“Thanks, David,” Franklin says, zipping on his khaki parka. He takes his carefully folded black gloves out of a side pocket. “Obviously this is just for research. We won’t use this photo in our story.”
Chernin is holding the printed picture in both hands. Then, with one swift motion, he crumples it, shaking his head. He crams the wad of paper into his pants pocket.
“No,” he says. “I can’t let you have it.”
“Seven, four, two, F, Y, six,” I say as the elevator doors close behind us. I dig for my notebook. Of course I memorized the license number. I’m sure Franklin did, too. “Regular Massachusetts passenger plate. With a sticker saying he’s due for a new one next July. Is that what you got, too, Franko?”
“Yes, exactly.” Franklin hits the button for lobby. “And there was a decal for Hallinan Motors. That car dealer. Guess your Mr. Chernin got cold feet.”
“Or maybe he simply figured we’d remember the plate and make a public-records request for it. He knows the number’s all we really need. Now he can deny he gave it to us. Plus, no one can make what’s already happened un-happen. That’s a secret no one can keep. Toll violations are clearly public record. And we’re the public. It’s all good.”
I tuck my notebook and pen away as the elevator door opens and deposits us in the food court. J.T. is at a corner table. Happily, he’s alone.
My cell phone suddenly trills the voice mail-message signal. I flip open the phone, tap in my code. Message from Josh that must have come in while we were upstairs. This office building is a notorious dead zone.
“Franko, go tell J.T. the scoop, okay? And if you get lunch, will you order me a salad? No onions and no croutons. It’s already three. I’m starving. And maybe call the registry and ask for records of that Mustang violation. I’ve gotta call Josh, but we might as well get the show on the road. And we’ve got to follow up on the recalled cars.”
Pushing through the revolving door out of the food court, I stand in the cold vestibule of the building, looking past the doors onto the darkening afternoon. Tremont Street bustles with swaddled pedestrians. A double-long city bus wheezes up to the curb. Snow-booted workers stretch over a gray pool of curbside slush to clamber inside. A man in a Yankees cap hops on just as the bus lumbers away.
New York. The words are a taunting mental billboard. Ten years ago, five, I’d have moved to the big time in a heartbeat. Now, I admit, I’m avoiding the decision.
“Sweetheart?” I say as Josh finally answers the phone. The signal is crackly, but I’ll persevere. I feel my eyes narrow, blocking out everything but my fiancé’s voice. Winter-wrapped downtown Boston fades as I listen through the static, intent. I’m surprised beyond surprise.
“She’s-what?”
Chapter Six
The plastic crime-scene tape loops around the three old maple trees in front of Dorothy Wirt’s home, garish black and yellow fluttering in the afternoon chill. Two Brookline police cars, front wheels on the curb and rear wheels on the street, cordon off the sidewalk. Their sirens are silent, but spinning blue lights reflect, harsh and unnatural, on the snow. Four black-jacketed officers stand sentinel, blowing into their hands, their breath puffing white. An ambulance, rear doors toward the garage and a uniformed EMT beside it, blocks the driveway. The garage door is closed. The front door is closed. No one is hurrying. But me.
I trot toward the murmuring knot of onlookers, my mind racing for explanations, scanning for a familiar navy wool overcoat. Josh turns, sees me, just as I get close enough. A blue light flashes across his face.
“So it’s true. Is it true? I got here fast as I could,” I whisper, tucking both arms through the crook of his elbow. I look around. “Penny?”
“She’s home with Annie. The kids don’t know yet.”
“Who’s here?”
“The Head’s inside, so’s Dorothy’s younger sister, Millie. She’s just back from a business trip. What a horrible-they live together. Lived.”
His face is red from the cold. His eyes are also red. He stops, shakes his head.
“Anyway, Alethia found her. Espinosa, the dean of girls? Remember? In the garage. In her car. When Dorothy didn’t arrive for work at Bexter this morning, we all thought maybe she’d had too much to drink at the Head’s last night.”
I wrap myself more tightly against him, fitting myself behind him, my face buried in his back, my eyes peering over his shoulder, watching the house.
“So then?” My voice is muffled in his navy overcoat.
The sound of metal on metal. Every head in the crowd turns, transfixed, as behind the ambulance, Dorothy’s old-fashioned wooden garage door creaks open, inch by inch. The EMT leaves his post at the ambulance and ducks underneath as the door gets waist high.
The door slams back to the ground. I flinch as it hits. I feel Josh flinch, too.
“She’s inside?” It still feels better to whisper.
“They think it’s carbon monoxide, that’s what the Head told me,” Josh replies. “An accident. Maybe she did have too much brandy. Made it home safely, then fell asleep with that old car of hers still running and the radio on. Maybe she was listening to something. Who knows.”
Part of me, the wife-to-be, wants to take Josh home and comfort him. Explain to Penny, somehow, that sometimes life brings sorrow and sad surprises. And these are times that remind us to cherish those we love.
The other part of me, the reporter, wants to whip out my press card, get past that yellow tape and see if I can wrangle some answers.
The reporter part emerges, carefully. All the local cops here are in uniform. Certainly, in a death like this, state police homicide detectives must be on the way. And we know something the police don’t know.
“Sweetheart? Did anyone ever report those ‘do you know where your children are?’ calls to the police?”
“I know where you’re going,” Josh says, shaking his head. “No.”
One more step. Carefully.
“Maybe the caller wasn’t targeting the school. Maybe whoever it was-was targeting Dorothy. Personally.”
Silence from Josh.
“The Head said police think it was an accident,” he finally answers.
“We’ll see, I guess.” I close my eyes, resting my forehead against Josh’s back. “We’ll see.”
It’s a good thing my cell phone is on Vibrate. Through Dorothy Wirt’s entire memorial service, it buzzes my thigh through the side of my purse. During the minister’s somber introduction; through the Bexter choir’s Ode to St. Cecilia, sweet and sorrowfully sung by mournful teenagers; during the heartbreakingly tender eulogies from Millie, her old friend the bursar, and confidante Alethia; during the stiff-upper-lip benediction from the Headmaster. I know it’s Franklin who’s covering for me back at the station this morning. But I don’t understand why he keeps calling. At least no one can hear it.
The tolling bells in the historic Bexter Carillon signal the end of the ceremony. A muted organ begins an un-adorned version of “Danny Boy.” Millie, clutching the Headmaster’s arm, steps from the maroon-carpeted dais, past masses of pink-and-white lilies, down the carpeted aisle past carved wooden pews of mourners. Parents, teachers, administrators, some local semicelebrity faces familiar from newspapers and television. A few, mostly students, reach out a hand to touch her arm.
“You okay, sweetheart?” I whisper to Josh. We’re edging out of our pew, waiting as students and parents, teachers and administrators silently take their leave, row by row. Some of the mourners I recognize from the Head’s party. The last time Dorothy was alive.
Josh just smiles, a sorrow-tinged expression I’ve grown used to over the past twenty-four hours. We told Penny what happened. Our first experience, Dad and almost-Mom, explaining the unexplainable. Penny didn’t know Dorothy, of course. But she’s uncomfortable when people-as she puts it-“go away.” Divorce is never easy. Leaves a mark.