A Confidential Source (27 page)

Gregory Ayers, the lottery executive director whose arm I had rubbed for luck, was just stepping up to the podium. Onstage,
there was an aura of television fame about him, a certain celebrity to his gait, and maybe even a film of hair spray over
the silver hair. As soon as he took the microphone, an immediate hush fell over the room, as if he were about to announce
the Powerball number.

“We all want to be winners,” he said, with his warm, uncle-like familiarity. The audience applauded with a force that took
him aback. It made Ayers shift at the podium, rearrange his index cards, and take a sip of water while the clapping subsided.
I realized, for the first time, the power of his personality. He was the guy who gave away money on television, who called
out winning numbers and handed out life-altering checks.

“But what I want to talk about today—” There was more clapping and Ayers had to stop again and wait. “What I want to talk
about today are all the ways in which we Rhode Islanders are going to lose if this casino-gambling referendum passes.”

The Citizens for a Stronger Rhode Island had packed the hall with gambling opponents who clapped like mad at this. But there
were rows of senior citizens—I recognized a few bingo players from South Kingstown—who remained still in their seats, and
a row of businessmen whose arms began to fold over their chests.

Ayers began detailing lottery revenues, which were staggering, and where the money went: arts, education, local aid. People
clapped after each number, many looking up at him with awe. He was the man who drew winning tickets, the man who gave them
an illusion of hope.

Excitedly, I began to formulate headlines for my story: “Lottery Chief Mesmerizes Antigambling Audience.” “Lottery Chief Plays
Antigambling Card.” “Casino Gambling Referendum’s Luck Runs Out.”

“What’s going to happen to that revenue if a casino opens in Providence? With that kind of competition, the lottery will face
declining electronic-game receipts, the revenue the state needs most.”

Someone shouted an unintelligible answer from the audience. Ayers pretended to understand.

“Sure, casinos bring in revenue, but for each dollar the state receives in gambling revenue, it costs at least three dollars
in increased criminal justice and social welfare expenses. Is that a net gain for Rhode Island?”

“No! No! No!” Ayers’s supporters shouted somewhere on the left-hand side of the auditorium.

“What a hypocrite,” the college reporter said. She looked and sounded like she was about fifteen, with a rose tattoo showing
in the small of her back above her low-slung jeans, purposefully messy hair, and a bored tone of voice. “As if there aren’t
plenty of uneducated people addicted to those scratch-card games.”

I felt myself bristle. Hadn’t she taken the class on how journalists were supposed to remain detached and objective?

Where was the photographer? I searched the doorway again, hoping to see a familiar figure weighted with cameras stroll in
beneath the red and black “VOTE NO on PROPOSITION #3” banner. Instead, I caught a glimpse of Drew Mazursky standing in the
crowd of people carrying “VOTE NO” signs and looking around, as if he, too, were searching for someone.

Seeing Drew gave me a guilty feeling. He’d confided in me. My story, my inaccuracies, had let him down, and God only knew
the fight he must have had with his mother. But when his eyes found me across the auditorium, he didn’t look away in disgust,
or glower. He tilted his head, a greeting of sorts. An acknowledgment of something.

He looked away, resuming his search, scanning for someone else, leaving me with something new in my stomach: curiosity and
maybe even a semblance of self-respect. I turned back to the stage, standing a little straighter. Drew might believe that
I’d been right, after all.

Gregory Ayers was peering into the audience as if he was trying to make out exactly who was out there. “The casino lobby has
tried to bribe seniors for their vote, promising all of you that the money will go strictly to senior programs. But I think
we can all see through that. You’re all too smart for that.”

A low booing began in the back of the room. When I turned around to see where it was coming from, I practically smacked my
face into Leonard’s. “Shit,” I said.

He took a step backward and smiled. He was wearing a turtleneck jersey and gabardine pants that looked as if they had been
pressed. For a moment, I wondered if he was scheduled to go onstage and speak. “What are you doing here?” I asked.

“How come you didn’t return any of my phone calls?”

I looked over my shoulder to see if anyone was close enough to hear me tell him to buzz off. The college reporter was looking
at Leonard with curiosity.

