The Newsmakers (26 page)
“When's the interrogation?”
“It's at one p.m. our time today.”
“Is there any chance you can patch me in so I can watch?”
There's a pause and then, “I guess you didn't get where you are by being a shrinking violet.”
“Barrish died in my arms, Detective.”
“Yeah. I'll do it.”
“Much appreciated.”
“But it's just for you. None of it can be broadcast without the DA's and the LAPD's consent.”
“Agreed.”
“I'll call you fifteen minutes before to confirm.”
Back in her office Erica sits making notes for her meeting with Morris Ernst, the lawyer who will be handling her petition for custody of Jenny. She's told him she wants to play softballâher great concern is that the negotiations may traumatize Jenny, and that's not acceptable.
She also leaves a message for Detective George Samuels, asking him to call her.
Greg appears in her doorway. “Are you okay?”
“I think so.”
His face darkens, and for a moment he looks like he wants to say something but then decides not to. He switches gears. “Do you have a minute? I want to go over a list of possible guests for your first show.”
“No time like the present.”
He comes in and sits across from her. “I lied,” he confesses with a disarming smile.
“Shame on you.”
“Well, I do have a list. At the top of it is âSpend more time with Erica.' ”
“Funnyâthere are days when I wish I could spend
less
time with Erica.”
“She's a busy gal,” Greg says.
“All work and no playâ”
“âmakes Erica a lonely girl?”
She looks into his eyes and sees a touching insecurity. Men, for all their bluster in the public square, are filled with private doubts and vulnerability. If only more of them could admit it. Erica nods.
“How about we be lonely together?” Greg says.
“I want that, Greg. But I'm up to here with show prep, I'm buying an apartment, seeing a lawyer about reworking my custody arrangement with my ex, and dealing with ratsâdead
and
alive.”
“You have to breathe. We could go on a nice, innocent dateâsee a Broadway show, go down to Chinatown for dinner, explore Williamsburg.” He leans forward, elbows on knees, looks so sincere and hopeful and adorable.
“I'm afraid a nice, innocent date is the last thing I have time for.”
Greg frowns in frustration.
Erica gets up, walks to the office door, and closes it. “A nice, romantic date, on the other hand, could maybe be arranged.”
THE CAMERA FEED FROM THE LAPD
interrogation room is a little grainy. A glum and handcuffed Miguel Fuentes and his lawyer sit on one side of a conference table, Betsy Takahashi and an assistant DA sit across from them. Erica is in her office with the door shut, riveted to her computer screen.
“Miguel, we're glad that you've decided to accept our plea deal,” the DA says. “What we would like you to do is walk us through everything that you know about the murders of Kay Barrish and Arturo Yanez.”
“I don't know anything about the murder of Kay Barrish.”
“You know that Arturo Yanez was paid to murder her?”
Fuentes nods.
“So you
do
know something about Barrish's murder. The more open and honest you can be with us, the easier this will be for all of us. Did you make the original contact with Yanez?”
“No.”
“Do you know who did?”
Fuentes hesitates before saying glumly, “Ricky Martinez.” Sweat breaks out on his brow. He may have just signed his death warrant.
“Is Martinez a member of Nortenos?”
“Yes. He is above me.”
“Have you done jobs with him before?”
“Yes.”
The DA turns to Takahashi. “Get a warrant and an APB out on Martinez.”
Takahashi leaves the room, and everyone waits silently until she returns about ninety seconds later.
The DA continues. “Was Martinez in the car with you when you picked up Yanez at the bus stop on Santa Monica Boulevard?”
“Yes. I was driving.”
“How did Martinez find Yanez?”
“They are both from Juarez. From the same street. Ricky knew that Arturo's mother was sick and that he needed money bad.”
“After you picked Yanez up, did you drive straight out to the desert?”
“Yes.”
“Where did you kill him?”
“I did not kill him!”
“So Martinez fired the shot?”
“Yes.”
“Where?”
“In the desert.”
“And what did he do with the gun?”
