I turn to Maysie, shocked, my jaw slack. Franklin has lost it and is laughing uncontrollably. His reaction is all the more difficult because he’s trying, unsuccessfully, to hide it from the room below. “Ma-chine?” I hear him say.
Susannah must be wrapping up the meeting, but I have no idea what she’s saying. Maysie’s good news trumps everything, even the impending doom of losing our story.
“So you’ve got your own show,” I whisper, grinning. “Hot stuff. A little TV face time for the queen of radio.” I give Mays a hug. “Congratulations,” I say. “Ignore Franklin. You deserve it. Now I understand the suit and lips, video girl.”
“And it’ll keep me home this season, too,” Maysie says. Her brown eyes shine, and there’s a satisfaction-or something-in her expression I haven’t seen before. “No more two-week road trips with the boys of summer. Matthew is so psyched.”
“The Sports Ma-chine,” Franklin repeats. He adds a dancing little hip-hop move now that the meeting is over. “Ma-CHINE.” He looks at Maysie, his dark brown eyes twinkling teasingly behind his glasses. “Did you come up with that? Or did old Susannah?”
“Like I said, ignore him,” I tell Maysie, laughing. “But listen, it’s so funny. I thought you were pregnant. That’s what I thought you wanted to tell me. You know me, Miss Suspicious, anything to make the day weirder. Just what you and Matthew need, a sibling for Max and Molly.” I hurry to reassure her. “Not that there’d be anything wrong with that.”
“Yeah, well.” Maysie replies. I detect the beginnings of a blush, and that satisfied expression returns. “Good thing. Because-yeah. That is what I was trying to call you about. Baby Green number three is on the way. Don’t make plans for New Year’s Eve, okay?”
THE CAR WINDOW beside me powers down by itself, letting in a blast of salt air and a faint stench of something as we drive up the North Shore Parkway. We’re half an hour out of Boston, destination-at last-Swampscott.
“Smell that?” Franklin asks. He has one hand on the steering wheel of his Passat and the other on the window controls. “Welcome to the north shore of Massachusetts. The good news-you get to live by the ocean. The bad news-every summer, some disgusting algae stinks up the beach.”
I sniff, then buzz my window back up, nodding. “Never fails,” I agree. The Parkway is taking us straight to our destination as the expanse of Atlantic Ocean, white-capped and sparkling, stretches endlessly beside us. Above a weather-beaten boardwalk, gray and white seagulls swoop between skateboarders, diving at remnants of leftover clam rolls. “But it’s so beautiful here. You probably get used to it.”
Franklin makes a dismissive face. “I suppose it could happen,” he says. “Turn right after the ball field?”
“Yup,” I say, confirming. We’d put in multiple and increasingly urgent but unanswered calls to Will Easterly and Oliver Rankin, then realized we couldn’t just stay at the station and worry. We decided it couldn’t hurt to check out Dorinda’s hometown, even though we have no camera with us. The assignment desk Nazi informed us he couldn’t spare a photographer except for breaking news, so today we’re on our own. Cross fingers we don’t miss out on some once-in-a-lifetime interview because Channel 3 refuses to provide the resources we need.
“This takes us to Swampscott. The Sweeney house is off Humphrey Street,” I continue. I tip my new red-striped reading glasses into place from the top of my head and check our map. “Alden Street, then turn onto Little’s Point Road. It’s number three twenty-seven, but the clerk at town hall said it was for sale again, so I’m thinking we can just look for the sign.”
We drive through the seaside neighborhood, patches of ocean grass and hydrangea keeping houses politely private, and pull up in front of an unpretentious two-story white-shingled cape with dormer windows, weathered shutters, gray front door. A bright yellow For Sale sign flaps silently in front, the yard’s only color. Someone’s mowed the lawn, but the garden is suffering, azaleas parched, splay-petaled tulips defeated by the June sun. The bad vibes surrounding the place are just my imagination, I know, but I hesitate to get out of the car. I wish Will or Rankin would call.
“So now what?” Franklin asks. “You want to check with some neighbors? See if anyone knows anything? Remembers anything?”
I check my watch, back-timing, frustrated that we have to hurry. Franklin insisted we have lunch, and I wasn’t going to argue with that. But it’s now two o’clock. I’ve got to meet Josh and Penny at six, a kid-friendly dinnertime. Before that I’ve got to change clothes. And before that I’ve got to stop by the Center for Cosmetic Surgery and check on Mom. This workday feels over before it’s even started. “I wish Will or Rankin would call,” I complain, staring at the house. “And I figure we still have three hours or so. Well, two, since we have to drive back to Boston. We could-” I stop mid-sentence.
The Sweeneys’ front door is opening.
CHAPTER 5
Poppy Morency, oversize black-rimmed sunglasses holding back her snowy-white pageboy, pulls a jangling ring of keys from a navy-strapped canvas boat bag. Where there’s usually an embroidered monogram or a sailboat name, Poppy’s bag says Morency Real Estate.
“House has been on the market for two years?” She tilts her head, calculating. “Three? We sold it once, after the-well, of course you know.” She focuses on the keys, choosing. “Anyway, the buyers never moved in, and asked us to sell again. So it’s still furnished, pretty much the same as it was when-well, of course, you know that, too.”
“Thank you so much,” I say. Franklin and I did some fast talking after we found out who she was, and convinced her to take us inside. Maybe our luck is changing. But it stinks that we don’t have a camera. “We won’t be long,” I assure her.
Poppy finds the key she’s looking for, inserts it into the front door lock. “You do have a point,” she says, turning the key. “If you were in the market for a house, I’d let you in to look around. So, as you say, there’s no harm. And I’ve always admired your work, Charlie.” She stops and looks back at me. “And I do remember Dorinda Sweeney, of course. Little snip of a thing. Ray. It was all very sad. You know…”
She pushes the door open, and gestures Franklin and me inside without finishing her sentence. “We have a service that keeps it tidy, in case we have to show it,” she explains, all real estate business now. “Personal items, someone took most of them away. They had a thorough cleaning done of certain, um, areas, of course, after the, um, incident.”
“We know,” Franklin says, crossing the threshold.
I follow him, stepping into Dorinda’s life. Poppy leads us through a tiled entryway, empty coat hooks establishing more emptiness to come, and into the living room. Square, white-walled, silent. Dorinda’s house is-was-standard issue, unimaginative, matching. Seems like the Sweeneys’ money wasn’t spent on style or comfort. Straight-armed, dully plaid couch that matches stolid side chairs. Walnut coffee table that matches unhappy end tables. Ashtrays. It’s stripped of all personality, no photographs, no art, no mirrors. A curtain rod, empty, stretches across the wide rear windows, a strip of ocean visible just at the top. A home-now just a house. Waiting to see what will happen next.
Poppy looks at her watch, an oversize clock face tied to her wrist with a preppy green ribbon bow, and begins flipping through what looks like an appointment book. I get the message. Hurry.
“May we take a quick look upstairs?” I ask. Then I casually ask the clincher as if it’s no big deal. “And the basement?”
Poppy perches on the couch and pulls out a cell phone. “I have a couple of calls to make,” she says. She’s already focused on dialing. “Look around, and then-Hello, this is Priscilla Morency, can you hold a moment?” She interrupts herself, looking at me apologetically, and waves us along. Go ahead, she mouths the words. She holds up her hand, fingers spread, pantomiming. Five minutes.