Eyes of the Innocent

by Brad Parks

  With that decided, I started driving back toward the office and thinking about the best way to approach the Newark police with my newfound knowledge. I put in a call to Rodney Pritchard, who answered on the fourth ring.

  “Pritch, I need a favor,” I said.

  “Don’t you always,” he replied.

  “Yeah, but this time I might actually have something to offer in return. That fellow who caught the Byers case, you said his name was Raines?”

  “Yeah?”

  “I need a sit-down with him. The sooner the better.”

  “I told you, man, he’s strictly by the book,” Pritch said. “He won’t talk to a reporter.”

  “Even if that reporter has a vital piece of information on the disappearance of Councilman Byers?”

  There was a brief moment of silence on the line.

  “You’re not playing me, are you?” Pritch said.

  “No, sir.”

  “Because if you’re playing me and you really don’t have anything, I swear to God I’ll throw you in a cell overnight and tell all the fellas in the lockup we found a Klan hood in your car.”

  “Pritch, trust me. Detective Raines is going to thank you for introducing me by the time this is over.”

  “He better,” Pritch said. “Let me call you back.”

  We hung up just as I pulled into the Eagle-Examiner parking garage. Once inside the building, I passed Szanto on his way to the three o’clock story meeting—which was basically like the eleven o’clock story meeting in its overall inefficiency, only by now the editors had eaten lunch. He flashed me a thumbs-up. Obviously, Sweet Thang’s Dad had gotten the message through to Brodie, who had eased off on Szanto.

  “Grrjb,” he graveled.

  Whatever that meant. I returned his thumbs-up and thought about stopping to inform him of the latest revelation about Windy Byers. But no. That would be a terrific blunder—blunderific, as it were. The last thing you want to do is give your editor a hot piece of information as he heads into a story meeting. Inevitably, he’ll share it with everyone at the meeting. And even though your story is only half-baked and not nearly ready to be put in the newspaper, every editor in the building will start running wild with it.

  The next thing you know you’re being pestered by a page designer who wants help with a graphic, a Web-head who would like a voice-over for a podcast, and a copy jock who wants to sneak a peek at the top of your story so she can start working on a headline. And when you try to explain to them the story might not even be true, they look at you like, “But the managing editor told me about this. It must be true.”

  So I kept walking. It’s one of the trump cards reporters always have: the editors only know what you choose to tell them.

  * * *

  My first thought upon walking into the newsroom was to find Tommy Hernandez so I could share the latest. Whereas you need to be careful with what you tell editors, it generally behooves you to speak freely with fellow reporters. They may have already learned something that can help your story. Or they might be able to take what you’ve learned and get it confirmed or denied with independent sources, which can be invaluable.

  Alas, Tommy wasn’t around. So I settled in at my desk and did a quick property records check to see who owned Akilah’s house. Sure enough, it wasn’t Akilah. Fairmount Avenue Partners LLC—no doubt a thinly veiled front for Windy Byers, who lived on Fairmount Avenue—had purchased the house from Rio Financial LLC for $360,000.

  I searched Rio Financial LLC in our business entity database and it led to a name I didn’t recognize with a P.O. box in Roseland, which was on the leafy side of the county. It sounded like the typical Newark developer—suburban guys dipping into the city to try to make a quick buck.

  Then I searched Fairmount Avenue Partners LLC and, sure enough, the registered agent was one Wendell A. Byers Jr. of Fairmount Avenue in Newark. I could now write with impunity that Windy Byers bought his girlfriend a house.

  Satisfied, I leaned back for a moment and then, driven by some impulse I could neither name nor explain, found my fingers back on the keyboard, surfing my way toward Sweet Thang’s Twitter page.

  The first item was posted at 9:41 A.M., right around the time she and I broke from breakfast. It read: “Update 4 my girlz: CR is still supertasty. I could eat him with a fork. I want to get on him and grind him through the floorboards. LOL!”

