by R. G. Belsky
That last line was a helluva understatement. She’d been horribly abused—both physically and emotionally—as a little girl. Things had gotten so bad for her in that house that a self-styled vigilante had snatched her on her way to school that last day in an effort to save her.
The man who did it was now a U.S. senator. Elliott Grayson, a very powerful man in Washington. Grayson was the one I’d made a deal with to bury the story of his involvement in Lucy’s abduction in hopes he’d help me track her down and find her alive the way I had now. It wasn’t an arrangement I was proud of. But he also agreed not to reveal what I was trying to cover up—that I’d hidden the fact Lucy Devlin was my own biological daughter while I was winning a Pulitzer for covering the story of her disappearance. We both desperately wanted to hold on to our secrets.
“Didn’t your new parents—the ones you were placed with—ever tell you anything about how they got you?” I asked. “About your past? About how you had been Lucy Devlin and how your pictures were on milk cartons and you were written about so extensively in the media during those days afterward when the whole world was searching for you?”
“No, they never said anything about it. And I didn’t ask a lot of questions. I loved my new life and I wanted to grow up pretending that I was a normal teenager, I guess. It wasn’t until later, much later, that I began putting the pieces together. And at first those pieces didn’t add up. They didn’t make sense to me. But, when they finally did, I realized that I was Lucy Devlin. The little girl who vanished and all the rest. That’s when I decided to do something about it.”
“You sent an email to your mother, Anne Devlin, two years ago that set everything in motion. Why did you do that?”
“I’m not sure. I suppose I wanted to see what happened. I suppose maybe I wanted some closure, too, just like you. I was right.”
“You didn’t want to be forgotten,” I said, echoing the thought I’d had, which helped me track her down as the writer of the email.
“Something like that.”
It was that event which had eventually led me to find her living in this house in Virginia, all grown up and with a family of her own.
I pointed that out to her.
“There’s one thing I still don’t understand about you doing this,” she said. “Why do you care so much?”
“You were the biggest story of my life,” I said, repeating the story I’d told her that first day one more time. “Whether or not I ever air any of this now, I need to know the real story.”
“I don’t know,” she said. “It seems to me like you have more at stake here than just a big story.”
“Like what?”
“I’m not sure.”
“But you trust me?”
“I do.”
“Why?”
“Because you seem like a nice person, Clare.”
A nice person? Hell, I was a lot more than that to this woman. She called me “Clare” like I was her friend. I wanted to tell her to call me “Mom.” Maybe one day she will. Maybe one day she’ll finally know the truth about me. Maybe.
This was my third trip to see her. I’d taken the Acela train down to Washington. It was only a three-hour trip from New York so I could go and come back all in the same day. From Washington, I’d rent a car to make the drive to Winchester.
I’d lied to Jack Faron and said that I had a sick family member down here that I had to deal with in order to explain my absence from the offices.
I’d lied to the media consultant, too, when I canceled another one of our meetings with the same excuse—even though I knew I was going to have to deal with him sooner or later.
And now I was lying to my own daughter.
“Are you sure there’s nothing more to this for you?” she asked.
“That’s all.”
“It’s simply a journalistic obsession for you?”
“All about being a reporter.”
Jeez, for a woman who claimed she hated lying, I sure did a lot of it.
CHAPTER 13
I WAS SUPPOSED to meet Gary Weddle, the media consultant, for lunch. The idea—Faron’s idea—was that we meet for a friendly lunch and get to know each other a bit before diving into the specifics about any changes for the Channel 10 newscast.
Faron left it to me to pick the lunch spot. I chose the cafeteria on the first floor of our building. Not because of the food, which was mediocre on its best days. But because we could eat quickly there and I could get this out of the way without wasting a lot of my time. I had no desire to get to know Gary Weddle.
I reluctantly made my way down to the cafeteria for the meeting now. I didn’t see anyone that might be him inside. So I stood in line myself—surveying the assortment of Jell-O, salads, and sandwiches on display.
“You got anything hot?” I asked the guy behind the counter.
He nodded.
“Perhaps some Poulet roti au citron,” I suggested. “Or maybe a Foie gras en brioche?”
“Nah,” he said, “we don’t have anything like that.”
“What are my culinary options?”
“Well,” he said slowly, “you can have the tuna casserole or … you can have the tuna casserole.”
I pondered that briefly. “I think I’ll take the tuna casserole.”
“Good choice.”
I put a plate of the stuff on my tray, walked over to the cashier, and paid for it. Suddenly, from behind me, I heard a voice say: “You should have held out for the Poulet.”
I turned around. There was a very ordinary guy standing there, probably in his mid-thirties—but hard to tell, wearing glasses and a pair of baggy khakis with an open-collared green sports shirt that didn’t match the pants.
“I didn’t want to cause a problem.” I smiled. “I’m afraid I complain a bit too much sometimes.”
He smiled back.
