“This law-and-order thing seems to be resonating,” Franklin says, picking up the newspaper and flapping it open. “Listen to this. ‘Oscar Ortega, now an unprecedented seventeen points ahead in the polls, says his history of convictions is unmatched across the country.’ And, he told a crowd of cheering supporters, quote, ‘an Ortega administration means parents can be-’”
“Let me guess. Safe in their homes and safe in the streets,” I finish the sentence. “You’d think he’d get a new stump speech. Although this one seems to be doing the trick with voters.”
I peer across the counter and around the corner, checking for open doors in the line of offices that’s tucked on the other side. I ping the bell again. Its tinny jingle resounds hollowly through the room. No answer. “He’s not going to be happy when he hears we’re looking into Dorinda. What Oliver Rankin said at the elevator is an understatement. Bad publicity is death on the campaign trail, so Oz will certainly try to stop us. Though there’s nothing he can do, I suppose.”
Franklin puts the paper back. “Time, as they say, will tell.” He takes a few steps into the long hallway. “You know, there’s got to be someone here. Someplace. I mean, we just walked into the building. It was open.”
“How about this,” I say. “Franklin, you take the car, and hit the Swampscott paper. See if they have archives, a reporter who covered the case, old photos they didn’t use. I’ll check around here. Maybe someone’s in the library. Or the gym. Even if no one’s there, I bet there’ll be yearbooks. Names, pictures, all kinds of stuff. If someone asks what I’m doing here, I’ll…” I pause. “I’ll think of something.”
“Good luck with that,” Franklin says. “You’re probably guilty of trespassing, if someone decides to be a hard-liner about it.”
I look at my watch, ignoring him. “Call my cell in two hours,” I say. “We’ll compare notes over clam rolls at the Red Rock.”
I STILL HAVE NIGHTMARES that I didn’t study for some exam, or I’m not ready for a test, or I can’t find my classroom. Those dreams have nothing to do with high school, I’m told, and everything to do with my struggle for perfection. Still, I’m probably in for some heavy sleep drama tonight. The smell of leftover pencil sharpenings and notebook paper and industrial-strength floor wax inside the Swampscott High School library time-travels me back to Anthony Wayne High in suburban Chicago, home of the Fighting Red Devils and my four misfit years of high grades and low self-esteem. High school-get through it, then forget it. For me at least.
The glass and metal door opens without a sound and clicks back closed behind me. The fluorescent lights buzz and hum as I scan the long, narrow room. This place is deserted, too. A dark wood librarian’s desk, looming and massive, protects one end. In its sights, long pine tables with stocky chairs are lined up with geometric precision. A forest of pale wooden shelves stands in well-ordered lines, each displaying a brass and paper bracket, block lettered to show the range of Dewey Decimal numbers it contains. I’m on the prowl for yearbooks. And since there’s no one here to stop me, I’m going to find them. I head for the stacks and search until I see a line of tall, narrow, identical dark blue books. The gilt-lettered year is on the spine of each.
I grab the wooden ladder, and slide it closer, doing the math in my head. Dorinda Sweeney. Class of 19-she’s forty-three years old, so that would mean-82. I climb up, spot the book and pull it from the shelf. The Seagull. Almost ceiling-high on the ladder, I prop my open book against the row of closed ones. No index. Rats. But I can start with the senior class, that’s always alphabetical.
If I find something, though, that’s a dilemma. I stop, mid-search, and lean against the shelf. There’s no one here, so there’s no way to check out a book. I’d have to steal it, and although tempting, that’s not the best plan. Then, a brainstorm. I’ll just use my cell phone camera again. I’m a genius.
I flip through pages of lip-glossed girls with overpermed hair and unfortunate leg warmers. Power chicks with Dynasty shoulder pads. Boys with surfboards, cars, guitars. At the beach, in the bleachers, in the back of a white convertible. I hurry to the K’s. And there’s Dorinda Keeler.
“Might I inquire,” says a prim and birdy voice from three feet beneath me, “who you are and what you possibly think you are doing?” It sounds like “enquiah” who you “ah,” but there’s no need to translate her intent. She’s in charge, I’m the interloper. I hope she’s not packing pepper spray or something.
Still holding the Seagull in one hand, I twist myself around on the ladder. Now I’m looking down at a polka-dot headband, a gray bob and brown sensible-looking shoes. Someone who, with one shake of this already unsteady ladder, might be able to dump me onto the scuffed linoleum. Headband tilts her face up to look at me, inquisitorial.
“Would you like to get down and leave quietly?” she asks. “Or shall I call security?”
Tucking the book under one arm, I begin my descent, talking the whole time in the most reassuring tone I can muster. I’m grateful I wore those flats. “I’m Charlie McNally, Channel 3 News?” I take a step more, trying to look right at her and not my feet, so she can see how unthreatening I am. “The building was open, and the library, too. I looked everywhere for someone, I’m so sorry, and when there was no answer, I just-” I wind up with one arm hooked over a ladder rung and one foot on the ground, face of a grown-up but feeling like a teenager nabbed in some after-hours mischief.
I pause, entreating the journalism gods to play ball. “Do you remember Dorinda Keeler?”
A PACK OF LAUGHING TEENAGERS, reef sandals and baggy cutoffs, sweeps into the Red Rock clam shack, their boisterous laughter filling the circular glass-walled restaurant. It smells of fried everything-clams, potatoes, onion rings-plus ketchup and tartar sauce. Out the window, the Atlantic Ocean touches Swampscott Beach on one shore and the white cliffs of Dover on the other. June sun glints on the water, its glare darkening figures walking on the sand into flickering silhouettes. Franklin and I have commandeered a table for six so we can spread out his loot-old newspaper articles and photographs. He even managed to snag Dorinda and Ray’s photo from the wedding section. Her childlike white-gowned figure, veiled and tiny, is tucked under her tuxedoed husband’s shoulder. He’s holding a glass of champagne. She has only a bouquet of white rosebuds. He’s beaming. Her face is obscured by the frothy veil.
“Here’s one for the psych books,” Franklin says, covering the newlyweds with another page from his black leather folder. He turns the photo toward me, pointing. “This was spray painted on the sidewalk in front of All Saints Church.”
“Where Dorie was-”
“Married, right,” Franklin continues. “And it was on her wedding day. Some newspaper photog got a shot of it before the city power-washed it away. See? It says ‘Dorie and CC 4-Evah’. Spelled like that, ‘evah.’ The archives guy, a real walking history book, remembers that Dorinda dumped her devoted boyfriend CC Hardesty for Ray. He figured this paint job was CC’s last cry of unrequited love, like Dustin Hoffman in The Graduate yelling “Elaine,” pounding the glass. But Dorie ‘chose the Sweeney money and power,’ so says Mr. Archives. And apparently that was the end of Dorie and CC.”
A miniskirted waitress, polo shirt with collar flipped, annoyingly long tanned legs and bouncing hair, arrives at our table. She’s carrying two waxed-paper-lined red plastic baskets, and hesitates as she dubiously eyes the documents strewn across the plastic tabletop. Franklin sweeps his copies together, tamping the edges to make them straight before he inserts them into his folder. “I like the boyfriend,” Franklin says, snapping the folder shut. “He’s-”