  It’s amazing what you could accomplish in 140 characters or less. In this case, Sweet Thang had suddenly made my throat feel dry. So much for me having misread her. There was now no doubt: a nuclear-hot twenty-two-year-old wanted to sleep with me.

  That was good news, right? What guy wouldn’t welcome that news?

  A guy who knew he was past the age to be banging interns, that’s who.

  But then I thought: her dad is loaded. And she’s gorgeous. So why not just dive in? There have to be worse fates in life than shacking up with a beautiful woman from a rich family, right?

  And then I thought: since when do you care about money? Only jackasses—and future divorcées—marry for money or looks. And besides, she’s way too young and immature. She doesn’t know what she wants. It will end badly.

  But then I thought: Did you look at her in that dress today?

  And then I thought: but by the time she’s ready to have kids, I’ll be one of those dads hanging around the playground who is so old no one is sure whether he’s a dad, a granddad, or just some pervy guy who likes little boys.

  I was somewhere in the midst of countering that argument when, out of the corner of my eye, I saw Tina Thompson coming toward me.

  I furiously began trying to get Twitter off my screen, clicking on that little X in the upper right-hand corner. Why did I feel so guilty, anyway? I hadn’t done anything, had I? I had nothing to hide, right? More pressingly, why was this damn computer taking so long to get the page off my screen? She was getting closer. I clicked the X again. Nothing. I clicked on my e-mail so there would be something different on the screen. Still there. Click. Nothing. The computer was completely frozen. Click. Click-click.

  Finally, just as she was sidling up to my desk, I did the next best thing and hit the power button on the front of the monitor. Mercifully, the screen went dark.

  “Hey there, handsome,” she said, seeming not to notice my computer issues. “How come you look flushed?”

  “I was running stairs,” I said. “Got to keep the blood moving, you know. Deep vein thrombosis can be a killer.”

  She looked at me and cocked her head

  “I thought that only happened to old ladies on airplanes,” she said.

  “Well, you can never be too cautious,” I said, then went full tilt for the topic change. “Aren’t you supposed to be in the three o’clock meeting right now?”

  “Oh, I blew it off,” she said. “I’ve got too much to do with this whole Wendell Byers thing to sit around listening to people make decisions that are just going to change by the time we actually have to put the paper out.”

  “Makes sense,” I said. “What are we going with right now?”

  “Well, we’ve got the blood in the foyer and the stuff from the press conference. That and a bunch of react quotes should be enough to carry the paper for tomorrow. Unless you have something new?”

  I weighed whether to share what I had learned. I had confided in Tina in the past with this sort of thing and could trust her to keep quiet. She wasn’t my editor, after all.

  But she was still an editor. So I decided to zip it.

  “Nah, not really,” I said.

  She looked at me and arched an eyebrow.

  “You’re lying.”

  “Dammit. How do you do that?”

  “If I told you, it would ruin the fun,” she said. “Anyhow, you gonna tell me what it is or not?”

  “I’ll pass for now,” I said. “It’s just a theory at this point, anyway.”

  “Is the theory that Wendell Byers is being moved out of the way so someone else can run
for Central Ward council?” she asked.

  “No. Why, whose theory is that?”

  “Tommy said that’s the buzz going around the streets. He’s out chasing it down right now, seeing if it goes anywhere.”

  That explained why he wasn’t in the office.

  “You put any stock in that?” I asked.

  “It makes as much sense as anything else I’ve heard,” she said. “You know they play politics rough in Newark.”

  “Yeah, but generally they don’t kill you. They just smear your reputation with anonymous flyers about how you’re really a gay, white, Jewish Republican.”

  “Well, it seemed worthwhile for Tommy to look into,” she said. “By the way, don’t think I’ve forgotten about dinner tonight.”

  “Never. I’m still picking you up at eight?”

  “I changed my mind. You’re not picking me up. I want us to be in separate cars so if you totally blow it, I’ll be able to make a big scene and walk out on you.”

  “Oh. Good to know.”

