Nikolai stared at the Pakhan, sweating profusely, downed his drink, and without saying a word, stood and made his way out of the restaurant, knowing he was treading on thin ice. When he reached Brighton Beach Avenue, he stopped and lit a cigarette, cursing his bad luck. Then he looked up into the sky, droplets of rain splashing his face.
He needed a plan. A good plan. A way to stop Pavel.
CHAPTER 15
ETHAN SAT HUNCHED OVER HIS desk in front of a cold mug of coffee and an untouched plate of bacon and eggs as he finished putting documents into a loose-leaf notebook he planned to give Peter Sampson when he trekked out to East Hampton later in the day. He’d been working since four a.m., unable to sleep, writing a briefing memo, three pages of questions, and a preliminary production schedule for his interview with Pavel Feodor. After adding them to the front of the notebook, he got up to make a fresh pot of coffee when his cell phone rang. He stared in disbelief. Who could be calling at this hour? he thought, scratching the back of his head. But when he checked the LCD screen on his iPhone, there was no name and no telephone number.
The call had been blocked.
“This is Ethan Benson.” He heard a long pause and heavy breathing. “Hello, is anybody there?”
More silence.
Then a woman cleared her throat. “You don’t know me, Mr. Benson. My name is Edith Templeton. I work in the district attorney’s office for Ms. McGregor.”
Ethan hesitated, wondering why she was calling in the middle of the night. “How’d you get my cell phone number, Ms. Templeton? It’s unlisted.”
“It wasn’t very difficult. I have access to lots of information.”
Ethan sipped his cold coffee and lit another cigarette. “So how can I help you, Ms. Templeton?”
“It’s me that wants to help you, Mr. Benson,” she said, whispering into the telephone. “I have evidence from the Feodor case. Evidence you want from Ms. McGregor that she’s never gonna give you.”
“What evidence?” Ethan said, suddenly alert.
“You have to guarantee me you won’t tell anybody you got it from me,” she said. “If they find out, I’ll lose my job.”
“If who finds out?”
“I can’t tell you that, Mr. Benson. But put two and two together and promise me you won’t tell anybody you talked to me.”
“That won’t be a problem,” he said reassuringly. “I’m a journalist. I protect my sources.”
“I’m still not sure I can trust you, Mr. Benson,” she said with a sense of urgency in her voice. “Maybe I should hang up?”
“Don’t do that, Ms. Templeton,” Ethan said, backpedaling. “You’ll be my confidential source. I won’t discuss our conversation with anybody. I give you my word.” More heavy breathing. Ethan waited on pins and needles, praying this whistleblower would believe him.
“I have a package I want to give you, Mr. Benson.”
“What is it?”
“I can’t tell you on the telephone.”
“Why not?”
“Somebody might be listening.”
Ethan covered his mouthpiece, exhaling deeply, trying to temper his growing excitement. “When can you give it to me?”
“You can have it right away.”
“Do you want to meet somewhere?”
“No,” she said, suddenly raising her voice. “Too risky. If somebody sees us together, it’ll be the end of me.”
“Okay. Okay,” he said apprehensively. “Tell me what you wanna do.”
“I’m gonna drop off the package with your doorman. Give me five minutes, then go down to the lobby and get it.” She paused momentarily. “We’ve been talking too long. I need to go.”
“Hold on a second. Are you sure you don’t want to meet?”
“No.”
“Is there a number where I can reach you?”
“No. It’s better if I call you, and please, please, don’t call me at the office.”
“I won’t, Ms. Templeton. I give you my word.”
“Wait five minutes, then get the package.”
She hung up.
Ethan double-checked his iPhone, hoping Ms. Templeton’s number would show up on one of his apps. But there was no way to trace the call. No way to reach out to her except at the DA’s office—and that was certainly out of the question. As he watched the minutes tick by, he wondered why this woman—this perfect stranger—was willing to help him, and who in the district attorney’s office she was possibly afraid of. Was it Nelson Brown? Nancy McGregor? Maybe somebody else?
Another mystery to solve.
