Steve Martini - Compelling Evidence

There are rings of unrequited sleep under his eyes, and an almost bemused smile under a salt-and-pepper mustache.

“Paul.” There’s a momentary hesitation, men me apocalyptic question. “How did you find out?”

Coop’s words beat like a drum in my brain. It is the confirmation that I dreaded. Ben Potter is dead. I struggle to absorb me finality of it-my first real attempt to assess the personal dimensions of this loss.

Cooper is standing next to me now, waiting for an answer.

“Eli told me,” I say.

There’s a clumsy introduction. Walker educates Coop on me benefits of scanning the police bands.

“Ahh,” says Coop.

“What happened?” I say.

The guy with me pager is eyeing me with renewed interest. He’s grabbed the gumhead, and me two of them are moving toward us.

“Let’s walk and talk?” says Coop. “They’ll be comin’ down with me body in a minute. Got to get the van ready.”

We head toward the door. Coop and I are arm to arm, Walker trailing along behind.

“Too early to know much. If I had to guess,” he says, his voice dropping an octave and several decibels in volume as he eyes an approaching camera crew wearily, “maybe suicide.”

I’m silent but shake my head. Coop knows what I’m saying. I don’t believe it.

“Single blast, twelve-gauge shotgun in the mouth.” No sugar coating from George Cooper. “Janitor found him about an hour ago. Can’t be sure of anything “til forensics is done goin’ over the place.” As we walk outside, Coop’s Southern accent is thick on the night air.

For the first time since Walker broke this nightmare to me, there is confidence in my voice, for there is one thing of which I am certain. “Potter wouldn’t commit suicide.”

“Nobody’s immune to depression.”

Coming from Coop, this is a truism.

“I knew him,” I say. “Trust me. He wouldn’t kill himself. He had too much to live for.”

“Maybe you didn’t know him as well as you think,” says Coop. “People like that project an image bigger than life itself. Sometimes they have a hard time living up to their own advance billing.” He’s picking up the pace. The guy with the pager and his cameraman are behind us, matching us stride for stride.

Coop’s voice softens a bit. “I know, right now you can’t accept it. Believe me. It’s possible. I’ve seen it too many times.” We’ve reached the coroner’s wagon at the curb. Coop opens the back, dumps his medical case inside, and clears an area for the gurney.

“Any chance they’d let me go up?”

“None,” he says. “DA’s handling this one himself.”

“Nelson?”

Coop nods. “The take-charge kid himself.”

“Why all the attention if it’s a suicide?”

He ignores me like he hasn’t heard the question. When he turns he looks directly at me. Cooper knows more than he’s saying.

“I was supposed to meet him tonight for dinner.”

“Potter?” he says.

I nod. “He wanted to talk to me.”

“What about?”

“Business,” I say. It’s a little white lie. I have no desire to dredge up memories of Sharon, not here, not now. I’ll tell Coop later, when we’re alone.

“He was headed back to Washington. I was going to take him to the airport.”

“When did you talk with him?”

“Last night,” I say.

Coop looks over my shoulder at Walker.

There is movement in the lobby of the Emerald Tower, a rush of television cameras to the glass doors. Four cops running interference exit ahead of the chrome gurney, a strapped-down sheet covering the black body bag. Two of Coop’s assistants set a brisk pace wheeling the gurney down the walkway, the minicam crews in pursuit. The guy behind us with his camera loses interest and joins the pack. There’s the precision click of metal as the collapsible legs go out from under the gurney and the load slides easily into the back of the dark coroner’s wagon.

Walker’s distracted.

Coop pulls me away several feet toward the front of the van.

“Can you keep it to yourself?” he says. I nod. “The feds are up there with Nelson, two FBI agents. What’s going on?”

“Ben was in line for an appointment,” I say.

Coop’s stare is intense, the kind that says, “What else?”

I fulfill his wish. “Supreme Court,” I say.

He whistles, low and slow, the tune dying on his lips, as this news settles on him. I can tell that Coop will perform this autopsy himself-and carefully.

‘Talia-Ben’s wife-is she up there?” I ask.

“They’re looking for her now. Tryin’ to notify her. There was no answer at the house when the cops called. They sent a patrol car by but there was nobody there.”

“I wonder how she’ll take it.”

Coop’s looking at me. I can’t tell if I detect just the slightest wrinkle of disapproval, like maybe he’s heard something-about Talia and me. But then he breaks his stare. My own guilt overreacting. I’m wearing this thing like some psychic scarlet letter. It died with Ben. I wonder how Talia will react-no doubt with more poise than I. Grace under pressure is her special gift.

“They’ll probably want to talk to you.”

“Who?” I ask.

“The cops.”

“Why?”

“You talked to Potter last night. You had a meeting scheduled with him tonight. Potter’s calendar,” he says. “Likely as not, your name’s in it.”

He’s right. I can expect a visit from the police.

Coop’s gaze fixes on the minicam crews, one of which closes on us as we speak. In the inert atmosphere of a city beginning to sleep, the attention of these scavengers of electronic gossip is drawn to anything that moves. Ben’s body is in the van, and at the moment my conversation with Cooper is the only visual drama available. As if we are dancing a slow tango, I maneuver my back to the lens.

“Was there a note?” I ask.

“Hmm?” He stares at me blankly.

“Did Ben leave a suicide note?”

“Not that I know of,” he says.

There was no note. Of this I can be sure. A suicide note is not something the cops withhold from their medical examiner.

“I assume there’ll be an autopsy.”

“Oh yes.” He says it with the seriousness of a village pastor asked if the damned go to hell. He looks at his watch. “It’s gonna be a long night.”

He moves around the front of the van. One of his assistants is in the driver’s seat. The other’s playing tailgunner, keeping the cameras away from the back of the vehicle.

“Coop.” He looks at me. “Thanks.”

He waves a hand in the air, like it’s nothing, just a little information to a friend.

“Eli. I’ll take you back now.”

A camera light flashes on. The wrinkled back of my suit coat is memorialized. It will fill at least a few seconds of Eye on Five -that grafting of entertainment and journalism that passes for news on the tube.

As Walker heads for the car, I stand alone on the sidewalk gazing after the coroner’s wagon, its amber lights receding into the night. In my mind I begin to conjure what possible motive could exist for a man the likes of Ben Potter to take his own life, his career on the ascent. I am left with a single disquieting thought, that despite what Cooper says, this was not a suicide.

I’ve been dogging Harry Hinds for a block, and I finally catch him at the light across from the courthouse.

Harry turns to see me. A grim expression. “I’m sorry,” he says, “about Potter.” Harry’s looking at the large puffed ovals under my eyes. I’ve spent a sleepless night thinking about Ben.

The papers are filled with it this morning. The vending machines on the street are blaring large pictures of Potter in a happier time-banner headlines and little news. The presses were locked up when it happened. This was the best they could do.