Executive Actions (29 page)

Roarke was about to hang up but then added an irresistible compliment. “And by the way, great job on your articles. Fascinating backgrounders. Bye.”

He returned to Boston and drove, up and over Beacon Hill to the Parker House, one of the city’s famed hotels. Roarke produced an ID and credit card in the name of Putman, a rarely used alias, and checked in. After programming the room telephone so he could call in for messages, he decided to grab another hour’s rest before returning to Katie’s. He figured he’d need it.

Just before 5
P.M.
the phone rang waking him up from a deep, heavy sleep. In his disorientation, Roarke almost missed the call. “Hello,” he said in the strongest voice he could muster.

“Hello, Mr. Putman?”

Roarke had to think a moment. “Ah, yes.”

“This is Mike O’Connell. You asked me to give you a ring.”

Roarke forced his eyes open and focused. “Yes, yes. Thank you. I’m so sorry if I put you out. I know it’s not quite regular to be asking for help like this.”

“Well, it’s a bit unorthodox, but under the circumstances, I understand. And as you said, maybe you’ll have something I might need.”

Roarke smiled. He took the bait. “Possibly.” Roarke said aloud.

“But in answer to your question, I’m having the same problem. It’s the damnedest thing. I can’t find a picture to save my life.”

“Yeah.” Roarke agreed.

“Or his family.”

Of course there was one photograph, but Roarke decided not to offer it up. “I’ve gotta finish this doc with sketches. It’s impossible.”

“We’re both in the same boat, then.” O’Connell suddenly had another idea. “But while I have you on the phone, maybe you can help me out with some solid info on Lodge’s head guy, Newman.”

“What do you mean?” Roarke asked. He shook off the tiredness.
This could prove interesting.

“Newman.”

“Yeah? What about him?”

“He just sort of came out of nowhere.”

“What do you mean?”

“I interviewed him and got a bit of his history. But not much. I’d sure like to be able to write a solid backgrounder on him. But I don’t have enough to fill a column. And the man may be the next chief of staff.”

Roarke scribbled the name
Newman
on a hotel pad next to the phone.

The reporter continued. “The Army’s been pretty tight-lipped about his father and the helicopter crash and I don’t have time to run the Freedom of Information Act up their fucking asses to get at it. Maybe you can feed me something. Not for attribution, of course, unless you want it”

Roarke added
Army, father and copter crash
to his paper. Certainly he could open doors where O’Connell couldn’t.

“Look, keep me out of the papers. But here’s the deal. I’ll look into it. I have some connections, but you have to find me a picture.”

“Give me a day.”

“You got it,” Roarke said. “And I’ll see what I can deliver, too.”

He didn’t feel one bit guilty using the reporter. O’Connell had been fueling Lodge’s campaign for two months. It was about time that Morgan Taylor got something in return. “You can reach me here for the next few days. Let’s talk tomorrow, say at five o’clock.”

“Oh, and one more thing, while you’re at it.”

“Yes,” Roarke said.

“Newman’s date of birth. Can you get that, too?”

“I’ll try.”

O’Connell agreed and hung up. Roarke immediately dialed the office of the Secretary of the Army at the Pentagon. With luck he’d have his information well before twenty-four hours. He hoped that in return, O’Connell would press his sources to find a photograph. Touch Parsons needed more.

O’Connell liked having someone on the inside. He was proud of himself and didn’t question how easily Putman fell into his lap. Unfortunately, even though he was a top-flight journalist, he failed to double-check the veracity of his new source. He probably wanted to believe Reuben Putman because they struck a deal. Possibly it was because he still thought far too much about writing a bestseller on the election. Whatever the reason, it blinded him. Which, of course, Roarke counted on.

O’Connell logged onto Google.com and began a series of searches, which constantly narrowed. He typed in Marblehead and added additional parameters: restaurants, fire stations, hot dog stands, clubs and organizations, anywhere he might find photographs of the Lodges. He also cast a net for high school yearbooks. He was surprised he hadn’t tried that before.

He printed out 53 telephone numbers of possible contacts and began calling.

