“I think it’s great radio,” she said without hesitating. It was the answer she thought he wanted to hear.
“No, that’s not what I mean. What do you think about the situation?”
Denise’s instincts told her to fall into a defensive mode, justifying her decision to talk with Nathan on the air. But she opted to hold back instead; to feel out Dorfman’s purpose for calling. “If you’re asking me if I think he’s telling the truth, the answer is, yes, I do.”
“And why do you think that? There’s an awful lot of people out there who don’t agree with you.”
“With all due respect, Ron, those people haven’t been calling our station.”
“Trust me on this, Denise. There are people, and then there are people. The ones who wear badges don’t agree with you, and they’re making their positions to that effect very well known here in New York.” There was nothing at all adversarial in his voice. “Now, please, tell me why you believe the young man’s story.”
Denise looked to Enrique, who, of course, had no idea what was being said. How do you answer a question like why? How do you sum up a feeling, an intuition, in a way that would make sense to the head of a seven- hundred-million-dollar corporation? Put in the same situation, a child would respond with the most honest answer of all: “Because.” But that wasn’t the kind of answer Ron was looking for, was it? She shrugged and stammered a bit as she tried to find the words.
“That’s a tough question to answer, Ron,” she tried, hoping for a reprieve.
“I understand. Take your time.”
He was not going to let her off the hook. “Pardon me for being so unscientific,” she said at last, “but the main reason I believe him is because I have kids around the same age, and I just know when they’re lying. His telling of the story was just too… real.”
Dorfman was quiet for a moment as he considered the answer. “And if we accept that he is, in fact, telling the truth, what does that mean in the grand scheme of things?”
Denise was ready for this. “It means that there are a whole lot of policemen wandering around northern Virginia scouring the countryside for an ‘escapee’ who never had any choice but to run away. I’m not sure what the grand scheme of things is, but I know where my sympathies lay. Nobody—not even Nathan—disputes the basic events, that he killed the supervisor and ran away. What’s in play here is who really is the murderer and who is the victim. Sometimes you can’t tell that merely by counting who’s standing and who’s laying down.”
There was a deep sigh on the other end of the phone, perhaps a drag on the cigar. “Very eloquently put,” Ron Dorfman said at length. “And I agree with you. I had the same feeling, but it’s been so long since I’ve been around twelve-year-olds that I needed some affirmation from a second source. It was a sensational interview.”
Denise would have thanked him, but she sensed there was another shoe to drop. She didn’t have to wait long.
“A New York State Trooper was in my office just a half hour ago to present me with a summons to appear at the Braddock County Courthouse (wherever that is) tomorrow afternoon at two o’clock to argue against an emergency petition filed by one J. Daniel Petrelli, Commonwealth’s Attorney for Northern Virginia. Seems they want to have access to our telephone records. What do you think about that?”
Once again, Denise was at a loss as to the right answer, so once again, she opted for honesty. It had been working pretty well so far.
“I think it stinks, Ron.” Hearing those words out of context, Enrique nearly fell off the sofa, certain that Denise had finally lost her mind. “You said you listened to the show today. Did you hear my conversation with the policeman?”
Dorfman chuckled. “Yes, I did. And I’d be real careful not to be caught speeding any time in the next couple of years.”
“Well, I think I stated my position pretty clearly then.”
“And so you did. But Denise, I want you to understand what the stakes are here. First of all, our attorneys tell me that your First Amendment argument is viable only if the government is put in a position to compel us to hand over the records. If we simply agree to do so, then that whole argument is moot. Follow me so far?”
“Yes, I suppose. But Ron—”
“Hear me out.” He sounded like a CEO now, his words delivering a direct order. “The attorneys also tell me that if we refuse to allow access to the records, and we prevail in the court proceedings, we open ourselves up to enormous civil liabilities if the kid turns out truly to be a murderer and he goes forth to do it again. All of this before we even try to calculate the public relations disaster that would result from that turn of events:’ He paused a long moment to let his words settle in Denise’s brain.
“So here’s where we stand,” Dorfman summarized. “On the one hand, we have an obligation to the greater good, to assist the police in their efforts to protect society, and to bring an admitted killer to justice. On the other hand, we have an ethical obligation to ourselves and to our industry to protect that which is ours, if only on principle. You can probably guess what the legal department wants me to do, but you’re the one who talked to the boy. You’re the one who got us into this. I want to hear what you think we should do:’
This wasn’t fair! Denise wasn’t an executive, never wanted to be.
She was a talk show host, nothing more and nothing less. She wasn’t paid to carry this _ sort of burden. Where did Dorfman get off unloading this on her shoulders?
As quickly as the protests flashed through her brain, they were followed by the answers. She had forced him into a crack. She had taken such pleasure defending the high ground against attacks from that cop, Thompkins, that she’d left Dorfman with no “wiggle room,” no face-saving route of escape or compromise. And she’d done it in front of millions of people. Suddenly she was filled with admiration for her great-grand boss. He wasn’t even angry at her for pushing him into a very public corner. He was, however, waiting for her answer.
“Ron, I think you might have missed one important issue here,” she said carefully. “I know what the legal department says, and everything you said makes sense, but this is bigger than just our rights versus the rights of the community. There’s a scared little kid in the mix here. Maybe my emotions have been sucked deeper into this than they should have, but my heart really goes out to that boy. I want to hold his hand and help him out of this. But I can’t do that. I can’t do anything to help him at all. I guess… Dammit, Ron, the odds are stacked too high against him. He’s just one little boy trying to fight a losing battle, and it just doesn’t seem fair to give them access to computer records when they already hold all the cards.” There, she said it. And she sounded just like an irrational, overly emotional woman.
Ron chuckled. “You’ll forgive me if we don’t present that argument in court,” he said. While the words were patronizing, the message was not. Another deep draw on the cigar, followed by a long, measured exhalation. “Well, Denise, here’s what we’re going to do tomorrow. I’m going to bet my job, and yours, and a substantial chunk of this company’s assets, on the assumption that this boy is telling the truth, and that he will not, in fact, embark on a multistate crime spree. We’ll argue to the court that our telephone records are private, and that we won’t share them with anyone.”
Denise was stunned. It was not what she’d anticipated. Able to think of nothing more profound, she simply said, “Thank you.”
“Don’t thank me yet. This might be the stupidest decision I’ve ever made.”
“It’s certainly one of the most courageous?’ The words came directly from her heart.
This time, it was Dorfman who was caught off guard. “Why, thank you, Denise,” he said. “We chief executives don’t get to hear things like that very often.” He cleared his throat. “Listen, you did a good job today. I appreciate it. Hope you sleep better tonight than I will:’ He hung up, leaving Denise staring at her phone.
Enrique couldn’t stand it anymore. “Well?” he insisted.
A huge smile blossomed on Denise’s face. “He said we did a good job.”
Chapter 15
JDC Superintendent Harold Johnstone went ballistic at the very notion that Sergeant Hackner would believe such slander about one of his most loyal and effective employees. “I heard what that little bastard had to say on the radio this morning, and every word of it is a lie. Ricky Harris worked at this facility for five years, and had a spotless record. I will not allow you to defame the—”
