the Cellulitists or the PTA or the teachers at school or parents on the sidelines of this fall’s soccer games?
Maybe when she was younger she had enjoyed the attention her Scooby-Doo mystery solutions had brought her. She didn’t need that aggravation now, did she?
She wanted to cry.
She wanted to hit something.
She wanted to hit the Dobecks. But she could barely reach their crotches.
And, she thought, that would work.
47
WHEN Andrea arrived at the West Windsor municipal complex, there was a TV camera crew from Channel 6 Action News in Philly waiting in the parking lot. Kenny’s appearance on CNN had gotten the bloodhounds out. To her surprise, Kenny wasn’t there.
The cameraman swung toward her. She hesitated as the red light went on. The reporter, an attractive action figure of a man, slid over to her.
“Bill Brackett, Channel Six Action News,” he declared as if the tension rivaled that of the landing on Omaha Beach. “Are you involved in the investigation?”
“Not at the moment,” she said, knowing it was, in fact, not a lie. At that moment, she was walking through a parking lot.
“Are you a subject of the investigation?” he asked.
“No,” she said.
“Why are you h
ere?” Bill asked as she walked past him and toward the entrance to the police station.
She stopped at the door. She faced the camera, which was still rolling. Her desire was to brag for posterity, but her every instinct told her that getting into a media spitting war with Kenny would do the investigation no good. She turned from Bill Brackett, Channel 6 Action News, and walked through the doors without saying anything.
Inside, Acting Chief Rossi filled her in on what Eversham and her lawyer had discussed to that point. The township employee was bucking for a reduced sentence before having even been arrested. The conspiracy was now a slam dunk.
Andrea said, “We want two names. Who killed Singleton and who killed Sasmal.”
“One step at a time,” Rossi said. “You’ve been chipping away at this longer than we have. Let the rest of us catch up to you and don’t get worked up.”
Before they entered the interrogation room, Andrea said, “Do I look like I’m worked up, Detective?”
“No, you do not,” he replied as she waddled past him.
She was surprised she had arrived before the FBI. Eversham and her lawyer, Mitch Wisnick, a calm man in his late thirties, stood up as she entered. They must have been expecting Ramon, because both looked visibly disinterested when they saw her.
As they got into it, Wisnick tried to pretend his client’s statement would be so instrumental in proving their case, she should not only be absolved of prison time, she should have a street in town named after her.
That’s when Ramon entered the room.
“Sorry I’m late,” he said as he brushed right past the standing Wisnick. A pair of handcuffs seemed to magically appear and he asked Eversham to rise.
Nervous, confused, she did. Through Wisnick’s protestations, Ramon said, “You are under arrest for aiding and abetting a criminal conspiracy to conceal the nineteen sixty-five murder and dismemberment of Cleon Singleton.”
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