Chasing Deception Read online

  “Large coffee, Kona blend, extra cream. Did I get it right?”

  Melissa took a sip. “Ooh. Perfect. Now, how about I type up what I have and we work from there?”

  “Sure.”

  “You want top byline, Jim?”

  “Nah, you’re the expert here. I’ll just throw my two cents in.”

  “Why do I have the feeling you have a lot more than two cents to throw in?”

  “Maybe a whole nickel, then,” he retorted with a smirk.

  —

  She first typed up her notes from her in-person interview with the pastor. Then Melissa completed her fragmented sentences and started to mold them into paragraphs. She would worry about the order of the paragraphs later. Besides, Jim can help with that.

  As she was typing, Jim asked her some questions.

  “Did you get anything out of Pastor Jeremiah after I left?”

  “As a matter of fact I did. I asked him a few theological questions and he avoided a straight answer. But I think I got him pinned down in a couple of areas.”

  “Such as? Like I said before, it’s been a while since I’ve been to church and a lot of the stuff Jeremiah was saying seemed like mumbo-jumbo to me.”

  Watch what you say here, Melissa. He’s a nonbeliever with legitimate questions. Don’t insult the church but don’t defend Jeremiah’s heretical ideas either. Melissa took a break from typing and turned to face him.

  “I already talked about the positive power talk, which sounds more like New Age beliefs than any form of Christianity. And when I talked to Jeremiah after the service, he told me you can ‘connect’ and ‘disconnect’ from God or Satan anytime you want to.”

  “OK…”

  “The problem is that Christians don’t believe you can switch teams that easily. When you become a Christian, you’re supposed to be making a lifetime commitment. Some Christians say you can walk out on a relationship with God, but even they would agree it is not like plugging or unplugging a vacuum cleaner.”

  “That makes sense.”

  “Something else he told me didn’t sound right. He said he saw himself kind of like God trying to help people fix the mistakes of their past. While that might sound like hyperbole from someone else, I think he actually meant it. The last person who wanted to be just like God was one of his angels, Lucifer. God kicked him out of heaven and he’s now known as Satan. If Pastor Jeremiah is saying he is just like God in the same way Satan wanted to be just like God, he’s not talking about Christianity as I know it.”

  “Ouch! Does New Creation have any other problems?”

  “Definitely.”

  “Like what?”

  “I think there is a lot about Pastor Jeremiah he doesn’t want us to know about him.” The enthusiasm built in Melissa’s voice. “For example, how does the fellowship financially survive on the donations of 60 former alcoholics and drug addicts? Somehow I just don’t believe Pastor Jeremiah can afford a brand-new truck on an itinerant preacher’s salary. And one woman named Shannon said the pastor was dating a couple of women in his congregation. Forgive me, but only trouble can come out of something like that.”

  “Any other scandals?” Melissa noted the interest in Jim’s voice was beginning to match her own.

  “No, not right now.” She realized she had gotten quite zealous and hoped he hadn’t confused her excitement and curiosity for criticism of churches in general.

  “Hey, I thought I was the investigative reporter here!” Jim’s grin undercut the offended tone in his voice.

  “Sorry, I didn’t mean to get that excited. But I hate it when I see a pastor abusing the trust people place in him. It just makes me sick.”

  “Me, too. That’s why I go after the bad guys.”

  They went back to work on the story, with Melissa focusing her efforts on the beginning paragraphs and Jim typing his notes at his cubicle. In total he had seven paragraphs, including his quote from Glenn Wilkinson. When he finished, Jim rolled his chair next to Melissa’s.

  “What do you have for the lede?” he asked, referring to the first paragraph of the article.

  “I broke it down into three ’graphs. I know it’s not very newsy, but I think it works.”

  “Shoot.”

  Melissa read what she had written.

  The pastor preaches in jeans and a designer T-shirt as parishioners sitting in worn theater seats drop their spare change in popcorn buckets passed around before the closing song.

  One thing is for certain: New Creation Fellowship is nothing like your grandparents’ church.

  But for about 60 recovering drug and alcohol addicts, an aging theater in a shopping center past its heyday is their sanctuary, and East-Coast transplant Jeremiah Harmon is their leader.

  “How does that sound?”

  “Actually I like it.”

  “Actually?”

  “Most of the features stories I read are like cotton candy: all sweet and no substance.” Jim stammered as he realized how Melissa might interpret his comment. “Not that your stories are like that. I’m just saying that in general…”

  “You might want to stop while you’re behind.” Melissa was both irritated with the comment and amused Jim was unable to dig himself out of the mess he had made.

  “Not buying it, are you?”

  “Not even close.”

  “I’m sorry about the crack about feature stories. I do like your work.”

  “How many of my stories have you even read?”

  “As a matter of fact, I read one this morning. It was about the college students skipping a regular vacation to spend two weeks of their summer repairing a church and some homes in Mexico.”

  “Yeah? What did you think about it?”

  “I really understood the passion they had for helping other people. I may be a cynic, but even I know we could use a little more of that attitude in this world. We’d probably have fewer Jeremiah Harmon’s if we did.”

