His press credential got him into the ballpark easily enough, and as instructed by Kelleher, he rode the elevator up to the sixth floor rather than heading for the auxiliary press box.
“Doug Doughty is in the writing room watching on TV,” Kelleher told him when he arrived. “The wireless works better back there for some reason, and he’s got to file his whole story as soon as the game’s over. You can sit with me.”
That sounded good to Stevie, but the Nationals press box was so high up the players looked tiny. Kelleher had mentioned to him that Stan Kasten, the Nationals’ president, had told him the only reason it wasn’t higher was because it was already at the top of the stadium. Doughty probably had a better view on TV.
The game had been back and forth all night, but as soon as Stevie settled in to watch, Big Papi slammed a three-run homer and blew it open. Stevie noticed more than a few cheers when Ortiz hit the home run. Clearly, a fair number of Red Sox fans had gotten their hands on tickets-even in Washington.
Stevie kept glancing at the TV monitor next to his seat during the ninth, which seemed to go on forever because Jonathan Papelbon, the Red Sox’s closer, insisted on walking two hitters just to make things interesting. Every time Papelbon threw a ball, the cameras shot to Terry Francona, who, almost on cue, would spit sunflower seeds.
“How many of those does he put in his mouth a night?” Stevie said, pointing to Francona on the TV screen.
“What’s the number just below infinity?” Kelleher answered, laughing. “It’s a lot healthier than the old days when they all chewed tobacco.”
“Now, that sounds gross,” Stevie said.
“Used to be you weren’t considered a major leaguer until you chewed,” Kelleher said. “Rookies used to get sick trying to learn how to chew the stuff without swallowing. Now, thank God, they’ve banned it. Some guys still sneak up the runway to chew, but most go with the sunflower seeds or gum.”
Papelbon finally struck out Adam Dunn with two on and two out to end the game and give his team a 7-3 win and a 2-1 lead in the series. The Nationals fans left quietly and quickly; the Red Sox fans lingered. Stevie heard one voice from the nearby upper deck bellowing: “It ends here on Sunday! No trip back to Boston!”
Stevie had been given the night off from writing, but he volunteered to go into the Red Sox clubhouse to shag some quotes for Kelleher, who was writing his column on what it meant for Washington to host a World Series game for the first time in seventy-six years. He wanted a couple of quotes from Red Sox players on the crowd, the stadium, and if they could relate to Washington’s wait after being part of a franchise that had gone eighty-six years between world titles themselves before their breakthrough in 2004.
Stevie had just finished talking to Jason Varitek, who had said all the right things about the ballpark and the fans and seemed to really mean them. He was walking across the clubhouse to see if he might get close enough to David Ortiz to get a line or two from him when he saw Susan Carol. She was crossing in the other direction.
“Hey,” he said awkwardly. “How goes it?”
“Fine,” she said. “How was your day?”
“Interesting,” he said.
“I’ll bet,” she answered, and kept walking.
Stevie started to turn around and follow her, then thought better of it. He really didn’t know what he thought of the day himself, and Kelleher was on deadline. He waited for the Ortiz crowd to thin-which didn’t take as long as usual, since Mike Lowell had hit two home runs himself-and asked Ortiz what he thought of the ballpark and the crowd.
“Very polite,” he said, drawing a laugh. “No, I mean it. Compared to Yankee Stadium, this was like a home game. I mean, we had a lot of our own fans here. You could certainly hear them when I hit the home run. Still, I don’t understand why they build a stadium in downtown Washington and you can’t see any of the monuments.”
Someone pointed out to him that you could see the Capitol building from the upper deck.
“I’m not sitting up there, am I?” Ortiz said.
That, Stevie knew, would be plenty for Kelleher. He snapped his notebook shut and headed into the hallway. He was about to make the right turn to the elevator when he saw a familiar figure standing-alone-a few yards from the Nationals clubhouse. It was Morra Doyle. Her face brightened and she waved.
“Hey, Steve,” she said.
“Hi, Morra,” he said, returning the wave. He half turned to go when he noticed that she was walking rapidly in his direction.
“Have you got a minute?” she asked as she walked up.
“Actually, not really,” Stevie said. “I’ve got to get some quotes upstairs to someone who’s on a tight deadline.”
“I understand,” she said. She reached into her purse, fished around, and pulled out a piece of paper. “Can I borrow your pen?”
He handed it to her. She wrote a phone number on the piece of paper. “Look, I know you know about David talking to Susan Carol,” she said. “I’d really like to talk to you sometime tomorrow. Will you call me? That’s my cell.”
Stevie had a feeling he was being set up-though he wasn’t sure how, or even why-but he nodded. “Sure, I’ll call you,” he said.
“Great,” she said. She looked around as if to make sure no one was watching her. “This isn’t a setup, honest,” she said. She turned and walked back down the hallway.
So, Stevie thought, she can read minds. If nothing else, the Doyle family was always full of surprises.
Stevie filled Kelleher in on his meeting with Morra Doyle in the car on the way home. He and Tamara had come in separate cars because Kelleher had wanted to get to the ballpark very early.
“My guess is that Susan Carol told David about you going to Lynchburg, and Morra wants to find out what you learned,” Kelleher said. “She’s the logical one to pump you.”
“Why?” Stevie asked.
“Come on, Stevie. She’s a pretty fourteen-year-old girl, and you’re a fourteen-year-old boy. How would you have reacted if David had come up to you tonight?”
“Probably would have punched him.”
“I rest my case.”
Stevie asked Kelleher if he had talked to David Felkoff about his henchman, Donald Walsh, turning up in Lynchburg. “Not yet,” Kelleher said. “I’m not ready to tip my hand just yet.”
Stevie sat quietly for a couple of minutes, trying to turn the whole thing over in his mind. He wondered what Morra had meant when she said this wasn’t a setup. He asked Kelleher what he thought.
“Well, you were bound to be suspicious,” he said. “She’s trying to make sure you’re curious enough to call.”
“What if I hadn’t run into her?” he asked.
“I think you would have gotten a phone call.”
He supposed it made sense. But something else was bothering him about the whole thing. They were riding in silence along the George Washington Parkway. Kelleher started to turn on the radio. Stevie grabbed his hand and said, “Hang on a second.”
Kelleher left the radio alone.
“You know what makes no sense at all in all this?” Stevie said. “The whole David meeting with Susan Carol thing. What was that about? It wasn’t as if any of us were looking for this story or asking questions about it. We sat there at breakfast and bought the whole Disney-movie scenario. Why would David tell Susan Carol something off the record when she had absolutely no idea there was anything to tell? Morra’s different because she probably knows that I do know something, and she’s trying to do damage control. I get that. But the David part I don’t get at all.”