A Confidential Source (38 page)

I hated to admit it, but Frizell was a good reporter, digging into the details of the story with a thoroughness I had to admire.
I began flipping through the rest of the paper to the jump pages to see how many sidebars he’d written, how many stories in
today’s paper had his byline on them.

“You’re pathological. You know that, right?” Walter said. He put a bowl of soup on the coffee table and took the newspaper
out of my hands, tapping the inner sections into line and folding it in half.

Walter was laying the folded paper on the bar when the phone rang. Grabbing the cordless from its cradle, he walked it over
to me, on the futon.

It was Dorothy. “You feeling better?” she asked.

“Antsy,” I replied. “Very antsy.”

She wanted me to report to her in the newsroom on Monday instead of returning to the South County bureau. “If you’re up to
it, both Nathan and I want you to get started on an in-depth story on how the counterfeiting ring operated. You know, why
they went to Barry, where they got the technology, that kind of thing. Apparently, the attorney general’s office has some
background info they want to release only to you.”

“Sure,” I said, trying to sound cool, but my mind was already beginning to whir. If the AG’s office had details it would release
only to me, that meant an exclusive. “I’ll be there at eight.”

There was a pause and then: “Nathan decided that there was going to be such a high volume of investigative stories coming
out of this scandal, there may be room for both you and Frizell on the team. He’s willing to try you for a probationary period.”

As soon as I put the phone down, I jumped up from the futon, oblivious to my ankle sprain, and began hugging Walter.

It was a long and completely silent hug, a communication that covered years of mistakes, of Chris Tejian and my Boston newspaper
career. When I stepped away, I felt incredibly light, as if the bandages on my leg and ankle were off and all my stitches
were removed. A penance had been paid, an absolution granted. Walter and I stared at each other, not needing to say a word
because we both knew that the burden had lifted. That now, I could take his advice. In this small and crazy state, I could
finally start anew.

There was a stack of fresh notebooks in my bedroom and I had a desperate urge to outline my plan of attack on the story. As
I walked into my room, Walter yelled out that I might want to take it easy on my ankle. “Moderation, ever heard of it, Hallie?
Moderation and balance?”

Two weeks later, my story was the lead on Sunday’s front page.

The Providence Morning Chronicle

The Mazursky Murder: Corruption from

the Casino to the Lottery

First in a series

By Hallie A. Ahern

Chronicle
Investigative Team

He sold his convenience-store chain, tapped out every line of credit he’d ever had, and had been in and out of Gamblers Anonymous
meetings for three years. Still, Barry Mazursky could not beat his gambling demons.

The manager of the Mazursky Markets in Providence who was shot to death last month in the Wayland Square store had accrued
more than $150,000 in debts to loan sharks and was a desperate man, his wife, Nadine Mazursky, said in a recent interview.

That’s how he got mixed up with the state lottery counterfeiting scheme that prosecutors say cost the state $2.5 million in
lost revenue and allowed him to pay off all his street loans. And according to the state’s argument, that’s why he was murdered.

The scheme was fairly simple. Using breakthrough technology from an underground printing firm, a ring of men counterfeited
$5 scratch-ticket games. Sale of the tickets was 100 percent profit, and since only losing tickets would be printed, there
was little risk. “Who pays attention to a losing scratch ticket? You toss them in the trash or on the ground,” said Assistant
RI Attorney General Matthew P. Cavanaugh, who initiated the state’s three-month investigation into the scheme.

See
Mazursky, page B-14

“So I can’t believe they actually threw in a few fake winners,” Frizell said. It was the Monday after my story ran and he
was sitting alone in the Fishbowl with the newspaper spread on the conference table in front of him when I walked in. Dorothy
and Nathan hadn’t yet arrived for our meeting.

“The idea was to increase sales in the Wayland store,” I said. “They were small, ten- or fifty-dollar winners that Barry sold
only to regular players like me, who he knew would cash them at his store. The ten-thousand-dollar winner I got was a printing
error.”

“Some error,” Frizell said. He flipped to the jump page and pointed to a sidebar I’d written. “And you really believe this
crap? That the mayor knew all about the investigation and that’s why he lied to you about the memo?” Frizell had already written
so many negative stories about the mayor’s administration that he couldn’t believe that anything Billy Lopresti said was ever
true.

