Drive Time (17 page)

I close my eyes for a fraction of a second as I follow him. I’m desperate to stay calm. If they were hurt, or dead, someone would have called me. No one has called me.

Ebling waves me to a high-backed wing chair, over-stuffed and oversize, upholstered with muted tonal blue stripes. Its twin is positioned conversationally beside it. A round mahogany table, a bouquet of yellow chrysanthemums and two Bexter catalogs placed artfully on top, sits between them. The fundraiser’s lair.

I perch on the edge of the one chair, digging in my bag for my phone. I’m ready to run. Or call for help. Or both.

“Mr. Ebling? Please.”

Ebling is at the door. I hear it click closed. He crosses the room and goes to sit behind his desk. He has about one more second or I am going to kill him.

“Miss McNally,” he says. “I’m so sorry to tell you…”

My heart drops.

“Josh is downtown. In Boston. At the district attorney’s office.”

“At the—?” My heart is beating again. But my brain is struggling to understand. “Is he all right?”

“He’s being questioned in the deaths of Dorothy Wirt and Alethia Espinosa.”

“What?” My voice pierces high C. The entire contents
of my tote bag spill to the floor as I leap from my chair, glaring at Ebling. He’s fidgeting like a scared ferret. “What on earth are you talking about? Questioned? When did he go? Who took him? Where?”

I crouch to my knees, still wearing my coat, half looking at Ebling while I frantically scoop up pens, pencils, lipstick, change, my phone and my checkbook, scraping my fingernails across the tight weave of the Oriental rug. “Is he charged with something? Why didn’t anyone call me? And you, you knew this?”

I hear Ebling punching buttons on his phone. He leans forward, elbows on his desk, resting his head on two fingers as he apparently waits for someone to answer. He’s put his glasses back on and the receiver is clamped to his ear so hard it’s pushing them cockeyed.

“Miss McNally,” he manages to say, adjusting the glasses back into place on his nose, “in a moment or two, I certainly can determine whether he’ll be back here soon.”

I don’t feel like waiting a moment or two.

“Where’s Penny? Is she in class? She’s supposed to meet her father at lunchtime. What if Josh wasn’t back by then?”

“Miss McNally, please. I’m attempting to help you here.” He looks as if he’s on the verge of tears. Wimp.

If I hadn’t come back to peek into Josh’s classroom, I wouldn’t know anything about this. Whatever this is. Why didn’t Josh call me?

Ebling is murmuring into the receiver, his end of the conversation monosyllabic. I make out “Gelston” and “McNally” and “Soroff.” Jeremiah Soroff is the new district attorney. His predecessor, Oscar Ortega, resigned in ignominy after Franklin and I proved he was in up to his flashy bow ties in evidence tampering and fixing cases. I’d hoped his replacement would be one of the good guys.

I plop back onto the chair and yank the zipper on my
bag, closing everything but my phone and car keys inside. The theme from
Charlie’s Angels
makes Ebling look up, expectant, from his call.

“Is that Josh?” he asks. He puts his hand over the mouthpiece.

“No,” I reply. “It is not Josh. I’m still waiting for you to tell me exactly where Josh is, since you clearly know. And you are clearly refusing to tell me.”

“Yes, she is,” Ebling says. Into the phone.

He nods at me, pointing to the receiver and holding up an index finger, attempting a charade I’m apparently supposed to translate as “I’m hearing something encouraging.”

“Immediately,” he says. “Yes, my office.”

My phone warbles again, the perky theme music yanking me back to my parallel reality.

Franklin. I look at the tall grandfather clock beside the stolid redbrick fireplace, its pendulum relentlessly ticking away my options. It’s almost noon. I’m supposed to be at the station. We’re supposed to be meeting with Kevin about tonight’s stakeout. A conversation with myself, a blur of words, volleys through my head in a fraction of an instant.

I have to take care of Josh. Franklin and J.T. will have to go on the stakeout alone.

What if they hit pay dirt, catch the valet parkers in the act, find where they’re taking the cars, and I’m not there?

What if Josh is in trouble?

What if I miss the story? J.T. and Franklin can’t confront the bad guys. I’m the reporter. I have to be there. It’s my job.

Josh is my life. Penny is my life.

I can’t be two places at one time.

I flip open my phone to tell Franklin I might be late.

