by R. G. Belsky
“Maybe it was someone who lived in the area, who kept burying the bodies there every time he killed.”
“Or someone who killed them somewhere, then dumped them all in this spot to avoid suspicion. For whatever it’s worth, none of the victims had any local ties. No obvious reason they would have been killed in that area.”
“And no one was ever caught?”
“That’s right, the murders are all still unsolved.”
She handed me a list with six names on it. Along with their ages, hometowns, and apparent cause of death.
As I read through them, I felt the adrenaline of a big story surging through me again. I make my living these days worrying mostly about summer diet specials and ratings sweeps weeks and audience demographics. But I was still a journalist at heart. I always tried to balance the fluff of TV news with the importance of real reporting. That’s what I constantly tell the people who work for me. Just because you’re in TV journalism, that doesn’t mean you can’t be a serious journalist, I say.
“Something’s going on here,” I said.
I didn’t know that for a fact, of course. But every instinct I had as a newswoman told me Lucy Devlin was suddenly a big story again. After all these years, events had somehow been set in motion. Long-buried secrets were coming to the surface. Some people—like Anne Devlin, Big Lou, and whoever sent the e-mail—seemed to want it to happen. Others, like Patrick Devlin and maybe Elliott Grayson, may have had secrets to hide that they didn’t want to come out. Me, I was somewhere in the middle. I wanted to know the answers, but I was afraid what some of them might be. You see, I had my own secrets, too.
* * *
After Maggie left, I sat down at my computer and Googled “Mountainboro” and “six bodies” and “missing children” and “task force” and a few other key words. I knew Maggie and her reporting team had already done that—but I still like to do my own reporting. A lot of hits came back from my search. The discovery of the bodies had been a big deal at the time in the New England press, which covered the story heavily.
The best thing about reporting is you never know exactly where it’s going to take you. I mean, you think you know where a story is headed, and then you discover something completely unexpected.
That’s what happened here.
I was reading an article from the Boston Globe about the discovery of the six children’s bodies. It told how a contractor had seen a bone when he was digging in the area, then discovered the first skeletal remains. The local cops came in, saw the extent of the crime, and pretty soon the feds had set up a special task force and taken over the investigation. Like Maggie had said, the feds ran the entire operation.
Nothing much I didn’t already know there.
Except that the newspaper article gave the name of the federal law enforcement official who handled the whole thing.
The head of the special task force.
His name wouldn’t have had any special significance in connection with this story to Maggie and the reporters who’d done all the research.
Of course, they hadn’t talked to Big Lou—and I hadn’t told anyone else yet at the station about our conversation.
But I had, and the name—the federal official who oversaw the investigation into the discovery of the six children’s bodies in Mountainboro, New Hampshire—practically jumped off the screen at me.
It was Elliott Grayson.
CHAPTER 11
THERE WAS A big picture of Elliott Grayson staring at me when I walked into the US Attorney’s office near Foley Square. It was a campaign poster hanging over his assistant’s desk. He looked good—handsome, charismatic, big friendly smile on his face. The words underneath were: “Tired of the same old excuses? Maybe it’s time to find a new face.” Below that, it said: “Vote Elliott Grayson for Senator.”
“Nice teeth,” I told Grayson’s assistant.
“Excuse me?” she said, looking up from a computer screen she was staring at. The nameplate on her desk said Gwen Thompson. This must be the woman that I’d talked to on the phone.
“Your boss has nice teeth. That’s important. I never trust a politician who has bad teeth. John Kennedy had great teeth. So did Bill Clinton. Barack Obama, too. Richard Nixon had terrible teeth. All the worst leaders in history have had bad oral hygiene. Adolf Hitler? Boy, you want to talk about bad breath! On the other hand, George Washington is the father of our country, and he had wooden teeth. So it doesn’t always work. But, all things considered, I like big, healthy choppers in the person I vote for.”
Gwen Thompson didn’t say anything. She just stared at me with an impatient look on her face—and then finally asked what I wanted. I told her I was there to see Elliott Grayson for the interview I’d scheduled. She said he’d be available in a few minutes. Then she went back to staring at her computer screen.
While I was waiting, I checked her out some more. Plain-looking—mousy brown hair, unflattering glasses, and wearing a loose-fitting dress that hid her figure. I decided she was a lonely spinster who was devoted to her job and to Elliott Grayson. Hell, she was probably in love with Grayson and fantasizing about him all the time. Of course, she could also be a man-hating psycho who was going to come in here one day and open up on Elliott Grayson with an Uzi. Hey, you never know.
I’d brought a film crew with me. My plan was to pretend I was there to tape a segment on Grayson’s election campaign for the Senate. I’d throw him a few softball questions and let him do his campaign rhetoric for the camera. Once his guard was down, I’d surprise him with questions about the motorcycle gang and Lucy Devlin.
Gwen said Grayson was ready to see me and the film crew now, and she ushered us into his office. It was a corner office with a nice view of Lower Manhattan. There was a big old-fashioned desk, with a plaque on it that said it was the same desk Thomas Dewey used as a crime-busting New York district attorney before he ran for President in the 1940s. There were pictures on the wall of Grayson with all sorts of famous people.
