A Little Trouble with the Facts

by Nina Siegal

  Rood scowled. He pressed his rough mitts against the edge of the table and pushed himself back. His chair legs screeched against the floor. “Did I ever tell you how I ended up on Obits, Miss Vane?” he said.

  “No, Mickey. I don’t think so.”

  Rood had a way of making time slow down. Even if the world was a big rush of chaos, when Mickey talked, time gave way. He propped his cane against the table and crossed his arms in front of his chest, signaling that this story would take a while.

  “I was a young man then, a beat reporter, like you, except I was working the neighborhoods, the city streets. Back then, nobody cared how hard you hit the bottle, and so I hit it pretty hard, and whenever I was too enthusiastic about it, they moved me to a slower borough to let me dry out. Staten Island was the cruise ship, slower than slow. Incidentally, I was also having an off and on at that time with Jane—that’s right, battle-ax Battinger. Don’t look so surprised—she was young once, too, and she was a hotshot on Metro, the deputy weekend editor and not yet thirty. I was always impressed with that, I thought I might even ask her to marry me some day, but she wasn’t looking for a second stringer; and anyway, it was her career she really loved.”

  I tried to imagine Battinger as a young woman, and it wasn’t so easy to do. Maybe she’d been an Elizabeth Taylor type, curvy in all directions, but with a kind of acid running through her veins, maybe Cat on a Hot Tin Roof. No, later: Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?

  “So, a notice came across my desk one day about a pharmacist killed in a Staten Island drugstore; I went over there and got a look around. I thought maybe there was a good story in it—maybe racially motivated, since the victim was black and there didn’t seem to be any explanation. But the PD convinced me otherwise. They labeled it black on black, some neighborhood grudge. In those days, that meant we didn’t follow up.”

  Rood didn’t need a corollary from one of my old black-and-whites. He was the genuine article. He’d walked the mean streets, he’d worn his press card in his fedora. He’d spat whiskey breath more than once into an editor’s face.

  “In walks this dame to our bureau one sunny afternoon, a real sweetheart with some prize-winning gams. She’s the sister of the deceased and she tells me the cops got it wrong. She says it goes much deeper. She says her brother had refused to pay off some round hats on the take. He could afford it, all right. He just had a conscience, thought it wasn’t right for the police to skim the cream off an honest man’s wage. I had to agree with him.”

  Rood traced a figure eight on the cafeteria tabletop. “Sure, I fell for her. But mainly I was interested in the case. I wanted to play good cop. They had a real racket going in the 122, and I had the goods to bust it wide open. But I couldn’t get it in the paper no way, no how. For months, I badgered the Metro chief, but he kept telling me I had my facts mixed up. It was a few years before I found out why he killed it. Turns out Jane had found out somehow about the sister and me, and she made sure the story wouldn’t run anywhere near the page. I don’t know how she did it, because she was still a small fry, but she had a way of convincing people of things when she wanted to. As far as I know, it was the only time she pulled a stunt like that. But it wasn’t right of her to do it. I had that story legit. There was nothing wrong with my facts.”

  Rood’s face looked pained. His sadness deepened the wrinkles cutting across his brow. Maybe he’d been over this story a hundred thousand times in his head, maybe he’d told it aloud once or twice. From the look on his face, I could see it still hurt.

  “You asked to be transferred off the Metro desk when you found out?”

  “That’s right. I was pretty easily scandalized for a guy who was supposed to be tough. I didn’t mind knowing about corruption out there, in the big bad city. What upset me most was this place. I thought it was better than that. I’d believed in it. The institution. The stronghold.” He leaned forward. “Okay, you slept with a source. Tsk, tsk. Bad girl.” Mickey waved his finger at me and then laughed a little. His laugh turned into a cough. He pounded the table until it subsided. “The more important issue is whether you have the guts to report it out. To see that justice is done.”

  Rood cleared his throat roughly and wiped his mouth with his hankie. Then he balled it up and tossed it in the nearest trashcan.

