“Hey, I take it back. I just meant you did a great job. Driving. And this is a hell of a story, too. You’re all business, McNally. I can see why you’ve lasted this long in TV. Most women your age are—”
“Most women my age?” I try, again, to come up with some sort of retort, even though the ground he’s treading here is actually a bit more solid. Fortysomething women in television are as rare as shoulder pads and leg warmers. I know my own style is destined to go out of style. You’re only as good as your last story—or the whim of a new boss.
J.T. gives me an anchorman-worthy smile, all teeth and cheekbones. Crackling blue eyes. Major-league shoulders. He could easily be on camera, maybe in someplace like Santa Fe, or Cheyenne, where those supertight jeans, leather jacket and kick-ass boots would wow the female eighteen-to-forty-nine demos. Which, of course, I’m still in.
“It’s what they call a compliment, McNally,” he says. “You’ve still got it goin’on, as they say.” Tipping the tire against the car, he cranks the black metal jack one notch higher. With a few quick motions, he lifts the tire into place and slams on a wrench to tighten the lug nuts.
“You ever think of going network? Maybe some all-
news operation? Can’t imagine why they wouldn’t be after you. Emmys, all that. You’re too big for Boston, I’d say.”
Keeping both hands on the wrench, he stops midmotion. He looks up at me, suddenly serious. “I mean it. They ever call you?”
A wave of suspicion flares, disturbingly, through my mind. Can he possibly know about Kevin’s job offer? He can’t. Kevin told me no one knows. What’s more, that “still got it goin’ on” remark is, again, uncomfortably close to the line. Or maybe I’m too sensitive. I mean, I was thinking about his jeans, right? But the observation was just clinical. I would never consider saying it out loud.
I wave a leather glove in his direction, trying to diffuse the moment. We just had a pretty narrow escape. It’s cold. We have work to do. Franklin’s waiting. The mechanic is waiting. And there must be a glass of wine and Josh’s fireplace in my future.
“Hey, Boston’s market five,” I say. “How’s that tire coming?”
“Changing the subject. Got it.” With a nod and an overbroad wink, J.T. returns to work.
He’s not even attempting to hide his smile.
The Power House Garage in Boston’s South End reeks of oil and gas and rubber. Drills and power tools whine. Engines rev, ignitions churn. I’m sure the whole place is full of carbon monoxide. Which reminds me, for a melancholy moment, of Dorothy Wirt. A twist of concern, unwelcome and unpleasant, begins an uncomfortable spiral. How am I going to make all of this work?
Reining myself back into the moment, I put my other life on hold. Behind the massive glass doors of the garage, we’re warm and finally dry. I’ll think about the rest of it later.
Our rented black hatchback is high on a mechanical lift, its spare tire a glaringly obvious mismatch. Franklin,
J.T. and mechanic Frick Jones, all wearing thick plastic safety goggles held on by orange plastic straps, are conferring underneath the chassis, heads tilted back, looking up at something. I know my limitations. I wouldn’t recognize a broken rotary valve if I saw one, but I’ll learn about it soon enough. We didn’t tell Frick about the recall. We want to see what, if anything, he finds on his own.
I take a sip of the first chamomile tea I’ve ever had in a garage and wait for the verdict on our rental car. As so often happens in journalism, bad news would be good news.
“Here’s your problem, Charlie.” Frick Jones, who looks more like my ninth-grade chemistry teacher than an auto mechanic, selects a pencil-thin flashlight from a wide tool belt and shines it at the car’s undercarriage. “You can see it right here. The torsion bar on the rotary valve is cracked. Actually, it’s almost cracked through.”
Score one for us. With Frick’s pronouncement, we have our story confirmed.
I glance at Franklin, who’s giving me a low-key thumbs-up at the good-bad news. He says something to J.T., pointing. The photographer takes off his goggles and picks up his camera from a sleek black Formica counter, adjusting the viewfinder. Franklin clicks open the tripod, a not-so-subtle suggestion to J.T. that he expects rock-steady shots of the broken rotary valve.