He lit a Marlboro, counted to a hundred, then headed for the door.
• • • • •
It was still dark, the sun hovering just below the horizon, when Ethan flipped on the lights in his office, threw his briefcase onto the couch, and sat down at his desk. Grabbing a scissors, he cut the string binding the package he’d picked up from the doorman and stared at the cardboard box before lifting the top and pulling out a manila envelope marked “Pavel Feodor Confession Video.” He turned it over in his hands, then reached for a second envelope labeled “Crime Scene Footage.” Interesting, he thought. I don’t remember seeing a reference to a crime scene video in the research. As he continued rifling through the box, searching for something else, Mindy walked through the door. “What the hell are you doing here?” he said. “It’s a bit early to be at work.”
“I couldn’t sleep. Got too much shit to do to get ready for Sampson. What’s that, Ethan?” She pointed to the box and the discarded brown paper sitting on his desk.
“A care package that was left for me in the lobby of my building.”
“New evidence from the Feodor case?”
“Looks like it.”
“Who gave it to you?”
“A source.”
“Who, Ethan?”
“Come on, Mindy, you know I can’t tell you that. All I can say is somebody called me in the middle of the night, told me she had evidence I needed to see, then dropped the package off with my doorman.”
“So your source is a woman?” Mindy said, trying to wrangle a name out of him.
Ethan smiled. “No way, Mindy. I’m not spilling the beans, no matter how hard you try.”
“Okay, okay,” she said, “but you can’t fault me for asking.” She scooted around his desk and looked over his shoulder. “So what did she give you?”
“Two videos.”
“What are they?”
“I’m not sure yet,” Ethan said, picking up the envelopes. “This one appears to be the clip of the confession that Nancy McGregor played for the jury. David never got a copy from her, did he?”
“Nope. We’ve been wondering if she’d ever get around to sending it,” Mindy said, a cynical smile twisting her mouth. “And what’s in the other envelope?”
“It appears to be footage of the crime scene. We haven’t found that anywhere, have we?”
“Hell no,” Mindy said. “Didn’t even know it existed. I thought the only images were still pictures.”
“That’s what I thought too,” Ethan said. “Shall we go take a look?”
Mindy looked at her watch. “It’s a bit early. Lemme call the overnight tape room coordinator, see if there’s anybody available.” She picked up the telephone and made the call. “We’ve got Room 903. Joel Zimmerman’s just locking a segment for this week’s show. He’s waiting for us.”
• • • • •
They made their way down to the editing floor, passing a dozen empty Avid rooms before reaching Room 903. Joel Zimmerman was sitting in front of a bank of monitors, typing a set of commands into a keyboard and creating a new file for their story. “Hey, guys, what the hell are you doing here so early?” he said. “I thought the only fools working at this hour were people like me stuck on the dead man’s shift. So what do you wanna screen?”
“We’re working the Pavel Feodor murder,” Ethan said, “and a source just slipped us these two videos.” He handed Joel
the DVDs.
“Which one first?”
“Let’s screen Pavel Feodor’s confession.”
Joel pulled the disk from its plastic sleeve and dropped it into a playback machine. The first frame popped into the preview monitor.
“How long is it?” Ethan said.
“Forty-seven seconds,” Joel said.
“So it’s probably the clip McGregor played in court,” Mindy said, disappointed. “I was hoping it was the raw video.”
“Fat chance. Let’s take a look,” Ethan said.
Joel punched another command into his keyboard and the clip began rolling. It was a grainy wide-angle shot recorded on an old video camera mounted in the upper left hand corner of the interrogation room. You could barely make out the features of Feodor’s face. “Can you clean up the picture?” Ethan said, staring at the monitor. “Zoom in a little tighter.”
“I’ll try,” Joel said, “but the image is gonna fall apart.”
“Try anyway.”
Joel adjusted the video and blew up the shot.
“You’re right,” Ethan said. “Still can’t see his lips moving.” He rubbed his eyes, frustrated. “Play the whole thing, Joel.”
