Dear Ms. Heissman of Press, please forgive English I am not good with. I have pulled psychiatric files Bastien Morrell (Caporal OR-3, Term: CUO). Since deceased with no next of kin, access grant. Please see attachments. My assistant translate best she can.
No next of kin? Tracy can feel her heart pulsing in her neck. She opens the twelve-page PDF and ends up studying them for almost an hour.
“SLOW DOWN, PLEASE,” Josh says. “You’re giving me whiplash. I thought you were working on West’s interview.”
“I was, then I heard back from the Foreign Legion.” Tracy fumbles through her notes.
“I get that. Just slow down.”
“Like I was saying …” she says, overenunciating each word.
“Stop,” Josh says.
“Bastien was reprimanded several times for false reports of enemy surveillance. He was subsequently diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. He thought enemy soldiers were following him during his tour in Afghanistan, which prompted him to escape, go AWOL. Eventually they found him naked in a ditch next to an American encampment, talking to a woman, telling her to stay down, stay down.”
“It happens. PTSD.”
“Here’s the thing. There was no woman. Nobody else was there.”
“Really.”
“In a subsequent psychiatric session, he mentioned having just slept with a woman, an American soldier who’d found him wandering in the desert. The psychologist asked if he’d raped her, and he denied it. Said it was just one of those things. Two lonely people. Middle of a war. Turns out he didn’t rape her, they actually fell in love and—”
“Had a son.”
“Exactly. She got pregnant, moved back to the States. They kept in touch. After Bastien was eventually discharged for the French equivalent of Conduct Unbecoming, he flew to the States to be with her.”
“And we know she died during childbirth.”
“Yes. This poor man. Can you imagine?”
“This is going to be a great story, Trace.”
“Thank you, but I’m not done. I’m sending you a photo.” She finds the saved photo on her new phone, sends it to Josh. “Okay, before you open it, know that part of paranoid schizophrenia is hallucinations driven from PTSD.”
“Just got it,” he says. “This is a gravestone.”
“Zoom in.”
“Dennison R. Morrell. Born January 7, 2009.” Josh pauses. “Wait. Died August 15, 2014?”
“I know. Bastien’s son has been dead for almost five years. Five years!”
“Seriously?”
“That photo Lilith McGuire saw in Bastien Morrell’s apartment was from his son’s first week as a first-grader. Probably the last photo ever taken of him. I checked with the elementary school, and Dennison Morrell stopped going to school about a week after school pictures that year. They gave me a copy of his death certificate.”
“You’ve got to be shitting me.”
“State Department of Health confirms it. According to documents, Dennison Morrell died of pneumonia at age five. He’s buried in Marble Cemetery, in the East Village.”
“Wait. How? Lennox knew Bastien, mentioned his son in that letter. Lilith even said Ghost had just taken his son to JFK. She saw a ‘Homeschooling for Dummies’ book in the living room, for God’s sake.”
“I checked JFK flight records. Nobody by that name. Only two minors flew unaccompanied that day, a seven-year-old girl and a twelve-year-old boy.”
Josh says nothing.
“Don’t you get it?” Tracy asks. “Lennox never saw Ghost’s son because he doesn’t exist. Bastien Morrel was mentally ill. He saw things, made up people, lived the rest of his life caring for his dead son because he couldn’t care for him when he was alive.”
“Jesus.”
“It’s the saddest thing I’ve ever uncovered.”
They both stop talking, letting it sink in.
Josh breaks the silence a little too soon. “Trace, please don’t ask West about any of this.”
Tracy gets up and starts pacing. “Can you just please pause for a second? Just one fucking second and help me remember this man as a human being?”
“Oh, I am. You gotta also remember that he helped kill Lennox, crucified Lilith to the back of his door, and he may have even killed Lennox’s sponsee, that poor little drug-addict dude.”
