Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 148, Nos. 3 & 4. Whole Nos. 900 & 901, September/October 2016

The Tuesday Plot by Jeffery Deaver

International best-selling author (and former journalist and lawyer) Jeffery Deaver has a long and celebrated history with EQMM, having won our Readers Award three times and been nominated twice from EQMM for the Edgar Allan Poe Award (out of a total of seven times for his fiction). Among his thirty-seven novels are A Maiden’s Grave, which was made into an HBO movie; The Bone Collector, which became a feature film with Denzel Washington; and The Devil’s Teardrop, which was adapted for Lifetime TV.

“If I come up with a story lead...” The woman was speaking softly, leaning forward across the unsteady bar table. Her heavily made-up face caught a shaft of glaring sunlight, and her hair, normally dull, glowed momentarily.

Trevor Powers tilted his head.

“... will you let me write it?”

He gave a laugh. “I thought you were going to say pay you.”

She squinted in the light and leaned back, out of the flare. “I wondered why the shocked expression.”

“Was I shocked?” Powers didn’t think he had been.

“More, concerned.”

When Nicole Samson had come to him a month ago, reporting she was an avid fan of The Power(s) Lunch and asking about a job, he’d been impressed. She was studying journalism part-time, working nights, but wanted some on-the-job experience. He’d read her sample stories — they were very good — but he’d told her, “I can’t afford an assistant. I don’t monetize the blog. There’s no advertising. I operate at a loss.”

Expecting her to say thanks and leave.

But she hadn’t. She’d said, “A stint here for a few months? That’d look real nice on the résumé. Do you think a forty-three-year-old divorcée can be an intern?”

“As in ‘for free’?”

“As in ‘for the experience of it.’”

“As in,” he’d said coyly, drawing out his words, “... okay, I agree.”

Nicole had turned out to be an excellent research assistant and editor. Her notes were pithy and well-written. And he’d heard her on the phone, digging for information and not letting subjects weasel away. But there’d never been any talk about her writing articles, certainly not under her name. The Power(s) Lunch blog was his exclusively — all eight or so weekly stories scribed by him alone. He felt an odd twinge at the thought of giving up a byline.

Powers now sipped his bourbon. He glanced down at the empty space before her. She shook her head again. He said, “Give me the idea first.”

Nicole first pressed down on top of the unsteady table, then turned away. She found a business card in her pocket, read the name, and folded it several times. She wedged it under a leg to level the table. Then she dug into her backpack, which had a Spiderman decal on it. He was always amused at this, her only whimsy, as she was the picture of nondescript. He’d been surprised, during that interview, when she mentioned her age; he’d have thought her somewhat younger. The divorcée part made sense, though. She was attractive enough, in a suburban librarian sort of way, but on the heavy side. She tended to wear bulky, well, ugly sweaters and badly fitting skirts made from fabric that had — what did his ex say? That’s right: it had pilled, ended up covered with little dots like lint. Her shoes were always scuffed. And she tended to spill food and drinks, a splash or dab of which inevitably ended up on her chest or thighs. She wore too much makeup, the concealing kind, not the sexy kind. Hubby, he speculated, might have wanted a prettier package and gone hunting in Younger-ville. Or, no reason to be sexist about it, maybe her keen eyes and intellect and uncompromising nature had pushed him away.

Or, let’s be really fair here: Maybe she’d dumped him, and was dating Sven the artist or Richard the Broadway actor. Trevor Powers had learned that when it came to the bedroom, the least likely candidates could be the most electable.

Watch those assumptions! he warned his J-students at Midtown College.

Now, a notebook appeared and she glanced through it. Then looked up.

“Michael Kessler.” Nicole was whispering.

Powers felt a thud in his gut.

Kessler...

This explained why she wanted to meet here, out of the office. Given the sensational and controversial topics he blogged about, and the unpopularity and hatred heaped upon crusaders like himself, Powers believed that his small Greenwich Village office might from time to time be bugged — by competitors, the politicians and CEOs he wrote about, and possibly even the government. The place had been swept recently by a private eye he used and the results had come back negative. Still, when it came to blogging about Kessler, you could never be too careful.

“And?” Powers found himself leaning forward again. His hand was gripping the glass tightly.

“I was at my night job, and I thought the man at a table I was waiting on looked familiar. Couldn’t place him but I’d seen him in the Times. He was in his fifties, nice suit, kind of imperious, you know. There was a woman with him. A few years younger. They’d had two drinks each, bourbon for him. She had martinis. And it was really riling me I couldn’t get the name. You know how that happens?”

