Blind Man's Alley (45 page)

66

C
ALLS FROM
strangers who were skittish about giving their names but who claimed to have great secrets to share were part of Candace’s stock in trade. But the call from the anonymous woman who said she had information regarding the Aurora Tower accident made Candace nervous. She’d had to fight off an initial impulse to refuse. That wasn’t really an option: if she was too afraid to meet with a potential source, then it was time to hang it up. Candace had been rattled ever since the break-in at her apartment, but she was determined to push through it, not let it keep her from doing her job. She had, however, sent Nugent an e-mail about where she was going, something she wouldn’t normally have done.

Candace agreed to meet her mystery source at a Starbucks just off Union Square. Maintaining her DIY attempts at evading surveillance, Candace again sneaked out the back of the building; then once she was on the subway she walked through the cars, keeping an eye out for anyone following her. When the N train got to Union Square, Candace waited until the last second to run out the closing doors, watching to see if anyone tried to follow. She felt foolish, like she was playing at secret agent, but at the same time it did seem necessary, especially on her way to meet someone who wanted to talk about the Aurora.

Candace had described herself over the phone, and after standing in the middle of the Starbucks for a few seconds she saw a hand being raised in her direction. Candace went over and introduced herself. The woman, who looked to be in her late twenties and who was extraordinarily pretty, hesitated slightly before shaking hands, clearly not something she was used to doing, at least with women.

“If we’re going to talk, I need to know who you are,” Candace said. “You can be anonymous as far as any story, but I’ve got to know who I’m talking to.”

For a moment the woman hesitated, but then she nodded. “My name’s Alena Porter.”

“So, Alena, what is it you wanted to talk to me about?”

“I read the article you did about the Aurora, so I figured you’d be interested in what I know about what was going on there.”

Candace was skeptical this woman would have an inside track on a major commercial real estate project. “I’m guessing you’re not a construction worker.”

Alena looked confused for a moment, then smiled. “You mean how do I know? I dated Jeremy Roth.”

Candace tried not to show her excitement as she wondered if she’d just caught her biggest break since getting William Stanton to talk last year. “And he told you about what was happening there?”

“He wasn’t always exactly a model of clarity, but I picked up some things.”

“Bad breakup?” Candace couldn’t resist asking.

Alena’s lips pursed slightly. “Excuse me?”

“Why are you willing to talk to me?”

“Bad breakup, yeah, I guess you could say that.”

“It’s just that, once you tell me things, you can’t take them back; you understand?”

“I get that,” Alena said defiantly.

“Okay,” Candace said, not wanting to say anything more that might make her source bolt. “So what is it you want to tell me?”

Alena hesitated just long enough that Candace started to wonder if she was going to get cold feet. “Jeremy was involved in the stealing,” Alena said, speaking quickly, the words pouring out. “He was working with that concrete guy, the one who took off, taking money out. And that’s why they were allowed to get away with not doing what they should to keep the project safe.”

This was basically old news to Candace, but given that her previous source for it had dried up, it was nevertheless valuable. It also told her that Alena was legit. “He told you this?”

Alena nodded. “Somebody who knew about it was blackmailing Jeremy. He was really freaked out about it. But then he wasn’t. He said the person deserved what they got.”

It all came together for Candace. Fowler had known everything; Fowler had too much money in the bank when he died. Fowler wasn’t killed because he knew too much; he was killed because he’d blackmailed Jeremy Roth over what he’d known. “Do you know who was blackmailing him?” she asked, hoping Alena would take her all the way across the finish line.

“It was somebody connected to the Aurora, and I’m pretty sure it was a guy. But that’s all I know.”

“Does the name Sean Fowler mean anything to you?” Candace asked.

Alena shook her head. “Who’s that?”

Candace tried to hide her disappointment. She was sure she had it pieced together, though she was nowhere near having it so solid that she could get it in the paper, not if Alena didn’t know who the blackmailer was. “He worked at the Aurora, and was murdered a couple months ago. When did Jeremy indicate that the blackmailer was out of the picture?”

Alena blanched at hearing the word “murdered.” For a moment she just looked at Candace. “I don’t remember for sure,” she finally said. “But it was a while ago.”

