Cover-up

by John Feinstein

  “What’s going on here?!” Stevie said loudly.

  “Calm down, no need to shout.”

  “Oh, I think we have plenty of reason to be worried. You walk us through the mall, past the empty theaters, and down an empty hall, where two of Don Meeker’s bodyguards grab us and shove us in a room marked NO ADMITTANCE!”

  “Well, not so cool when someone else has the upper hand, are you? Now you listen to me. This is the last conversation we’re going to have. You are going to stop threatening me and stop blackmailing me.” He nodded at the two bodyguards standing behind them. “Mike and Moe are here this time to get your attention. You don’t want to cross paths with them again.”

  “So I guess it’s fair to say that you’re now threatening us,” Susan Carol said.

  “It’s not a threat,” Snow said. “It’s a promise. Here’s the deal: you want to tell your silly story—go ahead. I did a Google search on you, sweetie. Your daddy is a minister, isn’t he? What do you think Reverend Anderson will think when he hears his little angel was drinking and throwing herself at a married man?”

  Susan Carol waved her hand at him. “My dad would never believe something that ridiculous.”

  “Maybe not. But other people will. Especially when Mr. Meeker admits you were flirting with him at the NFL party the other night. Mike and Moe were there—right, boys?”

  “Absolutely,” said one.

  “I was there too,” Stevie said.

  “Ah, yes,” Snow said. “But who will people believe? A respected doctor and an NFL owner or two teenagers?”

  “Oh please. Look at her and look at you two old guys. No one would believe she was interested in you.”

  “Hmmm—you could have a point there, Steve. But sadly, Susan Carol, your boss at USTV also mentioned to Mr. Meeker this morning that you’ve been all over your new partner this week.”

  “What?!” Susan Carol said, jumping out of her chair. “That’s crazy, and Jamie will say so too.”

  Snow just smiled his oily smile. “Mr. Whitsitt is very popular with the tabloids—he’s denied a lot of things lately.”

  Mike or Moe put a hand on her shoulder and pushed her back into the chair.

  “Kill the story and none of this ever comes up,” Snow said. “For now, just so you understand that I’m not kidding, you two are going to spend some time here with the boys.”

  “You said this would be over in five minutes,” Stevie said, now starting to get scared.

  “I lied,” Snow said. “I’ll be going now….”

  The door suddenly opened, pushed hard from the outside. Stevie swiveled his head just in time to see Darin Kerns bolt inside followed by two well-dressed men. Before Mike or Moe could make a move to defend themselves, the two men in suits had grabbed their arms and twisted them behind their backs. A second later, Mike and Moe were on the floor, facedown, squirming.

  One of the men in suits leaned down and said, “If you stop fighting, you won’t get your arm broken. Lie still—now!”

  Darin Kerns had Snow with his arm behind his back as well. Snow was grimacing in pain. “Same for you, doctor,” Kerns said. “I’m not a pro like these boys, though, so I might hurt you even if I don’t mean to. So do yourself a favor and stay very still.”

  “Who the hell are you?” Snow said.

  Kerns smiled. “We’re the good guys. We come to the rescue of kids being bullied by sleazebag doctors and oversized bodyguards who work for a punk like Donny Meeker.

  “Did you get what you needed here?” Kerns asked.

  “Not so far,” Stevie said. “I’m betting he doesn’t have any documents on him either.”

  Kerns quickly checked Snow’s pockets. He shook his head. “Nothing.”

  “I can have the Indy police here in about five minutes,” said one of the men in suits. Stevie now recognized him as Vernon Holley—the Ravens’ security guy he’d met while interviewing Steve Bisciotti. “At the very least, they’d all be charged with detaining two minors. Maybe kidnapping too.”

  Susan Carol was shaking her head. “We don’t want that. We don’t need to answer any questions about this right now.”

  “Your call,” Kerns said.

  He gave Snow a shake. “Here’s the deal. You threaten these kids again and you will go to jail. All three of us can testify you were holding them against their will. And given who these two thugs work for, it won’t be hard to prove he was the one who set this up. How would that look—Mr. Meeker in jail, maybe on Super Bowl Sunday.”

