According to Mr. Darin and, as yet, several unidentified but highly placed sources, the Senator can be implicated in numerous such instances of graft and corruption, including an extortion scheme victimizing the recently deceased CEO of Magnus Media Corporation, Vance Magnus. There is no clear evidence at this point whether Mr. Magnus’s accidental death three weeks ago in East Hampton is any way connected with Senator Haas’s alleged criminal activities.
Pending his hearing at the Manhattan Federal District Court, Senator Haas is being held without bail in an undisclosed location in Manhattan. A spokesperson for the Senator, Ms. Rita Kirbie, said, “He’s devastated by these accusations, an absolutely broken man. Hardest for him to bear is the news that people he thought his friends, even his closest aides, have turned against him in this very dark hour.”
Cassie and Jason watched the news together that night, holding hands over the guardrail of Cassie’s hospital bed.
“You’re not watching,” Cassie objected, glancing at her companion during an analysis of the Haas scandal and seeing that he was studying her intently. He looked years younger than he had the night before, relaxed, and—if the word could ever be applied to Jason Darin—content.
“Yes, I am,” he said, smiling.
“Should we turn this off?”
“No. I have a feeling I’m going to have to get used to having a television blaring in the background for the rest of my life.”
“Why is that?”
“Because I want to spend it with you. And I think television is going to come with the territory.”
“You’re sure? About me, about us?”
He kissed her before she could go on, and then murmured in her ear as he reached into his back pants pocket: “Would a man who wasn’t certain carry a ring around with him for half a year? Tell me, Cassie Hartley, have I waited long enough?”
Thirty-eight
It was, as Miranda had predicted it would be, one of the biggest stories of the year. Its many tantalizing ingredients—greed, sex, the abuses of power, murder, a cover-up—kept Americans across the country rapt in front of their television sets night after night as the Haas trial unfolded on the evening news broadcasts. Like Watergate before it, the investigation led its audience through the shadowy corridors of power and behind the closed doors where the most important deals—in this case primarily illegal—were really cut. Jason testified, and, as expected, Geoffrey Mellon and two other Haas aides turned state’s evidence. The outrage both among Senator Haas’s long-time constituents and voters in general was phenomenal. Many felt that the high turnover in congressional and senatorial seats that November election was due to a throw-the-bums-out attitude prompted by the Haas trial.
The Senator himself, looking indeed like the broken man Rita Kirbie had described, went through a violent withdrawal from alcohol addiction shortly after being arrested and had to be transferred to a special hospital for several weeks of treatment. Haas emerged from the rehabilitation program a “new man,” according to his highly paid team of lawyers. He had found God and A.A. He repented his many sins. Every day of the trial he carried a worn Bible with him into the courtroom. Frequently, when the flow of testimony grew turgid, the television cameras would zoom in for a close-up of the Senator, brow furled, deeply engrossed in the Book of Job.
Of all the many hours of regular news coverage and special investigative reports on the Haas trial, the one that drew the most interest—chalking up the highest ratings of any single television news program in history—was the hour-long Breaking News special hosted by Cassie Hartley and produced by Sheila Thomas two months after the Haas story first broke.
Cutting back and forth between the footage taped during Cassie’s and her initial interviews with Haas and coverage of his arrest after the sting operation and the subsequent hearing, Sheila Thomas pieced together a brilliant study in contrasts: what the Senator said as opposed to what he was actually doing. One of the high points came when, after five minutes of excerpts from Haas’s lugubriously delivered speeches about “justice, honesty, and returning the power to the people,” the blurred videotape from the sting operation was played in its entirety.
But the show’s main draw, indisputably, was Cassie Hartley herself. When the news hit of her role in the downfall of Senator Haas, every media organization in the country wanted a piece of her. She herself became part of the story. Pale and composed, a little thin from her weeks in the hospital, she handled all the questions and interviews with an intelligence and compassion that impressed even her most cynical fellow journalists. It became clear immediately that she was not interested in the notoriety, except to the degree that it helped her get the truth out. In fact, she disliked the notoriety, though she had little choice. People and New York magazines fought over her for their covers. Oprah and Donahue each wanted her first—and, of course, exclusively. Magnus Media’s public relations department went into overdrive to handle all the requests and scheduling details.
“You’re the hottest thing since Schwarzkopf,” Mac kidded her during a meeting with the newly formed board of directors. She and Sheila had been called into the weekly board meeting the Friday after their Haas piece aired.
