Prophet (65 page)

Leslie answered directly, “That’s right.” No ifs, ands, or buts.

Deanne reminded the detective, “She was there, Mr. Henderson. She saw it, and she’s ready to testify to it.”

“I know,” said Henderson, “she told me on the phone. She even knows the false name Hillary used in case we need to subpoena the clinic records.”

“And that’s why that Canan punk tried to kill her,” Max added. “She knew too much, and they were afraid she’d talk!”

Henderson held up his hand. “Now, now, let’s not go too fast. Let’s get all the facts in hand before we jump to conclusions.”

Max was quite ready for conclusions. “What more facts you need? John Barrett Sr. had that tape, and he got killed. Shannon DuPliese is the one talking on the tape, and somebody just tried to waste her on
Saturday! You oughta be askin’ yourself who and why.”

“I’m asking myself,
qui bono
?” said Henderson.

“What’s that?” asked Max.

“Who benefits?” Henderson stared at the floor and rubbed his face some more. “And listen, I really do not like the answer to that question. I’ve got to be really careful!” He pointed his finger right at John and then Leslie. “And you people in the media have to be careful too! Do you have any idea how explosive this is?”

John shrugged. “That’s why we called you. We thought we finally had something you could run with.”

Henderson only shook his head and whispered a mournful oath, followed by a quick “Excuse me.” He reviewed some facts in his head. “Well . . . Shannon is convinced the governor and his chief of staff were trying to hush her up—permanently. She says Devin was hounding her, trying to keep her quiet, and she told him she just might talk, and then—a few days later—here’s Canan jumping her—well, the decoy of her.”

“So okay!” said Max. “There you are.”

“Yeah, here I am—in a very sticky situation where I’d better be right, and I mean absolutely, totally right, before I make a move on this thing.” Henderson took a deep breath and switched from a dumbfounded to a methodical mode. “Well, we’ve got something started. I’ve been in touch with the police back at Midwestern University, and we’ve got a firm ID on Ted Canan. I know the guy. He’s from right around here, and he’s got a record as long as three of our arms. I’ve run him in a few times myself. So I think it’s fair to ask what a two-bit hood was doing clear over in the Midwest, attacking the only girl on that campus who just happened to be best friends with the governor’s dead daughter.” He looked at Leslie. “Now was it you that had that video . . . ?”

Leslie nodded. “Right . . . the video of the governor’s rally. Ted Canan is in it, and I think one other character who started that fight.”

“Yeah, I need to see that before Canan gets extradited back here. I want to know if he’s got any immediate friends I can pressure.”

“I’ll have it for you tomorrow.”

Henderson looked over the scribbled notes in his hand, notes from the conversations he’d had with Shannon, with the Brewers, with John
and Leslie, and now from the playing of the 911 tape. “A lot of pieces here . . . but a lot of the puzzle.” He flipped a page over. “Looks like Governor Slater either lied or somebody lied to him. I’d like to get to the bottom of that, find out who and why—” He cut off any objection from Max by looking at him and adding, “—for sure. And then . . .” He looked at John. “You know, that whole pipe rack theory of yours makes a lot more sense now, doesn’t it? With no clear fingerprints on the forklift, we’ve needed another trail of some kind. Well, now we’ve just about got ourselves a smoking gun here, a motive and a possible connection to the party who pulled the trigger. It’s getting credible . . . very credible. But I still have one big question: just how the heck did your father get that 911 tape?”

John answered, “We’ve looked in the governor’s direction. I have a friend who’s trying to find out if the governor’s made any recent enemies, someone on the inside who’d know about all this.”

Henderson tightened his lips at a difficult thought. “You’re talking about somebody way inside.”

“Maybe so. But the guys at the warehouse say Dad did have a visitor that day I dropped by to see him and saw him with Chuck’s Walkman.”

“I’ll drop by and get the description from them. We’ve got to find the guy, whoever he is.”

“He may have just been a courier for someone else, we don’t know.”

