Live to Air

by Jeffrey L Diamond

  “Hang on. Please. I’ve just got one more question. I need a copy of the ballistics report. Do you have it?”

  Ms. Templeton laughed into the telephone. “No. I don’t.” Ethan paused. “Why not?”

  “Because it doesn’t exist. The police never found the bullet.”

  “But Detective Jenkins showed me a bullet hole in the building across the street from where Cynthia was murdered. He said they dug out a fragment that tied the bullet to Feodor’s Beretta.”

  “Well, I guess he must’ve been pretty persuasive if you believed him.”

  “So there’s no bullet and no way to link Pavel’s handgun to the wound in Cynthia’s body?”

  “Nope. The ballistics report entered into evidence—the one conveniently left out of the court docket we sent you—is a fake. I could give you a copy, but I hardly see how it matters anymore.”

  “You’re sure it’s not real.”

  “I’m more than sure. I’m positive.”

  “Send it to me anyway. I need it for my records,” Ethan said. “But I still don’t understand why somebody would go to all this trouble to frame Pavel Feodor. What did Nancy McGregor gain from it? Was she working for Alexey Kolkov and the Russian Mob?” Ethan waited, but Ms. Templeton didn’t answer. “Was it somebody else?”

  “No more questions, Mr. Benson. You’ll have to figure out the rest of the truth on your own. I can’t help you anymore.”

  “But I need to know,” he said pleadingly. Then the phone went dead. “Shit. She just hung up on me.”

  “What did she say?”

  “You heard my end of the conversation. The entire case is smoke and mirrors. Nancy McGregor fabricated the evidence to get the conviction—the autopsy report, the ballistics report, the police reports, everything. They’re all fake. We have to figure out who told her to do it.”

  “Did your source say anything else?”

  “Just to screen the DVD. It’s Feodor’s confession.”

  “Unedited?”

  “That’s what she said.” Ethan pulled the DVD out of its plastic sleeve and popped it into his computer. “We should screen this before we finish Sampson’s research book. It may change some of the interview questions. Let’s see what else Nancy McGregor is hiding.”

  “Well, I’m not goin’ anywhere,” Mindy said, pulling a chair in front of the computer.

  Ethan reached for his scotch and swirled the liquid around the glass. What would Sarah think? he thought. She’d say I was crazy to start drinking at this hour, and you know, she’d be right. Then he put down the glass, hit enter on his laptop, and began watching the confession—following along in the new transcript.

  The content was shocking.

  Another piece of the puzzle.

  Another smoking gun.

  CHAPTER 33

  LLOYD HOWARD WAS LEANING against the steering wheel in his surveillance van, staring through a pair of high-powered binoculars. Propped on the dashboard was a Canon Rebel T5i digital camera with a 250mm telephoto lens that he’d been using all day to snap pictures of Nancy McGregor as she tooled around the city. So far he had little to show and even less to report to Ethan. She was in the office by nine, had lunch with Nelson Brown at one, and then met with a group of button-down executives at the Harvard Club he assumed were corporate attorneys.

  He lit a cigarette and focused the binoculars on two uniformed cops standing on either side of the front entrance to the district attorney’s office as a horde of people, looking tired and haggard, streamed out of the building. He checked his watch. It was almost six. If McGregor stuck to her schedule, she’d be leaving soon. He put down the binoculars and peered through the viewfinder of his camera. Sure enough, like clockwork, she exited the building, hustled down the steps, and into a Charge & Ride Limousine.

  Howard zoomed into the window and clicked another half dozen shots as McGregor made herself comfortable and began reading her iPad. Then he threw the van into drive and slipped into traffic. For the next hour, he tailed her around the city. First back to her apartment on Fifth Avenue and Tenth Street, where she stopped to change clothes, and then up the West Side Highway to Eighty-Third Street, where she signed a voucher for the limousine and climbed out in front of the Barnes & Noble. Easing behind a taxi double-parked on the corner, he started snapping more pictures—click, click, click—as McGregor carefully checked her surroundings and started walking down Broadway.

