Suitable for Framing Page 14

  “What are the charges?”

  Trish strode by me, pausing to check her notebook. “Conspiracy, bribery, extortion, unlawful compensation, official corruption, and misconduct.” She hurried on to the city desk.

  Shoot, I thought. They sure didn’t think them up on the spur of the moment right after I left the station. Where were my sources?

  Fred Douglas must have picked up my thought. He looked up, a phone in one hand. “Britt, have you been working on this?”

  “Uh, no,” I said lamely. “I was out on the—uh, sinkhole story.” His eyes dismissed me as he turned away.

  “All the department will say is that the chief, city manager, and state attorney plan a joint press conference later,” Janowitz yelled from his desk.

  I was not alone in my humiliation. Barbara DeWitt, the city hall reporter, stood near ground zero at the city desk, face pale, arms clutched across her abdomen as though struck by a sudden stomach ailment.

  “Did you know anything about this?” I asked quietly.

  She shook her head. “Nothing. How come we didn’t hear? I was covering the commission meeting,” she said, voice tight. “When they took a break everybody went out to eat. So did I. Every reporter at the meeting, all the TV guys, missed the whole thing.”

  Jesus. The final edition of the afternoon paper was already on the street out of the running. The story broke on our time, taking us totally by surprise. “At least nobody else has it. We’d look a lot worse if somebody did.”

  Barbara looked at me oddly. “Nobody’s got arrest footage. We’re the only ones with art.”

  “Art? We have art?”

  “Yeah. Trish and Lottie were there.”

  I followed her hollow stare. Trish stood at the city desk, the eye of the storm, cool and in charge. Consulting her notebook, flipping through pages, she was briefing a clutch of editors who hung on her every word.

  Barbara stepped back, hoping to disappear in the confusion. It made sense, but my curiosity beat out the urge to lie low. I edged up to listen as Trish spoke to a copy boy: “Pull the file on J. L. Harvey; he’s a contractor.” She refocused on the editors. “At least that was his front Harvey was arrested last month, drug trafficking. He’s the link. They were partners.” She paused, eyes reflecting the avid expressions around her. “It’s all a land scam and they were in it together.”

  “Ain’t that something.” Ron Sadler stood next to me, shaking his head, arms folded in front of him. “Guess who was sitting in his office when the cops got there, broke out the handcuffs, and read his honor his rights?” he whispered.

  “Trish?”

  “They were sharing a Pepsi.”

  What luck! Old demon envy followed hot on the heels of my surprise. What the heck was she doing there? Was she just introducing herself around to the local politicos? Never know when you’ll run into one on a story.

  The managing editor emerged from his office, like a bear from his cave, sleeves rolled up, intense and driven, the scent of political scandal sending the printer’s ink that passes for blood pounding through his veins. Only a few stories a year lure him out of his lair and into the newsroom.

  And of course Gretchen chose that moment. “Britt, where were you? How could you be so out of touch!” Her voice rose, and my face flooded with color. “We’re lucky Trish was on top of this!” Out the corner of my eye I saw Barbara step behind a pillar.

  Pitying eyes regarded me solemnly, then returned approvingly to the star of the show.

  “The chief is mad as hell that we were there,” Trish was saying, one hand resting confidently on her hip. “He pitched a fit, got all apoplectic and red in the face.”

  “He looks good that way,” the managing editor said warmly, eliciting obligatory laughter from the troops.

  “He ordered that no further details be released until the press conference at ten A.M. tomorrow,” she said.

  Uh-oh. On the afternoon paper’s time.

  “No problem,” she added crisply. “I have enough to lay the whole thing out.”

  “We have somebody out now, picking up copies of the arrest report and the search warrants,” the city editor announced to the chief.

  “The cops served them simultaneously, at his office and his home,” Trish added.

  “The art is great,” the city editor went on. “We’re the only ones in town who got a thing. TV’s got nothing and they’re scrambling.”

