Don't Believe It

by Charlie Donlea

  “So this depicts the suggested way Julian Crist was struck. We found a couple of C-list actors to reenact the crime scene. But we also put together an animation that will show several variations. So, if we piggyback off of what we learned from Dr. Cutty’s episode, we know Julian was six-two and Grace is five-three. The first animation shows that in order to create the skull fracture in the superior and posterior aspect of Julian’s head, she would have had to swing the oar in an awkward overhead manner, like swinging an axe to chop wood.”

  “That’s a nasty visual you just gave me.”

  “Sorry,” Leslie said, hitting the touch screen. “This is the animation of the overhead swing.”

  They each watched the screen and the animated version of a short woman swinging a large oar, more than six feet in length, over her head to strike the back of a taller man’s head.

  “We can pair this next to Dr. Cutty’s demonstration on the cadavers. As of today, there are over ten million views of her swing on YouTube, so let’s ride that wave and show it again in Friday’s episode.”

  “Agreed,” Sidney said.

  “Then we’ll replay Dr. Cutty’s explanation of why the oar in question could not have been the weapon used, and end the episode with footage of your trip to St. Lucia and the blowup of the proposed bloody room and bleach cleanup. But we’ll leave it hanging there. We won’t get into the full explanation of the blood and the bleach until episode seven. And reviewing all the footage you took in St. Lucia, we’ve easily got enough to cover two installments. That includes this coming Friday, episode six, and part of episode seven. Three episodes left after that to wrap everything up nice and tight.”

  “I love it,” Sidney said. “What the hell time did you get here?”

  “Early. I couldn’t wait to get going on this. The city is empty and I’m feeling productive. I might work every Fourth of July weekend.”

  “I feel guilty for sleeping in.”

  “Please. You went to Raleigh to get the footage of Dr. Cutty, and to St. Lucia to follow up with Grace. I owed you some hours.” Leslie took a sip of coffee. “Hear anything about ratings from last night?”

  Sidney shook her head. “Not yet. All the suits are at their mansions on the beach, so they probably won’t tell us until they get back. Did you watch Luke’s special?”

  “No,” Leslie said. “I turned on the Yankees game after Girl ended, and I hate baseball. But I’m sure tons of old people couldn’t wait to watch another old person talk about the history of the White House over a patriotic weekend. We don’t want old people. Strike that. We want everyone, but our demo is under forty-five, and we’re killing it. Eighteen to twenty-five? Our numbers are ridiculous, and once these episodes air”—Leslie pointed at the screen—“every one of them will be hooked until the end. Hell, I can hardly wait to see it and I’m putting it together.”

  “Okay,” Sidney said. “I’m officially motivated. Move over, let’s figure out the back half of episode six.”

  “Who knew it was so nice to work when everyone else is on vacation?”

  “Yeah. If Luke Barrington could do his show from his house in the Hamptons for the rest of his career, I’d be a much happier person.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Saturday, July 1, 2017

  THE MEMBERS OF THE PRESIDENT’S CABINET WERE NOT TYPICALLY allowed to enjoy holiday weekends. Even if they managed to escape to a beach or lake house, their phones seldom stopped buzzing. The world, it seemed, didn’t stop to remember American history. So it was that Bev Mangrove, the acting assistant attorney general, had the unenviable task of intruding on her boss’s weekend. She’d taken an early-morning flight into Raleigh-Durham and was now snaking through mountain roads on her way to Summit Lake, North Carolina, where Cooper Schott had planned to spend the week in isolation, away from the politics of Washington, D.C., and isolated from the president and his staff and the problems of the country. Bev Mangrove was not happy to be intruding on Cooper and his wife, but the situation could not wait.

  U.S. Attorney General Cooper Schott had a millennial name, despite being north of sixty. He’d spent his entire life correcting people who had called him Mr. Cooper. Now most of his friends had grandkids named Cooper. His parents were apparently ahead of the curve.

