Good Sam

by Dete Meserve

  He gave me a concerned look. “You weren’t working, were you?”

  “Yeah, I was. I was doing a follow-up on the Good Sam story today, and I turned up the oddest coincidences. It has to do with your brother, Brian.”

  His voice rose. “Brian?”

  “Today I talked to six people who received money from Good Sam. And all but one knew your brother and had a relationship—a history—with him.”

  Eric fell silent. I pulled my notebook out of my purse and went on, detailing every person I interviewed and their relationship with Brian. The longer I spoke, the more agitated Eric became. Midway through the list, he stood and wordlessly headed to the fireplace. He squatted and rearranged the logs on the grate even though there wasn’t a fire burning.

  That’s when I knew with absolute certainty he was Good Sam.

  “You’re Good Sam, aren’t you?” I said softly.

  He was silent for a long moment, but even from the couch, I saw his chest quickly rise and fall. He rose slowly and stiffly, as though he were eighty years old. I never had seen him look like this, with deep creases around his eyes, his skin getting paler by the moment.

  His voice was barely above a whisper. “I’ve lied to you, Kate. I’m really sorry.” He looked away. “I gave away a total of five hundred thousand dollars to five people, and then Jack saw an opportunity and exploited it.”

  I felt a jolt of nervous adrenaline. “Were you two in this together?”

  Eric shook his head. “No.”

  So many blurry thoughts careened through my head that I couldn’t get hold of any of them—except the simple truth that Eric had lied to me.

  My voice hissed with disbelief. “Why didn’t you tell me? Why did you keep this from me all this time?”

  He looked down at his hands. “I wasn’t sure how to tell you.”

  His cheerless expression tugged at my heart, but my anger was already on full burn. “I reported that Jack was Good Sam, and you knew the whole time that he wasn’t. Yet you never said anything. All along you were the one I was looking for. Did it give you some sort of smug satisfaction to know I hadn’t figured out the truth?”

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “Some reporter I am—deceived not once but twice. While I was exposing one man as Good Sam, the real one was lying about what he’d done.”

  He shook his head. “I wasn’t—”

  I stood. I had no idea what to do—walk out, shout, or break down and cry.

  “Don’t go,” Eric said. He touched his hand gently to mine. “It’s not what you think. Let me explain.”

  His voice sounded like a roar in my ears. And his touch, instead of calming me, made me remember in vivid detail the lies Jack had told me at our engagement party when I confronted him about his affair with his former girlfriend.

  “Let me explain, Kate,” Jack had said. “It’s not what you think.”

  I tried to take a deep breath, but my chest felt tight and constricted, as if a boulder were sitting on it. A wave of nausea engulfed me.

  I had trusted. And once again I’d been betrayed.

  Without a word I headed out Eric’s front door and let it swing closed behind me.

  The tears didn’t fall until I got into my car. There, sitting alone behind the wheel, with the scent of night jasmine wafting through my open window, I let them spill out.

  How could I have been so stupid? Was it something about me—the way I looked or a personality flaw of some kind—that made men comfortable deceiving me? Was I somehow responsible, attracting liars in some subtle way that I was completely unaware of?

  I wiped the tears from my eyes and put the car in gear. In the short time I’d known Eric, nothing about him had made me suspect that I couldn’t trust him or that he was a liar. So much for reporter’s instinct. But I should have known better when it came to Jack. I knew firsthand what he was capable of.

  How had Jack done it? How had he managed to convince me and many others that he was Good Sam?

  I dialed Jack’s cell phone. He picked it up on the second ring.

  “I’ve been trying to reach you all night,” he said softly.

  “Is it too late for me to come over?” I asked, surprised by the perkiness in my voice.

  “I was hoping you’d say that.” I heard him grin through the telephone line.

