by David Pepper
So a few seconds after the near miss, I again looked over my Stanton interview notes and jotted down the key points emerging from the conversation.
First, Young and Stanton confirmed that the congressman carried on a sexual relationship of some sort with Simpson.
Second, the phone number Kelly called before his death was clearly Stanton’s cellphone.
And third, while Stanton came close to pulling off reading the memo as if he hadn’t seen it before, he slipped up. When he so quickly stated that Simpson had not predicted all thirty-one districts correctly, it was clear he had reached that conclusion previously.
Then it dawned on me.
“Thirty-one districts,” I muttered the words to myself.
Stanton had been explicit.
Thirty-one districts!
My research uncovered thirty-five Abacus districts. But when reviewing Joanie Simpson’s memo, Stanton explicitly said the number thirty-one.
Why had I not noticed that her memo was four short?
My folder from the Stanton meeting rested on the passenger seat, and I reached over and grabbed the Simpson memo from it. I turned to the appendix and looked over it once more.
“Wow.”
The chart wasn’t numbered. Simpson simply listed one district after another, un-enumerated, for two pages. I had never bothered to count them up. Now that I did, one at a time, the total was indeed thirty-one. I counted through again just to confirm it.
I had watched him closely. The congressman’s quick glance through the Appendix did not give him enough time to count all the districts as I just had. There was only one way that the congressman knew that the memo listed thirty-one districts.
He had seen it before.
He had counted them before.
* * *
Dunkin’ Donuts coffee in hand, a dime-sized stain already on my shirt, I was planted at my desk the next morning by 7:45 a.m.
Anxious to confirm my theory from the previous evening, I pursued two big questions.
First, which four districts had Simpson overlooked in her research? A quick review showed that she failed to identify the two Abacus districts in Missouri and the two in Florida. And my own records showed why. Those four counties switched to Abacus after her death.
Next, I retrieved my prior research on Stanton. The first time around, I had found that Stanton had campaigned in thirty-four districts over the course of the election. Excluding the three districts that neighbored his own, thirty-one out of those thirty-four were Abacus districts.
Then I spent ten minutes comparing my prior research with the list in Simpson’s memo.
The congressman went to every district of Simpson’s thirty-one.
I then scoured every account I could find of the Florida and Missouri congressional races that took place in the Abacus districts—the ones Abacus secured after Simpson died.
And again, I found what I suspected. While a visit by the House minority whip would have inevitably drawn media coverage, not one newspaper described a visit by Stanton to any of the four districts.
The son of a bitch didn’t just have Simpson’s list. He used it as his campaign roadmap!
* * *
The call came in at 1:00 p.m.
“Sharpe, there’s a woman calling you from Washington. She said she met you yesterday, and that it’s critical she talk to you.”
That was fast. Janet Compton must have thought of something.
“Patch her through.”
The line rang, and I picked up.
“Janet, good to hear from you so quickly!” Although the meeting ended brusquely, I had enjoyed our conversation the day before.
“Hello?”
The voice was not Compton’s. It too was Southern, but thicker and far less confident. Wavering.
“Is this Mr. Sharpe?”
“It sure is. Who am I speaking to?”
“This is Arlene Brown. I am Congressman Stanton’s administrative assistant. I was sitting outside his office yesterday when you two met.”
I remembered her instantly, her facial expression in particular. She had looked uncomfortable as our meeting began, and downright miserable when it ended. If I read her correctly, this call presented an enormous opportunity.
“I remember you well. How can I help you?”
“I don’t have a lot of time. I’m on my lunch break away from the office. But I have some information I need to share with you involving some of what you talked about yesterday with the congressman.”
“Okay. And let me assure you, everything you tell me will be strictly confidential. I will protect you as a source.”
“Thank you. I can’t have anyone know I’m calling you. I’m worried about what’s going on. When’s a good time to call you after work?”
“Why don’t you try me at 6:00, at this same number?”
“I will. Thank you, Mr. Sharpe. I have to go.”
The phone clicked.
Her call brought risks and opportunity.
It could easily be a trap. If Stanton listened in on the call, he might discover what I knew, and where I was taking the story.
But all that was evident already.
On the other hand, to cultivate her as a source—the woman who sits right outside Stanton’s office every day—presented an enormous opportunity. And she struck me as authentic.
Definitely a risk worth taking.
I spent the rest of the afternoon digging further into the Energy 2020 angle, the years-long fight and the lead role Marcellus (and apparently Ariens) played in devising and pushing the pipeline plan.
Last year’s election outcome finally unleashed the strategy, so Marcellus and other energy companies no doubt celebrated the outcome. But would a company that had done so much good for the region go so far as to steal an election to further its goals?