At the same time, Roarke was on the phone with the Pentagon. He spoke with an old friend, Captain Penny Walker, a tireless bloodhound who could dig into the deepest hole and come up with gold. She worked with the Secretary of the Army and Roarke knew all of her skills first hand. In an internal investigation six years earlier, Walker and Roarke discovered a white supremacist faction that had been recruiting members at Fort Bragg. Roarke had infiltrated the group and continued to work undercover with Cpt. Walker, but in an entirely different manner. They ended their affair early, yet remained devoted to one another.

She worked on-line while speaking to Roarke on the phone. “Newman, William. 2
nd
Lieutenant. Deceased. Let’s see what comes up. And I’m not talking about you, honey,” she said punching in the last variable to her initial entry.

“That’s a relief,” he said. “I’m not sure if I even could.”

“Oh, has Mr. Happy been busy recently?”

“Captain!” he chided her. “Stick to your search.”

“You’re no fun anymore. But okay. Here we go.” She began reading the results. “Newman, um, only 6,411. Give me a sec, I’ll cut through this.”

She typed in Germany. Next, the approximate years of service.

“Got it down to four.”

“Anything else I can use?”

“Yeah. Add helicopter accident—some sort of crash, I don’t really know, as the cause of death.” He heard her fingers race across the computer keys.

“Bingo. I got your man. Let me track his file and I’ll call you back in the morning with an update.”

“You’ve got my number.”

“Had it,” she added for good measure in her sexiest voice. “And by the way, congratulations. Hope she’s good.”

“What are you talking about?”

“You have a sweetheart. I heard it in your voice. What you said.”

“Oh, you are good.”

“You used to think so. Anyway, I am Army intelligence.”

“I’ll say.”

“Good luck, Roarke. Maybe it’ll be
this
time.”

“Thanks, Penny. Thank you.”

Roarke had barely enough time to pick up groceries for dinner. He dashed to DeLuca’s Market near the corner of Charles and Beacon Streets, bought two fresh blue fish, enough greens for a salad, one tiramisu because he thought they could find a fun way of eating it, and a bottle of Mt. Eden Merlot. With the bags in hand he walked up Beacon Hill to prepare dinner like a regular Bostonian.

Meanwhile, O’Connell worked on a soggy tuna sandwich left over from lunch while he continued to run down his phone numbers. He’d started late in the day, so there were at least two-thirds of the calls left over for the morning.

At 10
P.M.
he called it quits. At 10
P.M.
Roarke and Katie were lost in each other’s arms.

Teddy Lodge read the draft of his acceptance speech. It was pure poetry. Newman was right. This new girl had real talent; like Jenny’s. Not that he was surprised. He knew it was no accident. Nothing in their world was.

“A few word changes, a phrase here and there. I’ve redlined them. Otherwise it’s great,” Lodge told Newman. “I want to meet this woman.”

“All in good time, Ted. Keep your eye on the prize. Maybe after Thursday,” the campaign manager and chief of staff insisted.

The congressman didn’t like being told what to do. It was in his voice when he snapped back. “Thursday night. At the reception.”

“Okay. Okay. And you won’t be disappointed.”

“Hello, this is Michael O’Connell. I’m a reporter for
The New York Times
. And I’m on a deadline.”

He liked to begin his calls with a sense of urgency. It made people feel important; especially the ones who wanted to see their names in print.

But call after call delivered the same response. He scratched out names and numbers all morning until, through a restaurant owner in Marblehead, he found an old man who remembered a man, who might know a woman, who had a friend, whose uncle was a barber in Marblehead. “Call Ciccolo’s. He always put pictures of the kids on the wall. Maybe one’s still tacked up.”

O’Connell considered it nothing short of a miracle that the shop was still around. The 65-year-old son of the original barber, Nick Ciccolo, now ran it.

“Teddy Lodge, you say. Jeeze, you mean the one running for president? That one?”

“That’s the one,” O’Connell answered.

“Hold on a minute. I’ll check,” the barber said. The minute was actually seven, filled with the worst Mantovani renditions imaginable, all filtered through the phone lying next to the radio.

“Hello. You still there?” Ciccolo asked when he came back.

“I’m here. Any luck?”

“It was pretty high up. That’s why it took so long. One of my customers had to help me. Thanks, Shelley,” he threw to the man at the shop. “I had the feeling that we had something.”

“And?”