Frick’s still talking, playing the light beam back and forth between the two front tires. “Good thing you brought it to us when you did, in fact. Couple more yanks on the steering wheel and you might have lost your control. You say you had a flat tire on the way here? In the snow?”
He emerges from under the car, slowly shaking his head. He points the flashlight at my chest. “Lucky you.”
My knees, almost recovered, suffer a brief relapse. I know my smile is weak. “You can fix it, right?”
“One more thing,” Frick says, pushing a red button on
a gizmo hanging from the ceiling. The lift begins to lower. With a puff of hydraulics, then a soft clank, the car hits bottom. Frick clicks open the hood and points to what even I know is the battery.
“Look here. This black wire. One battery lead is loose. Look.”
He reaches forward, and with two fingers, wiggles a thin black cable. Then he tightens the nut that’s attaching the cable to a stubby metal post on the battery.
“Sometimes the cable works itself loose. Especially on newer cars. Easy enough to fix. But if that had come off while you were driving, you’d have lost power. Car wouldn’t have started again.”
Through his goggles, I can read Frick’s troubled expression.
“You don’t want the battery lead to come off.” He gives me the flashlight in the chest again. “Like I said. Lucky you.”
“I’m set to roll, McNally.” J.T.’s voice interrupts the cataloging of our near disaster. “Whenever you say, I’ll—”
“Can you put the lift up again, Frick? First we’ll need you showing the problem to Charlotte,” Franklin interrupts J.T., yanking back the alpha-dog position. He’s put his goggles on top of his head and now looks like a prepped-out biker. “She’ll need goggles. And then we’ll need to show you repairing it.”
J.T. is ignoring the tripod and ignoring Franklin. “I’ll shoot off the shoulder. So it matches the other stuff we have. You know. The accident.”
The accident. Gabe and Sophie. Declan Ross. Car smashed into the guardrail. A rented car. As I watch J.T. roll off a few shots of Frick puttering with the engine, I realize what’s haunting me.
“Frick, can you check one more thing?” I put down my paper cup of tea and point to the black car. A dark hunch
is percolating. “We didn’t tell you about this initially, but can you check to see if this car has air bags?”
“See if it has air bags?” Frick looks puzzled. He hands me a pair of goofy-looking clear plastic goggles. “Of course it does.”
“It’s a 2006,” Franklin puts in. “It’s the law. They all have air bags.”
“They’re supposed to,” I say.
“No air bags in our car,” I say, shaking my head. “Can you believe it? And what if there were no air bags in the Ross car? And that’s why they didn’t inflate?” Frick’s confirmation of my hunch haunts me as we leave the garage. I click open the passenger door of our news car, waving Franklin into the driver’s seat. “You drive, okay? I’ve had enough for one day.”
J.T. is returning the now-repaired hatchback to RCK. We got all the video we need. The defective torsion bar—now wrapped in tissue paper in my briefcase—we kept for evidence. Franklin and I are heading back to the station to drop off our tapes. We have a potentially blockbuster story. And a potentially blockbuster dilemma.
“What made you think of the air bags?” Franklin says, steering us out of our parking space and toward Huntington Street. “I’ll never understand how your brain works, Charlotte. It’s a beautiful thing. Strange, but beautiful.”
“Yeah, well. Declan’s didn’t go off, remember? And that’s been bugging me. It didn’t make sense. They should have. And I read someplace, air bags are the hot new item to steal. Bad guys rip them out, replace the covers, then resell the air bags on the black market. Who’d know? Until there’s an accident, of course.”
I shudder. Most people are so trusting. And others are so cynically money hungry. That’s a dangerous combination. I pause, considering.
“If other RCK cars have no air bags, does Randall Kindell know about it? Is he supplying stolen air bags for the black market? If so, we should get the story on TV right now. Soon as we can. Maybe even before the ratings start. The next crash could be fatal, you know. Lives are at stake.”
“Charlotte, the February book is only three weeks away.” He’s shaking his head. “I think we can wait. And then put together two stories. We’ll do unrepaired recalls first, then hit them with the big air-bag scoop. Even better, here’s what I’m thinking. What if Kindell’s doing it across the country? In all the RCK franchises?”