  As if on cue, Lottie bustled into the newsroom still wearing her darkroom apron, a stack of freshly printed photos in her freckled fist. Editors flocked over to the photo desk just six feet away and the rest of us crowded around. She had it all: the vice mayor, wearing metal bracelets by Police Products, Inc., along with his usual silk tie and conservative suit. His honor marched out of city hall in disgrace, bundled into the backseat of a cage car, aristocratic features folded into something querulous. Detectives from the public integrity squad lugging boxes of seized files and documents from his office to their cars.

  “Great stuff,” Fred Douglas said admiringly.

  There was Sergeant Tully Snow, obviously recovered from his little mishap during the bogus sniper incident. Face distorted, he was shouting at the photographer to back off. Lottie didn’t often draw that sort of antagonistic response from cops. Had to be pressure from the top on this one.

  Onnie delivered library photos of Zachary Linwood during various high points of his career, to run in a layout with the jump of the main story. Our eyes connected as she commiserated silently with me. She knew the score.

  Lottie’s pictures would run front page, in color.

  They were good but sad, I thought. Zachary Linwood had always been a gentleman to me, unfailingly polite and eloquent, when I called him at home in the dead of night for his comments on breaking stories, police shootings, scandals, or a fired police chief.

  Of course that didn’t mean I wouldn’t have been delighted to break this story myself. Linwood was a Miami institution, old establishment, last of his breed, the remaining white Anglo male on the city’s governing body. A former U.S. senator, folksy and cantankerous, he had been a strong voice in South Florida politics for more than thirty years. A two-term mayor in the eighties, he was now sixty-seven and likely to be retired by the voters at the end of his term in eighteen months. Court-mandated changes in voting districts made it almost certain he would be replaced by a Hispanic.

  Instead of going out in style after a long and distinguished career, he was ending it with a rap sheet and a likely new record, as convict.

  “He was going to cast the deciding vote to change the zoning on a tract of environmentally sensitive land for commercial development,” Trish was explaining.

  “But he’d need five votes to make it work,” the managing editor said skeptically.

  “Exactly.” She arched an eyebrow. “Each of the other four commissioners owed him a vote in exchange for his on their pet projects.”

  There was silence, except for ringing telephones ignored in the background.

  “They bought the property,” she said, referring to her notes, “for just under five hundred thousand dollars, but the zoning change will push the value to at least three million. The partnership was only on paper. Linwood never invested any money; the dope dealer put up the cash. Linwood’s contribution was delivering the votes. His share was to be a third.”

  A third of $3 million. Not bad. Trish knew chapter and verse, all the inside details of a complex and highly secret investigation. I couldn’t wait to hear how all this had come about.

  “They had to move fast,” Trish was saying, “because environmentalists had taken their concerns to the federal government, asking that they move in to tie up the property.

  “The scheme went awry when J. L. Harvey was busted last month on drug trafficking and money laundering charges. The case against him was solid, but he had insurance in case something like that happened.

  “He had recorded the
entire conspiracy. He had secretly taped every meeting, documented every discussion with Linwood. Apparently he did a better job of it than most undercover cops.”

  I found myself nodding. Made sense. A criminal’s best escape route is to deal his way out of trouble, and the most valuable bargaining chip is a dirty cop or politician. Cops and prosecutors will always deal to land one of them.

  “He called Miami detectives from his jail cell and offered to give them the vice mayor. Our man,” Trish said, “is pretty well nailed.” She snapped her notebook closed.

  “Why did he do it? He’s so close to retirement.” An assistant city editor shook his head.

  “You’ve got it,” Trish said, skin flushed with the color of a reporter on top of the hottest story in town. “This was his last chance to score big before being run out of office. This would have been his retirement money. The income from his small law firm has never really funded the lifestyle he likes. He was so sure this would go down without a hitch, he’d been out shopping for a second home in Vail.”

  The rookie reporter I had recently instructed on how to find Flagler Street had wrapped up every detail of Miami’s story of the year.

  “Hell of a job, Trish!” said the managing editor. His use of her name was significant; most of us in the newsroom are convinced that he has no idea who we are.