  Dressed in a tailored suit I guessed cost upward of two thousand dollars, and a crisp white shirt open at the neck, Jack looked every bit the handsome candidate. But I was unmoved. I felt strangely powerful as I walked into his suite, oddly at ease, even though my heart was pounding so hard I felt like I was running the LA Marathon. I stood in the center of the room and surveyed the surroundings: soft candlelight, quiet music, a bottle of wine chilling in an ice bucket, oysters on the half shell. Jack certainly had the evening planned out, even if he had forgotten that I can’t stand oysters. Even the smell of them makes me nauseous.

  “When were you going to tell me you weren’t Good Sam?” My tone was drained of any emotion.

  He shot me a confused look. “What are you talking about?”

  “I talked to the real Good Sam—the man who really gave the money away.”

  “Whoever you talked to is lying,” Jack said. “I gave you proof.”

  “Did you?”

  “This is crazy, Kate. You know I did it.”

  “You didn’t tell me the whole story, did you, Jack? You left out a few things.”

  He looked me square in the eyes. “I’ve told you everything.”

  Jack was a great actor, especially when caught in a lie, but his performance skills were definitely off tonight.

  “I don’t think you have. I’m putting together a report revealing the truth about this whole thing, telling everyone you lied about being Good Sam.”

  His face blanched. “You’re going to flush your career down the tubes over a story fabricated by some liar? You’re smarter than that.”

  I closed my eyes. “Tell me the truth, Jack. For once in your life, tell it like it really happened.”

  “I don’t know what’s gotten in to you tonight,” he said, “but you’re scaring me. Do I have to prove all over again that I’m Good Sam?”

  I sat on the couch beside him. “You’re not Good Sam,” I said wearily. “You withdrew the money after the first recipients found the cash on their front porches.”

  He rubbed a hand against his brow and inhaled sharply. “Okay. Okay.” He walked to the bar and poured himself a scotch on the rocks. “I’m responsible for the last five hundred thousand that was given away—Harris, DeVault, Frierson, Cabrillo, and Baylor,” he said quietly.

  “And the rest?”

  “Someone else gave that away. I don’t know who.”

  “Someone else gave five hundred thousand dollars away, and you took credit for all of it.”

  “I didn’t think he’d come forward. In fact I was pretty sure he wouldn’t because he worked so hard to conceal his identity.”

  I blinked. “So you piggybacked on the idea and took credit for the whole thing.”

  “I’d never seen anything like the media attention this guy was getting. Everywhere I went, people were talking about Good Sam in a positive way I’d never heard them talk about anyone. You were talking about him. I thought if I continued where he left off, it would increase my visibility tenfold.”

  “Well, you got what you wanted.”

  My sarcasm was lost on him. “It turned out better than I’d expected. I gave away five hundred thousand dollars—the cost of a flight of TV ads—and got recognition and a reputation that no amount of money could buy.”

  “And it didn’t bother you that you were deceiving people about what you’d done? That you were taking credit for money someone else had given away?”

  He sat beside me again. “It’s not like I didn’t give away any money, Kate. I did give away five hundred thousand dollars.”

  “And took credit for more than that.”

  “You’re loo
king at this too literally,” he said, “as though I’m some sort of bad guy for taking advantage of an opportunity. What harm was done? Five people found windfalls on their front porches because of me, and as a result of my interview on television, the idea of Good Sam has spread around the country.”

  I shook my head. “You took credit for something you didn’t do.”

  He shifted in his seat. “You say you talked to the real Good Sam?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did he mind that I took the credit?” he asked.

  I shrugged. “I have no idea.”

  “The way he was giving, taking extraordinary precautions not to be identified, I was sure he wasn’t doing it for the publicity. I figured he didn’t want anyone to know what he’d done.”

  I spoke slowly, making sure he heard every word. “Doesn’t it bother you that you lied to me?”

  “Sure it does, Kate. But for both of us, it was better to keep it a secret. Look at the mileage we’ve both gotten out of this story.”

  I stared at him in bewilderment. “That’s what this is for you—mileage? The truth doesn’t matter as long as you get what you want.”