Franklin pantomimes basketball. “Slam dunk. A national story.”
We stop at a red light. I reach over and touch Franklin’s arm. I need him to look at me for a moment.
“But, Franko? What if Kindell doesn’t know? What if someone is renting cars and then ripping out air bags? Then it’s not just about RCK, but could be happening at every rental-car place. Don’t you feel some obligation to tell the police? Warn Kindell? Warn the public? Right now?”
“Are you losing it, girlfriend? Where’s the ratings-hungry Charlotte I signed up to work with? You know it’s all about big results. And big numbers.”
The light turns green. Franklin shifts gears into Drive, puffing incredulously as he turns left onto Charles Street.
“You can’t win the sweeps if your story’s on too early. And we’re in it to win it.”
Franklin and I are partners. But, more and more, it seems like we’re not on the same team.
I’ve always thought my job as an investigative reporter meant helping people, warning them of danger, keeping them from harm. And exposing the bad guys. It always worked. I treasure every Emmy, but the need to consider
schedule before substance seems so cynical. Am I still a good guy if I keep a secret just to boost the ratings?
Why haven’t I thought of this before? Who’s suddenly out of balance? Franklin? Or me?
“Franko? J.T. and I could have been killed this afternoon. We were driving a dangerous car. Unrepaired recall, no air bags. Yes, we got the video. Yes, it all worked out in the end. But Frick said it—we were lucky. I say we talk to Kevin. Monday, first thing. Tell him what we know. And I bet he’ll want to get this on the air. Sooner rather than later.”
Franklin waves me off, shrugging. “Bet he won’t. I bet he’ll grab the fifth-floor graphics gang and whip up some hot ‘Charlie McNally Investigates’ promo spots. For February. Bet you ten thousand dollars.”
“You’re on,” I say. But I’m not exactly sure who’s going to win that imaginary bet. On the other hand, truth be told, we don’t really have a story. Just suspicions. We certainly don’t have enough nailed down to go on the air. What if we sent viewers into a panic over missing air bags and it turned out to be a coincidence? Or a one-time-only event? Putting that on television would do far more harm than good. I struggle to regain my news equilibrium. Maybe I’m suffering PTSD from this afternoon.
I rest my chin on one hand, elbow on the armrest, watching bag-laden shoppers and camera-toting tourists swirl through the darkening afternoon. A woman in a sleekly tailored camel’s-hair coat throws her arm across a little girl’s shoulders—she’s about Penny’s age—bending briefly to kiss her hair. They’re wearing matching plaid mufflers and carrying glossy bright red shopping bags. A thirtysomething man in a tasseled ski cap and puffy black parka peeks at a tiny passenger in an expensive stroller, then pushes it across the white-striped crosswalk. How many of them might be renting a car someday?
Driving blissfully along, husbands and wives and their children, unaware of the danger?
How many families will be on the road before we air our story?
T
he glossy deep-brown front door opens with a twist of its old-fashioned wooden knob. Inside the warm vestibule another ornately carved door is latched tight. A harsh buzz sounds when I push the middle button on the ultra-modern electronic keypad.
Michael Borum’s condominium is one of three in a postwar brownstone in the South End. Post Spanish-American War. Built in boom times of a golden age, these elegant three-story buildings were battered and disdained through Boston’s turbulent 1960s. Now they’re the city’s most desirable housing: bohemian, artsy and urban. Borum’s place is right on the edge of safe, with aching poverty just a few blocks away. The Power House Garage is down the road in the other direction. Wonder if Michael takes his blue Mustang there. Wonder where he parks it. Maybe there’s a lot out back? I don’t see it on the street. Probably a sports-car thing.
No answer to my buzz. I know this is dicey territory. Close enough to noon on a Sunday morning not to be completely socially objectionable, but still pushing it.
Franklin left several messages for Michael Borum, but no reply. I called. No reply. Borum seems to be avoiding us. Of course he could be out of town. Or sick. Or dead. Since he’s incommunicado, there’s only one way to find out.
