S Street Rising: Crack, Murder, and Redemption in D.C. (32 page)

“Doesn’t matter,” she said. “You put the paper in a bad spot.”

“What I did was a misdemeanor,” I argued. “Soulsby’s getting away with a felony. What about that?”

Jo-Ann was unmoved. “Makes no difference,” she said.

We looked at each other.

“Anything else?” I asked.

“No, that’s it. For now.”

This isn’t good
, I thought as I got up and left her office. For the next couple of hours I tried to work, but I was too anxious to get much done. I decided to try to get ahead of whatever Jo-Ann might have in mind.

Some ambitious reporters and editors wore out the carpet walking to the offices of the
Post
’s top editors along the North Wall, getting face time with the people who could boost their careers. I hadn’t been on that side of the building since my job interview, but I decided I needed to make a foray.

I walked to the office of Len Downie, the executive editor. I asked his secretary if I could see him. A couple of hours later, I settled into the chair in front of Downie’s desk.

“What’s on your mind?” Downie asked.

“I want to explain this Soulsby–Hennessy situation,” I said. I recounted how I had run into Lou by coincidence. “I want you to know I never intended to violate an off-the-record agreement,” I said. “I made a mistake, but I had no intention of violating any agreement with a source, even if Soulsby was lying, which I was pretty sure he was.”

Downie listened, his face expressionless. “You know you made a mistake, but you had no intention of violating any agreement with a source, even if Soulsby was lying,” Downie echoed. “And you believe he was lying.”

“Yeah, that’s basically it,” I said.

“Okay,” Downie replied.

I left his office having no idea where I stood.

Two months later,
60 Minutes
aired a piece on the situation.

In the segment, by Ed Bradley Jr., about a dozen of Lou’s detectives stood up for their former boss. They lauded his command and attested to his integrity. Lou was interviewed. So was Soulsby.

Lou came off as calm, dedicated, and competent.

Soulsby seemed confused and shady. When Bradley asked if he’d release the reporters from the off-the-record agreement so they could reveal what he’d said about Lou, the chief hemmed and hawed and finally sputtered, “No.”

I watched with a mixture of satisfaction and horror. It felt good to see Soulsby exposed nationwide as an untrustworthy buffoon. But the Soulsby thing wasn’t just back from the dead. It was on the move. Fast. And I was standing helplessly in its path.

A few weeks later, Jo-Ann called me into her office. No warm-up jokes this time. She stood behind her desk, her arms crossed. I stood across from her.

“The Soulsby story isn’t going away,” she said. “We have to deal with it. We have to explain the
Post
’s
role in these events.” She said she was assigning another staff writer, someone who didn’t know any of the history, to report and write the story. The reporter, Paul Duggan, would ask me for an interview.

“All right, fine,” I said. “What should I say to Paul?”

Jo-Ann uncrossed her arms and put her palms out. “I can’t tell you what to say,” she replied.

I thought we were on the same team. I guess that’s changed.
“So there won’t be any repercussions for me, will there?”

“I can’t say,” she shrugged.

I thought of my old editor, Phil Dixon, now at the
Philadelphia Inquirer
. During my first six months at the
Post
, I’d written a story about a convenience store in Northeast D.C. that posted photos of suspected shoplifters. Somehow, I’d screwed up the first name of one of the store managers I quoted. I didn’t merely misspell it; I simply got it wrong. Phil was apologetic when he told me I had to write a correction.

“I couldn’t save you on this one, man,” he’d said.

A few months after I started the daytime police reporter job, Phil actually did take a hit for me. The
Washington Times
had a story about a controversial police shooting in Southeast—a story we didn’t have. Downie called Phil into his office to ask why. Instead of blaming me, Phil explained that I was working on an enterprise piece about a series of burglaries in a well-off section of Northwest, and that he’d advised me to remain focused on that assignment.

It was clear to me that Jo-Ann was worried about the ongoing coverage of the Soulsby incident. I was certain Phil would have handled it differently. I don’t think he necessarily would have taken the hit for me. How could he? I was the one who’d talked to Soulsby and Lou. But if Phil thought I’d screwed up badly by revealing Soulsby’s lies to Lou, he would have dealt with me right away, based on my actions alone. He wouldn’t have waited for the fallout. He wouldn’t have left me with a sense of uncertainty about my fate.

I knew that I wasn’t one of Jo-Ann’s favorite reporters. Maybe she didn’t like me because she saw me as one of “Phil’s people.” It was true—I was loyal to Phil. And though no one involved in the decision ever asked my opinion, I also believed that he would have been a better Metro editor. Phil was the rare editor who was equally great with copy and with people. Still, I worked every bit as hard after he left as I had before.

“All right,” I said to Jo-Ann. “Paul knows where to find me.”

Two or three days later, Paul and I walked to a table in the
Post
’s cafeteria.

“So are you our version of internal affairs?” I said as we settled into our chairs.

Paul shook his head. “Yeah, it sort of feels that way,” he replied. “This is a weird story. Sorry you got caught up in this. Let’s just get through this.”

Paul asked me about Soulsby’s remarks and my subsequent encounter with Lou. I answered as best I could without revealing exactly what Soulsby said to me and the other two reporters. I was careful not to say anything that hadn’t already been reported elsewhere. I figured Jo-Ann would pounce on anything that she believed was too revealing.

A week or so later, I woke up at dawn and picked up the paper from my doorstep. I sat on the edge of my living room futon and read the story. Including a reference to me in a quote by Jo-Ann, my name appeared twenty-two times. I winced every time I read it. In the story, Downie said that reporters shouldn’t repeat off-the-record statements unless they have clear understandings with their sources. Jo-Ann said that I’d put the paper in an awkward spot.

