The Fraud

by Brad Parks

  As things stood right now, however, she was still a lawyer, so I wasn’t happy to see her. In the newsroom, we called her Nowalter, because her basic job was to make sure we didn’t get sued, which involved saying “no” a lot—no, we couldn’t run that story; no, we couldn’t include that saucy detail; no, we couldn’t quote that anonymous source.

  I didn’t need to knock on Eberhardt’s door. He saw me coming.

  “Oh, there you are,” he said. “Please come in. You know Angela Showalter, of course.”

  Nowalter and I exchanged smiles. Mine was perhaps a bit less genuine than hers.

  Eberhardt did not waste another moment. “We were hoping you could explain this to us,” he said. He clicked his mouse button twice, then swiveled his monitor toward me.

  For the next few minutes, I was treated to video of myself in the Fanwood Country Club pro shop. It began with me walking stealthily across the room. Then I slunk behind the starter’s desk and started toying with the computer there. Then my head whipped to the left and I dropped behind the counter as Earl Karlinsky came in and tried the handle to the front door. Finding it locked, he departed.

  I watched myself rise from behind the desk, looking flushed and anxious, the very picture of guilt. I worked the computer for a little longer, then made my hasty departure.

  Eberhardt turned his screen back to its original position. I took a moment to gather myself. My profession is all about divorcing oneself of personal opinions and calling it like you see it. And there was no other way to call this one: it looked bad. Really bad.

  I turned to Nowalter. “I take it you’ve been talking to Doc Fierro,” I said.

  “He contacted me earlier today, yes,” she said. “You’re confirming the video is authentic? This is you last night at Fanwood Country Club?”

  “I wish I could tell you it wasn’t. But I’m afraid it is.”

  Nowalter shot a dark face at Eberhardt. I immediately began arguing my case. “But I want to be very clear, I was invited to the club and I didn’t break into the pro shop. The back door was open. All I did was turn the handle and walk in. What you’re watching isn’t me breaking and entering.”

  “I’m sure that’s true, but the back door doesn’t appear on the video,” Eberhardt said. “All we see is the general manager checking the locked front one.”

  I nodded.

  “Who invited you to the club?” Nowalter asked.

  “Doc di—” I began and then I stopped myself. My conundrum was becoming painfully, painfully clear to me. The only person who could clear me of wrongdoing was the very person who was accusing me of it. The only evidence I had in support of my innocence was my own testimony. He, on the other hand, had this damning video.

  In short, Doc Fierro had my man parts in a vice. But why had he decided to tighten the crank so quickly? As far as he was concerned, there was no story yet. We had established that I would call him if there was. Why the preemptive strike?

  Then the explanation walked up and dislocated my jaw. Doc was protecting Earl Karlinsky. They were in on this thing together.

  It all made sense. And part of the proof was something Doc had told me, something I should have had sense to know myself: Earl Karlinsky wasn’t smart enough to come up with a scheme like this himself.

  But Doc Fierro sure was.

  As all the rows and columns lined up in my head, Nowalter and Eberhardt hadn’t been talking. They were just looking at each other in a meaningful way, as if they were silently rehashing a conversation whose conclusion they had already reached.

  Eberhardt cleared his throat. He ran his hand through his wavy hair, which I recognized as one of his nervous tics. I felt like my neck was being lowered on to the chopping block.

  “Look, Carter,” he said. “If Brodie were here, maybe there would be some possibility of leniency. You’ve done great work for this paper and that counts for something. And, personally, I believe you when you say you didn’t break in. That’s just … it’s not what it looks like on that video and I can’t … I can’t allow harm to come to Brodie’s newspaper while he’s not here. I’d never forgive myself. You know we can’t allow our reporters to run around breaking the law in the name of gathering news.”

  Then he let the ax drop. “I’m afraid I have no choice but to suspend you without pay until further notice.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Blue Mask was certain—absolutely certain—that he had closed the door to Birdie’s bedroom before he crashed on her bed. He was exhausted, having pulled an all-nighter to drive down to the depths of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, bury her, dispose of the car, then get himself home.