“He ever say anything to you about Jack Pellettieri’s disappearance?”

“No.”

“You ever meet Pellettieri?”

“The only person I ever met in terms of business was one of the Arab guys Jeremy was trying to get money from.”

Candace didn’t know what Alena was talking about. “Trying to get money for what?”

“For the Aurora. I don’t know the details, but his family needed a whole lot of money to keep that project going. They were looking for hundreds of millions of dollars.”

“Did they get the money?”

“Not from the Arabs they didn’t. Whether they got it from somebody I don’t know.”

“Do you have anything that backs up any of this? An e-mail, an answering-machine message?”

Alena shook her head. “Don’t you believe me?”

“I completely believe you. But to actually get this in the paper my editors are going to want something more than your word. We’d need to figure out who was doing the blackmailing too—otherwise it’s only part of a story.”

“I’ve told you what I know,” Alena said, looking frustrated. Candace had seen it before with sources who were leaking for personal reasons: they wanted what they said to simply be transcribed on the next day’s front page. That wasn’t going to happen, but Alena had filled in the last missing piece. Candace thought she had the whole story now. But she couldn’t back it up, which meant she couldn’t print it.

BACK AT
the newsroom, Candace went to Nugent’s office to fill him in on her new source, and what she thought it meant. Nugent listened carefully, and when she was finished he went over and closed his office door. Candace was surprised; she couldn’t remember Nugent ever doing that before. “I thought you’d gotten the message on your own,” he said.

“What message?”

“This conversation never happened, understood?”

“Now my own boss is going off the record on me?”

“That’s right. Clear?”

“Fine, Bill, what?”

“It’s not exactly a secret that we’re losing money around here. The only thing falling faster than our circulation is our advertising revenue. The buyouts this summer didn’t do nearly enough to stop the bleeding. We’re looking at layoffs for as much as ten percent of the newsroom. Everybody’s vulnerable. Hell, I’m vulnerable.”

Candace didn’t know where Nugent was going, but it was clearly someplace bad. “Are you telling me I’m about to be laid off?”

“No, though I can’t promise you’re not either. But that wasn’t what I was getting at. The point is, we’re losing money hand over fist here, and a certain amount of … caution is setting in. Defending against even a meritless libel case can run hundreds of thousands of dollars—and that would mean another half dozen people lose their jobs.”

“So the paper is worried about Simon Roth suing us again?”

“The concern is that Roth sees you as having a vendetta against him. Rightly or wrongly, the thought is that anything you write about him is much more likely to lead to a lawsuit.”

Candace couldn’t quite believe what she was hearing. “Are you telling me this paper now has a policy of not reporting on Simon Roth?”

“Nobody’s saying Roth gets a free pass from the paper,” Nugent said. “He does, however, get a pass from you.”

“But I’ve got sources developed. I’m the only person who’s even close to having the whole story.”

“You have something relating to the Fowler murder, pass it on to Alex Costello.”

This was insult to injury. “Costello’s not an investigative reporter. And besides, this is the biggest story I’ve ever had, a story that could break huge.”

“This isn’t something I got a vote in, Candace,” Nugent said. “It came from Friedman himself. All I’m doing is conveying the word from on high. You weren’t supposed to be working sources on Roth anyway.”

“This source came to me; I wasn’t looking for her. Which proves my point, by the way.”

“She didn’t give you anything we can print, regardless. Somebody was blackmailing Roth Junior, but she doesn’t know who. You’d just be speculating that it was Sean Fowler. You printed that, it would be a libel suit we’d actually lose.”

“She’s a second source that Jeremy Roth was actively involved in the embezzlement. That’s worth a story in itself.”

“Potentially,” Nugent said. “But you’re not going to be the person to write it. Give what you have to Costello, and go back to the campaign finance story.”

“This is bullshit.”

“This is reality,” Nugent said.

AFTER SHE’D
left Nugent, Candace went looking for Brock Anders. His cubicle was in a small annex to the main newsroom—the gossip staff separated out from the news staff. Candace had never been clear whether this was to protect the reporters from the gossip columnists or the other way around.

