by Mimi Johnson
“I think I’d better,” Sam sighed. “It sure as hell doesn’t look like this is going to go away.”
“Think he’ll let you off?”
“I wouldn’t if I were him.” Sam was under no illusions about his position. At his first interview with the doctor back in November, three other hospital staff members had been in the conference room. They would corroborate that the doctor and Sam had never even touched on the subject of an autopsy report. No one knew they’d spoken after that, let alone met. “But I’d be crazy not to try. If I’m back in Iowa covering Erickson, I can slip off to see him.”
“You’ve got to be careful. Someone might be watching who you meet with,” Dodson said, and Sam nodded. "Our lawyers are on top of this. We’ll do what we can for you, Sammy.” It was good to hear, but Sam didn’t find the comment reassuring. He trusted that Politifix would back him, but the courts weren’t inclined to protect reporters from prying prosecutors. “What’s Erickson up to these days?” Dodson went on to ask.
“He’s been spending most of his time in California, of course,” Johnson answered. The delegate-rich state was a hotbed of campaigning. Fuller, Erickson and Morton were all there as much as possible. “It looks like Erickson is planning a fast and furious swing through Missouri on his way back home too.”
“Shouldn’t that be a ‘gimme’ state for him?” Dodson was surprised.
“You’d think so,” Johnson said, “but Ohio was so close, he’s not taking any chances. You want to pick him up there, Sam?” Sam nodded. “How’s your access with Erickson? He still giving you the time of day?”
Sam shrugged. “I’m not his favorite. But then I’m not real interested in taking a vacation by the sea with him either.” Johnson and Dodson laughed.
“Well, try to find something besides the usual pap while you’re with him,” Dodson said. “We want to look like we’re on top of things. You got any leads to follow?”
“Maybe,” Sam answered vaguely.
Almost a week later, on Swede Erickson’s campaign plane, en route from St. Louis to Des Moines, Sam decided to check out Judith’s tip. It still galled him that Morton was funneling information through his wife, even if she was nearly his ex. Being used by a source always rubbed him the wrong way. It was the kind of thing he’d been known to ridicule in other reporters. But watching Erickson, Sam was certain there was something more he’d missed. The man looked at him, Sam was sure of it, with a shrouded malevolence that no one else seemed to notice.
It wasn’t unusual for a candidate to come back to schmooze with the pack in the back of the plane, and Erickson was particularly good at it. Jocular and funny, he always seemed to be at ease. Generally, the press liked him. For a few minutes Swede chatted, asking if they were as tired of hearing his stump speech as he was of delivering it, and amusing everyone with stories of the mistakes he’d made at one time or another while giving it. Then he spied Sam near the back, and steadying himself against the slight roll of turbulence said, “Why Mr. Waterman’s joined us again. Good to have you back, Sam.” With a smile and a nod, Sam acknowledged him.
“After those Southern primaries, you had me sweating. The scuttlebutt had it that the story you were working on was going to bury me, not that it would’ve have taken much. Damn sporting of you to just write that little piece on state politics. Did your editors really think it was news that the Webster family thinks well enough of me to kick in a few dollars to my campaigns?”
There was a general laugh, and Sam shrugged good-naturedly. “They must have, sir. It ran on the home page and got well over a hundred thousand hits.”
“Slow news day, huh?” Erickson chuckled. “Well, I’d say if that was the best shot an old newshound like you can come up with, I’ve passed the sniff test. Now maybe I can stop having nightmares about you.”
Everyone laughed again, including Erickson. And if it hadn’t been for the stone- hard glint in his eyes, even Sam might have taken it as the light ribbing it appeared to be.
He hit the Iowa ground running, following Judith’s tip. But, his steps only took him around in circles. What he found would barely cause a ripple in the political waters. Apparently the state’s Department of Transportation and Department of Labor and Human Services hired Jeffrey Webster’s consulting services to evaluate workload distribution. It was, as one administrator put it, “a boondoggle” and the reports with Webster’s recommendations had “been put on office book shelves where they just lie there, like dead raccoons on the side of the road.” A cozy deal, and one more tie between Erickson and Judge Richard Webster, but hardly the stuff of political intrigue. It did, however, make Sam more suspicious.
