Ciji Ware (58 page)

“That’s it! See the letterhead with ‘Writing Assignments’ beneath it? That’s the invoice that Jack Ebert slipped into Grover’s in-box
after
our crew left Jeffries’s home office on our first visit, but
before
we came back to shoot the interview with Mr. and Mrs. Demolition about their wonderful charity work,” Corlis elaborated. “Virgil just happened to catch the invoice when he did a pan shot of the desk. Fabulous!” She clapped excitedly. “Can you freeze frame it, magnify, and download a hard copy for me so I can read the fine print?”

“No problem,” Sam replied with a matter-of-fact shrug.

How in the world had King gotten access to a copy of this invoice before the city council meeting that day?
she wondered.

Just then Virgil ambled by.

“Havin’ fun?” he asked dryly as he walked past their door.

She nodded obliquely to the cameraman but kept her eyes on Sam’s video screen. “Now… back up… to the stuff we shot earlier,
before
we got the shot of the invoice,” Corlis instructed the tape editor. Then she looked up. “Hey, Virgil,” she called down the corridor, “what are the chances you might have inadvertently gotten a close-up of the memo from Lafayette Marchand we found in Grover’s in-box the first time we went into the office on the night of the Jeffries’s costume ball? The one we think indicated Grover was going to hand out campaign contributions to officials who voted his way.”

“I dunno…” Virgil replied, his hand on the doorknob at the end of the hallway.

Corlis turned back to the editor. “Do you remember seeing such a thing when you edited the interview with Jeffries awhile back?”

“I edit ten stories a day,” replied the taciturn Lombardo. Corlis could tell he was tired and wanted to go home.

“Just make one more pass at fifty-forty-two, okay?” she said, staring closely at the digital counter. Virgil retraced his steps and stood in the hall behind them. The trio watched silently as footage flew by on one of the small TV screens. “Aha!” Corlis said triumphantly. She pointed to a piece of paper on top of Grover Jeffries’s desk. Somehow it had been moved from the in-box where they’d seen it first, to a spot on the developer’s desk. “Magnify, please.”

Into sharper focus came the first page of the memo with the handwritten comment: Direct Acct. to make CC’s to friendly city council members now!

“Bingo…” Corlis said softly.

Sam sat up in his chair and whistled. “Wow… there’s your proof that Grover was using campaign contributions to persuade certain council members to see things his way on the hotel project.”

“Well, it goes quite a distance in that direction,” Corlis agreed, smiling faintly. “Sam, would you print me a hard copy of this one, too?” She turned to Virgil. “Zamora and the creep lawyer’ll
have
to let us go on air with this stuff, don’t you think?”

“I dunno,” Virgil allowed. “ ’Cause that lawyer, Marvin Glimp,
is
a creep.” Without further comment, he headed down the hall toward the WJAZ lunchroom.

***

“It is my advice, Andy, that you do
not
go on the air with this,” Marvin Glimp declared, pointing to the photocopy of Jeffries’s memo taken from the videotape.

“Why the hell not?” Corlis demanded, looking to Andy Zamora for support.

“Because there are no names of city officials he’s supposedly gonna give the illegal money to, that’s why!” Glimp declared. “All you’ve got is just the proposal on Jeffries’s part that
some
council members were
possibly
going to be offered money—if you can prove ‘cc’s’
means
‘campaign contributions,’ and not ‘copies.’ We have no way of knowing if Mr. Jeffries’s accountant
gave
any of them money. He could have considered it, but it is unfair to the elected officials to create smoke when we do not know, for certain, if there was actually a fire.”

“Andy!”
Corlis exclaimed, unable to disguise her mounting frustration at the direction the meeting had been taking for the last five minutes. “Jeez Louise… it’s
right there
on our own video!”

“I don’t know…” Zamora said, shaking his head. “You had a solid story yesterday about Grover’s sneak attack on those buildings and the preservationists who prevented it. I say, why buy trouble when we’re on a roll? Let’s sit tight and try to get some additional proof to make this accusation a lot more solid.”

“But, Andy,” Corlis protested, “you
know
this back-channel stuff is the way Grover Jeffries operates. He
obviously
told his accountant to spread some money or promises of future goodies around
somewhere
.
What if the city council takes a vote before we can prove
which
members are on the take?”

“That’s my point,” Zamora snapped. “We’ve gotta prove
which
elected officials got dirty money, Corlis, before we can go with it. That’s final.”

“And I must remind you, Ms. McCullough,” Glimp added officiously, “that you are to continue to stay at arm’s length from King Duvallon, do you understand?”

“Perfectly,” she replied, forcing a polite smile.

But outside, in the corridor that led past the editing bay, Corlis could barely contain her irritation.

“Hey, boss lady, why so glum?” Virgil asked.

“They won’t let me use the stills from the video yet. I have to get outside corroboration as to
which
council members have their hands stretched out before I can even
hint
on the air at what Grover’s up to!” She gestured with the photocopies she held in her hand. “Alluding to the possibility that elected officials have gotten paid off would probably flush some whistle-blower out of the woodwork who
could
corroborate, but Glimp just put up a blockade.”

“Yeah… well, why wouldn’t he?” Virgil drawled. “His sister is a receptionist at Lafayette Marchand’s PR joint.”

Corlis’s jaw dropped. “I swear to God, Virgil. You know everything in this town! Do you think Andy Zamora knows this?”

“I don’t ’spect so, ’cause she just quit the place where
my
sister works to go work for Marchand.” He shrugged, mildly apologetic.

“This town is driving me
crazy
!”