Brock was in his cubicle writing an e-mail. He could tell at a glance that Candace was upset about something. Brock suggested she keep him company while he took a smoke break, and they went out to the loading docks in the back of the building, where the office smokers congregated.

“So what’s wrong?” Brock asked after lighting up.

“I’ve got a big follow-up lead on my Aurora story, and the paper won’t let me pursue it. They’re apparently so scared of Roth suing again, even on a completely bulletproof story, that I’ve been shut down.”

Brock shook his head. “We can’t even afford to win a lawsuit these days, I guess. I heard another round of buyouts is coming. I’d take one, if I wasn’t scared it’d mean I’d just never work again.”

“I understand money’s tight, and that we’re a business. But still, when we let rich bullies dictate our news coverage, it may just be time to give up.”

“But it’s not like you’re being told you can’t do your job generally. I mean, I get that it sucks, but there’re a lot of other dirty fish in this slimy sea of ours.”

“All of whom now have a playbook for how to shut me down.”

“See what happens when you take what you do for a living seriously?”

“I’ve almost got the whole thing,” Candace said. “A huge scoop, just out of reach. It’s killing me.”

“Nobody gets every story, Candace,” Brock said. “You know that.”

“It’d be one thing if I just couldn’t piece it together. That happens, sure. But this is my being sidelined by my own team.”

“It just isn’t a fight you can win right now,” Brock said, taking a final drag off his cigarette. “Accepting that is really all you can do. Ready to head back up?”

“I’m going to make a call while I’m down here,” Candace said, Brock raising his eyebrows but refraining from inquiring. After he left, Candace took out her cell phone and punched up the number of the one person she thought would actually care about what she’d discovered.

“What’s up?” Duncan asked.

“I’ve figured out the real reason Sean Fowler was killed,” Candace replied.

67

D
UNCAN WAS
antsy. He was spending his day supervising the production of the last batch of Roth documents to the DA’s office—a tedious task made worse by the fact that his mind was elsewhere. He’d made plans to meet up with Candace at eight o’clock. She’d called that afternoon, saying she had a break regarding Fowler’s murder, and now the day was dragging to a crawl as he waited to find out her news.

A little after five o’clock Blake called, telling Duncan to come up to his office right away. Duncan was a little surprised: he rarely met with Blake without knowing what it was about.

“Close the door,” Blake said as Duncan walked in. Duncan did so, alarm bells ringing loudly in his head now. Blake glared at Duncan as he made his way to a seat.

“Did you go to bed with Leah Roth?”

Duncan had been expecting bad news, but he hadn’t been expecting this. He was completely caught off guard and sure that it showed. “Excuse me?” he said after a moment, just to have said something.

“Answer the question.”

“Since when is my personal life a concern of the firm’s?”

“If you’ve slept with one of my clients, it’s very much my concern.”

Duncan was still scrambling for how to respond. The only way that Blake would know about this, he realized, was if Leah had told him. This was her move, her play to take him out. “Leah and I have spent some time together socially,” Duncan said. “She was actually who initiated it.”

“Last chance: if you’re going to deny sleeping with her, do so now.”

Duncan wasn’t going to lie, but he wasn’t going to confirm it either. “Jesus, Steven, why are you asking me about this?”

“Having sex with a firm client is a serious business,” Blake said. “As I certainly would expect you to know without being told. Leah called to say she didn’t want you working on any more of their cases. When I asked why, she said she wasn’t comfortable with you because you’d had a brief personal relationship, and she’d come to have doubts about whether you were trustworthy.”

“This has nothing to do with whatever relationship she and I had,” Duncan said, trying to force a smile. “It actually concerns the Nazario case, and the so-called conflict we had there.”

Blake held up a hand. “I don’t want to hear it,” he said.

“But I just want to explain my perspective—”

“I don’t give a
shit
about your perspective. You understand? You broke the rules, and that’s the only thing this is about.”

“I’ll talk to Leah. I’m sorry you had to get mixed into this, but I can straighten it out.”

Blake shook his head. “You don’t get it, Duncan. This is well past that. Leah Roth is the likely future CEO of one of this firm’s anchor clients. You’ve jeopardized the firm’s relationship with her and her family, and that cannot and will not be tolerated.”

