As she inched along, she caught up on her phone calls. She retrieved the private investigator’s card and after some thought, gave him a call.
“Hi, Angelo, it’s Katherine Kelly. We met outside the Flatiron Building.”
“I know. What d’ya need?”
Katherine laughed. “You really know how to smooth-talk a lady, Angelo.”
“Come on, let’s have it.”
“I’d like to have you get some information on someone, but I don’t have any money to pay you right now.”
“Don’t worry about that. We’re both just starting out—me as a PI, I mean.”
“I’d like you to find out what you can about a man named Preston Wilson. A Google search presents his extensive automobile dealerships, and I have information that he lives at Trump Tower.”
“How deep?”
“I’d like to know what there is to know.”
“What’s your interest in this guy, if I may ask? He giving you trouble?”
“No, it’s not like that, Angelo. But it’s complicated. That’s all I’d like to say about it at this point. I have an exit coming up.”
“Gotcha. No problem. I assume you want this yesterday?”
“Today will be fine,” Katherine said with a laugh. “Actually there’s no deadline on this, Angelo. Since you’re doing it pro bono, you probably should work me in when you can.”
“I get that. You and me will help each other. If you like my work, you can refer me business. I figured that was sort of a given when we first met.”
“Thanks, Angelo.”
“You got it,” he said.
Katherine noticed the congestion had disappeared as she got closer to the Nassau County line. She checked her iPhone for directions as she continued east. The GPS wanted her to continue on the LIE all the way to Manorville, exit seventy. But she decided to get off the expressway early, taking Route 112 south to Montauk Highway to explore some of the little towns along the South Shore, many of them with Native American names. She drove through Patchogue and continued east through Shirley, and Speonk. She detoured off Montauk Highway, slowed down to admire some of the charming old houses in the Remsenburg area, and other sections of rural farmland. The scenic countryside reminded her, surprisingly, of Marion, the Finger Lakes, and rural sections of upstate New York. She eventually reached the Hampton Bays area and the entrance to Long Island’s South Fork, and the Hamptons, a playground for some of the world’s richest and most famous people.
The closer she got to the Hamptons, and to the ocean, the more she recognized the hedgerows and the mansions behind them that she had heard and read so much about, with fewer rural patches in between. Katherine was surprised by the swift changes between farming country and trendy little towns or villages. The highway veered northward to Shinnecock Hills, and then turned southeast again. Finally, she reached Southampton, noting the upscale nature of the community: stately colonial style expansive homes behind more carefully trimmed hedgerows and interesting shops with artistic signs and catchy names.
On her right, she passed the Southampton Town Hall and the Bridgehampton National Bank. She found the Twin Forks Press on the southeast corner of Hampton Road and Lewis Street, in a three-story wood frame house with a barn-style roof covered in Shaker shingles. The ground floor front consisted of two large windows with a wooden door in the middle; the house as a whole had an Early American feel. Clearly, this was not the New York Times.
It was only 10:15, so Katherine turned around, drove a few blocks and found a Starbucks, freshened up, and ordered a cup of coffee to go. Returning to the address she’d verified earlier, Katherine grabbed the black leather Tumi briefcase her mother had given her for graduation and briskly entered the newspaper office.
She was greeted by a man of average height with curly black hair, a warm smile, and an outstretched hand. He wore thick horned-rim glasses with round frames and appeared to Katherine to be in his fifties.
“Hi, Katherine. Sol. Welcome.”
“Thank you, sir,” Katherine replied, thinking he looked a little like Lou Grant in the old Mary Tyler Moore television show.
Sol led her past the reception area to his office at the end of the hall.
“You made good time. Would you like some coffee?”
“No, thank you, Mr. Kaplowitz, I just grabbed a cup down the street.”
“Call me Sol. If you were Southern you would agree and still call me Mr. Kaplowitz, but you’re from New York. By the way, where are you from in New York? You don’t sound like the city, certainly not the Bronx.”