When Sam interviewed Webster about it, the judge had been predictably defensive. He accused Sam of trying to use an ordinary transaction to trash Swede’s political career with “trumped up innuendo” that also cast aspersions on his own judicial ethics. He’d called Sam an irresponsible, inflammatory journalist, and while Sam doubted the story would raise eyebrows, much less inflame, he was uncomfortably aware that if Webster knew that his wife, however estranged, worked on Morton’s committee, he could easily make a case for his accusations.
When he’d submitted a request for an interview with Erickson about the matter, Carly Taylor had suggested he give her his questions, promising that the governor would get back to him. The next day, he got a message saying the governor had no comment.
He paid a visit to Dick Webster’s ex-wife, as well as a quick stop to pick up a copy of the judge’s financial statement for the year he’d first been appointed by Erickson. Iowa law required such disclosures, and since they were a matter of public record, it was a simple check to make. Sam found that Webster’s fortunes improved considerably between his divorce and his appointment. The harder he dug, the more clues he found. Everything pointed to some kind of ominously big payoff between the governor and the judge. Thinking Webster must have handled some legal matter for Erickson while he was still a lawyer, Sam dug through every court case Webster had been involved in. But nothing, not one single open-court record, linked him to Erickson. The hours of tedious work left Sam with nothing more than unsatisfied suspicion and not a single thread of proof.
The second reason for his trip was just as frustrating. Getting a message to his document-leaking doctor was tricky. Sam knew his cell phone records and emails could be subpoenaed and checked as part of the investigation. As paranoid as it seemed, it was important not to leave his source open to the possibility. Finding a payphone these days wasn’t easy, and every time he called, the man was unavailable. When asked to leave a name and a call back number, Sam had no choice but to decline. If Erickson’s only goal in pushing the investigation was to hobble Sam by making his job more difficult, it was working.
He finally connected with the doctor early one morning from a pay phone in a hallway off the lobby in the Marriott. “What are you doing, calling me here?” the doctor hissed. “You said I had your word …”
“Relax. I’m covering your ass, and I’ll keep covering it. But we need to talk. Same place, same time, tonight?”
The doctor hesitated, and then muttered. “If someone’s watching you …”
“They’ll think I just pulled off the interstate for a late bite to eat. Come on, Doc, you don’t want me to visit you at the hospital, right?” The doctor agreed.
The place was just as bad as Sam remembered, although instead of Rosie, there was a burly man in a dirty apron behind the bar. And this time, Sam knew better than to order the chili. The doctor was sitting at the bar when Sam walked in, and for a while neither spoke, waiting to see if someone came in after him. When Sam’s greasy burger arrived, the doctor finally murmured, as he raised his beer to his lips, “What do you want?”
“I’d like to hear about your plan for your Grand Jury testimony,” Sam salted his fries. Neither looked at the other.
“My plan? My plan is to answer their questions.”
“Truthfully?”
�
�All but one.”
Sam sighed. “Look, we both knew this could happen. You might want to reconsider perjuring yourself.”
The doctor’s jaw set. “What does that mean, Waterman? That you’ll give me up when it’s your turn?”
“They’ll hold me in contempt if I don’t.” Sam frowned, intensely disliking what he was doing. “And I don’t want to go to jail. I’d rather you waive the confidentiality.”
“And I’d rather you keep your word. You don’t want to go to jail? Well, I don’t want to go to jail and lose my medical license. We both knew it was a HIPAA violation when you took that thing. And you wanted it so bad you were willing to chance it. Now you’re in trouble. But a deal’s a deal.”
Sam’s frown deepened, and he sipped his beer, his food untouched. At last, he said, “I’ll stand by it if I have to. But I sure would appreciate it if you’d think it over, because my balls are going to be in a wringer in about six weeks.” He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a cigarette. For the first time, he glanced over at the guy as he lit it.