I push the buzzer again.
So it’s Sunday. We’re local television. We have no manners. Now I hear footsteps. And then the glass door flies open.
“It’s about time. If the damn newspaper is late once more, we’re going to cancel our subscription and call the publisher.”
If this is Michael Borum, he hasn’t bothered to add a shirt to his attire this cold January morning. Or maybe he’s waiting for the photographer from
Bodybuilder Magazine
to show up. His licorice-dark hair is slicked back, maybe from the shower. His drawstring sweatpants are fighting a losing battle with gravity. I calculate zero body fat. Wreathed around his remarkable biceps are intricately complicated monochromatic tattoos, spiky-leafed vines and ivy. One throbs dramatically as his fist-clenched tirade continues.
“This is the third Sunday that you guys have—”
“Mr. Borum?” I hold out both hands, empty, attempting to illustrate that I’m not here to provide newspapers. If he’s this angry over missing the
Boston Globe,
I wouldn’t want to be in his way when he’s angry about something big. Which means perhaps I should have continued to try to reach him on the phone.
“I’m, um, not from the
Globe?
Are you Michael Borum?”
“Yes, I’m Michael Borum.” He narrows his eyes at me, dark eyebrows knitting across his broad forehead, then moves forward. His brawn occupies the open front door, preventing me from seeing what’s inside.
“And you’re Charlie McNally. Channel 3. Why in hell are you hounding me? Have you television people lost your minds?”
A question I get more often than I care to admit. And one I still haven’t figured out exactly how to answer. I ignore it as politely as I can.
“Thanks so much for coming to the door, Mr. Borum.” I hold out a hand, smiling as if we’ve just been introduced. Old trick. If they agree to shake hands, in that moment they’ve relinquished their power.
Borum’s glance is withering. One of his hands stays clamped onto the doorjamb, the other on his hip.
“Thanks so much for your patience, yes, we’ve been trying to get in touch with you for almost a week now,” I continue, lowering my own hand and pretending the handshake thing never happened. I glance around, as if checking for privacy. “We’d like to chat with you, briefly, about an incident on the Mass Pike the other day. Monday, late afternoon, as we said in our phone messages. Is this a good place?”
Borum crosses those arms in front of his imposing, distractingly naked chest. Frowns. And doesn’t budge.
“You’ve got five seconds to tell me what this is about. It better be good. Because I wasn’t on the Mass Pike Monday afternoon. Or any time Monday.”
Which I know is not true. But of course, right now I don’t have the photo to prove it. But of course, he doesn’t know that.
I scratch my head, feigning confusion. I pause, deliberately using up two of my five seconds. I move in for the kill. Again, oh, so politely.
“Well, Mr. Borum, we know you were. Maybe you forgot you were there? We have a photograph of you in your blue Mustang driving through the Fast Lane Monday. Around four-thirty. There was an accident about that time…”
I stop. Shift tactics. This is hardly the time to accuse him of being a criminal. I smile, conciliatory.
“And we’re just searching for people who might have witnessed it. There was a family whose car was wrecked, the father hurt. Do you remember that? I mean, did you see anything?”
“Let’s see the photo.” Borum, challenging, is obviously not enchanted by my little performance. And is neatly calling my bluff. “Let’s see that photo you say you have of me driving on Monday.”
“I…” I think fast. I pat my purse, as if the photo’s inside, then shake my head. As if I’m making a decision. I pull out a business card. “Here’s my card, with my work and home phone numbers on it. Call me if you think of anything. I’ll be happy to show the photo to you, at some point. But—”
“You know what, Miss McNally?” he interrupts, holding up a palm. “Forget it. You go ahead, put your photo on television. See what happens. See how fast a subpoena arrives at your general manager’s door. I was not on the Mass Pike Monday, at four-thirty, or any other time. I was having drinks with friends at Bistro Zelda. You’ve got the wrong time. Or the wrong day. Or the wrong car. Or all three. Put that photo on your news? Say it’s me driving? Do it. I mean it. Do it. Then let me warn you, Miss McNally. I’ll own Channel 3.”
