Before I leave for the meeting, Meg shows me how to prewrite the trash story, including nut graphs—paragraphs that give some history and bring readers up to speed about why the story is news. When AJ and I walk into the council chambers, I’ve got my laptop, my notebook, and Meg’s recorder. I’m ready.
The council shares space with the municipal court. Reporters sit at the table used for the defense. The seven-member council sits behind an elongated judge’s bench, and there’s a lectern at the top of the aisle for the public portion of the meeting when citizens are allowed to address the council. So far, the only spectators here are me, AJ, a reporter from the Record-Gazette (our competition), and an older gentleman in a robin’s-egg blue seersucker suit who came in carrying a briefcase.
“That’s Constantine,” the Record-Gazette reporter whispers to me. “Never misses a meeting. Thinks he’s an attorney.”
Ah. Michael warned me about him. His exact words were, Do not make eye contact with Constantine. He’s like a half-wit cobra. He won’t stop talking and you’ll miss your deadline. Apparently, Constantine shows up at city hall every day too. Michael says he’s gotten some good tips on stories from him, but often, since he’s a few cards short of a deck, it’s not always easy to figure out what Constantine really knows and what he’s making up.
The meeting drags on and on. The council votes on various resolutions related to the mundane business of running a city; Constantine makes an impressive presentation on trash collection, complete with visuals; AJ sneaks off to the back row to pop in his earbuds and falls asleep. And then, just when it seems like the meeting is wrapping up, the city attorney blindsides me.
“The mayor would like to make a motion to discuss a personnel matter behind closed doors.”
“Can they do that?” I ask the Record-Gazette reporter.
“Yep. For personnel matters, they’re allowed to close the meeting.” He starts packing up his stuff. “This could take the rest of the night. I’m out of here.”
I quick dial the city desk and get Grace. I tell her what’s going on and ask her what I should do.
“Ask them what the personnel matter is related to,” she says. “You’re entitled to that information.”
I hang up just as they’re about to take a vote to go into closed session. The Record-Gazette reporter is already gone. AJ is in la-la land. I panic. I raise my hand like I’m in school, stand up, and start talking. “Uh, hello. I’m Samantha D’Angelo from the Herald Tribune.” Did the mayor smirk when I mentioned the paper’s name? Jerk. “Can I ask what the personnel matter relates to? This wasn’t on the agenda I picked up.”
“It’s in reference to filling an anticipated vacancy on the weatherization board.”
“Sy Goldberg’s position?” I blurt out. The mayor definitely scowls when he hears me mention the name.
“We’re not at liberty to discuss that information,” the city attorney says. “And now, if the council is ready to vote, will someone make a motion to move into private session?”
I’m already dialing Grace back to tell her what’s going on. “Wait there until it’s over,” she says. “If they take any kind of vote, it still has to be in public.”
“Got it.” I look at the time. Ten o’clock. My parents aren’t going to like this. But when I call my mom to tell her I’m going to be late, even though she’s not thrilled, she’s happy AJ is with me. I look over at him. Eyes closed, arms folded across his chest. His T-shirt is riding up in the front, exposing his navel and tight lower abs. All of a sudden I get warm and tingly watching him sleep. Too bad I’ve got to wake him. I slide along the back row and nudge his knee with mine. He opens one eye.
“Is it over? Sweet.”
“No. They’re meeting in closed chambers on a personnel matter. I have a feeling it has something to do with Sy Goldberg. Grace wants me to stay. You’ve got to find that Constantine guy before he leaves and talk to him—”
“Whoa, whoa, and whoa.” He runs his fingers through his long hair. “Who is Constantine?”
“The kooky guy in the blue suit. I need you to ask him if he’s heard anything about who the mayor is trying to hire to replace Sy Goldberg with. Maybe he thinks Michael will back off if Sy resigns for health reasons. I bet he planned this whole thing for when Michael wouldn’t be here.”
AJ puts a hand on my shoulder. “Relax. You need to find something besides Sy Goldberg to get all hot and bothered about.”
