Stevie sighed. He was pretty sure he liked sportswriting a lot more.
Both Tamara and Susan Carol were sitting at their computers writing when Stevie and Kelleher walked in.
“How’d it go?” Tamara asked cheerfully.
“Fine,” Kelleher said. “Ortiz was actually funny on the subject of the triple play.”
Susan Carol had barely looked up when they came in. Stevie was fairly certain if she opened her mouth, he would see her breath, given the ice-cold vibes she was putting out.
“Can the four of us talk for a minute?” Kelleher said.
Tamara shrugged and looked at Susan Carol.
“I’ve only got about a minute,” Susan Carol said. “I have to e-mail this paper to my English teacher tonight.”
“Won’t take long,” Kelleher said. “Let’s go into the kitchen.”
They walked into the kitchen and sat down, except for Tamara, who headed for the empty coffeepot. “Should I make some more?” she said. “I assume you haven’t written yet.”
“I haven’t,” Kelleher said. “But hang on a minute. Let’s all talk first.”
Mearns sat down next to her husband. “So what’s up? You boys want to take us girls out for a big night on the town?”
“We’d love to,” Kelleher said. “But there’s something else first. Stevie, I want you to get out your notebook and read everything Wil Nieves said last night and then today to Susan Carol.”
“He can just tell me, that’d be faster,” Susan Carol said. “And why is whatever Wil Nieves said so important?”
Kelleher held up a hand. “Just hang on for a second and you’ll understand,” he said. “I want Stevie to read it to you exactly because I want to hear Tamara’s reaction too.”
“What in the world is goin’ on here?” Susan Carol said, lapsing into her Southern accent. Stevie knew that meant she was upset.
Stevie had taken his notebook out of his computer bag. He flipped to the page where his Nieves notes began. When Kelleher gave him a nod, he began reading. It didn’t take long. Stevie couldn’t read Susan Carol’s face because he was reading the notes, but when he got to what Nieves had said earlier in the afternoon, he heard her let out what sounded to him like a disgusted sigh.
“‘That’s what I asked him,’” Stevie quoted Nieves as he wrapped up. “‘He just asked the waitress for some more iced tea.’”
Stevie looked up and closed the notebook. Now he could see Susan Carol’s face quite clearly. She was wiping tears from her eyes, trying to look composed when she wasn’t.
“Tamara?” Kelleher asked, saying nothing about Susan Carol’s tears.
Tamara looked at Susan Carol for a moment, then at Stevie. She took a deep breath. “I hate to say it, but it certainly sounds as if there was more to that accident than Doyle has said so far. It may not even be that big a deal, but it’s clearly something that’s bothering him. But short of him telling us, I’m not sure how we find out what it is.”
Kelleher looked at Susan Carol. Very softly he said, “Susan Carol, if I’m wrong, just tell me, but I think you know what it is that’s bothering him, don’t you?”
Susan Carol shot Stevie a look. “Please, Bobby, don’t ask me this,” she said. “It’s not fair.”
“Why isn’t it fair?” Stevie said, jumping in, then wishing he hadn’t.
“Because I was told in confidence. It was all off the record. Have you ever heard of off the record, Mr. Can’t Let Anything Go?” she said. “If someone tells you something off the record, that means you can’t talk about it to anybody. Isn’t that right, Tamara?”
“Sort of,” Tamara said. “You aren’t supposed to tell anyone specifically what you know. But the point of letting someone tell you something that’s off the record is that knowing that fact can lead you to other facts that aren’t off the record.”
“I’m assuming we’re talking about your conversation yesterday with David Doyle?” Kelleher said.
For a moment Susan Carol said nothing. Finally she just nodded.
“You aren’t violating anything if you tell us whether your conversation with him had anything to do with what Nieves told Stevie,” Kelleher said.
Susan Carol looked at Tamara. “He’s right,” Tamara said. “That’s fair for off-the-record info.”
Susan Carol looked at Kelleher again and nodded once more.