  Bev pulled through the quaint downtown area of Summit Lake and found the turnoff for the long, serpentine driveway that led to the house on the hill, where her boss spent four weeks each year. The front door of the large Colonial opened as she pulled up, and Cooper Schott stood in the doorway, wearing jeans and a starched white shirt with French cuffs held tight by dazzling cuff links. Bev seldom saw him wearing anything but a suit, and she couldn’t immediately tell if he looked more or less comfortable today.

  “You made it!” Cooper Schott said as Bev opened her car door.

  “It’s beautiful up here,” she said, climbing from the rental car and walking up the front steps. “I can see why you come here so often.”

  “Not often enough. Come on in,” Cooper said, shaking her hand. “We’ll head out back.”

  Bev followed her boss through the immaculate house, which was flooded with sunlight that spilled through the floor-to-ceiling windows and numerous French doors that lined the west side of the house, most of which were open to allow the lake breeze to stir through the home. Cooper walked onto a sprawling stone patio out back, the view from which captured the lake and the mountains in the distance. Bev sat opposite him at the patio table, protected from the sun by a large umbrella. A sweating pitcher of sweet tea stood on a serving dish, and Cooper poured two glasses. The man, Bev knew, had sworn off liquor years ago.

  “So,” Cooper said, “tell me what’s on your mind.”

  “Grace Sebold.”

  Cooper took a sip of sweet tea and stared out at the lake. “The name rings a bell.”

  She knew it did more than that—the Sebold case had been on the Justice Department’s radar for some time—but she was intruding on his vacation, so she played along.

  “She was the U.S. med student who, in 2007, was convicted of killing her boyfriend while they were on spring break in St. Lucia.”

  “Yes,” Cooper said, taking another sip. “I remember now.”

  Bev reached into her leather bag and removed several files. They were government files she had pulled from the State Department the day before.

  “Are you aware of the documentary that is currently featuring her story?”

  “I haven’t watched anything but a Sooners game in many years.”

  “In that case, allow me to catch you up. Sidney Ryan is a producer and filmmaker. Her previous three documentaries were about small-time felons convicted of crimes, it turns out, they did not commit. Ryan’s shtick is that she cherry-picks cases that are sent her way and finds the ones she believes are the most egregious examples of injustice. So far, she’s batting a thousand. Two were in New York, one in Illinois. All three documentaries ended with the convictions overturned. She’s becoming the most feared nonattorney for D.A.’s around the country, because she simply makes the prosecution look silly and, at times, dishonest in the way they reached a conviction.”

  “How does this case affect us?” Cooper asked. “The U.S. government, and the Justice Department specifically, had nothing to do with the conviction of the Sebold girl.”

  “No, we had nothing to do with the conviction. But I sent Janet Station, from the Southern District of New York, to feel out Sidney Ryan and get an idea of where she plans to go with this documentary. If you look at what she’s uncovered so far, and what she plans to produce in the coming weeks, it all points to the possibility that Grace Sebold is innocent. And if not innocent, it certainly appears that rules were bent to make sure she was found guiltier than she was.”

  “Bent by whom?”

  “The St. Lucian government.”

  Cooper put his sweet tea down and pulled the files toward him. Bev spoke as he read.

  “The documentary is wildly popular. Mil
lions of people are watching it now, and millions more will be watching by the end. It’s become a pop-culture phenomenon. And I understand that popular culture does not dictate our decisions, but our problem lies not in the fact that it is so popular, but in that the arc of the story will suggest that Sebold was wrongly convicted of a crime she did not commit and that a U.S. citizen has spent ten years imprisoned in a foreign country because of this conviction.”

  “And,” Cooper said, “the U.S. government sat back and did nothing.”

  “Correct,” Bev said.

  “This will need to be investigated.”

  “I’m on it.”

  “The FBI will have to get involved.”

  “I’ve already made calls to the FBI, State Department, and to our U.S. ambassador to Barbados and the Eastern Caribbean.”

  Cooper lifted his chin slightly. “Who is?”

  “Shelly Martindale. I looked her up.”