The doctor’s brow knitted. “Have you thought about the timing of this thing? Grand jury testimony started today, and it’s going to take awhile to get to everyone. If everything plays out the way it looks, I figure your lawyers will be turning you over to the authorities right about the time Erickson takes the nomination – if he does take it. That would mean you could spend the Presidential campaign in the slammer. Kind of convenient if the candidate is worried about your reporting, don’t you think?”
Sam raised his eyebrows as he took a long, deep drag. “That’s occurred to me." He exhaled the words with the smoke.
“So if you want to stay out of jail, why are you sitting on your ass nagging me? If you’d get the whole story out, maybe we’ll both be off the hook.”
“Sitting on my ass?” Sam dropped the pretense and looked at him sharply. “I’ve run down every lead that’s come my way, and they’re getting me nowhere. If you’ve got something more, Doc, I need to know it now.”
The doctor looked over his shoulder, then turned back to his drink and muttered, “The old man did some babbling those last few months before he died.” Sam’s heart skipped a beat, and he ground out his smoke, reaching into his pocket for a notebook. “Put that away,” the doctor growled. Sam complied. The doctor’s eyes shifted nervously as he said, “He was a haunted man, that father of his.”
“Be specific.” Sam struggled to keep the impatience out of his voice.
The doctor swallowed a long draught, and sighed. His eyes finally landed on Sam’s face, and he whispered, “Look, I’m not a therapist, OK? But I had to examine the old guy from time to time, on weekends mostly, when I was on call. He was pretty shelled, mentally, at the end. I figured he was going back to his war experiences. It was always the same thing; he’d say over and over that he was sorry about the boys, like he was some kind of fucking parrot. 'The poor boys. I'm so sorry about those boys,' on and on like that. I thought he meant all those young guys who died in Vietnam. And the Governor was always asking his primary physician if she couldn’t give him more sedatives. He said he hated the way his father was deviled by his memories of the war years. If it had been up to the Governor, the old man would have lain like a log in that bed, completely out of it.”
“Well, it couldn’t have been easy, watching his father re-fight a war,” Sam wasn’t sure where this was going.
“But see, I don’t think it was the war. The last time I had him on weekend rounds, he told me that his son tried to save him, but he’d still have to answer to God for what he’d done. And then he’d burn, just like those boys did.”
“Just like …?” Sam tried to imagine what it meant.
“Those were his exact words,” the doctor whispered. “I can still hear him saying them. It was that chilling. There was no way Swede Erickson helped his father through something that happened during the war. He wasn’t even born until after the old man had been out of the service. Something had to have happened after the war, something that drove the old guy right out of skull, because this was more than his drinking. Whatever it was, I think Swede Erickson wanted his father drugged to the point that he was shut down, to stop his talking.” The doctor’s voice dropped lower, “Waterman, his father was dead two days after he was babbling to me about burning boys.”
“But the father killed himself, drank himself into alcohol poisoning.”
“Right. And you know what’s always bothered me about that? Where did the old man get the liquor? We don’t keep booze on the hospital grounds.”
Sam had never thought of that. “Jesus, are you telling me you think …”
“I don’t know what to think. I’m telling you there are a lot of questions you could try to find answers to.”
“Where’s the tie between this and Dick Webster?” Sam was trying to fit the pieces together.
The doctor shook his head, exasperated. “How should I know?”
“Doc, if someone happened to check through Carl Erickson’s therapy notes in his record, they might give me a clue where to look next.”
The doctor pulled back. “I’m already sweating the autopsy file.”
“Yeah,” Sam tossed some money down on the bar, “so am I. So let’s remember that we’re in this together. I’ll call you tomorrow from the road, using the name Benedict. Make sure you leave word to put me through.” He left first this time.
Chapter 30
The next morning, Jack Westphal appeared before the grand jury. When it was over, he walked to Swede Erickson’s office at the Capitol. It was the first time he’d seen Swede since the New Hampshire primary.