“From what I’ve heard about you, that’s sort of like saying the Titanic sometimes takes on a bit too much water.” He picked up his tray of food. “Can I join you? I believe we were supposed to have lunch together.”
“You’re Gary Weddle?”
“I’m Gary Weddle.”
We sat down at a table in the corner.
“Not exactly the kind of place where I’d expect to eat lunch with a big New York City TV news executive like you, Ms. Carlson.”
“I figured this would be best for both of us. You know, more convenient and …”
“Quicker? So you don’t have to spend any more time than necessary with me today?”
“Uh, yes … there was that, too.”
I tried some of my casserole. It had noodles, tuna, cream sauce, peas, and some kind of black stuff throughout that looked like pepper. Not bad. I kind of liked it. If I could figure out what the black stuff was, I’d like it even better.
“I understand right now that you think I’m your enemy,” Weddle said. “But I’m not. I’m here to help you. I mean that. I don’t want your job. I have my own job. I want us to work together, not at odds with each other. What do you say?”
Weddle had ordered a hamburger and fries. Seemed like a safe choice. He took a big bite of the burger and smiled again. I smiled back. I didn’t want to, but it happened before I realized I was doing it.
“Have you ever really worked at a TV station?” I asked him.
“No, I haven’t. But I’ve worked with a lot of TV stations.”
“Then what makes you think you can do my job better than I’m already doing it?”
“I don’t want to do your job. You know a lot more about that than I do. But I know about some things that you don’t know about.”
“What kind of things?”
“Let me sum up my idea for what your station’s newscast could be in four words: ‘The News Never Stops.’”
“The News Never Stops?”
He nodded.
“That’s the slogan we use to promote it. In this case, it refers to a mind-set that sets your newscast apart from all the others o
n the air. Everything is live, everything is immediate. When there’s a fire, a press conference, a traffic jam, Channel 10 News is reporting from the scene as it’s happening. You don’t watch Channel 10 News to find out what has happened during the day, you watch Channel 10 to see what’s happening right now.”
“We only have a couple of newscasts a day. Mainly at 6 and 11 p.m. A lot of news is going to happen when we’re not on the air to broadcast it.”
“That’s yesterday’s journalism,” he said. “I want Channel 10 to be at the forefront of today’s journalism. Do you know how most people—especially younger people—get their news these days? Not from traditional newscasts. From their smartphones, tablets, and other mobile devices. They want to know what’s happening immediately, not wait until 6 or 11. We can give them that opportunity on Channel 10. We can use the Channel 10 website to livestream, tweet, and everything else from the scene of the news all day. Then we can use the best of all that to feature on the actual newscasts at 6 and 11. You get viewers while the news is happening, then you get them again later. It’s a win-win situation.”
“That sounds like a lot of work,” I said.
“It doesn’t have to be. I think it could make your job easier and more fun for everyone, too. Do you want to hear more?”
“I’m still listening.”
He went through more details of how it would work. A lot of them made sense. I was impressed by Gary Weddle’s knowledge of a TV news operation. And, the more he talked, the more impressed I got with Gary Weddle himself.
At one point, he got a big dab of catsup from the burger on his cheek and some more on the front of his shirt. I reached over with a napkin and wiped it all off. From his face and his shirt. The guy was kind of a klutz, but I somehow found that endearing. Weddle thanked me sheepishly after I finished my cleanup job on his face with the napkin.
“I would have probably gone out of here with that stuff still on my face. And my shirt, too. Me, I’m the kind of guy that can walk around all day like that and not even realize it.”
“What would your wife say when you got home tonight?” I smiled.
I threw that question out there just to see where it went.
“Oh, there is no Mrs. Weddle.”
“You’re not married.”
“No, how about you?”
“Not at the moment,” I said.
We talked for quite a long time then, much longer than I assumed we would when I’d made the appointment to meet with him.
“You’re not at all what I expected,” I told him when we got ready to leave.
“What did you expect?”
“I expected that you’d be a jerk.”
“Why?”
“I assumed that all media consultants were jerks.”
“Well, I guess you were misinformed.” He smiled.
We picked up our plates and dumped them on a tray by the cashier. As I walked past the food counter, the guy behind it asked: “What’s the verdict on the tuna casserole?”
I made a circle with my thumb and forefinger and held it up in the air for him to see.
“Nothing but compliments,” I said. “By the way, what was that black stuff in it?”
“Beats me.” He shrugged. “You got any idea?”
“I was afraid you’d say that,” I told him.
I heard him laughing as Weddle and I headed for the door. Weddle was laughing, too.
“Everyone’s a comedian,” I said, shaking my head.
“I’ll talk to you soon,” Weddle told me.
CHAPTER 14
“I SORTA LIKE this consultant guy the station hired to work with us on the newscasts,” I told Janet.
“Do you mean you ‘like’ him in terms of a professional who will do a good job at promoting the newscast and making the station more money and helping you do your job easier?”
“Yeah, well … that, too.”
