John Feinstein - Change-up - Mystery at the World Series

“Why can’t you go too?”

Kelleher shook his head. “I can’t miss the first World Series game in Washington since 1933 to go off chasing a story that may or may not even be a story,” he said. “If it were today, no game, I’d go with you. But not tomorrow.”

Seeing the look on Stevie’s face, he patted him on the shoulder. “Cheer up,” he said. “The best stories are usually the ones that are the hardest to do. This may be one of them.”

They pulled into the driveway. Tamara’s car was there. “They’re home,” Kelleher said. “Let’s go find out if you’re going to become an investigative reporter beginning tomorrow.”

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.”

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.”