They all watched as Pavel Feodor admitted to shooting the Mexican, chasing the cars through the alley, and murdering Cynthia Jameson. Ethan peered at the video, trying to read the expression on Feodor’s face, but the image was just too distorted, and he couldn’t tell if he was telling the truth or confessing under duress. “Has the sound been edited?” he said, wondering if anything had been taken out of context.
“There’s no way to know unless we compare it to the original,” Joel said. “Do we have a copy?”
“The DA’s office won’t give it to us,” Ethan said harshly. “The prosecutor claims it’s too graphic, too explosive, and the trial judge agreed with her. So nobody’s seen the raw video. Nobody except Feodor’s attorney.” He turned to Mindy. “Does our clip match what McGregor played in court?”
“Word for word—at least according to this New York Post article.” She handed him the story.
“So it’s the same clip she showed the jury,” Ethan said, scanning the verbatim. “And for argument’s sake, let’s say it matches the redacted confession they sent us in the court docket. But what if it’s been changed or doctored in some way? We need to get our hands on the raw video, Mindy, and a clean version of the transcript. I wanna make sure the clip isn’t a fake.”
“That’s gonna be tough,” Mindy said, matter-of-factly. “As far as we know, nobody has a clean copy of the videotape other than O’Malley, and he won’t give it to us either.”
“Well, I need it,” Ethan said. “Tell David to call Nelson Brown and bug him. McGregor promised to send us an unedited transcript. If she steps up to the plate and releases it, then at least we can use that to check the clip.”
“David’s been trying, but Brown’s giving him the runaround—just like he is with everything else we’re missing.”
“I don’t care. Tell him to call again.”
“Okay. Okay. But I can’t promise you anything.”
“Don’t argue with me. Just do it.” He closed his eyes, trying to calm down. “Sorry, Mindy, I didn’t mean to snap at you.” He took a series of deep breaths. “Okay, I’m better now. Let’s screen the other DVD.” He smiled and handed the disk to Joel. “Is there sound?”
Joel checked his audio mixer. “Yup, there’s sound.”
“Play it.”
For the next ten minutes, they watched a frighteningly surreal video of the crime scene investigation. Detectives were racing in and out of the shots, hovering over Pavel Feodor and examining Cynthia Jameson’s lifeless body as lab technicians dressed in white suits and masks pored over the carnage, collecting evidence. “Stop it for a second, Joel,” Ethan said fervently. “Can you zoom in a little tighter? I can’t really see what they’re doing.”
Joel blew up the image, but the picture—like the confession—was too grainy and slowly dissolved into nothing but a blur.
“Why don’t the police buy new cameras?” Ethan said, frustrated. “The city can’t be that broke. Pull the image back until it clears.”
Joel zoomed back and froze the frame.
“Can you see any blood on her body?” Ethan said, facing Mindy.
“Can’t tell. There are too many people in the way and the angle’s all wrong. Maybe there’ll be a better shot later in the video?”
“That’ll be the day,” Ethan said, disappointed. “Roll it again, Joel.”
The editor hit play, and the camera panned wildly around the parking lot capturing more pandemonium as the NYPD continued to work the crime scene. As a detective was stringing police tape around a pool of blood smeared in a grotesque pattern at the base of a chain-link fence, Ethan sat bolt upright in his seat. “Did you hear what that cop just said?”
“I heard it,” Mindy said. “And I’m not sure I believe it. Rack the tape back thirty seconds, Joel, and play it again.”
Ethan sat motionless, mesmerized, as the camera panned left to right, then pulled back and settled on a wide shot of a detective dressed in an expensive wool overcoat talking to a group of cops standing around Cynthia Jameson’s lifeless body. “Is that who I think it is, Mindy?”
“Yeah. It’s Detective Jenkins.”
“And did he really just say that?”
“Yeah. He just told everybody he’s been ordered to review all the police reports. Jeez, Ethan, why would he say that?”
“I don’t know, Mindy.”
“Do you think he changed anything?”