Unless I could penetrate Marcellus more directly, there was not much more to learn. So I tracked down the corporate headquarters, located over the border. Titusville, Pennsylvania. Interesting choice.
I put in a call to the Marcellus offices. The chief public affairs officer was not in that day, so I left her a message.
* * *
“I’m not even sure where to start. There’s so much to say.”
Brown called at 6:00 on the nose, using her brother’s home phone. I had to strain to hear her halting voice.
“Well, start where you’re comfortable.”
“Okay. First, they know that you called his cell. I thought it looked like you were the one calling as you walked past my desk, but didn’t say anything. Twenty minutes later, the congressman asked me where the area code was from. So when I found it was Youngstown, they knew.”
I knew they would figure it out. Could’ve used a burner phone, but the truth was, I didn’t care.
“I thought they would know, so I’m not too worried about that. But thanks for letting me know.”
“How did you get that number anyway?”
Why was she asking questions? Maybe this was a trap after all.
I paused for a few seconds, not wanting to give anything away.
Thankfully, Brown interrupted the silence.
“The reason I ask is that’s his private cell phone. Almost no one has that number but family and staff. He was amazed you had it, and so was I.”
“Let’s just say I found it somewhere it shouldn’t have been,” I said.
“Fair enough. Well, what I wanted to tell you was that I was the one who took the call from Congressman Kelly that you asked about.”
“Which call?”
“I overheard you say to the congressman that Congressman Kelly called this office the morning that he died. I’m the one who took that call. Congressman Stanton was not in, and Mr. Kelly and I talked for about ten minutes. He was always t
he nicest man. Given that he died that day, I’ve been haunted knowing that I was one of the last people he ever talked to.”
“Do you remember what you talked about?”
“Yes. We caught up a little bit on his life and mine, and then I told him the congressman was not in. He mentioned he was in Philadelphia that day and wondered if Congressman Stanton happened to be there too. That he felt bad that things had gotten so nasty in the campaign, and hoped to patch things up.”
“And?”
“The congressman was in the Philly office, so I encouraged him to call him and get together. He said he planned to. And ever since, and maybe I’m getting paranoid, I’ve worried that my advice cost him his life.”
Indeed, it may have, but I kept that to myself.
“Of course you didn’t, Ms. Brown. That was just a tragic accident.”
“Seems a lot fishier than that now.”
“I guess it does. Did you happen to give him the number to call?”
“No. I asked him if he needed Congressman Stanton’s number, and he responded that he already had his cell phone.”
“Did you talk about anything else?”
“No, we didn’t. He just wished me luck, and I did the same.”
“Did you tell the congressman about your conversation with Congressman Kelly? Did he know he was in Philly?”
“I emailed our office director right away that the congressman should be expecting Kelly’s call.”
This was crucial information from an incredibly well-placed source. Probably all she called to tell me, but I desperately wanted to keep her on the line.
“Ms. Brown, I’d like to ask you another question if I could.”
“Yes?”
“And it’s not an easy one.”
She paused for a few seconds. “Is it about Joanie?”
“Yes, it is.”
Silence on the other end.
“Did you know?”
I could hear a quiet sniffle on the other end of the phone.
“Ms. Brown?”
“Of course I knew.” She said it with anger in her voice, although I sensed it was directed more back at herself than at me.
“Half the people in the office knew. Not about Joanie in particular, but that Congressman Stanton harassed, or worse, many young female aides over the years. But no one was torn apart by it more than me. I’m the one who had to witness these young ladies go into his office, then watch that damn door close, and then watch them come out twenty minutes looking lost, in pain. I thought I’d get numb to it but never did. It was awful.
“And whenever they stopped going into that office, something else happened. Maybe worse. Because those women kept wearing that lost expression, the one I would see as they left his office, until they no longer worked there.”
Her anger evolved into a sob.
“I think when they stopped coming into his office, he had them come over to his townhome. He called them from that secret cell phone you dialed, and then his security team would pick them up and drive them there. That’s what the rumor was.”
“Terrible. And why didn’t . . .”
“Why didn’t I do anything about it?” The anger returned.
“Mr. Sharpe, I grew up in abject poverty in Alabama. As a little girl, I was one of the first African Americans in a white public school, and then my family moved to Philadelphia. I worked my way through secretarial school waiting tables and cleaning homes. And then I made it all the way to Capitol Hill. My husband passed a decade ago, and I still raised two great kids thanks to this career. Congressman Stanton knows I can’t give all this up. And he’s right . . . I can’t.”
“I think he purposefully selects young women, like Joanie, who face the same pressures I did. Ones unwilling to step off the path to power they think they are on. And willing, in the end, to pay the price he makes them pay to stay on it.”
“Is it still happening?”