  He needed sleep. Uninterrupted sleep.

  Yet what woke him up? The damn cat. Jumping on the bed. And the door was open. Did the cat know how to turn handles or something? Blue Mask swore.

  He’d teach the thing a lesson. Without moving the rest of his body, Blue Mask brought his foot up, which was still clad in a sneaker. The cat was on the corner of the bed, licking its paw, seemingly not paying attention.

  Blue Mask kicked, aiming for the thing’s skull. The sneaker connected with the cat’s belly instead. But without much effect. The cat seemed to wrap itself around the shoe, going from an exclamation point to a parenthesis in an instant. All of the energy from the kick just got absorbed in the middle.

  It hopped off the bed, meowed indignantly, and walked off, more irritated than injured. Blue Mask swore again. Maybe he’d just feed the damn thing rat poison and be done with it.

  He swung his feet down to the floor, felt a small ache in his shoulder muscles from the shoveling. His left palm had a blister on it.

  The hunger hit him right after he stood up. He hadn’t eaten since the day before. He wondered if Birdie had anything in her refrigerator. He didn’t want to spend down what little money he had. It might have to last for a while.

  Then, as if to dispute that fact, his phone rang. It was Black Mask.

  “Yo,” he said.

  “Yo, we got a job to do.”

  “Yeah? When?”

  “Tonight,” Black Mask said.

  That was good. A job meant money. He needed to build up his nut again. At least this time he knew Birdie couldn’t steal it from him.

  “A’ight,” Blue Mask said. “What kind of car?”

  Black Mask always seemed to know what kind of car they were going to jack. Blue Mask had no idea how.

  “It’s a Volvo. A nice one. Silver. Practically brand-new.”

  “Cool. And you sure it’s gonna be there?”

  “Yeah, fool, I’m sure,” Black Mask said.

  Somehow, Black Mask could also predict where the car would be moments before it arrived. It was uncanny. Blue Mask asked him how he knew, but Black Mask never let on. He would just say the car, say the intersection and, presto, there it was. Like he had conjured the thing.

  “Where you want to meet?” Blue Mask asked.

  Black Mask gave him an intersection and a time. Blue Mask said he’d be there. They ended the call.

  He went downstairs to look in Birdie’s fridge. Cottage cheese. Mangy-looking meat for stew. Apple sauce that looked like it had been in there for a while. Some old ham. Nothing he wanted to eat.

  Hell with it. He went out to the closest McDonald’s and celebrated with two Big Macs and some fries. He was less concerned about saving his money now. He was going to get paid tonight.

  CHAPTER 34

  If there was one good thing about my retreat from Eberhardt’s office, it was that I somehow managed to keep my dignity intact.

  I wanted to cry, but kept it in check. I wanted to yell, but didn’t. I wanted to make an impassioned appeal for a second chance, but ultimately recognized the fruitlessness of that effort.

  Instead, I stoically told Eberhardt that if our roles were reversed and I was presented with the same set of circumstances, I probably would have made the same decision. I may have won points for my maturity with that, or Eberhardt may have just been
relieved he wasn’t going to have to call security on me. He told me he wasn’t sure what the next steps would be, just that I should avoid the premises while it was being sorted out.

  The one thing I extracted before I departed was a promise that he would not put the word out among the staff about my suspension until the next day. I told Eberhardt it was because, with Tina’s condition, I wanted to be able to gently break the news to her myself as to what had happened and why.

  And that was true. But I also wanted to buy myself a little more time when I could continue to operate as a fully functioning reporter, without the rest of the staff realizing I was untouchable.

  The fact was, the best way to restore my credibility was to destroy Doc’s. And the best way to do that was to prove he and Karlinsky were part of this carjacking ring. If I could do that, it would cast that video in an entirely different light. It would make Doc look like a man with a compelling motivation to lie about its particulars. Even Nowalter would agree our case would get 100 percent stronger. No judge trusts a witness with an obvious agenda.