  “The answer isn’t to go to Jane,” he said. “She’s no father confessor. What you need to do is get the story written. Leave Battinger to me. I’ll handle her until you get your ducks in a row. She owes me a little something after all these years. Let’s you and I figure out how to make her good for it. That sound right to you?”

  “Just right.”

  “That’s my girl,” Rood said. “And when we’re done with this little expedition, remind me, I’ve got something for you on those names you gave me last week.”

  Rood called down to Battinger and Curtis and told them that I was in the building and that I needed a few more minutes to get my act in gear. Then he and I mapped it out, the whole plan, down to the last nickel. We had less than ten hours to move a story, and I had to watch my back. Cabeza would be in contact with Jeremiah by now, waiting to see what I’d do. They’d killed Stain for money and for a little bit of fame; despite Cabeza’s claims of love, I didn’t think either he or Jeremiah liked me so much they’d spare me if I crossed them.

  I found Curtis at the fourth-floor soda machine clunking quarters through the slot. He said he’d already been down to Sotheby’s and had talked to the specialists for the sale and it all looked pretty legit. He’d said as much to Battinger, so I needn’t worry. She was planning to run a short follow, and they’d be happy to have my assist.

  While he stood sipping his A&W, I told him why I did need to worry—why he did too. I reprised all I’d told Rood, but I did it faster now that I’d rehearsed it once already. His eyes were wide when he put down the can. “Battinger’s not going to like this. I’ve already convinced her the sale is on the level.”

  “That’s why we need to get everything lined up just right.”

  Curtis and I took the back stairs out of the fortress. The first stop was Hell Gate Bridge, the site of Stain’s last graffiti stand, the bridge that connected North Queens to the South Bronx. It all seemed so obvious to me now. If Cabeza wanted to get to Wallace, Hell Gate was the shortest distance between two points. We hailed a cab to Astoria, and asked the cabbie to drive under the Amtrak Bridge until we could find a place where it was easy to get onto the rails. As we climbed onto the span, Curtis said, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter.” I felt a tingle run up my spine from my hips to my shoulders. Someone could be watching. Cabeza or Jeremiah could be anywhere. They could make sure I slipped.

  I tried to focus on the graffiti: Hager, Sane, Tyre, KiK, Tnx, Son, a new name every foot or two. But we were looking for only one name, and a few steps past the landline, we found it. A throw-up, the same signature he’d painted when he was sixteen, just like the one he’d demonstrated in Cabeza’s flick, outlined in purple, filled with baby blue: STAIN. It looked fresh. The paint was still sticky and it hadn’t been buffed. I saw another, just about a yard ahead, and went to that, then another, another yard ahead. It was like following breadcrumbs out of the woods.

  “When I was growing up, this bridge was supposed to be the scariest place on earth,” Curtis said, following close behind. “You always heard ghost stories. Kids said they saw lights for trains that never came or else trains full of ghosts. A homeless guy who lived under the bridge who’d snatch kids. Mafiosos dumping bodies. I knew guys who tagged up here in the seventies. Let me tell you, they had cojones.”

  We continued along the span, finding another STAIN and then another, all purple outline filled in baby blue. There were just as many on the inside of the bridge as on its outer face. Wallace seemed to have hopped out onto the ledge to burn his throwie where drivers on the Triborough Bridge would see. About a hundred yards out over the center of the river, we found an unfinished signature: an outline “STA” but the
fill-in wasn’t done. The I started but stopped short, got haphazard, and disappeared off the wall.

  The sight was chilling. He’d painted here; that was clear. But he didn’t finish.

  “He could’ve decided to stop,” Curtis said, reading the thoughts on my face. “Or he could’ve lost his footing. This doesn’t mean murder.”

  I reached out over to the ledge, asking Curtis to hold tight to my wrist. I felt around blind on the base of the ledge, and when my hand came back, it was covered in something shiny and black. “Tar?” said Curtis.

  I recognized the scent from my father’s motorcycle shop. It was a smell you never forgot. I held my hand out to him. “Axle grease,” I said.