“That wouldn’t surprise me. I told you I don’t trust that guy,” Ethan said, wondering if someone might’ve ordered Jenkins to sanitize the evidence. But why would anybody do that? Was somebody trying to frame Feodor? “Look, this videotape changes everything. It’s our first real proof that the police may have tampered with the evidence. Mindy, I want you to transcribe the video. I want to read everything else Jenkins says and bring it with us to East Hampton. Joel, can you burn me a copy of the video so I can show Peter?”
“Not a problem.”
“How long will it take?”
“Not long. It only runs an hour.”
“So we have time to screen the rest of it?”
“Absolutely.”
“Okay, let’s see if the cops are hiding anything else.” Ethan put his feet up on a chair and watched the rest of the crime scene video Ms. Templeton had just slipped him. It was a real game-changer for his story. A real smoking gun.
CHAPTER 16
THE TRAFFIC WAS LIGHT AS they turned onto Montauk Highway and headed down the narrow two-lane road to East Hampton. They’d left the office at eleven, planning three hours for the drive to Peter Sampson’s sprawling estate on Lily Pond Lane in one of the most exclusive communities in the country. Ethan had insisted Peter carve out most of the afternoon to prep for the interview and go over the story. The anchorman had grumbled, saying he was too busy, but Ethan had held his ground, and after much moaning, Sampson had cleared his schedule. Now Ethan prayed he hadn’t forgotten and wouldn’t be faced with an army of houseguests.
That would be typical of Peter.
He lit a Marlboro and stared out the window. Puffy white clouds were dancing across the sky, dappled sunshine casting a myriad of patterns over the crystal-clear waters of Shinnecock Bay. “How much longer until we get there?” Ethan said as Mindy passed an old pickup truck chugging along at a snail’s pace.
“Maybe half an hour. Did you tell Paul about the crime scene video?”
“I had a long conversation with him before we left. Told him what Jenkins said.”
“And?”
“He was blown away,” Ethan said candidly. “Authorized me to keep digging, to use Howard and not worry about money. Said he’d approve any additional costs beyond the five thousand dollars. Have you asked Lloyd to tap his sources in the NYPD and do a background check on Jenkins?”
“
Just before we left. He suspects there’s been a cover-up too, but like us, can’t figure out why.”
“Maybe it’s Feodor’s connection to the Russians?” Ethan said, stubbing out his cigarette in the ashtray. “Maybe they’re behind the cover-up and are paying off Jenkins? That’s what they do, right? They bribe the police.”
“Come on, Ethan, we haven’t nailed down that the Russians even know Feodor. That’s just a theory at the moment.”
“Howard’s junkie sources should help us prove that,” Ethan said, searching for landmarks as they approached East Hampton.
“Has Howard set up a meeting?” Mindy said.
“Tonight at midnight. He’s gonna email me a location in Brooklyn as soon as he figures it out.” Ethan grabbed his iPad and checked the directions. “It’s not much farther. Make a right at the next corner. That should be Ocean Avenue.”
They turned and drove down a beautiful, tree-lined street. There were huge mansions, one after another, with expensive cars, manicured lawns, swimming pools, and tennis courts. They stopped at a traffic light, then made a sharp right onto Lily Pond Lane, just missing an upper-crust family out for a ride on their top-of-the-line bicycles. Here the homes were bigger and even more opulent, the picture of unbridled wealth, a paradise for the rich and famous.
“So this is where Peter Sampson spends his free time,” Mindy said, taking it all in.
“His house is just on the left,” Ethan said. “Number sixty. It’s right on the ocean.”
Mindy pulled into the driveway and up to a security gate, picking up a phone mounted on a freshly painted white fence-post. She pushed a button and listened as the last few bars of the William Tell Overture announced their arrival. “Hello, who may I say is calling?” a woman said in a high-pitched voice with a Spanish accent.
“It’s Mindy Herman. I’m here with Ethan Benson. Mr. Sampson’s expecting us for a meeting.”
“Come right on in,” the woman said without hesitation. “It’s me, Consuela.”
“I didn’t know you were out here with Peter,” Mindy said, surprised.
“One of the perks of the job,” Consuela said. “Get to spend a lot of time at the beach.”
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