  How I would explicitly tie Doc to the wrongdoing at Fanwood Country Club wasn’t yet clear to me. I just knew the stakes had changed. I was no more than a week or two away from becoming a father to a baby I might not be able to support. If I lost my job at the Eagle-Examiner, I might never work in journalism again. Correction: I might never work anywhere outside retail. The only hiring most newspapers did anymore was essentially child labor. They certainly weren’t hiring someone else’s damaged goods.

  Neither was anyone else. Once word got out I had been fired, I would literally become unemployable by any of the institutions that provided so many ex-reporters a soft landing. And while Tina still had her job—ensuring C-3PO wouldn’t starve—that felt like scant comfort. I don’t ordinarily get hung up on macho notions of masculinity. Most of them are horribly outdated and deserved to have been buried around the time humanity left the hunter-gatherer phase.

  Yet something hardwired in me, something I perhaps hadn’t recognized before, was suddenly telling me that if I couldn’t provide for my child, it made me less of a man.

  I was now more resolved than ever: Doc Fierro had to go down. Quickly.

  And I knew where I had to begin. On my way to the elevator, as I kept an eye on Eberhardt’s office, I stopped by Buster Hays’s desk. He was pounding his keyboard with the usual ferocity.

  “Hey,” I said, trying to sound casual. “Did you hear from your guy on the task force about that Fanwood membership list yet?”

  “Nope,” he said, without looking at me.

  “Would you mind calling him? It’s gotten to be sort of important.”

  “Believe it or not, Ivy, I have other things to do around here than to be your handmaiden.”

  I stood there for a moment and stopped trying to keep my emotions in check. I failed.

  “Buster,” I said softly. “Please.”

  His head snapped upward. My eyes fixed on his.

  And then three words came out that I thought I’d never hear from Buster Hays’s mouth: “Ivy, you okay?”

  I looked down at the carpet for a moment.

  “This doesn’t have anything to do with why you were just in Eberhardt’s office with Nowalter, does it?” he asked.

  It occurred to me Buster probably knew more than he was letting on. He often did.

  “It’s probably better for you that you not know the details,” I said. “But, yeah.”

  “Okay,” he said, nodding his head slightly. “I’m a little slammed on deadline right now. But as soon as I file I’ll call my guy and put the screws to him.”

  “Thanks, Buster. I owe you.”

  “Yeah, you do,” he said. “But you know how you’re gonna repay me?”

  He didn’t wait for my response. “You just take care of yourself, okay, Ivy? There are only so many real reporters left in this newsroom. Be a damn shame to lose one of the best we got.”

  * * *

  I left before Buster could realize he had gotten me choked up. I was in dire need of some kind of break, and Buster’s cooperation felt like a big one.

  Then another one arrived. I was just out of the building, on my way toward the parking garage, telling myself this wouldn’t be the last time I made that particular walk, when my phone rang.

  “Carter Ross.”

  “Mr. Ross, this is Tujuka Okeke.”

  I felt myself smiling. Grit had won again. “Good evening, Mrs. Okeke.”

  “I received your note,” she said. “I am sorry I was rude earlier today.”

  “I’m sorry I woke you up.”

  “If you would like to come by my house tonight, we can talk about Joseph.”

  “That would be great. What time?”

  “My shift starts at nine,” she said. “I have to leave no later than eight forty-five.”

  “How does seven sound?”

  “That would be fine,” she said, and we bid each other goodbye.

  The smile was still on my face. It felt like my momentum, so irrevocably lost mere minutes earlier, was now returning to me.

  I ran through a quick itinerary in my mind. I could hit the Greater Newark Children’s Council at six thirty and with Sweet Thang’s help be out in fifteen minutes. That would land me at Tujuka’s house by seven. I would be rushing it a bit, but I could get what I needed there in forty-five minutes and make it to Zabrina Coleman-Webster’s house by eight to grab those insurance documents. Then I could be on time for my take-out date with Tina.