Sort of. “Go on.”

“And I was hoping they wouldn’t pay cash, so I could get a credit card. And sure enough, he pulled one out. Kessler Development. Amex Black. The one you need to spend a quarter-million a year to get. And, yep, it was him. And his sister.”

“Sister?”

“Sarah. I looked the name up afterward and found pictures of her too. She’s CFO of his operating company.”

Well, well, well...

“Kessler tip well?”

“Not particularly. Now, what happened was, I stepped away to have the bartender run the card and when I got back to the table, they were leaning close, talking. It looked like they didn’t want to be overheard. That was my impression. So I stopped. But I was still pretty close and I heard something.”

“Is this the part where you extort me into letting you write the story?”

Her sky-blue eyes narrowed. “I want to do more than just research, Trevor.”

The implication, maybe, was that if he wasn’t paying her, she deserved better than a Thanky, Miss on the masthead. And she probably did. But was this an appropriate payday for her? A story that was potentially huge?

He suspected her life before going back to school later in life had been country clubs and shopping with lady friends, Whole Foods dinners, part-time boutique work or volunteering. She hadn’t mentioned children, and she didn’t strike him as a mother, but that was a possibility.

Certainly she could be a journalist — she could write and she was dogged. But did she have what it took to go up against Michael Kessler?

Trevor Powers — along with many, many other people — considered Kessler the embodiment of twenty-first-century greed and underhanded business practices. Not a One-Percenter, he was a One-Hundredth-of-One-Percenter, and had achieved that lofty status by bludgeoning those who opposed or threatened him (probably not literally, though rumors abounded to the contrary).

No, Powers now decided, this was out of Nicole’s league. And there was another factor too: Powers wasn’t above admitting that he personally wanted his byline on any story about Kessler. While he didn’t lecture his J-students on the subject, he knew that ego was an important fuel in the world of reporting. Sometimes the most important.

He was frank with her now. “I’m sorry, Nicole. Michael Kessler? He’s too big, too dangerous. If it pans out, I’ll take this one. Whatever you want to write next, it’s yours.”

The woman fell silent.

He added, “I wasn’t joking about him being dangerous. He’s utterly ruthless. Whatever you’ve got on him, if it hurts him, he’ll hurt back. Hard.”

Nicole slumped, not happy, but he could see she was seriously considering his proposition.

Powers heard the door to the bar open and he looked over, then raised his hand to the person entering: a young woman, blond and skinny. She wore a battered leather jacket and jeans, and an old backpack hung from her shoulder. It had, charmingly, a button with a peace symbol pinned onto the strap.

She walked to them and, when Powers gestured to a chair, she sat.

“Cherise, this is Nicole.”

“Hey, hi,” the girl said cheerfully.

They shook hands.

“Cherise is a student of mine. Nicole works for me. She’s studying journalism too.”

“Cool!”

Nicole nodded. “Second career. Where are you going?”

“Hunter.”

“I’m at City University.”

“What area do you want to go into?” Cherise asked.

“Blogging or podcasts. You?”

Cherise said, “I’m in Professor Powers’s new-media class, but I think I want to go into broadcast.”

He clicked his tongue — all his students knew his dislike of TV and radio reporting — and she laughed. Then she dug into her backpack and pulled out a red plastic document sleeve. “Thanks for the extra time.”

“No worries.” He took the report and looked inside. The title was A History of the Ethical Journalism Network. He knew it would be well researched, and written in a lean, accessible style; surprising for a nineteen-year-old. “Your mother’s doing better?”

“Yeah, a lot. They’ll discharge her tomorrow. Thanks again, Professor.”

“See you in class.”

Goodbyes were exchanged and the girl left.

“You enjoy teaching?” Nicole asked.

“I do. I like to think I make a difference.” He laughed. “How pretentious was that?”

“Six out of ten.”

“It’s fun. And the kids keep me in my place.”

“That I’ll buy. Now. We were talking. If the Kessler lead pans out, I get a story of my own. You guarantee it?”

“Yes. I promise. Agreed?”

“Not yet,” she said and though he believed she was joking, there was no smile on Nicole’s face. “I want front page, lead placement. Next issue. My byline. Solo. Not a ‘with’ or an ‘and.’”

