Compelling Evidence

CHAPTER 4

I am early for my meeting with Ben. The Broiler is more subdued than Wong’s. The decor is Early Naugahyde, but it is quiet, a good place for talking, to discuss Sharon’s trust and Ben’s future. I belly to the bar and order a drink.

“Paul-Paul Madriani.” My only recognition of this voice is that it is someone unpleasant. Someone I would rather not be seen with, not here, not now.

I turn from the bar just in time to receive a back-slapping hand on my shoulder. Eli Walker is dean of the outcast press. Bellicose, usually three sheets to the wind, in his late sixties, Walker regularly traverses that nether-land between what he calls journalism, and political flackery for paying clients.

“Haven’t seen ya in here in a while.” He licks his lips as if he’s just stepped from the parched sands of the Sahara.

“Haven’t been around,” I say. The bartender returns with my drink and I swallow a quick shot. I offer nothing that Walker can latch onto, turn into conversation. He’s one of those clinging souls who as a result of some fleeting commercial contact fancy themselves your friends. In my case I had the misfortune of writing a single letter to unravel a title problem on his house, a favor I did at the request of one of the partners while I was with the firm.

He’s not moving on. Seconds pass in light banter, Eli doing most of the talking, the two of us weaving in the light traffic around the bar. Walker’s eyeing me like a thirsty dog. In between assignments and clients, he’s drooling for a drink. His hand is still on my shoulder, tugging on it like a ship trying to berth.

“How’s the solo practice goin’?” An odoriferous blast of alcohol is emitted with each spoken word. In the lore of the courthouse it has been said of Eli Walker that any cremation after death will result in the ultimate perpetual flame.

“Fine, keeps me busy.”

I begin to turn back toward the bar, a not so subtle signal that this conversation is at an end. I finally break his grip.

Walker doesn’t take the hint. He muscles his way in alongside me. The woman on the stool beside me gives Walker a dirty look, then scoots her stool a few inches away, giving him room to square his body to the bar.

Standing next to Walker I feel like a man in the company of a leper. I sense that I have suddenly declined in the esteem of a dozen drunks surrounding the bar.

“I’ll have what he’s having.” Walker looks at the bartender, who in turn looks at me. Reluctantly I nod. In his own inimitable way Eli Walker has found his way onto my bar tab. It is in moments like this that I regret lacking the sand to muster overt rudeness.

“Why’d ya leave Potter’s firm?” The question is asked with breathtaking subtlety.

“Oh, I don’t know. Guess it was time to strike out on my own.”

“Sorta like Custer against all them fuckin’ Indians, huh?” He chuckles to himself.

The least he could do if he’s going to hustle drinks from me, I think, is quietly accept my bullshit. He drops the subject of my career and launches into a lecture on his latest journalistic coup, a scandal featuring pork-barrel politics and the state water project. I tune him out.

I check my watch. Ben’s running late. I consider ways to dump Walker. I think about the restroom, but somehow I know he’ll just follow me-stand at the urinal and check my bladder. The bar is mostly empty and Walker is desperate, in search of a drinking companion.

The bartender has spied my empty glass. “Another?” he asks. I nod and notice that I’m now one drink up on Walker. I’ve got to slow my pace. I’ll smell like Eli by the time Ben arrives.

There’s the sound of sirens outside on the street, a fast-moving patrol car followed seconds later by the lumbering echo and diesel drone-a fire pumper. An emergency medical team headed to the scene of some fire or accident.

Eli tilts his glass toward the sound in the street, a salute, then downs the last gulp.

‘Too bad,” he says. “A tragedy,” he says.

“What’s that?”

“You haven’t heard?”

“Heard what?” I wait for the latest bit of unconfirmed gossip. The stuff of which most of Walker’s columns are composed.

“Ben Potter,” he says.

Walker, I suspect, is brokering information on the high court nomination. Probably third-hand hearsay, which he’s spreading faster than typhoid from a cesspool.

“He passed on,” says Walker.

“What are you talking about?”

“I mean he’s dead-muerto-mort-fish food,” he says.

The words push me perceptibly back from the bar. I turn my head and stare at this old man in stony silence.

