by J. B. Turner
8
Deborah was running on adrenalin but something was gnawing away at her as she checked into a Best Western motel on the outskirts of Starke. She unpacked her laptop and spread out her notes—including Craig’s VC citation and the war papers that she’d borrowed from Jenny. She stared at the citation and realized what was bothering her.
She understood the reach of Senator O’Neill, making sure that newspaper editors in Florida ignored the story about Craig’s outstanding bravery during the war. But what she couldn’t get her head around was why the British papers hadn’t unearthed the citation in their military records.
Over the next hour, Deborah made numerous calls to various press officers at the Ministry of Defence in London. Eventually she was told that records belonging to Private William Craig and thousands of other men and women had been destroyed in a fire at a War Office repository in Dartford Street, Southwark, London, in December 1952.
It explained why the British press knew nothing of Craig’s war record. But it gave her a problem. She needed confirmation of the Victoria Cross citation before she could consider speaking to Sam. She knew Sam had a reputation for ensuring that facts were checked, double-checked and then checked again.
An hour later, after talking to military experts in London and Edinburgh, Deborah was given the number of a Professor Ernest MacKenzie, an expert on Scottish military regiments. She called him at his office at Edinburgh University. He kept her waiting for ten minutes, while he looked through his files. Eventually he came back on the line.
He had a copy of a letter from the Secretary of State for War, David Margesson, sent to the King, letting him know the names of four men who were to be given Victoria Crosses. Top of the list was Private William Craig, First Battalion of the Argyll and Sutherland Highlanders, Service Number 2982064. He scanned the copy of the letter and sent it to her.
Deborah had her verification. Now it was time to work and she started to type.
As she pounded the keys, she remembered what Larry Coen, the crime reporter, had told her in her first week at the paper—let the story be told in quotes and facts, but keep it simple. Let the reader make up his or her own mind.
Just before ten P.M. her eyes scanned the luminous blue screen for misspellings and bad punctuation. Then she sat back, hit the ‘send’ key and e-mailed the story to Sam Goldberg. Then she rang his cell phone and told him everything.
Sam didn’t seem bowled over. ‘Why wasn’t this raised in court?’
Deborah rubbed her eyes. ‘Craig told his lawyer and Jenny not to mention it at his trial. Not surprisingly, they begged him to change his mind. Jenny Forbes also told me that she’d tried to highlight the issue with newspapers across Florida after her grandfather’s trial, including the Herald, but no one was interested.’
‘I see.’ Sam’s voice sounded flat.
‘Are you all right?’
‘Yes—why wouldn’t I be?’
‘Sounds like something’s wrong.’
Deathly silence.
‘You still there?’ Had she disturbed him at a bad time? Annoyed him in some way?
‘Deborah, I know what happened to you.’ The words echoed round her head as though she was trapped in a mausoleum.
‘Know what?’
‘You weren’t totally truthful when I asked about your motivation for interviewing Craig.’
She paused for a few moments before speaking in a faltering voice. ‘Perhaps not . .
‘Why didn’t you tell me you’d been raped?’ She felt herself beginning to shake. ‘You could’ve approached me in confidence.’
Deborah thought she was going to faint. ‘How did you come across this information?’
‘Remember I told you about the senator’s influence?’
‘Yeah.’
‘Well, he has many friends in the police, national security, everywhere. It wouldn’t have been too difficult to find out. Just like it wouldn’t have been difficult to browbeat editors in Florida at the time to keep silent about Craig’s side of the story.’
Deborah felt ice run through her veins as her mind flashed back to San Francisco.
• • •
It started with an argument in a crowded off-campus student bar, Logan’s, on a Friday night. Deborah and Brett began quarreling in full view of many of their friends. Deborah wanted her father to officiate at their wedding. Brett wanted a close friend of his father, a Southern Baptist preacher in Florida. He wouldn’t back down. And she stormed out into the cool San Francisco night air, crying and distraught, thinking her wedding plans were in tatters.