Grayson himself was even more impressive than the office. He was about my age, midforties—tall, good-looking, with wavy brown hair and a nice body that looked like he worked out regularly. He walked over to me, stuck out his hand, and flashed me a big smile. Just like the smile on his campaign poster outside.
“You’re here to talk to me about my campaign?” he said.
“I want to know everything.”
“You’re really interested in politics?”
“I am the ultimate political junkie.”
“Funny, but you don’t look like the political type to me.”
“Believe me, I can hardly wait to see how you do on Election Day in November.”
“It’s September.”
“Whatever …”
We sat down and started going through the stock questions. I asked him about stuff like terrorism, health care, and federal budget cuts. While we talked, the Channel 10 film crew taped the whole thing. So far, everything was going according to plan.
Except for one thing.
I thought I caught him checking out my legs while I was asking him a question. Probably my imagination. But, just to make sure, I deliberately crossed and uncrossed my legs again before my next question. Same thing happened. This time I was sure I’d seen him sneaking a peek.
I smiled at him, and he smiled back. He knew I’d caught him looking, but he didn’t care. My God, Elliott Grayson was flirting with me. I wasn’t prepared for that. I did my best to plow ahead with the questioning as if nothing had happened.
Finally, after talking about political issues and his campaign strategy for ten or fifteen minutes, I decided it was time to switch gears and cleverly spring my trap.
“Mr. Grayson,” I said suddenly, “were you ever a member of a motorcycle gang?”
“Of course,” he replied without any hesitation.
“Excuse me?”
“I belonged to a motorcycle gang when I was younger. I loved motorcycles, and it just seemed like a cool
thing to do. I only stayed for a short time. Then I began a career in law enforcement. I’ve never made any secrets of my motorcycle gang past. I was a little wild as a youth. I think it’s good for politicians to admit they’ve lost their way sometimes, but eventually got back on the right path. That’s why I’ve talked about it at times in my speeches and campaign literature. But I’m sure you know all that because of the research you did before you came here, right?”
“Absolutely,” I lied.
Damn! Why hadn’t I read anything about that? Probably because I was so intent on finding out something bad about Elliott Grayson, I hadn’t followed the most basic rule of reporting: Keep digging.
“Do you remember attending a motorcycle convention back in those days in a place called Mountainboro, New Hampshire?” I asked.
“Sure, that happened every year back then. Hells Angels, Outlaws, Pagans, other motorcycle groups from around the country. It was kind of like a bikers’ summit conference. I went to one of them. I’ve talked about that in interviews and speeches, too. Because that gathering was a real turning point for me. It wasn’t long after that when I left the gang I was riding with back then.”
This wasn’t going exactly the way I had hoped. I needed to ask Grayson a question that he didn’t know the answer to.
“Did you meet Lucy Devlin there?”
“Who?”
He wasn’t looking at my legs anymore.
“Lucy Devlin. She disappeared here in New York City on her way to school, a few weeks before that motorcycle conference.”
“Sure, I’m obviously familiar with the case. It’s still an open file in our books.”
“Did you see my TV interview with Lucy’s mother recently?”
“Yes, I watched it.”
“She said she got an e-mail from someone who claimed they saw a little girl that might have been Lucy on the back of a motorcycle with someone named Elliott there.”
“And you think that Elliott was me?”
“Someone else identified you to me later as definitely being there. Said you had a little girl on the back of your motorcycle. And that this girl looked like Lucy Devlin. So, was Lucy Devlin with you?”
“Of course not.”
“Were you with any little girl?”
“No.”
“Then why would someone say you were?”
“Look, I have a very high profile in this job. I’ve put a lot of people away, made a lot of people mad at me. Now I’m running for the Senate. There are opponents of mine out there who don’t like that either. It would make sense that someone’s trying to smear me, to hurt me so I don’t get elected. Right?”
He was right. That would make sense.
“A few years ago, the bodies of six children were found in a mass grave in that same small town of Mountainboro,” I said. “You went back there again and supervised that investigation.”
“I know.”
“You know what?”
“I know I was there.”
“Don’t you think that’s a pretty remarkable coincidence?”
“What’s a coincidence?”
“You attended a biker gathering there. Someone saw a little girl who looked like Lucy Devlin with you. Later, the bodies of six missing children just like Lucy turn up in the same town, and you wind up being the guy who’s in charge of the entire law enforcement operation. What do you make of that, Mr. Grayson?”
“I don’t know, Clare. What do you make of it?”
He was smiling at me. He seemed more amused than upset by my questions.
“Well, I … I just think it all seems a little unusual.”
“First, I never was with Lucy Devlin in Mountainboro or anywhere else. Second, none of those six bodies in the grave were Lucy Devlin or had anything to do with her case—so I’m not really sure what she has to do with any of this. Third, the biker convention I went to in Mountainboro was not the same year that Lucy Devlin disappeared, no matter what someone told you. By the time of the Lucy Devlin case, I was long gone from that world. In fact, I had already started working in law enforcement for the US Justice Department. You could have checked this all out before you showed up here.”
