Scott McGrath blew it. Big time.
Five years ago, the investigative reporter announced that his next subject would be an exposé of uber-reclusive film director Stanislas Cordova. After an anonymous source claiming to be Cordova’s chauffeur whispered, “There’s something he does to the children,” McGrath went all Tom-Cruise-on-Oprah’s-sofa on an episode of Nightline. Within days, he’d been served by Cordova’s lawyers and fired from his job; all that against the backdrop of a messy divorce and a highly unfavorable custody arrangement for his daughter Sam. Blew it. Big time.
Just last week Cordova’s 24-year-old daughter Ashley committed suicide. What better reason could there be to re-open his aborted investigation based on notes a half-decade old? Drawing heavily on a purloined case file (a cool three grand paid to his source at the cop shop), McGrath picked up the young woman’s trail through NYC. On his first two stops he collected his investigative team, much in the same sense that a dog collects burrs when running through tall grass. To his Woodward there came a Bernstein in the form of Nora, all of nineteen and freshly arrived in Manhattan from sunny Florida. Next, he added the Columbo-like Hopper, eternally clad in that gray overcoat and those dirty Converse sneakers. Hopper, he would discover, had his own secrets…