“No, we sure don’t.” Henderson flipped to a page with some room on it. “John, if you don’t mind my asking, why do you think your father got that tape? I mean, the guy was a plumbing wholesaler! Why give a tape like that to a plumbing wholesaler?”

“Well . . . remember what I said about his religious leanings?”

Henderson gave a big nod. “Ah, yeah, the pro-lifer making pro-choice enemies. So he did have his hands in the political realm.”

“And he was making the governor nervous, I know that. He wrote to the governor about his daughter and apparently knew all about the abortion before he even got this tape.”

Henderson looked up from his notes. “How’d he know?”

John shrugged. “He was a prophet.”

Henderson’s face got a little lopsided. “You want me to write that down?”

John smiled. “That’s the predominant theory at this time, yes.”

Henderson wrote it down. “This case is full of surprises, I want to tell you . . .” Then he looked at all of them. “So all right, I’m going to make a nearly impossible request of all of you. Try to control yourselves. Don’t blab this around. It’s just too big, too dangerous, and if something gets blown before we’re ready, we could lose it all, you understand? And that goes for you people in the media!”

Leslie retorted, “And you too, Henderson! Let me remind you that there are beat reporters around the police precinct all the time who would just about kill for a scoop like this. But you know and I know that we’re dealing with people who specialize in lying and phony images, and if they suspect we’re onto them . . .”

Henderson laughed. “Suspect? They know! Their hired thug just got arrested, for crying out loud!”

Leslie backed off. “Yeah, good point. So . . . how about we all move fast and move quiet?”

“And keep our cool! We don’t know anything for sure yet. Keep telling yourself that—and don’t jump to conclusions. Let’s get the whole picture first.”

“Fair enough,” said John.

“Agreed,” said Leslie.

“I’d say you better hurry,” said Max.

“Okay, I’m outa here,” said Henderson, rising. “I’ll be in touch. Leslie, give me a call and we’ll see that tape. And, John, if Shannon has anything more to say, let me know.”

John rose to shake Henderson’s hand. “I’ve contacted a friend at a TV station over there. He’s going to interview Shannon on-camera and send me the raw tape. We’ll be in constant contact getting ready for that.”

“Good enough.”

“Oh, and Leslie . . .” John beckoned to her.

“Yeah?”

“You’ve got a copy of the ‘Post-operative Instructions’ from the clinic?”

Leslie dug into her carry bag. “Oh, yeah, right.” She handed a photocopy to Henderson. “Here . . . I got the original from Shannon, and she got it direct from the Women’s Medical Center. You can see the
Center’s name and address right at the top.”

Henderson was intrigued.

John continued, “And, Leslie, make sure you get one of those to Mrs. Westfall at the Human Life Services Center. Tell her about Shannon. Maybe Mary will come forward now that she has a corroborating witness.”

“Maybe Mary has her own copy,” Leslie mused.

Carl gave a clap of his hands. “Man, wouldn’t that be something? That would cinch both abortions happening at the same clinic for sure!”

“I’ll call her tomorrow,” said Leslie.

“And I suppose Aaron Hart, the lawyer, needs to find out what’s going on,” John considered.

They were all busily chattering when Henderson closed the door to John’s apartment behind him and walked slowly down the stairs to his car, deep in thought, heavily perplexed, still dumbfounded. This was turning out to be some kind of day, almost more than he could take all at once.

He got to his unmarked squad car and leaned against it for just a moment.

“
Qui bono
?” he asked himself, looking out over the city. It just seemed that all the arrows pointed in the same direction. Hoo boy. A bigger can of worms he’d never find.

He got into the car, his mind still processing a substantial load of data, sorting it, filing it in little slots and folders in his head, arranging it all into some rather unthinkable revelations.

“Who benefits?” he asked again and then let his head rest with a bump on the steering wheel at the obvious answer.

THE MEETING BEHIND
the tall oak doors of the Executive Conference Room convened early on Tuesday morning, with all those invited arriving promptly despite the short notice.