Borum backs into the dimly lit hallway behind him. He stops, his narrow smile radiating contempt as he slowly pulls the door closed.
“Do your homework,” he says. “Or I’ll see you in court.”
“He didn’t say he didn’t
own
a blue Mustang,” I say. “I take that as a good sign. And I guess he got all our phone calls, he was just ignoring us. That makes him guilty, too.”
Juggling an elaborate bouquet of pink roses and a beribboned stack of my favorite kids’ books, I jab the up button on the Mass General Hospital elevator.
Franklin is carrying a huge, ungainly, black-and-white stuffed panda. Puffed out arms and legs dangle as Franklin shifts the bear from one position to another. Button eyes now stare at the floor.
Sunday visiting hours are two to four. Josh and Penny are on the way. We’re all going to meet brand-new baby Maddee. She was a little late. But fine.
“So that’s the good news.” I press the button again. Then one more time.
“We’ve been over this before, Charlotte. The elevator does not come any more quickly if you—” Franklin sighs. Then gives up.
“Can we just agree to disagree on that?” I ask as the door opens. I dramatically gesture Franklin inside.
“The bad news is, Borum insists he wasn’t there. And he offered an easily traced alibi. Something is very wrong. We’ve seen the photo. Borum can’t be in two places at one time.”
The elevator pings. Doors slide open onto the pastel wonderland of Maternity. Floor-to-ceiling murals, ice pink and soft blue and buttery yellow, show smiley-faced suns, lush fields of impossible daffodils and every cute baby animal imaginable. Some carry balloons and cotton candy in their paws or webbed feet. All are clearly blissed out.
“Remember that pink lotion?” I close my eyes and sniff at the familiar fragrance, swept back into some fuzzy half-memory. “It smells like baby in here, doesn’t it? In a good way?”
But I’m talking to no one. Franklin and his stuffed companion are conferring with a ponytailed nurse in a Pooh-covered tunic. She points him down to the end of the hall.
And there’s Maysie. My dear best friend. With a tiny yellow-swaddled bundle in her lap. Three pink helium balloons are tied to the back of Maysie’s wheelchair. This far away, it’s difficult to tell who has the bigger smile—the new mom or the new dad, Matthew, who’s pushing their newest family member toward us. Talk about blissed out.
For a briefly disquieting second, I can hardly look at
them. I remember the moment, almost the exact moment, when I knew my biological clock had ticked its last. At birthday thirty, I did my first calculation. Fifteen more years. It seemed like forever. At birthday forty, I counted. Five more years. Plenty of time. At birthday forty-five, I began my birthday-math ritual. And stopped. I blew out the candles, smiled at my birthday-party pals, and said a silent goodbye. Goodbye, little whoever. You are not to be.
I look down at my rainbow-wrapped parcels.
Pat the Bunny. Goodnight Moon. Many Moons.
And, for later, Maddee’s first Nancy Drew. I’d have been a good mother.
“Baby Maddee’s too young to be in our wedding.” My favorite voice.
I turn to see Josh, smiling, emerging from the elevator. I see Penny peeking out from behind him. “And you know Penny would never stand for it,” he continues.
I try to untangle my unexpected rush of emotions. Love. Hope. And time. There’s time.
Penny races down the hall as Josh kisses the top of my head. He’s carrying a cellophane-wrapped bouquet of plump white roses. Twisty fuchsia ribbons trail from around the stems. He pulls one flower from the center and hands it to me.
“Congratulations, Auntie Charlie,” he whispers, leaning close. “You’re my baby, you know.”
He lifts my chin, locking my eyes with his. This time, his kiss lingers, tender. For that moment, only the two of us exist.
“I know,” I finally manage to say.
“Come look at her toes, Charlie Mac, they’re the littlest of littles.” Penny has already scampered back, and grabs the belt of my coat, pulling me away from Josh and toward the baby parade. Franklin’s perched the panda on the back of the wheelchair, paws sticking straight out, balloons bouncing against its floppy black ears.