Virgil patted her on the shoulder and added, “I wouldn’t tell Zamora ’bout that yet. He’ll confront Glimp, and then Glimp’ll try to fry your oysters some
other
way. Save that kind of ammunition for when you really need it. But watch your back with Glimp.”

“Always,” she replied grimly. Virgil was one smart cookie, Corlis considered gratefully.

Just at that moment, Manny walked through the door.

“Our assignment editor just told me that city council’s called an emergency session,” he said. “Tomorrow morning, nine o’clock. Be there, or be square.”

“They’re going to ram through the demolition,” Corlis predicted, shaking her head in disgust. “I smell a railroad job, and Kingsbury Duvallon and his preservation guerrillas are about to get flattened on the tracks.”

“You never know ’bout stuff like that round here,” Virgil replied philosophically.

“I’ve been around just long enough to take an educated guess,” she replied morosely. “Adios, guys. See you at city council tomorrow, eight thirty sharp.”

Chapter 25

May 28

The assignment editor hung up the phone and shouted across the newsroom. “Hey, McCullough! Zamora wants to see you before you take off for the city council meeting! In his office… on the double.”

“Damn it!” Corlis muttered. “You guys go on over to city hall and set up,” she said to Virgil and Manny. “I’ll be there, soon as I can.”

Her heart sank when she spotted Marvin Glimp standing beside Andy Zamora’s desk. Both were staring at the front page of the
Times-Picayune
,
where a headline in the lower left corner of the front page read: “Rumored Memo Links Developer to Secret Campaign Contributions to Officials.”

“Read the paper this morning, Corlis?” Andy asked, expressionless.

She gazed at the headline and slowly shook her head. “Didn’t have time.”

“Did you leak this to the
Picayune
?”
Glimp asked bluntly. “ ’Cause if you did, young lady, you have committed a very serious offense and—”

“I didn’t leak it,” Corlis cut in. “Any number of people on Grover Jeffries’s end could have access to that memo. I don’t know who leaked it, but I didn’t.” She stared squarely into her boss’s solemn gaze. “Do you believe me, Andy?”

Her employer remained silent. Marvin Glimp, however, did not.

“We can’t risk the liability, Andy,” Glimp declared. “If she’s lying, every asset you’ve got would have to be channeled into defendin’ a suit filed by Grover Jeffries, who’ll claim the station’s accusin’ him of illegal campaign contributions. It could effectively put you and WJAZ out of business.”

“I don’t
lie
!”
Corlis retorted with heat. “And I don’t leak information! And furthermore, Mr. Glimp, if you get me fired over this, I swear to you, I will find the best damn lawyer in America who will sue
your
ass for defamation and wrongful termination from here to Baton Rouge!” she threatened, taking a leaf out of Grover Jeffries’s own book of intimidation.

Glimp appeared taken aback by the force of her words. “Look…” he temporized. “I’m just advisin’ my client, Mr. Zamora. My job is to give
other
people ulcers, not get them myself.”

“Well, let me ask you
this
,
Mr. Glimp,” she said, her eyes narrowing. “Have you advised your client, Mr. Zamora, here, that your
sister’s
working for Lafayette Marchand, and maybe
that’s
why you want us to go easy on the Marchand-Jeffries crowd?”

Zamora’s surprised expression told Corlis she’d scored a bull’s-eye.

Glimp looked nervously at Zamora. “She’s a receptionist, for god’s sake, Andy. It hardly seemed relevant.”

“Well, it
is
,”
Zamora retorted.

Corlis turned to face her employer. “What about it, Andy? Do you believe me when I tell you that I did not leak that memo?”

Zamora hesitated and seemed to be turning something over in his mind. “Yes. I believe you.”

“Then, do I still have my job?” she demanded. “Am I still assigned to this story?”

Zamora inhaled deeply and opened his top desk drawer. He extracted a fresh roll of Tums and popped one into his mouth.

“You’re still on the story, McCullough. And you’re still on probation.”

***

By the time Corlis arrived at city hall, the council chambers were deserted, except for Manny and Virgil and a few other news crews who were packing up their gear.

“Where
is
everyone?” Corlis inquired, gazing at the empty rows of seats. “What happened?”

“Edgar Dumas opened the meetin’ and immediately announced that the matter of the Selwyn buildin’s required further extensive study and tabled the sucker again.”

“You’re kidding,” Corlis replied, shaking her head. “Do you think that leaked memo to the
Picayune
this morning has got certain members of the council running scared?”

“I think you could say that,” Virgil replied, smiling slyly and rolling his eyes toward his hairless eyebrows. “Some of ’em
must’ve
accepted money from Jeffries at one time or another, if not recently.”

“So, now what happens?” she demanded. “I can’t believe Grover Jeffries will just roll over on the Del Mar hotel project because of a newspaper story that only hinted there
might
be an incriminating memo.”

“Oh no…” Virgil agreed. “The council’s merely adjourned. Probably to allow time for Jeffries to dig up some dirt about King Duvallon and the preservationist folks.”

Corlis blanched at the thought of the kind of “dirt” Jeffries and henchmen like Lafayette Marchand were most likely to try to dig up. She suddenly flashed on the sight of city council president Edgar Dumas ordering King Duvallon handcuffed. If Dumas accepted money from Grover Jeffries, he’d do almost anything to publicly discredit King. And since Dumas figured she and King were working hand-in-glove in the fight to save the Selwyn buildings, he wouldn’t hesitate to go after her as well. Just like Glimp, Dumas could very easily insinuate that
she
was the source of the rumor in the newspaper about Jeffries crossing the palms of city council members with silver. Dumas would say she’d done it in order to protect the leader of the preservationists—the man with whom the councilman would allege, accurately, she’d had an “intimate relationship.”