“Did he know that?”
“He had to have known it. He gave me a phony name, and it was too dark that night for me to see a thing. So I asked myself why he wanted to kill me. I couldn’t believe that it had anything to do with what happened between my father and him more than twenty-five years before. He was the one who did the snitching; if anyone had wanted revenge, it would have been me. But I didn’t want revenge. The thought never occurred to me. And it wasn’t like I’d followed him around or threatened him. In all those years I’d never made the slightest move toward him.”
They reached the remains of a stone wall and sat down side by side. Sabrina had an arm wound through his, a hand in the pocket of his slacks.
“At first I thought it had to do with the eyewitness story I was doing. That was the most obvious thing. But I couldn’t find the Padilla link. And then there were the other things.”
“What other things?”
“Things related to the trial. They denied me bail. David had a hard time preparing the case. Witnesses appeared out of nowhere. I am sure, sure that Padilla and I were alone in the parking lot that night. But suddenly the prosecution produced two witnesses, two kids who were supposedly screwing in their car when we drove up.”
“David must have checked them out.”
“Sure he did, and he found that their records were clean as a whistle. We put a private investigator on the case, and he learned that the kids had been involved in an automobile accident that had maimed a traveling salesman, but the witness who let it slip to our investigator that they’d been stoned at the time of the accident refused to testify.”
“Couldn’t you force him to?”
“He’d only lie on the stand. Someone had gotten to him. It looked like the kids were given a clean slate in exchange for perjury, only we couldn’t prove a thing. In fact, that was the story in a nutshell. We couldn’t prove a thing. We couldn’t prove that the judge who denied me bail had been bought, or that the one who denied David’s pretrial motions had been bought, or that the one who presided at the trial and subtly favored the prosecution had been bought. We couldn’t prove a thing.
“That was when I began to realize that we were dealing with someone very powerful, and there had been no one of that caliber even remotely involved in my eyewitness story. So I started looking at the rest of the things I’d been working on at the time. I figured someone was threatened. Someone was threatened enough by what I was doing that he needed me out of the picture, and that someone had to have been powerful enough to carry it off without getting caught.”
He fell silent, thinking, brooding.
“Who, Derek?” Sabrina asked very softly.
It was a minute before Derek answered, and then it wasn’t in response to her question. He was moving chronologically, reliving each bit of frustration. “I had to dredge everything up in my mind because the studio had sealed all my files. A few people helped. A few others said they wanted to help, then suddenly lost interest. I went over every story—not only those I’d been working on at the time, but ones I’d done three months, six months, a year before. Lots of those stories had stirred up flak, but it was the kind of flak that was good, that we wanted; and none of the people involved had the kind of power—or the balls, for that matter—to do much more than make noise. Then, though, there was the business about Lloyd Ballantine.”
“What business?” Sabrina returned in a faintly despairing tone. “Lloyd Ballantine was the kind of boring man that you figured had to have been leading a double life to keep from falling asleep on himself.… That’s it, isn’t it, Derek? He had a whole other side.”
The sudden excitement he saw on her face raised his spirits. “That was my theory,” he admitted. “The accident that killed him was too pat. There was no reason for it. He wasn’t speeding. He wasn’t drinking. He wasn’t taking drugs or any kind of legitimate medication. Nor was he driving in his sleep. He got up in the middle of the night from the bed he shared with his wife, climbed into his car and drove over a cliff.”
“Are you thinking it was murder?”
“No. The police were pretty thorough, given who he was. They found no evidence for that.”
“Then suicide. I saw the word mentioned in passing in several of the articles I read, but it was always ruled out as a theory that lacked substance. Ballantine hadn’t left a note. No one having to do with him would admit that he’d been depressed, and he hadn’t sought psychiatric help.” She hesitated. “Do you think it was suicide?”
“I do,” Derek said as he drew her up and headed back toward the house.
Later, stretched on his side by the living room fire, he went on. “About two years after Ballantine’s death, I received an anonymous letter. It suggested that if I wanted the story to beat all stories, I should look into Lloyd Ballantine’s life. Normally I didn’t pay much heed to anonymous letters like that; people often wrote with suggestions for stories, and often they involved personal vendettas that the police wouldn’t touch. But there was something different about this letter. Maybe the sheer simplicity of it. It gave no details, named no names but Ballantine’s. Then again, Ballantine had been a Supreme Court justice, and I knew that if I could find something startling in his life—or death—I would have the story to beat all stories.”
Using his legs as a backrest, Sabrina draped an arm over his hip. “Were there any hints at all about who could have sent it?”
“It was postmarked New York and was handwritten, but the script looked as though it was purposely distorted—you know, like a right-handed person writing with his left hand?” At Sabrina’s nod of understanding, he went on. “I showed it to a handwriting expert, but the only thing he was able to suggest was that it had been written by a woman. Not much to go on. I really didn’t have the time then to research Ballantine, and I couldn’t justify putting any of my people to work on something so vague. So I filed the letter for a rainy day.” He stretched to reach the poker and give the burning logs a shove.