“Would you like to give these to Maysie for us, sweetheart?” I say, holding out my bouquet.
“And these, too, kiddo,” Josh adds, giving her the rest of the white roses. “Maybe give them to Matthew, since Maysie’s arms are full of baby.”
Penny carefully wraps her arms around the two bouquets, then, with a brief furrow of her little forehead adjusts the satin ribbons so they fall just so. “I’m practicing for the wedding,” she announces, her voice brimming with pride. “Watch this, Charlie Mac.”
Penny walks in bridal procession touch-steps up to Maysie and Matthew and solemnly presents her bouquet. Then, placing one snow-booted toe carefully behind her, she performs a deep and perfect curtsy.
Our laughter fills the hallway as the Maysie entourage draws closer. Matthew’s face is almost covered by the masses of flowers he’s wound up carrying. Franklin’s taken Panda from his perch and is carrying him again. Maysie looks ecstatic but exhausted. No makeup, hair slicked back, wearing a pink-striped hospital gown, hospital-issue pale blue slipper socks and a plastic hospital name bracelet around her wrist. A crocheted yellow blanket is tucked across her legs.
“You okay, Mays?” I lean down and kiss her hair, then hand the books to Matthew. “You look fantastic.”
“I’m fine, perfect, wonderful,” she says. Her voice is thick with emotion. “Meet baby Maddee.”
Maysie carefully slides her right hand underneath the swaddled bundle on her lap, then cradles Maddee’s tiny head with the left. Smiling, she lifts her new daughter, sleeping and unaware, and hands her to me. “Maddee, meet your Auntie Charlie. And your Uncle Josh.”
Penny, hanging on to Josh’s sleeve, on tiptoe for a better view, watches intently as the newborn passes across from mother to best friend.
“And me, Cousin Penny!” she adds. She frowns, perplexed. “Aren’t I a cousin?”
Maddee’s heavier than I expected. Solid. Her tiny chest rises, falls, rises again. With one tentative finger, I smooth the almost-invisible silky fuzz across the top of her head, then bend, briefly, to inhale the unmistakable scent. Her eyes flutter open, just a fraction. I glimpse a flash of blue.
“Welcome to the world, Maddee girl,” I whisper.
“Want to walk with me back to the station?” Franklin pulls on his gloves, then ties the belt of his navy coat in a knot, the two loose ends exactly the same length. “Talk with Kevin about what Borum said? He’s probably working today, this close to the beginning of sweeps. Then I can collect my ten thousand dollars.”
Franklin and I are in the two-story glass-walled entry hall of Mass General, waiting for Josh and Penny to bring the car from the parking lot. We’re planning a Sunday evening—a family evening—of carryout barbecue from the Blue Ribbon, followed by a G-rated Netflix. I’m hoping for an R-rating, or even X, after Penny goes up to bed. And I don’t mean in a movie.
“Oh, right, Franko. Just what I wanted to do on a Sunday night. Work. You’re kidding me, right?”
Franklin is not amused. “We need to screen the undercover video of the rental company. Transcribe the Ross interview. Finish looking up the VIN numbers we pulled from RCK and Miracle Motors. Find more unrepaired recalls. There’s a lot to do, Charlotte. And not long to get it all accomplished.”
A bevy of coats and hats and umbrellas passes us, visitors, patients, doctors, pushing through the heavy front doors and into the waning afternoon. Four o’clock. It’s already getting dark. Why is Franklin suddenly so
eager to spend all his time at the station? Maybe the better question is—why am I suddenly so not?
“Let’s give ourselves a little break,” I say, keeping my voice light. “I got Borum this morning, but we can’t do more on that until tomorrow. And tomorrow, I’ll come in early. Look up VINs. Talk to Kevin. Bet I get started before you do. It’ll all work.”
“Your call,” he says. “It’s your face that’s on the air, not mine. Your name on the story. If there is a story.” Franklin unwraps his herringbone muffler, then reties it with what seems like unnecessary drama. A honk beeps from outside. Josh’s Volvo. Penny’s hanging out the passenger window, waving.