“Busy,” I said. For the benefit of the college reporter, I affected a professional tone. “I didn’t see your name on the program.
When are you going on? After Ayers?”

A look of disgust settled on his face as he shook his head. Apparently, the organizers had failed to invite him. “I wouldn’t
stand on the same podium as Gregory Ayers.”

This threw me. “But he’s on your side. You had him on your show as a guest just last week.”

His bottom lip curled. “Mistake.”

The college reporter elbowed me in the side and whispered, “Did you see the six o’clock news? The lottery threatened to pull
its advertising from his station unless he tones it down. He was all over television.” She pointed to Ayers at the podium.
“He called Leonard irresponsible.”

“He’s just figuring that out now?”

The college reporter grew bolder. “Apparently, Leonard said that Ayers ran the lottery like a compulsive gambler,
addicted
to action.”

“That’s not what I said,” Leonard said. “That’s what they
said
I said.”

Leave it to Leonard to attack his only ally a week before the referendum vote.

“I heard Ayers was getting airtime rebuttal on your show tomorrow night,” the college reporter said.

Leonard grimaced. “The station caved in.” I took this as an involuntary confession that Leonard actually had said what he’d
just denied saying, and turned from him in disgust.

Suddenly, there was a shift of attention away from the stage and I followed the turned heads to see that Billy Lopresti had
arrived. Was he supposed to speak? I flipped my program from one side to the other looking for his name. A quick check of
the stage to gauge Ayers’s expression suggested that this was a surprise visit.

The mayor was a short, burly man who clearly enjoyed a plate or two of pasta, but he was amazingly light on his feet as he
bounded up the aisle on the other side of the auditorium. The television reporters, crew, and the college reporter all headed
across the room. I was about to follow them, but Leonard grabbed my arm.

“I’ve got new information,” he said. “Bigger than anything you’ve ever written. The
real
reason Barry was murdered.”

We were alone now, standing together along the wall. “Why would I want to hear anything you have to say? Why would I ever
trust you again?”

He leaned forward, a whisper directly into my ear. “I know you have no reason to ever trust me again. But you don’t
have to
trust me. Mazursky is supposed to meet me here, and he has proof.”

I needed to get to the other side of the room, get close enough to the mayor to catch his reaction if Ayers ejected him from
the stage, but I remembered Drew’s scanning eyes, his search for someone. Despite myself, I stayed another minute to ask:
“What kind of proof?”

“An audiotape. His father made it. Apparently, he’d left it in his glove compartment the day he died. Drew came to borrow
the car or something. But he didn’t find the tape—one of those microcassettes—until this morning, stuck inside a cigarette
pack.”

My thoughts began to race: the police’s reluctance to clear Delria until he was dead, the stalled forensics report, the voice
inside that told me Matt had been trying hard to keep me off the story. It all fueled an interest I refused to let Leonard
see.

“Look, I could just play this thing on the radio. I’m giving it to you first because I owe you. It’s my apology. My amends.”

Our eyes met. I wanted to believe him, but I had to be wary. Why would Barry make a tape? And if Drew found it, why would
he give it to Leonard? But my heart rate kicked up a notch because I knew the answer: Drew didn’t trust the police or Matt
Cavanaugh any more than I did.

Leonard saw me waver. “This is Sunday’s front-page story, Hallie. Something I owe you. The vindication you deserve. I was
wrong about
why
Barry was murdered. But it wasn’t an armed robbery, and the cops have known it all along.”

B
ACK AT THE
bureau, I took the precaution of locking the door behind me and closing the blinds so that not everyone who stopped at Fraser’s
for a six-pack could watch me typing at my desk. But I was too charged up, too in gear, too single-mindedly focused on my
story to have much room for concern. It was as if I were in the final mile of a 6K run: Fixed on the finish line, I lost sight
of the road directly in front of me.

Vindication.
I told myself that I had to be wary of any information that came from Leonard. That I couldn’t believe anything he said until
I’d actually heard the tape. But if he wasn’t jerking me around… if there actually was a tape with evidence on it… a tape I
could play for my editors…

I forced myself to focus on the story at hand. To be given a chance at redemption, I’d need to win back the editors’ confidence
by doing a good job on this rally. Clear angle, uncluttered language, accurate details.