  Cooper ran a hand across his unshaven cheek. “I’ll need to watch this documentary.”

  Bev reached into her bag and removed a DVD. “This includes all current episodes, including last night’s. Ryan is producing them in real time. The next one airs Friday.”

  “How many hours?”

  “Five, so far.”

  “Do you have somewhere to stay for the night?”

  “Yes, sir. The Winchester Hotel in town. I have it booked for two nights.”

  “Can you be back in the morning?”

  “Of course.” Bev stood and fastened her bag over her shoulder, knowing the disc and files on the table had produced the effect she suspected they would. Her boss’s vacation was over.

  CHAPTER 34

  Wednesday, July 5, 2017

  WEDNESDAY MORNING WAS GROGGY IN NEW YORK, THE FIFTH OF July. The city began to fill late Monday evening and the streets were moderately crowded Wednesday morning with those who did not tack onto the long weekend. Busy but light, the traffic crept along with a smoother consistency than would be typical for the middle of the week. Tomorrow things would be back to normal.

  Sidney watched from her network office as the thin crowds shuffled in unison along the sidewalks, and traffic shifted and halted at intersections. She had worked every day of the weekend, including the Fourth. She and Leslie had finished cutting and editing the sixth episode, her best yet, that contained the rehashing of the Dr. Cutty experiments that showed the impossibility of Julian Crist’s injuries being caused by the paddleboard oar, the reenactment of the crime scene, and the teaser footage that introduced a more logical explanation for the blood found in Grace’s Sugar Beach cottage. The episode ended with the suggestion that the so-called bleach cleanup of Grace’s bathroom was a tortured hypothesis made by St. Lucian detectives that picked their suspect at the outset of their investigation and forced every finding during their search for answers to match that narrative.

  Sidney and Leslie had created another explosive installment, and Sidney could hardly wait to screen it for the suits before the episode aired on Friday. She paced the conference room now. The holiday weekend could either help or hurt ratings. If enough people went out of town and forgot about The Girl of Sugar Beach, her ratings would slip. More than anything, Sidney was worried about how she fared against Luke Barrington’s White House special.

  The room filled slowly over fifteen minutes. Network executives, TV personalities, producers, and writers talked about where they spent the long weekend and when they got back in town. Graham Cromwell prepared the projector and tapped on his computer while everyone took their places at the table. Graham took a minute to prepare his presentation, then pointed to the only empty seat in the room.

  “Sorry, we’re just waiting for Luke,” he said. “He’s coming from the Hamptons and running a few minutes late.”

  “Maybe we should start without him,” Sidney said.

  “I thought about it,” Graham said, “but his special aired this weekend and he wants to be here for the discussion.”

  “Then he should have come into the city last night, like everyone else.”

  “Settle down,” Luke said in his deep, practiced voice as he strolled through the door. Not due on air until evening, he was ridiculously dressed in a long-sleeved golf sweater and short shorts, which bared his pale, liver-spotted legs. It was his routine to attend morning meetings and go through show prep before hitting the course at noon and returning in time to record his show. As the network’s prime-time ratings king, only Luke Barrington was allowed such a schedule.

  “I’m not even technically late.” He looked at his watch. “I take that back, I’m one minute late. You’ll all forgive me?” He lifted his Starbucks cup. “They had to brew it while I waited, otherwise I’d be drinking from the bottom of the barrel. You know what that’s like,” he said to Sidney. “Coffee grounds and bitterness.”

  Graham brought the screen to life, and several schematics appeared. It drew everyone’s attention immediately away from Luke, who shuffled along the side of the table and found his seat. Graham covered the news segment ratings, down as they typically were during a holiday, but on par with other networks. He then reviewed the other prime-time programs, leaving Luke Barrington’s White House special until the end.

  “Okay, that leaves Luke and Sidney, whose specials are leading the way. Luke, great job. Friday’s installment brought in two-point-six million total viewers, with a typical breakdown in demographics that we usually see with your audience.”