He hadn’t figured on all of those conditions. But it was clear to him she wasn’t backing down.

Finally Powers said, “Okay. You want to shake?”

“I believe you.”

“Well, thanks for that.”

Now, she smiled.

Leaning forward, feeling his heart thump a fast drumbeat. “What do you have?”

“So, in the bar. Kessler was on the phone. I heard him say, ‘It’s a perfect plot. You did a good job. Thanks.’ And then he hung up.”

Powers felt a ping in his gut. Kessler was talking about a conspiracy... Tasty, very tasty indeed.

“What then?”

“He turned to his sister and said, ‘It’s being taken care of. A few obstacles, but it’s going to work.’”

Powers muttered, “Plot...” He loved the sound of the word. “Any idea who he was talking to? On the phone?”

“No. I was afraid they’d turn around and see me eavesdropping so I walked up to the table with the check before they said anything else. He signed and left.”

Powers leaned back in his chair and looked out the window of the bar, tugging absently at his sleeve. While most journalists in this age of new media wore jeans, T-shirts, and, for formal occasions, dark sports coats, Powers didn’t go for the scruffy look. Today, as always, he wore a navy blue suit and button-down, powder-blue shirt. Even when alone, he donned outfits like this, as a reminder of the noble job he was doing, a reminder that he was better than the people he went after in his blog, those guilty of corruption, avarice, deceit.

People like Kessler.

What kind of plot was he up to?

There was no shortage of possibilities.

Michael Kessler was a New York real-estate developer, bankrolled by his father, an industrialist, who died a decade ago. But while Warren — Dad — was clever and hardworking, his son added a new attribute to those inherited traits: ruthlessness. He believed that people in the New York City area desired living space the way addicts desired liquor or crack, and he was all too happy to exploit that need. From inner-city tenements in Brownsville and Bed-Stuy to quaint walk-ups in the Village to penthouses above the clouds in Manhattan and Jersey, Kessler looked at the properties he owned like battlefields in the war to become the richest developer on the face of the earth. All was fair. Hiring private eyes to suggest (not even prove) that tenants were circumventing rent-control laws, cutting corners on heating and gas and rodent control and air conditioning, evicting without mercy, ordering unnecessary but noisy construction at all hours to harass troublemaking tenants... it was all part of Kessler’s business model.

On the other hand, if you were a politician or regulator who made sure Kessler Development got the infrastructure or zoning ruling that favored it, well, you could count on a well-below-market-value apartment in a neighborhood of your choice.

Prosecutors had brought hundreds of actions for unfair housing practices, dangerous conditions, and questionable treatment of his tenants. But while Kessler lost a civil suit occasionally, no D.A. had been able to make a criminal charge stick. Kessler was not otherwise a monster, donating large sums to New York’s cultural institutions. But when it came to his business — his “lifeblood,” as he described it, real estate — there was only one goal, making money, and only one sin: being weak.

His net worth didn’t yet approach that of Trump or Speyer or LeFrak, but he made no secret of the fact that he one day intended to leave them in the dust on the balance-sheet playing field.

The press was all too happy to point fingers at the man (a recent headline: Developer Tries to Evict Cancer Grandma Over Week-Late Rent Check), but that was typical tabloid fodder. Despite many reporters’ attempts, none had been able to unearth any actionable practices, and no substantive articles of wrongdoing ever found their way into print or pixels.

And so the developer remained the elusive Holy Grail of investigative reporters.

Filled with raw excitement about the prospect of taking the man on, Powers now asked Nicole, “Can you talk to other wait staff, employees, see if he’s been in before? Who he’s met with?”

“Already did. And their answer’s no.”

Powers sipped whiskey and mused aloud, “What do we have going on at the moment?”

She reminded him of a couple of stories in the works: about CEOs offering politicians some junkets, restaurateurs bribing health inspectors, a DUI cover-up involving a local celebrity from Long Island. The only big story was about a New York Congressman whose extracurricular activities were not exactly those of Thomas Jefferson.

Nicole, he knew, wasn’t a big fan of the story. Her point was that the legislator was smart and talented and did a good job representing his constituency; the tweeted sex pictures of him cross-dressing were irrelevant to his job. Powers had had to point out that the real story was not about bra and panties; it would be about his reaction after the initial blog post appeared. Would he “man up”? (Powers couldn’t resist the play on words.) Or whine and claim hacking or victimization? He’d told Nicole, “If he tries to weasel, that will reflect on his job.”

