Keyed up and fidgety, Peter insisted on driving into DC. ‘I have no idea where I’m going,’ he admitted. ‘But I’m a quick learner.’
Once we reached downtown, following my directions, he steered the Honda straight down New York Avenue, veered right onto Eye Street and pulled into a Colonial Parking garage just off 17th Street near Farragut Square. After self-parking deep on one of the lower levels, we discovered that the elevator was out of order. Five minutes later, mumbling curse words under our breath, we emerged, dazed and blinking, onto the northwest corner of sunny Farragut Square Park.
‘That-a-way,’ I said, pointing out the walk that cut kitty-corner across the park. Although it was only eleven fifteen, park benches were beginning to fill with office workers carrying brown bag lunches or takeaway containers from one of the restaurants, fast food joints or gypsy food trucks that ringed the park.
‘Who’s the dude?’ Peter asked as we circled the central statue that gave the park its name.
‘David Farragut,’ I explained. ‘The first admiral of the US Navy.’ As we circumnavigated the statue, I said, ‘The sculptor was a woman … sculptress, I mean. It’s unusual in that it was cast from the bronze propellers of a sloop of war steamer and not from captured enemy canons.’
Although they didn’t share an entrance, I didn’t realize until after we exited Farragut Square that the New York Times occupied the seventh floor of the same building that housed the famous Army and Navy Club, whose far more elegant entrance directly overlooked the park. The Italian renaissance-style building – now a members-only boutique hotel – had been founded in 1885 by a handful of Mexican and Civil War veterans. It housed a 25,000-volume library, an extensive collection of military art and was home, it is said, to the first daiquiri served in the United States.
Channeling my inner tour guide, I pointed this out.
‘Who needs Wikipedia when I have you?’ Peter said with a grin.
‘Nerves,’ I said, fingering the flash drive, deep in the pocket of my coat. ‘If I keep talking, it helps me relax.
‘Paul and I attended a wedding here once,’ I told Peter as we stood in front of the club, gawking. Cheerful baskets of chrysanthemums decorated iron railings under windows that stood tall and proud, wearing green awnings like bonnets. ‘I remember an impressive wall of framed Time Magazine covers featuring prominent members. It’s a mixed bag, politically speaking. Charles Lindbergh, Chester Nimitz, George Patton, Ted Kennedy, Ken Starr, Ollie North, John Glenn …’ We rounded the corner onto Eye Street where I added, ‘But I suspect you’re more interested in the daiquiris.’
Peter turned to me and smiled. ‘How did you guess?’
‘At the 1912 dedication, or so the story goes, a Major General Humphrey arrived late, galloped up the steps of the building on horseback and rode straight into the bar, where he joined fellow club members for pitchers of daiquiris.’
‘Hooah! Those army guys really know how to party,’ Peter said, laughing, as he held the door open for me.
In contrast to the club, we entered the building through a comparatively non-descript entrance on the Eye Street side and rode the elevator – thankfully in service – up to the seventh floor. ‘We’re here to see David Reingold,’ I told the receptionist. ‘He’s expecting us.’
After a two-minute wait, David appeared. I’d looked him up on the Internet, so I recognized him at once. The dark-brown hair, cut short on the sides, floppy on top, the hint of a goatee. He had a few more strands of gray than when his mugshot had been taken, but who doesn’t? A single gold stud decorated his left ear.
After the introductions, Reingold led us, bobbing and weaving, through the busy newsroom, a vast space that took the term ‘open-concept’ to its logical conclusion. Desks sat row upon row, cheek to cheek, each hosting at least one, more often two, iMac computers. Some desks were piled so high with printouts that I wondered how the reporters who worked there could even see their screens. Television monitors tuned to CNN, MSNBC, Fox, Lynx and Bloomberg descended from the ceiling, which, even if their sound had been turned on, couldn’t have been heard over the clackety-clack-clack of computer keys or the low murmur of voices talking to sources on their phones.
Cables and wires snaked everywhere. New York Times reporters were as hooked up to each other and to the outside world as Trish Young was to life support.