“Oh, God, you don’t have the hots for this guy, do you, Clare?”
“I’m saying that I felt a certain chemistry there between us that could be developed.”
“A sexual chemistry?”
“Is there any other kind?”
We were sitting in Janet’s office, which was on Park Avenue in the East 40s with a view of the Manhattan skyline and even all the way over to the East River. Much nicer and much bigger than my office. It bothered me that Janet had a better office than I did. Of course, I never would tell her that. Well, I have, but she never pays any attention to me when I do.
“I suppose he’s good-looking, slick, super-macho, and he’s got a great come-on approach that he’s already tried on you—which you fell for completely.”
“No, he’s not like that at all. He’s not that great-looking, he’s kinda shy, and he’s a bit nerdy, I suppose. Smart, but definitely not slick or macho.”
“He doesn’t sound like your type, Clare.”
“I don’t have a type.”
“Sure you do, and he’s not it.”
I sighed. She was right.
“Anyway, it’s tricky to have a relationship with someone you work with professionally these days,” Janet said. “The whole political climate about sex in the office has changed, you know that. I’m involved in a few cases on this topic right now. The #metoo movement has accomplished plenty of worthwhile things, stopping a lot of sexual harassment that had been going on against women for years. But it does make it difficult to carry on an office relationship, even one when both sides are consenting. For women as well as men. Especially a woman like you who is in a prominent executive position. You could jeopardize your career.”
“Ah, what the hell. Like you said, he’s not my type anyway. It was just a thought. Maybe I’m getting desperate in my old age. Closing in on fifty and all that. I haven’t been with anyone seriously since the Scott Manning debacle last year.”
Scott Manning was a police officer I’d met while covering a story the previous year. I fell in love with Manning and I slept with him. He was smart, he was charming, he was good-looking—and he was also married. Separated from his wife at the time, but still married. Eventually, he went back to his wife, which pretty much determined that he and I weren’t going to live happily ever after.
I decided it was time to change the topic. I told Janet about my meeting with Terri Hartwell. I also told her about my unpleasant encounter with Chad Enright before I saw Hartwell.
“I’ve heard about Enright,” Janet said. “He’s supposed to be a real jerk.”
“That seems to be the consensus opinion.”
“I wonder why Hartwell keeps him around.”
“What do you know about her?”
Janet shrugged. “Not much. I’ve never met her and I haven’t dealt much with her office. I used to listen to her radio show before she became DA. Plenty of people think she could be our next mayor. How do you figure she fits into this story you’re working on?”
“I don’t know who fits in yet or why or how. There are a lot of moving parts to this right now, and I can’t figure out what they all mean. I think my friend Marty Barlow had some of the answers, but now it’s too late to ask him. I’m out there on my own.”
I ran through everything I knew again with Janet.
“Is that even a story?” she asked when I was finished.
“That’s what my boss at the station asked, too.”
“You have to admit there’s not much substantial proof there, Clare. Only suspicions and speculation on your part. What did Hartwell say about it all when you told her this?”
“She said she didn’t know about any of it. But I didn’t get a chance to question her for long. We were interrupted by Russell Danziger.”
“You met Russell Danziger?”
“We passed each other coming and going.”
“Wow, you and the colonel together. That could have been a scene.”
“The colonel?”
“That’s what people call Danziger.”
“Why?”
&nbs
p; “Because he used to be a colonel. He was in the Army for like twenty years before he went into private business. Still acts like he’s in the military though. Very intense, very precise, very regimented, expects everyone to jump to attention every time he issues an order. That’s why people still call him the colonel.”
That sure sounded like the no-nonsense guy who barged into Terri Hartwell’s office, brushing past me as if I weren’t even there. I described that to Janet now. “I guess I should have saluted him,” I said.
“Hartwell must be serious about the mayor thing. Danziger’s a real political heavyweight, the top power broker in the city. The guy is connected to everyone.”
“Maybe I should try to talk to him.”
“Good luck with that. He’s notorious for avoiding the media.”
“I can be very persuasive,” I said.
Before I left, Janet asked me again what I was planning to do about Gary Weddle, the media consultant.
“Follow my instincts, I guess.”
“In other words, you’ll probably screw it up.”
“C’mon, I’ve had good relationships in the past.”
“Name one.”
I thought about my three marriages. About my affair with the married Scott Manning. About all the other men who had come and gone in my life over the years.
“Let me get back to you on that,” I said.
CHAPTER 15
I NEEDED MORE information about what Marty Barlow was working on. All I had from his computer were bits and pieces, like the list of eight buildings I’d visited. But not a lot of details.
I’d seen notebooks and papers in his room at the East 68th Street townhouse where he’d lived with his daughter and her husband while I was there. I didn’t have any reason to look at them then because I didn’t know yet about the specific buildings Marty was investigating or about the connection between Terri Hartwell and his son-in-law. But maybe I could find something in them to give me a better idea what he was doing those last days of his life. It was worth a try.