I tried nonetheless. “The AG’s office confirmed that Providence police had been informed about the counterfeiting investigation
and were told to keep a lid on the Mazursky murder probe until prosecutors could get all their ducks in a row. They give high
praise to Billy for his cooperation.”

Jonathan’s expression remained unconvinced. He flipped the newspaper closed to cut off further discussion of my story and
launched into an explanation of the piece
he
was writing for tomorrow: a restaurant owner who made a payoff to a health department lackey who threatened to close him
down on trumped-up code violations. More proof that the mayor was unredeemable scum.

But I didn’t really care about the mayor. Voters had defeated his referendum to legalize gambling by a landslide. Spillover
disgust at the corruption of the lottery, most likely, but I preferred to think of it as Leonard’s victory: a memorial and
a final tribute.

Nathan and Dorothy walked in and cut Jonathan off by dropping a bound folder onto the middle of the table. It was an independent
audit of the state lottery dating back five years. Messengered over in advance of the press conference, it revealed “irregular
practices” and nearly half a million dollars in unaccountable funds.

In other words, Gregory Ayers had been stealing from the till long before he began counterfeiting. Apparently, his wife, Marge,
had both an alcohol and a shopping problem. Whenever she’d succumb to Ayers’s pressure to go on the wagon, she’d punish him
for her sobriety by going on a buying binge. Furs, jewelry, handbags, and even a marble fireplace mantel that she had imported
from Rome.

It looked like Ayers had pilfered from the lottery funds to pay his mounting personal debt. As long as he could hire his friendly
accounting firm to rubber-stamp the audits, he was safe from exposure, but the referendum to legalize gambling threatened
all that. As part of the bill, a new independent gambling commission, which was to include a member of the Narragansett tribe,
would conduct annual audits of both casino gambling and the lottery.

“Ayers had been running the lottery for so long that he started to think that money he gave away was really his,” Nathan said.

For next Sunday’s segment, he wanted me to explore the theory that Ayers had turned to counterfeiting to try to replace the
embezzled money in case the gambling referendum passed. I was to try to reconstruct the whole thing, portray the deterioration
of a successful man and the desperation that followed.

Dorothy pushed the audit across the table to me. “Federal prosecutors have scheduled a new press conference for four o’clock.
I think they’re probably going to announce additional charges against Ayers.”

No one mentioned that covering a four o’clock press conference on a Friday meant that I’d be working until nine o’clock, but
it hung in the air. Dorothy knew that I’d started work at seven this morning, but also that I wasn’t likely to complain. Besides
being hired on to the investigative team on a probationary basis, I still had mountains of debt to pay and I needed the overtime.

“About twenty-five inches for tomorrow, then?” Dorothy said. “And maybe a news analysis for Sunday?”

Jonathan, who was rumored to own a ski condominium in New Hampshire, was already packing up his things, eyeing the door. For
a moment, the vision of the $250,000 scratch ticket dangled before me. All that money. The apartment in Back Bay. The arty
essays that I could have written in the early afternoon.

Dorothy was looking at me with an apologetic expression, as if she felt she might have pushed too far. “The news analysis
can wait until Monday, if you want…”

I’d had a full week of forced rest and idle time. And it wasn’t as if I had any other plans. This was my fresh start, my emotional
freedom. I realized Dorothy was waiting for an answer. “Don’t worry. I’ll be able to manage.”

It was almost ten o’clock and I was standing in the last aisle of the Mazursky Market, a salad in one hand and a quart of
milk in the other. I was tired from putting in a long day, but still wound up. The stitches in my calf were out, but because
of the sprain, I had to wait one more week before I could start running. So I was still working off excess energy and knew
that I’d never be able to sleep.

“I had a problem with your story today.” Matt Cavanaugh’s voice boomed in the quiet aisle.

I let the door of the dairy case swing shut and turned around.

He was standing at the end of the aisle, one hand in his pocket, the other carrying a briefcase. The first snow was falling
outside and there were snowflakes melting in his hair and on the shoulders of his camel-hair coat. He was still in a suit
and tie, dressed for the office, which he must have just left. “You misquoted me.”