Duncan refused to believe this was going where he thought it was. “What’re you saying, Steven?”

“I’m saying, yes, that you’re fired.”

“THEY
FIRED
you?” Candace said incredulously.

They were at Rudy’s, a dive bar on Ninth Avenue, one of the last remnants of the old Hell’s Kitchen. Duncan was already there when Candace arrived, and from the looks of things he’d been there for a while.

They were seated in one of the dark red booths along the wall. Duncan was a bit of a mess: his shirt untucked, his eyes a little glassy. She couldn’t tell how much of it was alcohol and how much was shock.

“I’m fired, all right,” Duncan said.

“What happened?”

“Long story short, I pissed off Leah Roth.”

“How’d you manage that?”

“By talking to you. She knew that you’d been over to my apartment. She thought I was betraying her, I guess, by not standing down on Nazario.”

“And just like that she was able to get you tossed from your firm?”

“Her family’s got some pull,” Duncan deadpanned.

Candace thought there had to be more to the story than that, but decided not to press it. “Her family has pretty much cut my balls off at the paper too,” she said. “Though I realize that’s not the same thing.”

“No, it’s not,” Duncan said. “So what’s your big news about Fowler, anyway?”

Candace felt bad talking business under the circumstances, but Duncan looked like he really wanted to know. “A source tells me that Jeremy Roth was being blackmailed by somebody relating to his embezzling from the Aurora. The source doesn’t know who the blackmailer was, but it must’ve been Sean Fowler.”

Candace could see Duncan’s mind working as he added it up, his excitement growing as he did so. “That would explain the money.”

Candace nodded. “Fowler gets too greedy, so Jeremy has him whacked. The eyewitness, Chris Driscoll, is in on it. Hell, maybe he’s the murderer.”

Duncan took a sip of whiskey, then chewed on an ice cube. “Can you print it?”

“Not even close,” Candace said. “I don’t even have enough to print the blackmail part, and if I did I wouldn’t be able to connect it to Fowler.”

“Even though we know he had the money?”

Candace shook her head. “Way too speculative. Especially about the Roths. I’ve been ordered to stand down on them.”

“Why?”

“The paper’s broke, and skittish about getting sued again. This would have to be completely rock solid before they’d let me print it, and it’s not even close to that.”

“I talked to Rafael’s new lawyer the other week, but the guy’s a putz. I can’t imagine he’s got what it takes to put this together.”

Candace looked confused for a moment; then her eyes widened. “Shit, you don’t know.”

“Know what?”

“Nazario’s pleading out.”

Duncan cocked his head. “What are you talking about?”

“He’s pleading on the murder. I figured you would know already. He’s got a date to go before the judge.”

Duncan looked ashen. “No fucking way. Rafael had no interest in taking a plea. He didn’t do it, and he’s a fighter. Why would he be taking a deal?”

“Beats me. I’ve never even met him.”

Duncan finished his drink, rattling the ice in his glass. “Rafael can’t take a plea. He’s the last loose end we’ve got.”

“There’s that, plus that he didn’t do it.”

“Right,” Duncan said, fuming. “I really didn’t see a way for this day to get any worse, so thanks for that.”

Candace reached out and touched Duncan’s arm. He looked up at the contact, the look they exchanged catching him off guard.

“So what are you going to do?” Candace said, feeling self-conscious as she moved her hand. She wasn’t going to go to bed with Duncan, she thought. Not tonight.

“Drink more whiskey. Hey, you have a job—you can buy a round.”

Candace obediently went to the bar and got Duncan a drink. Her own beer was still half-full. “I was asking a little more long-term,” she said upon returning.

“If Blake’s really determined to burn me, no other first-rate firm’s going to take me on. I’m fucked, basically.”

“You’re a Harvard Law grad. I’m sure somebody will hire you.”

“I was a Blake baby, a few months away from making partner. You know what B and W’s profits per partner are?”

“What’s a Blake baby? Second thought, I don’t want to know,” Candace said. “They really fired you just for talking to me?”

“Not just that, but that I wasn’t following orders. And Leah offered me a job, which I pretty clearly didn’t want, and I think that confirmed that she couldn’t trust me. I’m assuming now that she’s had me fired the job offer is off the table.”

