by David Pepper
“You’re not at all curious about finding out if this really happened?”
“I know that it didn’t. We worked our ass off in that election, and that’s why we won. The people wanted new leadership. This is fantasy.”
“But she wrote this before you worked your ass off, Tom. You campaigned in all of these districts. And she predicted the election results exactly.”
Loved using his first name, knowing this was not a moment where he could correct me.
“No, she didn’t. Not exactly.”
He had slipped. Stated the words too quickly, too casually, too knowingly. This was something he had thought before.
“Excuse me?”
“A lot of the Abacus districts from your story did not go the Republicans’ way. That’s been covered ad nauseum.”
A quick cover for his mistake, but not good enough to undo the damage.
“Did you have a chance to look at the appendix?”
“Yes, I looked at it.” I had watched closely—he had only glanced at it for a few seconds. Not enough time to take it all in.
The congressman turned to it again.
“You see, of her thirty-one districts, Democrats won a number of them. Tucker held on in Ohio. Brewer in California. And so on. Your Abacus theory is not right, and Joanie did not get it right in this memo.”
“If she had brought this to you, how would you have responded?”
“I would have worked to verify it. If I thought it was true, I would do what needed to be done to stop it.”
I turned to Young, trying to catch him off guard.
“Could we look to see if this critical memo is still in your system? That would confirm what the congressman is saying.”
“It’s not there,” Young said, too quickly, almost choking on his words.
“What? How do you know?”
“Our staff, of course, reviewed all of Joanie’s files, and then we divvied up her work among others. If anything like this had shown up, we would have known.”
“You don’t think intentionally looking for it now would make sense? To back up what the congressman is saying?”
“There’s no file to look through now. We basically dispersed all the documents to others. I would know if something like this showed up.”
“So there were never any Abacus-related documents here?”
“Only if she kept them on her person. Never found anything like that.”
I turned back toward Stanton.
“So you’ve never seen this memo?”
“Not before today.”
Time to move on.
“Congressman, I want to talk again about your old friend Kelly.”
“Jesus, Sharpe. Haven’t we talked enough? I’ve got votes to get to.”
“It’s your choice. The Simpson sex scandal and now this memo would be a bombshell.”
Stanton shook his head, slumping a little further into his chair. I had all the leverage.
“When was the last time you and he talked?”
“A few weeks before the election. He called me whining about my campaigning in his district.”
“You never talked to him again?”
“I didn’t.”
“Did you hear from him again?”
“Nope.”
“As you know, the day of his crash, he drove to and from Philadelphia because he too had stumbled across the Abacus plot.”
“I knew he was driving back from Philly when he crashed. That’s it.”
“We tracked down his phone records from the day he died. Guess what we found? He had a ten-minute call with a 202 number as he drove to Philly in the morning. We tracked the number to this office. Can you explain why he called this office the morning he died?”
Stanton glanced at Young, looking for a life preserver to be tossed his way.
“I have no idea. All I know is that I didn’t talk to him. I wasn’t even here, as I recall. Don, did you?”
“I didn’t.”
“Where were you, Congressman?”
“As I remember, I was in our Philly office that day.”
That admission came a lot easier than I expected.
“That brings me to my final question.”
“Thank God,” Stanton said, his most honest moment of the meeting.
I reached into my folder and slapped the two photos on the desk.
“Here is Kelly’s car parked right next to your Society Hill townhouse, on the day he died. Do you still deny seeing him that afternoon? Why else would he be there?”
Stanton stared wide-eyed at the photographs, looking more frazzled than at any time in the interview.
“I don’t know his car, but, obviously, that’s my townhouse. All I can tell you is that I never saw him, or saw him parked there.”
“That’s his car. You can even make out the Ohio plates. And you never heard from him? Met with him?”
“Sure didn’t.”
“Thanks for your time, Congressman. As we put together another story on Abacus, I will be sure to call you for an on-the-record reaction.”
“And the other stuff?”
“I will write nothing about the affair—I mean the abuse. Although I am sickened by it and this entire office.” I shot Young a nasty look as I said this. He had allowed it to happen.
The truth is, there wasn’t enough evidence of the relationship to write about it anyway.
“It might help your cause if you kept my family and personal stuff out of this as well. My trigger finger on scandalous stories gets real itchy when people go after me.”
“You’ll see nothing else. I swear.”
“Good. By the way, good luck in your presidential run. I guess I’ll see you in Ohio.”
I began to gather my things, but one more step remained. The most important one.
I stood up and nodded at Stanton. No handshake. I then turned around and walked toward the door. Young trailed a few feet behind.
Before reaching the door, I casually reached down in my pocket and retrieved my phone, as if I was checking my messages. But that’s not what I was doing. While waiting outside, I had pre-dialed into my phone the 215 phone number from Jody Kelly—the final number Lee Kelly had ever called. It was still displayed now.