Hiram Slater stood at the head of the long conference table. At his right sat his special assistant and the meeting’s organizer, Martin Devin. At his left sat Wilma Benthoff, the governor’s campaign manager, and to her left sat Mason Hartly and Eugene Rowen, the governor’s innovative
publicity team.

The others sitting at the table were their special guests, handpicked by Slater and Devin, persons crucial to the carefully laid plan they were about to present.

The first was Tina Lewis, close business acquaintance of Martin Devin and executive news producer for Channel 6.

To her right, Gretchen Rafferty, red-haired, grim-faced feminist, political activist, and director of the League for Abortion Rights.

Next to her, Candice Delano, a well-weathered, white-haired pillar of radical feminism and president of the United Feminist Front, a woman who hated men and was never timorous in saying so.

Across the table from them was an attractive and articulate black woman named Fanny Wolfe, president and spokeswoman for the Federation for Controlled Parenthood.

Next to her, with weathered face and thinning gray hair combed straight back, was Murphy Bolen, news editor for the city’s biggest newspaper,
The News Journal.

They had just heard the truth about Hillary Slater’s death from Hiram Slater himself, followed by a quick report from Tina Lewis about the news story now brewing somewhere behind the scenes at Channel 6.

Gretchen Rafferty turned red and set her jaw more firmly than ever. Candice Delano let out an unabashed string of obscenities. Fanny Wolfe started jotting questions of strategy on her yellow legal pad. And Murphy Bolen raised his eyebrows, leaned his chin on his knuckles, and whistled one long, mournful note.

Gretchen Rafferty was the first to speak. “Well, whose business is it anyway? Nobody needs to know.”

Candice Delano added quite loudly, “Whatever happened to privacy? Isn’t that what we’ve been marching for all these years?”

Tina waved her hand for a chance to respond and then answered curtly—the pressure was going to be on her and she knew it, “It’s going to come out. That’s a given we all have to accept.”

Candice Delano was not about to accept it. “From your own people? You’re telling us that you have no control over these muckrakers?”

“I can do what I can, but—”

“Then stop them, fire them, do something! We don’t need this kind
of—”

Tina became angrily defensive. “I’m in no position to fire anyone, and I can’t stop them from snooping—it’s a free country—”

“Snooping? You can’t stop them from snooping?”

“Now hold on,” said Murphy Bolen, coming to Tina’s rescue. “The fact of the matter is, for some people this news is gonna be hot. It’s gonna be just the thing they’re looking for to cook the governor’s goose. So you can take up our time blaming whoever you want, but Tina’s right—it’s going to come out. If her people don’t spread it, somebody else will.”

“Anti-choice bigots . . .” Candice muttered.

“Of course,” Gretchen Rafferty agreed.

Martin Devin grabbed for control. “This is the reason we’ve called you all together. Now the way we see it, we can’t keep the news from getting out. But look around the room, folks. We do have the power to control how it comes out, how it sounds, how it looks. We can take control of it and put it out our way first. What are a few little people down at Channel 6 compared to our combined efforts, especially if we scoop them on this?”

Fanny Wolfe was ready to jot down ideas. “So what are you proposing?”

Devin had an outline already printed and passed it out to all those present. “This is an initial battle plan, wide open for discussion, improvement, comment, whatever. But remember, we have to move on this today if we’re going to get the jump on the enemy. If the story breaks before we have a chance to break it first, we’ll lose the high ground. But if we can move first and build some momentum in molding public opinion, our enemies will look pretty feeble trying to catch up from behind.”

They all perused the notes Devin had passed out. No one jumped for joy or remarked how clever the plan was, but no one had any better ideas.

Hiram Slater guided them through the outline himself. “You’ll notice we’ve called for some pretty harsh measures, maybe even some sacrifices on the altar of the cause, and that’s one reason I had to have you all here to see this. If I hadn’t called you in and shown you this and made it clear to you, I’m sure some of you would have thought I’d
betrayed you, that I’d become a turncoat.”