False Convictions

31

JAKE COULDN’T keep going this way. He called a doctor friend down on Long Island and had him phone in some codeine to a local Rite Aid. He popped two, desperate for relief, and set off for Auburn. Jake listened to his messages. He tried Casey but got only voice mail before Don Wall rang in on the other line.

“You know who this Napoli guy is?” Don asked.

“Let me guess,” Jake said, the pain growing dim, his mind blurring slightly as he passed out of the city limits, “the attorney for the city of Buffalo?”

“Why are you fucking around with me?” Don said. “Do you think I have time for this shit? I already put out feelers for a Buffalo mob guy.”

“I just found out the hard way,” Jake said, concentrating hard on his mouth to keep his words from slurring from the codeine. “White flag. I’m going home.”

“Where you belong.”

“Thanks, Don,” Jake said. “I’m sorry. I’ll send you some of the new network lapel pins.”

“They got new ones?”

“For the VIPs. I got you covered.”

He rode for a while longer, gently probing the stitches in the back of his head and feeling much better before he sighed heavily and dialed up Dora for a different kind of medicine.

Jake tucked a brand-new cell phone under his chin, riding east on the Thruway now, toward his hotel room in Auburn. He got Dora and told her what had happened and how he felt stupid.

“Don’t feel stupid,” Dora said, “that’s what makes you good. You get wild ideas and you follow through on them. Sometimes they pan out, but that’s not why I left you a message to call me. Listen to this.”

Dora read him a story in the Auburn Citizen quoting anonymous sources close to Dwayne Hubbard’s Freedom Project legal team suggesting a cover-up in the twenty-year-old murder case that involved the then district attorney’s son.

“Casey didn’t say a goddamn thing about it,” Jake said. “I just tried calling her. No wonder she didn’t pick up my call. They actually leaked it to someone else?”

“Maybe Graham is the source,” Dora said. “And if he wasn’t, he’s the one paying her tab. Why would she give the scoop to the guy who’s out looking to smear him?”

“Not smear, just shine some light,” Jake said. “I know Graham is hiding dirty stuff.”

“Whatever he’s got going with an old mill and some factory jobs, it’s not as dirty as a judge who turned the system on an innocent man when she was the DA,” Dora said. “Did you know she was the governor’s choice to fill the vacancy they’ve got on the New York State Court of Appeals?”

“Not if this thing has any traction.”

“Exactly,” Dora said. “This is a story worth getting in trouble for. So get to work and find your girl and get us the inside scoop.”

“My girl isn’t returning my calls,” Jake said.

“If you can’t get a girl on the phone, it only tells me one thing,” Dora said.

“That she doesn’t like me?”

“That you’re not trying.”

“I am as of now.”

“Good, got a backup plan?”

“Not really,” Jake said. “But there’s a kid lawyer whose family is plugged in and the head of the Auburn Hospital who’re both fans, so if I can’t get her, I’ll start with them.”

“I’ll line up a crew in case. And Jake?”

“Yeah?” he asked, ready for one of her wisecracks.

“Don’t half-ass this one. This isn’t a puff piece.”