  “You’re meeting me here at eight-thirty,” she said, handing me a sticky with the name and address of a restaurant in Hoboken. I knew the place. It was on the Hudson River with commanding views of the Manhattan skyline. The prices on the wine list looked more like airline fares.

  “Dress nicely,” she added.

  “How nicely?”

  “Wear a jacket or they won’t let you in. Wear a tie or I won’t talk to you. Wear a suit and I just might jump you in the coat closet.”

  “Got it,” I said.

  “And don’t be late.”

  “Don’t be late,” I repeated.

  “I mean it. If you’re late, I’m going to drag one of the waiters into a supply closet and take out my sexual frustrations on him and you’ll miss out.”

  “Got it,” I said again. And she departed.

  Just then, cranky old Buster Hays, who sat a few desks away, wheeled his chair around and looked at me scornfully.

  “Hey, Ivy,” he said. Buster called me Ivy because he apparently thought Amherst was an Ivy League school. My efforts to educate him that it was a proud member of the New England Small College Athletic Conference had, so far, failed.

  “You really going to let a woman boss you around like that?” he asked. “You’re totally whipped.”

  Normally I tried to come up with some kind of retort for Buster’s mindless zingers. But I couldn’t this time.

  Not when he was right.

  * * *

  I was about to head back to Twitter—to see what else Sweet Thang had written about that delicious fellow, CR—when my phone rang.

  “Carter Ross,” I said.

  “Hey, it’s Pritch,” he whispered. “My guy says he’ll meet with you on the condition that you consider yourself a confidential informant, not a reporter.”

  “Hey, whatever works for him. When?”

  “How soon can you make it down here?”

  “How does ‘now’ sound?”

  “Sounds good. I’ll meet you in the lobby at Green Street. Try not to look like a reporter. I’ll be the guy who ignores you. But just follow my lead.”

  “I’ll do my best,” I said, making toward the elevator.

  Newark Police Headquarters, located on Green Street in the heart of downtown Newark, was another one of those municipal buildings that had probably been magnificent at some point in time, back when Newark was a manufacturing powerhouse and the home to captains of industry. Now you had to look hard—and charitably—to see the majesty. But it was still there.

  I walked into the building and up to the lobby on the third floor. Rodney Pritchard was waiting there. He saw me, made the briefest eye contact, and started back down the stairs. I followed. But not too close.

  He went out the door, took a left, then another left on Broad Street, past City Hall. What were we? Russian spies from Montclair? I walked a little faster so he was within earshot.

  “The password is ‘Lesbian weasel,’ ” I said. “But I’ll warn you: everything I know you can probably find on Google.”

  “Stop playing,” he said, without turning around. “I’m just doing this the way my man Raines said. He doesn’t want to risk being seen with you in the office. I told you, he’s by the book.”

  “He also must be getting pretty desperate if he’s meeting with me this quickly,” I said. “He doesn’t have squat, does he?”

  “He didn’t tell me either way. But you’re probably right.”

  Pritch crossed the street, walked past a sandwich shop, then took a left turn into a pizzeria, where someone’s Italian mama was behind a counter, yelling at the late-lunch stragglers to place their orders. Pritch kept walking into a back room, which at this hour—it was now after three—was empty, except for one man sitting in a corner booth.

  “Carter Ross, meet Sergeant Kevin Raines,” Pritch said.

  Raines was a short, round black man who stored his extra weight in his ass. He was probably in the neighborhood of fifty and dressed in a gray suit, a white shirt, and a black tie. That made him unlike most Newark detectives I met—guys who knew they were going to work long hours and therefore swapped formality for comfort in their clothing choices.

  “Nice to meet you,” Raines said crisply, in a way that made it clear he didn’t believe it.

  He had a bland, slightly nasal voice and I was willing to bet most people who talked to him over the phone didn’t know he was black. He may have preferred it that way.

  I immediately had him pegged. He was the guy who didn’t want to do favors for people and didn’t like to have them done for him. He was a sergeant because he scored higher on the exam than anyone else, not because he politicked better. He didn’t go to the bar after his shift with the fellas. He didn’t backslap. He didn’t bend rules. He was already at the edge of his comfort zone just by meeting with me.

