The door slams. Franklin loops the handle of the camera bag over his head and onto the passenger seat. I reach over to grab it.
“Can we just get out of here, Charlotte?” He sounds relieved that the pretense, and his performance, is over. “And then we’ll pull over and look at the video. And you can get out of there.”
“Okay, fine. My body is one big cramp. But what about her name?” I’ll wait for her pictures, but not for her name.
“Let me see. She has gray hair, in a pageboy, just like you described,” Franklin says. “Flashy ring, expensive shoes. Gucci, if I know my logos. And I do.”
“Franklin B. Parrish, you tell me right now. Is she Sylvie’s sister?”
“There was mail on a side table, addressed to Simone Marshal. She picked it up, and looked through it. She had on a necklace with a diamond initial. The initial is M.”
I purse my lips. Trying to convince myself that’s persuasive. And I need to be supportive of Franklin. He did the best he could. “Well, I guess that’s pretty good,” I say. “And we’ll be able to use the video at some point, anyway, to get an identification. The pictures are really the most important thing.”
From my vantage point, still stuffed into the hatchback, I see Franklin’s face in the rearview mirror. His eyes are twinkling.
“Oh, you’re asking her name?” he says, all innocence. “Why didn’t y’all say so, ma’am? She sounded a lot like Catherine Deneuve, but she told me her name is Simone Marshal.”
Franklin’s driving so I can’t punch him, but that means Simone is French. And his description sounds like she was the same person who picked up the bags in the airport.
“It makes you wonder about the other people you see in airports, you know?” I say. I’m now on my back, looking at the ceiling, trying to uncrick my neck and wishing for a seat belt. “You figure everyone at baggage claim was on the plane, and yet, how would you know? But who knows how many times the same person might show up there, pretending to be a passenger. I just noticed Regine because she gave me that card. I might have seen her a million times before.”
“Everyone’s anonymous in airports. Just focused on the suitcases,” Franklin says. “That’s why the counterfeit passenger scheme works.”
“That’s why they call it organized crime,” I say. “We know the crime. We just don’t know who organized it.”
I feel the car make a wide turn, and brace myself on the back of the front seat so I don’t get plastered against it. The car moves forward, then back, then forward. We’re parking.
“Here’s Beacon Street,” Franklin says. “Let’s get you out of there.”
There’s a click of a lock, then the hatchback pops open. My eyes squint as blue sky and sunlight replace the gloom of my camouflage position. I twist my legs around and slide to the ground, my knees protesting with every move. My neck will never be the same and I’ve got polka dots of hatchback lint sprinkled over my black sweater. But there’s only one thing I care about.
“Let’s see that video, undercover man,” I say, holding out a hand to take the camera.
Franklin’s sitting on a low stone wall lining the lawn in front of a Beacon Street brownstone. He’s zipped open his bag, and he’s flipping the switches that change the Sony from camera mode into viewing mode. He holds up a hand to stop me. “Hang on, Charlotte. I’m getting it.”
“Push Rewind,” I instruct, unnecessarily. I can see he’s already doing that. I can also see he looks perplexed.
“Is it not working? Is the screen just blue?” I persist. “That means you haven’t pushed the right buttons. Let me see. Let me do it,” I say, sitting down next to him. I stretch my legs out across the sidewalk and lean in close to Franklin, peering with him at the tiny screen. It’s not blue.
It’s shoes.
“Maybe it’s just…” he begins.
“Yeah.” Not good. Not good. I’m doing my best to stay calm, but tell that to my racing heart and clenching lungs. Years of experience recognizes what’s about to happen, but I still try to ignore what I fear is the inevitable.
“You took a lot of video,” I say. I’m riveted to the screen. “All we need is one shot. Literally, one frame of her face. We can freeze it in the edit booth. Let’s not panic.”
Franklin’s face is grim as he hands me the camera. “I can’t stand it. You have to watch the rest of it. Just tell me what you see. I might have to throw up.” He puts his elbows on his knees, face in his hands. His glasses are pushed to the top of his head. “Just tell me.”
A woman navigating a double-baby stroller approaches, eyeing us quizzically. We probably do look out of place. Two yuppies sitting on a wall along one of Boston’s main streets staring at a video camera, an open hatchback in front of them. One of the yups clearly upset.
The nonstop traffic on Beacon Street, a din of honking horns, clattering trolleys and the occasional siren, adds an urban soundtrack to our increasingly depressing silent movie. I’ve rewound all the way to the beginning.
“Okay, starting from the top,” I say. “There’s got to be something. I see you walking to the door. I see the front walk, I see the door. Shrubs. Swish pan to me. Back to the door. The mailbox. Empty. The door opens. Darkness. The camera jiggles.” I remember watching this moment as it happened, Franklin nervously adjusting his bag. That’s where this all went from genius idea to disaster. “Then I see…feet. Shoes, actually. Like you said, Gucci shoes.”
The video keeps rolling. I keep narrating. I keep hoping. But the picture doesn’t get any better. Or different. It doesn’t tilt up for one fraction of a second.
We got nothing.
“Franko?” I say.
“Don’t even tell me,” he replies.
I puff out a sigh. I wish I didn’t have to tell him. All of our planning. All of our strategizing. Our one big chance. And we have nothing to show for it. Not one glimpse of her face is caught on camera.
Chapter Twenty
“It’s okay, we’ll just move to plan B.” I reassure Franklin for about the millionth time. We’re on the way back to the station, me comfortably in the front seat now.
Franklin’s seething.
“What is plan B?” He hits the turn signal with a little more force than usual. “I can’t believe I blew it. We don’t have her picture. Without it we can’t confirm she’s Marachelle, not Marshal. And your Mr. Suave in Atlanta has probably already warned her we’re on the case. We’re not having the best of days, partner.”
We ride in silence for a while. I’m thinking about our rapidly disappearing story. We’ll have to tell Kevin and Susannah we’ve got all kinds of leads, and plenty of ideas, but so far no way to prove any of it. And our November deadline is uncomfortably looming.
“Did you hear from Katie Harkins?” I ask.
“Nope.”
“Did you call her? Leave a message?”
“Yup.”
More silence. Franklin’s the first to reassure me when I screw up. But he has a hard time handling his own failures. He flips on the radio, then instantly turns it off again. That means he’s thinking.
We pull up to a stoplight. He turns to me, eyes narrowed.
“Did he ever call you back, by the way?” he says. “Luca?”
I give Franklin a quick finger point, then plow through my tote bag. “Good thought. I turned my phone off as soon as you got to the car.”
My phone powers up. And there’s the trill that means message waiting. “I’ll put it on speaker if it’s him,” I say, pushing buttons to retrieve the message. “The call must have come in while you and I were-”
“Don’t remind me,” Franklin interrupts.
It’s from Luca.
“Listen, it’s Luca,” I say.
There’s a buzz of static as I rewind to start the message from the beginning again.
“How nice to hear from you, Charlie.” Luca’s voice, with that continental accent, comes crackling through my phone’s tinny speaker. “About Sylvie’s sister? Her name is Simone, but…”