“I’m from Marion, a small village in upstate New York, north of the Finger Lakes Region and south of Lake Ontario.”
“I know where it is.”
“I was inspired reading your biography. It’s one of the reasons I’m here.”
“What are the other reasons?”
“I’m eager to start my career, and I need money. I have an internship offer from a highly ranked magazine in Washington, D.C., and the chance to work in the nation’s capital would be great, but frankly, I’d prefer a tougher challenge. Besides, I can’t live on a thousand dollars a month, and my research indicates that my chances of being allowed to run with a good story in today’s economic and journalistic environment, before I have proven myself as a reporter, are slim to none. I’m impatient and eager to be given a real chance to show what I know I can do.”
Sol pushed his chair back and went to a credenza where he poured himself some coffee. He looked at Katherine to see if she had changed her mind about coffee, and she shook her head.
“Your assessment of the industry is correct,” he explained. “Major daily papers are folding, with literally thousands of journalists losing their jobs. Investigative reporting is no longer seen as a good investment. Papers can’t afford to take the risk. They’re under immense pressure to cut back on print and shift their focus to the Web. I worry about how discouraged our young people are not finding jobs—the whole jobless issue,” Sol said.
Katherine nodded in agreement. “I’ve talked with journalists-to-be in and out of Fletcher, and many of them are worried not only about whether they will get a job or have to freelance, but if they do get a job, how little they’ll be paid, the way their pay will be calculated, how long their jobs will last, and whether their pay will be based on page views or other metrics.”
“Yes. So let me tell you a bit about the Twin Forks Press. Fortunately, I had the money and the desire to make the investment. It also helped to be connected to the Northeast Print and Media Group.”
“For me, this really comes down to security or opportunity,” Katherine said.
“Which do you choose?” Sol asked.
“It’s a false choice. I have to be practical and live with reality, but if I’m given a chance and enough money to live on, I’ll forego security in favor of expanded opportunity.”
Katherine and Sol talked for a few more minutes about issues in newspaper management, before he invited her to stay for lunch. They walked west on Hampton Road a few blocks to the Fish Tank, a charming little restaurant featuring a large tank filled with live lobsters.
As they entered Katherine took in the delicious aroma of fresh seafood cooking. Several diners, she saw, were enjoying steamed clams and crab legs. She could not resist having a closer look at the lobsters.
“This place is an institution in Southampton,” Sol said. “Owned and run by the same family for three generations. I was introduced to it by Donald Louchheim shortly after he bought the Southampton Press in 1971 at the age of thirty-four. He is one of my heroes. It’s sort of like a senior law partner, tired of dealing with all the management issues in a huge firm, throwing away the support system and following his romantic dream to practice his way.”
“And that’s you, too—why you bought the Twin Forks Press?”
Their waitress brought water to the table, interrupted their conversation, and took their orders. Katherine was tempted to have the lobster but settled for the crab sandwich.
Sol ordered flounder and then continued.
“Yes. At some point, the idea of being an editor and publisher and having the ability to decide what stories were truly worth pursuing, aside from the anticipated reader reaction, seemed more meaningful to me. Fortunately, I had enough money to not only purchase the Press and fund the operations, but to take the inherent risk of developing and following through with stories whether the subjects liked it or not.”
“The inherent risk of telling the truth?” Katherine asked. “Such as being sued?”
“All of that. We’re in the business of the truth, and we’re being challenged more every day.”
“I understand,” Katherine said.
“I was intrigued reading your story, particularly your description of what your mentor, Simpson, asked you to write about— the influence of someone outside your family on a family member—and why. Do you agree with him that you are holding back and need to learn how to find the emotional core of the story?”
“No. I thought he was off his tree,” Katherine said with a laugh. “But I’m taking it seriously, because I respect him and there probably has been some holding back. It’s all about balance. I’m working on it.”
