20
DUNCAN WAS deposing William Stanton, the Department of Buildings’ lead investigator into the Aurora Tower accident, in his search for Candace Snow’s confidential source. Stanton brought a city lawyer with him to the depo, Grant Sawyer from the Corporation Counsel’s office. Duncan was surprised the lawyer hadn’t at least tried to quash the subpoena. The Journal’s lawyer, Daniel Rosenstein, was present as well.
Duncan planned to get straight to the point, not wanting to spend a lot of time on this depo if Stanton wasn’t Candace’s source. “Mr. Stanton,” he began, after the witness had been sworn in. “You were the primary investigator for the Department of Buildings of the Aurora Tower accident, correct?”
“I was.”
“And as the primary investigator, you were charged with drawing conclusions as to the cause of the accident?”
“That’s right.”
“What were your conclusions?”
“The reinforcing steel that was supposed to support the floor while the concrete was setting wasn’t properly anchored,” Stanton said in the practiced tone of someone with technical expertise who was used to explaining things to people who lacked it. “Plus they didn’t put in the temporary supports to give the concrete time to set. Members of the construction crew had pointed these things out, and that there were visible cracks in the concrete, which meant it was showing the strain of anchoring the structure before setting. Any construction professional who understood the basics of what they were doing would’ve understood there was a significant risk of collapse. To me it was clearly willful neglect, if not worse.”
“In fact, you thought it was potentially criminal, didn’t you?”
“I did recommend that it be referred for a criminal investigation, yes. Which is now what’s happened.”
“You made that recommendation to the DOB at the conclusion of your investigation?”
“I did.”
“And initially, did the DOB follow your recommendation?”
“They did not.”
“Did they follow your recommendations regarding finding that the safety violations were willful?”
Stanton seemed a little annoyed; whether at what he considered the obviousness of the question, or at the memory of his inability to push his recommendations through, Duncan couldn’t say. “No,” he said tartly.
“Did you have any conversations with your superiors regarding why your recommendations weren’t being followed?”
“My bosses don’t explain their decisions to me. Basically the first I learned about it was when I saw the final report.”
“Did it bother you that the DOB elected not to follow your recommended findings?”
Stanton smiled slightly. “Anytime someone disagrees with me it bothers me some. It comes from thinking you’re always right.”
Duncan decided it was time to get to the crux of the matter. “Do you know who Candace Snow is?”
“She’s the reporter who wrote a story on the Aurora Tower accident.”
“Have you met her?”
“Yes.”
Duncan could feel the atmosphere in the room change with Stanton’s answer. “Did you talk to her regarding the Aurora Tower accident?”
“Yes,” Stanton said without hesitation.
Duncan was a little thrown by how easily Stanton had given it up, but tried not to show it. He took a moment, wanting to be careful and precise with how he phrased the next few questions. “Were you a confidential source on Candace Snow’s article in the New York Journal regarding the partial collapse of the Aurora Tower?”
“I guess so.”
“You guess so? Are you saying you don’t know?”
“‘Confidential source’ isn’t a term I use in my everyday life. I’m not sure exactly what it means. But I told her things on the condition she not use my name. If that’s what it takes for me to be a confidential source, then I was.”
“Did you ever tell your employer that you were a source for Ms. Snow’s articles?”
“No,” Stanton said, looking over at Sawyer, who was busy writing on a yellow legal pad. “But something tells me they’ve pretty much figured it out right about now.”
Duncan hadn’t given any thought to the possibility that this deposition might get Stanton in trouble with the DOB. Not that it was his problem—collateral damage was part of most lawsuits. “What precisely did you tell Ms. Snow?”
“I’m sure you’ve read the article.”
“I’m asking for your own recollection of what you actually said, not what appeared in the article.”
Stanton glared at Duncan, who looked back impassively. “I told her my view of the accident, that it called for a finding of willfulness, which would’ve led to substantial fines and a referral to the DA for a possible criminal prosecution. I told her that Ron Durant apparently saw it differently. I told her that a month or so later Durant left the agency and joined the Arps Keener architecture firm.”
Duncan didn’t want to go too far with this, as it could backfire on his client. He knew that Durant was in fact now doing work for Roth Properties, and he understood that it looked bad, despite Roth’s insistence that there’d never been any quid pro quo.
“Did you indicate to Ms. Snow that Mr. Durant’s conclusions had been influenced by some kind of arrangement whereby Roth Properties would retain him as an architect when he left the DOB?”
“I don’t have any evidence that there was some kind of arrangement.”
“Were you Ms. Snow’s only source within DOB for her article?”
Stanton shrugged. “Didn’t ask, and I’m sure she wouldn’t have told.”
“How many times have you spoken with Ms. Snow?”
“Four, I think.”
“Was that four different interviews for her article?”
Stanton shifted in his seat, looking uncomfortable. “Only one real interview,” he said. “When she called me the first time I said I’d think about whether I’d speak to her. Then I called her and we talked. Then she called me once more for a quick follow-up as they were getting ready to run the story.”
“And the fourth time?”
Stanton paused, glancing at first Sawyer, then Rosenstein. “I called her after I found out I was going to be doing this.”
“You called Ms. Snow to tell her you were being deposed?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Stanton’s hesitation was growing. “I didn’t want it to come out that I’d talked to her for her story. The whole idea was she was supposed to leave my name out of it. I was hoping maybe her lawyer would be able to keep me from having to do this.”
Over the course of his answer Stanton’s attention had shifted to Rosenstein, until by the end he was openly glaring at the paper’s lawyer, who pretended not to notice.
“Did Ms. Snow ever ask you whether you thought the developer of the Aurora, Roth Properties, had a role in causing the accident?”
“She may have; I don’t recall for sure.”
“Do you believe that Roth Properties played any role?”
“I couldn’t say.”
Duncan was a little surprised by this. “Why not?”
“DOB looks at what causes an accident from a physical point of view. A developer would pretty much never play a direct part in that sense.”
“So you didn’t investigate whether Roth Properties possibly had a role in the accident?”
“That’s something the DA would look into, if anyone.”
“I take it then that you never suggested to Ms. Snow that Roth Properties was responsible for the accident?”
“No,” Stanton said. “And I don’t think any of the quotes in the article suggest otherwise.”
“If Roth Properties wasn’t responsible, why would they seek to derail the investigation?”
“Objection,” Sawyer said. “Calls for speculation.”
“An investigation generally slows down work at the construction site, which in turn costs the developer money,” Stanton said. “So there’s that.”
Duncan figured he’d pretty much gotten what he was going to get. All that was left was due diligence, making sure Stanton wouldn’t make some kind of surprise concession regarding the article’s accuracy. Duncan entered a copy of the Journal article as an exhibit and proceeded to walk Stanton through it, checking whether there was anything in it he’d disown. As expected, there wasn’t: Stanton agreed that he was the unnamed source for the most damning quotes, and that they were accurate statements of his view of the accident.
After Duncan was finished asking questions, Rosenstein took his turn, devoting his time to gilding the lily—establishing that Stanton considered the article to be accurate based on his inside knowledge of the investigation into the accident. As Duncan had feared, uncovering Candace’s confidential source had come at the cost of that source fully backing up her article.
Duncan went back to his office after the deposition, unable to cast off a feeling of failure. Blake had understood that outing the reporter’s source would likely tank their case, but had instructed him to go ahead regardless. Why? Duncan couldn’t answer. He couldn’t see the whole picture; that much was clear. It was a feeling he was having more and more.