“Damn, Jackie, you’re a sight for sore eyes,” Erickson hurried from behind his desk to give Jack’s shoulders a hearty embrace as the assistant ushered him in. “The worst thing about this race is how it keeps me from everyone I care about. Christ, we haven’t even talked on the phone. I couldn’t believe my good luck that you were going to be in town the day I was here. I’ve had Deb order lunch for us. So, how’d it go?”
Jack knew he was asking about his grand-jury testimony, and even though he knew it was to be held in secret, he didn’t hesitate. “Nothing to it. I spent about two hours in the hallway waiting to be called and maybe five minutes on the stand.”
“Any problems?”
Jack shook his head. “They asked if you and I knew each other, and for how long,” Swede made a scoffing noise at that. “They asked if I knew your dad, and if I might have had access to his medical records.” Swede snorted again. “Then they asked me to confirm that I’d been interviewed by Waterman for the profile, and finally they wanted to know if I’d given him the autopsy report. It was no big deal. Too bad it sucked up a whole morning of my time.”
“Well, it’s a shame. That stupid cocksucker Waterman has made a mess for all of us.” Jack raised his eyebrows at the epithet, and Swede looked dismissive, saying, “Oh, come on, don’t tell me you’re a big fan.”
“He’s a good newsman,” Jack’s voice was soft, and he looked away.
Erickson grunted, “Get off it Jackie, I can read you like a book. You can’t stand the son of a bitch either.”
Jack’s brows knitted, and he didn’t answer, nodding instead toward a picture on the wall. “That’s new?” It was a picture of Swede standing between the current President and the Canadian Prime Minister.
“Oh, you really can’t stand him. Well, look out, because the bastard flew back on the campaign plane with us, so he’s lurking around somewhere.” Swede laughed, but there was something searching in his eyes as he looked over Jack’s face. He pointed to a richly upholstered armchair in front of the fireplace hearth and moved toward the matching one, answering the question. “That was taken more than a year ago. My God, when was the last time you were in here?”
“Probably the day I got married,” Jack said, as he sat down.
“Right on this very spot,” Swede laughed. The judge that married Jack and Tes
s had, in fact, stood in front of the fireplace. “Seems like just yesterday, doesn’t it? But it’s been …”
“Two years, October 1st.”
Swede shook his head, and then asked with a curious look, “How’s Tess? What’s she up to these days?”
“She’s good. Her agent is wrapping up a contract with Little-Brown for a book on her pictures of country church women, and she’s just started something new, some work in black and white.”
“Exciting,” Swede nodded without enthusiasm. There was a discrete knock on the door, and someone from the cafeteria staff carried in a large tray with salads, sandwiches and iced teas, placing them on the table.
“This OK?” Swede and Jack moved to the table and sat down.
“Well, it’s not Augusta’s,” Jack smiled.
“Obviously, since it only took one guy to carry it in,” Swede flipped his napkin onto his lap.
“So how’s it going?” Swede knew Jack was asking about the campaign.
“I swear to God I don’t know why I didn’t do better in the South. Sometimes I wonder if people even listen to the message, or if they only vote based on where a man comes from or the way he looks.”
“How much damage was done?” Jack poured dressing on his salad.
“I’m recovering. Illinois helped. Missouri will help. Fuller is out of it and knows it, but just can't seem to stop. Morton and I carved up New York pretty evenly, but considering he's from the coast, that’s really a victory for me. I thought I could beat him easily in Ohio, but he almost pulled it out. California’s going to be close, but if I can take it, I’ll be ready to deal for Fuller's delegates when she finally turns up her toes. Right now, I feel like I’m going in the right direction, but so slowly it might not do me any good. Who would have thought I’d ever care about the New Mexico caucuses?” Both men laughed, and Swede added, “Being back, here in the Capitol, it almost makes me wonder what I was thinking, making a run in the first place. It’s just so damn good to be home.”