by Tim Green
“Newark,” Jake said, undoing the top button again. “What else do I need to say? Where is she?”
“She said something about a plate of spaghetti, and I don’t think she’ll understand the Newark thing,” Dora said. “Our buddy Graham is flying her around in his jet, so go easy on the airline woes.”
Jake studied her. “I know the type.”
Dora shrugged and said, “She’s pretty, she’s smart, and I think she knows it.”
“Well,” Jake said, hefting his bag from the backseat, “I’ll put an iron to this jacket and wash my face. That should charm the hell out of her. Maybe some deodorant, too.”
“I got sandwiches in there if you’re hungry,” Dora said as he entered the lobby.
“Remember those little finger sandwiches in Los Angeles?”
“You can settle for Subway,” she said. “And we’re set up just down this hall.”
Jake checked in and cleaned up, then had a sandwich while a young woman worked on his face and Dora rechecked her shots. Jake leafed back through his file on Casey Jordan while he waited.
“Why don’t you close your mouth while you look,” Dora said, leaning over his shoulder and nodding at a color photo of Casey standing next to a courthouse column that filled an entire page of TIME magazine.
“How smart can she really be?” Jake asked, his eyes on the photo and the lean lines beneath the skirt. “She looks like a model.”
“Smart enough to whisper if the door’s open.”
Casey Jordan stood in the doorway with her arms folded across her chest. The camera crew busied themselves with their cables and wires and Jake’s face warmed and then broke into a grin.
“A very intelligent model,” Jake said with an embarrassed smile. “You know Elle Macpherson has a PhD in nuclear physics?”
“That’s not true.”
“She doesn’t like to brag about it.”
Casey walked into the midst of the lights and cameras and cables, plunked herself down in the chair opposite Jake, and crossed her shapely legs. “So should I assume that if I have a hot story that goes way beyond your puff piece on Robert Graham that you’re not the one I should talk to? You do realize you’re wearing makeup.”
“It hides my insecurity.”
She stared at him and Jake waited for a grin that never appeared.
“Sorry I’m late,” Jake said, “there were thunderstorms in New York.”
“No problem,” Casey said, looking at him expectantly as she fished the microphone up through her blouse like a pro. “But let’s get this done. I just got handed a brief that needs to be completely rewritten.”
“What story are you talking about?” Jake asked.
“Hey, are those teeth capped?”
“I got these from my mom,” Jake said, widening his lips and tapping the front teeth, “and despite the stylish haircut, I’ve got all the credentials you’ll need if you’re looking to kick up another scandal.”
“Another?” Casey said.
Jake touched the folder. “I read your background. Growing up dirt-poor in a hick town. The Lifetime movie. Taking on a US senator. I get it. A true Texas hellcat, if you don’t mind the expression.”
“How about an entire town that put a black man away for a murder he didn’t commit?”
“Sounds like a rerun,” Jake said. “Let’s talk about Robert Graham’s empathy for small animals and kids. We have a video of him feeding a goat with a bottle. It’s cute stuff. I mean, a baby goat. How can you go wrong?”
“What about nearly twenty years later?” Casey said, recrossing her legs. “There’s a new DA, a new chief of police, new judge, new everything. So why would they destroy the evidence that would right a wrong from the past?”
“Whew,” Jake said and pursed his lips. “Lady, you don’t mince words. Tell you what. You help me make Graham look like Mother Teresa and I’ll talk to Charlie Gibson. Nightly News might go for something like this, and that’s what you want, right? Lots of attention?”
“I like how you toss out some locker room talk about my qualifications and now you’re running for your daddy’s leg when I offer a real story.”
“Come on,” Jake said, turning to Dora. “We set?”
Casey looked at him for a long moment and held the stare. Jake was annoyed but could not help smiling back at her.
Dora gave a thumbs-up and Jake said, “Tell us how you first met Robert Graham.”
Casey didn’t answer for a moment, still staring, and then as Jake was about to turn to Dora, her face softened into a pleasant smile and she readjusted in her seat.