  Snow’s shoulders sagged. “Fine. Let us go now and we’ll call it all even. You keep quiet, sweet thing, and we’ll keep quiet too.”

  “Go to hell!” Susan Carol said, surprising Stevie with both her use of the word and the emphatic tone with which she used it.

  “Let ’em up,” Kerns told Vernon and the other man.

  “Fair fight, you wouldn’t have a chance,” Mike or Moe said.

  “I was in homicide for twenty-three years,” said Vernon. “Take your best shot.”

  Mike or Moe looked carefully at Vernon. He had at least a seventy-five-pound weight advantage, but clearly, Vernon was not someone to be messed with.

  “Come on, Doc,” he said. “We’ve done what we came to do. Let’s get out of here.”

  The three of them headed for the door.

  “Remember,” Kerns said. “Come near them again…”

  “Yeah, yeah,” Snow said. “Believe me, I have no desire to see either one of them ever again.”

  He slammed the door on the way out.

  “Great guy, huh?” Stevie said. He pulled his cell phone from his shirt pocket and pressed the disconnect button. Within seconds, the phone started to ring. Stevie smiled when he saw the number come up on the screen.

  “Hey, Eddie, everything went great,” he said. “Thank goodness for modern technology. I guess you could hear us loud and clear?”

  “I could,” Eddie said. “Whatever kind of phone you’ve got, they could make a commercial about the sound quality.”

  “Oh yeah—I’m sure lots of cellular customers will be signing on for the anti-kidnap plan. Just keep the line open, hide the phone in your pocket, and keep shouting out your location!”

  Eddie laughed. “So, I’m guessing the good doctor didn’t have anything for you.”

  “No. Don’t worry, though—we’ll figure something out. You go to practice and worry about the game.”

  “We’re on the bus right now,” Eddie said. “I’ll check with you guys later.”

  Kerns insisted on giving them a ride back to the Marriott, where Bobby and Tamara were no doubt waiting impatiently.

  On the way, Kerns filled in the rest of the story: “I was in the locker room doing paperwork when Eddie called. He said you two were in trouble and might need backup. So I grabbed Vernon and Joe and we headed over to the mall, and Eddie called us with your location. Eddie said you guys were hoping to get some documents. Are they very important?” asked Kerns.

  “Extremely,” Susan Carol said. “Do you want us to tell you what it’s about?”

  “Actually, given that it apparently involves the team we’re playing on Sunday, I guess I’d rather not know. I’m no good at keeping secrets.”

  The ride to the Marriott only took a couple minutes. Stevie and Susan Carol thanked Kerns and Joe and Vernon profusely as they got out. “Do us a favor,” Vernon said. “Try to stay out of trouble the rest of the weekend.”

  They both said they would do their best. But as they watched the car pull away, Stevie couldn’t help but laugh. “What do you think the chances are,” he said, “that we’re going to stay out of trouble the rest of the weekend?”

  “Given our history?” Susan Carol said, laughing now too. “I’d say pretty close to zero.”

  Susan Carol paused in front of the doors. “You know why I like you so much?” she said.

  “Because I help you get into trouble?”

  She shook her head. “No. Because you can always make me l
augh, even when I’m scared half to death.”

  He looked up at her. “I didn’t think you ever got scared,” he said.

  She kissed him and then wrapped her arms around him. He hugged her back and they stood there for several seconds, Stevie not wanting to stop. She finally pulled back, her arms still loosely around him, and said, “I feel better now.”

  “Good enough to face Bobby and Tamara?” Stevie asked.

  “That might require another kiss.”

  Kelleher and Mearns were waiting for them inside the media workroom. Tamara was reading the New York Times and Bobby was on his cell. He hung up when he saw the two of them approaching.

  “I promised your dad that I’d make sure you stayed out of trouble!” he said.

  He was smiling, but he made it clear he wasn’t happy with either of them. “I’m all for aggressive reporting, you both know that,” he said. “But that was an unnecessary risk. What did you gain?”