As I left Stanton’s office, I pushed the phone’s “call” button and simultaneously muted the volume of my receiver. The phone rang the mystery number, flashing the words “Calling Mobile” on my screen.
As his assistant stared up at me, I heard exactly the noise I hoped to—consecutive bursts of vibrations against the wood of Stanton’s desk. A cell phone ringing.
A moment later, I could hear Stanton through the door.
“Hello, Tom Stanton speaking. . . . Hello. . . . Hello?”
My phone began counting seconds.
:01 . . . :02 . . . :03 . . . :04 . . .
“Damn it. Who the hell . . .”
Young closed the office door behind me.
The words “Call Ended” flashed on my phone as I exited the suite.
* * *
“What a complete asshole!” Stanton said to Young a few minutes after Sharpe left the office.
“Unbelievable,” Young responded.
“What are we going to do about the guy?”
“What do you have in mind?”
“Well, we can’t just allow him to walk around spewing this stuff. He’s gonna start a firestorm.”
“It’s such nonsense, it will only make him look like a fool.”
“Listen!” Stanton interrupted, furious. “We cannot let him spread this bullshit. The last thing we need is to have our name associated with this scandal.”
“Not sure what we should do.”
“That’s what I fucking pay you for! Do something.”
He paused for a few seconds and then yelled toward the closed door.
“Arlene!”
A three-second wait.
“Arlene!”
The door quickly opened, and his assistant leaned her head in. “Yes?”
“That dropped call came from an area code 330. Can you see where that’s from?”
“Yes, Congressman.”
Her head disappeared back behind the door. Stanton and Young waited for about a minute. They heard her type a few keys on her keyboard, then she reappeared.
“It looks like it’s Youngstown, Akron and Canton, Ohio, sir.”
The words sunk in for about three seconds.
“That son of a bitch! No one has that number. How the fuck did he get it?”
* * *
The name was the first listed on the directory at 1801 K St.: the Ariens Group. Stanton’s early availability left me extra time for a bonus visit before heading home.
The elevator took me to the tenth floor, home of the priciest lobbying shop in Washington. But for all the hype about Ariens and his high-powered clients, it was a modest office. Modern and professional but not extravagant.
“I’m a reporter from Ohio. My name is Jack Sharpe, and I was hoping to talk to Janet Compton.” Quick research had shown that Compton took over the firm after Ariens died.
“Let me see if she’s available,” the young intern manning the front desk responded.
A few minutes later, a heavyset woman in her mid-fifties, her dark hair pulled back in a tight bun, bounded down the hallway and reached out to shake my hand.
“The famous Mr. Sharpe!” she said, echoing her predecessor’s New Orleans drawl. “I’m Janet Compton. Welcome to the Ariens Group. I hope you’re not accusing us of stealing that election!”
Compton laughed as she said it.
“Only a strong suspicion. Here to confirm it.”
“For what it’s worth, I thought you held your own against Turner the other night. She had you by the balls, set you up, but you were good. I was impressed.”
“I appreciate that.” And I did. “Can you write a note to my less-than-enthusiastic bosses saying that?”
Compton walked me toward a conference room a few yards down a hallway. It was essentially a shrine to the firm’s late founder. Photos of Oliver Ariens stared out from all four walls. With presidents, senators, foreign leaders. And one prominent photo with his old friend, classmate, and roommate Tom Stanton, looking a lot happier than he did twenty minutes ago. A mantle at the back of the room displayed numerous awards and honors to Ariens from a wide variety of industry groups.
We sat down.
“Seriously, how can I help you?”
Her charm and good manners provided a refreshing break from the tense Stanton conversation.
“I was in D.C. interviewing some others to follow up on my story and thought I’d stop by. Can I speak confidentially with you?”
“Mum’s the word,” she replied.
That was almost certainly not the case.
“Mr. Ariens was uniquely positioned in Washington, D.C. If someone were out to try to rig last year’s election, he likely would know one or more of the players, and perhaps some of the plan’s biggest beneficiaries.”
Compton’s smile disappeared. Her tone wasn’t angry, but firm.
“Mr. Sharpe, I know you are doing your job. A core Ariens principle is that we respect and work with the media so you can do your job. But as you can tell from these walls, we hold Mr. Ariens in great esteem around here. He was a wonderful man, a generous man, with a deep sense of right and wrong. That is what guided him through ethically challenging situations over the years.”
I edged slightly forward in my chair, planning to respond. But she continued, raising her voice ever so slightly, making it clear she did not intend to be interrupted.
“I can assure you if Mr. Ariens had any notion that something inappropriate was taking place, he would say something, and then work to stop it.”
“Do you think that’s what he did?”
Compton paused.
“Mr. Sharpe, I have no reason to think he knew about the plot you have described.”
Then came the biggie.
“I ask all this because he was close to people who I have come to believe knew about the plot. And I have found that most who discovered the plot, at least those who were not the ones perpetrating it, ended up dead.”
Compton took a moment to gather her thoughts.
