Prophet (77 page)

From his office door Ben Oliver caught glimpses of the process, the same old process, but made no comment. Toward the end, while Walt and Ali strode through the newsroom toward nothing in particular while a camera dollied alongside them to catch their determined expressions and purposeful gait, he finally allowed himself one bitter expletive and went inside his office, closing the door behind him.

SOMETHING WAS UP.
The whole news staff knew it. News—whether it was from reliable sources or not—rippled across the newsroom from cubicle to cubicle, through the computer system and over the phones.

“Leslie Albright’s been canned,” came one report.

“John is definitely history,” came another.

“Be careful,” came a warning. “Loren Harris is on the warpath, and you might be next.”

“Walt Bruechner? Give me a break!”

Tina Lewis didn’t seem to want to talk about it, but she did let little drops of poison slip through to the right people from time to time. From these bits and pieces the story began to develop.

“They tried to push through an anti-abortion story.”

“They still are, and Loren Harris is taking the coward’s way out.”

“So what’s Ben Oliver doing about it?”

“The governor’s putting on the heat. We could get burned on this one.”

“Somebody had an abortion? Who?” “Who cares?”

Then Tina had a meeting with Rush Torrance, the Five O’clock producer, and some of the overheard conversation regarded a story John Barrett would be doing alone that evening, something about the governor’s daughter and how she died, and how the governor did nothing about it when he should have, and how another girl died in the same clinic due to the governor’s negligence or indifference.

Now the polarizing started.

“I gotta hear more about this.” “You don’t need to. It’s nobody’s business, and especially not ours.”

“You call this news? It’s gossip, it’s sensationalism.”

“Eh, pure politics, that’s what it is.”

“Man, digging up something this cheap, Barrett and Albright
deserve
to be canned!” “But what if it’s true?” “So what if it is? That doesn’t make it news.”

“The public doesn’t need to know any of this stuff.”

“It’s a political smear tactic, can’t you see that? I wouldn’t touch it with a ten-foot cattle prod!” “It happened, didn’t it?” “We don’t know that.” “Do we even want to know?”

“Don’t you have work to do?”

“The governor’s kid died from an abortion? Oh man. Quick, where do I hide?”

“Are you sure Barrett’s doing the story? I don’t want
my
name on it!”

VIDEO: REPLAYED EXCERPTS
from the governor’s address to the Women’s Citizen League’s fund-raising luncheon.

As stirring music rises in the background, Hiram Slater once again delivers those stirring words: “. . . a woman’s inalienable, inviolable right to choose. I have not compromised on that ideal . . .” Lap dissolve to another angle: “. . . As an army marches to victory, every soldier in the ranks knows he or she may not come back from the battle, that he—or she—may be called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice in order that those who come after can walk on ground that was gained through that sacrifice . . .”

Dissolve to a shot of Slater sitting with Hillary, his arm around her. The camera slowly zooms in on their smiling faces.

“As a family, we have stood for the sanctity of privacy for all our children . . . I believe Hillary did what was right for her, at that time, at that place in her life, and I will stand by her proudly, even in her death. I want you to do the same.”

Back to Governor Hiram Slater, his words and the music reaching a crescendo. “Your governor cares about women and their sacred right, and it is his desire to protect it, strengthen it, and establish it without fear or misgivings, so help me God!”

Applause, applause, applause.

Freeze frame. The picture of Slater fades to a soft-hued portrait on parchment as the solemn words appear: “Governor Hiram Slater. His Pain . . . Your Gain.”

Small title across bottom of screen: “Paid for by the Committee to Reelect Governor Slater, Wilma Benthoff, Chairperson.”

JOHN AND MEL
arrived back at the station a little before 10 o’clock and immediately felt a certain uneasiness in the newsroom, as if they’d just returned from covering a nuclear disaster and might be contaminated.

“How’d it go?” George Hayami asked from behind the assignment desk when they reported in.

Mel just cussed a blue streak and then reported, “You should’ve seen it. The gov about scratched John’s eyes out.”

George flashed a questioning glance at John.

John just shrugged as he made himself a cup of coffee. “I would say he was unavailable for comment.”

“So did you get anything on-camera?”

Mel shook his head. “We didn’t even get that far before he threw us out of there.”

By now Erica Johnson was standing there, having a professional as well as personal interest. As managing editor she was responsible for story assignments and content and needed a report on how it went and what would be available for the evening newscasts. As a person, well, she—and almost the whole newsroom—was just plain curious.

“So what’ve we got for tonight?” she asked.

Mel took that as a cue to detach himself. “I’m getting another assignment. Excuse me.”