  “I’d better start writing.” Trish checked her watch.

  “Need any help?” I offered.

  She briefly broke stride. “Thanks, Britt, but Fred is going to work with me on this one.”

  As they settled in front of her terminal, I beelined for Lottie at the photo desk. She was seated in front of an IBM Selectric typewriter, tapping out the pink caption sheets for the backs of the photos.

  “How did you two ever pull that off?”

  She stopped typing and leaned back in her chair. “Hell-all-Friday, Britt, I take back whatever I said about that woman.” She gave a low whistle. “You were right. I hand you that She is damn good.”

  “But how…?”

  She winked. “She’s got great sources.”

  “Who?” I demanded. “She doesn’t even know anybody in Miami. It’s my own damn beat and I had no clue.”

  “Lottie, I need those left-to-rights!” bawled Joe Hall, the photo editor.

  Frowning, she banged out the last one, identifying the detectives escorting Linwood. She glanced up at me. “Snow is still a sergeant, ain’t he?”

  “Right,” I said impatiently.

  She handed them over to Hall. “All I know,” she said, “is Trish called in, said something major was about to go down at City Hall, and we had to send a photographer. Bobby was in the slot and didn’t take her too seriously, but I said I’d go.”

  “Everybody’s taking her seriously now,” I murmured.

  “Betcher boots.” She paused. “The other night in South Beach she said a big story was about ready to break.”

  “Never said a word to me.”

  “You weren’t there, remember?”

  She stopped as Hall interrupted, collar open and rushed. He hovered over her chair. “AP called. They want to take one of these. This,” he said, displaying the shot of cops escorting the handcuffed politician out of City Hall, “is the page-one picture. We want to see it in color for the final. It’s being played big. We need to get the black-and-whites down to engraving.”

  I glanced back at Trish and Fred, in deep concentration, him reading over her shoulder as she typed rapidly on the screen.

  Hall wheeled and walked away.

  “We met near the commission chambers and she said to stake out his office,” Lottie said, hurriedly continuing our conversation. “She is so cool. The minute the meeting broke she glued herself to that man like stink on shit. Invites herself into his office and the cavalry arrives.

  “Shoulda seen the looks on their faces when she answers the door and I pop up and start shooting.” She grinned. “I love it.”

  “So the cops didn’t act like they expected her?”

  “Hell, no. The lead detective raised the chief on the radio, demanding to know who was responsible for the leak. Apparently the case was hush-hush; only the chief, the state attorney, and four investigators knew about it.”

  “How’d she get all that inside stuff?”

  Lottie shrugged. “You should know, Britt. You do it all the time. Ask her. She’s your friend.” She headed back to the darkroom.

  I smiled, but my heart wasn’t in it.

  Yeah, I thought. At least somebody was on top of the story. Otherwise I would have been out all night, knocking on doors, scrambling with the rest of them, trying to piece the facts together and explain myself to irate editors. Instead, I could go home, thanks to Trish. I should have been relieved, but I wasn’t. Where were my sources? How the hell had I missed it? I couldn’t wait to find out.

  Chapter Eleven

  Trish’s story led the morning paper.

  Police released few details. Frustrated reporters from other organizations were reduced to quoting liberally from the News. What a coup for us. For Trish.

  I watched the press conference just because I happened to be at headquarters, the usual stop on my beat that time of day. Trish covered it; it was her story.

  I stood in the back while she sat in the front row, standing out from the crowd, stunning in a white double-breasted blazer, dark slacks, and big sunglasses. The police chief glared down at her and ranted about the leak to “a certain newspaper,” his ire only enhancing her reputation, of course, in the eyes of her colleagues.

  I had met Danny Menendez, the PIO sergeant, on the way in, and he told me that the brass was convinced that a cop was responsible for tipping off Trish and that an internal affairs investigation had been opened to identify the culprit.

