S Street Rising: Crack, Murder, and Redemption in D.C. (31 page)

But with Soulsby in charge of the police department, there was no one he could take his suspicions to. The U.S. attorney, Eric Holder, hadn’t stood up for him regarding Soulsby’s off-the-record lies about a grand jury investigation. Lou had hoped that Holder would make a public statement confirming that Lou wasn’t and never had been the target of a grand jury probe, but the prosecutor had said nothing. Lou had no reason to believe Holder would buck the police chief on a murder investigation.

Lou kept taping his car, studying, and running.

For me, the Soulsby thing was dead. In the months since I’d relayed the chief’s off-the-record statements to Lou, I’d continued on the crime beat. The paper sent me to New York to do a piece on plummeting violence in that city and the crime-fighting efforts of the NYPD.

My recovery from crack and alcohol was proceeding steadily. I’d become a faithful member of a support group that met weekdays at noon one block from the
Post
. Most of the core members were professionals who worked downtown. Their lives weren’t perfect, but many of them had families, thriving careers, or their own businesses. A few of them, such as my friend Tom, had a level of peace and serenity I aspired to. There was no magic formula, but it was important to attend as many support-group meetings as possible, Tom advised.

There was no right or wrong way to do the program, either. When I started attending meetings regularly, right after my release from rehab, I’d worried about the program tenet that a belief in a “higher power” could restore alcoholics and addicts to sanity. I’d been raised Catholic but had fallen away from the church, and I didn’t know what I believed about God.

My worries turned out to be unfounded. One of the regulars at the meetings I attended was known as “Godless John” because of his enthusiastic, almost gleeful atheism. Godless John had compiled more than a decade of sobriety. He faithfully went to meetings and was available whenever I wanted to talk. His example was crucial: Godless John showed me that adherence to a religious belief wasn’t a prerequisite for staying clean.

Some people throw themselves into their recovery program, attending every support-group holiday gathering, developing a circle of exclusively sober friends, raising their hands and talking at every meeting. My approach was more reserved. I showed up and mostly listened. I remained close to people who weren’t in the program, including one pal who liked to drink but wasn’t an alcoholic.

In meetings, I listened closely to people who’d relapsed describe how miserable and dangerous it was to resume drinking or using drugs. I also listened to successful people with long-term sobriety who seemed to handle whatever life threw at them with grace and good humor. They had this in common: They stuck with the program. They went to meetings and helped fellow alcoholics and addicts whenever they were asked. They did the basics.

In my quiet way, I did the same. When Tom asked me to temporarily mentor a man who was a crack addict, I jumped in, meeting and talking with my fellow junkie. He eventually got sober. Whenever someone asked me to lead a meeting, I agreed.

After a year or so, I realized that on the few occasions I’d talked, it wasn’t about struggling with alcohol or crack. It was about conflicts at work or with a disagreeable landlord. It was about dealing with life. I heard some old-timers say that the program could help a lot of non-alcoholics.

I had to agree.

Even though it seemed that I would escape the Soulsby–Lou skirmish with my career unscathed, I started having nightmares about the chief. In them, Soulsby was a dark, menacing presence who silently stalked me. More than once, my girlfriend awakened me to offer comfort after I’d tossed and turned during a particularly awful dream.

Not long after he ran into the detective outside of headquarters, Lou called me at my desk. I cradled the phone on my shoulder and furiously scribbled notes as he related what he’d learned about the Bryant murder investigation and Roach Brown.

I was about to say what a great story this was going to make when I remembered: I couldn’t write it. Because I’d disclosed Soulsby’s lie, I was part of the story. There was no way Metro editor Jo-Ann Armao would let me write something, no matter how explosive Lou’s accusations might have been. And I couldn’t simply hand the story to another reporter. For one thing, Lou didn’t trust anyone else at the
Post
.
For that matter, neither did I. I worried that a fellow reporter who didn’t have all the background might be spun by the chief, especially if Soulsby implied or offered ongoing access. I wasn’t even sure the paper’s editors would want to pursue a story about the Bryant murder with another writer, given my involvement in the Soulsby–Lou conflict.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“What can I do?” Lou said. “Soulsby’s the chief, Barry’s the mayor, and I’m out of homicide.”

