The Midnight Hour

by R. G. Belsky

• • •

  Sitting back at my desk in the newsroom, I called the DA’s office.

  “Susan Endicott, please,” I said.

  “Who’s calling?”

  “Tell her it’s her husband.”

  “Her husband?”

  “Ex-husband.”

  “What is this about?”

  I told the receptionist that I needed to get a comment from someone in the Manhattan DA’s office for a story I was doing about how Jack Keegan’s daughter, at the time of her death, was investigating a case in Ohio he had worked on as an FBI agent thirty years earlier.

  She put me on hold for a long time, then finally came back on the line.

  “Ms. Endicott said she’ll have to get back to you.”

  “Did you tell her what it was about?”

  “Yes, I did.”

  “Did you tell her it was her husband . . . well, her ex-husband . . . calling?”

  “I told her that too.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She said she’d have to get back to you later.”

  Well, so much for having pull in the DA’s office.

  I decided to track down Mitchell Aldrich while I waited.

  CHAPTER 9

  Aldrich had his New York offices in a new building on Park Avenue in the East 40’s.

  There was a big sign in front that said THE ALDRICH BUILDING—CONSTRUCTED IN 1999. Another sign inside the lobby identified it as the headquarters of the Aldrich Corporation. The directory said the Aldrich Corporation occupied the top five floors of the building, and listed Mitchell Aldrich as president, CEO, and chairman.

  Obviously, modesty was not a problem for Mitchell Aldrich.

  Aldrich himself was very distinguished looking. He must have been in his sixties by now, but he looked ten or fifteen years younger.

  “You’ve come a long way from being president of a small college in Ohio, Mr. Aldrich,” I said.

  “Those were heady times,” Aldrich told me. He was very friendly and genuinely seemed interested in reminiscing about his days at Ohio Southern. “Ohio Southern was a terrific place. During the time I was there we doubled our enrollment and dramatically upgraded the faculty and curriculum. We made great strides in turning Ohio Southern from a small Midwestern school into one of the nation’s leading colleges. I wanted to make a difference, I wanted to change the world back then.”

  “What happened?”

  “The job never got finished. I guess the Gallagher murder was a big reason for that. The scandal, all the negative publicity. I didn’t leave Ohio Southern until 1988, but it was never the same. Everything we did, everything we accomplished—it was all overshadowed by the Gallagher thing. So I left and started this company.”

  “What made you get into real estate?”

  “The money,” he smiled.

  “I thought you wanted to change the world.”

  “I guess I was a lot more idealistic then,” he said, smiling broadly this time.

  Aldrich seemed like the kind of guy who smiled a lot.

  “Did you know Thomas Gallagher well?” I asked.

  “Of course. He was a prominent faculty member.”

  “How about his wife, Kathleen, and the children?”

  “I believe I met them a few times at social functions.”

  “Were you having an affair with Kathleen Gallagher?”

  Aldrich wasn’t smiling so much anymore.

  “Who told you that?”

  “The bartender at the Union Tavern. He said he saw the two of you kissing there.”

  “Kathleen was a troubled woman. She asked me to meet her there one day for lunch. She wanted to see if I could get her husband more money. I’d heard about her and other men before. She made a play for me. I resisted her advances.”

  “Good for you,” I said.

  His smile was completely gone now. He looked shocked.

  “Mr. Malloy, I was—and I am—a happily married man with a wonderful family. In forty-two years of marriage, I have never cheated on my wife. Like I said, Kathleen Gallagher was an unhappy woman. Sometimes trouble just comes to people like that.”

  “So that one incident at the Union Tavern was the only thing that ever happened between the two of you.”

  “Yes, of course.”

  Aldrich shook his head sadly.

  “It was a terrible tragedy. That poor family. And, of course, what happened to Tom Gallagher. It affected all of us at Ohio Southern very deeply.”

  He looked very somber now. I was becoming fascinated watching his changing facial expressions. I wondered if he practiced them in the mirror every morning before he came to work.

  “How big a role did you play in the investigation of the Gallagher killings?” I asked him.

  “I cooperated fully with the authorities and made sure they had the full cooperation of the entire university, too.”

  “The Logan Point police?”

  “That’s right.”

  “And Jack Keegan, who was the FBI man they sent to help direct the investigation?”

  “Yes, of course. I did everything I could to help.”

  The smile was back now. He couldn’t help himself.

  “Did you know Keegan’s daughter was murdered recently?”

  “I read about that. A shame.”

  Sympathetic now.

  Amazing.

  The man of a thousand faces.

  “Strange, huh?” I said. “I mean he was the lead guy thirty years ago, investigating the biggest crime ever at Ohio Southern, and now his daughter is killed right here in New York City.”

  “What does one have to do with the other?”

  “Probably nothing,” I said.

  I looked down at the notes I’d written before meeting Aldrich for the interview.

  “Did you get to know Keegan well back in Logan Point?”

