“You talked about a pardon for your son?”
“Oh, it’s all set.”
“You know he’s going to get a pardon?”
“I’m pretty sure. The governor said he’d look into it.”
“How did you happen to be one of the people to talk with the governor today? Was it just a coincidence?”
“No coincidence. I got a call from somebody last week telling me to show up at the project today.”
“Did the call say anything about Kenny?”
“Nope. Just to show up. But I had a good idea that’s what it was about, the pardon hearing being this Friday and all. Then when the governor said he wanted to talk to us separately, I figured Kenny was the reason.”
Careful now. Ask the questions carefully.
“Did you bring up Kenny when you saw the governor?”
“Sure, he’s my boy and I need him on the place.”
“What did the governor say?”
“Said he hadn’t had a chance to really study the case, what with the problems he was having paying off his campaign debt from the last election.”
The governor’s last campaign had cost him $400,000, and I knew for a fact that he had collected at least half a million for it. Even his campaign finance report showed a surplus.
“Did he ask you for a contribution?”
“Not right out. But I figured it couldn’t hurt to offer one, and he seemed right happy and relieved when I said I could help out with five hundred dollars or so. Right then, he said he thought it ought to be possible to do something to help Kenny.”
Bingo and bulls-eye. I suddenly realized I was on to a story that—don’t laugh—could blow the lid right off the Capitol.
I spent the rest of the short trip into town assuring the farmer, Fred Rice, that I was only interested in a human interest story about a man’s fight to free his son (so I lied again) and getting the details about Kenny’s trip up the river two years before.
It was one of those typical stories: The kid got beered up on a Saturday night, got into a brawl at a roadhouse over some trifle, and ended up crowning another guy with a beer bottle. He’d had similar trouble before, so the county judge sent him away for three to five years on the aggravated assault conviction.
Rice was able to make his farm pay only if he had Kenny’s help, and he was so pathetically grateful for the chance to get his son back before the spring planting that he seemed oblivious to the fact he was involving himself in bribery of the state’s highest official.
As he left me at the garage, I told him I’d like to come back after Kenny was out and talk some more. He seemed amenable.
I rode the tow truck back out to the project and Whine was there alone with the car. The governor had left and it took the best part of the day for the garage to scrounge up parts and install them.
By the time we got underway, we figured the governor had completed his scheduled stop at Severs, so we headed for the next town on the list, Manville. I didn’t tell Whine what farmer Rice had told me, but said it was really important to get the names of the people the governor talked to the next day.
That night, I called Swift and told him that the car had cost $198 in repairs (on the company credit card). I also told him what the farmer had said. He was unhappy about the first, but got real excited about the second and said to stay on the story. We were not to follow Schmid to Watertown on Friday for the pardon hearing in order to avoid tipping him that we were on to something.
The announced object of the visit to Manville was to inspect a new highway bypass and bridge over the Soocatchee River. We got to the project early and, after badgering the engineer in charge, Whine got out on the half-finished bridge to take some pictures of Schmid as he surveyed the work.
When they arrived and the governor was escorted to the bridge approach, I sidled up to Moose.
“None of that strong-arm stuff today, Moose. My photographer is out there on the bridge with a telephoto lens and it’s focused on you, big boy.”
Moose grunted. “I’m just doing my job and what I’m told. You stay away from the governor and I’ll stay away from you.”
This time there were only three locals waiting to see the governor, and I stopped the first one out.
“Did you have a good visit with the governor, sir?”
“You’re who?”
“Wartovsky, Capital Register & Press.”
“Nothing to say to you. Private meeting. The governor said you’d be snooping out here.”
“Will you give me your name?”
“It’s none of your damn business.”
“Do you happen to have a relative in prison?”
The man stepped up to me and grabbed my coat “That’s even less of your damn business, mister. One more; question and I deck you.”
The second man out strode swiftly to his car, ignoring my efforts to stop him. The third person was a woman, and it appeared she had been crying.
“Ma’am, can I speak with you a moment?”
“Oh, please go away. I haven’t anything to say.”
“But maybe I can help.”
“How? You haven’t got six hundred dollars in your pocket to spare, have you?” She got into her car and pulled away.
Whine was off the bridge by then and packing his gear into the trunk. “I got shots of you with that first man and the woman. Did you get their names?”
Of course, I hadn’t but Whine’s question gave me an idea. “Hey, what’s the closest place you can get the film processed?”
“Maybe back in town, at the weekly there if they have a darkroom. But I can’t work good in any place except my own.”
“No time, we’ve got to try to get names for those people.”
The weekly editor was Chester Lewis, and he didn’t get many visits from fellow newsies. He was hospitable and more than eager to help. I lied to him too, telling him we were doing a story on the governor’s visit and needed identifications on our pictures for the captions.
I whispered to Whine to crop me out of the pictures and sat down to wait. He was out in thirty minutes with a set of photographs of the first man I talked to, the woman, and a blurry side shot of the man who refused to stop and talk.
Lewis knew the woman, Mrs. Ned Willink, and said the man who had grabbed me was Thomas Weller, a local auto dealer. He thought he could identify the man who had fled as a George Canther. And he gave me the link I needed without being asked.
“That’s strange,” he said. “Her husband and Weller’s brother were involved in a mail-order fraud case a couple of years ago. But what does that have to do with the highway?”
“I don’t know for sure, Chet,” I said. “But if I find out, you’ll be the first to know.” Another lie, but I did owe Lewis for the help.
We got back to the capital late that night. Whine dropped me at my apartment and he took the company car home.
The next morning I went to the office and presented Swift with what we had. He combed his beard with his fingers for a while and said, “It’s thin as gruel, old boy, but you obviously have gotten a whiff of a big one. I’m not sure how we’re going to handle it yet, but go out and get everything about this down… on paper, not in the computer. Meanwhile, I’ll make sure we get a complete story on the pardon hearings from the wires.”
I went into the storeroom, unearthed one of the typewriters that had been retired by the advent of the computer, and began transcribing my notes and everything I had in my memory from the trip.
I was about two-thirds finished when Swift came over with a piece of yellow teletype paper.
“What was the name of the young man whose father was going to contribute to the governor’s campaign debt?” Swift asked.
“Kenny Rice.”
Swift pointed to the last paragraph of the National Press story: