Below the Fold

by R. G. Belsky

  “Not exactly.”

  “Well, what is it you need to talk to the senator about?”

  “It’s a personal matter.”

  “Then you’re calling as a constituent of the senator—”

  “Yes, I’m a damn constituent!”

  I was a lot more than a constituent of Elliott Grayson. I’d gone out with him. I’d almost slept with him. I’d go head-to-head against him in the biggest story of my life. And, in the end, I’d worked out the secret deal with him to bury the damaging story I had about him—an odorous arrangement that kept me up nights regretting it—in order to get him to lead me to my daughter.

  Even now, I find it painful to think about that fateful decision I made months ago, when Grayson was a federal prosecutor running for the Senate.

  I’d uncovered something so incredibly damaging about him that it would have been the biggest exclusive of my journalistic career. But Grayson had done his own investigation, too. On me. And he’d discovered the facts about me and Lucy Devlin—that she was the daughter I’d had and then given up for adoption as a nineteen-year-old in college.

  That’s when he told me the truth about her.

  Or at least what he claimed to be the truth.

  That Lucy was still really alive.

  All grown up now with a family of her own.

  And he knew where Lucy was now.

  He made a promise to tell me that location and her name and all the rest once the election was over. All I had to do was kill the story I was about to do prior to Election Day. He was ahead in the race, and a scandal could cost him the election. The decision I had to make was a simple trade-off: my story for my daughter.

  Well, it wasn’t really all that simple.

  The arrangement we eventually worked out to accomplish this was a violation of every journalistic ideal I’d lived my life by; an abandonment of the principles I preached to every reporter who worked for me all these years; and a life-changing moment that I still at times wish I could re-live and do over again.

  But I’ve kept my word to Grayson and never told anyone the story. My word is still very important to me. It’s pretty much all I have left of my integrity these days, and so I hold onto it desperately—like a drowning person clutches a life saver as the angry seas threaten to swallow them up.

  Except Grayson refused to hold up his end of the bargain and tell me any more about Lucy and her fate.

  And so we remained in a stalemate.

  A stalemate I did not know how to break

  All I knew was I had to do everything in my power to find out the truth about Lucy.

  “I really need to talk to Senator Grayson immediately,” I said now.

  “Hold on, Ms. Carlson.” The woman put me on hold. I knew the whole routine by now. A few minutes of listening to Muzak, then she’d come back on the phone to tell me he wasn’t available to speak to me.

  I was right.

  “Senator Grayson always likes to hear from his constituents,” the woman said when she came back on the line. “But he is unavailable right now. However, I will pass your message on to him.”

  “And then what?”

  “You’ll hear back from him if it’s a matter he feels he can be of assistance to you in any way.”

  “Bullshit!”

  “What?”

  “He’s not going to call me back, is he? And you probably didn’t even check with him or anyone else about his availability or whatever the hell you call it. I’ll bet you just put me on hold, did something else for a minute or two, and then came back on with your little spiel about him being too busy for me. Is that what Elliott Grayson told you to say whenever I called and tried to speak to him?”

  The woman sighed.

  “Ms. Carlson, you should have gotten the message by now. Senator Grayson does not want to talk to you. He will not talk to you. Ever. So please stop making these pointless calls of yours.”

  “He has some information that is very important to me,” I said. “I’m going to get that information from him one way or another. Tell him.”

  “Is that a threat?”

  “It’s a promise.”

  “Well, it sounds like a threat.”

  “Take it for whatever it is.”

  “I could report you to the police …”

  “You better check with Grayson before you do that,” I told her. “Believe me, the last thing he wants is to get the police involved in this thing between him and me. Elliott Grayson has too much to hide.”

  I hung up the phone.

  I hadn’t thought I’d get anywhere with the call. Any more than I had with any of the others. Or my repeated efforts to see him at his offices, either here in New York or in Washington. But, like Ruth Mancuso had said, you just had to try when it came to your own daughter.

  You had to try anything.

  Whatever it took.

  And so I looked back at my cell phone, found the contact information I’d gotten from Janet on Todd Schacter—the scary computer hacker she’d represented—and sent Schacter a message asking for his help.

  CHAPTER 14

  BRENDAN KAISER SUMMONED me to his office the next morning. Not with Faron this time, just me. Which meant that my original game plan of “no speak, no trouble” wasn’t going to work. I decided to be candid, but also discreet, because of the sensitive nature of this story to Kaiser. Unfortunately, being discreet is not exactly one of my strong points.

  We had run a story on the newscast the previous night based on my interview with Vernon Albright, the head of Revson, and also Grace Mancuso’s parents.

  I talked on air about how Channel 10 had learned that Grace Mancuso was not only embroiled in a financial scandal at Revson prior to her death—but also seemed to be desperate for money in her personal life immediately afterward.

  We ran some of the on-the-record quotes from Albright about Mancuso’s role in the scandal there and her subsequent cooperation with authorities to give up people there in return for a plea deal.