“Let me ask you one more question,” Kelleher said. “If we were to go to Lynchburg and pull the police records from the night Analise Doyle was killed, will they tell us anything about what David told you?”
Susan Carol grimaced and rubbed her forehead for a moment, thinking. “I don’t know,” she said. “And that’s the truth.”
Stevie was pretty sure he should keep his mouth shut but couldn’t resist. Trying to sound gentle, the way Kelleher had sounded, he said, “Why did David confide in you, Susan Carol?”
The soft voice didn’t fool Susan Carol for even a second. “That, Mr. Steven Richman Thomas, is none of your business,” she said. Then she stood up and fled the room.
Stevie looked at Bobby and Tamara. “I’ll go talk to her,” Tamara said, and headed after her.
Stevie looked at Bobby. “That went well,” he said.
Bobby laughed. “It’ll be okay,” he said. “I’m going to go online and find you a train tomorrow morning.”
“Oh joy,” Stevie said as Kelleher got up and left him sitting alone at the kitchen table. He looked around the empty room and said, “Lynchburg, here I come.”
12: INVESTIGATIVE REPORTER
STEVIE WAS STILL SITTING at the kitchen table when Kelleher returned a few minutes later.
“Well, I’ve got good news and bad news,” he said. “The good news is it only takes about three and a half hours to get from Union Station to Lynchburg.”
“So what’s the bad news?”
“The train leaves at seven in the morning.”
Stevie groaned.
“It won’t be so bad,” Kelleher said. “You fall out of bed into a shower, I’ll drive you to the station, and then you can sleep again once you’re on the train.”
Yeah sure, Stevie thought, sleeping will be easy when I’m having a panic attack about what’s going to happen once I get there. “What time do we have to wake up?” he asked.
“I’d say five-thirty,” Kelleher said. “If we leave here by six, we’ll miss serious rush-hour traffic and you’ll be at the station by six-thirty.”
Stevie sighed. He didn’t have the heart or the guts to try to talk Bobby out of the trip, but he really didn’t want to go. He also wondered what his parents would say about it.
“One more thing, I talked to your dad,” Kelleher said, as if reading his mind. “I told him I needed you to go to Lynchburg to do some reporting for me and that you’d be back tomorrow night.”
“What’d he say?” Stevie asked.
Kelleher laughed. “His first reaction was, ‘Oh God, Bobby, what are they into now?’ I told him we were trying to dig up some important background on Norbert Doyle but there were no bad guys involved in this one. He said your mom wouldn’t be thrilled.”
“I’ll say,” Stevie said.
“But he said it was all right as long as you took some homework with you on the train.”
That reminded Stevie that he was supposed to write a report on The Great Gatsby, and he had barely started the book.
Tamara walked back into the room.
“What’s going on upstairs?” Kelleher said.
“Nothing good,” she said, sitting down. “Susan Carol feels that you two have put her in an impossible position: either she gives away something she was told in absolute confidence or she’s betraying you guys by not helping with the story.”
“You agree with her?” Kelleher asked.
“Honestly? Yes, I do.”
“Does that mean you don’t think I should go to Lynchburg?” Stevie asked—hopeful.
“No, it doesn’t,” she said. “The story needs
to be pursued and it’s clearly your story. I just don’t think any of us should ask Susan Carol about it again.”
They agreed to split up for dinner to give them all some time apart. Tamara would cook for Susan Carol, and Stevie and Bobby would go out. They went to a place called Rio Grande, a Tex-Mex spot one town over in Bethesda. The place was huge and packed, but they only had to wait about five minutes to get a table. Stevie had just ordered steak fajitas when he saw someone approaching the table. Kelleher saw him too, and the look on his face made it apparent he wasn’t thrilled.
“Bobby, how’s it going?” the man said, extending a hand as he walked up. He was, Stevie guessed, in his mid-forties and he was overdressed for a place like Rio Grande in a jacket and tie.
“David, what brings you here?” Kelleher said, shaking hands.