I felt alarm begin to rise. I’d spent two weeks researching that story and had been meticulous in transcribing my notes, especially
the notes from my interviews with Matt. I’d double-checked every fact, every quote, three times. “What? What did I get wrong?”

“I’d never advocate throwing scratch tickets on the ground,” he said, walking toward me. “That’s littering.”

Now I saw the sardonic smile, the mischief glinting in the dark eyes. I felt such relief that I realized how much I’d wanted
his approval on the story—as much as I’d wanted Dorothy’s or Nathan’s. It had been important to me that Matt saw I could get
it right.

Striking a similar tone, I reached into my knapsack and pulled out my silver tape recorder. “I believe I have that interview
on tape. I can play it back for you if you want.”

“Here?” He looked up and down the empty aisle, as if it were full of people who would overhear.

“I can turn the volume low.”

He reached over and I thought he might take the tape recorder from me, but instead it was the salad he removed from my hand.
Grimacing at the plastic container, he said, “Do you eat this rabbit food every night?”

“Almost.”

He shook his head at my dining habits. And then: “How about we listen to the tape over dinner?” And in case I misunderstood:
“A dinner that comes from somewhere else.”

“Now?”

“You don’t appear to have other plans.”

He was grinning. I might have taken offense if it weren’t so painfully true. Or if it weren’t so obvious that he was in the
same boat. Just out of work. Alone on a Friday night with nothing to do. I shrugged, nonchalantly, as if to say oh-what-the-hell,
hoping he couldn’t read me too well, or hear too much enthusiasm in my footsteps. I put the milk back in the dairy case and
slowly, as if it were a sacrifice, returned the salad to the deli.

Matt waited for me at the register, where the overweight woman from YourCorner Corporation was ringing up a liter of soda
and a pack of cigarettes for a boy who might or might not have been eighteen years of age. But Matt wasn’t paying attention;
he was peering out the window at the snow falling on Way land Square, waiting for me. Outside, the snowflakes were enormous,
the kind that melted into the pavement and left only the lightest frosting on the grass.

“You ready?” he asked, turning from the window as I arrived. And then, with a glance at the register and that wicked grin:
“No scratch tickets tonight?”

“You know,” I felt compelled to remind him, “I could have practically been a millionaire.”

He sighed. “I think you mentioned that in your statement.”

“So it
is
possible to get rich.”

He narrowed his eyes at the books of scratch tickets hanging from plastic cases behind the clerk, the wall of bright-colored
tickets overstating their promise. “But unlikely,” he said, “very, very unlikely.”

“Somebody, somewhere, hits a winner,” the clerk offered. She used a phlegmy smoker’s voice to mimic the lottery’s latest radio
ad campaign launched to try to rebuild business. “Can’t win if you don’t play the game.”

“That’s what they say,” I agreed.

Maybe Matt was afraid that I was going to reach for my wallet because he took my hand and tugged me toward the door. And we
walked out of the Mazursky Market together without buying anything.

ACCLAIM FOR JAN BROGAN’S
A CONFIDENTIAL SOURCE

“Not unlike my own experience, Jan Brogan has made the successful leap from a journalist to a novelist. Using her investigative skills, Ms, Brogan creates a successful tale of a gritty reporter willing to risk it all for a shot at the big time. Captivating to the end, A CONFIDENTIAL SOURCE is a wonderfully compelling modern-day mystery.”

—BARBARA TAYLOR BRADFORD, BESTSELLING AUTHOR OF
A WOMAN OF SUBSTANCE

“Greed, ambition, addiction, corruption, and mayhem…
A page-turner that hooks you like the blackjack table at Foxwoods.”

—MIKE STANTON, AUTHOR OF
THE PRINCE OF PROVIDENCE: THE TRUE STORY OF BUDDY CIANCI, AMERICA’S MOST NORORIOUS MAYOR, SOME WISEGUYS, AND THE FEDS

“A fast-paced and compulsively readable mystery starring an appealingly flawed protagonist.” —LINDA BARNES, AUTHOR OF
DEEP POCKETS

“Nail-biting suspense… but it’s Brogan’s tough-taking but all too human heroine that will stay with you long after the novel’s conclusion…One of the best debuts of the year.”—DEBORAH CROMBIE, AUTHOR OF
IN A DARK HOUSE