As it turned out, there wasn’t a lot of leeway on the lead for the rally story. The mayor’s surprise appearance had seen to
that.

Narragansett—An antigambling rally turned ugly last night when Providence mayor Billy Lopresti crashed the event and ignited
a fight between senior citizens.

A South Kingstown woman was arrested and a West Warwick woman was injured following the emotional debate. More than 300 people,
mostly senior citizens, packed the audience at Edwards Auditorium at the University of Rhode Island.

The clock in this office was old and the humidity had gotten behind the number plate, so that the minute hand scraped as it
struggled across each increment of time. I glanced up. It was almost nine-thirty.

Lopresti, an avid proponent of the referendum to legalize casino gambling, was not invited to speak at the event. In a surprise
visit, he marched up to the stage shortly after lottery executive director Gregory Ayers concluded his speech.

The audience, which had been cheering Ayers’s anti-gambling rhetoric, grew quiet after Ayers allowed the mayor to take the
podium.

“This isn’t about the morality of gambling. Or even the revenue. It’s about fiefdoms,” Lopresti began. “When you go to the
polls on Tuesday, don’t do what’s best for the lottery commission, or what’s best for the state, or even what’s best for Providence.
Do what’s best for you, the voters!”

The audience remained silent, except for one person in the back who began to clap. A woman sitting in the second row with
members of the antigambling organization Citizens for a Stronger Rhode Island immediately rose to her feet. Turning to address
the anonymous person clapping for the mayor, Marilyn Caruso, 75, of West Warwick, shouted, “Don’t believe a word he says.
He’s a crook!”

Lopresti folded his arms but appeared largely unaffected by the insult. But Hildagard Vettner, 81, of South Kingstown, who
was sitting in a wheelchair near the wall, took off her shoe and threw it at Caruso.

“You learn to behave,” she called out, shortly before her shoe hit Caruso in the face.

Campus police immediately removed both Mrs. Vettner and Mrs. Caruso from the audience. Mrs. Caruso was treated and released
for minor injuries at South County Hospital. Mrs. Vettner was taken to the Narragansett police station and released in the
custody of her son, Anthony, a probate lawyer in Washington County.

I finished the first ten inches of the story and printed it out to get an idea of length. In an urge to be thorough, I circled
everything that had to be double-checked and was in the midst of verifying the capitalization of the antigambling group’s
formal title when I heard a car door slam outside.

It sounded unusually loud, as if it were just on the other side of the office door. With a tight feeling in my stomach, I
found myself thinking about Matt and his warnings. I got up and checked the window, peeking between the louvers of the blind.

But it was only a Ford Taurus parked in front of the liquor store with the engine running. A man sat behind the wheel, and
after a minute, a woman appeared in the doorway of Fraser’s and gestured to him. He got out and helped her carry out a case
of wine.

I stood there feeling like an idiot as I watched them put the case in the trunk and drive away. Returning to the desk, I vowed
to put all thoughts of the man in the parka from my mind. A minute later, the phone rang. It was Dorothy Sacks, who told me
the story was slated for page one.

I felt a little boost of confidence, which was swiftly deflated.

“I’d like to see the copy as early as possible,” Dorothy added. This might seem innocuous, but I knew her real meaning. She
wanted to see the copy as early as possible so she could catch all the factual errors my story was likely to contain.

I struggled hard to keep any strains of resentment out of my voice. “Ten minutes.”

“Fine.” Her tone was distant, professional, as if we’d never worked together or previously felt a rapport. “Oh, and make sure
to include a reaction from all camps,” she added.

Was she kidding? That was standard event reporting 101. Nothing an intern wouldn’t know. “Of course.”

As she hung up, I realized that if the story was going Page One, it wasn’t because of any confidence in me, but because of
the art. The photographer, who’d finally shown up, had gotten a shot of the shoe in flight, just before it hit poor Mrs. Caruso’s
face.