“It was exciting. And don’t forget you owe me a story.”
“Whatever you want, it’s yours.” He then asked, “How are you? Is it safe down there, Nicole?”
“I thought I saw somebody following me from the hotel, when I was on my way to Starbucks. But I circled the block and they were gone.” A faint laugh. “Do you teach your journalism students that paranoia goes with the job?”
“No, but I should... Now, I’ve got to get writing. Be careful.”
They disconnected and Powers turned back to his computer. In two hours he’d finished the story and logged on to his private router. All he needed now was a headline.
He thought for a moment. The election would be the first Tuesday of next month. Good. He typed:
The Tuesday Plot: Developer Michael Kessler’s Scheme to Destroy Opponent’s Election Bid
And clicked the UPLOAD box.
At close to five P.M. Nicole made her way back to the Stanford Suites Hotel near Wall Street. Riding the swiftly rising elevator to the thirtieth floor, she fished for the key card and, exiting the car, approached her room, 3002.
She opened the door and stepped into the room, which was neither shabby nor luxurious. The place was comfortable and functional, though it was — this being New York — hardly inexpensive.
She shucked her leather jacket and walked to the wine cooler, in which sat a bottle of chardonnay, opened and loosely sealed with a cockeyed cork. She’d ordered it last night and the ice had melted to a bath. Still, a touch to the bottle revealed it was a perfectly fine temperature for drinking. She plucked out the cork, then froze as a lean figure, a woman wearing a black outfit, walked from the bathroom toward her.
Nicole gasped.
“Sorry,” Cathy said. “Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“No worries, sis.”
The women embraced warmly.
Pouring two glasses of wine and handing over one, Nicole asked, “How’d the shopping expedition go?”
“The kids’ll have nothing to complain about.” She pointed to several large bags, sitting beside the couch. “Mommy got a trip to the city but they got Star Wars and Legos.”
The women tapped rims and sipped.
“I wish I could have seen them this trip,” Nicole said.
“They’ll hang out with Aunt Nikki in a few months.”
This conversation was oblique; there was one topic and one only that Cathy wanted to discuss, but she’d be uneasy about broaching it. Understandably.
Nicole now accommodated. She smiled. “It’s good. As good as I’d hoped. I’ll show you.” The sisters sat and Nicole opened her laptop and logged on to her own Wi-Fi router, not the hotel’s. A few clicks later she found the Web site she was looking for. She swung the computer for her sister to see and scooted close, so they both could read.
All the News
A Blog by Daniel Leavitt
— EXCLUSIVE—
A Crusading Blogger Stumbles
Far be it from this reporter to point fingers at fellow scribes, but some transgressions are so egregious that they can’t be ignored. I have learned from informed sources that bullying blogger Trevor Powers’s quest for the limelight, at the expense of journalistic ethics, has turned out to bite him in his blogger butt.
I’m referring to his piece on Michael Kessler — the New York real-estate developer — that ran this morning in his The Power(s) Lunch. While this reporter is no fan of Kessler and his hardball business practices, even unpleasant one-percenters are entitled to a fair shake by journalists.
Powers accused the businessman of a “plot,” basing his article on facts taken out of context then racing to press without fully checking sources. The scheme Kessler was supposedly behind involved one of the developer’s super PACs buying advertising time supporting the Democratic candidate in the 64th State Senatorial District in New York in next month’s elections. The commercials, Powers claimed, were actually “stealth advertising,” intended to sabotage the Democrat’s campaign. Kessler publicly supports the Republican in that race.
A review of the facts, however, reveals that Kessler’s super PACs have not engaged in any clandestine ad buys; they have bought air time only for the Republican candidate in the 64th District. There are plans to buy ads for the Democratic candidate, but only by a separate PAC, Americans for Equality, which has no connection to Kessler at all. Blogger Powers apparently noted only that both PACs share the same street address, on Madison Avenue, in New York, and assumed they were both funded by Kessler. He didn’t bother to learn — as all serious political journalists in New York know — that the building in which the two PACs are located is home to some thirty political action committees, lobbying firms, and ad agencies specializing in elections, both Democrat and Republican.
Also, had Powers thought the matter through, he would have seen a conspiracy by Kessler makes no sense. The Democratic candidate was no threat to the developer’s business, since, even if she won, any anti-big-business legislation she supported would be vetoed by New York’s Republican governor.
When asked by this reporter about a “plot,” a spokesperson for the Kessler family replied, “Well, ironically, yes, there have been discussions within the family about a plot recently; it’s been in the news, which I guess is where Mr. Powers heard the word. When Michael and Sarah’s aunt, Gabriella Holmes, passed away recently, there were problems at the private cemetery on the family’s Long Island estate, and some difficult excavation was needed to remove rocks and other obstacles, so that Mrs. Holmes could be buried in a plot in the area she’d hoped. But the gravesite was cleared and the interment went on as planned. Mistaking a final resting place for a conspiracy? Well, all I can say to Mr. Powers is: ‘Did You Ever Take Journalism 101?’”
As of 3 P.M. today The Power(s) Lunch was offline. This reporter has learned that Michael Kessler has already spoken to several high-profile attorneys about a multimillion-dollar defamation suit.
Stay tuned. More to come.
“Oh, Nikki.” Cathy found a packet of tissues, extracted one, and dabbed her eyes. “I can’t believe it. You got him. It was so much work, but you did it!”
True, the plan had been elaborate, and Nicole was, in fact, somewhat surprised it had worked so smoothly.
Cathy’s husband, Sam, was the accountant who’d embezzled money from his employer — a Catholic charity — to distribute, anonymously, to victims of abuse by priests. Admittedly, he was guilty of that and was fully prepared to be arrested and sentenced. But he couldn’t handle the searing implications in Powers’s blog, which — perhaps inadvertently, perhaps not — suggested Sam was guilty of abuse himself. This was a bald lie, but one that, once uttered, was the sort never to vanish. Unable to stand the vitriolic response against him, Sam had gotten drunk for the first time in his life and driven the family car into a reservoir.
Nicole Stone (not Samson, as she’d told Powers) was a trial lawyer in California. She had urged her sister to sue for the suggestive posting, seeking damages and a retraction or clarification. Cathy had done so, but the suit was dismissed, as Nicole had feared.
Cathy continued to try to clear her husband’s name through social media. But she gave up her pursuit of Trevor Powers in venues that offered more substantive consequences for the blogger’s wrongdoing.