“We tried to call,” Franklin adds, glancing at the lineup of flashing red Hold buttons on the receptionist’s phone. “But the line was always busy.”
“McNelly. TV. No appointment.”
“McNally,” I say. I wish we had called. But he’s a public official and I’m the public. Someone has to talk to me.
The receptionist raises one finger, as if putting me on hold, and then uses it to punch a few buttons on her phone. She swivels in her chair, halfway turning away, and cups her hand over the tiny receiver microphone in front of her mouth. She listens, then turns back to us.
“Consuela Savio will be out in a moment,” she says. She glances at her watch, then turns back to her computer. “Take a seat.”
Franklin and I head for a yellowing plastic couch. Its original color was probably somewhere between leftover mashed potato and aging mustard.
“I’m starving,” I whisper to Franklin. The upholstery creaks unhappily as the two of us sit down. The cracking plastic instantly pinches the backs of my thighs. I shift position, trying to tuck my black skirt more securely between me and the attacking couch. “We should have gotten lunch.”
“Read a magazine, distract yourself,” Franklin says, turning over the selection on the low wooden table in front of us. “Here’s one you probably missed. ‘Law Enforcement Product News.’”
“Give me that,” I say, taking it from him. “That’s not a real magazine.” It is. I flip through the pile nearer to me, seeing if I can go one better. “Wait here’s one for you. ‘Consolidated Municipal Infrastructure.’ Read it. Know it.”
I’m starting to get impatient with reading obscure publications when I sense someone standing over us. I quickly put down Police Chief and stand up. Franklin does, too. I’m not short, but my view is of a column of pearl buttons on a silver charmeuse blouse. The tiny buttons are clearly strained to the limits of their overburdened threads struggling to keep them from popping into the conversation.
“Well, Charlie McNally, of course I recognize you. And this is?”
If this is Consuela Savio, she probably spells her name in all caps. She has big hair, big shoulders, big lipstick. And somehow it all works. I can picture her in the beauty pageant, tiara’ed and teary, while the losing contestants whisper -“Her?” There’s a lot to be said for unabashed sex appeal and I’m betting Consuela says it all the time. I’m sure that could be a plus for a public relations mouthpiece. But her come-hither technique is not going to work on me. And, though she may not know it yet, certainly not on Franklin.
“My producer, Franklin Parrish,” I say, making sure I’m looking up at her face. “We’re just doing some research on a story and were thinking that…”
Consuela, all smiles, focuses on Franklin. This’ll be amusing.
“Frankleen,” she says, ignoring me. “Have we met?”
“As Charlie was saying,” Franklin says, ignoring her question and coming around from behind the coffee table. “We’re researching a story. And hoping to talk to Mr. Ortega. It’s about-Dorinda Keeler Sweeney. Can you tell him we’re here?”
Consuela’s face darkens. She glances disapprovingly at the receptionist, whose faltering skills have clearly let in two troublemaking gate-crashers.
“The attorney general is in a meeting,” she says, making sure, with studied inflection, that we know this is not true.
“That’s fine,” I say agreeably, opening my tote bag and pulling out a manila file. I glance at Franklin, attempting to telegraph my tactics. Reporter gambit: the bluff. I clear my throat, make my voice a little louder. “We’ll just talk to you, then, about the possibly questionable procedures in the Sweeney arrest. Then you can pass the word on to the A.G.” I look around the lobby, inspecting the five or six other waitees, all of whom by this time are not even pretending not to be listening. “Shall we discuss it here in the lobby?”
Consuela flickers a glance at the folder. She has no idea it holds copies of potential maid-of-honor dresses Mom sent me. I know she’s wondering what we’ve got. And if it’s bad, she doesn’t want everyone else in the room to hear a reporter spill the beans during the heat of a political campaign.
Suddenly she’s no longer a contender for Miss Congeniality.
“All right, Ms. McNally,” Consuela says. She smiles to the waitees, silently signaling there’s no 60 Minutes confrontation coming up. “You can both follow me.”
We’re in.
We walk down a dingy hall, Franklin giving me a surreptitious thumbs-up. Consuela creaks open the door to a conference room and waves us inside. Judging from the hazy windows and discolored slant-slatted blinds, it must have been home to years’ worth of smoke-filled meetings and confabs. Gray and grayer upholstered chairs, sagging and mostly threadbare, are twisted randomly away from their places as if a rogue burst of wind gusted through and departed. A few paper clips are scattered on the conference table, a scarred wooden monster that swallows up most of the room.
Consuela closes the door with a little more force than necessary, the silk blouse stretching perilously across her broad back. She whirls to face us. “What’s this all about?” she says. Her lilting touch of Hispanic accent has disappeared along with her PR niceties. “You two know better than to show up like this. This is the attorney general’s office. You want something, you call in advance.”
She holds up a thumb and forefinger, almost touching. “I’m this far from calling your news director, asking him what the hell is going on.”
Though Consuela doesn’t invite us to take a seat, I do anyway. I put my tote bag between me and the increasingly agitated flack, hoping it will feel like a potential mysterious arsenal of documents. When Franklin also sits down, leaning back in the swivel chair, Consuela has no choice but to join us.
“The photos used in the Dorinda Sweeney case,” I say. I keep my voice uncontentious and pleasant. “The ones police showed to the witnesses in the bar. We’d like to see them.”
“Not a chance,” Consuela sputters with the absurdity of my request. “They’re sealed. The court sealed all the evidence after your Miss Sweeney confessed to murder in the second degree.”
I feel Franklin swivel in his chair, then see him stop himself by putting his palms on the table. He looks at his hands, then at Consuela. His voice is almost apologetic. Franklin the gentleman. “I’m afraid that’s incorrect,” he says. “I’ve checked with the court clerk. The docket file is not sealed. We were told the evidence is being held by your office.”
Consuela considers this, but only briefly. “Those photos are private,” she says, moving on to her second attempted excuse. “Property of the attorney general’s office.”
It’s hard to hide my smile, so I unzip a side pouch of my tote bag to refocus her attention. This is good news in the making. If she’s putting up roadblocks to the photographs, there must be some reason she doesn’t want us to see them. Which means I want to see them even more.
“Ms. Savio.” I say, looking back up at her, “Property of the A.G.’s office? That’s simply not true. As a matter of fact…” I pause, rummaging though my tote bag. I find what I’m looking for, and hold it out to her. “As a matter of fact, while we were waiting for you, I found this copy of Police Chief magazine on the coffee table in the waiting room.”
I hold it out to her, hoping she won’t accuse me of petty larceny. She doesn’t make a move to take it, so I place it on the conference table. Not guilty.
“There’s a whole feature article about police lineups. I leafed through it while we were waiting. It includes a lot of background about photo array evidence. You know?”