Providence Rag: A Liam Mulligan Novel (28 page)

Four years ago, Mason’s journalism ethics professor at Columbia had made the infamous article required reading, and it ignited a spirited in-class debate. Mason disputed Malcolm’s point, arguing that it probably said more about the kind of journalist
she
was than it did about journalists in general. But now, he found himself rethinking his position.

Malcolm was dead-on, he decided. Except for one thing. She got the lack of remorse part wrong.

*   *   *

“Edward Mason,
Providence Dispatch
.”

“Hello, Mr. Mason. This is Detective Sergeant Christopher Sullivan of the Newport PD.”

“Yes?”

“Can you tell me, sir, if you have been having trouble with anyone? Have you received threats of any kind?”

“Can you tell me why you are asking?”

“After you answer my question.”

“Some people are unhappy about a story I’ve been working on for the
Dispatch
.”

“What kind of story?”

“One involving the State Department of Corrections.”

“Can you be more specific?”

“I’d rather not do that on the telephone.”

“I see. Can you tell me, then, how this unhappiness has been expressed?”

“I’ve received several threatening notes in the mail, a couple of messages were left on my Prius, and the car was vandalized twice in the state prison parking lot.”

“I see. Did you file police reports about the vandalism?”

“I did, with the Cranston police.”

“And do you still have the threatening messages?”

“I still have the ones that came in the mail. The others were in the form of alphabet refrigerator magnets placed on my car door, but I took photos of them with my phone.”

“Could you stop by and bring the letters and the photos with you?”

“Certainly. Can you tell me what this is about now?”

“Sir, your car fire earlier this week was not an accident. Someone tampered with the vehicle.”

“Tampered how?”

“Someone poured nitromethane into your gas tank.”

“Nitro-
what
?”

“Nitromethane. It’s an organic compound commonly used in industrial applications.”

“What kind of applications?”

“The way it was explained to me, it’s used in the manufacture of pesticides, explosives, and coatings, and is also widely used as a cleaning solvent.”

“What did it do to my car?”

“Again, as it was explained to me, the compound makes an automobile engine run very hot. As you probably know, sir, your Prius runs on electric power only until it reaches forty miles per hour. At higher speeds, the gasoline engine kicks in.”

“And when it did, it ran so hot that it caught fire?”

“That is correct.”

“What time do you get in tomorrow morning, Detective?”

“I’ll be at my desk by eight.”

“I’ll see you then.”

“Fine. And in the meantime, sir, I suggest that you take precautions.”

Ten minutes after Mason signed off, the phone rang again. This time it was his insurance agent calling to tell him that his automobile policy had been canceled. Great. To get back on the road, he was going to have to find an insurer with a high-risk pool and pay three times the normal rate.

55

“What’s in the package, Thanks–Dad?” Mulligan asked.

“Some video.”

“Of what?”

“Of Diggs inside Supermax.”

“
What?
How the hell did you get that?”

“A source.”

“What’s on it?”

“Come along,” Mason said, “and we’ll have a look.”

Three small conference rooms, each equipped with a computer, were located just off the main newsroom. The reporters entered one of them, and Mason ripped open the package. Inside was a portable hard drive. Mason fired up the computer, connected the hard drive, and found seven video files. One was dated August 5, 2011, the date of the prison poetry workshop. The other six were dated October 20, 2011, the day Diggs allegedly assaulted a guard named Joseph Galloway. There was nothing from the date of the alleged assault in 2005. Apparently, that video had been deleted from the Corrections Department’s records.

Mason opened the August file first and discovered that it was in color and included audio.

A dozen prisoners sat in molded plastic chairs arranged in a half circle. Mason pointed his finger at the screen, indicating where Diggs slouched. His long legs stretched out in front of him, and his eyes were closed.

The speaker was prattling about how the prisoners could explore their deepest feelings through poetry. All they had to do, he said, was discover something he called “your second throat.”

“Quite true,” Mason said. Mulligan didn’t say anything. To him, it sounded like psychobabble. As the poet droned on, Diggs never stirred. His eyes remained closed.