“Mr. Sharpe, I feel like we are verging on unhealthy conspiracy theory here. Mr. Ariens was a large man who lived a large life. Up until his final day, he worked eighteen hours a day, smoked too much, and drank more than he should. He traveled more than anyone I have ever known—hell, he flew to and from London in his final twenty-four hours on this Earth. So his death was tragic, but no one, including his doctor, suggested anything but an honest-to-goodness heart attack.”
I pushed a little further, perhaps one step too far.
“Let me provide an example. I know you guys have represented Diebold for a long time. Certainly they would have the expertise on . . .”
“Mr. Sharpe, let me stop you. I will not discuss client relationships, let alone accusations against our clients.”
“Understood. You’ve been very gracious.” I was wearing out my welcome, and she glanced at her watch to confirm it. “If anything occurs to you along the lines we’ve discussed, please let me know.”
“I will do so,” she said.
I passed her my business card, a step she did not reciprocate.
As we stood up and walked out of the conference room, we faced a second set of memorabilia adorning the hallway wall. A trail of framed newspaper and industry journal covers, describing major Ariens legislative achievements, guided us back to the front desk.
“Industry-Led Water Initiative Sails Through Senate.”
“National Parks Drilling Gets Green Light.”
“Airlines Celebrate Reduced Restrictions”
Only a Washington lobbyist would display such ignoble headlines with pride.
As the wall ended at the front lobby, the last three framed newspapers touted each successful step of the firm’s most recent and high-profile achievement.
New York Times: “After Three Years, Energy 2020 Passes House.”
Washington Post: “Senate Clears Energy 2020; Pipeline Plan Awaits Presidential Signature.”
Wall Street Journal: “President Signs Energy 2020 Legislation.”
The irony.
In the public domain, lobbying firms do all they can to keep their clients and key projects a secret. But show up at their office, where they’re trying to impress potential clients, and they helpfully plaster the evidence of their handiwork all over their walls.
* * *
Even though the occupants of the District leave a lot to be desired, the architecture of official Washington will take your breath away. Always does mine. So only a few blocks away, the White House beckoned me before heading home.
On the way, I mulled over Ariens’ office. Ariens did not simply count Marcellus as a client; he had played a major role in the high-profile Energy 2020 push. No issue hung in the balance more in the previous election than this one, and Stanton actively promoted it in the fall campaign. Could this have been the motivation for the Abacus plan? Old friends Stanton and Ariens working together to get the pipelines built? It was my best theory so far.
I reached 16th and Pennsylvania and walked along the tall White House gate for about seventy-five yards. At the dead center of the White House, I turned toward the stunning façade and stared in silence for a few minutes. For a moment, my boyhood idealism about American politics returned.
After getting my fix, I turned around to look at Lafayette Square, the historic park directly across
the street. Apparently, I pivoted quickly. Thirty yards away, standing by a tree in the Square, a slender, dark-haired man in a brown suit was looking directly at me while talking on a cell phone, and then quickly looked away.
The man’s furtive movement was too obvious to miss. I pretended not to notice, staring straight ahead into the Square. Thirty seconds later, I started walking back to K St.
I reached the garage in ten minutes and entered the elevator. Having parked on the fifth floor, I pushed the button for five, but also pressed three as well. As the third bell rang on the way up, the elevator stopped, the door opened, and I stepped out. The door closed behind me and continued up to five.
I walked to the far corner of the garage. Anyone intending to follow me would wait for me on the street, either behind or across from the garage’s exit. So from three floors up, I glanced over and looked for someone positioned accordingly.
And there he was. The slender man paced back and forth at the far sidewalk near 21st Street—again on his cellphone, but for only a moment. The man stopped for about ten seconds, calmly stood at the sidewalk’s edge, and then turned his head to the left as traffic approached. Five seconds later, a vehicle pulled up beside him, the man opened the passenger door and hopped into the car.
I watched as the vehicle pulled a U-turn and idled about 100 feet behind the garage’s exit. But more than its illegal traffic maneuver, the far more important data point was that the vehicle was the same dark Suburban that had followed me around Youngstown for a few days.
While I was belting out the lyrics of “Take It Easy” and “Margaritaville” in the dark, the Suburban had trailed me all the way to Washington.
Stanton really was relentless.
But then it dawned on me. This wasn’t Stanton’s doing. At the morning meeting, Stanton and Young had been caught off guard. They had no idea I was paying them a visit. They weren’t the ones having me tailed.
And if they weren’t, then who the hell was?
* * *
I looked up as soon as I heard it. The deep, long blaring of a truck’s horn, clearly intended for my ears. I swerved back onto my side of the road just in time to avoid the oncoming semi.
Long before texting came along, I had mastered the prehistoric version of distracted driving—steering with my left hand while using my right to leaf through my reporter’s notebook, occasionally scribbling down a note or two. Despite the occasional close call, it was still better than letting vivid interview details fade as the hours passed.