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

“ If there’s a movie,” Tamara put in.

“Right,” Kelleher said. “If he admits it, I’m not sure we write it.”

“What if he keeps lying?”

“Then we have two cops on the record saying he was drinking that night. Maybe then we have to write it, I don’t know. But first we have to talk to him.”

Tamara said, “May be easier said than done. Doyle may have wanted to confront Stevie last night, but I’m sure Felkoff will advise him not to talk to us about the night of the accident. Too much to lose, not a lot to gain. Felkoff-jerk that he is-should be smart enough to know there’s no story unless we talk to him again.”

“Felkoff may be talking to Norbert about all this, but he’s probably not talking to David and Morra much,” Susan Carol said. “What if I talked to David again?”

“Have you two still been talking?” Tamara asked, an instant before Stevie could ask the same question.

“No,” she said. “Not since Saturday. He sent me a text yesterday saying he knew I had gone with Stevie to Lynchburg and that he was very disappointed in me. I wrote back that I had not broken my word to him. That’s the last I’ve heard from him.”

“So, what do you propose?” Bobby said.

“I could ask for a meeting. Just the two of us. Try to make him understand we aren’t out to get his dad or him or Morra, but we need to talk, we need to know the truth.”

“I don’t think that’s going to work,” Bobby said. “With all due respect to your ability to charm people, Susan Carol, even if he thinks it’s a good idea, Felkoff won’t.”

“So, what do we do then?” Susan Carol asked.

Stevie had been quiet throughout the conversation. Now he sat up straight. “How about if we bluff them?” he said.

“What do you mean?” Bobby said.

“What if we sit down and write the story-everything we know. Then Susan Carol calls David and asks for a meeting with him and Morra. We present the story to them and say it’s going in the paper on Thursday and that his dad has until Wednesday to tell us his side.”

Stevie looked at Tamara.

“It might work,” she said.

“We still have to try to call Doyle first,” Kelleher said. “Just straight-out say we need to talk to him.”

“What if he says no or doesn’t respond?” Stevie asked.

“Then maybe we go with your plan,” Kelleher said.

“Do you think Doyle and Felkoff would know it’s a bluff?” Stevie said.

“I don’t think they can afford to take the chance, do you?” Tamara said.

Kelleher nodded. “You might be right.”

He picked up the phone, called the Ritz-Carlton, and left a message for Doyle. He looked at Susan Carol. “In the meantime,” he said, “why don’t you give David a call.”

She took out her phone and began punching buttons. Even though he completely believed her when she said nothing had happened that day on the Freedom Trail, Stevie was very relieved to see that David Doyle was not on Susan Carol’s speed dial.

Not surprisingly, Susan Carol got his voice mail. She left a message telling David, “It’s very important that you call me about the story Stevie and I are writing right now.”

“That should get a response,” she said.

Only it didn’t. The afternoon passed with no answer from either Norbert Doyle or David Doyle. Kelleher called John Dever to ask him to please pass a message to Doyle. An hour later Dever called him back. “Norbert says he’s got no interest in talking to you guys,” Dever said. “I’m sorry, I did try.”

Shortly before they left for dinner, Susan Carol sent David a text saying the same thing as the phone message. They ate at a very crowded, very loud-but very good-restaurant called Grill 23.

There were lots of baseball people in the restaurant-writers, TV people, and folks who worked for Major League Baseball.

Stevie saw Phyllis Merhige and Rich Levin, the two PR people whom Bobby and Tamara were friendly with, walking toward the table. Right behind them was a familiar figure: Bud Selig, the commissioner of baseball.

“You all know the commissioner, don’t you?” Merhige asked as they walked up.

“No, we’ve never met,” Kelleher said, clearly joking as he stood up to shake hands.

“Tamara, when are you going to explain how you ended up with this one?” Selig said, moving on to give Mearns a kiss.

“He promised he could get me into baseball games,” Tamara said.

“And this must be young Mr. Thomas and young Miss Anderson,” Selig said as both Stevie and Susan Carol stood to shake his hand.

“I guess the good news for us is that you two are covering the World Series and no one has been kidnapped or blackmailed or covered up a drug test,” Selig said with a smile.

“As far as you know, Commissioner,” Kelleher said.

“Don’t even joke about that, Bobby,” Selig said.

He waved his goodbyes and followed Levin to the front door.

Merhige lingered for a moment. “Everything okay?” she said, mostly to Kelleher but clearly to the whole table.

“Everything’s going to be fine, Phyllis,” Kelleher said.

“I hope so,” Phyllis said. “If you need me…”

“Thanks, Phyllis, we know,” Kelleher said.

She followed Selig and Levin to the door.

“You like Selig?” Susan Carol asked.

“I like him a lot,” Kelleher said. “I don’t always agree with him-in fact, I disagree with him often. But I definitely like him.”

They decided to walk back to the hotel. It was a brisk night, but it wasn’t windy and it wasn’t that far. They were about halfway back when Susan Carol’s phone began playing the Duke fight song. She pulled it out of her pocket, looked at the number, and said, “It’s him.”

They all knew who “him” was without asking.

“David, I didn’t think you were ever going to call me,” she said, picking up, not in a Scarlett voice but in a pleasant one. After Doyle had talked for a few seconds, she responded.

“I think you probably have a good idea what’s in the story,” she said. “But you should see it so you understand exactly what’s at stake.”

She listened for another moment. “As long as we give your dad the chance to answer our questions, we’ve done our job. Bobby Kelleher tried to contact him today, and he said he wouldn’t talk to us. If he won’t meet with us alone, then we’ll try to talk in the clubhouse tomorrow night. And if he ducks that, we’ll try one more time. But if all we get is ‘No comment,’ we’ve still done all we need to do.”

She pulled the phone away from her ear suddenly and Stevie could hear shouting coming from the other end.

“How about one o’clock tomorrow in Faneuil Hall?” she said. “We’ll get pizza and meet you in the dining area.”

“Crowded is what we want, David,” she said in response to his next comment.

She listened one more time. “Of course I’m bringing Stevie. You should bring Morra. Maybe she can apologize for those lies your dad was telling about Stevie last night.”

She looked at the phone and smiled. “He hung up.”

“You think they’ll show?” Stevie said.

“They’ll show,” Susan Carol said. “The question is, will they take our bait?”

“Well, as of this moment we have no bait,” Kelleher said. “You guys need to get to bed so you can get an early start on writing this ‘story.’”

Stevie and Susan Carol agreed to meet for breakfast at eight o’clock so they would have plenty of time to work on the story before the one o’clock meeting. Stevie picked at his French toast while staring out at the harbor. It was a crisp, gorgeous New England fall day.

“I think I could live here,” he said to Susan Carol.