  “Where’s she going?” he wondered as he eased the van into drive and followed, hovering a safe distance behind as she window-shopped the ten-block walk down to Seventy-Second Street, stopped at a newsstand to buy a magazine, peered up and down the block one last time, and then ducked into a luxury high-rise. Howard continued snapping away, one shot after another, as McGregor said hello to the doorman, walked through the lobby, and climbed onto an elevator. Then he lowered the camera, parked, and made his way to an outdoor café with a clean line of sight to the front of the building.

  After ordering a cup of coffee, he pulled out his cell phone and called Ethan. “Hey, it’s me, Lloyd.”

  “Are you still following McGregor?” he said, the sound of editing equipment whizzing away in the background.

  “Yeah, I’m on her like a glove.”

  “Any sign of the Russians?”

  “No. And I’m pretty sure of that.” Howard sipped his coffee and frowned. “You know, I’m beginning to think we’ve hit a dead end.”

  “I’m thinking the same thing,” Ethan said, pausing a moment to tell Joel Zimmerman to cut a line from a Pavel Feodor sound bite. “Where was I? Oh yeah, McGregor and the syndicate. Mindy’s source at the US attorney’s office has nothing linking McGregor to Alexey Kolkov, at least that’s what he’s telling us. If McGregor and Kolkov have been plotting together, they’ve been going through an intermediary—maybe Frankie O’Malley. But we can’t prove that either, and we’re running out of time.”

  Howard finished his coffee as a stretch limousine pulled up to the front of the building. “Hold on a second. Some guy is getting out of the biggest fucking car I’ve ever seen.” He picked up his camera and started shooting as a tall, well-dressed man climbed out of the backseat and made his way into the lobby, flanked by two bodyguards. “Some big shot just arrived and walked into the building.”

  “Do you recognize him?” Ethan said pensively. “Is it Kolkov?”

  “I can’t see him. His back’s to the camera. But it’s not a Navigator. So it probably isn’t him.”

  “Think he’s there to meet McGregor?”

  “Who the hell knows,” Howard said, still taking pictures. “I’ve got the limo’s license plate number. I’ll run it through one of my contacts at the DMV and see if I can come up with a name. Look, do you have time to hustle up here and watch the building with me? I’m at Seventy-Second and Broadway—only a few blocks from the Broadcast Center. I’ve got a feeling something’s about to happen.”

  “Can’t leave,” Ethan said distractedly. “I’m bouncing from one Avid room to another working on the special. I’m stuck here most of the night. But I want updates. Call me back when McGregor’s on the move again.”

  “Shall do, Ethan.” Howard punched off the phone and ordered another coffee, then dialed his contact at the DMV. It’s probably nobody important, he thought as he waited for his source to answer. But better be safe than sorry.

  • • • • •

  Nancy McGregor got off the elevator on the top floor. There was thick wool carpeting on the floor and designer wallpaper on the walls. Expensive light fixtures hung from an elaborate inlaid ceiling, casting a patchwork of shadows as she hurried down the hallway past a series of custom-made wooden doors. When she reached the end of the hall, she checked to make sure she was alone, then put the key into the door and slipped into the apartment.

  Making her way to the living room, she draped her suit jacket over the back of a chair, unfastened the top button of her blouse, kicked off her shoes, and dropped her briefcase on the
floor next to a rolltop desk. After shutting the curtains and turning on the lights, she poured two glasses of Evan Williams 23 Kentucky bourbon, placed one on a coffee table, and sat down on a red velvet couch. She slowly sipped her drink and waited. Fifteen minutes later, another key was inserted in the door, and a handsome man with silver-gray hair, wearing a perfectly pressed gray charcoal suit, white shirt, and lime-green silk tie walked into the apartment.

  It was the man from the limousine.

  The deputy mayor.

  Bernard Jameson.

  McGregor put down her drink and smiled. “Hello, Bernard, I’m glad you could make it.” She kissed him on both cheeks.

  “Does anybody know we’re here?”

  “No. I was careful. I’m sure I wasn’t followed.”

  “What about your brother?” he said adamantly. “Did you tell him you were using his apartment?”

  “Of course not. He’s in LA making a movie and has no idea I’m here. Besides, he wouldn’t care.”