  “Actually, I did. He was on campus for a number of weeks concluding the murder investigation and we spent a good deal of time together. Not just on the case. I introduced him to a number of people at the school—faculty members, administrators, leading students. He came to some campus events, dinners—I even got him to speak at an alumni gathering. He was an interesting guy. You just knew he was going places with his career. So we spent a lot of time talking.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Well, the case, of course. But personal stuff too. That’s one of the reasons I found the news about his daughter being murdered so upsetting. We talked quite a bit about our hopes and dreams and ambitions for the future. That’s when he first told me he wanted to go on to law school and become either an attorney or a prosecutor. But he also talked about his family. He told me he and his wife had been trying for a long time to have a baby, but they hadn’t been able to. He talked about them going to fertility clinics and looking into adoption and all the other things they were doing to have the child they wanted. I even connected him with some people in the university community I thought might be able to help. So he must have been so happy and proud of that daughter when they finally had her. It just makes it all so damn sad.”

  “There is another daughter,” I said.

  “Well, that must give him some solace.”

  “I guess you and Keegan didn’t keep in touch, even though you’re both in New York City now?”

  “No, we didn’t. Of course, he’s the district attorney. And the only time a businessman like myself generally comes in contact with the district attorney is if I’ve done something wrong. So I guess I should be glad I haven’t heard much from Jack recently, huh?”

  Aldrich smiled again.

  I smiled back.

  Maybe I should try to match him, facial expression for facial expression.

  “Let’s go back to the Gallagher murder investi
gation,” I said.

  “I don’t know if there’s much more I can tell you about that.”

  “Do your best.”

  “Sure.”

  Affable. Agreeable. Mitchell Aldrich, just a cooperative kind of guy. I decided it was time to go for the jugular.

  “Why were you in such a hurry to wrap up the investigation so quickly?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “That’s what everyone says happened back in Logan Point.”

  “Who told you that?”

  “Lots of people.”

  The smile was definitely gone now. He looked defensive, angry, and maybe—just maybe—a little bit scared.

  “That’s absurd.”

  “They said you did everything you could as president of Ohio Southern to push the police and town leaders and, yes, Jack Keegan and the FBI into a quick investigation that would conclude Tom Gallagher was the murderer.”

  “I cooperated fully with law enforcement in all aspects of the case.”

  “Did you happen to tell them about your relationship—whatever that relationship may have been—with Kathleen Gallagher?

  Aldrich glared at me from behind his desk.

  “Did you tell them how Tom Gallagher was a pain in your butt with the faculty union, and how it made your life a lot easier there with him out of the way?

  More glaring.

  “No. You helped railroad Tom Gallagher onto death row as the murderer. Even though it turned out he didn’t do it. How did that make you feel, Mr. Aldrich?”

  “This interview is over,” he said angrily.

  • • •

  On the way back to the News office my cell phone rang. I looked down at the number. I recognized it as the exchange for the Manhattan DA’s office. Susan finally calling me back, I figured. But instead it turned out to be Jack Keegan himself.

  “Don’t write this story about my daughter,” Keegan said.

  “Why not?”

  “Because there are things about it you don’t understand.”

  “So tell me about them. Tell me about the Gallagher case.”

  “I don’t want to talk about the Gallagher case.”

  “Because you screwed it up and got an innocent man executed?”

  “For my daughter’s sake, leave it alone.”

  “I can’t do that.”

  “You mean you won’t.”

  “A free press can never be silenced,” I said.

  Keegan angrily hung up the phone.

  “I’ll take that as a ‘no comment,’ ” I said into the dead line.

  All in all, I’d had quite a day. I’d made Jack Keegan mad at me. I’d made Mitchell Aldrich mad at me too. And I was pretty sure Susan was going to be mad at me for dragging her into all of this. I was very good at making people mad at me.

  But I also had a story.

  A big story.

  And a big story always makes everything better.

  CHAPTER 10

  I wrote the article for the front page of the Daily News the next morning. I included the details of the Gallagher murders, Dani’s obsession with the story in her final days, her father’s involvement in the handling of the long-ago case, and my interviews with Mitchell Aldrich and the others from Logan Point.

  In the old days, when I was riding high at the paper, I always had my own special ritual after writing a big story. I’d grab a group of reporters and we’d go to a newspaper bar called Headliners to celebrate. I’d tell them about my story, they’d tell me how great I was; yeah, I know, it sounds egotistical, but I really loved doing it. I hadn’t been to Headliners in a while though. I was kind of out of practice in celebrating big front-page bylines.

  I looked around the newsroom for someone to go drink with. Pretty much everyone else had gone home. The few who were there looked unfamiliar to me. There’d been such a turnover at the News in recent years that I barely knew some of them. I wasn’t even sure of all their names.

  “Hi, I’m Gil,” I could say to one of them, I suppose. “I don’t know who you are, but I’m on the front page tomorrow morning and I’m kinda desperate right now for someone to celebrate with over that. Do you want to go have a drink with me?”