  “Well, we know Meeker is really deeply into this if his bodyguards are involved.”

  “Yeah—and it’s possible that someone at USTV is involved too. Or maybe Dr. Snow was just lying when he said Tal told Meeker I was into Jamie,” added Susan Carol.

  “Okay,” said Tamara, “we need to figure out what to do next. We’re a little more than forty-eight hours from kickoff and not close to having enough proof to write a story. As of this moment, the bad guys win this one—the cheaters get to play, and Meeker gets away with his cover-up.”

  “What if,” Stevie said, “we talk to the commissioner after his press conference. He’s in a much better position to investigate than we are.”

  Bobby looked at Tamara. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea,” he said. “Given all the constraints put on the league by the union, even he might not be able to get the information before game time. To be honest, he might not want to try too hard. I mean, what an embarrassment.”

  “You think he’d cover it up?” Susan Carol said.

  “No. No, I don’t,” Kelleher said. “But he’s an official—he’d have to go through proper channels on something as big as this. He’s not really in a position to move quickly.”

  “Well, then,” Stevie said, “where does that leave us?”

  “We could try another bluff,” Kelleher said. “Susan Carol, you got Meeker’s cell phone number the other day, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I could call him and tell him I’ve got evidence of the positive test and the cover-up. He’s so hot-tempered, he might bite.”

  “Except he knows we’re onto the whole thing already,” Stevie said. “He’ll probably be careful.”

  “Maybe,” Kelleher said. “Might be worth a try, though….”

  Stevie heard the Duke fight song. Susan Carol pulled out her cell and looked at the number. “Well,” she said, “this might be something.”

  “Who is it?” Stevie asked.

  “Eddie Brennan,” she said, flipping the phone open.

  Susan Carol had to walk out of the room to get better phone reception, so Stevie, Kelleher, and Mearns couldn’t hear the conversation.

  It was almost one o’clock. A PA announcement was telling people the commissioner’s press conference would begin in five minutes in ballroom C.

  Susan Carol came back in, closing her phone. “Stevie, I think your phone is off,” she said. “Eddie said he got voice mail. He wants us to meet him at the Dome after practice,” she said.

  “Why?” Stevie asked, checking his phone and seeing he had accidentally turned it off.

  “I’m not sure exactly,” Susan Carol said. “He just said, ‘Enough is enough, we need to settle this.’ He wants to meet us in one of the owner’s boxes so we’ll have complete privacy. He says he can set it up.”

  “We might have trouble getting in the building,” Kelleher said. “It’s off-limits to the media until Sunday.”

  “He’s making arrangements for us to get in through the back loading dock,” Susan Carol said. “Power of being a star. But…”

  “What?” Tamara said.

  “He doesn’t want you guys there. He’s afraid if the four of us show up it will draw too much attention.”

  Kelleher was shaking his head vehemently. “We just had this conversation,” he said. “I already feel guilty about what happened this morning. I can’t let you guys go off on your own again.”

  “This is different,” Susan Carol said.

  “Bobby, relax. I don’t think Eddie Brennan is laying a trap for them,” Tamara said. “Why would he?”

  Kelleher sighed and looked at Mearns. “Are you sure we want to have kids?” he said.

  “Cats aren’t a lot of trouble, you know,” she said.

  “Let’s go listen to the commissioner,” he said. “We’ve got two hours to figure out what to do.”

  Stevie had read that Roger Goodell was only forty-seven when he was named commissioner. He looked younger, with his wavy blond hair and snappy, perfectly fitted blue suit. His comments were pretty predictable: selecting Indianapolis to host the Super Bowl had been a masterstroke on the part of the owners; the new dome was spectacular; he anticipated a great game and was proud of the fact that an expansion team had reached the Super Bowl in only its third season. The questions were, for the most part, hohum. The local TV people wanted him to talk about what he had enjoyed most in Indianapolis. “Today’s weather!” he replied enthusiastically, then went on to talk about the “remarkable” hospitality everyone had experienced all week.