“Miss McNally?”

Bursar Aaron Pratt appears at the door. I know from the BEX he’s a Bexter graduate. I’ve seen his fifth-grade photo, a pudgy Humpty perched on the front row, and a few pages later, his charismatic image in the graduating class, suddenly with shoulders, class-president hair and tall enough to be in the back with the other hunks. That was almost thirty years ago. He’s still got the shoulders and most of the hair. And the charisma.

“Procedure, procedure, procedure,” he says, shaking his head in what I’m apparently supposed to recognize as sympathy. His outstretched hand precedes him into the room.

Now I’ll get some answers. I clack my phone closed and stand. I’ll have to call Franklin back.

“What procedure?” I ask. I shake his hand so he’ll get the show on the road. “Mr. Ebling told me that the district attorney—”

“Please sit,” he says, settling himself in the wing chair opposite mine.

I’ll do anything to get these people to stop stalling. I plop into the chair, once again, and look between the two. I can’t decide which of them is acting more uncomfortable, the ferret or the movie star.

The movie star seems to be in charge. “Miss McNally, I’m so sorry you were concerned, there’s simply no need,” Pratt begins, leaning forward and putting his elbows on his knees. “It all happened so quickly there simply wasn’t time.”

“There’s time now,” I say, getting to my feet. “Right now.”

Pratt waves me back to the chair, acknowledging my impatience. “District Attorney Soroff’s office called us, just as the students were beginning class this morning. He explained he was sending several plainclothes detectives here to Bexter as the school opened, and that they would
wait in Main until the classes began. To prevent anyone from being alarmed. After classes begin, he said he would need to ask several of our employees to come in for questioning. All voluntary, he said.”

I open my mouth, but Pratt continues. “Be assured, we checked with our attorneys. They called Soroff. It’s all quite legal.”

Pratt runs a hand through that hair, then leans even closer to me. “Apparently our two—unfortunate incidents, with Dorothy and Alethia, have piqued the curiosity of someone in authority. Now they’re looking for additional information. According to our attorneys, the D.A.’s office is rechecking the blood tests performed on poor Dorothy after her death.”

“The tox screen,” I say. Interesting. We had been told it showed nothing unusual. High level of carbon monoxide, exactly what would be expected. My mind goes back to those pills in Dorothy and Millie’s medicine cabinet. And to the fingerprints I left on the container.

“The tox screen. Exactly. In conjunction with this renewed investigation, if that’s what it is, they’ve called in several people to discuss their whereabouts the nights of the accidents. The Head. The dean of boys. And…” Pratt pauses, then narrows his eyes at Ebling. “You?”

“No,” Ebling says. He gives his phone an edgy glance, as if his summons might be imminent.

“And Josh,” Pratt continues. “I’m sure it’s nothing. But I’m sure you’re upset.”

Duh.

“Let me drive you to the district attorney’s office,” he offers. “Let me drive her,” Ebling pipes up. He stands, leaning forward, and places both palms on his desk. “The Head left you in charge here. Perhaps it’s best if you don’t leave. It would be no trouble, Miss McNally. My car is right outside.”

“That won’t be necessary.” Pratt’s voice, curt, doesn’t match his smile. “And Ebling, you check on Penny. I’m sure her father will return before the end of today’s classes. If not, please keep her in your office. I’ll drive Miss McNally downtown.”

“Thank you, both, but I’m driving myself.” I stand, hoisting my tote bag to my shoulder. Holding up my cell phone, I look between the two of them as I back toward the door. “Do I need to call a lawyer for Josh? Is your firm handling this? Who is at the D.A.’s office advising him?”

Pratt and Ebling, now side by side in front of the desk, wear matching frowns. And then, one after the other, they switch on nervous smiles.

“I’m sure everything will be fine,” Ebling says.

“I’ll take care of Penny, don’t worry,” Pratt adds. “We don’t want to disrupt her first day at Bexter.”

“I
’m not press. I’m family.” I’m facing an expanse of government-issue wood and metal, the front desk in the foyer of the district attorney’s office. And I’ve suddenly hit the wall.

The wall in this case is the flame-haired, lip-liner-addicted, fashion-challenged receptionist of the D.A.’s office. Her green plastic nameplate says Monica Beales. Her demeanor says go away.