After five minutes of this, Mason hit the fast-forward button, stopping several times to check on Diggs. Each time he was the same. There was no hint that he was paying attention.

Mason clicked the fast-forward button again, slowing the video when the poet distributed notebooks and urged the prisoners to write. Most ignored him, but a few started scribbling. Diggs appeared to be asleep.

Fast-forwarding again, Mason found the part where the first prisoner, a skinny dude with a shaved skull and a swastika neck tattoo, rose to read his poem to the group.

My moms, she was an angel. I was her baby boy.

She loved me unconditionally. She thought I’d bring her joy.

But I became a gangster, seduced by the streets.

Now I cool my heels in Supermax

While my moms sits home and weeps.

“Good Christ!” Mulligan said. “I can’t take much of this.”

“Look at Diggs,” Mason said. The big man was hunched over a pad of paper now, scribbling furiously.

Mason hit the fast-forward button again, stopping just as Diggs pulled himself to his feet.

“Can a brother get a beat?” he said.

Half the prisoners responded, and Diggs bounced to the rhythm of their beatboxing.

Some blondes they come from bottles. Some come from DNA.

But you can’t tell the difference till you tear their clothes away.

The fake ones aren’t so bad, ’cause they still have all the parts.

They get wet in the right places, and they know the loving arts.

But real blondes are the best of all. Their pubes are smooth as silk.

I love it when they suck my dick and drink my manly milk.

As Diggs continued to recite, the beatboxing dribbled to a halt.

I like ’em young and tender, I like ’em with long legs.

I like ’em when they spread real wide. I love it when they begs.

Blondes hunger for the black man, their most forbidden fruit.

They cry like they don’t want it, but they shiver when I shoot.

Inside I only dream of them, lying on my bunk.

But when I’m free, I’ll fuck them all and fill them full of spunk.

As Diggs returned to his seat, his fellow inmates stared at him in stunned silence.

“Loved the beat, hated the lyrics,” Mulligan said. “I give it a six out of ten.”

“Why would he do that?” Mason said. “Didn’t he know how it would look?”

“He probably never thought it would go public,” Mulligan said. “Or more likely, he didn’t think at all.”

“It’s
not
going public,” Mason said. “I mean, we’d never post something like this on our Web site, would we?”

“Probably not,” Mulligan said. “But if the wrong person gets a hold of this, it’ll get ten million hits on YouTube.”

“Let’s check the rest of the files,” Mason said, opening the first one. It was a standard surveillance video. Black-and-white, no audio.

An empty corridor lined with cells appeared on the computer screen. The light was dim. Nothing stirred. The time-and-date stamp in the lower right corner said, “October 20, 2011, 12:01 am.”

“Isn’t that the day Diggs allegedly assaulted Galloway?” Mulligan asked.

“It is,” Mason said. “According to court testimony, the assault occurred just after two
P.M.
” The reporters sat in silence as Mason fast-forwarded fourteen hours.

Three guards strutted down the corridor and approached one of the cells.

“Recognize them?” Mulligan asked.

“The one with the Schwarzenegger muscles is Galloway. The tall, lean one is Quinn. And of course you know Pugliese.”

A pair of big hands reached through a slot in the cell door, and Galloway slapped handcuffs on them. Then the door slid open, and Diggs lumbered out. Galloway scowled and appeared to say something. Diggs responded with a grin.

“Wish we could hear what they’re saying,” Mason said.

The guards led Diggs down the corridor beyond the range of the camera.

Mason clicked the video off, opened the next file, and fast-forwarded to two
P.M.
again. A few seconds later, Diggs and the guards appeared, walking calmly down the corridor and out of sight. Mason repeated the process with the remaining four files until Diggs and his escort reached the exit to the exercise yard. There, Galloway uncuffed him. Then he and Quinn roughly shoved him out of sight through the door.

“Holy shit,” Mulligan said.

“This proves the assault never happened,” Mason said.

“That’s what I meant by ‘Holy shit.’ I wonder why nobody ever deleted this.”