“He called me-out of the blue, really,” Casey said. “He’d heard about some of my work-I run a legal clinic for underprivileged women-and he asked if I’d help the Freedom Project by taking on a couple cases each year.”
“Why you?” Jake asked.
Casey shrugged and blushed lightly, then said, “I think he felt like I’d bring some visibility to the cases and the cause.”
“And didn’t he also offer to help your own charitable foundation?” Jake asked.
Casey shifted in her seat. “He did. And I was grateful to accept.”
“Do you think he likes the attention?” Jake asked.
“What? What do you mean?”
“You said visibility,” Jake said, “like this, the media, doing stories. Do you think that has something to do with it?”
“I think it helps raise more money for good causes,” Casey said.
“Would you like to hear some other reasons?” Jake asked.
Casey wrinkled her brow. “Is that a question you want me to answer?”
“Not for the camera,” Jake said, putting his hand up in front of the camera directed at her. “I’m just asking between us. Would you? I’ll buy you a drink.”
Casey looked at Dora Pine, who wore a pair of headphones and looked up from her monitor.
“Is this how he operates?” Casey asked her.
“Pretty much,” Dora said. “Ain’t he clever?”
Jake retreated and lobbed some softballs at her, more questions about Robert Graham, his connection with the Freedom Project, and how swell it was that a man with his kind of money gave a shit about the little people. Casey answered everything by the book, saying neither too much nor too little, and always wearing a fixed smile. They both knew the game and the dance and he needed only a couple quotes in the can.
“That’ll work,” Jake said, extending a hand to Casey as he removed his microphone.
She shook it, removed the mic, and said, “So you want to hear more?”
“Hotel bar?” Jake asked.
“Too depressing,” Casey said.
“There’s a place just down the road,” Jake said. “The New York Times calls it one of the top three spas in the world.”
Casey gave him a look. “What if it doesn’t match up to the other two?”
“I’m serious.” he said. “You’ll like it.”
“In Texas all you need for a bar is some whiskey and Shiner on tap,” Casey said. “I don’t know about a spa.”
“Come on,” he said.
Just outside the hotel lobby, a man with a crew cut emerged from a Lexus and limped toward them, his eyes on Casey.
“Are we ready?” he asked her, ignoring Jake.
“Thanks, Ralph,” she said. “How’s your homework assignment coming?”
“Working on the car,” Ralph said, shooting Jake a dark look as Casey began to follow him toward the rented Cadillac.
“And the girlfriend?” Casey asked.
“Caught a blip in 1994. Tried to kill herself in Tallahassee,” Ralph said, limping over to the Cadillac. “Sleeping pills. They put her in a nuthouse and when she got out she disappeared. Nothing after that, so I wouldn’t hold my breath.”
“I’ll try another route,” Casey said, closing the car door.
“You didn’t tell me your dad was here,” Jake said, starting the engine.
“Yeah, he can be a
real asshole sometimes when I skip school,” Casey said. “Nope. He’s from Graham’s Rochester office.”
“Who, I think, is now tailing us,” Jake said, checking the rearview mirror as he turned the corner onto Route 20. “Do you want me to shake the tail? Man, I always wanted to say that. That and ‘follow that car!’ ”
Casey spun around. “You’re paranoid. He’s not going to actually follow me.”
They rode in silence for a couple more miles on 20 until they got out of town.
“He is,” Jake said.
10
NO. THIS IS TOO MUCH. I’ll put an end to this,” Casey said, pulling a cell phone out of her purse.
“Wait,” Jake said, checking his mirror as they continued on into the town of Skaneateles. “Let’s see something.”
When they turned into the spa entrance, the headlights from the car that he was certain had been Ralph’s kept going. Jake watched the pewter-colored Lexus proceed down the hill before he eased through the gates.
“You were wrong,” Jake said. “Your dad isn’t such an asshole.”
“Funny,” Casey said. “My real old man was a stitch.”