A little while later, she remembered a car pulling up, and two of Brett’s buddies asking if she was all right. She knew they smoked dope, but they were friendly enough. She told them what had happened and that she was fine. They convinced her to have a couple of nightcaps.
Before she knew it, she was in a biker bar in downtown San Francisco, pouring her heart out as the drinks kept on coming. But she noticed she was the only woman and the only black person. Loud, crazy Metallica songs blared from the jukebox as she downed tequila shots, trying to numb the pain, as Brett’s friends listened attentively.
Suddenly, she felt her world tip upside down. The next thing she knew, she was lying on the floor, staring up at a sea of unshaven white faces.
She tried to yell out for them to back off, but she couldn’t. She was frozen.
Then, laughing, Brett’s friends lifted her up. She tried to scream again but nothing. And the darkness descended.
The next thing she remembered, she was naked. Sore. Lying on a bed spreadeagled, ankles and wrists tied tight with leather belts. TV on. Disgusting pornography. Why was she watching it? Two young white men taking turns at a young black woman. They looked familiar. Very familiar. She looked drugged. Half asleep. Why were Brett’s friends laughing? She watched aghast as they committed sex acts. Too vile to mention.
Please make this stop!
Motel. One bed. Her lying on it. She looked again at the video. The young woman’s eyes were rolling back in her head like she was crazed.
No. Not possible. Was she going mad? It was her. Brett’s friends were raping her. Deborah began screaming until the darkness came again.
• • •
Deborah felt the tears on her face, phone pressed to her ear, silence on the other end of the line. ‘Are you still there, Deborah?’ Sam asked eventually.
Her relationship with Brett didn’t disintegrate immediately. Bizarrely, she managed to sail through her exams, high on Prozac and Valium to numb the pain. They moved from Berkeley to a new apartment in Orlando soon after graduation, but things had changed. Brett didn’t communicate with her anymore, having a full workload as a rookie lawyer. If she wanted to discuss how he felt, he just shrugged his broad shoulders. He wasn’t the sort of guy who opened up his heart. Instead he worked long hours, sometimes not coming home.
Eventually, unable to come to terms with what had happened, riddled with guilt about not being able to protect her, he didn’t come home at all. All he left was a note, saying he was sorry, but he couldn’t cope.
Deborah was left alone in a strange city, struggling to make ends meet, starting out her new job in local journalism, drinking too much, doped up to the eyeballs, feeling suicidal. She had a mental breakdown and fell into a black depression.
Deborah wiped away the tears, trying to regain her composure. ‘Who knows what happened to me?’
Goldberg sighed. ‘I do and a senior journalist who was given the information.’
Please, no—not her.
‘Kathleen Klein?’
Silence.
A million thoughts whirled around her head. ‘Are you angry with me for withholding that from you?’
‘It’s understandable why you wouldn’t want to share it.’ Sam Goldberg paused for a few moments as if he was picking his words carefully. ‘I don’t want to find out from the senator’s s
pin doctor, who just so happened to drop it into polite conversation with one of your colleagues.’
Definitely Klein. Oh God, how could she face the world? Everyone would know. They’d be laughing at her. E-mails would be sent about it.
Goldberg said, ‘I’m sorry I had to let you know like this.’
Deborah looked out across the motel parking lot and wiped her eyes. ‘If it’s all right with you, I’d like to offer my resignation. I wasn’t straight with you.’
‘Not a chance.’
‘Why?’
‘Look, I feel bad raising this whole thing. It’s deeply personal, I appreciate that. But it’s impinged on your reasons for doing this story.’
‘There’s something else. I need you to know everything.’
‘Deborah, I don’t need to know anymore.’
‘I want you to.’ Deborah dabbed her eyes. ‘My case didn’t go to trial.’
‘I’m sorry—what do you mean .. . ?’
‘I settled out of court. I’ve been racked by guilt about it for the last two years. In effect, I took the money and ran.’
‘Why?’