‘This will give us a little privacy,’ Reingold commented, opening the door of a small, glassed-in conference room and ushering us inside. ‘Please, take a seat,’ he said, as he closed the door behind us.
‘So, how can I help you?’ he asked, settling into a chair at the head of the table.
I chose the chair to his left, rested my forearms on the table and folded my hands. ‘Perhaps you remember reading about a woman who was shot in her car at the Annapolis Mall?’
He considered me over the tops of his tented fingers. ‘When was that?’
‘Two weeks ago,’ Peter chimed in from a seat to Reingold’s right.
‘Sorry, I apologize, but I was on assignment at the Pentagon. What can you tell me about it?’ he said, leaning forward with apparent interest.
‘The victim is Patricia Young, and I was in the car with her when it happened. This is Peter Young, Trish’s husband.’
I paused, waiting for a reaction. Reingold said nothing at first, then raised an eyebrow. ‘Is she going to be OK, your wife?’
‘A long road ahead, but we’re cautiously optimistic,’ Peter said. ‘Baltimore’s shock trauma center deserves a whole sheet of gold stars.’
‘Good, that’s good,’ Reingold said, nodding. ‘Go on.’
‘Before Trish was shot, she gave me this flash drive.’ I reached into the pocket of my jacket, pulled out the drive and laid it on the table directly in front of me. ‘Trish and Peter have been our friends and neighbors for more than ten years,’ I explained, resting my fingers lightly on the drive. ‘That’s why she decided to confide in me, I suppose. She wanted to make sure this information got into the right hands. Into your hands. Trish told me that something big was about to go down in federal court. I was supposed to wait to hear about it, and if nothing happened, I was to bring this information to you.’
‘Trish didn’t trust the Feds,’ Peter added.
‘She named me specifically?’ Reingold asked.
‘She did. Said it was your work on that international adoption scam that impressed her.’
‘This conversation is in confidence, right?’ Peter said, keeping his voice low. ‘You’ll protect our identity?’
‘Goes without saying, but I’ll say it anyway. We always protect our sources.’
So, starting from the evening Trish ran away, I told the reporter everything I knew. As I talked, Peter slid photocopies of the newspaper articles about Elizabeth’s suicide and even the rental car receipt across the table.
‘But here’s the real evidence,’ I said, shoving the flash drive several inches in his direction.
Reingold stared at the drive, but didn’t touch it. ‘What’s on it?’
‘All I know is that it’s big and has something to do with Lynx Media Corporation.’ I paused, watching his face. ‘It’s encrypted.’
Reingold opened his mouth to say something, then apparently thought better of it. ‘Naturally we looked at the files,’ I confessed. ‘Who wouldn’t? We’re pretty sure she used PGP and the private Times key posted to your website to encrypt the files.’
Reingold’s head bobbed. ‘Ah.’
‘So, only the Times can decipher it,’ Peter said.
‘We’ve decided to give it to you on one condition,’ I said, even though he didn’t strike me as a man who welcomed conditions being placed on his work.
He frowned, and I worried that we’d lost him. ‘What’s that?’ he said.
‘You tell us what’s on it.’
‘I don’t know—’ he began, but I cut him off.
‘That’s the deal.’ I kept my fingers on the flash drive, as if I intended to take it back, but I was hoping he wouldn’t call my bluff.
Journalistic curiosity apparently won out. Reingold rapped the table twice with his knuckles, swept the drive into his palm, stood and said, ‘OK. No promises, but let’s have a look. Come with me.’
We followed the reporter to a cubicle at the far side of the newsroom, tucked into a corner by a window overlooking 17th Street. Reingold appropriated two chairs from colleagues he said were out on assignment and invited us to sit down. As we watched, he donned a pair of wire-rim glasses, slid the flash drive into a slot on the back of his Mac, and clicked a few keys. We waited a long minute until he said, ‘Yeah. She used our key. Give me a minute.’
Hardly daring to breathe, we waited.
‘What’s on it?’ Peter asked as a series of folders gradually populated Reingold’s monitor. ‘Are they photographs? Documents? What?’