“He buried it in the desert.”
“At the spot where you dumped his body?”
Fuentes slumps forward, a look of self-pitying regret on his face. “Yes.”
“So you drove into the desert, Martinez opened the trunk, shot Yanez, and buried the gun?”
Fuentes puts his head in his hands, looks like he might throw up.
“Answer the question.”
“Yes.”
“And then you drove back to Covina and abandoned the car?”
“Yes.”
“Who stole the car from the beach parking lot?”
“I did.”
“All right, Miguel. Thank you for your cooperation. Now I want to ask you a very important question. And I want you to think before you answer. Will you do that?” the DA asks.
Miguel nods.
“Do you know who contacted Ricky Martinez to find Yanez in the first place?”
Erica leans forward, studies Fuentes's face.
“I don't know . . .” Fuentes says, and it's obvious he's lying.
“Think hard, Miguel.”
“I don't know,” he says in exasperation, looking like he might start to cry.
His lawyer leans in and whispers in his ear. Fuentes takes a deep breath. “All I know is a man came from the East, from New York, he met with Ricky, he knows Ricky. That is
all
I know.”
The DA waits. Lets him sweat. The seconds tick by.
Finally: “They will kill me, even in prison they will kill me. They are the hardest of all.” Now Fuentes looks afraid, very afraid.
“Who are?” the DA asks. Again no answer. The DA waits. And waits. Finally he says, “We can arrange for protection for you in prison. Put you in a segregated unit. But you have to tell us everything you know.”
More waiting. More sweating. More seconds ticking by. “He has money. Lots of money. He gives everyone money. He gets what he wants.”
“
Who is he?!
” the DA barks.
“I never met him! His name is Leonard Gorf or something! I don't know! All I know isâhe is fat and rich and Russian and he lives in New York!”
For a moment Erica feels like the world has stopped. Then she feels a jolt of pure adrenaline rock her body. One more layer of the onion has been peeled backâand there is Leonid Gorev. The Devil's Brotherhood.
On-screen, the Los Angeles interrogation ends. Erica immediately calls Detective George Samuels. “Can we find out if a Leonid Gorev
flew out to Los Angeles anytime in the month before May second, the day Barrish was killed?”
“We can try.”
“Can you meet me tomorrow? I want to go over an idea I have.”
“I hope it's a good one.”
“How about at Mark's room at Rusk Rehab? We can check on his progress. And see if he's made any headway in locating the source of the ferry hacking.”
Erica hangs up. Her thoughts are racing. “
They will kill me, even in prison they will kill me.
” They killed Kay Barrish and Arturo Yanez. They almost killed Mark. And they may kill Fuentes. Would they think twice about killing Erica Sparks? Erica hugs herself and thinks of Jenny.
ERICA IS AT HER DESK
on her fourth game of solitaire. And the cards aren't helping. Her mind is racing like a runaway train. Gorev and the Russian Mafia were involved in the attack on Mark, which means they were involved in the Staten Island ferry crash. Were they also behind Kay Barrish's murder? Were both the ferry and the murder acts of terrorism carried out by the Russian government, ordered and directed from the Kremlin? Or was Gorev hired by someone in this country to carry them out? If so, who? It's deeply disturbing to think that some person or organization or cabal in the United States would wantâlet alone have the meansâto inflict this kind of trauma on the country. What would their motive be? Destabilizing our democracy? These are evil acts. Whoever engineered them is a psychopath. Just like that dog-torturer Fred Wilmot and his accomplice Nylan Hastings.
Fred Wilmot and Nylan Hastings.
Erica stops mid-deal and the cards fall from her hands into an unruly pile on her desk. What was it Lois Wittmer said to her in the ladies' room at the White House Correspondents' Dinner?
“Isn't it great how you guys are always one step ahead of the news? Awful coincidinky, if you ask me.”