“I don’t know. Joanie’s murder scared him. That he might be discovered. In the weeks that followed her death, he and Don were in a panic, clearly worried his womanizing would finally catch up to him. That’s when he put his ridiculous family photos back on his desk. They hadn’t been there in years.
“So, no, there are no longer encounters. At least in the office. Who knows what he does late at night? Only his driver would know that. None of us know him well.”
I tried to keep her talking without scaring her off the phone.
“Did you think her death was suspicious?”
“Joanie’s? I never did. Muggings happen in Rock Creek Park. Lord knows good people die every day in Washington, but the big shots never care. But this recent stuff, and Stanton’s frantic behavior, make me think maybe Peter’s been right all along.”
“Who’s Peter?”
“Peter Kreutzer. He was dating Joanie when she died.”
“She had a boyfriend?” I asked, nearly yelling into the phone. A boyfriend hadn’t been mentioned anywhere.
“Well, they had been close friends for a while, and then it turned into something more, but they hid it from almost everyone. But I could tell. They had such a crush on one another. It was special. He was a legislative aide for Congressman Jackson, the next office over. I would talk to him about her when he stopped in. So smitten.”
“Why would they hide . . . ?”
She interrupted my impending question but didn’t need to. I already knew the answer.
“Given the situation, of course they did. She clearly didn’t want the congressman to find out. Who knows how he might react? And I think she held Peter back from getting too close because she didn’t want to explain why she was not available certain nights.”
Awful.
“So Peter didn’t believe it was a mugging?”
“From the day the police identified Rutherford as the murderer, he insisted it didn’t happen the way the police said it did. That someone else did it, and not as a mugging. People dismissed him, so he stopped talking about it. He’s a highly respected staffer.”
“Do you think I could talk to him about it?”
“He finally seems to have moved on, but maybe. He now works for Senator Lewis of Indiana.”
Jotted down both names for follow-up.
“Ms. Brown, I have one more question for you?”
“Yes.”
“Do you remember any interaction Mr. Stanton had with the company Abacus, the one I have written about?”
“I don’t. I’m not his scheduler, so I wouldn’t be aware of visits he made because I didn’t set them up. But after your story, I went back to his electronic calendar over the last few years. I never found anything on it regarding that company.”
“Could they have erased it from the system?”
“Of course. Or they may have never put it on that calendar in the first place.”
“Who is his scheduler? Would she talk to me?”
“Sadly, she died about a year ago. Horrible skin cancer. She was gone about five weeks after they discovered it. Only forty-five years old.”
“How sad. Ms. Brown, you’ve been an incredible help. I cannot thank you enough for calling, and for your honesty tonight.”
“I’m glad. I know it was terrible I didn’t stand up for Joanie when she was alive. I will never forgive myself.”
I said nothing back. As helpful as she’d been, I couldn’t forgive her either.
Chapter 43
LONDON: 156 days after the election
“On znaet?” Kazarov asked in his native tongue. “Does he know we are following him?”
Boris Kondrakov, Kazarov’s chief of security, answered. Also in Russian. “He knows someone is following him. We have not tried to hide that. He has known for days. But he doesn’t know who is following him.”
“And what does he know?”
“He knows about Stanton. That is clear. And he is bold. He went directly to his office to confront him, driving six hours to do so. I like him for that alone.”
“So why are we meeting?”
“Because he is now digging into Marcellus.”
Kazarov took a few moments to let that sink in. Disappointing. He thought they had sufficiently hidden his enterprise’s involvement.
“And how do you know this?”
“He visited Mr. Ariens’ office. He spent at least thirty minutes there. The next day, he put in a call to Marcellus headquarters, wanting to talk to our public affairs person there. Left a message.”
“Have we called back yet?”
“Not yet.”
“We should. Let’s learn what he knows, and what he wants to know. And to be prepared, let’s find out more about him as well.”
Chapter 44
YOUNGSTOWN: 157 days after the election
How to approach Kreutzer?
Calling into a senator’s office unexpectedly posed risks, especially now that Republican officeholders detested me. And Indiana’s Senator Lewis was as rock-ribbed as they came.
So instead of calling, I logged onto my Facebook page. It had worked once before, why not try it again? I returned to Simpson’s page and re-scrolled through pages of posts and messages.
There was one simple post from a Peter Kreutzer, five days after her death: “Joanie, you will always be with me. I miss you every moment. I will fight for you. Heartbroken, Peter”
An assortment of photos of the two together appeared over the prior four months, but they were always surrounded by others. If they were romantically involved, they certainly didn’t let on in public.
Unlike Joanie Simpson’s, Kreutzer’s page blocked access to anyone who was not a “friend,” so there was little more to learn about the young man.
So I hit the “message” button and typed a few brief sentences. There was no way to sugarcoat why I was reaching out.