Monica flips the tiny microphone on her Time-Life operator contraption up over her head. Looks at me through disdaining eyes.

“You’re Charlie McNally, Channel 3. Correct? I remember you from before.” The Gorgon taps an acrylic nail on the laminated press pass I’ve placed in front of her. “Unless you quit your job since your last story about our office? And you’re somehow hanging on to your credentials?”

“No, I still work at Channel 3, of course. But you can understand this is a different situation. It’s personal,” I say, making my eyes plead, which isn’t that difficult since I’m verging on frantic. Attempting to elicit some sisterly empathy, I hold up my engagement ring, fluttering my fingers in the time-honored notice-my-diamond gesture. “Like I said, my fiancé, Professor Joshua Gelston, hasn’t answered his cell phone. I’ve
been calling and calling. And I know he’s here. And I need to know if he’s okay. What’s happening. If he needs a lawyer.”

“You’re a reporter. You’re press. Press is press,” Monica says. Reciting the gospel according to bureaucrats. “Family is family. But you’re not family. You’re press.”

“I understand, I really do. And I know you’re doing your job.” Gag. “But in this case—”

She’s not going to let me finish my sentence. One imperious finger points me to the yellowing arrangement of earth-toned seventies-era chairs and pockmarked coffee table in to one side of the foyer. The wall is covered with a time-travel array of former district attorneys. Their photographs evolve from sepia-toned scions with pince-nez glasses and high white collars to power-suited pinstripes and designer ties. All men, I can’t help but notice. The recently imprisoned Oscar Ortega’s photo has been replaced, as if the disgraced ex-DA never existed, by a stern-faced Jeremiah Soroff.

Although her previous boss Oscar Ortega was ousted, Monica remains at her post. And apparently she blames me for Ortega’s demise. Hey, I didn’t corrupt the justice system. I just reported on the guy who did. That hardly makes it my bad.

“Take a seat,” she commands. “I’ll notify the press secretary you’re here.”

“But I don’t want the press secretary. I’m not working on a news story. Listen, Monica, I’m only wondering if—”

“Or you can call her later, for an update,” she says. She flips her microphone thing back into place. Lights on the phone console begin blinking green. “I’m on duty till five.”

I’ve lost this round. But I’m not defeated.

“I’m staying here. Until Josh is finished. Do you know how long it’ll be? He’ll have to come out this way, right?”
I’m edging toward the tired-looking couch, proving I’m being obedient, but still digging for information.

“Sorry.” She aims a finger at one of the green lights, and punches down the button. I’m dismissed.

At least Franklin had good news. After unsuccessfully trying Josh again, Franklin was the second call I’d made from the makeshift office I’ve set up on the D.A.’s sprung-cushioned couch. Coat thrown across one corner. Tote bag open. Laptop humming on the scarred coffee table. Notebook and pencil out. Cell phone to my ear. From time to time, harried-looking people wearing clacking necklaces of laminated badges scurry by. With practiced I-don’t-want-to-get-involved attitudes, they entirely ignore the worried woman in black pants, black sweater and plaid muffler who’s spread out in their waiting room. Fine. Today I’d rather not be recognized.

Josh is still not answering his cell. I just hope he’s not in one.

According to Franklin, Kevin’s staying with the program. Franklin, J.T. and I are set to hit the Longmore Hotel valet parkers again tonight. Franklin is playing phone tag with Saskia about the blue Mustang and he’s tracking down the owner of the valet-parking company. He says BeaconValet is apparently set up as some sort of elaborate trust designed to obscure the actual owner’s name. Or names. The trust designers might say it’s to “protect” the actual owners’names. I would disagree. But Franklin will figure it out.

I try Josh again. No answer. Next, Toni DuShane, the station’s lawyer. I land in voice mail, story of my life. I punch out a text message. CHARLIE MC. CALL ASAP. Seconds later, my phone rings. It’s not the
Charlie’s Angels
ring. It’s Toni.

“Hey, sister. What’s happening?”

Sistah,
she says. Toni’s Harvard Law, out of Roxbury
High, by way of a stint as a fashion model, her career capped by an award-winning cover on
Essence.
Now, her street-corner accent is long gone, except when she resurrects it to charm her pals or win over jurors. She’s what they call a “green-light” lawyer because she works to get our stories on TV, not keep them off. We bonded many years ago over the First Amendment and scotch on the rocks. The hard stuff is a little more risky as we both now push fifty. We’re both still as devoted to the First Amendment. She and Maysie are shopping for wedding outfits.