But, true, it wasn’t a biggie and he now told her, “I’ll back-burner the drag queen—”

“Trevor!”

“—and we’ll concentrate on Kessler and this secret plot of his. Start digging up dirt on him. Everything.” Then he had a troubling thought. “At the bar where you work, is your name on the check?”

She frowned then nodded. “It gives the server’s first name, yes.”

“And you’ve already started to ask questions. He might begin to suspect somebody’s doing a story and place you as the source. Be careful.”

“He doesn’t scare me, Trevor,” Nicole told him in a low voice, her hand gripping his arm. Their first contact since shaking hands upon meeting a month ago. And suddenly the blogger was looking at a very different vision of his intern. Her intense blue eyes, so focused, actually made her seem both formidable... and, curiously, less dowdy. Attractive, really. The gaze reminded him of that of a lioness who’d just spotted her cubs’ next meal, a gazelle grazing obliviously on the veldt not far away.

Evening, lying back in bed.

Trevor Powers was listening to the sound of traffic on Broadway, outside his Upper West Side apartment. He was listening too to the sound of flowing water from his bathroom shower, which had the effect of calming his fevered thoughts. And turbulent they were. Tomorrow they would start going over the material Nicole had unearthed about Kessler. What would it reveal? He felt like Woodward or Bernstein, about to break the Watergate scandal.

But there was nothing to do at the moment, so he forced aside his speculation about Kessler’s plot and whom he was going to screw in the process. Glancing at a textbook on the bedside table, The New Journalism, Trevor Powers fell into a meditation on how his profession had changed.

When he’d graduated from journalism school twenty years ago, he had tried to pursue a career in the way of most of his classmates, traditional media. But even then the pool was beginning to evaporate. He had no connections to get him into the Times, the Post, the Journal, or the other big-city dailies, so he ended up in small-town rags and backwater TV affiliates. (At lunch once, staring with glazed eyes at a video clip of a totally unnewsworthy car crash looped for the fiftieth time that day, he’d asked one young reporter, “You ever wonder what Walter Cronkite would think about something like this?” She’d replied: “Cronkite. Was he the one who ran for President a couple of years ago? Some scandal or something?”)

Powers left the world of broadcast not long after. He dabbled in public relations and advertising and the world of trade magazines, making a decent living but all the while despairing about how he could satisfy his keen ambitions in a profession where opportunities were increasingly limited.

Then, the Internet.

Blogs and online media, he realized immediately, were the future of journalism: the only way to reach audiences abandoning traditional sources of reportage. These consumers — a new generation — had come to believe that if it was posted on YouTube, Snapchat, HereNow, or Twitter, or sent to them via some BFF’s text, it was true, it was news. He quit his day job, bought a new laptop and a do-it-yourself Web-site construction program, and launched The Power(s) Lunch.

It soon became one of the top-ten blogs in the U.S., having more than a half-million subscribers and two million daily hits by random surfers and redirects. It was criticized for a tendency to pick the sensational over the substantive (but that complaint could be leveled at any news organization) and to be overly aggressive in its crusading. Sure, there were a few screwups. Like the post in which Powers took up the case of a young Muslim accused of terrorist sympathizing — unfairly, Powers asserted. He pointed out flaws in the U.S Attorney’s case and managed to get the young man released on bail. Unfortunately, a month later he was caught again, this time assembling a car bomb — destination Times Square. (But that didn’t invalidate the government’s sloppy case.) Then there was the investigative piece about the accountant embezzling funds from a Catholic charity, whose headline could have been construed to suggest that the perpetrator was a child abuser when in fact he’d been dispensing the stolen money to victims of molestation. (Still, he was vindicated when the court, citing the blog’s first-amendment rights, dismissed a suit brought by the criminal’s widow.) But such missteps were rare; more troubling to Powers were the instances when he was scooped. As when a rival blog managed to be the first to run with a story on a New York City water-system kickback scheme, one that Powers had been working on. And the time the Post beat him “to the punch,” in his words, with a story on an abusive NBA player who cracked his wife’s jaw because she jokingly commented about the skill of another team’s point guard.

Still, he was resolved not to let incidents like these hamper his march to the top of the new-media Everest. And, if it panned out, the exclusive on Michael Kessler could very well take him to that pinnacle.