  “We both got what we wanted.”

  I stood. “It’ll all be meaningless once I report the truth about Good Sam.”

  Jack slammed his fist on the coffee table. “Don’t be stupid. You’ll detonate your career and drag me along with you. I’ve worked too hard for that to happen.”

  “So you want me to keep quiet about it and continue to report on Good Sam, all the while knowing the whole thing is a sham? I can’t do that, Jack.”

  He took my hand in his. “We’re in this together,” he said softly. “If it’ll make you happier, I’ll give another five hundred grand away…just so I don’t get credit for giving away more than I really did.”

  He smoothed my hair with his hand and pressed his forehead to mine. But his charm wasn’t working. His calculations, his manipulations, his justifications—all of them sickened me. I saw him for what he truly was, a hollow, empty man who, in his search for fame and political success, had lost his sense of right and wrong…if he ever had it.

  “I’ve missed you,” he whispered. “Let me pour you a glass of wine, and I’ll show you how much.”

  “Where is the line, Jack?” I was trembling now. “How do you know where the lie ends and the truth begins?”

  I stood up. And for the second time that day, I walked out the door and let it close behind me.

  Chapter Sixteen

  David Dyal wasn’t cooperating. “I know you say this is purely hypothetical, but the whole idea is impossible,” he said, without looking up from his computer.

  “I’m only asking…what if Jack Hansen turned out to have faked being Good Sam and someone else was the real thing?”

  “That’s my point,” he said, peering over his reading glasses at me. “How could he have faked it? He had proof.”

  I sighed. “Pretend for a moment that he did fake it. What do you think would happen if we ran a story disclosing the truth?”

  He closed his laptop and looked at me. “What’s going on, Kate?”

  “What would happen if our viewers found out Jack Hansen isn’t Good Sam after all.”

  “You know what would happen?” Behind his frames, his eyes flashed black with anger. “Every media outlet across the country would rush to report the fraud, if only to get back at us for scooping them on this story. Our ratings would plummet; the station owners would investigate why our news credibility had been compromised; and everyone associated with the story would be canned. Hypothetically, of course.”

  “Well, that’s pretty clear,” I said drily.

  David’s assistant, Jennifer, popped her head into his office. “Two minutes until the assignment meeting.” She dropped a folder on his desk. “These need your signature.”

  While he was momentarily distracted, I slipped out of his office.

  “I want to talk more about this, Kate,” he called after me, but I had already rounded the corner.

  They say hindsight is twenty-twenty, but it’s not true. Hindsight is something less than twenty-twenty, because our impressions of what happened after the fact are still colored by our emotions.

  Even in hindsight I was having a hard time comprehending that Jack had planned the Good Sam charade to gain notoriety. But what I could see in hindsight was that Jack hadn’t changed into Good Sam. He’d only sharpened his skills of deception and raised the stakes. Whereas once he had lied about his relationships with other women, now he lied about the lengths he would go to in order to win a seat in Congress.

  Eric was another matter. He didn’t strike me as the type to plan an elaborate hoax. And unlike Jack, I didn’t think he was wealthy enough to throw that kind of money around. But maybe he was better off than I knew. Wasn’t a family named Hayes heir to the Cannon textile fortunes?

  I skipped the morning assignment meeting and drove to Eric’s house. I understood exactly why Jack had lied and manipulated the media. But I was still in the dark about Eric’s motives.

  As I rang his doorbell, I heard raised voices from inside—one high-pitched and shrill, the other low and muffled. Then the voices stopped abruptly and the front door swung open. A thin brunette wearing yoga pants and a tank top stood in the doorway. “Is…is Eric in?” I sounded as if I’d just learned to speak.

  “Yes, of course,” she said with a British accent. Or was it Australian?

  I decided she probably wasn’t his sister. Not with that accent. But who was she?

  “Who should I tell him is here?” she asked.

  Before I could answer, Eric came to the door and ushered me inside.