John answered, “Well, it’ll be what we discussed with Ben, a two-minute package. I’ll voice the whole thing and work in sound bites.”

“But no reacts from the governor, I take it?”

What else could John say? “I guess I’ll just have to say he was unavailable for comment.”

“So now you don’t have reacts from the governor and you don’t have anything from the Women’s Medical Center either.”

“Hey, I called them this morning, and their reaction was pretty much the same as the governor’s. They couldn’t throw me out, but they did hang up.”

“The governor threw you out?”

“Yeah, I’m afraid so.”

“What happened?”

“Well . . . before we could do the interview he wanted to talk to me about my motivations for doing the story, and so we talked about my motivations, and then we grappled over which would prevail—my obsession with Truth or his obsession with image and power, and . . . well, the upshot of it was that he had no interest in participating in the kind of moralizing, muckraking story I was pursuing. It was his office, so he asserted his sovereignty and threw me out.”

“Hoo boy . . .”

“I suppose Loren Harris has heard about it?”

Erica shook her head. “Loren Harris isn’t here today. He’s gone far away, and he can’t be contacted.”

Well, that was interesting.

Erica continued, “Which means the last avenue of appeal is closed
until this is over.” She sighed in resignation. “So go ahead. Put it together. I’ve got you slotted for the Five O’clock and the Seven O’clock.” She walked away with nothing more to say, and John went to his desk to begin.

The main body of the story would be prerecorded ahead of time, with narrative and video; on the live newscast he would introduce the story with a short lead-in, then the cassette would roll, and then he would come back to do a short closing tag. According to Ben, everything—the lead-in, the prerecorded package, and the tag—had to fit within two minutes.

He clicked on the computer console and stared at the blank screen. Two minutes. Two minutes. How could he say it all in two minutes?

He tapped out a short list of the main points:

—Hillary Slater dead from abortion.—already stated by gov.

—Women’s Medical Center responsible.—they refused to comment.

—gov covers it up.—do we say for political reasons?

—gov buys silence from Shannon DuPliese (?)

—second girl dies in same clinic. Annie Brewer.

—no comment as yet from Governor Slater.

He felt a doubt. The question arose in his mind:
So what?

Maybe the governor was right. Who really cares? Maybe Tina was right. We’ve already covered this—why drag it all out again?

In light of everything else already said, written, and broadcast about this whole case . . . maybe this was a nonstory. Maybe the thunder was really gone.

He took a deep breath and kept going.

Tap tap tataptap . . .
He put down ideas for sound bites.

—true cause of Hillary’s death: Dr. Harlan Matthews, pathologist, Bayview Memorial Hospital.

—gov knew true cause: Matthews again.

—cover-up, pressuring Shannon DuPliese to silence: Shannon DuPliese.

—Women’s Medical Center responsible: Shannon DuPliese, with “Post-operative Instructions.”

—Annie Brewer also died from botched abortion: Dr. Mark Denning, pathologist, formerly at Westland Memorial Hospital.

—Annie died in same clinic: Cindy Danforth, eyewitness account, plus “Post-operative Instructions.”

He tapped in the Print command, and the printer just a few desks away began to zip off a hard copy of his notes. The printing was finished by the time he got there, and he tore off the single sheet of paper, looking it over again.

Two minutes. This was going to be one tight, rushed story.

He pulled a box from under his desk and gathered up all the raw videotape they’d shot, all the interviews, establishing shots, reacts, etc. Now that he had some idea of what form the story would take, he had to review the tapes and pick out the sound bites. And he had to do it
fast.

“I’M SORRY ABOUT
John Barrett Sr. I really am. I had no idea . . .”

Ed Lake poured coffee for his visitors, Detectives Henderson and Oakley, as they all sat in Lake’s dining room. He’d been gone for a while, hoping to remain untainted, but no sooner had he returned than they were knocking at his door. He figured it was time to face the music while he still had some chance of calling the tune.

“But you feared for your
own
safety,” Henderson countered.

“I won’t discuss that without an attorney present. But you do understand, don’t you, that I’m telling you about the tape because I want you to know who’s really responsible for John Barrett’s murder?”

“And that is—?”

Lake sipped from his coffee, buying some time to think. “I guess I can’t speak from personal knowledge, but consider the flow of events. First the governor has Martin Devin go down to the Fire and Emergency Dispatcher to secure a copy of the recorded emergency call. Why? Well, I take it you’ve heard the tape. I listened to it, of course, and having done so, it’s easy to conclude that Slater wanted to know who made the call so he could cover his rear, if possible, which is consistent with the fact that the governor immediately became very fatherly toward this Shannon DuPliese. Anybody need a refill?”