  This was followed by video we shot of Grace Mancuso’s parents talking about how she had been in some kind of financial distress before her murder.

  I then quoted several sources—including Lisa Kalikow, who I did not name—that the Mancuso woman had asked friends and coworkers for money help at that time too, but later told people she’d figured out a way to solve her financial problems.

  “You think her murder was all about money?” Kaiser asked after we’d watched a video of the newscast again in his office. “That the financial scandal there and all the ramifications of it were the motive for whoever killed her?”

  “Not necessarily, Mr. Kaiser.”

  “But then why was she killed? And why in the name of God was my name on that list found in her apartment?”

  “I haven’t the slightest idea.”

  “Do you know if the police think I’m in any kind of danger from whoever killed her?”

  “No idea about that either.”

  “Well, then are the police for some unfathomable reason considering me as a potential suspect?”

  “Same answer.”

  Kaiser glared at me across his big desk.

  “I thought you said you knew what you were doing.”

  “I don’t remember ever saying that.”

  “People told me that you were the best reporter we had in this building. That’s why I put you on this story. To get me some answers.”

  “If I am the best reporter you’ve got, Mr. Kaiser, that’s because I ask questions—I don’t just take things at face value. “

  “What kind of questions?”

  “There’s all sorts of unanswered questions with the Grace Mancuso story,” I told him. “Sure, the money thing could be the reason she was killed. Or maybe the fact that she apparently had a very rocky romantic life. But—like you said—and this is the biggest question of all, how in the hell did your name and those other people wind up on that list left next to her body? Everyone from rich and powerful
people like you to someone like poor Dora Gayle. Which one of you—or how many of you—was connected somehow to Grace Mancuso? And why? If I can find out the answers to those questions, maybe I can figure the answers to the rest of it too. So why do you think your name was on that list?”

  “I don’t know,” he snapped. “I told you before—I didn’t know Mancuso or really know anyone else on that list.”

  “That’s what all the other people on the list say too.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “Someone’s lying.”

  “Who’s lying?”

  “It could be anyone on the list—even you.”

  Kaiser stared at me for what seemed like an eternity—as my entire journalistic career flashed before my eyes—but then just shook his head and laughed.

  “My God, you’ve got quite the mouth on you, don’t you, Carlson?”

  “Thanks, a lot of people have told me that.”

  “It wasn’t a compliment.”

  “Yeah, they’ve told me that too.”

  There was a chart on the wall behind his desk of all the far-flung Kaiser properties. Movie studios, publishing houses, websites, TV stations, and lots of other media properties around the world. This was arguably the most powerful media mogul around right now. And here I was sitting in his office, just him and me. Going head-to-head on this. Holy crap, I thought to myself.

  “What are you going to do now?” he asked me.

  “Go and personally talk to the other people on that list—just like I’m doing with you—to try to find out what they might possibly know about her or the murder.”

  “But you just told me that they all have said they don’t know anything at all.”

  “They did.”

  “Then what do you hope to find out?”

  “I won’t know until I talk to them.”

  He smiled.

  “You are a pretty good reporter, aren’t you?”

  “Oh, I’ve had my moments.”

  “Winning a Pulitzer is a pretty big moment.”

  “That was a long time ago,” I said.

  I sure didn’t want to talk about that Pulitzer or the Lucy Devlin story that went with it right now with him.

  “And what will you do with the information you find out from these interviews?” he asked.

  “Put it on the air.”

  “Even if it’s about me?”

  “I guess that’s up to you, Mr. Kaiser. You own the station. I just work here.”

  He nodded.

  “Will you come to me first with what you know? Tell me before you broadcast anything? That’s all I ask.”

  I suppose I could have told him that wasn’t the way a real reporter worked—a real reporter just reported the facts without censorship or restrictions of any kind, no matter how rich or powerful the subject of the story was. I could have quoted Thomas Jefferson on the importance of a free press and the First Amendment and a lot of other stuff about great reporters I’d admired all my life to him if I wanted, I suppose.

  Yep, that’s what a real reporter would do.

  Except I wasn’t a real reporter anymore.

  I was just a TV executive now acting the part.

  “Absolutely,” I told Brendan Kaiser. “I’ll report to you first with whatever I find out.”

  CHAPTER 15

  OKAY, THERE WERE five names on the list found next to Grace Mancuso’s body. Five names of people who must have had some kind of connection with Mancuso. One of them, Dora Gayle, was dead. I’d already talked to Kaiser. That left three people for me to go interview—Bill Atwood, Emily Lehrman and Scott Manning.

  I wasn’t sure they’d talk to me, of course. They might be afraid—either of the killer or the publicity from being dragged into a murder case or, most likely, a bit of both. But I was always very good at convincing people that going on the air would be beneficial for them, even when it wasn’t. It was time for me to work a bit of that magic again now.

  I decided to start with Bill Atwood.

  There were three reasons for that:

  1) Atwood had been a successful and popular politician for years and he was probably more confident doing media after all his years in Washington and the other public jobs he’d held than anyone else.