In the briefest possible way, trying to avoid commentary about Bexter’s patrician hierarchy and leaving out the Dulles and Kindell phone calls completely, I tell Toni what I know. I keep my voice low to keep Monica from eavesdropping as I give Toni the bullet points.

“And doesn’t that seem odd?” I finish my recitation with an all-encompassing question. To me, the whole idea that Josh is being questioned is odd.

I hear a dismissive snort from Toni’s end of the line. “Well, not only odd. It’s absurd. To send your own employees into the unholy maw of the shiny new district attorney’s office? Without a lawyer?” She pauses, and I hear someone’s phone ringing in the background. “No one should ever, ever talk to the police without a lawyer. I mean, it’s not only in the movies that you see innocent people being framed. Or getting so nervous they say something they shouldn’t. Or saying something that makes them a prime suspect. Rule one, sister. If there’s a murder investigation? Shut the heck up.”

“I know, I know,” I say, looking at my watch. “He’s been in there for hours. That’s why I’m calling you, of course. Can you get over here? Call them, or something?”

“Oh, kiddo, I’m so sorry. I’m in court. The clerk’s calling our case. Listen. I have two minutes. Let me ask you something. Go with me, here, okay?”

“Sure.”

“Do they think Josh is guilty? Why?”

Exactly what I’ve been wondering. Obviously Josh is not a murderer. So why is he now being kept behind closed doors in the highest law enforcement office in the county? I glance at Monica. She’s stolidly ignoring me.

“Why do they think he’s—well, they don’t. As far as I know.” I’m fully whispering now, hiding my mouth behind my hand. Maybe Monica is only pretending to ignore me. “They’re just, what was it Pratt said? Checking everyone’s whereabouts the night of the, um, deaths.”

“Precisely,” Toni says. “It’s all about alibis. So? Does Josh have one?”

I turn my back to receptionist Monica, my shoulders hunched and head down, facing the lint-filled inside corner of the mustardy couch. My two minutes with Toni are almost up.

“Well, yeah. Listen. No. I guess he, really, doesn’t have an alibi. Because see, on the night that—”

“Charlie, hon, I’m so sorry,” Toni breaks in. “They’re calling me. Listen, quickly, I’m walking down the hall. But if Josh comes out, you have him call me. Okay?”

“
If
he comes out?”

“When he comes out,” Toni says.

And she’s gone.

I lower the cell phone from my ear, slowly, and stare at the photograph displayed on its tiny screen. It’s Josh, in a baggy bathing suit and Red Sox cap, a citrus-striped beach towel over one shoulder, standing on an expanse of white sand, the turquoise Caribbean twinkling behind him. The sun glares from his dark-lensed sunglasses. If you look closely in the reflection, you can make out a wavy Charlie, towel wrapped around my waist and camera raised, snapping the photo. Every time I see it, I can almost smell the coconut sunscreen.

We’d been engaged for exactly one day when I took that snapshot.

I lean back into the couch, propping my boots up on the coffee table before I remember that’s probably pushing it with old Monica. I hold my cell phone in one hand, my lifeline, so I can answer instantly if it rings. When it rings. With a sigh, I put my elbows on my knees and stare at the unfortunate rug.

I can hear the buzz of the ancient fluorescent lights above me. My computer screen, keys untouched, clicks to black. Somewhere, behind closed doors and unreachable, is the man I’m going to marry. What if he gets arrested for murder?

Forget about it. I put my boots on the table, and clonk my head on the back of the couch. This is script fodder for some made-for-TV movie. Penny and I, hand in hand, going to court every day while Josh sits at the defendant’s table. While he takes the stand. Manipulative police officers, one after the other, spout a parade of lies. Jeremiah Soroff gloating. Cameras rolling. Josh’s career in shambles. I’d have to quit my job at Channel 3, take a leave of absence or something, in order to stand by him. Maybe I could even work on his case. We could hire the best of lawyers, someone like our pal Will Easterly, or the media-savvy Oliver Rankin. The jury would—

My phone rings.
Charlie’s Angels
jars me out of my melodrama. I shake off my absurd scenario. Josh has done nothing wrong. Nothing any district attorney or cop tries to say can possibly change that.