“Can you go see if Constantine is hanging around in the hall? I’ll stay here in case the council comes out to vote on anything. Please, AJ.”
“Fine. I’m goin’.”
Twenty minutes later, AJ returns to find me. I’ve had to endure three texts from Shelby. The first two both said the same thing:
Hello where R U?
The third said,
Is this thing on?
Must be a slow party night in Chestnutville.
“You so owe me,” AJ says. “People trippin’ on acid make more sense than that old dude.”
“Did you find out anything?”
He smiles. “What’s it worth to you?
“AJ!”
“Okay, okay. You were right. This is about your boyfriend, Sy Goldberg. Seems like he’s resigning from the board if he doesn’t kick first. The mayor wants to replace him with some chick named Kiki Ramirez.”
“Holy crap! I know that name.”
“You’re delirious.”
“I’m serious.” I tell him about the empty cubicle in city hall with Kiki Ramirez’s nameplate on it. “The guy who sits across from her said as far as he knew, it’s always been empty.”
“Convenient. The mayor’s replacing one no-show employee with another,” AJ says.
“Bingo!”
I flip open my laptop. First I Google “Kiki Ramirez.” Too many hits. Kiki Ramirez on Twitter, Kiki Ramirez on LinkedIn, on YouTube … What did I expect to find? I’m about to refine my search when I spot a Kiki Ramirez on some site called Eternal Obits, a place where one can honor one’s ancestors. That triggers something in my brain. How far back do the Herald Tribune’s online obits go?
“What are you doing? Let’s go.” AJ whines.
“Just a sec,” I say. “Grace said we have to stay put a while longer anyway.”
I pull up the archives search on the Herald Tribune’s website. I search for Kiki Ramirez.
“You’re not going to believe this!” I say.
I turn my screen toward AJ. He reads: “‘Kiki Ramirez, age twelve, died Thursday.’ Wow. She was young. A kid.”
“What’s the date on the obit?” I ask.
“January tenth, 2005,” AJ says. “Do you think it’s the same person? Is the mayor replacing a dying person with a dead person?”
“Not exactly. Maybe Sy and Kiki have more in common than a job,” I say.
“Whataya mean?”
“I mean, I don’t think Sy Goldberg is dying. I think he’s already dead.”
“Identity theft. So, it’s not the mayor’s cronies collecting salaries for no-show jobs, it’s him.”
“That’s what I’m thinking. Gram told me about this. She saw it on Dateline. It’s scary how easy it is to steal the identities of dead people.”
“It’s scary how many hours a day you spend thinking about this stuff.”
I ignore AJ and begin typing names into the Herald Tribune’s search engine. I type in “Sy Goldberg,” “Sydney Golberg,” “Sylvan Golberg.” Nothing. I try to recall the other names I found on those baby-name websites … Synclair, Sythe, Syahid. Still nothing.
“I don’t get it. Why don’t we have an obit for Sy?”
“Just because Sy Goldberg isn’t in our database doesn’t mean he’s not dead,” AJ says. “It depends on where and when he died. Our archives don’t go back very far. Here, let me see your computer.”
AJ does a search for “Social Security numbers for the deceased” and comes up with something called the Social Security Death Index.
“Who knew something like this even existed?” I say.
“He’d need Social Security numbers to put them on the payroll.”
I take the laptop back from AJ.
First I plug in my grandfather’s name, Vincenzo D’Angelo, just to see how it works. There are 2,160 results, but I can narrow the results by county, state, and date of death, all of which I know. I plug in the information and get an exact match.
I search Sy Goldberg. Again, I get a ton of results. But then, just for kicks, I type in Passaic County, New Jersey, and click the button that says “match all terms exactly.”
“Look at this!” I scream at AJ. “There’s an exact match for a Sy Goldberg who died in Passaic County, New Jersey, in 1964. It has his year of birth too, 1947.”
“So, he would have been only seventeen. With all the dead people in the world, why would he be stupid enough to steal the identities of local dead people?” AJ wonders aloud.
“Maybe he had good reason to believe he wouldn’t get caught. So far, he’s been right.”
