“It’ll take two weeks, maybe more, to get this story pulled together,” Franklin adds. “But the interview with Dorie is key.”
“Once she hears we have the tape, I’m sure she’ll want to talk to you,” Will says. “And we can find out why she confessed. My guess, the police pushed her into it.”
I nod, ticking off another question on my list. “You think they threatened her? Said she’d certainly be convicted, got her to make a deal for a lesser sentence?”
“Happens all the time,” Rankin asserts. “All the damn time.” He slides back his chair from the head of the table and begins to pace, pointing at each of us, as if he’s in charge of Franklin and me, too.
“Will, you call Dorinda. Charlie, of course take those clippings. And your copy of the tape. Let us know what you find out. Franklin, leave your number with my secretary in case he needs to get in touch with you directly. I’ll get my staff to do some digging, but you two are the front lines of Team Dorinda.”
I smile noncommittally. Team Dorinda? Situations like this are always sticky. Tricky. Franklin and I don’t work for the CJP, we work for the truth. We’ll follow the story whether it leads where Rankin and Easterly believe it will-or whether it doesn’t. If it turns out Dorinda is guilty, we might even go with that story instead.
It’s a fragile equilibrium.
I gather up the newspaper clippings, sliding them into their manila file folder and tucking them carefully into my tote bag. I can’t wait to read them all thoroughly, focusing to see if I can put the story together in a different way. In a way that means Dorie’s innocent.
Rankin and Will Easterly are moving toward the conference room door. “Oscar Ortega will be ripping some poor sucker for this one,” I hear Rankin mutter, patting Will on the back as he guides him through the room. “Governor’s chair? I don’t think so.”
I look up, surprised. “I’m sorry, Oliver,” I say. “Did you say Oscar Ortega? Would be…unhappy? Could I ask why?”
“Of course,” Rankin replies, changing his tone, affable again. “I thought you knew. You’ll see it when you read the articles. Oz was lead prosecutor in the Sweeney case. The A.G.’s office had jurisdiction because Sweeney was a public official. Oz wrapped up the case with that confession, now he touts it as one of his big successes. He says his law and order team is so powerful, miscreants simply surrender.” He pauses, then gives a sardonic smile. “If Dorinda’s innocent? There goes the law-and-order campaign.”
The four of us arrive at the elevator and I push the button. Then, because Franklin’s not watching me, I push it again. We hear the click and swish as the mechanism clicks into life. Ha. I wish Franklin had been looking.
“I’ll call Dorie right now,” Will says. “I’m sure she’ll talk with you.” He holds out a hand, shaking mine, then Franklin’s. “If you can get to the truth, you’re going to save her life.”
“I-we-” I begin. “Please don’t get her hopes up,” I urge him. “It would be tragedy on tragedy if she begins to rely on us, and then it doesn’t happen.”
The elevator arrives, and Franklin and I step in. “Thank you so much,” I say. “We’ll let you know what we come up with.”
The polished stainless steel doors begin to close, but then Rankin steps forward, clamping one confident hand into the opening. He forces the doors apart even as the elevator mechanism struggles to slide them together.
“You two are going up against the Great and Powerful Oz. You know that, correct?” he asks, pretending the elevator isn’t fighting back. “Not afraid of him, are you?”
Before either of us can respond to his challenge, he lets go of the door and it slides shut.
“I KNEW THERE WAS SOMETHING,” I whisper to Franklin. We’re alone in the elevator, but it feels right to keep my voice low. “Maybe that’s what this is really about. Ortega.”
Before Franklin can reply, we stop at the twenty-fifth floor. A harried-looking woman tapping a BlackBerry gets on. She pushes 21. We wait, impatient for privacy.
Four floors down, the doors close us into seclusion again. “I mean, Will’s obviously obsessed with Dorie,” I continue. “What if Rankin’s obsessed with Oz? And if Rankin and Easterly hate Ortega, maybe they think-”
I stop as the doors open again. Two young women step on, deep into comparing the nail polish colors showing through the openings of their peep-toed pumps.
I decide to risk it.
“If they think you-know-who being innocent can derail the campaign of ‘that guy,’” I continue, talking in code, “maybe they’re leaking the story to make him a loser. And manipulating us into helping.”
Franklin nods. “But we can’t leave her up the river. We can’t tell her, like, ‘It’s June. We’ll come back in November, after the election, when it’s less complicated.’”
“But if we go back upstairs, and say, hey, we’re concerned…” I glance at the girls. Oblivious. “They’ll just give the tape to someone else. And we’ll be-you know.” Screwed, is what I don’t say out loud. If Rankin and Will give the story to another reporter.
I think about those clippings-and that tape-tucked into my bag. The potentially innocent woman trapped behind bars, expecting us to help her. The persuasively confident Rankin assuming we’re on his team. The great and powerful Oz expecting to win the governor’s race. My news director and his glossy hired gun Susannah, expecting a blockbuster story in less than a month.
The nail polish girls get off. As the door closes behind them, I suddenly realize what makes this complicated mix not only more volatile, but even potentially dangerous.
“Listen, Franko, there’s one more thing,” I say. “Getting Dorinda Sweeney out of prison? Of course, it could be off the charts. But here’s what else.”
“How they got that confession,” Franklin begins. “That’s-”
“Right,” I say, interrupting. “But listen. Ortega’s staff and the Swampscott cops investigated the killing right? And if Dorie didn’t kill her husband, someone else did. Someone else was in Dorie’s home that night. And that same someone else bashed Ray Sweeney on the head with an iron, and pushed him down the stairs. Question is-who? And why didn’t anyone know that?”
CHAPTER 4
What do you wear to interview a convicted murderer?
I’m almost late. I know I should be getting dressed for this morning’s mandatory “hear Susannah’s strategy to win the ratings” meeting at the station. I know I can always figure out what to wear to interview Dorie when the time comes. But thinking about Dorie is so tempting. She’s just six years younger than I am and I’m overwhelmed at how different our lives are.
I open my closet door, flip on the light, and plop down in the curvy white wicker chair in the corner. You don’t need three bedrooms if there’s only one of you, so I converted the one across the hall into my office and this one into a closet. My contract includes a clothing allowance. If you don’t spend the money, you lose it. That means twenty years of purchases-minus, of course, the few years’ worth of unfortunate shoulder pads and irreparably short skirts that faced a quick demise-that need to hang somewhere.
I park my mug of coffee on a shoe box next to the chair and retie the belt of my terry-cloth bathrobe.
Dorie. I imagine the interview to come, the innocent and unfairly imprisoned woman sitting across from me at a battered table, bleak daylight attempting its way through the prison’s barred windows. She’ll be nervous, maybe, at first. Or defensive. Tears will well up, as she reveals-what, I wonder? Anyway, soon after our story airs, she’ll walk out of Framingham State and into the sunshine, probably in one of those prison-issue jumpsuits. Our cameras on the scene catch the dramatic moments, as-I come out of my daydream and frown, picturing it. I hope she’s not wearing stripes. That could make the camera jumpy. We’ll need one camera on the door, to shoot the critical video of her as the doors open. And one camera on me.