Jake noted a heft of truth in the way she said it and didn’t say anything for a few moments.
Mirbeau Spa was a French château with small white lights strung along the rooflines. They found two low leather chairs in the bar by the fireplace and ordered drinks. Other people, mostly couples, talked softly, leaning across small tables into the wavering candlelight of small glass globes. The bartender stood behind an old-world bar, thick and dark and polished, in a black tie and vest. A waitress took their orders, speaking to them in the quiet voice usually reserved for libraries.
“I would have been so surprised if Ralph really was following us,” Casey said, her own voice low as she sipped her glass of cabernet. “He’s supposed to be at my disposal, not my chaperone.”
“Is his name really Ralph or did you make that up?” Jake snorted and shook his head. “He looks more like a Thor. And Graham looks more like a Biff. Like a guy who eats Grape-Nuts and shits in the woods.”
“You don’t like Graham,” Casey said.
“Someone high up got sold on the idea of us doing a profile and that’s what I’m doing,” Jake said. “I’m just kidding around. I don’t know the man well enough to like him or dislike him. Trust is something else. No, I don’t trust him; that doesn’t mean we can’t talk about a story. I know I’m gorgeous but I got brains, too, lady.”
“Hmmm,” she said. “I have to admit Graham does make me wonder. It’s a pretty good clip from Texas, and New York doesn’t exactly have a shortage of solid defense attorneys. Plenty who are a lot better than me.”
Jake studied her and swallowed a mouthful of his microbrew. “From what I know about Robert Graham, he doesn’t take a leak unless there’s a good reason.”
“Maybe we’re both jaded,” Casey said. “He’s giving money away, not just to the Freedom Project; he’s giving money to my clinic, and this is something I can do for him.”
“He’s a clever man,” Jake said, “and you can do more than you think.”
“Like?”
“Sitting here with me,” Jake said. “I can’t help wondering what’s behind it all. Yes, he gives money, but he gets a lot of bang for his buck: publicity, hobnobbing with important and credible people. He needs that.”
“Sure.”
“Ego is the obvious answer,” Jake said. “That’s the way with most of these people-people willing to spend big bucks to get a PR agency to sell a profile to some TV show-but I think it’s something else with Graham.”
“Everyone has an ego,” Casey said.
“It’s not that.”
“Then what?”
Jake leaned into the table. “I think he’s involved with some questionable people.”
“You’re a little suspect,” Casey said, “but here I sit.”
Jake flashed a plastic smile and said, “This thing isn’t my story. Did you know he went bankrupt ten years ago?”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Lost it all. Almost, anyway,” Jake said. “He took a pretty sizable family fortune and got into some big commercial real estate projects-hotels, casinos, office buildings-but that wasn’t enough. He leveraged the real estate and went wild in the tech market. At one point, his net worth was estimated at over three billion dollars.
“Then it crashed, and he lost all of it. Everything. The banks got left holding the property. Then, miraculously, he finds some offshore partners who stake him. He buys back everything from the banks for fifty cents on the dollar. He never made the tech mistake again and since then he’s had the Midas touch. He buys military-industrial companies before the Iraq war, then gets into oil and gas just before the energy squeeze. He buys shut-down factory equipment for pennies on the dollar, ships it overseas where he can pay people a dollar a day to work, and starts making a mint selling the same things on the world market. All the while he’s funded by some bottomless pit of money. Who are these partners? No one ever asks because he’s Robert Graham, the philanthropist, the great do-gooder.”
“You do a mess of homework for some puff piece.”
“Old habits,” Jake said. “I don’t buy it. Something is wrong with him. I can smell it. You say something is wrong with this case you’re working on? I promise you they’re connected for a very good reason. Now, that’s the story I want to do.”
“Oh, grow up, Jake,” Casey said. “I know your momma didn’t tell you this but there aren’t a lot of squeaky-clean billionaires out there. I think you’re taking a side road, and I note a little jealousy.”