  “Well, I almost didn’t make it,” he said, picking up his bourbon and draining the glass all at once. “I just left a meeting with my advisers. They’re all pushing me to go public with my candidacy for mayor. I think it’s too soon, but they don’t. I need to make a decision, and so do you if you want to join my campaign.” He poured another bourbon. “So what’s so important it couldn’t wait?”

  The first sign of fear spread across Nancy McGregor’s face.

  Bernard Jameson was not the kind of man to cross. He was a political animal with a public image as a loving husband and father who’d been crushed by the murder of his daughter. But on the inside, there was a darker side he kept well hidden, like Mr. Hyde lurking within Dr. Jekyll.

  Nancy McGregor knew that darker side.

  Maybe a little too well.

  She’d met Jameson right after starting the Feodor case and was instantly attracted to his charm and grace—soon finding herself swept off her feet and sleeping in his bed. As their relationship grew, he made promises, lots of promises—to make her his campaign manager, to give her a prominent role in his administration once he became mayor, and to leave his wife and marry her. In exchange, all he seemed to want was to be by her side as she built her case. Deep down, she knew she should remain objective and keep her distance, but she was ambitious and believed his sincerity, and the sex, oh, the sex, it was just so wonderful. She bought his pitch hook, line, and sinker, and before she knew it, was embroiled in the conspiracy that now threatened her career—with no way to get out.

  Smiling warily, she said, “Sit, Bernard, we have a lot to talk about. The interview with Feodor didn’t go well. Gloria Jimenez at Rikers Island said Pavel told The Weekly Reporter everything—that he never confessed, that he didn’t kill your daughter, and that I framed him in court.”

  “You said you had this under control,” the deputy mayor said, raising his voice. “Sounds like you have a problem, and if you have a problem, I have a problem. So what are you going to do about it?”

  McGregor sipped her bourbon, scrambling to find the right words. “There’s nothing we can do about it now, Bernard. O’Malley couldn’t control him. We have to do damage control and make sure Feodor doesn’t hurt us.”

  “How do you plan to do that, Nancy?”

  “Maybe I should just cancel my interview with Sampson.”

  “You can’t bail out now,” he said bleakly. “It’ll make you look guilty.”

  “Yes. You’re right,” she said timidly. “I was just thinking out loud.”

  “Are you ready for him?” he said forcefully. “You can bet Peter Sampson is gonna come after you with one tough question after another. He’s an anchorman. That’s what he does.”

  “That’s what I’m worried about, and that’s why I needed to see you. Peter Sampson and Ethan Benson know much more about me than I first thought. Some of the other interviews they’ve shot this week are even more disturbing than Feodor’s. Sampson absolutely took Detective Jenkins apart yesterday.”

  “Was Benson there?” Jameson said, pouring himself another bourbon.

  “No. Sampson was with that associate producer, Mindy Herman—the girl you and Sandy met at your apartment.”

  “She seemed harmless to me,” Jameson said dismissively. “Where was Benson?”

  “He’s working on the script,” she said, avoiding the deputy mayor’s icy stare. “Herman told Jenkins the network has moved up the airdate and given them the entire hour. It may actually run next week.”

  “That’s not good. They wouldn’t rush the story unless they think they have something nobody else knows. What else did the detective tell you?”

  “Sampson pushed him very hard, and that’s what scares me. At one point, he read a line from Feodor’s confession where he claimed he had no memory of shooting your daughter.”

  “And how did Jenkins react?”

  “He said he laughed and told Sampson all murderers deny killing their victims. That he hears that kind of thing all the time. But Sampson wouldn’t buy his answer and wouldn’t let up,” she said, disheartened. “He wanted to know why I didn’t play that portion of the confession in court. And whether the jury might have seen his denial as reasonable doubt.”

  “Did Jenkins hold to our story and insist he got a clean confession from Feodor?”

  “Of course. But Sampson kept after him, kept calling him a liar all through the interview.” Her posture deflated as she leaned back on the couch. “Jenkins said he didn’t react well to the pressuring. That the audience isn’t going to believe him because he looks like a fool on camera.”

