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It must all go back to my adventure in the archives. That must have been Tek, trying to scare me off the trail. And when he couldn’t, I’m guessing his slimeball Plan B was to bring out the phony photos. But I’m not going to let some half-assed attempt to frighten me send me cowering back to covering cat shows, no offense to Botox. There are people who know the real story. What really happened that night. We just have to find them.

“TOMMY WHO? Bennigan? “I keep my eyes on the road and one hand on the wheel while I scrabble in my purse for a pencil. “Hang on, Franko. Got to get a…” I find a pencil, but of course it’s broken, so I toss it into my Jeep’s backseat and scrounge for another. “I’m amazed you got the police report this fast. Imagine, they’re actually following the public disclosure law. Probably a first in the annals of the Swampscott PD. Okay, got the pencil.”

“It’s Bresnahan,” Franklin says, then spells it.

I write the name on the little notebook I keep clipped to the sun visor.

“Tommy Bresnahan, according to this police report, was the bartender the night of the murder,” Franklin continues. “Latest whereabouts, according to the report, U-N-K. Apparently he was the fourth bartender in four months. Easy come, easy go. Cops told me the bar owner’s apparently working the place himself now. DeCenzo, remember? He’s given up on hiring outsiders.”

“Well, you can find this Bresnahan if anyone can,” I say. “Do bartenders need licenses or anything? Moron!”

“What?” Franklin responds. “Moron? How should I know if they need licenses? I can find out, though, but gee…”

“Not you,” I reassure him. “Some idiot’s decided up here in the city of Lawrence, a red light means go. Which makes my green light mean stop. Anyway, how about this for our afternoon plan. You want to try to track down this Bresnahan? And what about Tek’s partner on the case? The guy in Detroit.”

I steer around a corner, trying to read the street signs, but of course this is Massachusetts, so there aren’t any. “You get them, and after I find Gaylen-cross fingers-I’ll head to Swampscott and see if I can sweet-talk the bar owner into giving me more info on this Bresnahan. I bet DeCenzo has job applications, paperwork, something. But it’ll have to be later when his place opens.”

The house numbers on what I think I remember is Eckman Street are getting higher, so I’m pretty sure I’m headed in the right direction. And then I see the house.

“Listen,” I say. “I’m just pulling up in front of the Lawrence Collective. If we’re lucky, and we often are, that little ingrate is going to be in my clutches any moment now. And Dorinda is one step closer to getting her life back.”

As Franklin clicks off, I realize Dorinda’s life may not be the most rewarding to “get back,” if her daughter is guilty of killing the hardly lamented but nevertheless dead Ray Sweeney. Her own father, if Dorinda is to be believed. I know Franklin still thinks CC Hardesty is the father. If CC knew about Gaylen’s birth, maybe he thought so, too. And I wonder what Gaylen believes.

Before I can give myself a good answer, I realize I’m at the inconspicuously ordinary front door of the Lawrence Collective, a dingy clapboard three-decker. I know from a story we did a few years ago on battered women that it’s a front for a hideaway. A shelter for women who don’t want to be found. It offers a roof, good food, anonymity-and counseling. The guard said Dorinda’s counselor was based in Lawrence. Only two places here do prison counseling. One told me they didn’t go to Framingham, so this is the only place left she could be. And if she’s here, maybe she’ll know what really happened.

I push a small square button on a dingy intercom screen. There’s a blast of static, then a wary voice buzzes back. “Yes?”

I look up, remembering they’d rigged the tiny lens of a surveillance camera above the door. I smile into it and wave, then answer. “It’s Charlie McNally, Channel 3.” The directors here turned out to be good sources for the shelter story. If I’m lucky, they’ll still be around.

A grating metallic click snaps the lock open. Crossing my fingers, I go inside. When I locate the director, Rosemary Pannatieri, and tell her waht I’m after, she looks at me as if I’ve lost my mind. She throws a plaid-shirted arm across my shoulder as we walk through the empty living room toward her nook of an office. I remember it’s basically a closet. An actual closet with the clothes bar still in place above her desk. There’s room for her chair and a visitor’s. And that’s all.

“If I didn’t love you so much, I’d throw you right out of here,” the shelter director says, pointing me to the needlepoint cushion padding the visitor’s seat. “You’re asking me for information about a client? Mind you, I’m not confirming anyone is a client. But you know the rules, Charlie. Confidentiality is our middle name-no, it’s our first name.”

She takes a covered rubber band from her top drawer and tames her tangle of curly salt-and-pepper hair into an unruly twist. There’s a smile in her dark eyes as she looks at me again. “You never give up, I know. And that’s why we love you. But you ain’t getting one word from me.”

“Can I just ask,” I begin, “if you’ve ever-”

Ro holds up a weary hand. “Nope,” she says. She points to one ear. “I can’t hear you. In fact, I can’t hear questions at all.”

“But I-”

“I seem to remember you’re a coffee girl,” she says. “Don’t want you to drive all the way back to Boston caffeine-free. Come grab a cup in the kitchen and we’ll talk about old times. But that’s all. Your stories made a lot of difference to the women here, and I’m grateful.”

I follow Ro back down the hall, past closed doors and an array of children’s drawings and finger paintings on sheets of newsprint tacked to the walls. Multicolored rainbows. Big yellow suns. Crayon green trees with circles for leaves. Stick-figure children with outsize feet. No houses. No faces. I count my blessings for a moment, marveling at the cosmic roll of the dice that landed me and my mom in safety and security.

A slender figure, back to us, is chopping carrots on a wooden cutting board. She turns, skittish, as we step through the doorway. Knife in hand, her face flares into fear. “It’s okay,” Ro reassures her. We’re not introduced and she turns back to her chores.

Ro pours coffee into two mismatched mugs, hands me one and points me back out the door with hers. “Dinnertime soon,” she says quietly, “and I don’t want to scare any of our clients, you being here.” She smiles. “No offense.”

As we stroll back toward the front of the house, chatting about nothing, Ro points out the new couch, chairs and throw rugs she’s purchased with a state grant she managed to wrangle. A chaotically colorful room is filled with toys and easels and towers of blocks, train tracks laid out in a sprawling figure eight.

“We’re getting there,” Ro says. She knocks on the wooden door frame for luck. “And no trouble to speak of.”

We arrive at the triple-locked front entrance, and both deposit our empty mugs on a doily-covered side table. She clicks open one dead bolt with a snap, then another. Then turns back to me.

“Look, Charlie,” Ro says, “you know I can’t tell you about any clients. But it’s not a breach to tell you we do have a volunteer counselor at Framingham. Getting her degree in psychology, focusing on domestic violence. Her name is Laura Maldonado.”

“Is she-” I begin. Maybe she’s Dorinda’s counselor.

“Who she talks to, what they talk about? That’s one hundred percent off-limits,” Ro answers. She pats me on the shoulder, opens the door and waves me out. “Dinnertime soon. Our staff and clients need privacy. But as always, it’s nice to see you.”

“SO MUCH FOR THAT brilliant idea,” I mutter out loud as I head down the flagstone path. “Good coffee, zero information.” It’s still early evening, the sun’s still up, neighborhood kids flash by on bikes, a menagerie of dogs happily chasing after them. I dig for my keys as a navy-blue car with an unfortunate dent in its passenger-side door attempts to parallel park in front of my Jeep.