“Sometimes the cable works itself loose. Especially on newer cars. Easy enough to fix. But if that had come off while you were driving, you’d have lost power. Car wouldn’t have started again.”
Through his goggles, I can read Frick’s troubled expression.
“You don’t want the battery lead to come off.” He gives me the flashlight in the chest again. “Like I said. Lucky you.”
“I’m set to roll, McNally.” J.T.’s voice interrupts the cataloging of our near disaster. “Whenever you say, I’ll-”
“Can you put the lift up again, Frick? First we’ll need you showing the problem to Charlotte,” Franklin interrupts J.T., yanking back the alpha-dog position. He’s put his goggles on top of his head and now looks like a prepped-out biker. “She’ll need goggles. And then we’ll need to show you repairing it.”
J.T. is ignoring the tripod and ignoring Franklin. “I’ll shoot off the shoulder. So it matches the other stuff we have. You know. The accident.”
The accident. Gabe and Sophie. Declan Ross. Car smashed into the guardrail. A rented car. As I watch J.T. roll off a few shots of Frick puttering with the engine, I realize what’s haunting me.
“Frick, can you check one more thing?” I put down my paper cup of tea and point to the black car. A dark hunch is percolating. “We didn’t tell you about this initially, but can you check to see if this car has air bags?”
“See if it has air bags?” Frick looks puzzled. He hands me a pair of goofy-looking clear plastic goggles. “Of course it does.”
“It’s a 2006,” Franklin puts in. “It’s the law. They all have air bags.”
“They’re supposed to,” I say.
“No air bags in our car,” I say, shaking my head. “Can you believe it? And what if there were no air bags in the Ross car? And that’s why they didn’t inflate?” Frick’s confirmation of my hunch haunts me as we leave the garage. I click open the passenger door of our news car, waving Franklin into the driver’s seat. “You drive, okay? I’ve had enough for one day.”
J.T. is returning the now-repaired hatchback to RCK. We got all the video we need. The defective torsion bar-now wrapped in tissue paper in my briefcase-we kept for evidence. Franklin and I are heading back to the station to drop off our tapes. We have a potentially blockbuster story. And a potentially blockbuster dilemma.
“What made you think of the air bags?” Franklin says, steering us out of our parking space and toward Huntington Street. “I’ll never understand how your brain works, Charlotte. It’s a beautiful thing. Strange, but beautiful.”
“Yeah, well. Declan’s didn’t go off, remember? And that’s been bugging me. It didn’t make sense. They should have. And I read someplace, air bags are the hot new item to steal. Bad guys rip them out, replace the covers, then resell the air bags on the black market. Who’d know? Until there’s an accident, of course.”
I shudder. Most people are so trusting. And others are so cynically money hungry. That’s a dangerous combination. I pause, considering.
“If other RCK cars have no air bags, does Randall Kindell know about it? Is he supplying stolen air bags for the black market? If so, we should get the story on TV right now. Soon as we can. Maybe even before the ratings start. The next crash could be fatal, you know. Lives are at stake.”
“Charlotte, the February book is only three weeks away.” He’s shaking his head. “I think we can wait. And then put together two stories. We’ll do unrepaired recalls first, then hit them with the big air-bag scoop. Even better, here’s what I’m thinking. What if Kindell’s doing it across the country? In all the RCK franchises?”
Franklin pantomimes basketball. “Slam dunk. A national story.”
We stop at a red light. I reach over and touch Franklin’s arm. I need him to look at me for a moment.
“But, Franko? What if Kindell doesn’t know? What if someone is renting cars and then ripping out air bags? Then it’s not just about RCK, but could be happening at every rental-car place. Don’t you feel some obligation to tell the police? Warn Kindell? Warn the public? Right now?”
“Are you losing it, girlfriend? Where’s the ratings-hungry Charlotte I signed up to work with? You know it’s all about big results. And big numbers.”
The light turns green. Franklin shifts gears into Drive, puffing incredulously as he turns left onto Charles Street.
“You can’t win the sweeps if your story’s on too early. And we’re in it to win it.”
Franklin and I are partners. But, more and more, it seems like we’re not on the same team.
I’ve always thought my job as an investigative reporter meant helping people, warning them of danger, keeping them from harm. And exposing the bad guys. It always worked. I treasure every Emmy, but the need to consider schedule before substance seems so cynical. Am I still a good guy if I keep a secret just to boost the ratings?
Why haven’t I thought of this before? Who’s suddenly out of balance? Franklin? Or me?
“Franko? J.T. and I could have been killed this afternoon. We were driving a dangerous car. Unrepaired recall, no air bags. Yes, we got the video. Yes, it all worked out in the end. But Frick said it-we were lucky. I say we talk to Kevin. Monday, first thing. Tell him what we know. And I bet he’ll want to get this on the air. Sooner rather than later.”
Franklin waves me off, shrugging. “Bet he won’t. I bet he’ll grab the fifth-floor graphics gang and whip up some hot ‘Charlie McNally Investigates’ promo spots. For February. Bet you ten thousand dollars.”
“You’re on,” I say. But I’m not exactly sure who’s going to win that imaginary bet. On the other hand, truth be told, we don’t really have a story. Just suspicions. We certainly don’t have enough nailed down to go on the air. What if we sent viewers into a panic over missing air bags and it turned out to be a coincidence? Or a one-time-only event? Putting that on television would do far more harm than good. I struggle to regain my news equilibrium. Maybe I’m suffering PTSD from this afternoon.
I rest my chin on one hand, elbow on the armrest, watching bag-laden shoppers and camera-toting tourists swirl through the darkening afternoon. A woman in a sleekly tailored camel’s-hair coat throws her arm across a little girl’s shoulders-she’s about Penny’s age-bending briefly to kiss her hair. They’re wearing matching plaid mufflers and carrying glossy bright red shopping bags. A thirtysomething man in a tasseled ski cap and puffy black parka peeks at a tiny passenger in an expensive stroller, then pushes it across the white-striped crosswalk. How many of them might be renting a car someday? Driving blissfully along, husbands and wives and their children, unaware of the danger?
How many families will be on the road before we air our story?
Chapter Eight
The glossy deep-brown front door opens with a twist of its old-fashioned wooden knob. Inside the warm vestibule another ornately carved door is latched tight. A harsh buzz sounds when I push the middle button on the ultra-modern electronic keypad.
Michael Borum’s condominium is one of three in a postwar brownstone in the South End. Post Spanish-American War. Built in boom times of a golden age, these elegant three-story buildings were battered and disdained through Boston’s turbulent 1960s. Now they’re the city’s most desirable housing: bohemian, artsy and urban. Borum’s place is right on the edge of safe, with aching poverty just a few blocks away. The Power House Garage is down the road in the other direction. Wonder if Michael takes his blue Mustang there. Wonder where he parks it. Maybe there’s a lot out back? I don’t see it on the street. Probably a sports-car thing.
No answer to my buzz. I know this is dicey territory. Close enough to noon on a Sunday morning not to be completely socially objectionable, but still pushing it.