‘My father wanted me to settle. He was ashamed. I was ashamed. He said he couldn’t face his congregation. And I agreed to accept a substantial settlement from the boys that enabled me to buy my apartment overlooking the beach. You see what I’m getting at?’
‘Deborah, I’m sorry I—’
‘Look, I don’t want any more secrets. You’re probably wondering what sort of person accepts money in return for silence, so the boys who raped her can go free?’
‘Not at all. You did what you thought was best for you. And that’s fine by me. So, let’s draw a line under this, okay?’
‘But it’s not okay. It can never be okay. I have to live with this.’
‘We’re going to draw a line under this.’ Sam’s voice grew harder. ‘Do you hear me?’
Deborah tried to get a handle on the situation. ‘They’re trying to get to me, aren’t they? Trying to humiliate me, undermine me, aren’t they?’
‘It’s dirty tricks, Florida-style. They’re letting you know that they know about you. Erhert must have tipped off the senator’s people about your visit. And they raked through your past in order to discredit you.’
Deborah watched a happy family in a battered Buick pull into the motel parking lot and wondered why she’d allowed her personal emotions to intrude on her professional life.
‘Deborah, your single-mindedness on this story—it wouldn’t be to do with a sneaking admiration for Craig?’
‘Perhaps.’
Deborah’s mind drifted as she tried to think about the sequence of events following her rape. Mental scars, alienation from her family, and a burning desire to find out everything about William Craig once she’d come across his case in the library at Berkeley.
Her father’s reaction to her rape had been the most unforgivable. His reputation with his congregation and as a figurehead within the NAACP seemed more important than his daughter. He’d turned his back on her. He blamed her for being so stupid, and going to the bar with the boys. He even blamed her for ‘leading them on’. His very words. Unbelievably, he believed in forgiveness for the boys, but not for her. Reconciliation. But only for them. As a leading light in the civil-rights movement in the 1960s, ‘non-violence’ and ‘love the enemy’ were his watchwords.
Craig did what the Bible said—an eye for an eye. Why didn’t her father want revenge? But she knew it wasn’t his way. He was a gentleman. A peaceful man. A man of the cloth.
‘I don’t want to jeopardize this story,’ she said. ‘I want Mr Craig’s heroism to come out, untainted by my motive. Maybe it’ll be better if someone else takes it over.’
‘No. This is your story, and it’s a great story. I’m proud of you.’
Deborah felt the tears cool her cheeks. ‘Are you gonna run it? ‘
‘You bet. Senator O’Neill will not be happy, that’s for sure. But our readers’ll like it. We’ve got to do a whole lotta checks tomorrow. And then some more, before it goes in the paper. When it does, we’re gonna be asking the governor to take Craig off death row.’
9
Forty-eight hours later, Senator Jack O’Neill sat pokerfaced in the back of his limo in the capital holding a copy of the Miami Herald. The story of Craig’s heroism was splashed all over the front page. They were headed north along First Street, in Washington’s snarling rush hour. He handed the paper to Hal Lomax and gazed out of the tinted windows as they passed Capitol South Metro Station.
The story was like a bombshell.
It had erupted out of nothing and he wondered what impact it would have on his poll ratings. Might even send them into free fall. But worst of all was Lomax’s failed ploy to leak details of Deborah Jones’s rape to discredit her motives. O’Neill was ashamed of such action.
He stared straight ahead as he spoke to his director of media relations. ‘Hal, why didn’t you tell me you had something of that nature on Deborah Jones…?’
‘You wanted me to try and kill the story. That’s what I tried to do.’
‘I am not interested in descending into the gutter.’
‘Jack, we have to fight them hard on this. We can’t just wish this sort of shit away.’
O’Neill glanced at his aide and shook his head. Hal Lomax was a studious-looking man with horn-rimmed glasses, brow constantly furrowed. He was in his early fifties and had been with O’Neill from the start. ‘Let’s forget all this bullshit media-manipulation nonsense, okay? And no more digging into her past.’