Next I plug in Kiki Ramirez. There are more than 39,000 results. AJ leans over my shoulder and looks at the screen. His proximity makes my heart pound against my ribs, and for some reason, I’m holding my breath.
“Should I refine the search with the details from the obit I found in the Herald Tribune’s archives?” I ask.
“You could, but that’s not going to help. What we really need is to match the Social Security numbers the city has on record for Sy and Kiki with a match in the Death Registry.”
“Yeah, and don’t forget the bank account for Sy,” I say. “The mayor would have needed a Social Security number for that, too.”
It’s almost eleven thirty when we wrap up our online research for the night. The council never came out again to take a vote. I didn’t think they would. Before I send Grace the trash-removal story, I give her a rapid-fire version of what AJ and I suspect the mayor is doing.
“Maybe we should call Harry tonight?”
“I’ll reach out to him,” Grace says. “You two go on home, but be prepared to meet with Harry first thing in the morning.”
“Got it.” I hang up with Grace and turn to AJ. I’m so excited, I don’t think I’ll be able to sleep. “Did you still want to stop by the Harp? I know I promised when I asked you—”
“Isn’t it kind of late?”
“Uh, yeah, I guess, but I don’t think my parents will mind. Unless you don’t want to—I totally understand.…” I’m flustered as I gather up my stuff. Loose strands of hair that have escaped from my ponytail fall across my face. My hands are full, so I twist my mouth and try to blow the wisps out of my eye.
AJ reaches over and tucks the hair behind my ear. His fingers linger there for a split second. My mouth goes dry.
“Come on, Sam-I-am,” he says. “Let’s get you home.”
* * *
Harry, AJ, and I are sitting in the conference room. We’ve told Harry everything. About last night’s meeting; following the mayor on banking days; Shelby’s application at the coffee shop; and, most important, about how we believe Mayor Amato is stealing identities of dead people and putting them on the city payroll. Now we’ve got Michael on speakerphone, calling us from his vacation in Bar Harbor. I feel bad that Harry bothered him, but I knew he’d want to hear this. He’s soon brought up to speed.
“So, the Wonder Twins over here think they’ve uncovered an identity-theft scheme. The mayor’s got bigger cojones than I thought,” Harry says. “Why don’t you run the names of any other city employees you suspect of having no-show jobs through the death registry? See what you find.”
“Will do,” Michael says.
A link between the mayor, the money, and the Social Security numbers of the dead people has to be established. For that we need the city to give us its employee payroll records, which Harry thinks will ultimately require law-enforcement subpoena power. Harry says he will eventually be turning over what we discovered to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the District of New Jersey, but not until Michael does enough digging to get us a kick-ass page-one story on the mayor and his invisible employees.
“Unbelievable. I can’t believe I’m ten hours away and missing all this,” Michael says.
“Enjoy what’s left of your vacation, Fishman. Your ass is mine when you get back. I want the story.”
Then he turns toward us, or maybe on us.
“And you two. If intern scum duties aren’t keeping you busy enough, I’ve got something that will. You’re both going to do a complete inventory of the library. We need to know what we’ve got back there. After we shut the presses down, this building may be next to go.”
“Great,” AJ mumbles.
“What’s that, Sherlock Holmes?” Harry asks.
“Coffee?” I offer.
“That’s what I thought,” Harry says. “A lightly buttered bagel would be nice too.”
After we get back from the deli, I spend what’s left of the morning amid stacks of yellowed newspapers, reference books made obsolete by the Internet, small filing cabinets containing microfilmed copies of the Herald Tribune, and six large filing cabinets jammed with old photos used in the days before digital photography. The library.
Harry wants the photos organized first, which would be no problem if I were a CIA agent with a background in code cracking. But I’m not. For example, under S one would expect to find, oh, I don’t know, Saturday Night Live, Sex Pistols, sunsets—anything at all beginning with the letter S. Instead I find pictures of President John F. Kennedy, his brother Bobby, John Lennon, Martin Luther King Jr., and Dimebag Darrell from the heavy-metal band Pantera. Why?! The answer is found scrawled in red Sharpie on the back of each photo. All are labeled SHOT DEAD. Really!? The whole process is taking forever. My nose and throat already feel permanently coated with dust. Worse yet, AJ and I will be working in shifts, since one of us needs to stay near the phones, so I’m stuck doing library cleanup alone.