  Stepping back over the ledge, I dialed Betty Schlachter’s emergency weekend number on my cell. I told her The Paper had some new news on the Wallace case. Since we’d helped find and deliver Kamal, she was nicer to me this time, but not by a whole lot. I told her we had physical evidence that Wallace had been murdered and it wasn’t a gang beef or anything to do with Darla. There was no dial tone this time.

  A half hour later, a handsome young assistant district attorney named Mark Detain was eating burgers with Curtis and me at the Neptune Diner near the base of Hell Gate. I asked for mine without onions. I told Detain that I wouldn’t give him anything until he promised to get an officer out to a certain warehouse near the Steinway factory pronto. I also said that we needed a guarantee of on-the-record confirms from the DA’s office if he found our findings to be correct. No less. No anonymous quotes; no “department spokesperson says…” No compromise.

  He agreed and I started talking again. After I talked, I took him to see Stain’s last tags and the axle grease. He called the Queens precinct to send out a squad. Then he joined us on a trip downtown to Chelsea, to visit Ms. Deitrick.

  The defaced white paintings had been taken off the walls at Darla Deitrick Fine Art and all that was left was the outline of the frames where the spray painting had gone outside the lines. There were long ribbons of yellow police tape on the floor. I left Detain and Curtis to admire the new minimalism, while I went to find Darla. She was in the back room, behind the sliding glass door, sitting in front of a mound of papers I figured for insurance documents. Blondie was behind her, standing stiffly in a blue Prada mod-cut suit, holding the “Pure” catalog.

  Blondie gasped. “Oh. My. Valerie. Vane,” he said.

  Darla’s eyebrow twitched fiercely when she looked up at me. “Interesting story you came up with. Too bad it didn’t answer any of the important questions, like who murdered Wallace. Made that culprit of yours look like a little saint. Thanks to you, my gallery has been swarming with federal investigators for days. They seem to think I burned down my own storage facility. I wonder why that is?”

  I took a long breath in. “I think we can get those investigators off your back rather quickly, Ms. Deitrick, if you’ll answer a few questions.”

  Darla picked up a handful of papers and shook them at me. “You going to take care of all of these too? That the power of the press?”

  “Ms. Deitrick, you and I both know I wasn’t responsible for what happened here, so let’s dispense with accusations. I promise not to get you arrested if you keep your copper friends off my back. How about that?”

  “I’m not in a bartering mood today,” she said. I had to like her for that.

  “You will be,” I said. “Once I fill you in.”

  “Talk, then,” she said.

  I spilled for the fourth time that day. When I was finished, I said, “I’m afraid we’ll need to see the records of the transactions between you and Jeremiah Golden.”

  She didn’t look terribly surprised, but she still resisted. “This will surely come as a surprise to you, Ms. Vane, since you seem to have a very low opinion of art dealers, but our business does follow a code of ethics and unfortunately Mr. Golden is still a private client of mine. My records are—”

  “Ms. Deitrick, Jeremiah was responsible for the fire at your warehouse. He was trying to frame you for murder. Does that change things?”

  “Jeremiah Golden? He had something to do with these graffiti kids?”

  “There was another man too, someone named Cabeza. He was the one who got the kids involved. The link should be all there in your own records. You’re lucky that Gideon here told me what he told me, about your second set of books. Those will be able to help clear you.”

  Darla stood up, knocking into Blondie, who reeled back and dropped the catalog. “Second set of books? Why I have no idea—”

  “Let’s save the theatrics for the courtroom, Ms. Deitrick. We’ll need you to testify against Mr. Golden. And don’t be mad at Blondie, here. Those books are going to clear you, and get these federal investigators out of your hair.”

  I called Curtis and Detain in from the gallery and made introductions. Detain told her everything all over again and made the same request for the books I had a few minutes earlier. If Darla could provide any support for a case against Jeremiah and Cabeza, he told her, he’d see to it that the feds would be waved off. That made her open up in a way she hadn’t since prep-school prom.

  “She’s lucky she has you,” I told Blondie as he followed us to the door. “Everyone should have such a loyal tattletale.”