“Leah,”
Candace said, and sure enough Duncan looked away. Her instincts told her that Duncan’s involvement with Leah Roth had gotten a little personal.

“If Rafael takes a plea they’re going to get away with it, aren’t they?” Duncan said, his anger returning as he changed the subject. “All of it.”

“They
have
gotten away with it, Duncan. I hate that as much as you do, but it’s true.”

“Not if I can get Rafael not to plead.”

“How are you going to do that?”

“By becoming his lawyer again.”

It took a while for Candace to realize that Duncan was serious. Of course, that he was serious now didn’t mean he still would be in the cold light of morning. But it was also clear that Duncan had been thrown past the point of no return, and he didn’t have anything else to focus his anger on.

“What about the so-called conflict you had?” Candace asked. “Could the Roths stop you from representing him?”

“I don’t see how,” Duncan replied. “They’d have to argue that I was using privileged material that I learned from representing them.”

“Even if you do become Nazario’s lawyer, are you sure you can win the case?”

Duncan laughed. “Hell, no,” he said. “The first problem’s Driscoll. He’s got to be in on it, but proving that’s another story. I don’t think Driscoll’s likely to break down on the stand and confess just because I ask him some tough questions. Right now I can’t prove that Jeremy Roth and Chris Driscoll have ever been in the same room. It’s entirely possible they haven’t been.”

Duncan took a gulp of whiskey. “Am I going to end up holding your ponytail tonight?” Candace said.

Duncan looked at her. “That sounds—well, I’m not exactly sure what that sounds like.”

Candace ignored the innuendo. “You should at least eat something if you’re going to pour that much booze down your throat,” she said.

THEY ENDED
up going for pizza at John’s on Forty-fourth Street, Duncan insisting that he was only interested in eating something unhealthy. Candace figured he was at least entitled to that.

“So I realize nobody wants to get fired,” Candace said after they’d ordered. “But is there really nothing in this that’s a positive for you?”

“Meaning what? Now I have time to work on my poetry?”

“I thought everyone at the big law firms was dying to get out.”

“So what you’re really saying is, you think I should have sense enough to want to do something else?”

“Did you go to law school wanting to do what you’ve been doing?”

“I didn’t have the slightest idea what I was getting myself into when I went to law school,” Duncan said. “That’s true of pretty much everybody there, or else the place would be empty.”

“So why did you go?”

“You want an actual answer?” Duncan asked. Candace nodded, finding that she meant it. “In part it was that my parents both did stuff that’s kind of similar to law—Dad’s a union organizer, Mom was a social worker. But they were pretty working-class people, and I always had this understanding that I was supposed to go to the next step, you know, in the sense that I had the opportunity to get a different sort of education, and so on. Law seemed like the backstage pass to the world.”

Candace was surprised to hear this—she’d assumed Duncan’s background was similar to her own. “Small-town boy makes good, huh?” she said.

“I was born in Detroit, so not exactly.”

Candace smiled. “Detroit as in what suburb?”

“Detroit as in Detroit,” Duncan said. This was hardly the first time that someone had assumed that when he said Detroit what he really meant was Bloomfield Hills or Grosse Point.

Candace looked surprised. “I didn’t know any white people still lived in Detroit.”

“I’m not, actually,” Duncan said without hesitation. “White, I mean. My dad’s black.”

Candace felt herself flush. “I’m so sorry if I—”

“No need to apologize,” Duncan said, raising his hands. “I know what I look like.”

Candace was impressed, though she wondered if there was something patronizing about this response. “I actually remember thinking you were, I don’t know,
something
, first time I saw you. So you’re biracial, working-class, and from Detroit, and yet you became Steven Blake’s right-hand guy and consigliere to the Roths.”

Duncan wagged a finger at her, apparently playfully. “Don’t do that thing where that suddenly makes me interesting,” he said.

“Okay, so I admit that I’d assumed you were some preppy shitbird from Connecticut.”

“It’s easy to say money doesn’t matter when you come from it. I’m the first person in my family who really had a chance to get paid, and I took it. If my dad had been a New York corporate lawyer, I’d probably be doing something else.”