“Whoa,” I mouth the word, and look at Franklin, my eyes widening. Franklin nods, looking almost happy again.
“…but where she lives I’m afraid I can’t tell you.”
I frown. “Why not?” I say over the voice.
“Shh.” Franklin hisses.
“I can’t tell you because-I don’t really know. She and her sister are-” Luca pauses. “Estranged. After Delleton-Marachelle was acquired by ITC, they had a falling-out. Simone never wanted to sell. She said she was embarrassed Sylvie would allow her father’s respected name to be ‘usurped by philistines who also made potato chips and canned soup.’ Sylvie won’t even discuss her sister now. Where she went? Where she lives? I’m not sure anyone here knows.”
As Luca says goodbye, my mind is racing, trying to place this provocative piece into the increasingly complicated puzzle.
“If he’s telling the truth, that means he knows nothing about the airport baggage scheme. And of course, he doesn’t know that we know where Simone Marshal is.”
“If,” Franklin replies. “And that’s a big if. It would also be a pretty great way of throwing us off the track. If he knew she was in Brookline that would be the last thing he’d mention.”
“What is the deal with this traffic?” I say. “There’s not a baseball game here, right? Maysie’s in New York.” I look out the window into Kenmore Square, the tangled intersection that’s home to Fenway Park and constantly teeming with Boston University students, Red Sox fans and confused tourists trying to navigate rental cars. Not one vehicle is moving. And every driver is honking.
Josh is still in class now, but I don’t want to miss his lunchtime call. I’d prefer to have that conversation in private, instead of code-talking in the car with Franklin pretending not to listen. I’ve got to get back to the station.
I snap on the radio. “Let’s see if there’s a traffic report, at least.”
“-atonic River,” a plummy-voiced radio announcer is saying. “Again, state police say they now know the identity of the woman, apparently a victim of foul play, whose body was found in the Housatonic River yesterday. Stay tuned to this station for more details. And now, weather in Boston is…”
I turn down the volume. And pick up my phone. “I’ve got the assignment desk on speed dial,” I say.
“Channel 3. May I-” a voice on the other end begins.
“Listen, it’s Charlie McNally,” I interrupt, hoping it’s someone who will recognize my name. “Do me a quick favor, okay? I’m stuck in traffic.”
“Sure, I-”
“Go to the wires. Look up the regional stories. Got it?” I turn to Franklin. “I’m putting this on speaker.”
The traffic begins to inch forward. There’s only silence from the phone.
“Hello? Charlie? Okay, the Associated Press is up on my computer screen,” the voice says. “This is Kelly, by the way. Now what?”
“Okay, Kel, do an edit-find. Search for Housatonic. Read me the story about the body found in the river. The most current one. It should be in breaking news. Is there a victim’s name yet?”
Silence again.
“Got it,” we hear. “Okay, let me read it fast…Massachusetts State Police…dut dut dut…body…dut dut dut…Housatonic River, foul play…police say no leads…okay, here’s the name. It says, ‘Police say the victim is Sarah…’” Kelly pauses. “Gar-sin-ka-vich? G-a-r-c-i-n-k-e-v-i-c-h. Of Great Barrington, Mass. Then it says Sarah whatever worked as a ticket agent at the Hartford airport. Her fellow workers are planning a memorial service later this week. ‘She was a valued employee, and a staunch union member,’ says airport workers’ union president James L. Webber. ‘We have lost a colleague and a friend.’ And that’s it. Want to hear it again?”
“No, thanks,” Franklin and I answer at the same time.
“Bye,” I add, clicking off our connection.
I prop both my booted feet up on the Passat’s dashboard, then whisk them down after a warning glare from Franklin. “That’s it. I’m done. My brain is officially full,” I announce.
And then my airport beeper goes off.
“You are not going to Logan Airport by yourself to pick up phony purses,” Kevin says. He’s barricaded behind his I’m-the-big-exec desk, arms folded across his chest. The door to his office is closed, but every nosy snoop in the newsroom monitored Franklin and me going in. “Tonight at nine or any other time. Forget the beeper message. As your news director, I forbid it.”
He unbuttons his double-breasted jacket, smooths his elegant paisley silk tie, then rebuttons his jacket. His desk is littered with printouts of budget spreadsheets, copies of last night’s ratings, and two piles of DVDs in clear plastic cases. I figure they’re all video resumés from small-market newbies, any of whom would eagerly take my place for half my salary.
And there may be a job opening after I tell Kevin the rest of our news. Franklin and I have decided to come clean. If Sarah Garcinkevich is just-call-me-Sally, and no doubt in my mind she is, this is bigger than we can handle. We might have video of a murder victim, who she was with, and where she was the day before she was killed. Our jobs are certainly at stake. But we agreed we have to tell.
Franklin and I are side by side on the long, low couch in Kevin’s office. I imagine the two of us already look like guilty ten-year-olds. This may be our last visit to the principal’s office before we get kicked out of school.
“Well, Kevin,” I say, glancing at Franklin. Here we go. “There’s actually more to this. You know the body the police found in the Housatonic River?”
I lean forward and spill the whole story. First the baggage-claim scheme. Then Simone Marshal. This morning’s camera fiasco. That’s the easy part.
It’s suddenly very hot in Kevin’s office. My turtleneck is a cashmere toaster oven. My hands clench in nervous fists. I take a deep breath and jump.
I describe my disguise in the Plucky Chicken, and the purse party, and meeting Sally at the mall.
“I know we should have told you,” I finish, “but I took a hidden camera to the party. Before you gave us permission. It was all my idea. Franklin wasn’t there.”
“But I-” Franklin interrupts.
I know he’s trying to share the blame. But he shouldn’t.
“Nope, it was all me,” I insist. I hold out my hands, palms up, trying to explain. “But now, see, if just-call-me-Sally is the body in the river, and she was an airline ticket agent, that means she was probably in on the baggage scheme. And remember? She told me she was branching out on her own?”
“Charlie and I decided,” Franklin says deliberately, “she was simply taking the purses that were supposed to be shipped to other airports. Swiping an occasional bag for her own use. Instead of putting them on planes as she was supposed to, she just handed them off to a few trusted comrades.”
“And who could prove that something hadn’t happened on the other end?” I add. “They could have been stolen instead of picked up. It would look like just another case of lost luggage. And it’s not like the counterfeiters could have reported the theft.”
“It’s just our theory,” Franklin says. “But it makes sense. She redirected them and sold them. Along with the ones she was assigned to sell.”
“And the brains of the operation was James Webber, the union boss. He could easily have recruited the airline workers who were in on it. When he found out she was scamming him, he had her killed to send them all a message.”
“It’s just our theory,” Franklin says again.
The Channel 3 theme announcing the noon news comes through the almost-muted speakers behind Kevin’s desk. He picks up his TV remote, and turns up the volume, staring at the four state-of-the-art flat-screen monitors attached to the wall beside him. A different station’s noon news is on each one, the sound up only on Channel 3. Our anchors introduce a story about some traffic disaster, showing video of earthmovers and broken windshields and gesticulating angry drivers and people in suits. Kevin seems absorbed by it.