  “Kate.” He breathed my name as though he hadn’t seen me in years.

  “I’ve seen you on the television news, haven’t I?” the brunette asked. “Which station is it?”

  “Channel Eleven.”

  I wondered what she did for a living. The high cheekbones and tall, curve-less figure made me think model (or “actor,” as models in Los Angeles like to be called). But there was also an iciness to her that made me think ballet dancer.

  “You were the one who did the report on Eric’s rescue of the boy from the canyon,” she continued.

  I think I nodded, but I was distracted, trying to figure out her relationship to Eric.

  “I’m Patricia Hayes,” she said, extending a bony hand.

  Hayes. My throat felt raw. Did Eric have a wife? I’d never seen a wedding ring on his finger, never asked.

  I didn’t like the way she was looking at me, but what was I to do? I shook her hand.

  She glanced at her watch. “Good to meet you, Kate, but I have to run,” she said in a clipped tone. “Bye, Eric.”

  She breezed out of the room without even a glance in Eric’s direction. His hands twitched nervously. I had the distinct feeling I’d walked in during the middle of a fight. When the door slammed behind her, I knew my hunch was right.

  “Was that your wife?” I asked.

  He stared at me, clearly stunned by the question. “No,” he said finally. “Did you really think that, after everything that’s happened between us, I could be married?”

  “Nothing would surprise me today,” I said quietly.

  “That was my brother’s wife.”

  I exhaled in relief, feeling stupid for jumping to conclusions. “I heard arguing.”

  He raised his eyes toward the ceiling. “Patricia can’t forgive me for what happened to Brian. The accident was my fault, Kate.”

  “Everyone talks about the accident. What happened?”

  I barely recognized the voice that came from his throat—strained, as though it took every fiber of his being to talk. “I thought the memory would fade in time. But all these months later, I can see everything, feel everything, as if it happened yesterday.”

  He sat on the couch, ran his fingers through his hair. He motioned for me to sit next to him, so I did. The silence in the room felt lik
e a heavy curtain that had fallen upon us.

  “Brian and I took the sailboat—The Crazy Eight—out early one morning. It was a bluebird day—no clouds, medium-heavy winds. The weather service had predicted a storm later in the afternoon, but we saw no signs of it. But by late afternoon, the sun had disappeared, and a light rain began to fall. The water started getting rough, but we’d been through that channel many times, so we weren’t worried.

  “Then from out of nowhere the wind kicked up and whipped the sea like a whirling dervish. We turned around, and all we could see was a wall of gray roaring toward us. I’d never seen anything like it. We were pounded by swells as high as twenty feet.”

  He picked up a small wooden box from the coffee table and twisted it in his hands.

  “The boat was crashing from wave to wave, hurling us around the deck. When we looked up, we were headed straight for a reef. We tried to steer away from it, but the wind had become a howling gale, and we couldn’t control the boat. We were trying to secure the boom when we slammed into the reef. The boom swung loose, hit Brian in the head, and knocked us both overboard.”

  He took a deep, shuddering breath and then fell silent, as though weighing whether he should continue.

  “The next thing I knew, I was up against the rocky shoreline, and the waves were pummeling me so hard I couldn’t breathe. When I close my eyes, I can still remember how loud the wind was, howling like a banshee, and the pounding of the waves crashing against the rocks. The waves were strong—powerful enough to pluck boulders off the shoreline and tumble them in the surf. I knew I wouldn’t get out of there alive if I didn’t get away from shore. I tried to swim against the current, through it—even around it—but I got nowhere. I kept trying and somehow managed to swim far enough away from shore that I was no longer flung against the rocks with every wave. To this day I don’t know how I did it.”

  His voice became a raspy whisper. “And that’s when I made my mistake.”

  I laid a hand on his thigh for reassurance, but I had the feeling he didn’t even know it was there. His eyes had a distant look, as though he were actually seeing the scene he was describing.