“Oh, the poor little drug addict? Really? What I’m asking is for you to pay attention to what I’m saying.” Tracy stammers as she emphasizes each word. “Bastien Morrell, a black man, a human being, served in one of the most physically and mentally grueling armed services on the planet, in Secret Ops no less. He couldn’t handle the pressure, snapped because of PTSD, got kicked out, found someone he loved, moved to the States to marry her, witnessed his son’s birth and his wife’s death at the same time, then raised their son alone with no money, only to watch him die of pneumonia.”
She stops pacing and calms herself.
Josh says nothing.
Tracy sits down at her computer, brings up the photo that Haylee took of Ghost at the car wash. “No wonder this poor man was involved in all of this. He wanted to protect the only thing he thought he had left.”
C h a p t e r 3 8
“WE HAVE TO get this right. Are you ready for this?” James West tucks his jacket underneath his ass to tension out the wrinkles above his shoulders.
“I’m ready.” Tracy glances at the teleprompter to make sure. Tracy can hear her co-anchor Leslie introducing the story through her earphone.
“I look all right?”
“You look fine, Mr. West.”
“You as well. Your hair looks really nice today. I love the braids.”
Tracy’s eyelids droop.
The floor manager counts them down. “We’re live in five, four, three.”
Tracy looks directly at the camera. “Thank you, Leslie.”
“SHE’S STARTING, SHE’S starting.” Josh yells from Shawn’s living room.
Shawn returns from the kitchen with a bottle of wine and a charcuterie plate, courtesy of his wife, Haylee, who’s just retired to the bedroom upstairs.
Shawn stares at Tracy on the giant television screen. “Wow, she looks fierce.”
“Don’t ever tell her that.” Josh scoots over, grabs a salami slice. “West looks nervous.”
“Shh.”
“Thank you, Leslie. Élan has been the subject of scrutiny since August of 2018, when two people who worked for different parts of the organization were murdered in the same night. Further speculation of company involvement in the murders occurred when, in an effort to exonerate his client Micah Breuer during trial, defense attorney Shawn Connelly suggested Élan’s direct involvement in the death of its CFO Lennox Holcomb. This news, coupled with the unsolved murder of Élan consultant Walter Gordon, sent its stock into a tailspin. Now, with the recent homicide of Billy Donovan, found hanging in the 79th Street River Basin with Lennox Holcomb’s hard drive around his neck, the same hard drive that suddenly went missing from NYPD evidence during Breuer’s trial, new questions have arisen regarding Élan International, sending stock plummeting once again.
“In full disclosure,” she continues, “Hard Press and Press magazine are owned by Élan International. In order to clear the air surrounding Élan, a company he built from the ground up, CEO James West has graciously given me carte blanche to ask any and all questions. And y’all know I don’t pull punches, so let’s begin. Mr. West, do you have anything you’d like to add before we get started?”
“Transparency. It’s the backbone of our company.”
“Bullshit,” Shawn says, chomps on a cracker.
“It has been since our inception.” West fidgets in his chair. “Back in the early 2000s, our original charter stated any and all transactions, both interpersonally and professionally, shall be conducted with full and absolute disclosure. We even designed the lobby of our original building to reflect the philosophy. If you’ve had the pleasure of visiting our previous building, you’ll have a ref
erence point. Glass windows, plexiglass counters, see-through furniture. Transparency is very important. I have nothing to hide. So go ahead. Fire away.”
Josh sits up. “Interesting choice of w—”
“Shh,” Shawn says.
“Let’s talk about Walter Gordon.” Tracy crosses her legs; the key light above her casts a warm glow on her dark-brown skin.
“I’m listening.”
“I’m the one who identified Billy Donovan hiding out on the inside stoop of my apartment building the night Walter was killed in August of 2018,” Tracy says. “I saw what looked like a gun with a silencer in his jacket. Walter’s bodyguard, who’d noticed Billy Donovan following them earlier that night, said he saw the same man duck into my apartment building, which corroborates my account, and ultimately what solved the murder case of Walter Gordon.