Grayson looked at me intently now, like he was trying to make up his mind about something. Maybe it was whether to call security immediately and have me thrown out of his office.
“Let me ask you a question,” he finally said. “I’ve done a lot of interrogating of people in my time. So I feel like I am some sort of an expert in this technique. What I don’t understand is what you hoped to accomplish here with me. What did you think was going to happen? That you were just going to waltz in here and ask me a lot of softball questions about politics, then somehow get me to reveal some deep dark secret about my past? Like I was some kind of crazed biker bad guy or something? Is that what this was all about? I’m just curious. I’m really trying to get a handle on where you’re coming from here.”
“That was sort of the plan,” I said softly.
“Not much of a plan.”
There didn’t seem to be much else to say. I stood up and started to signal to the film crew that the interview was over. They left and I stayed around for a minute to say good-bye to Grayson. I was pretty embarrassed by the way the whole thing had worked out. And I sure wasn’t expecting what happened next.
“We should talk again sometime,” Grayson said.
“Who?”
“You and me.”
“About what?”
“Anything you want. Maybe we could even meet for coffee or a drink one night.”
I’m very rarely speechless. But this was one of those times.
“Sure,” I finally said. He smiled.
“I’ll call you.”
CHAPTER 12
“ELLIOTT GRAYSON ASKED you out?” my friend Janet Wood asked me.
“Sort of.”
“Well, did he or didn’t he?”
“I’m not sure.”
“How can you not be sure?”
“You had to be there,” I said.
Janet Wood is my closest confidante, the person I go to for advice about both my professional and personal problems. She’s a successful lawyer with a big Manhattan firm, who handled all three of my divorce cases—which, as she loves to point out, is almost a full-time legal career. She’s also my best friend, maybe the only real friend I have outside the newsroom. She actually started as a journalist, too. We met at the Tribune. But when newspapers began to go out of business, she went to law school instead of the unemployment line like so many other reporters. Janet is pretty damn smart. I trust her implicitly and I tell her everything. Well, almost everything.
We were sitting in a Starbucks near the Channel 10 offices. Janet was drinking black coffee, I had a large café mocha.
“So what exactly did Grayson say?” Janet asked.
“He asked me if I wanted to talk some more …”
“That could mean anything.”
“… over coffee or a drink or something one night.”
“Coffee? A drink? Meeting at night? Yeah, that sounds like a date.”
“I thought so, too.”
She picked up her coffee and took a sip. She drank coffee like she did everything else—precise, well-thought out, always in control. Janet was married to a successful Wall Street broker. They had two adorable young daughters and they lived in a three-bedroom co-op apartment on the Hudson River. Her life seemed so perfect in every way that I sometimes wondered what her sex life was like. I couldn’t even imagine her in bed with her husband, Bob. Some people are just too wholesome to think about stuff like that. On the other hand, once the bedroom door was closed, Janet and Bob might break out the whips and chains and kinky videos. Hell, you never know about people.
“Do you want to go out with him?” Janet asked.
“I’m not sure.”
“Is he married?”
“No.”
“A point in his favor.”
“He does date a l
ot of famous starlets and models though, according to the gossip columns.”
“No law against that.”
“He could be a kidnapper, if you believe Big Lou and the e-mail Anne Devlin got,” I pointed out.
“That might be problematic,” she said.
“My instincts are telling me that a relationship with this guy—no matter how good-looking and successful he is—will be trouble.”
“Your instincts with men haven’t exactly always been infallible in the past,” Janet pointed out.
“Fair point.”
I picked up my own coffee, drank some, and sat there thinking some more about the plusses and minuses of plunging into a romantic relationship with Elliott Grayson. The plusses were he was good-looking, charming, and probably going to be a US Senator. The minuses were he could be a child kidnapper—or even a killer.
“What are you going to do?” Janet asked.
“Wait and see if he calls me.”
“Or you could call him.”
“The eternal dating dilemma,” I said.
* * *
The interview with Grayson ran on the six-o’clock news that night. The edited version, of course.
Nothing about Lucy Devlin, because there was nothing there to report. So it just included the stuff about the Senate campaign. Him talking about the issues and the election and his record as a prosecutor. It was all very routine, very pedestrian.
Jack Faron came into my office after the newscast and asked me about the Lucy Devlin story. I’d told him about all the potential Elliott Grayson connections before I did the interview.
“Grayson said he never was with Lucy and doesn’t know anything new about the case,” I told him.
“Of course. What did you think he was going to say?”
I shrugged.
“I might talk to him one more time though.”
“What for?”
“It was his idea. I figure maybe he wants to get me on his side for the campaign. I’ll talk to him about that, but I’ll keep pushing on the Lucy Devlin front, too. I’m still intrigued by the coincidence that Mountainboro, New Hampshire—where the e-mailer claimed to have seen Lucy—was the same place where Grayson dug up those six kids’ bodies a few years later. I’ll keep hunting for any other information about that motorcycle gathering and the children they found buried up there.”