  2) Atwood had a reputation as a ladies’ man—that’s what ruined his political career—and it seemed entirely possible to me that he might have had some kind of a sexual relationship with Grace Mancuso.

  3) Last, and most importantly in my decision making on who to go see first, Bill Atwood was the only one who agreed to be interviewed on air when I reached out to the three of them. So there was that too.

  “Thank you for taking the time to see me,” I said to Atwood as we sat in his office at Benson College.

  “No problem. I’m just as anxious as anyone to see this resolved and the killer of that woman caught. Having said that, I have no idea why I’m on that list found at the murder scene. I assume the killer just picked my name at random. I’m in the media spotlight a lot, as you know.”

  I nodded and looked around the office. There were lots of pictures of Atwood on the walls. As a Congressman. Meeting with world leaders. Socializing with celebrities. Even a few shots of him with Presidents. He’d certainly been a powerful guy before the sex scandals ended his career in disgrace.

  There was a picture of Atwood’s wife and daughter too.

  “You have a lovely family,” I said. “How old is your daughter?”

  “Twenty-one. No, actually, she just turned twenty-two.”

  “Does she know what she wants to do yet? God, I remember when I was twenty-two. I was still trying to figure all that stuff out.”

  “Not Miranda. She knows exactly what she wants to do. She’s so focused it’s scary. She’s a senior at Yale, majoring in political science and history. Star athlete on the lacrosse and soccer teams. She wants to work for the government when she graduates. She’s already got a job lined up with the State Department when she’s finished with school. But what she really wants to do is follow in her old man’s footsteps. She wants to be a politician. I’m sure she will be a terrific politician too. Miranda’s always been the best at anything she sets out to do. Who knows, she might be our first woman president.”

  “She sounds like a great girl.”

  “Yes, she is,” Atwood said, looking again at the picture of his family.

  I didn’t say anything about the turmoil, the arguments, the therapy sessions he and his wife had to send Miranda to because of all the things he’d done that had torn apart his family. I’d read about all that in the stories about his sex scandals. But he did seem to genuinely love his family. And I just wanted to keep him talking about his name appearing on the list at the Mancuso crime scene.

  “The police are still trying to figure out if there’s some sort of common link between the names on that list,” I said. “But what about you, any ideas? Do you know of any possible connection at all between you and the others? I know you’ve met Brendan Kaiser, the owner of our TV station.”

  “Just briefly. We’re hardly close friends. In fact, the newspapers he owns have been very critical of me in the past on their editorial pages.”

  “What about Emily Lehrman, the attorney? Have you met her?”

  “No, sorry.”

  “Scott Manning, the NYPD homicide detective?”

  “Not that I’m aware of.”

  “Dora Gayle?”

  “The homeless woman. No, I never heard of her before either. Like I said, I’m just as confused by all this as everyone else is.”

  Atwood seemed fine with going on camera with me to talk about the story. Maybe he figured that going public like this was the best way to prove he had nothing to hide. Maybe he thought it was the best way to hide any secrets he did have. Or maybe he just liked to see himself on the air.

  While the video crew was setting up around us, Atwood’s secretary came in to put a few things on his desk. She was an attractive brunette, p
robably in her mid-twenties, wearing a tight-fitting skirt and low-cut blouse. Atwood barely acknowledged her presence as she walked away from him. I could sense some sexual tension there though. I’m very good at spotting sexual tension. It’s one of my superpowers. I was pretty sure Atwood and his secretary were having some kind of an affair, no matter how much he professed his love for his family.

  We went through it all with the cameras rolling for the on-air interview I would run later on the newscast. It was all pretty much the same things we’d discussed. He didn’t know Grace Mancuso when she was alive. He didn’t know anything about her death. He didn’t know why he was on the list. He didn’t really know anyone else on the list. He just hoped police caught the murderer and justice was served.

  After we finished, his secretary came back into the room again. This time they weren’t so oblivious to each other. I saw her brush the sleeve of her blouse against his face as she put some documents down on his desk. He smiled at her. She smiled back. I had a feeling they were just waiting for me and the video crew to leave so they could jump all over each other. Yes, there was definitely something going on there. For whatever it’s worth, I also caught Atwood sneaking a glance or two at me during our conversation—and he commented several times about how attractive I was.

  “For someone my age?” I said.

  “For any age.”

  “Well, thank you, I guess.”

  Yep, Bill Atwood definitely liked to flirt—and probably do a lot more—with women. He was still a player in the sex game. He was not a faithful husband, in the past or now. All of that made Bill Atwood a man who couldn’t be trusted.

  But it didn’t make him a murderer.

  Emily Lehrman agreed to see me at her office. But she refused to go on air. Or even be interviewed about the story at all.

  “I just want to ask you some questions about the Grace Mancuso murder investigation,” I said.

  “I answered questions for the police already.”

  “Yes, well, I have some more questions.”

  “And I choose not to answer them.”

  “That makes you look guilty of something. If I go on air and say you refused to comment at all, people are going to think you’re hiding something.”