Listening to the streaming water — my, how long had she been in there? — Powers now stretched, a long, slow, luxurious maneuver, as elaborate as a yoga move. Nicole and her laser-beam cerulean eyes were fixed in his mind. He was surprised to find that, after delivering the lead to him, the woman had grown considerably more attractive. He now felt a stirring in his chest.

Those eyes...

The shower finally stopped and he glanced at the light illuminating the mist coming from under the bathroom door. He smelled floral perfume. That uncoiling sensation from a moment earlier hit him again — lower in anatomy now.

He tugged the blankets aside, making a landing zone on the sheets. He wondered what she’d be wearing when she returned to the bedroom.

It was then that his phone trilled. He glanced at caller ID and answered. “’Lo?”

The bathroom door opened and slim young Cherise came out. In answer to his earlier question to himself, she was wearing nothing at all. He patted the bed and turned back to the phone, on which Nicole was saying, “Trevor, I’m sorry it’s late. But I have to talk to you.”

“Oh, I was up,” he said, winking at Cherise, who giggled softly.

“We may have an issue.”

“What’s that?”

“I’m at the Union Club.”

An exclusive private venue in Midtown.

She continued, “There’s this courtesy thing, with wait staff and service workers and bartenders. I read that Kessler is a member of the club, so I asked around and found out I knew one of the waiters. He got me in the back door. I talked to some of the staff. I was asking if Kessler comes in often, if anybody’d seen him. He hasn’t, not recently. But a waiter here was telling me that it was curious. Somebody else was asking about Kessler yesterday. A reporter for some blog. He was here as a guest. The waiter didn’t know who he was but he described him. Short, rumpled suit, and balding.”

“Goddamn it. Daniel Leavitt.”

The man’s All the News blog was one that had scooped him several times.

“Maybe he’s heard the plot rumors too,” Nicole said.

“We’ll have to move fast. Let’s move up our meeting tomorrow. Can you do eight?”

“Sure. Oh, one other thing. I heard there’s talk that Leavitt’s using people to spy on his competitors. You ever hear that?”

“No, but it wouldn’t surprise me. Scumbag.” Powers’s eyes slipped from Cherise’s breasts to her backpack. He noted her phone and a tablet peeking out. Was she recording? Hell, what had he said just now? He thought back. No, he hadn’t mentioned Kessler or the story. Good.

“Thanks. I’ll see you tomorrow.”

He disconnected.

Cherise was looking at him seductively and licking her own finger.

Powers winced. “Honey, I’m sorry. Something’s not sitting well, from dinner.”

“Oh.” She blinked. “I’m feeling fine. We split the same quinoa burger.”

“Good. But, well, I’m a bit older. The system isn’t what it used to be. You mind calling Uber?”

“I guess not.”

“There’s a good girl.”

Nicole arrived at his office the next morning, promptly at eight, and Powers noted at once that something was different about her.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

She deposited a heavy carton on his desk and sat. She pulled her coat off but kept it curled on her lap.

“Somebody’s been following me, I think. I’m not sure. Just, something I sense. A shadow behind me. I stop and they stop.”

“You see who?”

“No. Not clearly. Dark clothes. I was pretty freaked out. I jumped in a cab and lost them, I’m sure. But it might mean Kessler knows everything.”

Powers looked out the window onto the bright streets of the Village and saw nothing suspicious. Still, he said, “I think it’s a good idea if you went underground for a while. Move out of your apartment. And take some time off work, your other job.”

“I can’t afford that, Trevor.”

“I’ll pay. Get a hotel. At least for a few weeks, until we see what happens.”

“I suppose I could.”

He wrote her a check for two thousand dollars, handed it over. “In a way, this is good news. For both of us.”

“What do you mean?” she asked doubtfully.

“It proves we’re on to something big.” He nodded at the carton. “If I can find out what, it’ll push our circulation through the roof. You’ll be associated with the most influential blog in the country.”

Another faint smile. “Sure. I just hope I stay alive long enough to enjoy the fame.”

After Nicole left, Trevor Powers too decided to exercise caution. He packed up his computer and took it and the heavy carton of Kessler research material downstairs. On the street he flagged a cab and, after spending nearly fifty dollars in fares by directing the driver circuitously through Manhattan, ended up at a Midtown hotel, checking in for three days.

After checking in and settling into the room, he turned his attention to the carton and learned that Nicole had really come through.

