Tim Green - False Convictions

Casey hesitated, then said, “Robert and I are on our way back to Auburn right now. We’ve got some interesting news. Here, I’ll put him on.”

“Wait-” Jake said, wanting to tell her Graham was no good, even though he’d dropped the scent for the story of the corrupt judge, a story too good to pass up. His conviction wavered. If Graham was that bad, why was it that he, Jake Carlson, Pulitzer Prize winner, was onto Patricia Rivers and her son like a bum on a bologna sandwich?

Jake heard the rustle of the phone being handed over.

“Jake Carlson,” Graham said, his voice slick. “Have I got a deal for you, my friend.”

“A low-mileage minivan?”

“A story to put a little more hardware on your wall.”

“The box in the attic’s pretty much full.”

“So, play hardball with me.”

“I’m not playing anything,” Jake said. “I read your leak in the paper already. If you’ve got a story you’d like to share, please, let me know. I’m a journalist. Otherwise, I’m onto something pretty big myself.”

“Show me yours and I’ll show you mine,” Graham said.

“I’m comfortable with mine,” Jake said. “No need to whip it out.”

“You called me,” Graham said.

“Actually, I called Casey.”

“Okay, you called us, but I’ll tell you anyway,” Graham said. “We got a DNA match.”

“Hubbard killed her?”

“Not with Hubbard.”

“Wait, this whole thing was about testing the DNA from the hospital’s swabs against Hubbard,” Jake said. “What did I miss?”

“A whole chapter,” Graham said. “That white BMW? It belonged to Nelson Rivers.”

“I read all that in the Sunday paper,” Jake said.

“We found him.”

“Rivers?”

“He’s a dive captain down in Turks and Caicos,” Graham said. “Looks like shit, too. Guilty conscience will do that. So we got his DNA and tested it against those swabs. Hubbard came up negative, but with Rivers? We hit the jackpot, and I’m just trying to decide who gets the prize here.”

“And you’d love to give it to me,” Jake said.

“Sure.”

“But you’ve got to go with the biggest outlet who’ll commit to an in-depth story before you let the news outlets feed on it,” Jake said. “In the interest of the Freedom Project, which is what all this is really about.”

“Of course.”

“Of course. Right,” Jake said with a sigh of annoyance, his head beginning to pound. “So what’s the batting order? I’ll guess. Sixty Minutes, Twenty/Twenty, Primetime. Then you go to Larry King, and if you can’t get that, you’ll settle for O’Reilly Factor, but those two only if the morning shows don’t bite. American Sunday? Let’s see, we probably don’t quite make your top ten. Top twenty? Maybe, because you respect my work.”

Graham was silent.

“So I’ll go to my executive producer and get her to commit and you can use us to shop this thing,” Jake said. “Only I won’t, because I’ve got my own source that no one’s going to want to do a big story without. I’ve got someone so central to this whole thing that whatever anyone else does will look silly when they hear about my get, and people in TV don’t like to look silly, so let me talk to Casey so I can see if she’ll have dinner with me tonight.”

Jake could hear Graham breathing, could almost hear him thinking, before the billionaire said, “How about a win-win?”

“I’ve got my win lined up in about forty-five minutes,” Jake said, “why do I need you to win, too?”

“There are no guarantees for you or me,” Graham said. “If we work together, we can lock this thing down. I have contacts at your network.”

“No kidding,” Jake said.

“Meaning?”

“I don’t usually get orders from the ninth floor to do stories on benevolent billionaires,” Jake said. “Most people in the news know that’s an oxymoron. You fat cats always have a reason for giving.”

“Is it me you hate,” Graham asked pleasantly, “or just the fact that I’m rich?”

“I save my emotions for people who matter,” Jake said. “Trust me, my revulsion is purely clinical.”

Graham sighed and said, “Fine, neither of us is short on friends, so let’s talk business. Presuming whatever it is you’ve got has the attraction you say it does, and knowing we’ve got the inside angle on the rest, what if I make a call to my contacts and tell them they can have the exclusive for Twenty/Twenty, but only if they use you as a special correspondent? That way, the project gets maximum exposure and you get to ring the bell.”

“What about Sixty Minutes?”

“What’s a couple million viewers? I’m comfortable giving away those kinds of numbers. Work with us.”

“Us, as in you and Casey?”

“She’s right here,” Graham said.

Jake heard the sound of the phone being handed over.

“Jake?” Casey said.

Jake’s stomach knotted. His instincts told him that she had a newfound affinity for him. His head ached in earnest as he wondered what he’d missed over the weekend. He knew he should just keep quiet but he decided to speak anyway. “I know he’s sitting right there with you, but I still don’t trust him.”

“There’s an explanation for the things you thought you heard,” Casey said.

“I know,” Jake said. “The ‘she’ he should have taken care of is a boat full of factory equipment on its way to China, unless the friendly billionaire chooses to save the day, and the guy Massimo runs an environmental remediation company. I heard it all.”

“Good,” she said.

“So, I ran off half-cocked and bumped my head,” Jake said. “I look like a fool, but I’m telling you there’s more going on here.”

“I like what Robert was talking about, when everyone wins,” she said. “Don’t you?”

Any notion of dinner, or anything more, evaporated. Jake took a deep breath and let it out in a gust. “Sure.”

THE SKY WAS PALE gray and the breeze hinted at rain. Jake’s Cadillac left a trail of dust on the gravel road as he swung into the dirt driveway of what looked like a two-hundred-year-old farmhouse. Behind the white house, a barn leaned dangerously toward an abandoned chicken coop, as if waiting to pounce. Below, Owasco Lake lay in the crease of the long, low hills running north and south. Dora had the shot set up on the listing front porch, capturing the lake below and part of an ancient oak tree spread wide across the front lawn.

Jake tapped his horn, wincing at the sound, and pulled in behind the crew’s van. A white-haired woman in hot pink curlers stepped out onto the porch in a robe and slippers, chastising one of the crew for draping his cables across her rosebush. Myron Kissle followed, looking sheepish under a dome of pomaded hair and in a button-down tan shirt with a blue paisley tie. Brown brogans peeked from beneath a pair of dark brown wool slacks too big for the old man by two sizes. His wife turned to him and fussed with his tie as Jake approached the porch. Its railings needed scraping and paint, and the faded white curtains behind the bay window provided a stage on the sill for smiling Hummel figurines with a host of dead flies at their feet.

After meeting the wife and shaking hands with Kissle, both men had to sit through having the makeup woman touch up their cheeks before they could be wired up. Kissle blinked at the bright lights, shading his face with a liver-spotted hand.

“Like the old hot seat,” he said. “Lights hotter than hell, and a rubber hose if we needed it.”

“The good old days,” Jake said, forcing a smile, the pain in his head distracting him now.

Kissle nodded fervently and took a sip from the water bottle offered to him by the makeup woman as he tugged at the microphone clipped onto the collar of his shirt.