“Take this,” the man said and held up a sheet of paper. Carson looked from the man's face to the paper.
“What is it?” he asked, terribly afraid this was the mob hitman.
“A phone number of a man who will help you,” the man said. He shoved the paper at Carson who took it, looking for ways to strike him and wrangle free to run. No sooner had he taken the paper, though, than the man let him go and started to walk away.
“Who are you?” Carson called after him but the man didn’t answer and made no indication he’d even heard him. Carson watched after him for a time and then when he was far enough away looked at the paper. It had the name Tyler Ford on it and a phone number.
Who the hell was Tyler Ford?
Chapter 18
TYLER WAS AT HIS DESK finishing up a story about a crooked land deal that he was very happy to be seeing the end of. It had been a long drawn out investigation, but he had found out what he needed and was ready to publish. There was no sense of triumph, however, and he knew why. This wasn’t the story he wanted to be breaking.
Sarah still hadn’t come back to him with news from the FBI attempt to finish the message and he wondered if he was being left out of the loop or if it was possible they still hadn’t come up with a definitive answer? He hoped it was the latter.
The weight of his cell phone at his thigh made itself known to him. If he didn’t hear back by tonight Tyler was going to call Sarah himself.
As if through some sorcerer's magic, the phone suddenly started to vibrate and Tyler pulled it out expecting to see Sarah’s name on the screen. He was surprised to see that it was not her, but was instead one of his contacts in Washington D.C. who’d helped him on the very story he was filing.
“Hey,” he said as he answered, looking around the room to make sure he was still alone.
“Hi, I got something for you,” Buddy said.
“I’m done with the land deals story, Buddy, it will be in tomorrow’s paper,” Tyler said.
“It’s not about that,” Buddy said but he seemed to pause there.
“What is it then?” Tyler asked, taking up a pen and moving his notebook to a clean page.
“You’ve heard of Carson Lemond, I suppose?”
“Of course, it’s all over the news,” Tyler was getting excited but did his best not to let it show in his voice. “What about him?”
“I know him,” Buddy said and there was that pause again and that told Tyler whatever he was about to find out it was going to be big.
“Really?” he cajoled lightly. Making it sound like this wasn’t all that interesting.
“He’s innocent,” Buddy said.
“Do you think that or know that?” Tyler asked.
“I know it. I spoke to him last night.”
“In person?” Tyler asked, knowing though that he was right.
“Yes, face to face. I couldn’t be more sure about his innocence.”
“Does he know who did do these crimes?”
“I don’t think so. If he does he didn’t tell me,” Buddy replied.
Tyler thought for a moment and then asked,
“Why are you coming to me with this?”
“I don’t know really,” Buddy admitted, “I guess I trust you and I thought you might be able to help him in some way.” Tyler was glad to hear this but still cautious, afraid to let an opportunity slip away.
“Can you put him in touch with me?” Tyler asked.
“I don’t know if he’ll want to talk to you,” Buddy said.
“Well, I don’t know what I can do for him if he doesn’t want to talk to me,” Tyler replied. It seemed clear Carson Lemond was not in on this idea of Buddy’s.
“I don’t know either,” Buddy said, sighing. “He’ll be out of the country soon anyway, maybe that's for the best.”
“He’s leaving the country?” Tyler asked, “That won’t look good for him.”
“I guess not, but I think he’d rather start over anywhere than go to jail here for something he didn’t do.” They were silent a moment then as Tyler thought.
“When do you suppose he’ll be gone?” the reporter asked.
“Soon.” That seemed final to Tyler and Buddy sounded defeated, like he thought Tyler was a last shot at saving his friend and it hadn’t worked out. Which of course it hadn’t, Tyler had nothing to work with here; there was absolutely nothing he could do other than tell Sarah what he now knew (keeping his source anonymous of course) to get brownie points from her and hopefully draw her in closer again.
“I’ll look into it,” Tyler said finally, “But that’s all I can promise.”
“Yeah, thanks Tyler. Fingers crossed he finds a way to prove his innocence.”
“Fingers crossed,” Tyler replied.
EVENING FELL AND TYLER was now at home. Sarah had still not called and he was thinking it was time to call her and fill her in on the Carson Lemond information. He would have to tell her he’d just found out, though. There was no way she’d appreciate the fact he’d been sitting on this for hours now and hadn’t told her. He ran through in his head what he would say to her, making it sound breathless like he'd just gotten off the call and dialled her immediately.
He lifted his cell phone and swiped up the contacts list and then his landline phone by his desk began to shrill. He looked at it a moment, wondering if he should ignore it and just call Sarah, but then he thought it could be her, or it could be something even better. Crossing the room in three long strides he picked up the phone,
“Hello?” At once he heard the rasping metallic sound foreshadowing the voice he knew he was about to hear. It was him again, it was Spalding!
“Hello Tyler,” the