‘They’re photographs,’ Reingold said, peering at the screen more closely.
‘Compromising?’ I wondered aloud.
‘Taken by some two-bit dick with a hidden camera showing some hot-shot politician banging an intern?’ Peter blurted.
I scowled at him until he squirmed. Don’t be a douche.
‘No, no,’ Reingold said, seemingly unfazed. ‘Not photos in the usual sense. These are photos of documents,’ he explained, addressing Peter directly. ‘I think your wife laid the pages out and took pictures of them with her cell phone.’ He waggled a finger. ‘You can even see the edges of a floral bedspread.’
‘That’s not one of ours,’ Peter said, referring to the bedspread. ‘I don’t know where she took that picture.’
As we watched, Reingold leaned closer, adjusted his glasses. He opened another file, moused over the magnifying glass icon and clicked twice to enlarge the image. From where I was sitting, we appeared to be looking at the photo of an appointment book, like the one Karen James used at her salon before her son swooped in and computerized everything. Or, it could be an old-fashioned teacher’s lesson planner. Days were laid out in grids, hour by hour. No year appeared at the top of the page, but there were only so many years when June the third fell on a Monday. An Internet search would quickly sort that out.
I was leaning close to the reporter, studying the document, so I nearly went deaf when Reingold said, ‘Holy shit!’
Peter jumped. ‘What?’
‘Just a minute.’ Reingold closed the document he was reviewing, opened another file and enlarged it until the writing grew so large that even I could read it. ‘Names,’ he said, ‘and times.’ He tapped the screen with a long, slim finger. ‘This column here appears to be clients. Whoever was keeping the book even wrote down their phone numbers.’ He looked up, his dark eyes enormous behind his glasses. ‘You said this had something to do with the Lynx Network?’
‘That’s what Trish told me.’
He turned to Peter. ‘Where are the originals?’
‘According to Trish, the FBI has them. That’s her backup,’ Peter added. ‘As I said before, she didn’t entirely trust the Feds.’
I didn’t mention that I’d backed up the flash drive, too, both to my hard drive and to the Cloud.
I flapped a hand, indicating the screen. ‘So, what do you think?’
‘It’s definitely an appointment book.’ He swiveled in his chair, turning his back to the screen. ‘Women’s names. Guy’s names. Phone numbers. What does that suggest to you?’
Peter, suddenly nose to nose with Reingold, rumbled, ‘You think my wife was a hooker?’
‘Not necessarily,’ Reingold said more calmly than I would have under the same circumstances. He fingered the photocopy of the newspaper article about Liz’s suicide. ‘Back in 1997. She was young, right? Naïve? It’s possible she got caught up in something, realized what was going on and got out of Dodge, taking this with her.’
‘Are we talking about a Mayflower Madam?’ I asked, referring to a socialite who, years before, had famously pleaded guilty to running an exclusive call girl service. ‘And Trish ran away with her Little Black Book?’
‘If so,’ Reingold said, ‘this stuff is dynamite. And in the wrong hands …’
‘Trish would never stoop to blackmail,’ Peter said defensively. ‘This was her insurance policy.’
‘It will take a while to cross check all those names and telephone numbers. It’s been twenty-some years, so people will have died, and I imagine most of the phone numbers will lead to landlines. We’ll have to weed out the podiatrists and the dog-walkers. It’s a tedious job, but straightforward. At the end of the day, it’s a safe bet there’ll be people on the list whose names everyone recognizes. I already noticed a name that could be someone I know,’ he said, jerking a thumb at the monitor. ‘A Wall Street banker. Pompous shit. Married, of course.’ He paused. ‘So, you’ll let me have it?’
I looked at Peter, who nodded mutely.
Reingold ejected the flash drive and physically removed it from the slot. Waving it like a trophy, he said, ‘This is probably why somebody shot your wife.’
‘Everything was OK as long as Trish was dead,’ Peter murmured. ‘But once somebody found out she wasn’t …’
I finished the sentence for him. ‘Dead girls don’t talk.’