  Jameson wiped a bead of sweat from his brow. “You know, Sampson’s gonna ask you the same questions. But that shouldn’t be a problem for you, should it? You’re a prosecutor and a damn good one. You should be able to punch holes through his line of reasoning. If all he’s got is the transcript of the confession—the one you sent him with the redactions and the page pulled out—you can obfuscate and say Feodor admitted to the murder loud and clear. There’s no way they can prove he didn’t. They’d need the unedited videotape to prove we changed what Feodor said. And all they have is the clip you played in court, right? They don’t have the full two hours, do they?”

  “No,” she said, regaining some of her composure. “I destroyed every copy except one that’s locked away in a safe where I put it. Nobody knows I still have it.”

  “So there should be nothing to worry about,” he said smugly.

  Nancy hesitated, biting her lip. “But we have another problem, Bernard.”

  “Christ, Nancy, what now?” he said, raising his voice again.

  “Jenkins says Sampson has the crime scene video.”

  Jameson exploded. “How in God’s name did he get that? Nobody was supposed to see that video. Nobody. I told you to get rid of it.”

  “I thought I did, but I must’ve missed a copy.”

  “Who gave it to him?”

  “I don’t know, Bernard. Somebody in my office must’ve found it and slipped it to Benson,” she said, avoiding his eyes.

  “Shit, Nancy, if you have a Deep Throat who gave Benson the crime scene video,” he said, his face contorting in rage, “he knows the evidence has been doctored. And if he’s managed to get his hands on the other evidence I told you to change—the autopsy report or the ballistics report or those crime scene photos I told you to hide—he’s gonna know there was no blood and that my Cynthia wasn’t murdered during the gun battle.” The deputy mayor stood and began pacing around the room. “Where the fuck is the deputy coroner—that guy, Leonard Toakling? Benson can’t get to him, can he?”

  “He’s trying. His people are hounding the medical examiner’s office, but I put Toakling on paid leave. He’s not coming back until I tell him to.”

  “Do we need to give him more money to keep him quiet?” Jameson said, looking more like Mr. Hyde than Dr. Jekyll.

  McGregor sipped her bourbon, trying to build up her courage. “I think we need to pa
y him one more time. I think we need to pay everybody who’s been helping us one more time.”

  “Who else?”

  “Jenkins, his partner, Randy Tempko, some of the other cops from the crime scene, maybe Colin Haggerty, and Nelson Brown in my office. They all know too much, and they’re all worried about Benson and his story.”

  “How much?”

  “Twenty-five thousand apiece,” she said without taking a breath. “That should guarantee their silence.”

  “I’ll get you the cash,” he said, beginning to calm down, money always the answer to his problems. “I’ve got plenty stashed in a safe at home with no way to trace it. Look, I can’t stay much longer. I told Sandy and the kids I wouldn’t be late.”

  “We’re not quite finished, Bernard.”

  “What now?” he said, rolling his eyes.

  “It’s Frankie. He also called me after his interview with Sampson. They know about Kolkov.”

  “How’s that possible? I gave that sleazeball attorney a hundred thousand dollars to keep his mouth shut—the same amount the Pakhan gave him.”

  “And he denied everything about the Russians just like we told him to,” McGregor said coldly. “But he was there when Sampson interviewed Feodor, and that’s where we have our problem. O’Malley said Pavel told The Weekly Reporter everything he knows about the Mob and their role in the drug deal the night Cynthia was murdered, and that they paid him to take the fall and O’Malley to throw the case. He even blurted out that the Russians hired the prison guard, Jimmy Benito, to kill him so he wouldn’t talk.”

  “And Sampson believed that little asshole?”

  “That’s what O’Malley told me. And I know for a fact that Benson’s people have been snooping around with the Feds trying to confirm all of it.”

  “Christ,” Jameson said tersely. “Do they know about our connection to Kolkov?”

  “They’re trying to find a link, but so far, they know nothing. It hasn’t come up once during the interviews,” Nancy said meekly. “But if The Weekly Reporter ever finds out we knew about the Mob’s involvement in the heroin deal, and that I ignored the Feds’ warning, then we’re screwed, Bernard, just screwed.”