“Heard it on the police scanner in my car. They were callin’ in the EMTs, the paramedics.” He looks at his watch. “Can you believe it? Over ten minutes ago now. Get a coronary in this town, you’d better call a taxi,” he says.

Suddenly I catch his meaning, the sirens in the street. Walker thinks they’re responding to some tragedy involving Potter.

This conversation is surreal. I want to tell him that Ben’s going to come walking through the door behind us any second. I look again at my watch. He’s just late.

I compose myself. Walker’s pulling some scam, trying to flesh out information on why I left the firm. Feed me some crap about Potter’s death to see if I’ll defame the dead. It’s the kind of dirt that Walker would slip into a column.

“What did you hear, exactly?”

“Dead at the scene,” he says.

Try as I do, there’s some psychic staggering here. There’s no hesitation in his responses. Even Eli Walker would have a hard time confusing the manifest line between life and death.

“An accident?” I ask.

He shakes his head.

“Heart attack?”

Walker slaps his glass on the bar, a satisfied grin on his face. He finally has my undivided attention.

It’s clear, Walker’s not talking until he has another drink. I call the bartender. Having humored me with scotch, Walker now orders a double bourbon. I ask for the tab and pass the bartender two twenties.

“Gunshot,” he says. “His office.”

Shock and disbelief are registered by the fire I feel all the way to the tips of my ears. He reads disbelief in my eyes.

“It’s true,” he says. “I swear.” He holds up a loose victory sign, like a confused Boy Scout.

“What happened?” I ask.

He shrugs his shoulders. “They don’t give out news bulletins over the police bands.”

This is Eli’s idea of dogged journalism. Hustling drinks at a bar with tidbits of information. I wonder what part of the police transmission he didn’t hear or failed to interpret.

“Do you have a press pass?” I ask.

“Sure.”

“Let’s go.”

“Where we goin’? Our drinks haven’t come yet.”

My hand grips his elbow like a vise, pushing him along ahead of me.

“Haven’t you heard, Eli? Alcohol keeps.”

All the way mere, Walker’s making like an echo in the seat next to me as I drive. He’s babbling some nonsense about having to meet a source back at the bar.

“Sure, Eli, what’s the guy’s name? Johnnie Walker?”

“No, really, I’ve got a meeting back there.”

“I’m sure he’ll wait for you. I’ll take you back later. Just relax. All you have to do is get me past the police lines.” Assuming there are any.

Hope finds refuge in the improbable crackling transmissions of a police-band radio as interpreted by Eli Walker. But my expectations sag as I pull to the curb on the mall in front of the Emerald Tower.

Minicam crews from channel five and eight are already assembled outside the entrance, jockeying for film advantage. The vans, sprouting microwave dishes and me small spiraled antennae of cellular telephones, are parked at the curb like prodigious wheeled insects in search of carrion on which to feast. Two patrol cars have driven to the fountain on the cobblestone plaza in front of the building. The driver’s door on one is still open, and the light-bars of the units flash amber, red, and blue, the reflections glinting off the emerald glass of the structure in a surreal symphonic light show. The cops are stringing yellow tape across the building’s entrance.

There’s a third vehicle-navy blue in color and lower than the minicam vans-nesded between the two bigger vans. Its flashing emergency lights flicker against the dark azure of a Spielberg sky. On the side the words COUNTY CORONER are printed in bold white letters. I begin to have a new respect for Eli Walker.

We scurry up the broad cement concourse toward the towering green glass edifice. I’m pushing Walker all the way. This is a reporter who’s never been to a fire. The only heat he’s ever felt is booze in the belly.

“Give me your pass, Eli.”

He fumbles with his wallet and drops it on the concrete. I pick it up and riffle through it and quickly find the pass. I look at the laminated plastic card. There’s no picture. I’m in luck.

“I’ll do the talking. Just keep quiet.”

We reach the door and a uniformed cop, young, part of the traffic division I’m sure, challenges us. I lay on a flurry of the working press in a hurry, flashing the press card under his nose. He waves us through. Television crews are assembled here in the building’s lobby. Another cop is stationed at the entrance to the elevators. I’ve run out my string with Walker’s press pass.

