Powers. I got the sense Wallace understood how big this story was getting. And that scared me.
I took the subway Uptown to my apartment, got in the rental car and began the drive up to Hobbs County.
41
"Tomorrow," Paulina said. She was sitting at her desk, leaning back in her desk chair, the one the assistants commonly referred to as the "bitch throne." She'd caught
James Keach referring to it as such one day, but rather than admonish the boy, she merely laughed and told him not to be shy about it. From that day on, James commonly referred to the chair with that moniker, using the slight whisper of a child who can't believe his parents permit him to curse in the house.
The copy was set. The pictures had been laid out. She'd pored over every inch of the article with greater focus than any story she could remember. She couldn't say for sure whether this piece would be her crowning moment as a journalist-in fact, she wasn't sure she'd want it to be-but in many ways it meant the most to her. It represented a clear turning point in her career, and would mark perhaps the first official shot of the war. To this day it had been the newsprint version of Russia versus the U.S. No casualties, lots of trash talk and hidden agendas everywhere they turned.
Paulina's article would change all of that. So while nobody quite knew just who fired that first shot at Lexington and Concord, in the future they could pin this one to her blouse. The Parker stories had been small potatoes.
Going after a baby fish as though people would care. To this point, Henry hadn't been in the game long enough for people to truly care. Like Stephen Glass and Jayson Blair, the sting would have been worse if they had the tenure of, well… Paulina laughed.
A bottle of Dom was waiting in her fridge. Myron's phone number was on her cell phone. At first she debated calling him again-the last thing she needed tonight was another pity party-but ending the night with a good drink and a great lay would be the perfect capper. The end of the beginning, the beginning of the end.
And even though she hadn't seen him in many months,
Paulina rather wished she'd be able to see the look on
Henry Parker's face in the morning.
42
The sun bathed Hobbs County in a beautiful melange of reds and golds. This could be such a breathtaking town, I hated to think so much evil had taken place here. When I parked the car in the lot by the construction site, I took a moment to take it in, to breathe it in. You didn't get many views like this in the city, one of the trade-ins you had to make to live there. I didn't mind so much. Spending my whole childhood growing up way out West, I'd seen enough sunsets to quench a lifelong thirst. Living amid the steel and bustle of New York didn't quite feel like home yet, but it was getting there.
I turned off the car and parked outside the site.
The mall was coming up well. Steel beams were exposed everywhere. Tools and wheelbarrows and mixers were scattered about. I had no idea where I was supposed to meet
Reggie Powers. I figured there would be some sort of office structure set apart, or he'd just be waiting for me outside.
Yet as I took a quick look around, there was no sign of him.
As I walked through the construction area, dipping under low beams, peeking around corners, I felt a queasy sensation in my stomach when I realized there wasn't a single person in sight.
Powers's secretary had told me Reggie would be at the site all day. But there were no other cars on the lot. No discarded papers or bags. No sign that any human beings had even set foot here today. Why would Reggie be here all day if nobody else was?
A terrible suspicion grew that I was alone here. Or even worse, not as alone as I thought.
"Hello?" I called out. My voice echoed through the structure. A chill ran through my body, and I held the backpack tighter. "Mr. Powers?"
Still nothing.
I exited the structure, walked around the exterior.
Several cranes were standing tall over the skeleton, long steel beams lying at their feet. The cement trucks were quiet, side elevators dark.
"Reggie Powers!" I called again. When again there was no answer, I decided it'd be best to get the hell out of there.
I began to jog back toward the car, winding my way around the side of the building. As I passed a blue van, I saw something that made me stop in my tracks. My breath caught.
Beside the van I could make out a human hand splayed out on the ground. As I crept closer, I could see the fingertips coated with blood. The hand belonged to a black man.
The body was on the ground in an awkward position.
The right hand was splayed out above the man's head, the left arm at a ninety-degree angle. The legs were crumpled, one stuck beneath the man's torso. A single hole was in the center of his head, and a pool of blood had begun to dry.
I didn't need to check the wallet to know that Reggie
Powers had been murdered.
I whipped around, looking for something, anything.
He'd clearly been dead a little while, so whoever had done it had either fled the scene, or was waiting for me.
I took the cell phone from my pocket. Dialed 911. I felt panicked as I waited to be connected, every second not knowing what the hell was happening. Was Powers already dead when I called his office? Or had he come here with the intent to meet with me, then was murdered by someone who knew…
Then I knew it. Powers meant to set me up. He knew nobody would be at the construction site. He must have told somebody before he arrived. And that somebody took him out. Somebody who'd begun to think Powers was better off dead. Somebody who felt he'd become a liability.
And when I heard the click of a gun safety being removed, I knew immediately that Raymond Benjamin had killed him.
"Step away from the van, Parker."
I put the cell phone in my coat pocket. Every muscle in my body was numb.
I recognized the voice. I'd heard it that night at the house on Huntley, as this man tried to torture information out of me.
I slowly turned around. Hands above my head.
Raymond Benjamin was standing ten feet away from me. He held a gun in one outstretched hand. The scar on his cheek seemed to glisten in the darkening sky. His face was a mask of anger and frustration.
"I didn't want it to come to this," he said. "Killing is an ugly, ugly thing. If you'd just let it be, Parker, this wouldn't be happening."
"Petrovsky. Powers. You killed them both, and for what? To hide your dirty secret? I know what all this is,"
I said. "All this by your hand."
Benjamin took a step closer. "Parker," he said. "I'm sorry you won't have a chance to know any better."
The sky exploded, a yellow blast echoing in the night, and I shut my eyes and waited to die. When after a moment
I felt no pain, felt nothing at all except the wind on my face, I opened them. Raymond Benjamin was dead on the ground. Smoke wafted from a bullet hole in his back, right where his heart had beat its last breath. And standing there, smoking gun in his hand, was Senator Gray Talbot.
43
"It was you all along," I said, staring into the senator's cold eyes. "You were behind the kidnappings. Hobbs County and
Meriden were your pet projects so you could look good come voting season. That way you could come off looking like some great savior, when in reality you were feeding people the same poison you claimed to be eradicating. You and Raymond Benjamin found children who were born with diabetes, whom you could subject to these sick experiments to rob them of years of their lives. You take them away, then use their disappearances as leverage to get good press, gentrify the towns. The crime rate plummets. Property values go up. In come landowners who are more willing to vote for you. You bring in Reggie Powers to rebuild the town.