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

Someone pointed out to him that you could see the Capitol building from the upper deck.

“I’m not sitting up there, am I?” Ortiz said.

That, Stevie knew, would be plenty for Kelleher. He snapped his notebook shut and headed into the hallway. He was about to make the right turn to the elevator when he saw a familiar figure standing-alone-a few yards from the Nationals clubhouse. It was Morra Doyle. Her face brightened and she waved.

“Hey, Steve,” she said.

“Hi, Morra,” he said, returning the wave. He half turned to go when he noticed that she was walking rapidly in his direction.

“Have you got a minute?” she asked as she walked up.

“Actually, not really,” Stevie said. “I’ve got to get some quotes upstairs to someone who’s on a tight deadline.”

“I understand,” she said. She reached into her purse, fished around, and pulled out a piece of paper. “Can I borrow your pen?”

He handed it to her. She wrote a phone number on the piece of paper. “Look, I know you know about David talking to Susan Carol,” she said. “I’d really like to talk to you sometime tomorrow. Will you call me? That’s my cell.”

Stevie had a feeling he was being set up-though he wasn’t sure how, or even why-but he nodded. “Sure, I’ll call you,” he said.

“Great,” she said. She looked around as if to make sure no one was watching her. “This isn’t a setup, honest,” she said. She turned and walked back down the hallway.

So, Stevie thought, she can read minds. If nothing else, the Doyle family was always full of surprises.

Stevie filled Kelleher in on his meeting with Morra Doyle in the car on the way home. He and Tamara had come in separate cars because Kelleher had wanted to get to the ballpark very early.

“My guess is that Susan Carol told David about you going to Lynchburg, and Morra wants to find out what you learned,” Kelleher said. “She’s the logical one to pump you.”

“Why?” Stevie asked.

“Come on, Stevie. She’s a pretty fourteen-year-old girl, and you’re a fourteen-year-old boy. How would you have reacted if David had come up to you tonight?”

“Probably would have punched him.”

“I rest my case.”

Stevie asked Kelleher if he had talked to David Felkoff about his henchman, Donald Walsh, turning up in Lynchburg. “Not yet,” Kelleher said. “I’m not ready to tip my hand just yet.”

Stevie sat quietly for a couple of minutes, trying to turn the whole thing over in his mind. He wondered what Morra had meant when she said this wasn’t a setup. He asked Kelleher what he thought.

“Well, you were bound to be suspicious,” he said. “She’s trying to make sure you’re curious enough to call.”

“What if I hadn’t run into her?” he asked.

“I think you would have gotten a phone call.”

He supposed it made sense. But something else was bothering him about the whole thing. They were riding in silence along the George Washington Parkway. Kelleher started to turn on the radio. Stevie grabbed his hand and said, “Hang on a second.”

Kelleher left the radio alone.

“You know what makes no sense at all in all this?” Stevie said. “The whole David meeting with Susan Carol thing. What was that about? It wasn’t as if any of us were looking for this story or asking questions about it. We sat there at breakfast and bought the whole Disney-movie scenario. Why would David tell Susan Carol something off the record when she had absolutely no idea there was anything to tell? Morra’s different because she probably knows that I do know something, and she’s trying to do damage control. I get that. But the David part I don’t get at all.”

It was now Kelleher’s turn to be silent for a moment. “Good point,” he said finally. “The only thing I can think of is that he somehow saw telling Susan Carol the story as an excuse to see her alone.”

“You mean put the moves on her by telling her that his dad killed his mom?”

“I’m not sure I would phrase it quite that way, but yes. Look, we don’t even know for sure what David and Morra know about that night. Maybe David wants sympathy from Susan Carol, or maybe there’s still something we don’t know. In fact, I think there’s a very good chance we haven’t got the whole story yet. Stuff like this is rarely black and white, good guys and bad guys. It’s a lot grayer than that. So it’s hard to know what David was doing until we know what he thinks happened that night. And really, just wanting to spend time with Susan Carol isn’t the craziest thing I’ve heard so far.”

Stevie laughed. “I know it sounds awful,” he said, “but if that’s what it is, you have to give the guy props for coming up with a unique way to try to impress a girl.”

They pulled into the driveway. Tamara’s car was already in the garage. She always wrote, Stevie had noticed, a little bit faster than Kelleher. He had no idea what Susan Carol had written about, since they hadn’t really spoken for twenty-four hours. Tamara and Susan Carol were sitting at the kitchen table when they walked in.

“You are really slowing down in your old age,” Tamara said as Kelleher put down his computer bag and Stevie dropped his backpack off his shoulders.

“I try to write in English,” Kelleher answered his wife, walking over to give her a kiss.

Tamara looked at Stevie. “So, young sleuth, you want to tell us about your day?”

Stevie looked at Kelleher. Technically, Tamara and Susan Carol were their competition, since they worked for the Post, but that didn’t really matter. This, however, felt different.

“I think we need to talk first,” Kelleher said. He had poured himself a Coke and sat down across from Susan Carol. Stevie was standing at the counter, his mouth feeling dry, but not, he suspected, because he was thirsty.

“What do we need to talk about?” Susan Carol asked, no doubt sensing that she was not going to like it.

“Well, to be honest, Susan Carol, we need to know if we can trust you,” Kelleher said. “I respect that you want to keep the promise you made to David-whether it was made to him as a source or a friend-even though it’s a big pain for us to deal with. What worries me is the idea that you’re telling David what we know.”

“WHAT?!”

“Morra wants to meet with Stevie to discuss what David told you.”

“WHAT?!”

“Yeah, that’s right,” Stevie put in. “Maybe she wants to tell me how her dad killed her mom and the cops covered it up for him.”

“Quiet, Stevie,” Kelleher said sharply. He wasn’t sure if he was shutting him up because he was revealing too much or because he didn’t like the tone of voice he was speaking to Susan Carol in. Probably both, he figured.

“The story’s not that simple, Stevie,” Susan Carol said. “There’s more to it than that.”

Tamara kept looking from Bobby to Stevie to Susan Carol, as if trying to figure out what in the world they were talking about. Now, though, she put her arm around Susan Carol’s shoulders and said softly, “Then you should tell us the rest. Off the record doesn’t mean you can’t talk to other people about what you know as long as you know they won’t print it based on what you tell them. If Stevie and Bobby are going in the wrong direction, you need to give them some guidance.”

“I can’t,” Susan Carol said. “It wasn’t just off the record, it was a secret.”

Stevie threw his arms up in disgust. “What is this, first grade? Doesn’t it bother you that this guy basically got away with murder?”

“He did not!” Susan Carol said angrily. “He’s lived with the guilt for twelve years, and he’ll live with it the rest of his life. You just want to hate him because you think I like David.”