“The 1978 reels-I’ve got them right here. Haven’t had a chance to file them again.”
“Again?”
He sighed. “That asshole Ethan-you know him?”
“Yes.”
“He’s in here looking through back issues all the time. Pesters the hell out of me.”
“He was probably doing background work on the Harmon story.”
The librarian shrugged. “Maybe. Seems to be an old news epidemic. Hailey has the reels for 1936 over there,” he said.
Hailey looked up at that, apparently only then noticing my presence. “I’m working on the story about Helen Swan,” she said. “I’ve already called her to set up a time for an interview. I’m going over to her house on Monday night.”
“Good. She was married to Jack Corrigan, you know. She used to teach journalism at the university.”
She knew nothing of her, I realized, other than what she had just read- but at least she already had an admiration for Helen from the stories she found in the old issues of the News. I gave her a quick rundown of the News Express staff, at least what I knew of it. “I didn’t get to know many of the people who worked here before I came to the paper in 1978,” I said.
“What happened to Wildman?” she asked.
“Killed in a car accident,” I said. “He was drunk. Family in the other car didn’t make it, either.”
“That really sucks.”
“Yes.”
She let me have the reels for April 1936, near the date of O’Connor’s childhood story “What I Saw in the Court.” I looked back a few weeks before the beginning of his first diary and came forward. It didn’t take long to find it, big and bold across the front page. An A-1 headline, as befit a story written by Jack Corrigan, the star reporter of the Express. I imagined an eight-year-old Irish kid shouting the headline from a street corner:
YEAGER BROTHER TRIAL BEGINS TODAY
58
THE STORY TOLD OF THE OPENING OF THE TRIAL OF MITCHELL YEAGER, the twenty-one-year-old brother of Adam Yeager, who had been convicted earlier that year of receiving stolen goods, the biggest charge local officials seemed to be able to bring against him. He was currently serving time, it said, in San Quentin. Mitch Yeager had been arrested on a bribery charge in connection with his brother’s arrest. Apparently, he had made his offer to the wrong official. Corrigan also noted that the defense in Mitch Yeager’s trial had asked for a continuance, due to the illness of the defendant’s brother. The motion was denied.
Illness. I had imagined a prison fight or escape attempt.
I watched for mention of Adam’s death as I scrolled on, and kept reading. I wasn’t surprised to see that Mitch Yeager’s first trial was declared a mistrial, given what I had read of O’Connor’s account of what he had seen in the courtroom. Yeager, who had previously been granted bail, had his bail revoked and was taken into custody pending a trial on charges of jury tampering. A new trial on the bribery charges was also ordered by the judge.
I learned from Corrigan’s accounts that the charges of jury tampering were later dismissed. No one could prove that Yeager had ordered a man everyone knew to be his lackey to intimidate the juror. Deep in the story, in a last paragraph more than a page in, Corrigan noted that Adam Yeager, the defendant’s brother, had recently died of tuberculosis. I was surprised, and wondered if there had been other complications or if he had been denied treatment.
I used a terminal in the morgue and looked up the history of tuberculosis treatment on the Internet. Effective anti-TB drugs were not in use until after 1944. Adam Yeager became ill eight years too soon.
The second bribery trial resulted in a conviction, but the conviction was later overturned. Mitch Yeager was free.
The large and sympathetic-to Yeager-article on the overturning of the conviction was not written by Jack Corrigan. I didn’t recognize the name of the reporter. The story seemed to go out of its way to quote Yeager on his own innocence. I noted the dates so that I could cross-check the story in the News.
I asked Hailey if she’d like to help me out with some stories about old crimes that might be solved thanks to DNA technologies, and she jumped at the chance.
“Here’s the deal,” I said. “First, I’ve got to clear it with John and Lydia. Second, you have to promise me you’ll keep your files and notes secure- especially from Ethan.” We talked for a while about how she could do that- codes, using paper instead of the computer when possible, frequently changing passwords, clearing her Web browser’s history files, keeping her notes with her-I think the espionage aspects interested her more than the story itself.
I reviewed the stories from 1958, distracted by memories of looking at these same reels in 1978, and working with O’Connor.
At ten o’clock, the librarian wanted to lock up, and I decided to call it a day. Hailey had left some time before.
I thought I’d make another stab at patching things up with Lydia. She was gone, as was almost everyone else. The paper had obviously gone to bed. Only a handful of people were still around. John Walters was one of them. He had just come back from the press room, where he had been checking the “firstoffs”-the first papers off the press. “Got a minute?” I asked him.
“To settle a catfight? Hell, no.”
“Since no one asked you to do that, no need to let the very thought of women disagreeing cause you to pucker up.”
“Okay, what’s the problem, then?”
I looked over my shoulder at the four or five people still in the newsroom, all of them pretending too hard to be busy with things that kept them within earshot. “How about holding this discussion in your office?”
I could see that he was tired and not happy with the idea of a private chat, which he probably assumed would be about the “catfight” after all, but he studied me for a moment, made a grunting noise, and waved to me to follow him to his office.
He sat down at his desk with a sigh and said, “At my age, if I sit down at this time of night, I damned well might not be able to get to my feet again.”
I suddenly forgot everything that was on my mind, because it was clear to me that something was weighing on him, that he had some big worry.
“What is it, Kelly?” he said impatiently.
“Is something wrong?”
“Yes, I’m here on a rainy night long past the time when I wanted to go home. You wanted to talk to me, remember?”
I let him in on everything I had been researching down in the morgue, and told him that I wanted Hailey to work with me.
“Kelly, you told me this wasn’t about the catfight.”
“Well, not directly.”
“You want that little greenling cut loose to help you, though.”
“Yes, as much as possible. And quietly.”
Another grunting sound. “If you don’t mind my asking, just what the hell is the new part of this news?”
After swearing him to confidentiality, which insulted him, I said, “Four or five weeks from now, a question will be decided once and for all-the question of whether or not the person known as Max Ducane is also the actual missing heir.” I told him about the possible DNA tests, although I didn’t mention a word about Warren Ducane. I had John’s intense interest, so I added that if Max was the kidnapped baby, other questions would arise. “It means the child Mitch Yeager supposedly adopted in November 1957 was still living with his birth parents in January 1958. Mitch Yeager will have a hell of a lot to explain. The Express should be ready to talk about the events of 1958 and