There were dozens of file folders, containing a total of perhaps two thousand sheets of paper. They were, she’d explained, articles, blog posts, Twitter and Facebook and other social-media postings, as well as some notes she’d taken from firsthand interviews of people connected with Kessler.

He skimmed the headings:

— Michael Kessler, New York Governor Abrams to Co-Chair New England Republican Conference in December.

— From Helipads to Golf Courses to Cemeteries: The Private Estates of the One-Percenters.

— Kessler Foundation Donates $250K for Literacy, $500K to Wounded Veteran Rehab Centers.

— Family Feud: Michael Kessler Ousts “Liberal” Cousin From RealEstate Consortium.

— What You See Isn’t (Necessarily) What You Get: Candidates’ Supporters Embrace Stealth Advertising.

— Kessler Development Subsidiary Investigated for Substandard Conditions in Brooklyn Apartments.

— Gabriella Holmes, Aunt of Real-Estate Mogul Michael Kessler, Dies at 99.

— Kessler Eyes Entry Into Low-Income Properties in Europe, Brazil.

— Michael Kessler to Sink Millions Into Longshot Candidate for Manhattan Senate Seat in New York.

— Kessler Lawyers: Twenty-Four Buildings Should Lose Landmark Status; Tenants Protest.

— Queens Prosecutor Considers Charges Against Landlord for GasLine Explosion in Which Two Died.

— Amy Kessler, Wife of Billionaire Michael, Named Trustee at Freedom College.

— Survey of Super PAC Advertising Plans Released.

— New York State Senate Candidate Pledges to End Income Inequality.

— Sarah Kessler Donates 10K to Racehorse Rehab Center.

— Michael Kessler and Wife Sponsor Gala at Met; Donate $1 Million to Support Indigenous Art.

— Tax Credits for Wealthy Investors Targeted.

— Kessler Development to Bid on Harlem Properties.

— Sarah Kessler and Husband Entertain Republican Candidates at Palatial Estate.

— Todd Kessler, Son of Developer Michael Kessler, Finishes Tour of Duty in the Marines. Decorated for Bravery in Afghanistan.

— PACs Buy Ads in Minority Neighborhoods for Senate Race: Can Targeted Advertising Win Votes?

There were scores of other articles. Most mentioned Kessler and his companies by name; others didn’t, but were related to topics that did refer to the developer. Powers was floored by the amount of research she’d done. At first, in fact, he was peeved at the volume, but then he reminded himself that she wasn’t a trained journalist. Besides, more was better than less, and some headlines clearly suggested areas where Kessler might be guilty of plotting... something.

What, exactly, that crime might be, however, would require a lot of reading. Could the malfeasance be intimidating the New York prosecutor considering charges for the gas-line explosion? Bribing European or South American regulators to allow his low-income investments to go forward? Threatening commissioners about the landmark status of certain buildings, which forbade the destruction of older, and less profitable, buildings?

“Onward,” he whispered to himself, then smiled at the drama.

Powers ordered room-service food and a large pot of coffee, then organized the files and began culling the useless information — the more positive stories, the softer news that had nothing to do with whatever conspiracy Kessler was up to. He didn’t understand how those reports — some from blogs like his own — appealed to readers. He didn’t want to read donations to good causes, galas, the death of Aunt So-and-so. That wasn’t journalism. That was spacefilling, churned out by writers too lazy to dig for gold.

The food arrived and between bites — and slugs of black coffee — Powers plowed through the material.

Noon soon became afternoon, then evening. Midnight, one A.M., two, three, four... A single pot of coffee became... well, he lost count. Food coagulated and grew unappealing. Didn’t matter, he’d lost interest in anything but the story of Michael Kessler’s scheme.

And, just as the autumn dawn sun was peeking up over Brooklyn, Powers sat up suddenly, staring at one of the files Nicole had downloaded. He rummaged and found three other folders, plowed through once more. Then he laughed aloud, as his heart slammed in his chest.

He whispered, “Gotcha.”

“I’ve found it, what he’s plotting.”

“Oh, Trevor! What?” Nicole Samson asked from the other end of the line. He’d caught her at a coffee shop downtown, not far from the hotel she had checked into the day before for safety reasons.

“The elections next month? He’s rigging the contest for one of the state senate seats, the Sixty-Fourth District.”

“I think I remember finding some articles about an election, but I don’t remember the details. Who’s running?”

