Dead In The Water

CHAPTER 15

Stone worked on his notes for the trial and tried to come up with new ideas for Allison's testimony, but he was depressed, and depression always made him sleepy. Soon he was stretched out on the bed and dead to the world.

Thomas was shaking him. "Stone, wake up."

"Huh?" He was groggy, and he felt hung over.

"You got two press people downstairs: one from 60 Minutes and one from The New Yorker."

"Jesus, we landed the big ones first, huh?"

"Looks like it."

"I'd better splash some water on my face; tell them I'll be down in a minute."

"Okay."

Stone shook himself awake, washed his face and toweled it briskly to bring back some color, then went downstairs. Two men came toward him, a tall, slim, tanned one in Bermuda shorts and a short, stocky, pasty man in a khaki bush jacket.

"I'm Jim Forrester from The New Yorker," the tall one said, shaking hands.

"I'm Jake Burrows, I'm a producer on 60 Minutes," the bush jacket said, "and I was here first. I want to talk to you before he does." He nodded at his competitor.

"All right, all right," Stone said. "Let's all sit down and discuss this; I mean, you two guys are not exactly competitors."

"That's right," Forrester said.

"Everybody is a competitor," Burrows said.

"Come on, sit down, and let's talk." Stone herded them toward a table. "Thomas, how about some lunch menus?"

"Sure thing," Thomas said.

"I want the first interview," Burrows said; "I was here first."

"Wait a minute," Stone said. "Just listen to me, both of you. Jim, you're not exactly on deadline here, are you?"

"No, I'm not," the writer said. "I'm here to get the whole story; the soonest we could run would be a couple of weeks after the trial."

"Feel better, Jake?" Stone asked.

"A little," Burrows said grudgingly. "I've got a reporter arriving here tonight, and either I get an exclusive interview, or I'm getting out of here right now."

Stone turned to him. "Either it runs Sunday night, or there's no interview."

"I can't promise you that," Burrows said.

"Then you might as well go home, because before the Sunday after that rolls around, my client could very well have been executed, and I'm not much interested in a postmortem feature."

"This week's show is already set," Burrows said. "There's nothing I can do about it."

"I'm sorry, Jake, there's nothing I can do for you," Stone said.

Burrows looked at him incredulously. "Listen to me, Stone, this is 60 Minutes; do you know what that means?"

"Sure I do," Stone replied. "It means you'd be airing an interview with a dead woman. I thought your show liked saving innocent people from death row, not reporting on the execution later."

Jake Burrows looked at him intently for a moment without speaking. "I've got to make a phone call," he said finally, pushing his chair back.

"Tell them I want it in writing," Stone said.

"If I do this, will you guarantee me an exclusive?"

"I'll guarantee you an exclusive on in-depth TV, but she's going to hold a press conference, where I'll answer most of the questions, and an awful lot of photographs of her are going to be taken. The only way I can save her life is to carpet American TV wall to wall with her face, and that's what I intend to do. Anyway, all that will be great promotion for your interview."

Burrows nodded and went off to find a phone.

"You're going to have your hands full pretty soon," Jim Forrester said.

"I've already got my hands full, just with the two of you. Are you on staff at the magazine?"

Forrester shook his head. "This will be my first piece for them. I was in San Juan doing a travel piece when they called."

"Who's your editor there?" Stone asked.

"Charles McGrath."

"He's number two there, isn't he?"

"That's right."

"What are you going to want?"

"Well, obviously, I want to see Allison again as soon as possible, then I want to cover everything that happens, including the 60 Minutes interview and the trial. There's nothing I can do to save her life, but if what she says rings true, then I can reinforce her innocence if she survives. That could be important to her, because there is always going to be a question mark hanging over her, even if she's acquitted."

"You're right about that." Stone wrinkled his brow.

"What did you mean by seeing Allison again?"

"I've met her before."

"Where?"

"In the Canaries, in Las Palmas and in Puerto Rico. I was there on assignment from Conde Nast Traveler when I met Paul at the yacht club in Las Palmas."

"Jesus," Stone said, "I've got a guy on a plane for Las Palmas right now,looking for somebody just like you. We have to talk." He looked up to see Jake Burrows coming toward them.