“Hey, Franko. What up?”

“News?” he asks.

“Nothing,” I say. “You?”

“Well, yeah. I talked to Saskia, at the radio station. Got the phone number. Called it.”

“Fantastic. I guess I wrote it down wrong, right?”

“Wrong. You got it right. It’s just not a phone number.”

“Not a—?” I can’t help but sing it to myself. I’ll be able to sing it forever: 555-0193.

“Not a phone number. There’s no such number. There’s no prefix 555. It’s only used for movies and stuff.”

“Could it be a cell phone? One of those prepaid phone things?”

“Oh, darn, Charlotte. Y’all are so awfully smart. I jes’ forgot to ask the phone company that.” Franklin pauses, making sure his sarcasm sinks in. “Yes, of course I checked on that. And no, it’s neither of those. Trust me, it’s not a phone number. It’s a dead end.”

“Hssst.”

I twist around, trying to gauge where the hissing sound is coming from. It’s Monica.

“Hang on, Franko.” I look at Monica, questioning.

The receptionist cocks her head backward, toward the closed doors behind her. She holds up five fingers. Then, with a dramatic twist of her head, turns back to her blinking phone console.

“Gotta go, Franko. I’ll call you.” I click the phone closed before Franklin has a chance to answer. I close my computer and return it to my tote bag. Flap my notebook shut, click my pen closed and stash both of them in the side pocket. I grab my coat, but the sleeves are somehow hopelessly tangled, refusing to let me put my hands through as I struggle to put it on. I adjust my muffler around my neck and stand, staring at the doors.

Five minutes until what?

Until Josh comes out, in handcuffs, being led away to the lockup?

Until Josh comes out, smiling and free, and we can go home?

I look at my watch. Two more minutes. I look up. Monica is no longer at her desk.

Monica slides through the opaque double doors and into the back rooms of the D.A.’s office. Franklin and I have been here countless times, and I know it’s nothing but zigzags of fabric-covered movable walls, a checkerboard of cubicles. Behind that, a row of actual offices, with actual walls, and with windows overlooking the gold dome of the state Capitol.

The doors open. There’s Josh. His back, at least. He’s wearing his coat, which I hope is a good sign. He turns halfway, looking back toward the hallway and offices, talking to someone else I can’t see. Josh gestures, a swift chop of one hand I’ve seen hundreds of times. He’s not wearing handcuffs.

I have to press my lips together to keep myself from crying. Then I see another man’s hand on one of the double doors, keeping it open. Who? Why? Pale long fingers, a wedding ring. Then a pin-striped arm comes through. A broad shoulder.

My own shoulders drop in relief. It’s Will Easterly. When we first met about a year ago, he was a lanky pale whisper of a man, gray hair a bit too long, cheekbones a bit too high, suit a bit too off the rack. Back then, he was crusading to get an innocent woman out of prison. Now he’s happily married to her. Now he’s much better dressed and clearly found a barber. But he’s still crusading. He’s one of the best defense lawyers in Boston.

Josh turns and sees me.

And the doors close behind them. Josh is out.

I’m at Josh’s side in an instant. Burying my face in his shoulder, I lock both my arms through the crook of his, inhaling his scent, still close to tears.

“Why? How? Who? When? What?” I say, my voice muffled by navy blue wool. “Are you okay? Why didn’t you call me?”

“Charlie, darling, how did you find out I was here?”
Josh is talking at the same time. “I didn’t want to worry you. I had my phone off. I’m fine.”

“Hey, Charlie,” Will says. “Long time no see.”

The coffee is disgusting. Inside the lobby of the Saltonstall Office Building it’s as dank and chilly as it is outside. Still, I have never been so happy to be anywhere, drinking anything. Josh is out. And if Will’s lawyer-magic worked, Josh is not going back in.

Toni DuShane was right. It was all about the alibi.

“They kept asking me where I was when Dorothy died. Where I was when Alethia fell. But I knew you would have killed me if I hadn’t called a lawyer, sweetheart.” Josh is leaning against a dingy mottled wall, propping his coffee cup on the marble pedestal of a statue of Leverett Saltonstall himself, the fifty-seventh governor of Massachusetts. “Will was good enough to hurry over from court.”