Jason Pinter
"You know what they call someone who needs to know everything?" Jack asked.
"A good reporter?" I replied.
"Dead," Jack said. "Every trail leads somewhere. Very few stories simply end. And if you keep playing Indiana
Jones, at some point your luck's going to run out, and some very bad people are going to shut you up."
"Thanks for the pep talk," I said. "I'll take it under advisement." I stood up.
"Where are you going?" he asked.
"This story isn't finished," I said. "I have to go make some bad people upset at me."
I walked back to my desk, happy that Jack seemed healthy and vibrant, but annoyed that he was still questioning me. He had to know I couldn't just give this up. I needed to know why Raymond Benjamin got involved with the Reeds. And if, somehow, through all this he was connected to Daniel Linwood.
Rule number one in journalism: always start with the money.
Specifically, where did Raymond Benjamin get it?
I logged in to our LexisNexis terminal and ran a search for Raymond Benjamin. More than a thousand hits came up. I narrowed it down by adding search terms like
"criminal," "jail" and several others. A few hits came up relating to the 1971 riots at Attica. Raymond Benjamin was named in several newspapers as one of the inmates involved, though none of them named him as having taken part in violence or murders. I scrolled down through several entries, and found one that piqued my interest.
It was printed in the Buffalo News out of Buffalo, New
York. It was an in-depth article, four pages long, and incredibly detailed. It went on record about the horrific abuses suffered by the prisoners in Attica, and how the shoddy treatment was the catalyst for the riots.
One of the most damning pieces of evidence, the article stated, was the discovery by Dr. Michael Baden that all twenty-nine of the prisoners and all ten of their prisonguard hostages were killed by Attica guards themselves.
This was a huge blow to the penal system, which for years had been spreading stories that the hostages had been killed by the prisoners, who had slit their throats. That the guards resorted to lethal measures so quickly and brutally was yet another blow to the system.
According to the article, a prisoner by the name of
Raymond Benjamin was treated for facial lacerations, as well as severe dehydration and malnutrition. When asked about his conditions inside the prison, Benjamin stated he'd eaten only one meal a day the week before the riot, hadn't showered more than three times a month the prior year, and had repeatedly been subjected to other forms of torture and brutality. Strangely, though, Benjamin refused to blame the prisoners or the guards for his wounds. Benjamin was quoted as saying, "I got nobody to look at besides myself, where I come from. Sometimes you make your own choices, sometimes where you come from makes 'em for you. Me, my fate was set long before I had any say in it."
All of this seemed to jibe with what I remembered of
Benjamin. He'd brought up Attica that night I was held in the basement on Huntley. And I distinctly remembered that long, thin scar running down his cheek.
I went through every article I could find pertaining to
Raymond Benjamin and the riots. Then, in a small item in the Journal News, a paper that served Westchester, Putnam and Rockland counties in New York, I found a short item in which Raymond Benjamin was named. It was accom-292
Jason Pinter panied by a photograph, as well. I recognized Benjamin immediately.
The photo was taken at a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the opening of a new shopping mall in Chappaqua, New
York. Chappaqua was a pretty tony suburb, and I wondered what Ray was doing there. In the photo he was wearing a hard hat. And he was clapping. The caption read, "Workers from Powers Construction celebrate. Raymond Benjamin of Hobbs County among those proud of this state-of-theart development."
Right there, two things leaped out at me. Raymond
Benjamin was from Hobbs County. Just like Daniel
Linwood and the Reed family. Not to mention Dmitri
Petrovsky. No doubt that's how Ray met the good doctor.
And second, according to the article, Benjamin was employed by a company called Powers Construction. I couldn't picture the man who pressed a lit cigarette to my skin working on a job site, holding a jackhammer under his gut. It didn't seem right. This was a guy whose job was to hurt, to kill, not to build.
Unless it was a sham.
I logged off the machine and went straight to Wallace's office. He was on the phone, but when he saw me enter he said, "I'll call you back," and hung up. He turned to me, pressed his palms on the desk.
"Henry," he said. "How's your friend Sheffield?"
"He'll pull through," I said. "A centimeter in another direction and it would have been a different story. He'll have a tough recovery, but he's a tough guy."
"I'm glad to hear that. And you saw Jack out there- the place wasn't the same without him."
"No, sure wasn't."
"And how are you holding up?"
"Can I use up my daily allotment of 'I've been better'?"
"Consider it done."
"Great," I said. "What do you know about an outfit called Powers Construction?"
Wallace shook his head. "Doesn't ring a bell. Why do you ask?"
"I've been doing some research on the man I think is behind these kidnappings, and he's named in a New York paper as working with this Powers Construction company.
It just doesn't seem to make sense. The guy I saw seems to be more handy with a gun than a screwdriver."
"I'm sorry, off the top of my head I don't know."
"You think it could be a front? He's employed there for legal purposes, maybe does his wet work on the side? You know, waste-management consulting?"
Wallace chuckled. "It's possible," he said. "But then why would Powers Construction employ the man if he's got a record-which he would have to disclose-and to top that off, he's hardly a model employee?"
"Until now, he hasn't been in any trouble since the seventies. Something just feels off here."
"Do some looking into this Powers Construction,"
Wallace said. "Are they a legit outfit? And where are they based out of?"
"Putnam County," I said. "They've done work all over the surrounding towns. Including Hobbs County, which as it turns out is the birthplace of our very own psychopath Benjamin."
"You know, now that I think about it," Wallace said, "I remember reading somewhere that Powers Construction was responsible for some pretty major jobs. Not just commercial, but residential, too. If I remember correctly, a congressman who recently retired had a mansion built by Powers."
"I'll check it out," I said. "But if you're right, it definitely seems like these might be some big-time players in real estate development."
"Strange times for that market," Wallace said. "Millions of people's lives are being ruined by the subprime mortgage mess. Government's doing what it can to help, but it can't help everyone. You're going to have a lot of foreclosures over the next few years. And that means a lot of business for a company like Powers. People buy up those foreclosed homes, then either gut and renovate or simply tear them down and rebuild."
"Strange," I said, thinking. I felt like a piece of the puzzle might have just become clearer. "I spent a lot of time in Meriden and Hobbs County recently. And in both places it was obvious they'd seen more work than Joan
Rivers. Each town was like a tale of two cities-one old and decrepit, one new and rebuilt."
"I'm sure if part of the town was rebuilt, it's only a matter of time before the rest catches up."
"Maybe," I said. "Even the Linwoods' house looked like it had been carved out of marble recently. When I read up on Daniel Linwood's kidnapping, the family received thousands of dollars in donations, public and anonymous.