“I live fairly close by and I like the food,” David answered. He turned to Stevie. “I’m guessing you must be Steve Thomas. I’m David Felkoff.”
Stevie accepted the proffered hand and said, “Nice to meet you.”
“David’s an agent,” Kelleher said, which instantly told Stevie why he had looked so unhappy when Felkoff walked up. Kelleher liked agents about as much as most people liked the dentist.
“Player representative, Bobby, you know that,” Felkoff corrected.
“Right, of course,” Kelleher said, sarcasm in his voice.
“Well anyway, just thought I’d say hello,” Felkoff continued, apparently unbothered by Kelleher’s cool reception. “Been on the phone all day talking to book and movie people about my new client. Made me kind of hungry.”
“New client?” Kelleher said.
“Norbert Doyle,” Felkoff said. “If there’s ever a guy who deserves to make a few extra dollars …”
“It’s you,” Kelleher said, which made Stevie laugh.
Felkoff glanced at Stevie for a second and kept going. “Always the funny guy, aren’t you, Bobby?”
“Didn’t Norbert already have an agent?” Stevie asked.
“Not one who could get him meetings with Disney, DreamWorks, Paramount, and Universal,” Felkoff said. “Not to mention Random House; Little, Brown; and Simon and Schuster.”
“Come on, David,” Kelleher said. “Stevie could have gotten him those meetings after last night.”
“Bobby, why do you always have to be so negative?” Felkoff said. “I saw you in here and it occurred to me you might be the perfect guy to write the book—which will be optioned for a screenplay even before you’re finished writing.”
“Well, thanks but no thanks,” Kelleher said. “I don’t write other people’s books, and I certainly don’t get involved in projects with agents like you.”
Felkoff shrugged. “Okay, fine then. I’ll get Mitch Albom. He’s a lot more talented than you anyway.”
“No doubt,” Kelleher said.
Felkoff looked at Stevie again. “Well, it was nice meeting you, young man,” he said. “Don’t believe everything Kelleher tells you about agents.”
“No worries,” Stevie said. “I can form my own opinions.”
Felkoff turned and walked away just as their food arrived.
“Sorry about that,” Kelleher said, “but in a business filled with bad guys, he’s one of the worst. Typical of him to jump on a guy like Doyle—trying to get him a fast movie deal and then act as if he’s the only one who could have gotten it done.”
“There’s just one thing,” Stevie said. “He may not know the movie’s ending.”
Stevie made no attempt to say more than hello to Susan Carol when they got home. He didn’t have to pack, since the plan was for him to come home as soon as he was finished at the courthouse. Kelleher seemed to think he might even make it back in time for the game.
“It’s no more than a ten-minute cab ride from Union Station to the park,” he said. “You catch the four-forty-five train, you can be in the park for first pitch.”
Stevie was in bed by ten-thirty, but as always happened when he knew he had to be up early—especially to do something he didn’t want to do, like cram before a test—he tossed and turned. He wondered if he and Susan Carol would ever be friends again, much less boyfriend and girlfriend, and he wondered if there really was anything he could find out in Lynchburg that would shed light on the story. And what did any of this have to do with baseball? He finally drifted off to sleep and woke up to find Kelleher standing over him.
“You didn’t hear the alarm,” he whispered. “It’s five-thirty-five. Rise and shine.”
He felt better after a shower and the scrambled eggs and bacon Kelleher made for both of them. But the sun wasn’t even coming up when they got in the car.
“Isn’t this the way to the ballpark?” Stevie said when Kelleher swung the car onto the Fourteenth Street Bridge.
“Good memory,” Kelleher said, pointing at a sign ahead that said Nationals Park, with an arrow pointing to the right. “We’re going to get off two exits before the ballpark exit.”
Kelleher parked in the Union Station garage, and they went down two escalators to get into the station. A few minutes later, after they had gotten Stevie’s tickets and Kelleher had bought him a latte at Starbucks, Kelleher pointed him to his gate.
“I’ll have my cell on all day,” he said. “Anything happens, and most important, if you have any trouble at all at the courthouse, call me right away.”