“Then, about eight months after that, a second letter came. It was nearly identical to the first—same postmark, same handwriting, same message. Only, soon after I got it, I happened to be in a Washington bar with a well-known Washington lawyer. He’d had a little too much to drink and was making some pretty imprudent statements about a case he’d just finished trying, and just for the hell of it I tossed out Ballantine’s name. I got an earful.”
“Ballantine did have a hidden life?”
“We didn’t get around to what he did when he was off the bench, but according to this lawyer, Ballantine wasn’t as much of a Boy Scout as he wanted people to believe. Allegedly, he was well paid for casting the deciding vote in several critical rulings. This guy specifically referred to Ballantine’s having committed suicide, and he went so far as to say that Ballantine left files detailing the corruption.”
“Why would he do that?”
“To incriminate whoever else was involved.”
“But he could have gotten himself in lots of trouble if the files were found before his death.”
“Maybe he made sure they wouldn’t be found. Or maybe the risk was worth it. They were an insurance policy. A surefire shot at revenge. There are all sorts of possibilities about what was going on, including blackmail.”
“Has anyone ever seen the files?”
Derek shook his head. “Not that I’d take a half-sloshed lawyer’s word for gospel, but in light of the letters I’d received, I had something to consider.”
“Incredible,” Sabrina breathed. “And what’s most incredible is that it never came out. Not one of the three books I’ve read even suggested that he was corrupt.”
“He may not have been. But from the point of view of an investigative reporter, the thought was intriguing.”
“Wouldn’t something like that be the business of the Justice Department?”
“Sure. I went to a friend there and asked. I figured maybe the Department had already investigated and found nothin
g. But there had been no investigation. My friend admitted—only by accident when I tripped him up with questions—that there’d been some rumors about Ballantine, but he claimed that’s all they were.”
“Had he heard about the existence of any files?”
“No.”
“Wasn’t he curious after you mentioned them?”
“Are you kidding? You have to understand something about government employees, Sabrina. As a rule, they don’t go looking for trouble. Oh, there are exceptions. But when it comes to political corruption—or judical, in this case—they get real nervous. To point the finger at a man—even if that man is guilty as hell—could mean the end of the pointer’s career.”
“And the career of an investigative reporter?” Sabrina asked.
Derek gave a bitter half-laugh before returning to his story. “I went to see Noel Greer. My boss. Founder and chairman of the board of the network.”
“I’ve heard of him.”
“Right. Well, I knew the man, and let me tell you, it was no pleasure. We had trouble with each other from the start. He didn’t like me and I didn’t like him.”
“But he hired you.”
“Yeah. The token rebel. I’d established a reputation for tackling touchy stories and asking hard questions while I was at it.” His nostrils flared when he inhaled. “Greer is ultraconservative. But he’s shrewd, and he’s a master of appearances. He knew that his network had a reputation for leaning to the right in newscasts, and he wasn’t about to change that. He liked it. He designed it. His team reported the news in a light that was consistent with his own ideology—which was what he wanted the American people to hear. But he knew that it was about time for an added shot of credibility, and the simplest way to get it was to hire someone like me. And I took the job. I took it knowing exactly why I was hired, but I figured that a token rebel was better than no rebel at all.”
After listening to himself, he snorted. “Hell, who am I kidding? I took the job for me. I knew that I’d have better resources at my fingertips, better funding, better exposure. I told myself that it was the creative opportunity I wanted, but it was really the position. I’d have more power and respect—not within the network, but outside it—and I wanted those.”
The fire crackled softly. The shadows it made danced on the hearth, and were made macabre only by the thoughts of the two people watching.
“I can understand why those two things would be important to you,” Sabrina said—and she could, given what he’d said about his childhood. “But wasn’t it also true that you would have more creative freedom in a position like that? Or did Greer set the limits?”
“He wasn’t too bad at first. He made it clear that he wanted all my plans approved by the network before a penny was spent, but that approval was usually forthcoming. I had more trouble—and increasingly so—with the stories themselves. I don’t know if Greer thought I’d pick provocative subjects and then treat them like milquetoast, but we had some pretty heated arguments over what should or should not survive the cutting room.”
“You worked directly with Greer?”
“Not officially, but when it became obvious that the people under him did little without his say-so, I got sick of wasting time, so I went straight to the top.”
“You went to him on the Ballantine case?”
Though the corners of Derek’s mouth turned down, it was clear that his answer was yes. “All I had were two letters and the hearsay of a sound D.C. lawyer, but I wanted to put a researcher on it just to see what he’d find.”
“What did Greer say?”