It was in this article that Lightfoot related Soulsby’s fabricated explanation involving a police shooting and said that he would call for the chief’s resignation if he learned Soulsby had lied.

The moment I stepped into the newsroom that morning, Linda Wheeler, a fellow reporter, approached me.

“I read the story,” she said apprehensively. “If I were you, I’d lay low.”

“My knees hurt when I crouch,” I joked.

Fuck it. I stood up straight, walked past my desk to the middle of the Metro section, lingered for a few minutes, then marched back to my desk.

They’d killed Lou’s police career. This was nothing.

Marion Barry’s fourth term in office wasn’t nearly as successful as the campaign that got him there.

Sharon Pratt Kelly had inherited a financial mess from Barry when she became mayor, in January 1991. Barry inherited a financial disaster from Kelly when he returned to the mayor’s office, in January 1995.

On February 1, after meeting with members of Congress, Barry announced that the city owed $355 million in debts it couldn’t pay during that fiscal year. The deficit would grow to at least twice that amount in the following fiscal year, the mayor said. The two-year deficit represented nearly 22 percent of the city’s $3.2 billion budget.

Massive spending cuts would be needed to keep the city from falling into bankruptcy, congressional Republicans said. Even with austerity measures, a federal takeover was possible, the legislators warned.

During his first three terms as mayor, Barry had won the loyalty of thousands of voters by growing the D.C. government payroll. In some neighborhoods, everyone seemed to either work for the city or be related to someone who did. This approach had helped create a flourishing black middle class, Barry’s supporters said. His critics said it had created a bloated, unresponsive government.

As he announced the huge deficit, Barry acknowledged that he would have to make painful cuts to the city’s workforce of 45,000. Congress, he said, wanted him to come up with a plan to attack the deficit. “They want recommendations from me,” Barry said. “I get the impression they’re not going to take any action unless I act, and I intend to act.”

The mayor didn’t act fast enough. On April 17, President Clinton signed a law creating the D.C. Financial Control Board. The board consisted of five presidential appointees who would run the city’s finances as well as its nine largest agencies, including Public Works, Human Services, and the police department. That year, the Control Board would cut four thousand jobs from the city payroll. It would also take away much of the mayor’s political power—though Barry would still have the authority to appoint the police chief, and that chief would still have the power to choose his commanders.

On April 27, 1996, a Saturday, two months after Barry had announced that a further ten thousand city positions would need to be cut and four months after he’d undergone prostate surgery, the mayor suddenly issued a written statement announcing that he would be taking a leave of absence. “I see tell-tale signs of spiritual relapse and physical exhaustion,” Barry said in the statement. He would begin his sabbatical at the Skinner Farm Leadership Institute, a retreat in rural Maryland where Barry had spent some time following his release from prison in 1992. After a few days at Skinner Farm, Barry would go to the Thompson Retreat and Conference Center, near St. Louis.

Again Barry invoked language familiar to people who participate in support groups. He referred to the fourth step of the twelve-step Alcoholics Anonymous program, which suggests that “every person should take a ‘fearless personal moral inventory’ of oneself.” That inventory, the statement noted, should include a level of “rigorous honesty.” Barry and his supporters denied that he’d relapsed during his recovery from drug addiction. But many Washingtonians believed that the mayor was being less than honest about the reason for his sudden departure.

Barry returned to his duties in mid-May, proclaiming himself rejuvenated. But it wasn’t long before he was embroiled in more controversy. In June, Secret Service agents raided the Logan Circle home of Roweshea Burruss, a self-proclaimed minister and ex-con who allegedly ran an illegal after-hours club that Barry reportedly frequented. Barry acknowledged that he’d been to Burruss’s home, though he denied that it was for any nefarious purpose.

“I’ve probably been at his house a half-dozen times this year,” he said. “That’s about it. Sometimes I run by there to change clothes. I went by to have a quick sandwich.”

Barry limped through the remainder of his term, powerless to launch bold initiatives or hand out city contracts because of the Control Board. By early 1998, political observers wondered whether Barry would even contend for a fifth term.

On May 21, Barry ended the suspense. He announced that he wouldn’t be running for reelection. Without citing the Control Board directly, he decried the “restrictions” placed on the mayor. He vowed to keep fighting for the betterment of D.C. “Those who think I’m going to a rocking chair someplace, I’ve got news for you. You’re not going to see me doing that,” he declared.

Barry’s decision left the race for mayor wide-open. In September, voters in the city’s Democratic primary chose relative newcomer Anthony A. Williams over three veteran D.C. Council members. Williams had served as the city’s chief financial officer for three years and was widely credited with balancing the District’s books so effectively that it had a $185 million budget surplus by 1997.

Perhaps just as important, Williams was, in style and substance, the polar opposite of Barry. He wore bow ties and was widely perceived as lacking charisma. Williams didn’t associate with ex-cons, carouse at nightclubs, or have a string of ex-wives. He wasn’t publicly or privately struggling with cocaine addiction. He was viewed as steady and reliable.

That November, Williams defeated Republican D.C. Council member Carol Schwartz in the general election. It was as if the city’s electorate was taking the first step toward recovery from Marion Barry. He was Mayor for Life no more—though perhaps not for long.

On March 6, 2002, his sixty-sixth birthday, Barry announced that he would be running for a citywide at-large seat on the D.C. Council. He was, he said, no longer using drugs. Some political observers wondered whether Barry planned on using the seat as a launching pad for another mayoral bid.

Supporters of Mayor Williams braced for a divisive campaign.

Two and a half weeks later, a federal law enforcement source called me at home: “The Park Police found Marion Barry with drugs.” Officers had discovered Barry a couple of nights earlier in his Jaguar in Buzzard Point, an isolated section of Southwest. They’d found marijuana and cocaine in the car, my source said, though not enough to make an arrest.