Night Film

4

There’s something he does to the children.

Even now, I remembered the old man’s terrified voice on the phone.

I don’t remember much about my interview on Nightline—except that I did most of the talking. My purpose for appearing on the program was to discuss prison reform. Much to the delight of Nightline’s host, I veered way off topic, bringing up Cordova. After we wrapped, oblivious to the shit storm about to ensue, I was filled with satisfaction, the kind a man feels only when he’s finally told it like it is.

Then the calls started coming: first, my agent asking what I’d been smoking, then my attorney saying he’d just heard from the brass at ABC.

“You put a hit out on Stanislas Cordova.”

“What? No—”

“They just faxed me the transcript. I’m reading here, you interrupted Martin Bashir to announce Cordova should be terminated ‘with extreme prejudice.’ ”

“I was being ironic.”

“There’s no irony in television, Scott.”

Needless to say, I never heard from John again. He vanished.

Cordova’s attorneys contended I’d not only put their client’s life and his family at risk, but I’d actually fabricated the anonymous call — that I’d walked to the pay phone a block from my apartment and phoned myself in order to establish record of a fictitious source.

I laughed at the preposterous allegation — then ate my own words when I realized I couldn’t prove otherwise. Even my attorney was vague on whether or not he believed me. He suggested John was real but had been scared off by my rogue behavior.

I had no choice but to settle the lawsuit, conceding my guilt of not actual malice, but reckless disregard for the truth. I paid the Cordova estate $250,000 in damages, a fair chunk of what I’d saved from my books and stories, building a career on the notion of uncompromising integrity, which was now in shreds. I was fired from Insider, my column nixed at Time. I’d been in preliminary talks at CNN about hosting a weekly investigative news show. Now the idea was laughable.

“McGrath’s like a revered sports hero who’s been caught doping,” declared Wolf Blitzer. “We need to question everything the man’s written and everything he’s said.”

“You should think about teaching or becoming a life coach,” my agent informed me. “In journalism, you’re untouchable at the moment.”

It was a moment that lasted. Disgraced journalist became cemented to my name like ex-con. I was a “symptom of the sloppy state of American reporting.” A mash-up video of me appeared on YouTube in which I repeated thirty-nine times (my voice Auto-Tuned) terminate with extreme prejudice.

I abandoned the investigation. The night I made that decision, packing my notes away, I was embroiled in the slander lawsuit. Cynthia and Sam had moved out, leaving a silence so total it felt as if I’d undergone surgery without my consent. Though I was alive, I was left with the vague suspicion something was permanently off inside me. It was beyond my reach, some vital nerve twisted, some organ accidentally put back upside down. I felt only rage toward Cordova — neatly concealed behind his lawyers — an anger especially gutting because it was really toward myself, for my own arrogance and stupidity.

Because I knew my downfall was no accident. Cordova, displaying a foresight and intelligence I hadn’t anticipated, had outmaneuvered me. I was down, knocked out, the fight over, a winner declared — before I’d even stepped fully into the ring.

I’d been masterfully set up. John had been the bait. Seeing I was coming after him, Cordova had designed a booby trap using this anonymous caller, knowing, with almost superhuman clairvoyance, the man’s haunting suggestion—there’s something he does to the children—would strike a nerve with me, and then he sat back as I dug my own grave.

And yet if Cordova had been that concerned about my investigation to go to such lengths to get rid of me, what was he actually hiding — something even more explosive?

I’d resolved to let it go, leave it alone, focus instead on getting some semblance of a life back.

But here I was again. I downed the rest of the scotch, grabbed another stack of pages, and within minutes, I found what I’d been looking for.

It was a thin manila envelope. Ashley was scribbled across the front.

I unclasped it, pulling out the contents: a sheet of paper and a CD.