Walker and I huddle.

“Know any of these guys?” I nod toward the media moguls wandering about the lobby.

He takes a quick glance around, then shakes his head. Walker’s well connected.

“Stay here.”

I walk over and cozy up to one of the cameramen, who’s checking out the jungle of tropical plants near the indoor fountain.

“What happened?”

The guy’s chewing gum, a huge wad. He looks at me.

“Ugh du no.” This erudite response is accompanied by a shrug of his shoulders as the gum snaps in his mouth. He nods toward a better-dressed colleague standing a few feet away.

“What’s up?”

“Some guy bought it,” he says.

“Who?”

“Beats me. Cops won’t give us anything.”

“How did you find out?”

He looks at me like I’m crazy, then touches the pager strapped to his belt. “How do I find out about anything?”

I’m back to Walker. He’s getting bored. Wants to leave. I’m hearing more about his meeting back at The Broiler.

There’s the single tone of a bell, one of the elevator cars reaching the lobby. Klieg lights zero in on the elevator door like antiaircraft in me London blitz. The doors slide open. A solitary figure stands in the center of the elevator car blinded by the lights and inundated by a stream of concurrent, incoherent questions.

Elbows go up to shade the light. “You’ll have to get mat from me police. I’ve got nothing to say.” The cop at me elevator eases several of the cameras back away from the door. “Get mat damn light out of my eyes.” In a grudging sequence, the lights go dim and me crowd at the elevator begins to dissipate, wandering back to the corners of the lobby.

He’s halfway across me lobby headed for me door when he sees me. George Cooper’s eyes are still adjusting from me media bombardment. He carries a small black satchel containing the instruments of his dark calling.

“Coop.” My voice echoes just a little in me cavernous lobby.

There are rings of unrequited sleep under his eyes, and an almost bemused smile under a salt-and-pepper mustache.

“Paul.” There’s a momentary hesitation, men me apocalyptic question. “How did you find out?”

Coop’s words beat like a drum in my brain. It is the confirmation that I dreaded. Ben Potter is dead. I struggle to absorb me finality of it-my first real attempt to assess the personal dimensions of this loss.

Cooper is standing next to me now, waiting for an answer.

“Eli told me,” I say.

There’s a clumsy introduction. Walker educates Coop on me benefits of scanning the police bands.

“Ahh,” says Coop.

“What happened?” I say.

The guy with me pager is eyeing me with renewed interest. He’s grabbed the gumhead, and me two of them are moving toward us.

“Let’s walk and talk?” says Coop. “They’ll be comin’ down with me body in a minute. Got to get the van ready.”

We head toward the door. Coop and I are arm to arm, Walker trailing along behind.

“Too early to know much. If I had to guess,” he says, his voice dropping an octave and several decibels in volume as he eyes an approaching camera crew wearily, “maybe suicide.”

I’m silent but shake my head. Coop knows what I’m saying. I don’t believe it.

“Single blast, twelve-gauge shotgun in the mouth.” No sugar coating from George Cooper. “Janitor found him about an hour ago. Can’t be sure of anything “til forensics is done goin’ over the place.” As we walk outside, Coop’s Southern accent is thick on the night air.

For the first time since Walker broke this nightmare to me, there is confidence in my voice, for there is one thing of which I am certain. “Potter wouldn’t commit suicide.”

“Nobody’s immune to depression.”

Coming from Coop, this is a truism.

“I knew him,” I say. “Trust me. He wouldn’t kill himself. He had too much to live for.”

“Maybe you didn’t know him as well as you think,” says Coop. “People like that project an image bigger than life itself. Sometimes they have a hard time living up to their own advance billing.” He’s picking up the pace. The guy with the pager and his cameraman are behind us, matching us stride for stride.

Coop’s voice softens a bit. “I know, right now you can’t accept it. Believe me. It’s possible. I’ve seen it too many times.” We’ve reached the coroner’s wagon at the curb. Coop opens the back, dumps his medical case inside, and clears an area for the gurney.

“Any chance they’d let me go up?”