“They probably just forgot about it.” Mason said. “They had no reason to think it would get out.”

“Is there any video from the 2005 assault?” Mulligan asked.

“Apparently not. My source told me they usually delete the video files after five years.”

“Doesn’t really matter,” Mulligan said. “You’ve made your case.”

“I’m going to look at all the rest of the video,” Mason said. “Just to make sure there isn’t anything else interesting on it. After that, I’ll write my story.”

“It might be better if you didn’t.”

“I disagree.”

“Think Lomax will publish it?”

“We’ll know soon enough.”

56

“Aw, shit,” Lomax said.

“Yeah,” Mulligan said.

“Any chance the kid got it wrong?”

“No. He’s done a brilliant job on this.”

Lomax removed his glasses and rubbed his eyes with the back of his hand.

“Guess I’ve got a big decision to make.”

“You do.”

“If I kill the story, the publisher might back me up,” Lomax said. “He’s never second-guessed me before, so I doubt he’ll start now. Not even for his son.”

“So kill it,” Mulligan said.

“Maybe.”

“
Maybe?
Jesus. You want to be responsible for Diggs getting out?”

“Or course not. But I’m not keen on being responsible for covering up perjury and obstruction of justice, either.”

Mulligan took a deep breath and slowly let it out through his nose.

“Yeah,” he said. “I get what you’re going through. As a journalist, your gut tells you to publish. But as a husband and father … I’m just glad I’m not the one who has to make the call. So what are you going to do?”

“First I’m going to read the story. Then I’m going to look at the video myself and make Mason show me all of his notes. After that, we’ll see. If I don’t kill it, I’ll have to walk it upstairs and talk things over with the old man. This one is above my pay grade. There’s a lot at stake here, Mulligan. If we publish, Iggy Rock will have a field day, we’ll lose a few thousand more subscribers, and we’ll probably have a horde of angry protesters at our door.”

They looked at each other for a moment.

“Any chance you’re going to bail me out?” Lomax asked. “What’s the word on those DNA tests you’ve been waiting for?”

“Nothing yet,” Mulligan said, “but it shouldn’t be long now.”

57

Two days later, Mulligan checked his phone messages and found one from Jennings asking him to call right away.

“Hi, Andy. What’s up?”

“I just heard from Chief Hernandez, and the news ain’t good. The crime lab couldn’t find any viable DNA.”

“Aw, crap.”

“All the samples were either contaminated or degraded because of improper storage.”

“So that’s it, then,” Mulligan said. “We’ve got no way to connect Diggs to the attack on Susan Ashcroft.”

“’Fraid so.”

“I’ve got some bad news, too.”

“What’s that?”

“At least one of the assault charges against Diggs was definitely faked, and there’s a chance the news is gonna go public soon.”

“Jesus!”

“Yeah.”

“Goddamn ACLU! I
hate
those bastards.”

“Yeah … about that … I haven’t been entirely straight with you.”

“What are you talking about?”

“It’s not the ACLU that’s been digging into it,” Mulligan said. “It’s another
Dispatch
reporter.”

“Iggy Rock was telling the
truth
?”

“There’s a first time for everything,” Mulligan said, and then gave Jennings the rest of it.

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?”

“I was hoping the kid would flame out, so I’ve been trying to keep a lid on it.”

“The
Dispatch
is gonna
publish
this shit?”

“I don’t know. The brass hasn’t made up its mind yet.”

“We’ve gotta do something,” Jennings said.

“Yeah, but what?”

“No fuckin’ idea. Why don’t you come on over tonight and we’ll brainstorm over a few brews.”

*   *   *

Jennings answered the door with a Narragansett in each hand.

“Evenin’, Mulligan. Didn’t know you were bringing a date.”

“Andy, this is Gloria Costa, a photographer at the
Dispatch
. She’s been helping me out on the Diggs story.”

“What do we need a photographer for?”

“She’s not here to take pictures, Andy. She’s damned smart, and she knows the story inside and out.”

“Humph,” Jennings said. He handed each of his guests a brew, told them to make themselves at home, and trudged into the kitchen for another beer.