Mom reaches out her hand, placing it gently on my arm. The lines of the heart monitor attached to her wrist and finger stretch along with her movement. “Charlotte, sweetheart, I’m surprised you’re even asking. A mother-”
Bing bong. A bell rings and the door to Mom’s suite swings open. “Hello, Mrs. McNally. And-hello, Charlie.” A white-coated attendant pushes a wheeled tray into the room. On it is a single white rose in a vase, several china plates with steam spiraling though the holes in their silver covers, and a white cloth napkin wrapped with a twist of pink and white ribbons.
“Dinner for one, I’m afraid,” the attendant says, his face concerned. “Did we order for two?” He pulls a pad from a shirt pocket, checking.
I stand, gesturing no problem. “I was just going,” I say, leaning down to give Mom a careful kiss on the one silvery-blond patch showing through the bandages stretched around her head. I gather my tote bag and purse, then turn back to Mom as the obviously moonlighting movie star begins to remove the plates’ covers.
“Drunk, Josh passes the test,” I say with a smile. “We all had a lot of champagne last Emmy night. But don’t tell him I told you. Sick? Not yet. And with Penny?” I pause, remembering. “She idolizes him, that’s for sure. And he’s wonderful with her. Adores her. He’d do anything for her.”
I stop, realizing what I’ve just said. What if Dorinda’s guilty?
“GUILTY. OR NOT GUILTY. It just makes the whole thing more interesting,” I say, trying to believe it. Franklin and I are in my Jeep, on the way to Swampscott again. We’re headed for The Reefs, the bar where Ray Sweeney had his final tequila. If we have time, we’ll hit the nursing home to check out their taping system. My turn to drive.
“So Dorinda turned down our request for an interview. We can ask again.” I go on. “I refuse to give up on this story.”
The morning sun disappears as we enter the narrow gloom of the Callahan Tunnel, fritzing our all-news radio station into static. I snap it off. The tunnel is not my favorite. I finally remember to remove my sunglasses, which allows me an even clearer view of the cracking and soot-streaked Cold War era tiles lining the tunnel walls. I keep picturing the billions of gallons of Boston Harbor sloshing menacingly above us. I would have preferred taking the bridge, where at least you can see the water. What makes this trip even more unpleasant, I’m beginning to envision Franklin and me as victims in a pretty diabolical political plot.
“Just a thought,” I say. I’m trying to make sure I know where the emergency exit doors are located without letting Franklin know I’m doing it. “What if-what if this is all some sort of a trick? By say, Oscar Ortega and his cohorts? To make the Constitutional Justice Project look bad and his campaign look good? See what I’m getting at? You know they loathe Oliver Rankin and all the CJP stands for.”
I’m also monitoring the life-threatening zigzag of a pack of teenagers, all wearing Red Sox caps, who seem to think their convertible deserves both lanes of the tunnel. As a result, I can’t see Franklin’s face, but his voice sounds skeptical.
“You mean, trying to lure Rankin and Will Easterly to champion Dorinda’s case-then lower the boom later? Prove she’s guilty and make the CJP look soft on crime? That’s quite a conspiracy theory, Charlotte. And how about that surveillance tape?”
Still watching the teen-mobile, I lift my latte from the cupholder in the console, and take a lukewarm sip. The more I think about this, the righter I am.
“That could be part of it. Let’s just play out the scenarios, both ways. First, say the tape is fake. Doctored, somehow. Planted. It didn’t cross your mind that it was pretty darn-convenient?-that just as Oz announces his candidacy, a blockbuster piece of evidence shows up in Rankin’s hands? And remember, those people in the bar identified her from the police photos. If she was in the bar arguing with Ray, she wasn’t at the nursing home. Dorinda’s actually guilty. The CJP looks like idiots, backing a guilty murderer, and Ortega looks like a winner.”
“On the other hand,” Franklin says, “if the tape is real, Dorinda is innocent. Oliver Rankin and the CJP come out heroes, and Ortega-”
“Not to mention you and me, Franko,” I interrupt, putting my latte back. The teenagers swerve to the other lane. “Here’s the potential disaster. If the tape is fake, and we fall for it? Put something wrong on the air? We’re going to look like idiots, too.” I shake my head gloomily, imagining it. “Oz takes down the liberal do-gooder lawyers and the liberal do-gooder reporters, all in one election-sweeping swoop.”
We finally come up out of the tunnel, thankfully back into sunshine and fresh air. I buzz down my window to hand my money to the toll taker. A lanky-haired woman with sagging shoulders looks up, languidly, from a tiny black-and-white television that’s flickering Regis and Kelly inside her glass-booth domain. She does a double take, then slides the half window wide open, leaning head, shoulders and both arms outside to accept my three dollars. She holds on to the three bills without taking her eyes off me.
“Aren’t you-that McNally? On television?”
“Yes, I-”
“I had Danny DeVito in my lane once,” she says with a face-crinkling smile. “And that cooking lady. But you’re one hundred per cent my favorite. You always get the bad guys. And you still look one hundred per cent terrific.” She pulls a piece of paper from a drawer and hands it through the window. A Bic pen follows. “Sign this for me? Put, from Charlie McNally to Edythe. With a y and an e.”
I takes me a second to figure out how to spell Edith with a y and an e. By that time, several cars have pulled up behind us and are honking their impatience at whatever is stalling the flow of traffic. Which is us.
I hand her the paper, properly autographed, and she waves us through.
With a glance in the rearview mirror and a newfound determination, I yank the Jeep across two lanes of highway. Instead of heading north, I turn right into the twisting streets of East Boston, planning my strategy for a U-turn. Not only of our car, but of our morning plans.
“Forget about Swampscott,” I say. If I have to go back into the damn tunnel, so be it. That toll taker expects me to get the story, and that’s exactly what I’m going to do.
Franklin’s grabbed what he calls the “Charlie strap” as the Jeep careens around the cloverleaf exit. “Good Lord, Charlotte,” he says. “This is why I don’t like you in the driver’s seat. Mind telling me what’s going on in that brain of yours?”
“The bar can wait. The nursing home can wait,” I say. “We need to find out if Dorinda’s innocent. We need to find out whether Dorie was really in the bar. And I know one way to do it.” The more I think about his, the righter I am. “We need to go to Oscar Ortega’s office. Into the lair of the Great and Powerful Oz.”
CHAPTER 9
“Appointment?”
Apparently the flame-haired sentinel behind the expanse of government-issue wood and metal desk doesn’t feel it’s necessary to waste a whole sentence-subject, verb, object-on two strangers who have entered her kingdom. Taped to the file cabinet behind her is a curling-edged cartoon of three Shmoos, holding their Shmoo-tummies and laughing. Their thought balloon says “You want it when?” I’ve always wondered why someone would post their flip and trivializing attitude about their jobs in plain view of their visitors. Not to mention their bosses. Over my desk, there’s a quote about persistence.
I use my friendliest, most amicable tone. “We don’t have an appointment, no,” I say. “But as I said, I’m Charlie McNally? From Channel 3? And we were hoping Mr. Ortega, or one of his staff, might give us a moment.”