"All right," Burrows said, "let me lay it out for you: I'll give you a letter on 60 Minutes letterhead, guaranteeing you air time this Sunday night."

"Guaranteeing me a full segment," Stone said.

"All right, all right. You give me first and exclusive access to Allison first thing tomorrow morning, and you don't hold your press conference until my reporter and I are out of here with our tape."

"Who's the reporter?"

"Chris Wheaton."

"Never heard of him. What happened to Mike Wallace and Morley Safer?"

"Chris is a she, and she's new; this will be her first story. She's already on a plane,and she's all you're going to get."

"This is a full segment, though?"

"I'll put it in writing."

"Okay, but Jim here is going to sit in." He held up a hand before Burrows could object. "He's not going to ask her any questions during your time, he's just going to observe for his New Yorker piece. Can't hurt to have your program's name in the magazine, can it? I bet Chris Wheaton will love it."

"Okay, it's a deal. First thing in the morning; Chris won't be in until tonight, and I want daylight, with palms and water in the background."

"How about in the cockpit of her boat?"

"Ideal."

"You go write your letter; Jim and I have to talk." Burrows went back to the bar, opened his briefcase, extracted a sheet of stationery, and started writing. Stone turned back to Forrester. "Tell me about your meeting the Mannings," he said.

"We had done a shoot in the yacht club, and I was having a drink at the bar when Paul sat down next to me; I recognized him, so I introduced myself."

"What was your impression of him?"

"Big guy," he spread his hands; "full beard, bear like; as tall as me, but a good fifty, sixty pounds heavier; laughed easily. He liked it that I knew his work, and he offered to show me his boat."

"What else did you talk about while you were in the bar?"

"The outline of his cruise, where he'd been, et cetera."

"How long were you there?"

"Long enough to finish a pina colada-twenty minutes, half an hour-then we walked down to the marina, and he introduced me to Allison."

"What was your first impression of her?"

"A knockout; she was wearing a bikini, after all."

"Right. I mean, what did you think of her?"

"Bright, charming, funny. I liked her immediately, just as I did Paul."

"How much time did you spend with them?"

"It was late afternoon, and they invited me to stay aboard for dinner. Allison cooked some steaks on an outdoor grill, off the stern and we drank a couple of bottles of good California cabernet."

"What time did you leave?"

"Must have been close to ten o'clock. I was staying in a hotel in town, and I had an early-morning flight back to New York; I wanted to get some sleep."

"Think back: What was your impression of their relationship?"

"Warm, affectionate; they shared a sense of humor. They seemed to like each other a lot." "Were they in love?"

"Yeah, I guess they were. I remember I admired how well they got along, especially after spending several months together on a boat. That kind of intense, longterm proximity has ruined more than one relationship."

"Did you ever see them again?"

"Yeah, briefly; when I got back to my hotel there was a message from New York saying they wanted some more shots on Grand Canary, then some on the Canaries island of Puerto Rico. I stayed on in Las Palmas for another day, then flew down to Puerto Rico in the late afternoon of the day after that."

"Did you know they'd be there?"

"They might have mentioned it, but it didn't register. Next time I saw them, I was standing on a stone jetty on the south side of the island, and they motored past on the boat, heading for Antigua. I yelled to them, and they waved back and said they were sorry they missed me, then they were gone."

"What was their mood at that moment?"

"Jubilant, like they were glad to be getting back to sea. They were laughing, I remember; he said something to her that I couldn't hear, then she laughed and slapped him on the ass."

"Jim, will you testify to all this at her trial?"

The writer shrugged. "Sure, if you think it will help."

"I think it just might help; you were apparently the last person besides Allison to see Paul Manning alive."

"Glad to do it."

"One more question, Jim, just between you and me: Do you think that Allison is the sort of person who could have killed Paul?"

Forrester looked astonished. "Of course not. Well, I guess anybody could kill anybody under the right circumstances, but I would bet the farm she had nothing to do with his death. Absolutely nothing I saw in their relationship would indicate that."

"Good," Stone said, relieved to have an objective opinion that reinforced his own. "I'll ask you some form of that question under oath."

"And I'll give you the same answer."