  As I drove toward Sweet Thang’s place, hope buoyed me. Assuming Buster could come through for me, I thought of the story I’d be able to offer Eberhardt: a carjacking ring terrorizing a well-known country club, perhaps being led by a former state cabinet member, perhaps involving a noted Newark nonprofit; a cast of victims that included a banker who was about to lose his job, a businessman who had been a doting father, and a widow who was being cheated out of insurance money.

  It would be more than compelling enough to get him to lift my suspension.

  Before long, I was parked alongside the dumpy brick home of the Greater Newark Children’s Council and had gotten out of the car. The front door was locked, so I hit the buzzer on a small intercom next to the door.

  “Be right there,” a squelchy version of Sweet Thang’s voice informed me.

  She appeared at the front door with her bouncy blond hair tied up in a ponytail, always a sign she meant business. She held the door open for me, and I entered.

  “I have just been a wreck about this all day,” she said as we walked back to her tiny office. “I spent half the afternoon crafting the resignation letter in which I admit this is all my fault and express incredible remorse over the harm I have unwittingly caused an organization I care deeply about.”

  “I might end up being wrong about all this,” I reminded her.

  “Yeah, but most of the time you’re not.”

  “We’ll see. Come on. Let’s get it over with.”

  She was standing next to her desk, not moving. “I’ve decided I don’t want to be there when you look at the car. I already feel like I’m betraying the GNCC enough as it is. Here. Just go.”

  She went into her desk drawer and retrieved her keys, which were at the end of a lanyard made from a thin strip of rainbow-colored cloth. I accepted them with a small amount of hesitance. I wasn’t sure if I was up for more activity that might later be interpreted as breaking and entering on someone’s security camera footage.

  “I’d really feel better if you…” I started to say, and was about to add came with me. But there was a certain set to Sweet Thang’s jaw. She wasn’t budging on this one.

  “Never mind,” I said. “I’ll be right back.”

  “You’ll let us comment, of course,” she said. “I spent the other half of the afternoon preparing statements for our executive director to make about how appalled we are, about how this does not reflect the values of our organization, and about how we acted s
wiftly the moment we learned about it.”

  “And I will print all of it and more when the time comes,” I assured her.

  “Okay. It’s just that Dave is—”

  “Sweet Thang,” I said, cutting off what I recognized would be a long monologue. “Just sit tight. I’ll be right back.”

  The corners of her mouth went down in a manner that would have been adorable were it not for the circumstances. I left her in her office, tracing my way out the back exit we had used earlier in the day and across the courtyard.

  When I reached the door to the garage, I held the keys and the rainbow lanyard aloft for a moment, to make sure any cameras registered that I had been provided them by a GNCC employee.

  I inserted the key into the lock. It turned easily.

  The inside of the garage was still lit from high above, as it had been earlier in the day. The television was still playing, too, providing a ghostly, chattering soundtrack to an empty room. I wondered why Dave hadn’t turned it off before he left for the day.

  The Cadillac CTS was still up on the hydraulic lift. That solved my first potential problem—I had worried it would have been chopped up and moved away by the time I got back. But it did nothing to solve my second: I had no idea how to get the car down so I could check the VIN number against the one Justin Waters had provided me. Hydraulic Lift Operation 101 was not an offering in the Amherst course guide, nor was it part of on-the-job training at the Eagle-Examiner.

  I walked toward the Cadillac and was just starting to look for the lift controls when there was a stirring in the corner.

  Then I heard a sound that has to rank near the top of the scariest sounds on Earth: that metal-on-metal chick-chick of a shotgun slide being racked. I whirled around to see Dave Gilbert.

  “What the hell do you want?” he demanded.

  Ordinarily, it was Gilbert’s handlebar mustache that commanded most of my attention when he spoke. But not this time.

  This time, it was the barrel of the shotgun he had aimed at my chest.