  “I agree.” Melissa smiled. Maybe he’s not such a bad guy after all. “Apology accepted.”

  They worked together from there, incorporating his paragraphs into the general story. While the story was mostly hers, Jim was not afraid to offer his own input from time to time.

  When they finished the rough draft, Melissa yawned and looked at row of clocks on the far wall set to different time zones around the world.

  “Oh, it’s ten o’clock. I have to get going.”

  “What time do you go to church in the morning?”

  Whoa, did he just say what I thought he did?

  “Ten-thirty. Maybe you’d like to come sometime?”

  Melissa, why did you ask him THAT? What were you thinking?

  —

  It was Jim’s turn to be surprised. “I haven’t been to church in almost two decades for a reason. God let me down a long time ago. Since then I’ve had some questions that people haven’t even come close to answering. Until that gets taken care of, I don’t think you need to worry about me wanting to warm a pew. Even if they have guitars and drums.”

  Despite his sarcastic response, Jim wasn’t angry with Melissa. Since God and the church had let him down, religion had been a closed subject. And he planned to keep it that way. Jim noticed his comments had stung Melissa, and the unsteady tone in her reply proved his suspicions.

  “I’m sorry, Jim, I didn’t mean to bring up old wounds. Listen, if you ever want to talk about things, let me know, OK?”

  “Fair enough.”

  He doubted he would ever talk about what happened, but if he ever did, it would probably be with Melissa. He had only worked with her for a couple of days, but he found himself trusting her. Jim always had been able to make quick judgments about whether people were trustworthy or not. There were very few people who he felt he could confide in, and Melissa was one of them. Jim was wondering why that was when Melissa interrupted his thoughts.

  “I’m headed home. You can call me tomorrow if you have any questions.”

  “Wait a s
econd. I’ll walk you out.”

  Jim turned off his computer, tossed his notepad into his messenger bag, and they left the newsroom together.

  —

  Jim got to the office just past 11 a.m. Sunday morning and spent about 15 minutes working on the story. It was actually pretty well written for a two-person job. Even though they wrote for different sections, their writing styles were similar, and they worked well together. After making only a few changes, Jim went to check out the photos and noticed photographer Jeff Wang had picked out three pictures. One would run with the Measure B story, and two would be placed next to the piece specifically on New Creation. Jim silently approved Jeff’s choices. While Jim was thinking about it, he wrote a note for Jeff to look up head-and-shoulder shots of Larry and Delores Holcombe. Just in case we need to do a follow-up.

  Jim then went to check on Steve Rhodes, the copy editor working on his stories, just to make sure there weren’t any questions. Everything was fine on both articles. The Measure B story was 13 inches. It would start on page B-1 and jump to page B-5. Next to the continuation of the first story, the New Creation story would run 18 inches, and the two photos would run alongside.

  Since he was in the office and had no other plans for the day, Jim cleared through some of the piles on his desk. He cleaned through everything on top of his desk and either put it in his IN box, filed it or threw it away. As he was sorting the items in the IN box again, Assistant Metro Editor Linda Gallardo approached Jim and struck up a conversation.

  After a few minutes of small talk, Linda dropped a juicy tidbit of gossip. “I heard Charlie Stein is headed to the Chronicle.”

  “I didn’t know it was a ‘for sure’ thing yet.” Jim’s calm tone deftly concealed the questions ricocheting around in his head. What did she know about the columnist position? Was it open? Did they have outside candidates?

  “Yep. Ted said in our admin meeting last week Charlie would be heading out by the end of June. There should be something formal said sometime this week.”

  “It will be hard to fill Stein’s shoes,” Jim said, fishing for more information. “He is a legend around here.”

  “Actually, Nelson already has a particular candidate in mind.”

  “And that person is…” Jim figured it was better to be disappointed in front of a handful of people working on Sunday than the entire newsroom when the official announcement was made.

  “You know I can’t keep a good secret. Nelson wants you for the job. Congratulations, Jim!” She smiled and gave him a big hug.

  Linda had been a dear friend pretty much ever since she started at the paper six months after he did. Even though she was a senior reporter when he was just starting out, they hit it off well. And when she got promoted to assistant metro editor, Jim was the first person to buy her a drink at Smitty’s after work.

  “Now, remember not to tell anyone about this. And try to act surprised when Nelson breaks the news to you himself, OK?”

  “Not a problem. Oh, and I think you owe me a drink this time.”

  “You’re on.”

  8

  8:53 a.m. Monday, June 2

  Jim arrived at the Courier office at his normal time Monday. He was thankful he didn’t have any major projects on his plate between now and election night coverage the following evening. While he had a few investigative pieces he was working on, he pretty much was caught up on everything. All of that would change, of course, after the election.

  As he sat down at his desk, he unrolled his home-delivered copy of the paper and scanned his follow-up story on councilwoman Julie Flynn, who had been forced to apologize for taking bribes from local businesses to ignore zoning violations. Victoria Bowden in the district attorney’s office said in today’s paper it would be launching a formal investigation.

  So much for Flynn’s hopes of re-election.

  In addition to gloating over the fruits of his investigative labor, he also checked to make sure mistakes had not been edited into his stories. Like all other reporters, he was very protective of his work. And when others made him look bad by adding errors to his articles, he let them know how unpleased he was.