  It was Mark Maske of the Washington Post, someone Tamara had introduced Stevie to during one of the media sessions in the Dome, who finally asked a question that got Stevie’s attention. There were rumblings, Maske said, that the new drug-testing system was less than perfect, that positive tests might be “slipping through the cracks.”

  Goodell had obviously been prepped that such a question might be coming. “No system is perfect right out of the chute, Mark,” he said. “We knew and the union knew that once we got into blood testing, especially with the need to confirm any positive test with a B sample, there would be complications. But I think the fact that we’ve tested every player in the league, some on several occasions, and had only twenty-seven suspensions since training camp is proof the system is working—and also proof that the HGH problem may not be as widespread as some people feared. Twenty-seven positives out of close to two thousand tests isn’t awful.”

  Stevie and Susan Carol looked at each other. Did Maske know something that would cause him to ask such a question? Mearns read their minds. “Mark’s good,” she said. “But there’s been talk about trouble with the new system. He’s just on top of that—nothing more.”

  When the session was over, they filed out with every other media person in the city and then made plans to go get the real story.

  Kelleher agreed Stevie and Susan Carol could go alone, but he extracted a promise.

  “If you check in with us every fifteen minutes, I won’t call your parents and tell them what’s going on.”

  Stevie wondered if he was joking. It didn’t look like he was. “How about every thirty minutes?”

  “Nope,” Kelleher said. “Every fifteen. If you go past fifteen minutes once, I call Dome security or the cops or both. You can take turns making the call.”

  “Okay then, Dad,” said Stevie.

  Tamara snickered.

  “Fine, laugh—but call me.”

  They left the hotel shortly after three o’clock. Stevie and Susan Carol circled to the far side of the Dome in search of the loading dock as directed by Eddie. Stevie was very happy that the day was relatively warm because the walk took a good fifteen minutes. As they approached the dock, they saw several police cars with their lights flashing and three buses.

  “Whoa,” Susan Carol said. “Let’s wait until they pull out of here. No need to take a chance on running into Snow getting on one of those buses.”

  They angled over to stand in the shadow of the building while the playe
rs, still in uniform but with their cleats off, trudged out to the bus.

  “This is the only day they actually practice in the Dome—but I guess they shower back at the hotel,” Susan Carol said. “Why don’t you call Kelleher while we’re waiting.”

  Stevie nodded, dialed Kelleher, and told him they were about to walk into the Dome.

  “Call me again in fifteen minutes,” Kelleher said. “You were a minute late this time, but I cut you some slack because I know it’s a long walk around the building.”

  Stevie recognized Coach Skyler Kaplow, dressed in a Dreams sweatshirt, walking to the bus. If Snow was with the group, they didn’t see him. They waited until the police escort pulled out with the buses following and then walked the last few yards to the loading dock entrance. As soon as they reached the bottom of the ramp, they found several security guards.

  “Can we help you?” one of them asked.

  “I’m with CBS,” Stevie said, flashing his credential. “I think you have our names there anyway—Steve Thomas and Susan Carol Anderson?”

  “Uh-uh,” the guard said. “There are no names and no list today. If you’re CBS, you have to go back around to the front entrance….”

  Stevie was about to become exasperated when another guard walked up from behind. “Actually, they’re okay, Frank,” he said. “They’re with Brennan. He told me about them coming in.” He smiled. “Sorry, kids, I had to go inside to show Ed to the elevator. Follow me, he’s waiting for you.”

  Relieved, Stevie and Susan Carol followed the guard into the hallway.

  “So, couple of kid reporters getting an exclusive with Eddie Brennan, huh?” the guard said. “Boy, is he a good guy.”

  “Great guy,” Susan Carol said, turning on the smile.

  “Yeah,” the guard said. “He told me the team has the rest of the day off, so he had some extra time for you.”

  They had reached an elevator bank. The guard pushed the UP button and the door opened immediately. He stepped onto it, turned a key of some kind, and hit 6.