  Blondie was still trying to piece together the puzzle. “Wait a minute, Valerie, your ex? Jeremiah bought Stain’s…? Did you know? Oh. My. Wait. It makes sense. He was so strapped—he was here all the—and he bought. I see. But, Valerie, doesn’t that make you—”

  I turned back to him and smiled. “Yep, it does make me. You’re not bad, Gideon. You were reading the signs all the wrong way, but at least you were reading the signs. We’ll need you to testify too.”

  Blondie beamed. “You mean I’ll be on the stand? In the trial of Jeremiah Golden?”

  “Should be plenty of press. Make sure you get a good headshot out.”

  On the way uptown to Jeremiah’s town house, I put in a call to Amenia. She told me Kamal was out on bail already. That was good news.

  “There’s something else that might make the judge go easier,” I said. “How well do you know a man named Cabeza?”

  Amenia paused. “Cabeza?” She thought about it for a while. “I dated him a long time ago. It was a big mistake. He had some kind of crazy thing about my brother. Like some kind of obsessed groupie. Does that man have something to do with this?”

  “We think he’s the key to it,” I said. “Can you put Kamal on the line?”

  Kamal’s voice was weak when he said hello. “Remember at the memorial you asked me if I liked that guy, Cabeza?” I said. “Did he put you up to this stunt?”

  Kamal was silent for a moment. “He told me when the guards would be off-duty.”

  I smiled into the phone. “Listen, Kamal, can you meet us down at the office today? We’re going to want a little more information from you.”

  I ordered a cup of coffee at Eat Here Now, a diner on Lexington Avenue across the street from Jeremiah’s town house, while Curtis went inside with Detain. Before I was done pouring my half-and-half, Curtis returned with the beginnings of a shiner as big as a grapefruit and a grin as wide as a barn. “He sends you his love,” Curtis said.

  “That’s the prettiest confession I ever saw,” said Rood, back at the office, when he saw Curtis’s face. Rood filled us in on what he’d told Battinger. We filled him in on our day’s expedition. There were two hours left before deadline. Curtis sat down to wait for Kamal and to type. I had something else to do.

  Rood walked me down to Battinger’s private office just off the hallway from the Metro bullpen, and opened the door. “You’ll be fine, Miss Vane. You’re a toughie,” he said, winking. “Call me when you’re done.”

  The office was tiny and devoid of adornments—not a single picture of a kid or a husband, not a knickknack from travels abroad, and whoever designed it had a special affinity for beige. Battinger was sitting behind a beige desk and Jaime was in a cheap-
looking beige seat.

  I dropped my letter onto Jane’s desk. She picked it up and read it over. It wasn’t very long. It expressed my appreciation for the opportunities I’d been given at The Paper. It said I thought it was more than I deserved. She didn’t seem surprised, since Rood must’ve told her pretty much everything, but she still looked angry. She handed the letter to Jaime.

  “So, what’s this supposed to be?” said Battinger. “Falling on your sword?”

  “It’s better for everyone concerned if I distance myself.”

  “Will you be giving us corrections for the story you wrote with Curtis?”

  “All the facts were correct in that story. They just didn’t go far enough to explain the truth.”

  “Did you put anything into that piece to help either Jeremiah Golden or this person, this Cabeza figure that was feeding you facts?”

  “No, I didn’t. I was looking at the picture. I didn’t see the frame.”

  Jaime let my resignation letter fall into his lap. “These are problems, Valerie. But it doesn’t sound like you intentionally damaged the integrity of the reporting. The story stands.”

  “That’s right. But the piece serves the wrong ends.”

  Jane stood up and so did Jaime. She shook my hand, and Jaime gave me a hug so tight I got a nose of Brylcreem. “You’ve been through a lot this week. Leave your stuff for now,” he said. “Come back once you’ve had a chance to sleep on it. Maybe there’s another way.”

  “Okay,” I said. “But I don’t think I’ll change my mind.”

  I went back to my desk. Just as I was about to push in my chair, the phone rang. “Obits,” I said. “Vane.”

  “This is un-fucking-believable material, Valerie,” Curtis said. “I wish you were writing it with me. We’re a good team, you and I.”

  “You’ll do great,” I said. “I don’t have any worries.”