Cream silk shirt fairly dripping from Toni’s svelte shoulders, she clicks open her pricey patent-leather briefcase, each snap of a lock resounding thorough the tension-filled office. Then my lawyer stares disdainfully at Oscar Ortega. She’s elegant, Harvard-educated and adversarial. He’s silent and studiedly casual, swiveling in a massive ebony leather chair behind his perfectly paperless desk. The cop goons are dismissed.
“Let me see here,” Toni says, flipping through a legal pad. “We have assault and battery by a police officer, false imprisonment, and countless violations of the United States Constitution. First amendment, fourth amendment. I can’t even list them all.
“So, let’s examine your options.” Toni tilts her head, and taps one coffee-colored finger against a flawlessly tawny cheek. “You have none. And now if you’ll be so kind, Ms. McNally and I are leaving. If you have any further questions for my client,” she says deliberately, “you’ll have to call my office. And you’ll be hearing from us about your clearly illegal actions. Taking Ms. McNally into custody? Preposterous.”
If I’m going to have a lawyer, I figure, just as well she’s six feet tall and a knockout. But I’ll be much happier when I’m out of here.
“Not so fast,” Ortega says. He swivels slowly, ignoring Toni’s rebuke. “Your client was the last person seen with a law-abiding citizen. A person of interest in a murder case. A person who is now also deceased. Her business card was right out on the bar. What’s more, she was seen entering and leaving the premises. She-” Oz pauses, then holds out his hands as if in apology “-ain’t going nowhere.”
“That’s absurd,” Toni says. “There’s absolutely no way of knowing when or how Ms. McNally’s card was put in Mr. DeCenzo’s wallet. A jury would laugh at you. As for my client being in some bar this morning? How on earth would anyone be able to prove that?”
Oz leans back in his chair, steepling his fingers so we know he’s serious and powerful. “Your client,” he says, his voice tinged with sarcasm as he savors the word, “is Charlie McNally. Her face is about as familiar as…well, let’s just say, it would be supremely difficult for her to remain anonymous. Charlie McNally? No doubt about who she is. She was there. Shall we start the discussion with that stipulation?”
“Mr. Ortega,” I begin. I can’t stand this. I’ve done nothing wrong, certainly not kill someone. “We don’t need to be adversaries here. I-”
Toni silences me with a glare, but it’s Ortega who speaks.
“You reporters,” he says, as if that word is barely acceptable in polite company. “You think you can go anywhere. Ask questions. Interfere. And then just-skate? Without any repercussions? You poke a pit bull, he’s going to bite you back.”
Ortega stands, leaning toward us, his hands flat on his desk. “I am the attorney general of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Chief of the pit bulls. My job is to solve this murder. And if your client can help me do it, reporter or not, she’s going to have to do it.”
Two lawyers, immovable object and irresistible force. They glare over the expanse of Oz’s desk, the antagonistic silence between them almost sizzling.
As much as I hate to admit it, Oz is right. Not about the reporter thing, but about solving the murder. But I’m thinking he may get more than he bargained for. I’d been dying to confront Tek about the photographs, hoping they’d be the key to exonerating Dorinda. Now, it seems, she could get her freedom another way. Because someone is trying to take out everyone who knows about the case. Me in the archives. Clay Gettings. Del DeCenzo.
Whoever killed those people is not Dorinda. I reach into my purse and pull out the white envelope.
“Toni. Mr. Ortega,” I say. Toni attempts to stop me again, but I shake my head, waving her off. I open the envelope and unfold Tommy Bresnahan’s job application. “This is why I was with DeCenzo.”
Smoothing out the paper on Ortega’s desk, I explain who Bresnahan is, how he disappeared after the murder, and how he recently called DeCenzo, alleging he wanted to pick up an uncashed paycheck. I point to his place of birth and his social security number.
“I was going to try to find him, out West or wherever. But maybe he’s not that far away,” I say. “Because now I’m wondering if he did show up. Today. After I left. And it wasn’t some old paycheck he was after.”
Toni and Ortega examine the application, then Ortega holds it up to the light. All at once, with a quick gesture, he folds it back into thirds, and tucks it into his desk drawer. “Evidence,” he says, as the drawer clicks closed. “Thank you so much.”
Toni gasps. “How dare you?” she says. Her voice is seething and brittle. “My client is cooperating, much against my better judgment, and you-”
I raise a hand, interrupting her. “Toni,” I say. “It’s fine. And Mr. Ortega? Feel free to take that copy. Happy to help. The original, of course, is elsewhere. I certainly wouldn’t carry that around. And if you’d like another copy? I have several in my bag.”
“SO DID YOU BRING UP the photo array? What’d he say?” Franklin asks, as we walk into the Channel 3 newsroom. It’s almost seven-thirty, and somehow at day’s end, his pale and pristine sweater is untouched by coffee, ballpoint-pen ink or copier toner grunge. Both sides of the ribbed collar of his white polo shirt are still pointed up in perfect fashion symmetry. I don’t know how he does it. If I wore a buttercup-yellow sweater, it would be a Jackson Pollock by midmorning.
“Do you think Oz is complicit in that?” Franklin continues. “I mean, it is plausible that the fake photo idea was concocted by Tek alone. His colleagues at the cop shop-they didn’t like him much. Once he signed up with Oz, they told me, it was worse. Bought a lot of fancy clothes, had his eye on the big time. Oh, sorry.”
Franklin steps back to make way as a gaggle of studio technicians, pushing a black canvas cart overflowing with poles and light stands and dragging electrical cords moves across the newsroom floor. We promised Maysie we’d be here for the first rehearsal of her show. The production, which was supposed to start at just after the six-o’clock news hour, is running late. My dinner, yet again, is in serious jeopardy. You’d think I’d be much thinner, but somehow it doesn’t work that way.
Maysie’s in the makeup room. That’s an event I wish I could share. Miss “I’m so natural and I’m on the radio anyway” has teased me about my extensive and constantly changing collection of lipstick and eye shadow for years. Now, I think with satisfaction, she’ll want to borrow it.
“Yeah, no,” I reply. I puff out a breath of air and lean against someone’s desk, crossing one leg over the other. “I was going to ask Oz about the photos, you know? But then there was the whole unfortunate custody situation. Frankly, as soon as it became clear he was going to let me go, I just wanted out of there.”
I shrug, trying to smooth the obstinate creases in my irreparably wrinkled linen skirt. Sitting on the bar stool was not the best. I wince, remembering what happened in that bar. Just this morning. Next life, maybe I’ll choose a job where I’m a little more in control. At least where people I meet don’t get murdered soon afterward.
“Kevin and Susannah, though. Loved it,” I say. “Susannah actually said she wished they would have kept me longer, you know? Investigative reporter in custody. Film at eleven.” I talk like myself again. “She said it would be a huge ratings getter.”
“She’s unstoppable,” Franklin replies. “Why didn’t you call me?”