Claustrophobia grips Erica's neck like a noose. She quickly tosses out the absurd conjecture: that somehow Fred Wilmot and Nylan Hastings were involved in these crimes. They have too much to lose. But then again, the ferry crash caused ratings to soar, and Barrish's murder put GNNâand Ericaâon the map. Erica feels her body flush with a wave of prickly heat. She has to move, to get out of this room, away from these thoughts.
She heads into the hall and toward the ladies' room. Suddenly the hallwayâwith its bland gray carpet and off-white wallsâfeels like a tunnel, a tunnel that leads to someplace dark and dangerous. And she can't turn back; there's no way out but forward.
There's no way out but forward.
Erica ducks into the ladies' room, heads over to the sink, grips its sides, and looks at herself in the mirrorâ
stay calm, stay calm
. She turns on the cold water and holds the insides of her wrists under it. The cold is soothing, her breathing slows down, her fevered imagination slowly cools.
She had a paranoid attack. Just like she did when her mom and dad left her alone for three days when she was five years old, and the only food in the house was a half-eaten bag of Cheetos, and the heat was turned off because they hadn't paid the propane bill, and it was November in Maine, and Erica huddled under her skimpy covers sure that
they wanted her to die
âbut it turned out they had just driven to the casino in Montreal on an amphetamine-fueled whim and won six hundred dollars, and they came back with a package of filet mignon, three bottles of champagne, and a gram of coke and had an all-night party to which Erica wasn't invited.
Of course Wilmot and Hastings had nothing to do with these crimes. Wilmot may have committed a heinous act as a ten-year-old, and Hastings may be a megalomaniac, but that doesn't mean they're capable of evil on this scale.
There's no way out but forward
.
Journalism is about putting one foot in front of the other in an
inexorable march toward the truth. There's no place for ridiculous imaginings, wild conjectures, off-the-wall theories. Facts are the only valid measures. Whoever committed these crimes put layers of cover between themselves and the actual perpetrators. In the Barrish murder they've uncovered Yanez, then Fuentes and Martinez, and now an unidentified Russian who may well be Leonid Gorev. She has to keep following that trailâit will lead her to the source.
“Awful coincidinky, if you ask me.”
BACK IN HER OFFICE, ERICA
forces her mind to move on. It's not as if she doesn't have other pressing responsibilities. Like the guest list for her first show. Erica leaps at the task like it's a life preserver.
The show is generating lots of anticipatory buzz, and agents and press reps of politicians, entertainers, and athletes have all been making known their clients' availability. Erica wants to go big, wants to do something that's never been done before. But she doesn't want to strain to be original, or come off as desperate or cheesy or exploitative. She wants substance
and
she wants big names. She reminds herself that her audience is going to be predominantly women. She picks up her cards and deals a game.
She loses the game. Which is when an idea strikes.
Michelle Obama, Laura Bush, and Hillary Clinton together, talking about their heroesâthe women who have most inspired and influenced their lives. Completely nonpartisan. The opposite, in fact. Unifying. Inspirational. Fascinating. Fun. And amazing, even historic, television.
Erica races down the hall toward Greg's office thinking,
I am going to make this happen.
ERICA WALKS INTO MARK
'
S ROOM
at Rusk Rehab to find him sitting at a table that has been turned into a makeshift desk. He sees her and breaks into a big smile. His computer is open in front of him, his iPad and several yellow legal pads beside it, and there's a printer on the floor.
“You're not wasting any time,” Erica says, crossing to him. She puts her hands on his shoulders and gives the top of his head a kissâscratchy stubble is coming in. He reaches up and squeezes her hand. How comfortable they are with each other, almost like they're brother and sister. His progress is amazing and she feels close to overwhelmed with some combination of affection, admiration, gratitude, and relief. This guy is a fighter, solid, and she feels like she's made a friend for life.
“I brought you a cronut,” Erica says, handing him the bag.
“Are you t-try-ing to kill me?”
“Apparently you don't need me for that.”
Mark takes the cronut out of the bagâit's slathered with neon-pink, allegedly raspberry frosting. He takes a bite.
“T-this is totally d-d-dis
gusting
!” he says, taking another gleeful chomp.