  I wasn’t sure what the exact etiquette was for making the initial office introduction, but that did seem a tad awkward to me.

  Of course, I could always go to Headliners alone and congratulate myself on my big scoop, but that seemed to miss the point of the original celebration ritual.

  I was just about to give up and go home when I saw Marilyn Staley coming out of her office with her purse and coat, presumably leaving for the night.

  “Hey, Marilyn,” I said, “you want to get a drink?”

  She looked surprised.

  “You and me?”

  “That would be the seating arrangement, yes.”

  “Malloy, in all the years I’ve worked with you, you have never once asked me to have a drink with you.”

  “Well, you never asked me to have a drink with you either.”

  Staley shook her head.

  “I’ve got to get up to Westchester. My nanny needs to leave by nine. The kids will be waiting for me . . .”

  “So we’ll drink very quickly.”

  She smiled.

  “How about one drink?” she said.

  “Okay.”

  “Just one.”

  “One it is.”

  “Promise?

  “Sure. Would it be okay if I nibbled on some peanuts too?”

  • • •

  Staley had two kids. A boy, eleven, and a girl, nine. She talked about them after we got to Headliners, about her husband and about her house, and how difficult it was to juggle her busy home life along with her job as city editor of the Daily News. I’ve always been in awe of women who have both a family and a career like that. I told her that now.

  “It’s a matter of priorities,” she said. “My family comes first. Anything else after that?”

  “Must be tough to remember that when you’re running the newsroom of a big city paper.”

  “Actually, it makes it easier. I have good days and bad days at the office. But my family is the one thing that’s always there for me. That way you don’t judge your life just by the number of exclusives or front-page stories you get. There’s more to your life. A lot more. You should try it sometime.”

  She took a sip of her drink and looked over at me.

  “I’ve watched you for a few years now, Malloy. The good times and the bad. You go through these dark periods—hell, you even have those damn anxiety attacks—when you’re not a star reporter anymore. And then it all goes away the next time you figure out a way to get yourself back on the front page. Like now. That’s why we’re having this drink. Your story is going to be on the front page tomorrow. But there’s got to be a better way for you to measure your worth as a person than the number of big bylines you have.”

  “Funny, I had a shrink and she used to tell me the same thing.”

  “She sounds like a wise woman.”

  “Of course, that cost me a hundred dollars an hour.”

  “Well, this advice is free.”

  “I’m working on it, Marilyn. I’m really working on it.”

  At some point, we got around to talking about my story. Which was fine with me. I’m always more comfortable talking about stories than I am discussing my personal life.

  “What have you got for a follow-up?” Staley asked me.

  “Ah, the follow-up.”

  “I’ve been thinking a lot about it.”

  “Jeez, Marilyn, my story isn’t even out on the street yet.”

  “Never too early to think about the follow-up.”

  “Well,” I said, “we still don’t know who really killed the Gallagher family t
hirty years ago.”

  “And we don’t know who killed Dani now.”

  “Or whether there’s even a connection between the two crimes.”

  “It sounds like you’ve got a lot of work to do,” Staley said.

  • • •

  My apartment was still empty when I got home. Just like it was when I left for Ohio.

  Even though we’re divorced, I keep pictures of Susan on display. Maybe to remind me of the happier times. I looked over at one of them. It showed Susan and me walking along a beach in Sag Harbor arm in arm and very much in love. We could have had a great marriage. Should have had a great marriage. But I screwed it up. I was so goddamned obsessed with my own career that I put that career—and all the star trappings that went with it—ahead of the thing I really wanted the most, Susan. I thought I could have it all, but I was wrong. Instead I had neither a marriage nor a successful career. Way to go, Malloy, that life plan of yours is working out really well, huh?

  I once talked to Susan about how much we’d loved each other back in the beginning. About how much I still loved her. I asked her if she still loved me like that. She said she wasn’t sure if she loved me or not. When I asked her how that could be, she simply replied: “Things change, Gil.”

  I looked at the picture of us on the beach again. There were other pictures of Susan and me I still had up too. In a rowboat at the lake in Central Park. At a Broadway play on opening night. At a Bruce Springsteen concert when I was able to get front row through the Daily News music editor. At an awards dinner when she was honored by the mayor and the US attorney general for her exceptional achievements in the DA’s office.

  Susan loved so many things.

  She loved the beach. She loved Central Park. She loved Broadway. She loved the Boss. And she loved her job and being a lawyer.

  She used to love me too.

  Now she wasn’t so sure about that.

  Like she said, things change.

  CHAPTER 11

  Marilyn Staley was right when she said I still had a lot of work to do on this story. Not just the Gallagher murders. Dani’s murder too, which was the point of doing the whole story in the first place.

  The truth was I still really didn’t know that much about how Dani died. All the information I had about the facts of her murder came from what I’d read in stories by other reporters while I pursued the Ohio cold case angle. Maybe it was now time for me to find out some things about her actual murder.