“We want to tell you how grateful we all are,” Leon Myers, the recently named new president of the corporation, told her. Leon, like Mac, was a veteran of Magnus Media, someone who had come up through the accounting ranks, whose loyalties were first and foremost to the corporation. And though that loyalty had been severely shaken by the news of Vance Magnus’s deeply flawed reign, Magnus Media had become too big and powerful a company to be destroyed by one man. Leon, Mac, and a cadre of middle and top management had for many years constituted the true heart of the company—one determined to beat on.
“You and Sheila have given us a terrific morale boost at a time when we desperately needed one,” Leon added.
“Okay,” Sheila responded quickly. “So what can we expect by way of gratitude?”
“Whatever you want, actually,” Leon said. “We know you’re both being courted by other networks. Obviously we don’t want you to leave.”
“I’ll rephrase that,” Mac said. “You’re not going to leave. So let’s get you both good agents and start hammering out a deal we can all live with.”
“We’ve got to get some new stories into production, and I mean immediately,” Sheila went on excitedly. “But our kind of stories: tough investigative stuff. No more puff pieces.”
“I don’t think I’ll be able to go ahead with any of this,” Cassie announced quietly, though her words had the same effect as a bomb going off in the middle of the executive conference room.
“Cassie—don’t worry—we’ll work out terrific terms for you,” Mac said.
“Whatever you want. Just name it,” Leon added quickly.
“What the hell do you mean?” Sheila demanded, turning on her friend. “You can’t go ahead? I thought you and I agreed to leave the party with the guys we came in with?”
It was true that when the offers from other networks and news organizations started overloading Cassie’s and Sheila’s message machines, they’d sat down and decided that they wanted to stay together—and at Magnus.
“I don’t know, I feel like the damn place needs us,” Sheila had said. “This is where I got my big break. I know this is weird, but I feel like I owe people here.”
“I feel the same way,” Cassie agreed at the time. But job offers and career considerations were not the only decisions on Cassie’s mind. If anything, they were the last. As the board of directors and Sheila glared at her, Cassie decided that the only way she could diffuse the anger in the room was to tell the truth.
“We were keeping it a secret because of all the press coverage, but I have a feeling you won’t forgive me if you hear it first from the Daily News.” Cassie was talking to Sheila only, her smile pleading for understanding. “Jason and I are going to get married next week.”
&nbs
p; Sheila, who prided herself on her urban cool, shrieked with teenaged abandonment.
“Next week? Where? How? Like … when did all this happen?”
“That’s great, Cassie,” Mac said, extending his hand. “Congratulations.” It was Leon who first considered Cassie’s announcement in light of Magnus Media.
“Is that why you were worried about accepting the Breaking News job?” When she nodded, he went on happily, “Well, don’t think twice about it, we’ll work around your schedule. Just as long as you intend to come back to Magnus. Take whatever time you need.”
It was a statement he would begin to regret three weeks later when the only communication they had received from their new media megastar was by way of a postcard sent to Sheila, postmarked from some obscure Greek island that Sheila was unable to locate on any map.
“‘The sun shines every day. The water is wonderfully clear. Nobody here’s ever heard of Anthony Haas. And because of Heather, we’re taken for a normal—though perhaps unusually happy—little family. Which is all I’ve ever wanted in the world. Love, Cassie.’”
“Come to bed, Mrs. Darin,” Jason said, watching his wife at the open window, the moonlight outlining the tall, slender figure against the light cotton nightgown.
“I will in a second. I was just thinking about Miranda. She would have loved it here. Surrounded by the sea.”
They could talk about her now, and they often did, with warmth and sadness and something akin to nostalgia. Miranda, with all her faults, had brought them together, and a part of Cassie believed that Miranda would be pleased for them now if she knew how happy they were together.
“Yes, she would have,” Jason said, climbing out of bed to stand beside Cassie. The moonlight cut a glittering swath across the water. He put his arm around her waist and pulled her close.
“She was such a good swimmer—fearless, strong,” Cassie said.
“She told me once,” Jason added, kissing Cassie’s hair, “that if she could live her life over again she would have chosen to become a swimmer, maybe tried out for the Olympics. She didn’t, though, because she was afraid she wasn’t quite good enough.”
“Oh, she would have been good enough. She was always the best at anything she chose to do.”
“Not everything,” Jason said, leaning over to kiss his wife, with nothing between them now except love.
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