“He hit the roof. He was furious that I’d even thought to question the integrity of a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States of America. His reaction wasn’t surprising given his political stance, but what was surprising was the strength of it. In the past, I’d come close to stepping on some political toes and he’d warned me off, but not like that. He overreacted. And that made me all the more curious. I assumed he knew something that he either didn’t want me to know or didn’t want the world to know, and I had just enough of the rebel in me to go after it. Unfortunately, I didn’t get very far. I had barely started researching—on my own time, because I wasn’t about to commit a breach of contract, not at that point, at least—when I was arrested for murder. Since bail was denied, my research stopped cold.”
He grew very still as he lay there, propped on his elbow, staring at the flames. His profile was Sabrina’s to study, which she did with growing discomfort. The angry set of his features reminded her of the earliest visits she’d made to Parkersville, when she’d wondered if the anger had left any warmth. She knew now that it had, that it did, and she knew that the warmth was precious to her, which made his anger all the more painful to see.
“Is there a link between Greer and Ballantine?” she asked, deciding that the sooner it was out, the sooner his anger would ease.
“I don’t know.”
“But you think there is.”
“Yes.”
She waited, but he didn’t elaborate. “What kind of link?” she asked gently.
“Those swing votes he cast. One or more have to be tied to Greer.”
“Then Greer paid him off?”
“Somehow. Not necessarily in greenbacks, but somehow.” He sniffed in a long, loud breath, then released it along with the worst of his tension. His determination remained. “I’m going to find out, Sabrina. If it’s the last thing I do, I am.”
Sabrina asked no more questions, because the answers were making her uneasy. That evening, though, he offered answers. They were sharing wine, sitting cross-legged opposite each other on the floor of the glass-enclosed room that, when painted and furnished, would be a second-floor solarium, when he caught in a sudden breath and picked up as though there had been no break at all.
“You’re probably thinking that I’m nuts, that I have no proof of any connection between Ballantine and Greer, but, believe me, Sabrina, I know. There was something about Greer’s expression when I mentioned Ballantine’s name. It’s common knowledge that Greer had a pretty big interest in some antitrust cases that made it to the Supreme Court a while back. And Noel Greer is one of the few men who wields the kind of power that could have put me behind bars so quickly and firmly. His arm is long and has incredible strength. He could have done it.”
Sabrina dropped her eyes to her wineglass. Its rim reflected the flicker of the candle that burned in its holder between them.
“Do you think I’m nuts?” Derek asked.
She wanted to tell him no, to be supportive at all costs, but he’d come to expect honesty from her, and her honest opinion was that the scenario he’d outlined left room for doubt. “I don’t know Greer, but I find it incredible that any one man could have that much power—not that he could have it, per se, but that he could abuse it like that.”
“Greer is an old hand at the abuse of power. He wrote the book on wheeling and dealing. The network is basically a dictatorship. Greer wants things his way. He wants to be the one in control.”
“But…” She struggled to find the words to express her skepticism without offending Derek. “But how can he get away with it? You’re suggesting that he was involved in an extensive cover-up—not only of his relationship with Ballantine but of your commission of murder.”
“Oh, I committed the murder, all right,” Derek said in disgust.
“You did it in self-defense and probably would have been acquitted of all charges had it not been for the witnesses who testified that you had Padilla down and could have tossed the gun away but instead chose to shoot him. How could Greer buy off those witnesses, buy off judges along the way, even, for all we know, buy off prison officials to give you a hard time—and have no one tell what he’d done?”
Derek brought the wineglass to his mouth and downed its contents in a single swallow. Sabrina had a right to her skepticism, he supposed, and it was no more than he could expect from the rest of the world unless he produce
d those files. “Greer has a method. It isn’t unique, but it works. He goes on the theory that every man has his weakness, and that all he has to do is to find that weakness, and the man is his.”
“Are you saying that Greer had something on a nobody like Joey Padilla?”
“That’s exactly what I’m saying. The nobodies of the world have just as much to lose as the somebodies, Sabrina. Don’t fool yourself into thinking otherwise. You did it once before, when you suggested that I had more to lose in terms of independence and pride than some of the other guys in prison, and I told you then you were wrong—just like I’m telling you now.”
“That’s not—”
“Joey Padilla might have been shit to us, but at some level his life had meaning, and if someone or something threatened that meaning, he may well have bargained to preserve it.”
Sabrina felt chastised. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to say—”
“His wife and kids—maybe they were his weakness. Maybe the wife was sick. Or one of the children. You never had a worry about money in caring for Nicky, but not everyone is as lucky as you.”
“No,” Sabrina said in a small voice, “but no amount of money paid for even the most sympathetic cause can justify murder. Joey Padilla was hired to kill you, Derek.”
Derek stared at her for several long, silent moments before slumping a little. “I know.”
Setting down her glass, she slid around the bottle of wine and the candle and put an arm around his neck. “You value life. Where you find sympathy for a man who would have killed you himself if he’d been a little stronger or quicker is beyond me. I admire you for it.”
“Don’t admire me. I killed him.”
“In self-defense.”
Commitments Page 27