Both of us were handcuffed. We finished the conversation and rang off. I put the phone down, thinking that Lou and I were living in a James Ellroy novel.

About a month later, on a Friday afternoon in mid-May 1996, I took the elevator down to the
Post
’s
second-floor cafeteria for a snack. I picked up a blueberry muffin and took a seat in front of a TV mounted on the wall. It was set to a local channel, and the five o’clock news was coming on.

As I chewed on the muffin, an announcer trumpeted the lead story—something about a secret agreement between the chief of police and a former homicide captain. Video footage of Soulsby and Lou flashed on the screen. The reporter, Joan Gartlan, said she’d confirmed that the two had entered into the pact after the chief had made derogatory off-the-record remarks about Lou.

I froze mid-bite.
Oh, fuck, this thing’s a zombie
, I thought.
It won’t die. It won’t go away.
I watched the rest of Gartlan’s report in despair. She didn’t say what the off-the-record remarks were, but it didn’t matter. She’d nailed everything else. Gartlan was a good journalist. She’d stay on the story, I figured. My role in the episode was being resurrected, and there was nothing I could do about it. I suddenly lost my appetite and tossed the rest of the muffin into a trash bin.

Lou spent the weekend stewing over Gartlan’s report. On Monday he was at the hospital with Loraine, who was about to give birth to their third child. The TV was on in Loraine’s room. The local news started.

A doctor and a nurse watched the news with Lou. Gartlan appeared with a follow-up to her first story about the secret deal. Pictures of the chief and Lou appeared. The doctor and the nurse peppered Lou with questions. He told them the chief was assassinating his character. He was getting more upset by the minute.

Loraine wasn’t too happy, either. When Lou had been head of homicide, he was never home; he was always out chasing after killers. Loraine had accepted that. She knew Lou would pour his heart into his command. Now, though, he was out of homicide and she was in labor. She needed his attention.

“Could you shut that thing off?” Loraine snapped.

Sheepishly, Lou reached up and flipped off the TV. The doctor and the nurse slinked away.

Moments later, Lou’s pager went off. He took out his cell phone and made a call. Loraine shot him a look.
Lou cut the call short.

The following day, Lou drove Loraine and newborn Jack home from the hospital. Lou and Loraine gave Jack the middle name Henry, in honor of Henry “Hank” Daly. Their other two kids—Megan, four, and Billy, two—squirmed in the back.

Loraine could barely walk. She held Jack as Lou helped her into the house. Megan and Billy scampered inside, bouncing off the walls, excited to have a baby brother.

The phone rang. Lou picked it up. He listened.

“Yeah, I’ll be right there,” he said.

Loraine glared at him, thinking,
Oh, no you don’t!

He did. Lou headed toward the front door, muttering something about a D.C. Council member wanting to hear the Soulsby tape, something about defending his name. He flew out the door.

Loraine managed to place Jack in his crib. Then she collapsed.

The pain was too great. She couldn’t walk. Megan and Billy chased each other around the house. Loraine crawled to the nightstand and picked up the bedroom phone. She called Lou’s sister, who said she’d come by to take Megan and Billy off her hands.

Loraine shook her head in disgust and disbelief. She thought,
When he gets home, Lou’s going to have bigger problems than Soulsby.

While Lou drove toward Washington and Loraine fumed, Soulsby lied. Twenty-five miles north of Lou’s home in Charles County,  Maryland, inside the District Building, William Lightfoot, the same D.C. Council member who’d gone after Roach Brown’s job in February, summoned Soulsby to his office.