O’Neill leaned over and turned down the volume of the limo’s TV. Experts were talking on NBC about the ‘Axis of Evil’ and the possibility of a pre-emptive strike against Iraq. He shook his head. He knew it wasn’t just a possibility, but that a timetable had already been set by the military, and all the diplomatic talk to take it through the UN was just a ruse. In fact, plans for America to oust Saddam had been in place even before 9/11.
He knew of secret meetings in California, Washington and the Middle East where the talk was of a coup d’etat in Iraq. Big Oil was pulling the strings, although some neo-cons were wanting to go the whole hog and destroy OPEC by flooding the world market with Iraqi oil.
Bottom line? If the American people knew what was being done in their name they wouldn’t even believe it; it sounded too crazy.
Lomax tapped the newspaper. ‘Jack, read the headline. Death Row Scot is War Hero. We need to address this problem, not bury our head in the sand.’
O’Neill lit up a cigarette, preoccupied with the TV. ‘Any other bright ideas?’
Lomax coughed on the smoke. He pressed a button and the electric window on his side came down, letting in the welcome autumn air. ‘I suggest we talk this through, but for Chrissakes let’s not hide away.’
O’Neill was silent, thinking of how his wife would react to the story. She’d been on medication for depression and agoraphobia for years, haunted by her son’s death. He’d battled on, consumed by work as he always had been, but the pain was sometimes too much to bear. Some nights, usually late, when Rose was in bed and the housekeeper Maria was away, the emptiness of their lives overwhelmed him. He knew there’d be no more children, no more fun. Now all he had was his wife, but she preferred the company of fine brandies and Jesus.
‘Jack, God only knows how you feel about all this coming at you again, but let’s be clear: the first priority is the election. And that’s why this story on Craig, and anything else, needs to be closed down. We must also think about the donors, Jack.’
‘How do you think they’ll react to this story?’
‘Depends how you respond. The corporate boys couldn’t give a rat’s ass if Craig gets the needle, but the blacks, the Jewish snowbirds, blue-collar whites and the low-income groups are a different kettle of fish.’
‘So what do they think?’
Lomax shrugged. ‘
We’ll arrange some focus groups. Leave it with me.’
O’Neill dragged heavily on his cigarette as the DC traffic became gridlocked outside the Corinthian splendor of the US Supreme Court.
Did the story originate with Craig? Did he write to the Herald and tell them his version of events? Maybe if O’Neill hadn’t been so preoccupied with Pentagon briefings about Al Qaeda operatives, trips to Afghanistan and Washington, not to mention NASA officials who lobbied him for bigger budgets, he could have seen it coming. Maybe he could have done something about it.
O’Neill turned to face Lomax. ‘What’s our line, then? The press pack’ll want to know if I think the execution should still go ahead.’
‘We have no line.’ Lomax held up a finger as if to stop further questions. ‘So far. Look, you’re due to meet Pentagon workers later today to see how the 9/11 damage has been repaired. You’d do well to act like the patriot. Just say, if anyone asks, that you’re leaving it all up to the American justice system and God.’
O’Neill felt himself becoming increasingly irritated, boxed in by the story and the pressure of his job, not to mention concern about his wife. The thought of his beloved Rose having to relive the ordeal, seeing Joe’s pictures in the paper again, alarmed him. He wanted to protect her from such things. And the story wouldn’t stop here.
The car drew to a halt behind a long row of cars. Lomax made eye contact with the chauffeur in the mirror and opened his palms. ‘What’s the delay? The senator’s got a meeting with Condi Rice at nine sharp. That name mean anything to you?’
The black chauffeur muttered, ‘Nothing I can do, man,’ into the intercom. Lomax shook his head and jumped out.
‘I’ll meet you in the office,’ he said, and slammed the door.
O’Neill watched him walk the last five hundred yards. Then he picked up the Herald Lomax had left behind. He scanned Craig’s proud features, the picture of him in military uniform, the citation on the inside pages, the letter from the British Secretary of State for War. This was the man, war hero or not, who had killed his son.