Sol smiled and seemed to approve. He asked more questions about Katherine’s master’s program, probing in detail about her Medicare/Medicaid fraud project and how she’d gotten her sources to talk. They finished lunch, Sol paid the bill, and they returned to his office and took seats in the conference room.
Katherine peppered Sol with her own nuanced questions about himself, his family, his newspaper days, the history of the Press, and his acquisition of it. Sol patiently answered each of her questions and told Katherine his own story, the stuff not in his biography, including what led up to his winning the Pulitzer Prize. He talked about his family, his upbringing first on Long Island and then in Palm Beach, Florida, about his wife, Rachel, and their two children, Sandra and John. Katherine took notes as fast as she could write.
The more Sol talked, the deeper Katherine drilled. She wanted to know as much as she could about the Twin Forks Press and his relationship to it, its circulation, how many people were employed, what they did, and specifics about the relationship with the media group, economically, control-wise, and otherwise. She’d heard plenty of stories from graduates about the difficulty of finding a job in journalism that would provide sufficient pay and security and knew from her research the pressure the print medium was under. She was reassured to learn how large and well-staffed this weekly was—and well-funded.
For his part, Sol inquired in equal depth about Katherine’s background, Marion, what it was like growing up there, what she did, who she did it with, what she liked, what she didn’t, how she felt about her undergraduate studies, and how she felt about living in New York City, having been raised in such a small village.
“I’ve never been to Marion, New York,” he admitted, “although I am aware of it. Coincidentally, we have an East Marion on the North Fork, just a few miles away.”
Their conversation continued, thorough on both sides, never missing a beat—at least until Sol noted, “In all of your discussion about your mother and grandfather, I don’t recall you saying anything about your father.”
“I didn’t,” Katherine said. “That’s a complicated subject, Sol. Do you feel it’s necessary for me to go into it at this point?”
After a considerable pause, Sol looked straight at Katherine. “No, I don’t,” he said. “You’ve been frank and open with me about your situation, what you want, and where you’d like to go. I appreciate your coming down here so quickly and spending this time with me. As I see it, investigative journalism is more than a business. It’s an insatiable, never-ending pursuit of the truth. That path can be arduous, and even painful, requiring at times, enormous discipline.”
Katherine decided to simply listen and not say a word. She waited.
“I’ve talked to and read e-mails from a number of candidates who have responded to my ad,” said Sol. “You told me on the telephone that you had the qualities and skill-sets I was looking for. I agree.”
Katherine nodded modestly in thanks. Again she held her silence, her heart beating so loud in her ears that she was sure Sol could hear it across the table. So far, so good—he was saying the right things. She was in the middle of crossing her fingers, mentally, for a phone call back, when Sol Kaplowitz said the words she almost couldn’t believe she’d heard. “I’ll pay you three thousand a month and cover your moving and business expenses, Katherine. And I have an assignment in mind that should be just the challenge you’re looking for.”
“That sounds interesting. And what about work hours?”
“Long and unpredictable,” Sol said. “Why don’t you go back to New York, think about my offer, and let me know by Monday?”
Katherine knew she’d done all the thinking she needed. “I’ll tell you what I’d like to do, Sol. I’d like to go back to my apartment, find a way to get out of my lease, pack my things, go to Marion—my Marion—spend a few days with my mother and grandfather, find an apartment I can afford, move to Southampton, get settled, enjoy Memorial Day, and the day after go to work for the Twin Forks Press. How do you feel about that?”
Sol considered that for a long minute. Katherine had begun to wonder whether she’d said something wrong when, finally, he said, “We could use the help now, but three weeks isn’t a deal breaker. I can use that time to remodel a little. So, I feel good about that.” He came around his desk and gave Katherine a warm hug. “Really good. Welcome aboard. Let me know if you need help with anything and have a safe trip home.”
“Thank you, Sol,” said Katherine. “I feel good about it, too.”