  He was scanning the New Creation article as Dan Palms walked up to him with a serious look on his face. The editor usually never had that look before deadline unless something was wrong.

  What’s up with him? I haven’t been in the office long enough to make him that mad.

  “I want you to check something out regarding your New Creation story.” Dan’s tone made it clear this was now Jim’s first priority.

  “What’s that, boss?”

  Dan opened the half-folded paper and put it on Jim’s desk. Jim noticed it was the paper from last Monday and it was opened to page five. The picture of Jeremiah Harmon interacting with a few people at the service was prominent on the page. Dan pointed at Jeremiah.

  “I’ve never known you to make your subjects look better than they are, but I was wondering if there was something about Jeremiah Harmon that didn’t run in your story?”

  “Melissa and I did get the sense he’ s hiding something, but we haven’t been able to figure out what it is. I was planning to look into it after the election. I’m guessing you have some information that might help us in this area.”

  “I do indeed. Ever since the story ran last week, I have been wracking my brain about where I have seen Harmon before. I finally made the connection last night. ‘Pastor Jeremiah Harmon’ looks an awful lot like a guy named Gerald Hartley who went to jail about 11 years ago for vehicular manslaughter in Boston. It was a big story back then. I covered a different beat at the Boston Press-Register then, but the story dominated our paper for a few weeks, so I still remember what the guy looked like. And if you add 10 years to him, he would look a lot like this.” Dan tapped his index finger on the photo.

  In crisp, measured tones, Dan issued Jim his marching orders.

  “Give a call to Paul Mancuso. He’s the city editor at the Press and an old friend of mine. Ask him to pull up your story on the web and see if he can check his files for any articles on Hartley they have and see if they can get you a photo of this guy. If the photos match, watch yourself. Hartley was a weasel 11 years ago and I doubt he’s changed much since then.”

  The Courier and the Press-Register were both owned and operated by All States Media Corp. and the company was trying to convert the old paperbound phone directory all 17 papers printed annually into a user-friendly online format. While a great idea, the computer techies were still working out the kinks and no one really used it. Jim simply pulled up the paper’s webpage and looked up Mancuso’s number.

  A harried voice answered the phone.

  “City Desk, this is Paul.”

  Jim introduced himself and explained what he was looking for.

  “’Golden Boy Gerry’, huh? I wondered where he went after getting released.”

  “How’d he pick up that nickname?” This should be good.

  “Gerald Hartley worked at a small investment firm, and he was making money hand over fist. We wondered why he was so successful, so we started digging. Turns out he was running a Ponzi scheme, paying off his initial investors and with cash from fresh victims. He mostly hit up senior citizens and young couples and took them for all they were worth. So we wrote a couple of stories and the feds started breathing down his neck. Can you hold on a second, Jim?”

  Jim checked the notes he had typed up so far as he waited for Paul to come back on the line.

  “Now, where was I? Oh yeah, the feds. One night, right in the middle of the investigation, Hartley goes to his favorite strip club, gets very drunk and then tries to drive home. It’s dark, and he takes a corner too fast, plows into a family coming home from a Red Sox game that went into extra innings. The parents survived, but their little 7-year-old daughter died at the hospital the next day. Hartley gets a $500-an-hour, hotshot lawyer and right before the case went to the jury, he agrees to a plea bargain in exchange for an eight-year sente
nce. He got out three years ago and disappeared. That’s the last we heard of him.”

  Jim offered to email his article to Paul and asked for the same in return.

  “Not a problem,” Paul said. “Since our digital file only goes back a few years, I’ll ask our newsroom librarian to track down the articles and scan them and then I can email them to you. And thanks to a bunch of journalism and computer science students at a local junior college, the last 40 years of our photos have been burned onto CD. I’ll find a photo of Hartley and make sure you get it. The resolution is good enough as long as you don’t plan to run it too big. I’ll have our photo guys send it to your photo guys.”

  Jim thanked Paul for the help and was just about to hang up when he thought of one last question.

  “Did Gerald Hartley have a drug or alcohol problem?”

  Paul was silent for a moment.

  “No. He was drunk the night of the accident, no doubt about it, but I never heard of him having a regular problem with drugs or alcohol. Why do you ask?”

  “Because most of the people who go to Harmon’s church are former drug addicts and he’s tells them he was an addict, too. It sounds like he’s making up the addiction thing to get closer to his followers.”

  “I wouldn’t put it past him.”

  Jim thanked him as he hung up and then went back to reading the newspaper. Finishing the sports and national news, he opened his file labeled “Story Ideas” and began leafing through pages of notes, fliers and press releases. About an hour later, he was thinking about looking into significant construction delays with a new master-planned community when he checked his email and noticed two messages had arrived.

  Jim read the message from Paul before opening the attached articles. “I read your story. Harmon is Hartley! These stories will help you with background. Don’t go easy on this guy. People need to know the truth.”

  Jim printed out the stories and looked at the picture of Gerald “Golden Boy” Hartley. Even in the old photo of Hartley in his suit, he could see Harmon’s charismatic smile.