“Hey, man,” Worsely said, “it’s not nice to be laughin’ that hard when one of your bes’ friends got his ass carted off to a hospital on account of stories you been writin’.”
Pace got himself under control. “I wasn’t laughing at Glenn. I was laughing at you.”
Now Worsely chuckled. “I did the street-dude act for my sister once and didn’t know my dad was listening. He ordered me never to do it again in his house. He made me feel like a dork for making fun of street kids. But, hey, the way I look at it, it’s a part of black culture. It’s the way it is today, like slavery is the way it was a 150 years ago.”
“It was more like a 130 years ago, Will.”
“Well, history never was my best subject.”
“What was?”
“Calculus.”
“Shithead. You are a dork. Thanks for the call.”
“No sweat. Tell Glenn I said hey.”
When Pace hung up, he found Avery Schaeffer standing by his desk. “You heard?” Schaeffer asked.
“Yeah, just now. How is he?”
“He’s at Sibley. His nose is broken, but not badly. They stitched up his neck, gave him some pain medication and antibiotics and released him. A D.C. cop is taking him home. They’re going to take his statement.”
Pace’s eyes were over Schaeffer’s shoulder. “Did you say they’re taking him home?”
“Yes, wh—Oh, no.” Schaeffer wheeled around and saw Brennan walking toward him, flanked by the police. “What are you doing here?” the editor asked. “You’re supposed to be resting, you damned fool. And while I’m on the subject of foolishness, when did it get to be SOP around here for my reporters to lead with their faces instead of their pens?”
“Aye din start it,” Brennan said, the wadding in his nose making him sound like he had a championship cold.
Pace got up and examined Brennan’s face. “I’ve think you’ve done it, Champ,” he said. “You look worse than I did.”
“Uck you” is what it sounded like Brennan said. Everyone, even the cops, broke up.
“Go home,” Schaeffer said. “We can cover for you.”
“Will not,” Brennan objected. “I’mb fine.”
“Well, I’mb the boss, and I say you’re not fine.”
That afternoon Avery Schaeffer issued a statement on behalf of the paper: “It is tragic when a reporter, lawfully and quietly engaged in the pursuit of his profession, is brutalized by a man holding one of the highest public offices in the land.”
As Schaeffer’s statement was distributed, Steve Pace worked in the Senate’s public-records office, tracking the financial dealings of the senior senator from Ohio. The results were tantalizing and frustrating at once.
Harold Marshall had precious few investments, but he had one that made up for the dearth of others—in the Converse Corporation. He owned stock in the company, and he had income from that stock. How much in either category was only a guess.
In the “Assets” category, Marshall listed the common stock. The declaration of the stock’s value was a multiple choice of ranges, each succeeding range higher than the last. Marshall indicated that the value of his stock fell into the highest category: more than $250,000. It was meaningless. The value could have been $250,001 or a thousand times that. The rules of the Senate didn’t require Marshall to be more specific.
Under “Income,” it was the same thing. Marshall declared his annual income from the Converse stock at more than $100,000, the highest choice in that category. Again, it could have been a thousand times $100,000, but Marshall didn’t have to say so.
The information wasn’t new. Ohio papers had written for years that Marshall had sizable holdings in Converse when he took office and during the period when he’d negotiated for the company’s move to Ohio. But no one knew when the stock was purchased or at what price.
There was nothing in the latest disclosures that carried the story one inch farther.
Damn! Pace thought. You aren’t going to help me, are you, you sonofabitch?
43
The news hit Pace like a balled fist in the stomach. It almost knocked the wind from him. “Maybe he’s gone into hiding,” he suggested.
“Where’s he going to hide?” Clay Helm asked. “And why would he leave without clothes, shaving gear, toiletries… anything?”
“Wasn’t somebody guarding him?”
Helm hesitated. “No. But somebody should have been. He was a material witness.”
“You think he was the link, for sure?”
“Had to be. We back-checked everybody’s schedule. He was the first member of the power-plants group on the scene. Antravanian got there a few hours later.”
There it was: confirmation of what Pace had learned from Comchech and Teller. Parkhall and Antravanian were the first from the power-plants group to reach the Converse engine. Antravanian was dead. Now Parkhall was missing.
Pace’s heart was racing. “You have any problem with me writing this?”
Helm hesitated again. Pace could imagine what was going through his mind. “I don’t think I want you to do that,” the police captain said. “There’s too much that would track back to me. Normally I wouldn’t give a shit, but this is grand-jury business, okay? There’s a difference. A very big difference. I was just trying to keep you updated.”
“You know the rules better than that, Captain,” Pace scolded. “You can’t tell me something and then put it off the record later, after you find out I want to print it.”
“Could you let it slide this once?”
“Clay, I can’t let the disappearance of a material witness slide by.”
“So what do you suggest?”
“How about ‘sources close to the grand jury’?”
“That’s me. They’d finger me in a minute.”
“Okay, who else knows all this?”
Helm hesitated. “Well, of course, members of the grand jury. The Justice Department knows. I think maybe the NTSB knows.”
“That’s a lot of people, Clay. Why would it come back to you?”
“People around here know I talk to you.”
Pace relented. “Okay, how about this? I’ll confirm it with somebody else; then I can say that ‘several sources familiar with the investigation confirmed…’ Will that do?”
“I don’t know. Call me before you write anything. Let’s talk about it again.”
“Fine. But you don’t want Steve Pace leaving telephone messages for you, do you?”
“Right. I’ll get back with you this afternoon.”
Pace called Ken Sachs. He wasn’t in, but Sylvia Levinson knew where to reach him and said she would have him call.
He did, ten minutes later.
“Where are you, Ken?”
“At the hangar.”
“Can you talk freely?”
“Freely enough, yes. What’s up?”
“You know your number-one material witness has disappeared?”
There was silence on the line. “Where’d you get that?” Sachs asked finally.
“I can’t tell you. You know I can’t. I just wanted to make sure you knew.”
“What you wanted,” Sachs said icily, “was for me to tell you I already knew it so you could use my statement to confirm your information. Am I right?”
“Right.”
“The answer is, yes, I found out this morning, but I don’t want you to quote me.”
“My word on it,” Pace said.
After clearing the sourcing for the next day’s story with Clay Helm, Pace drove to Parkhall’s apartment to have a look around. If nothing else, it would provide some color for his piece on the man’s disappearance.