“It’s one of the Manhattan districts. The Democrat’s running on a platform to end income inequality, and she’s calling for a huge increase in city taxes on the wealthy, including real estate valued at over ten million. Most of Kessler’s companies and properties are located here. What she’s proposing would kill him financially.”

“What’s the plot, though?”

“It’s pretty damn clever. You almost have to admire the guy. One of the stories you found is about a Kessler PAC. It’s going to be creating and running ads that support the Republican candidate in the Sixty-Fourth, in Harlem. But I found another super PAC is going to be buying ad time for the Democrat in that district too.”

“That’s not surprising.”

Powers smiled. “It wouldn’t be. Except that both PACs have the same address.”

“You mean Kessler’s PAC is going to be running ads for the candidate he opposes? That doesn’t make sense.”

“Well, try this on for size: The Democrat has attended protests against police shootings of unarmed minorities. Not unusual, of course. Typical liberal position. And one that would appeal to the constituency. But there was also a clipping about her speaking at the funeral of a cop when she was mayor of Poughkeepsie and talking about gun violence.”

“Ah, I get it. The ads that Kessler’s PAC are going to run’ll tout that she’s totally law and order. She sides with the cops over the minority community. She’ll lose their votes in the Sixty-Fourth District. And Kessler’s candidate’ll win.”

“Exactly!”

“Are the ads running now? You’d get some good visuals for the blog.”

“No, they won’t start for a few weeks, closer to the election. And I can’t wait till then. I can feel Leavitt breathing down my neck. Son of a bitch isn’t scooping me this time. Hey, you did a good job.”

“It was exciting. And don’t forget you owe me a story.”

“Whatever you want, it’s yours.” He then asked, “How are you? Is it safe down there, Nicole?”

“I thought I saw somebody following me from the hotel, when I was on my way to Starbucks. But I circled the block and they were gone.” A faint laugh. “Do you teach your journalism students that paranoia goes with the job?”

“No, but I should... Now, I’ve got to get writing. Be careful.”

They disconnected and Powers turned back to his computer. In two hours he’d finished the story and logged on to his private router. All he needed now was a headline.

He thought for a moment. The election would be the first Tuesday of next month. Good. He typed:

And clicked the UPLOAD box.

At close to five P.M. Nicole made her way back to the Stanford Suites Hotel near Wall Street. Riding the swiftly rising elevator to the thirtieth floor, she fished for the key card and, exiting the car, approached her room, 3002.

She opened the door and stepped into the room, which was neither shabby nor luxurious. The place was comfortable and functional, though it was — this being New York — hardly inexpensive.

She shucked her leather jacket and walked to the wine cooler, in which sat a bottle of chardonnay, opened and loosely sealed with a cockeyed cork. She’d ordered it last night and the ice had melted to a bath. Still, a touch to the bottle revealed it was a perfectly fine temperature for drinking. She plucked out the cork, then froze as a lean figure, a woman wearing a black outfit, walked from the bathroom toward her.

Nicole gasped.

“Sorry,” Cathy said. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”

“No worries, sis.”

The women embraced warmly.

Pouring two glasses of wine and handing over one, Nicole asked, “How’d the shopping expedition go?”

“The kids’ll have nothing to complain about.” She pointed to several large bags, sitting beside the couch. “Mommy got a trip to the city but they got Star Wars and Legos.”

The women tapped rims and sipped.

“I wish I could have seen them this trip,” Nicole said.

“They’ll hang out with Aunt Nikki in a few months.”

This conversation was oblique; there was one topic and one only that Cathy wanted to discuss, but she’d be uneasy about broaching it. Understandably.

Nicole now accommodated. She smiled. “It’s good. As good as I’d hoped. I’ll show you.” The sisters sat and Nicole opened her laptop and logged on to her own Wi-Fi router, not the hotel’s. A few clicks later she found the Web site she was looking for. She swung the computer for her sister to see and scooted close, so they both could read.

“Oh, Nikki.” Cathy found a packet of tissues, extracted one, and dabbed her eyes. “I can’t believe it. You got him. It was so much work, but you did it!”

True, the plan had been elaborate, and Nicole was, in fact, somewhat surprised it had worked so smoothly.

