Night Film

Transcript of Phone Conversation — Anonymous Caller “John”

S. McGrath, May 11, 2006. 11:06 — 11:11 P.M.

SM:

Hello.

Caller:

Is this Scott McGrath, the reporter?

SM:

It is. Who’s this?

No immediate answer. Voice is older, mid-sixties or seventies.

Caller:

I hear you’re investigating

Cordova.

SM:

How’d you hear that?

Caller:

Word gets around.

SM:

Are you a friend of his?

No answer. He sounds nervous.

Caller:

I don’t want this call

recorded.

SM:

It’s not. What’s your name?

Caller:

John.

Not his real name. I am tempted to turn on my phone recorder — a necessary precaution — but plugging in the TP-7 jack makes a clicking noise on the line. I don’t want to scare him off.

SM:

What’s your connection to Cordova?

Caller:

I drove him.

SM:

You were his chauffeur?

Caller:

You could say that.

SM:

Where?

Caller:

Upstate.

Upstate New York. “John” is breathing oddly — having second thoughts about talking.

SM:

Are you still there?

Caller:

Sorry. I don’t know how I feel about this now.

SM:

Take your time. How did you come to work for him?

Caller:

I don’t like all the questions.

SM:

You’re the one who called me, John. Would it be easier if we met?

Caller:

No.

Thirty-second pause.

Caller:

Most of the time I drove the woman, the Mexican, who works for him into town. But one night he called me and asked if I’d drive him.

SM:

You live close to his estate in Crowthorpe Falls?

Caller:

I don’t want to say.

I scribble some notes.

Caller:

He wanted me to pick him up in the middle of the night.

3 A.M.

He asked me to come up slow to the mansion with my

lights off.

I had the feeling he didn’t want to wake anyone at the house. When I got there, he was waiting for me on the steps.

SM:

Was he alone?

Caller:

Yes. He got into the car. The backseat.

A pause.

SM:

Where did you take him?

Caller:

To an

elementary school.

SM:

An elementary school.

Caller:

Yes.

SM:

Which one?

Caller:

No specifics.

SM:

Okay. I’m listening.

Caller:

He asked me to drive into the parking lot, turn off the engine, and wait. I watched him walk across the lawn into

the children’s playground.

At first he was very still. And then, he moved around the swings. Pushing one so it swung out into the air, empty. Then he went around the seesaw, tipping it so it bobbed up and down. Then he went into the sandbox and sat down.

SM:

He sat down in the sandbox.

Caller:

I couldn’t see what he was doing. But it wasn’t right, you understand?

SM:

What was he doing?

Caller:

At first I was scared he was doing something sexual. But it looked like

digging.

SM:

Digging?

Caller:

That’s what it looked like. When he came back to the car, he was hiding something in his coat.

SM:

What?

Caller:

I couldn’t see. I just drove him home.

SM:

Did he say anything?

Caller:

No. But a few weeks later he called me again, asked the same thing.

SM:

To take him to the elementary school?

Caller:

A different one this time. This time he headed out across the athletic field. He slipped up into the bleachers, searching for something. When he came back, again he had something in his coat. When I drove back to the mansion, I saw what it was when he climbed out.

SM:

What was it?

A long pause.

Caller:

A child’s

gym uniform.

Tiny yellow shirt. Blue shorts. It made me sick. I asked what he wanted with it. He only looked at me hard from behind those glasses. Got out of the car. Next day I heard from the Mexican. My services were no longer needed. But I know for a fact he hired someone else to drive him at night. A young guy. He paid him a lot of money to do it. For years.

SM:

Why?

Caller:

There’s something he does to the children.

SM:

What?

A pause.

SM:

How? He hurts them?

No answer.

SM:

Who else knows about this?

No answer. I’m losing him.

SM:

Anything more you can tell me? John?

No response.

SM:

There’s nothing to be afraid of.

The line goes dead.