The federal agent and I sat there in a restaurant booth in Charlotte drinking coffee, smoking cigarettes, and getting nowhere.
I was an investigative reporter and he and I were, in effect, working the same story. He wanted to help me, but he was afraid, and for good reason. He risked a fine and imprisonment if he got caught answering my questions.
We talked in generalities, we swapped sea stories, we danced around the bribe I knew he knew all about. But each time I asked him about the case, he drew back. We talked for an hour or so, and I knew I had lost him.
The agent sitting across from me knew things I needed to know. But he wasn’t telling.
Then he mentioned his fascination with an Ouija board. Sometimes he messed around with one. A small light flicked on in my head. I asked him, “If I could ask your Ouija board if one of those contractors had paid a bribe what would your Ouija board say?
“Yes,” he replied, just as calmly as you please.
So that was it. He would answer any question I asked “Yes” or “No” as long as I posed the question to his Ouija board.
Friday: Patient No. 1