Cathy’s husband, Sam, was the accountant who’d embezzled money from his employer — a Catholic charity — to distribute, anonymously, to victims of abuse by priests. Admittedly, he was guilty of that and was fully prepared to be arrested and sentenced. But he couldn’t handle the searing implications in Powers’s blog, which — perhaps inadvertently, perhaps not — suggested Sam was guilty of abuse himself. This was a bald lie, but one that, once uttered, was the sort never to vanish. Unable to stand the vitriolic response against him, Sam had gotten drunk for the first time in his life and driven the family car into a reservoir.

Nicole Stone (not Samson, as she’d told Powers) was a trial lawyer in California. She had urged her sister to sue for the suggestive posting, seeking damages and a retraction or clarification. Cathy had done so, but the suit was dismissed, as Nicole had feared.

Cathy continued to try to clear her husband’s name through social media. But she gave up her pursuit of Trevor Powers in venues that offered more substantive consequences for the blogger’s wrongdoing.

Her sister didn’t.

Nicole took a month off and came to New York, determined to destroy Powers’s blog and, if possible, his entire career, based, as it was, on the practice of dolling up sensationalism and half-truths and calling it journalism.

She posed as a part-time J-student and cocktail waitress ten years older than her real age and went for a frumpy, disheveled, and overly made-up look (her personal tastes tended toward Herrera and Karan). She fawned her way into an internship for no pay (she needed anonymity) and set about reading every one of Powers’s blog posts for the past year. Doing so, she learned his weakness: He’d write about any hint of a conspiracy, true or not, and without any regard for the larger implications of the story and who was injured in the process. She’d decided to use his lust for stories like this to hook him. But what bait would be good? Then she had a thought: She recalled reading a newspaper article about interring family members at home; the story mentioned the graveyard on the estate of the Kesslers and referred to some problems with a plot reserved for an aunt who had just died.

Plot...

Perfect!

The overheard conversation in the bar was a fiction, but it could easily have happened, so she felt justified in dangling the words before the blogger. And, of course, Powers went for the shiny lure, like a hungry fish. He’d turned Nicole loose to research Kessler and she’d assembled thousands of pages of news stories and notes about the developer. Then, yesterday, she’d sprung the trap — dropping off all the material for his reading pleasure.

She now continued to Cathy, “Everything I gave him was true, all the stories. I had to play fair. Even the story about their aunt passing away and the graveyard.”

“If he’d read that,” her sister said, “he would’ve spotted the line that the ‘plot’ referred to a grave.”

“True. It was a risk. But I guessed he was so focused on conspiracy that he was only seeing what he wanted to see.” Nicole gave her sister a wry glance. “I’ll admit I wasn’t innocent. I tipped Dan Leavitt that Powers might be running with a questionable story... and then told Powers that Leavitt was asking around. Which he was.”

“So Powers would move faster and not check his facts as thoroughly as he should.”

“Vanity and ego.” Nicole sipped some of the oaky wine and examined the glorious sunset. “I did something else to him.”

“I like the expression on your face when you say that,” Cathy said. “What?”

“That pig... he was sleeping with one of his students. She came by to drop some classwork off and I saw the way she looked at him. I knew. She was eighteen, nineteen tops.”

Cathy wrinkled her nose in disgust.

“So I told him that Leavitt was using spies to steal stories. I imagine — well, I hope — he decided she was one of them and he ended it.”

“What’ll happen to him?”

Nicole said, “Don’t know, don’t care. But none of it’ll be good.” Her hand dropped onto her sister’s arm. “How’re you doing?”

“Some days are all right. I miss him.” She smiled. “Sam was a crusader, you know. That’s why he took that money. He would’ve approved of this, what we did to Powers. Not the getting-even part. But cleaning up dirt.”

Nicole’s phone chimed with a text. “My limo’s here. I’ve got to get to the airport. I’ll see you and the girls on Christmas Eve. Maybe earlier. I’m expecting an early verdict in a trial I have going on.”

The sisters embraced. Then Cathy gave a sharp laugh, as they stepped apart and Nicole donned her coat.

“What?”

“Just occurred to me. There was a plot after all.”

Nicole frowned. “There was?”

“Sure. Yours.” Her sister offered a droll smile. “I can’t thank you enough.”

“To be honest, I enjoyed it. It was good seeing justice done and not having to worry so much about the law, all the rules, the court dockets.”

“Maybe you’ve found a new calling.”

Nicole cocked her head and looked over her sister with amused eyes at the thought. Then she laughed once more, a bright sound that matched perfectly the lovely autumn evening sun streaming into the hotel room.

Another embrace and Nicole was out the door.