“None,” he says. “DA’s handling this one himself.”

“Nelson?”

Coop nods. “The take-charge kid himself.”

“Why all the attention if it’s a suicide?”

He ignores me like he hasn’t heard the question. When he turns he looks directly at me. Cooper knows more than he’s saying.

“I was supposed to meet him tonight for dinner.”

“Potter?” he says.

I nod. “He wanted to talk to me.”

“What about?”

“Business,” I say. It’s a little white lie. I have no desire to dredge up memories of Sharon, not here, not now. I’ll tell Coop later, when we’re alone.

“He was headed back to Washington. I was going to take him to the airport.”

“When did you talk with him?”

“Last night,” I say.

Coop looks over my shoulder at Walker.

There is movement in the lobby of the Emerald Tower, a rush of television cameras to the glass doors. Four cops running interference exit ahead of the chrome gurney, a strapped-down sheet covering the black body bag. Two of Coop’s assistants set a brisk pace wheeling the gurney down the walkway, the minicam crews in pursuit. The guy behind us with his camera loses interest and joins the pack. There’s the precision click of metal as the collapsible legs go out from under the gurney and the load slides easily into the back of the dark coroner’s wagon.

Walker’s distracted.

Coop pulls me away several feet toward the front of the van.

“Can you keep it to yourself?” he says. I nod. “The feds are up there with Nelson, two FBI agents. What’s going on?”

“Ben was in line for an appointment,” I say.

Coop’s stare is intense, the kind that says, “What else?”

I fulfill his wish. “Supreme Court,” I say.

He whistles, low and slow, the tune dying on his lips, as this news settles on him. I can tell that Coop will perform this autopsy himself-and carefully.

‘Talia-Ben’s wife-is she up there?” I ask.

“They’re looking for her now. Tryin’ to notify her. There was no answer at the house when the cops called. They sent a patrol car by but there was nobody there.”

“I wonder how she’ll take it.”

Coop’s looking at me. I can’t tell if I detect just the slightest wrinkle of disapproval, like maybe he’s heard something-about Talia and me. But then he breaks his stare. My own guilt overreacting. I’m wearing this thing like some psychic scarlet letter. It died with Ben. I wonder how Talia will react-no doubt with more poise than I. Grace under pressure is her special gift.

“They’ll probably want to talk to you.”

“Who?” I ask.

“The cops.”

“Why?”

“You talked to Potter last night. You had a meeting scheduled with him tonight. Potter’s calendar,” he says. “Likely as not, your name’s in it.”

He’s right. I can expect a visit from the police.

Coop’s gaze fixes on the minicam crews, one of which closes on us as we speak. In the inert atmosphere of a city beginning to sleep, the attention of these scavengers of electronic gossip is drawn to anything that moves. Ben’s body is in the van, and at the moment my conversation with Cooper is the only visual drama available. As if we are dancing a slow tango, I maneuver my back to the lens.

“Was there a note?” I ask.

“Hmm?” He stares at me blankly.

“Did Ben leave a suicide note?”

“Not that I know of,” he says.

There was no note. Of this I can be sure. A suicide note is not something the cops withhold from their medical examiner.

“I assume there’ll be an autopsy.”

“Oh yes.” He says it with the seriousness of a village pastor asked if the damned go to hell. He looks at his watch. “It’s gonna be a long night.”

He moves around the front of the van. One of his assistants is in the driver’s seat. The other’s playing tailgunner, keeping the cameras away from the back of the vehicle.

“Coop.” He looks at me. “Thanks.”

He waves a hand in the air, like it’s nothing, just a little information to a friend.

“Eli. I’ll take you back now.”

A camera light flashes on. The wrinkled back of my suit coat is memorialized. It will fill at least a few seconds of Eye on Five-that grafting of entertainment and journalism that passes for news on the tube.

As Walker heads for the car, I stand alone on the sidewalk gazing after the coroner’s wagon, its amber lights receding into the night. In my mind I begin to conjure what possible motive could exist for a man the likes of Ben Potter to take his own life, his career on the ascent. I am left with a single disquieting thought, that despite what Cooper says, this was not a suicide.