  There were no murmurs around the table. The silence was worse. Projected numbers had been 4 million total viewers.

  “You gained on Saturday night, up three hundred thousand. Fell slightly on Sunday and then had a great ending on the eve of the Fourth. Monday-night numbers were just over three million. Huge success.”

  Luke lifted his chin to acknowledge Graham, but his eyes gave away his disappointment.

  “Finally,” Graham said. “The Girl of Sugar Beach continues to surge. Episode five on Friday night played to the biggest audience yet. Fueled by word of mouth, and a cover piece in Events magazine, Friday’s installment pulled in nineteen million total viewers. Demos are great, with all the keys met and exceeded. Eighteen to twenty-five is through the roof, which is driving ad revenues.” Graham looked at Sidney. “We are heavily promoting the teaser over the next forty-eight hours, promising an explosive development that challenges the forensic and blood evidence key to the case ten years ago. Sidney and Leslie provided a rough cut and I screened it this morning. It’s an amazing production and a blockbuster episode. Really, you two, it’s the best you’ve done yet.”

  “Thank you,” Sidney said. “Leslie’s cutting the episodes, and she’s doing an amazing job.”

  “Sidney’s getting the footage, which makes my job easy,” Leslie said.

  “You make a good team. We all know you’re putting in the hours and are fully committed to this project. Everyone is impressed and grateful for your effort.”

  The conference room broke out in applause. Sidney and Leslie acknowledged the support from their colleagues, and made sure to recognize their crew for all their hard work. Sidney looked down the table at Luke Barrington, who wore a paper-thin smile and never put his hands together.

  CHAPTER 35

  Wednesday, July 5, 2017

  JASON WALKED INTO THE ROOM AND STOPPED WHEN HE SAW THE empty bed. Then he noticed Gus in the bedside chair.

  “You’re up early,” Jason said. “How’d you manage the chair?”

  Gus grunted as he repositioned himself. “Nurse Ratchet.”

  Jason offered a confused look as he walked to the computer stand, opened Gus’s chart, and reviewed what he’d missed over the long weekend. “Thought you two weren’t talking.”

  “We’re not. But we’re pretty good at grunting at each other. I couldn’t sleep and she got tired of me constantly ringing the nurses’ station, so she helped me move at about three o’clock this morning. And by helped me, I mean she threw my ass in the chair while wearing
gloves and trying not to catch cancer.”

  “Glad you guys are working things out. But three hours is too long to sit, big boy. So back to bed.”

  Gus shook his head. “I can’t do the bed right now.”

  “Your other option is to stand for a while. Crutches or walker?”

  “Walker,” Gus said without hesitation. He could see it caught Jason off guard. Gus had refused the goddamn walker every other time it had been offered, because it meant he needed to use his prosthetic.

  Jason slowly nodded his head. “Be right back.”

  A minute later, he returned with an ugly metal walker, the legs of which were capped with tennis balls to quiet the device from rattling against the linoleum floors of the rehab prison. It was a hideous-looking thing meant for the weak and the elderly. But the long holiday weekend had lit a fire. Since three in the morning, when he finished watching the fifth hour of the documentary about Grace Sebold, Gus had a desperate urge to get the hell out of this place. For the first time since retirement, when he handed over his badge and gun, he had something he needed to do. He had something to chase other than an afternoon whiskey buzz. Which, he had to admit, had been working just fine as a way to occupy his retirement until the pain started in his hip. The cancer diagnosis had promptly taken away his whiskey afternoons back then, and without too much of an introduction, it stole his leg a few weeks later.

  The black abyss of depression had licked at his heels during those tough days of chemotherapy, when the poison nearly killed him, but had no effect on the tumor. More than once he’d considered allowing the despair to engulf him. Give in to the depression and the cancer and just let it all end. He had no kids, and his wife had passed more than twenty years ago, so no one would really miss him when he was gone. And when his options had been laid out in front of him, Gus decided that he had no desire to live the rest of his days with only one leg.