“Okay,” Stevie said, feeling his stomach twist a little because he was about to go off into the unknown all alone.
Kelleher put his hand on Stevie’s shoulder. “You’re going to be fine,” he said. “You’ll get the records on the accident, and we’ll see where that leads us. Worst-case scenario? You’ll be bored. So relax.”
“Right,” Stevie said, forcing a smile.
He squared his shoulders, pulled out his ticket, and headed for the gate.
The trip passed fairly quickly. Stevie read both the Post and the Herald as a stall and then finally turned to The Great Gatsby. He got through about forty pages before his eyes got heavy and he pushed the seat back to sleep. The train was half empty, so he had lots of room.
He awoke to the sound of the conductor announcing, “Lynchburg, Virginia, in five minutes. Next stop is Lynchburg.”
He looked out the window and saw that they were passing through rolling hills with the leaves still green on the trees. Fall came later in southern Virginia than in Boston, Philadelphia, or even Washington.
He looked at his watch as the train pulled in to the station: it was 10:25—five minutes early. He hoped that was a sign that things would go quickly and he would be back on the train headed for Washington soon. He might even make the end of batting practice.
The Lynchburg station was very small, especially compared with massive Union Station, and he only had to walk a short way to get outside to a tiny cab stand. There were three taxis sitting there and no one was ahead of Stevie in line.
“You need a taxi, young man?” said a man leaning against the first cab in line.
“Yes, I do,” Stevie said. “Can you take me to the courthouse? The address is—”
The cabbie waved him off. “Son, there’s only one courthouse in Lynchburg. You don’t need to tell me the address. Hop in.”
Stevie took his backpack off and shoved it into the backseat ahead of him. He had brought The Great Gatsby, a reporter’s notebook, his phone, and his computer, which he thought he might need to do some writing on Gatsby, or perhaps something more interesting, on the way home.
“So why in the world do you need to go to the courthouse?” the cabbie wondered aloud as he pulled away from the station.
“Doing some research on my family,” Stevie said as Kelleher had suggested he say in case anyone asked. “It’s for a paper at school.”
“Interesting,” the cabbie said. “Where are you from?”
“Washington,” Stevie said, just in case the cabbie knew his train had come in from there.
“And you came down here today with th
e World Series going on up there?”
“Um, it got me out of school for the day,” Stevie said.
The cabbie laughed. “Good point,” he answered.
The trip to the courthouse took under ten minutes. When Stevie paid the fare, the cabbie handed him the receipt with a card. “When you’re ready to go back to the station, give me a call,” he said. “That’s my cell number at the bottom. If I can’t come get you, I’ll send someone for you.”
“Thanks,” Stevie said, noting the cabbie’s name on his card. “Thanks, Miles, I’m Steve. I’ll give you a call later.”
They shook hands, and Stevie got out and found himself at the bottom of the steps leading to the Lynchburg courthouse. It was quite big, Stevie thought, for a small town and looked to be quite old. As he made his way up the steps, he saw that he wasn’t wrong: “Opened Sept. 15th, 1932,” a small plaque read just outside the door.
He pulled open a heavy door and was relieved that the first person he saw was a smiling middle-aged woman behind a desk labeled Information.
He explained to her that he was looking for a police report from an automobile accident that had taken place twelve years earlier. If the request sounded strange to her, she didn’t show it. “Do you know if there were any charges filed?” she asked.
“I don’t honestly know,” Stevie said. That was a question he certainly wouldn’t have felt comfortable asking Doyle at breakfast.
“Start with Automobile Records, on the second floor,” she said, pointing up a long staircase behind her. “If they haven’t got it, that means it will be in the Criminal Records section.”
Stevie thanked her and made his way up the steps. The third door he came to said Automobile Records on it. He walked in and found an older man and a young woman ahead of him on line. There was only one clerk working. He quickly learned that automobile records didn’t just mean records of accidents. This was also the place where people came to get license plates and vehicle registration. That’s what the two people in front of him were doing.
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