Four months later, the
Post
would publish a story in which Lightfoot related what Soulsby said to him about the controversy. The chief claimed that he’d told me and the other two reporters that the U.S. attorney was investigating a fatal shooting by a uniformed D.C. cop and that the results of the probe would reflect poorly on Lou. The homicide squad investigated all officer-involved shootings. Soulsby implied to Lightfoot that the homicide squad’s investigation into the incident was, at the least, seriously lacking.

Soulsby’s explanation was another lie. He’d never said anything like that to me and the other two reporters he’d talked to off the record. He’d said that Lou was the target of a criminal investigation. Soulsby had lied twice to me: once when I was with the two other reporters and again when he and I were alone in the elevator. In neither instance had he said anything about a questionable shooting.

In the article, Lightfoot said Soulsby admitted that entering into his secret deal with Lou, which prevented Lou from testifying at his D.C. Council confirmation hearing, was a “serious” lapse in judgment.

Lightfoot said he took Soulsby at his word. But he added that if he learned the chief had lied to me and the other two reporters, or to him, “I’d call for his resignation. That’s where I draw the line.”

A few days after Gartlan broke the Soulsby story, I was driving back to the office from a murder scene in Northeast Washington. Things seemed to have returned to normal. In response to Gartlan’s reports, the
Post
assigned one of my co-workers to write a couple of brief stories about the controversy. The articles didn’t mention my role in the mess. Soulsby refused to authorize the release of the audiotape of Lou berating him. He issued a brief public apology for the secret deal. The story seemed played out.

Then Marion Barry went after me.

As I headed toward the office, I turned on the radio and tuned to a local talk show. Barry’s distinctive voice boomed from the speakers. The host asked the mayor about the Soulsby–Hennessy brouhaha.

My entire body clenched.

Barry defended Soulsby. Then he attacked me.

“Ruben Castaneda was off the record,” the mayor said. “He was unethical by telling people about this.” Barry repeated:
Ruben Castaneda, unethical. Ruben Castaneda, unethical. Ruben Castaneda, unethical.

I pulled over to the curb as Barry verbally pummeled me. I dropped my head onto the steering wheel.

This was far from over.

The next day, Keith Harriston appeared at my desk. The boss wanted to see me about the Soulsby thing, he said.

I tried to steel myself as I walked into the Metro editor’s office. It was on the South Wall, in the middle of the newsroom, with a glass door and glass walls. Everyone could see us.

In her forties, Jo-Ann was petite, with short dark hair and wire-rimmed glasses. She often wore a pinched expression that suggested she’d just taken a slug of sour milk. I could kid around with some editors. I couldn’t imagine trying to joke with her.

“Close the door,” she said. I shut the door and settled into a chair in front of her desk.

“You’re fired,” she announced, deadpan.

My heart stopped.

Jo-Ann smiled.

Ha, ha, ha.
Didn’t know she had a sense of humor.

The smile disappeared. My heart resumed beating.

Jo-Ann sat down. “Tell me about your role in this Soulsby–Hennessy situation,” she said.

I recounted: Soulsby said what he said. I ran into him in the elevator and gave him a chance to take it back and he dug in deeper. In a total coincidence, I ran into Lou moments later. I hadn’t intended to disclose the chief’s comments, but I responded to Lou’s question with a question, and he figured it out on the spot.

“It’s a problem,” Jo-Ann said. “Off the record means off the record. You’re not supposed to disclose off-the-record information to anyone. If sources can’t trust us, we won’t have any sources.”

“I know,” I said. “I didn’t intend to reveal anything.”

“You violated
Post
policy,” Jo-Ann said. “It’s a problem.”

The word
policy
was ominous. I sat up straighter in my chair.

“Look, I knew Soulsby was lying,” I said. “In my mind, I wasn’t violating any off-the-record agreement. Are we supposed to protect lies? Besides, suppose he was telling the truth—I’d have to check it out.”