“Now,” she says, turning her notecard, “according to an interview you gave with Newsweek in November of 2018, you stated that you ‘have no relationship with Billy Donovan,’ you’ve ‘never seen him before in your life.’ These are your words. So how can you explain the fact that I saw Billy Donovan heading to your office in our old building just two weeks after he killed Walter Gordon in August?”
“Wow, right off the bat.” Shawn wipes his face with a napkin.
“Jugular,” Josh adds.
“It’s true. He did visit our offices that day. However, I did not remember who he was, and I certainly didn’t remember meeting him. You have to realize, I run a multibillion–dollar company, so my schedule is fully enveloped in meeting after meeting, with countless business associates revolving in and out of that office. After the Newsweek interview was published, my assistant Kimberly Nicholson reminded me of Mr. Donovan, when and why he was there to see me. Kimbo confirmed that Billy Donovan was representing a marketing company we were thinking about hiring for the grand opening. Whether that’s who he was or not, I couldn’t say, but that’s the reason he got through security.”
“Lie.” Josh leans back in the sofa. “And where is Kimbo now, you lying sack of shit?”
“And where is Kimberly now?” Tracy asks.
“I have no idea. He left the organization, at one of the most important points in the company’s trajectory. No reason, no explanation. I assume he returned home to Louisiana, but he’s not answering any of my calls.”
“Last week, Billy Donovan was found hanging from a hook on the Upper West Side, with your former CFO Lennox Holcomb’s hard drive wrapped around his neck. This hard drive is important, because it had been previously stolen from police evidence.”
“Arguable, but that’s the general consensus.”
“Arguable, how do you mean?”
“The police say the hard drive was stolen, but we don’t know if the chain of custody was broken somewhere. Perhaps this Mr. Donovan worked for a company, oh, let’s say our biggest competitor, and was instructed to intercept the hard drive somewhere along the way. Or perhaps it was something more sinister. Perhaps he was hired to break into the police evidence and steal the hard drive. Then maybe he tried to sell whatever information was on that hard drive to the highest bidder, then was murdered by one of the other players. Lennox was our CFO, for God’s sake, no telling what proprietary information was buried in that drive.”
“A lot of theories. Did I hear you say Cooper Harlow might have something to do with this?”
“Please don’t twist my words, Miss Heissman. This Billy Donovan? I have no idea who this man is, who he works with, or how he got that hard drive. What alarms me is the manner in which he was killed. Someone was trying to send me a message.”
“Oh, dear God, he’s good,” Josh says. “He was the one sending the message.”
“Haylee!” Shawn screams. “Come back downstairs! You gotta see this!”
They hear a faint voice in the background. “No thanks.”
“Lennox Holcomb. Your CFO. He was murdered back in August as well. After Micah Breuer was acquitted, a former employee of yours, Jenna Ancelet, was arrested for that murder. Micah Breuer also worked for you. Do you see where this is going?”
“The optics are questionable. I understand that. I am heartbroken over it. All I can tell you is that the Pub War is real, and that competitors are capable of anything when your company is in their way.”
“The Pub War,” Tracy reiterates. “For our viewers, the Pub War is an ongoing battle of acquisitions, backstabbing, employee poaching, and market share wars between Élan International and Cooper Harlow. So again, Mr. West, I hear you suggesting Cooper Harlow had something to do with these three murders, the three being Lennox Holcomb, Walter Gordon, and Billy Donovan.”
“I’m saying no one at Élan had anything to do with any of it. We’ve done everything in our power to be transparent. We’ve opened up our servers to police investigation, we’ve cooperated fully with law enforcement, and we’ve been nothing but forthright. I encourage you to look for the evidence. You’ll find none.”
“Bullshit,” Josh says. “I’ve got twelve terabytes that say otherwise.”
“There was a fourth murder, Mr. West.”
“Oh, God, don’t do it, Trace.” Josh leans forward in his seat.
“A fourth murder?” West asks.