  None of which made him a bad person. I was just going to have to work on expanding that comfort zone and making him a little more pliant if he was going to be of any use.

  “All right,” Pritch said. “Have a nice time. I got things to do.”

  Pritch walked out, leaving Raines and me to stare at each other uncomfortably.

  “Thanks for meeting with me,” I said.

  “Detective Pritchard said you had information to offer the Newark Police Department,” Raines said officiously.

  Yeah, and if he thought I was just going to dump it on the table and leave, he had another think coming. Whether he wanted to think of me as a reporter or not, I was one. And whether he wanted to think of himself as a source or not, I was going to treat him like one.

  “Well, let’s just slow down for a second,” I said. “First of all, I haven’t had lunch yet. I’m going to grab something from up front. You want anything?”

  I could have held off. But I needed to start loosening things up a bit. I needed to establish we weren’t a cop and a reporter. We were just two guys. And some guys require diet soda and pizza to get them through the afternoon. Hell, I might even spill the soda, because that’s what guys do.

  “No, thank you,” he said.

  “Some water? Anything?”

  “I’m fine.”

  “Okay, I’ll be right back.”

  I went back into the main room and ordered my slice, which came quickly. Then I went to the refrigerator and selected a Coke Zero for myself and a bottle of water for him. Another important thing to establish: he wasn’t making all the decisions here.

  I paid and returned to our table.

  “I just felt it would be rude to eat this in front of you and not get you anything,” I said, sliding the water in front of him.

  He didn’t touch it. He barely looked at it.

  “We are clear that I am not meeting with you because you’re a reporter,” he said. “Officer Pritchard tells me you have information that may be vital to my case and vouches that your information is probably good. That’s all that matters.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. �
��So I take it you’ve never dealt with a reporter before?”

  “It’s against department policy to comment to the media without approval,” he said.

  “Okay, no big deal,” I said as I opened my Coke Zero and took a long pull, making a big show out of savoring its artificially sweetened goodness. Then I picked up my slice and bit off a big hunk, chewing loudly.

  Raines looked at the bottle in front of him. It was ice-cold and just starting to get a thin haze of perspiration on it. And to a cop who had probably been going for the last twenty-four hours on excitement and adrenaline—but not much hydration—I bet it was looking pretty good.

  He cracked it open and took a sip. I was already starting to wear him down.

  * * *

  I put my pizza back down on the table.

  “Okay. Well, just a quick user’s guide to dealing with reporters, or at least this reporter,” I said, wiping pizza sauce from my chin with a napkin. “First key phrase is, ‘off the record.’ That means you can tell me anything you want, but I won’t put it in the newspaper—unless I get it from somewhere else, of course. As far as I’m concerned, this conversation and every other one we have is off the record unless we explicitly agree otherwise. Okay?”

  He nodded.

  “Second key phrase is ‘not for attribution.’ That means I can use the information you give me in the newspaper, but I can’t attach it to your name as a source. And when I say you’re an unnamed source, I mean that in the most sincere way possible. Reporters have gone to jail to protect the identity of their sources and I would do the same.”

  I had never been tested on that front. And I hoped I never would be. But I also hoped, if some judge ordered me to reveal my source, I’d have the stones to tell him to shove it, then take the contempt-of-court charge and spend some time as a ward of the state. Short of dying for a story—which I certainly didn’t plan to do—going to prison to protect a source was as balls-out a thing as a reporter could do. And I fancied myself the kind of guy who would do it.

  “Finally, I want to make it clear that I’ll tell you everything I can to help your case,” I said. “But information is a two-way street in my town. And so is trust. You have to trust me that I’m not going to put anything in the paper that will get you in trouble with your bosses. And I have to trust you that I’m not going to get blindsided by some press release announcing an arrest—or, worse, by a story in one of the New York papers that we didn’t have first.”