Brian Mcgrory - Dead Line

Of Hank Sweeney, I left him out — mostly. He stood over my shoulder as I wrote, giving me a legion of key details about the extent to which the FBI went to protect its prized informant for all those years. Hank agreed to be named in print, probably as some sort of penance for long-ago mistakes. But no need. I quoted him as an unnamed retired law enforcement official intimate with the details of the case. Let a judge or a congressional committee try to get it out of me.

Speaking of which, Jankle was charged by Boston police for Hilary Kane’s murder the following morning after a court-authorized search of his house turned up a gun that had gone missing from an FBI evidence locker two years before — and had recently been discharged. Ballistics experts matched it to the Kane crime scene.

And I’ve been invited to appear before the House Government Affairs Committee, which is investigating the FBI’s role in all this. I politely declined, and they politely presented me with a subpoena. That’s supposed to happen next week.

What else? Baker, I miss him every hour of every day, the only living thing in my life that got all the jokes and didn’t mind hearing them again and again. Elizabeth? She left town without ever saying good-bye, not that I blame her. She wanted something that was no longer mine to give, or maybe it was just too soon. To her credit, she hung around long after any logical person would have left and gave me more than just about anyone had given me before.

Peter Martin, on the other hand, watched me write that day from a safe distance, like a zookeeper might regard a particularly ornery lion feasting on the corpse of some ravaged prey, maybe a zebra. After I sent the stories in, after he carefully edited and reedited every word, he came out into the newsroom and offered to have my baby. I think he might have been serious. Sometime, over a beer, I’m going to explain to him about birds and bees and the physiological limitations of the mortal man.

And then there’s Vinny, sitting here with me finishing the rest of his fruit plate.

“I will, too,” he said, his big brown eyes as sad as I’ve ever seen them, except for that time at Amrhein’s over in South Boston that he watched a waitress accidentally drop his prime rib special — the last cut left of the night — on the floor.

We looked at each other, quiet. The world, literally, was passing us by, well-dressed locals with places to be and people to see, all striding purposefully along the sun-dappled sidewalk.

“You want to forget the whole damned thing?” I asked.

He nodded, his face breaking out into a broad grin. “Yeah, I do,” he said.

And with that, I felt like the weight of the adult world was instantly lifted from my broad shoulders, like my life was again instilled with a sense of natural purpose. There were politicians to chase and truths to uncover and stories to write, all to be published in the beautifully packaged pages of The Boston Record, the finest newspaper I have ever known.

Vinny reached over and, for a second, I thought he was going to lick my dessert plate. Instead, he wrapped his massive arms around my shoulders and hugged me. I smelled pepperoni. I felt perspiration. It was all like a wonderful dream.

He reached into his computer case and pulled out a sheaf of papers, which he promptly, ceremoniously, ripped in half in front of me.

“The lease?” I asked.

“Take-out menus,” he answered. “I’ll stay a reporter, but I’m not going to let it kill me.”

That’s when I saw him. At first, I just saw a flash of light gold. But then my eyes came to focus on the fuzziest, most perfect little creature that I’d seen since, well, since I’d sent Baker off to that dog park in the sky the week before. He was maybe ten weeks old, all brown eyes and blonde fur, a blocky little golden retriever puppy who sauntered up to the wrought-iron gate that separated the restaurant patio from the world around it. It’s as if he had been scouting me out for days.

I jumped out of my chair and scooped him up in my arms, a miniature golden bear who pressed the top of his head against the bottom of my chin.

“He’s gorgeous, isn’t he?”

And with that, my reverie was broken. I looked out onto the sidewalk to see the equally beautiful personage of Maggie Kane, her skirt as short and casual as that mop of blonde hair. I hadn’t seen her in a week, hadn’t seen her since I went back to my apartment that Monday night after writing the stories. She waited there for me to tell her what happened, and I did, the two of us sitting on my couch, her wearing one of my blue oxford cloth shirts, her legs tucked under her body, both her hands wrapped around a cup of hot tea. After I recounted the prior night’s events, we talked more about the son she barely had and the daughter I never did, about life and about loss and the way the former gracelessly, inevitably, leads to the latter. Come midnight, she asked if she could spend the night again, and she did, in my bed, while I remained out on the couch, always polite, maybe too much so.

In the morning, she kissed me on the cheek as she was leaving. I wasn’t sure what to say to someone who had shared what we had shared over the past week, who had lost something similar to what I had lost. So I said nothing more than good-bye.

I stared into the puppy’s eyes. “He’s incredible,” I said. Then dawn broke over Marblehead; the thought occurred that the dog was a gift for me.

But was I ready? Was it too fast? Was it respectful enough of what I had with Baker?

I looked at her and she at me. “I was tired of looking backward,” she said, a huge smile filling every perfect inch of her face.

She put her hand on the bridge of the puppy’s square nose and added, “And he’s here to help me look ahead, to move on.”

I nodded, a little jealous and a little relieved.

She said, “Come walk with us.”

I put the puppy down, turned to Vinny, and said, “Meet you back at the newsroom. Can you pick up the check?”

He looked somewhere between panicked and perturbed, but nodded.

I climbed over the metal gate and stood for a second on the sidewalk gazing silently at this beautiful creature — the woman now, not the dog. And we began walking, the three of us, away from the past, through the moment, and toward a future that we didn’t yet know.

My mind scanned back over the day, over the past couple of weeks, over a lifetime in which so much good seemed to end so bad. At the first intersection, I brushed the back of my fingers against the side of her face — something I had wanted to do for what felt like forever. She took my hand in hers and didn’t let go.

I’m fortunate, blessed even, to have spent my adult life coming and going from a newsroom, especially in cities as vibrant as Boston and Washington, and more especially for a newspaper as thoughtful and compelling as The Boston Globe. To that end, I owe many good people my thanks on this project, whether they realize it or not. I’ve learned and borrowed significantly from the exhaustive work that the Globe’s Steve Kurkjian invested into the Gardner Museum theft, and have been aided by his wise counsel. Likewise, the late Elizabeth Neuffer, who died too young, too tragically, in Iraq, wrote one of the most enduring and extensive stories on the theft, which helped me immensely. And I was also was enlightened by the fascinating stories written by Tom Mashberg for the Boston Herald.

I’d also like to thank a former federal investigator and a current one, both of whom prefer the cloak of anonymity, but were generous with their time and insights. Thanks as well to Pam Bendock, a trusted veterinarian and good friend, who guided me through some touchy aspects of the text. And much gratitude to friend and former colleague Mitch Zuckoff for his keen eye.