“Like I said, this isn’t my story,” Jake said. “I’m supposed to do the interview with him at his offices in Rochester the day after tomorrow. Also, my contract’s up in a couple months and I’ve got a fourteen-year-old with braces. I’m too old for jealousy.”
“You’re married?” Casey asked.
“She’s gone,” Jake said, fixing the TV smile onto his face. “Cancer, but we had a lot longer together than they said we would. Good years. It’s been a while, so I’m as over it as you can get with these things.”
Casey cleared her throat and said, “I’m sorry.”
“The ring keeps me out of trouble for the most part,” Jake said, flexing his fingers. “Otherwise, they’d be hanging all over me.”
They sat for a minute, drinking away the awkwardness, then Jake said, “I tell you what I’ll do. I’ll help you sniff around your corrupt little town tomorrow, tell the show I want to get some B-roll of this Freedom Project in the trenches, and head to Rochester the day after for the interview with Graham. Who knows? Maybe we’ll find your evidence.”
“If I’m going to shake this thing loose,” Casey said, “I’ll need that scandal. I need someone to come forward and admit they destroyed the evidence, but even then, I’d need to show a judge that they did it on purpose and why if I’m going to get him to grant me a new trial.”
“What was it you hoped to get from the evidence?” Jake asked.
“If I had the knife Dwayne carried and if I can show the blood on it doesn’t match the victim’s DNA, along with the other suspicious elements of the case, my guy walks.”
“Where would you get her DNA?” Jake asked.
“They’d have carpet samples or clothes with her blood on it,” Casey said. “That, or I could even have the body exhumed.”
Jake grimaced, then asked, “Didn’t I read your guy was convicted for rape and murder?”
“He was.”
“How dead was she when they found her?” Jake asked.
Casey wrinkled her nose. “Meaning?”
“Stone cold? Right to the morgue?” Jake asked. “Or was she still bleeding? Even breathing? And they rushed her to the hospital.”
“What would it even matter?” Casey asked.
“What about a swab?” Jake said. “If she went to the hospital, they would have done the rape kit.”
“The rape kit would have,” Jake said, “but usually, when a hospital has a rape victim, they’ll test for STDs and AIDS when they do the rape kit. If he raped her, his DNA will be in those swab samples. If it’s someone else, your guy still walks.”
Casey sat silent, then said, “I kept thinking of this case as a murder. The rape is another part of it I didn’t think about, for the trial, I mean. They should have done a blood test on any samples they got. If it matched Hubbard’s, they would have used it. If it didn’t, the defense should have.”
“Either way, it sounds like the police evidence is gone,” Jake said. “I think your only hope is the hospital.”
“Would a hospital even have something like that?” Casey asked.
“One thing I’ve learned about hospitals,” Jake said, “they keep everything.”
11
JAKE SAT WAITING in the lobby wearing khaki pants and a dark blue polo shirt that made him look younger than the suit he wore the day before. He stood, holding two cappuccinos, handed her one, and said, “Ready?”
Outside, Casey saw the Lexus before Ralph could step in front of her.
“Where to, Ms. Jordan?” he asked, pitching a cigarette into the bushes.
“You weren’t following us last night, were you, Ralph?” Casey asked. “Because that wouldn’t be necessary.”
Ralph stared at her with empty pupils surrounded by tattered brown and yellow irises.
“I think I’m set on a ride,” Casey said, glancing at Jake. “Don’t forget about the car, Ralph. The white one? Bavarian Motor Works?”
“I’ll let you know,” Ralph said, limping toward the Lexus. “But I’ll just tag along in case something comes up.”
“I’m a big girl, Ralph,” Casey said. “I even made these high heels from a rattlesnake I killed with my bare hands.”
Ralph looked down.
“I’m kidding,” she said.
Ralph opened the car door and, climbing in, said, “Mr. Graham is pretty precise in what he wants.”
Casey shrugged and followed Jake toward his Cadillac, which was parked on the side of the building.