“This goes way back. But I sort of remembered the old man coming in with his kid. I got a mind for that sort of thing I suppose.”

“And?” O’Connell demanded.

“And I found one.”

“Great!” The reporter showed his excitement. “What’s it look like?”

The barber laughed. “Well, it’s like a hundred other pictures of first haircuts. But it’s sure him. Dated and everything. The kid was bawling his eyes out. His father is standing behind him trying to quiet him down.”

“I love it. Can I borrow the picture?”

“Well, it does leave a weird spot on the wall. The paint’s all faded around it.”

“Sorry. I can get it right back to you.”

“Yeah, I know but,” the barber stopped and O’Connell felt what was coming. This was all about money now.

“One hundred?” offered O’Connell quickly.

“I dunno,” the barber replied.

“We normally don’t pay anything. But since it’s a presidential candidate, how about two-fifty.”

“Five hundred?”

“This is really pretty far out there, but five hundred. Deal. If you throw in a haircut on my next trip.”

“And a credit for the shop?”

“Done.”

“You got a picture, Mr. O’Connell.”

“Thank you. A friend of mine will come by to pick it up. Probably tomorrow.”

“With money.”

“Yes, Mr. Ciccolo. With money.”

“I close at five sharp.”

“He’ll be there. His name is Putman.”

An hour later, O’Connell also scored an old high school yearbook from the daughter of a classmate. It was tiny; a group photo, but Lodge was there. He’d give Putman the addresses for both.

Penny Walker was also on a roll. She found Newman’s military records, information on his wife and kid, and background on the MH-60 K/L Pave Hawk that crashed.

“Take some notes. I can e-mail you the rest,” she told Roarke.

“Ready.”

“When Newman died, the Army convened a panel. There’d been a rash of Pave Hawks going down. Generally fuel leak problems. They were constantly being grounded. The only rub here is that Lt. Newman wasn’t assigned to the aircraft. No orders to board. And it certainly wasn’t protocol for him to hitch a nighttime ride to nowhere. So I made a few calls. There was an NCO who remembered seeing a colonel yelling at Newman to get into the chopper. Newman didn’t want to go. He was supposed to be off duty. But he was being dressed down pretty badly and he obeyed.”

“And the colonel?”

“No record of him signing in.”

“Any inquiry produce this guy?”

“No. A description in the record. That’s all. No positive ID. Someone fucked up ordering him on and then apparently had the rank to cover the thing up after the accident.”

“And the boy?”

“Shuttled around until he got back to the States. The airlines actually lost him on his way between the KLM and American gates at Heathrow. He missed a connecting flight to JFK. Things were frantic for awhile. An airline attendant was supposed to get the hand off at the gate, but somehow missed him.”

“Give that to me again.”

“Geoff Newman was lost at Heathrow. Missing for about an hour. He apparently had the presence of mind to get himself to the American gate. They got him on the next flight and he was met by his only relative, a distant cousin from Portland, Maine, he never knew. Right after coming to the States, his cousin shipped him off to private school in Massachusetts.”

“Harvard Essex Academy.”

“So you know some of this.”

“Bits and pieces. Got any pictures?”

“One. The lieutenant in Germany. I’ll scan it and e-mail you.”

“Nothing of the kid.”

“No. And by the way, you wanted his birthdate, too.”

“Yeah, right,” he said actually having forgotten.

She told him.

“Thanks sweetheart. I owe you.”

“You don’t have enough to make it worthwhile,” she laughed.

Roarke left a message for O’Connell. He got a call back in three minutes.

“What do you have?” O’Connell asked.

“You first.”

“Two addresses for you. One a barber shop in Marblehead. The second, a house in Beverly. Pictures waiting for you at both. But I want copies. Try Kinkos and then FedEx them out. Or better yet, have them scanned and attached it in an e-mail. The originals have to go back to the owners.”

“Great.”

“Not so great. Bring $500 to the barbershop and another one hundred to Beverly.”

“What?” Roarke asked.

“The price of doing business, Mr. Putman. I figure you’ve got a budget.” He gave Roarke the street addresses. “Now your turn.”

Roarke explained that he also found a photograph—one of Newman’s father, plus information on the helicopter accident and Geoff’s birthdate.