  Across the nests of TV crews’ coiled cords and tangled wires my searching eyes spotted Kendall McDonald amid a cluster of other brass. He wore the department’s dark blue uniform, burnished leather gleaming, metal twinkling in the strobes. As a detective lieutenant he usually wore plainclothes, which meant he must be representing the department today at some official meeting or luncheon. Tall, lean, long-legged, cleft chin. Guapísimo. I sighed and looked away. When I glanced back, his eyes were on me. The sizzle was still there. He smiled. I returned it, then self-consciously shifted my attention back to the speaker.

  Luckily I would not have to report what the chief had just said.

  Later, on my rounds, when cops asked me how the News nailed the Linwood story, I could truthfully say I didn’t know.

  Blowing the story left me jittery and extra careful out on the beat. I asked for a pass to visit the office of the public integrity squad but was turned away. The desk sergeant had been instructed to say that nobody up there was talking to the press. So I went to the pay phone in the lobby and dialed the number direct.

  Tully Snow had always been a straight arrow with me in the past, and we had a good working relationship.

  “He’s on his way back from court,” the secretary said. Hoping he hadn’t detoured along the way, I loitered near the elevators where I could watch each entrance. Less than five minutes later, Tully entered the lobby, stopping to stub out a cigarette in a sand-filled receptacle. He carried files under his arm and was wearing a tie, a sure sign that he’d been testifying.

  He seemed to regret seeing me. Especially when I asked about the Linwood case.

  “God, Britt,” he said quietly, looking around to be sure we were not overheard, “the whole damn thing was so hush-hush and supersecret, only a few of us knew what the hell was going down. Everybody involved was sworn to secrecy and had their lips buttoned.”

  “Somebody didn’t,” I said, my skepticism obvious.

  “Sure as hell wasn’t me.”

  “You could at least have warned me that something was in the wind. I looked so stupid to my editors.”

  He punched the elevator button. “Well, you g
uys got the story anyway.”

  “Sure,” I said bitterly, “but it was on my beat.”

  “You hear about the missing kids?” he asked in a conciliatory tone, as though trying to make it up to me.

  “No, what kids?”

  He paused and lowered his voice, eyes scanning the lobby. At the moment it was apparently a major offense to be seen just talking to a reporter.

  “Heard it go out on c-channel a little while ago. Deep south. Two babies, twins, missing.”

  “Think it’s a custody snatch?”

  “Hell, Britt. I don’t know, it’s a county case, but it didn’t sound it. Sounded like the mother couldn’t remember where she left them.”

  “What?”

  To his relief, the elevator doors slid open and he stepped inside.

  “Thanks, Tully. Talk at you later.”

  This is a glorious business. Miss one story, there is always another. Every day is an adventure.

  I got to a phone and called Metro-Dade. Sure enough, I heard the BOLO broadcast countywide as I drove south: Be on the lookout for five-month-old twin girls. A retarded teenager in rural South Dade had strolled to the corner store for some Marlboros and a can of soda pop the prior afternoon, taking her twins with her. She had moseyed on home almost twenty hours later, at about 10 A.M., alone. She wandered in a kitchen door and was foraging in the refrigerator when her mother asked where the twins were. Her response was a vacant stare. She seemed to have forgotten that she had taken them with her.

  It had rained on and off during the night and there was cause for alarm. Cops were checking dumpsters, canals, and garbage cans. How do you retrace the footsteps of somebody who hasn’t the faintest idea of where she’s been and with whom? Dogs had been brought in, and Police Explorers were searching the woods.

  The small wood-frame house was sparsely furnished but remarkably neat. A county policewoman I had never met had the call. Her nameplate said WATSON. Her first name was Annalee, she said. Solidly built, she looked even broader in the county’s unflattering brown uniform, padded at the waist and hip with hardware, leather, handcuffs, radio, ammo, mace, keys, and all the other little accessories that make cops creak and jingle when they walk. I am always amazed when cops, burdened by that extra load, manage to win foot chases and tackle unencumbered suspects. Annalee Watson’s dark hair was pulled back in a ponytail. She wore a sharpshooter’s badge and a patient expression.