“Yes, the man many refer to as Ghost. He was a drug dealer found burned alive in Jenna Ancelet’s apartment right before she was arrested. Many forget about him. Because he’s black? Maybe. Because he was a poor man, a drug dealer, cast aside, forgotten? Probably. Ghost has a name. Bastien Morrell. He had a wife, a son. Did you know him, sir?”
“Of course I didn’t.” West’s eyebrows lower. “And I did not approve this question.”
“You approved anything I wanted to ask. There have been rumors of Élan installing illegal surveillance on company employees in their homes, including your CFO Lennox Holcomb. Evidence obtained from Jenna’s company laptop showed that Bastien Morrell installed a camera in Lennox Holcomb’s living room just weeks before he was murdered. You’re telling me that Élan had nothing to do with hiring Bastien Morrell to install the surveillance?”
West moves his hands up to his temples, massages them.
“Wow, is he about to admit something?” Josh asks.
“He’s taking a long time,” Shawn says.
“Sir, did you understand the question?”
“I’m tired,” he says. “I’m so tired of all of this. I worked my ass off to build this company. I knew I’d get backlash. You take your lumps, you forge ahead. But this? This constant barrage of attacks, even from my own employees? There’s so much you don’t understand.”
“Enlighten us.”
West leans back in his chair, then forward, his elbows on his quads. “I was laid off from my job back in the nineties. I was fine, my wife still worked, we had some savings, but I knew in the long term, I needed to provide for my kids. I needed an idea, a fresh start. After our second child, my beautiful wife was searching through a plethora of Cooper Harlow magazines, ripping out pictures, trying to find out where to buy the things she loved. I thought, wouldn’t it be great to start a fashion magazine that was online? That’s it. Simple as that. No one was doing it at the time. No one. Magazines were talking about it, absolutely, and industry experts were warning that publishing would be left in the dust if they didn’t start incorporating an online platform into their media mix. But I did it. That was my big idea, my fresh start. So I emptied my savings, took out a second mortgage. From the first digital magazine, I knew I was onto something. An idea that would, pardon my use of an extremely overused phrase, ‘disrupt the market.’ Internet commerce was fledgling, but it was taking over. Fast. I knew that print was on its way out. I flipped the script. I concentrated on digital first. With Walter Gordon’s help, we fucking pioneered the platform.”
“Can he say fuck on live TV?” Shawn asks.
“The bleeper musta missed it,” Josh replies.
“Then I backed up the immersive digital platform with a killer print
mag. It took off. Then I did it again. And again. Before I knew it, we were profitable, gaining market share, acquiring new companies; delving into entertainment, news, streaming; leaving everyone else by the wayside. Just last week, half of our organization moved into our new building. We’re calling it TriCity Towers. Others call it the ‘Eighth Wonder of the World.’ In Hell’s Kitchen, just south of Hudson Yards. Three waterfront towers. It’s beautiful. State-of-the-art. It houses all of our acquisitions, all of our employees, taking over an entire city block in New York City, with room to spare for shopping, condos, restaurants, other tenants. We have a grand opening in less than a month, honoring beautiful people taking part in real change all across the globe, raising millions and millions of dollars for charity.
“Do you know how huge and crazy all of that sounds to a Podunk like me?” West straightens his torso, looks as if he’s placing his hand on his heart. “Have I made mistakes to get where I am? Sure. Have I opened myself up to others who want to take advantage of me? Absolutely. But I’ll be damned if I let anyone even suggest I was involved in someone’s murder. Not ever again.”
West pulls his microphone out of his shirt, throws it on the ground and storms off camera.
Tracy raises her hand. “Mr. West, please come—”
She stands, places her note cards on her chair, exits the screen, then turns back to the camera. “Leslie, we can go to break.”
“This. This is what I have to go back to?” Josh sits wide-eyed at the TV screen. “This is going to ruin Élan before we even move in the building. West is a lunatic. We have to take him down.”
Transparency Page 10