Before lunch, I take a break from the photos and tackle the yearbooks. My plan is to group them by high school and then put them in date order. Right now, they seem to be organized by color—color me surprised.
As I’m stacking the Northside High School yearbooks, my eyes fall on the one with pictures of Anton, the boy who died in the fire. I can’t help myself. I flip to the page with the track team and smiling Anton. It’s so hard to believe the boy in this photo is gone. School will be starting in a few weeks without him, I wonder how his friends feel. Maybe I can write about Anton in my blog.
After Paterson, I turn my attention toward the East Passaic yearbooks, and that’s when I’m hit so hard by what’s staring me in the face, I nearly fall over. Why didn’t I do this sooner? I begin a frantic shuffle through the stacks until I find what I’m looking for: the East Passaic High School year book from 1964—the year of death listed for the local Sy Goldberg we found in the death registry. I flip to the Ss and there he is: Sy Goldberg! Next to his name are the usual clubs and honors one sees in a yearbook write-up—National Merit finalist, National Honor Society, Latin Club, Future Business Leaders of America—but underneath his name is the word “deceased” and the years of his birth and death. Sy died while he was in high school! Then I flip to the front of the yearbook, and there, in the As, is Giovanni Amato—future corrupt mayor.
The mayor knew Sy. He also knew that he died before he had a chance to graduate high school, go to college, and, most important, hold a job. That last fact making Sy a perfect candidate for identity theft.
I close the yearbook and run straight to the city desk and Harry.
chapter twenty-one
Scooped!
I arrive on Friday morning armed with cleaning products and rubber gloves, prepared for day three of my battle in dust-bunny hell.
“I can’t believe Harry’s making us finish the library,” I say.
“Who else is he going to get to do it?” AJ asks.
I shrug. I’m a tad miffed that Harry di
dn’t grant us a reprieve after my yearbook discovery on Wednesday, not to mention all the extra research AJ and I did yesterday. We located Sy Golberg’s original obituary on microfilm and found out that his father died when he was a baby. Sy’s mother, who never remarried or had any other children, died a few years after her only child. So sad.
“I dunno. I just figured we’d be helping out with more important stuff until Michael gets back. We’re both sort of in on this story now, aren’t we?”
“Okay, two things here,” AJ says. “Number one, I don’t think Harry and Michael need help strategizing from a sixteen-year-old intern. And two, I don’t want in on it.”
“Then why did you agree to follow the mayor with me all those times?”
“For a smart girl, you really don’t get it, do you?” And then he snaps open the newspaper so I can’t see his face.
I’m about to react to what he just said when I catch a glimpse of the front-page headline, and my mood goes from annoyed to outraged. MOTORCYCLE GRANDMA HITS THE ROAD. Underneath is a photo of Tessie, the Harley-riding, Avon-selling woman I met at the deli, sitting on her pink Hog. The byline underneath the photo? Tony Roma.
“That a-hole stole my story!” I scream. Harry, Alice, Rocco, and Jack all stop what they’re doing and stare at me. Without thinking, I grab the paper away from AJ.
“Sam,” AJ says softly. “What up with the ’tude?”
I point to the front page. “This story? The motorcycle grandma?” I whisper-scream. “I told Tony weeks ago that I wanted to ask Jack about doing a profile on her. I just … haven’t gotten to it. But that’s not the point. The only reason he even knew about her was because of me.”
“Let me remind you, Coma Boy’s a douche bag. I said it from day one.”
At that point, Harry rolls himself backward in his chair and stops at the obit desk.
“Everything all right over here, D’Angelo?”
“Yes,” I say. I’m no tattletale.
“Just checking,” he says, and rolls himself back.
Famous Last Words Page 15