STEVIE WONDERED HOW SUSAN CAROL WOULD FEEL about his fight with David, and if she had noticed that when the security guards showed up, he was about to lose. Her concern didn’t seem to be about the outcome of the fight so much as the fact that there had been a fight.
“Are you okay?” she kept asking. “You know how badly you could have been hurt fighting with someone that size? What is it with you boys that you have to start fights?”
“I’m fine,” he said. “My hand’s a little sore from punching him, but I’m okay.”
She paused-they were crossing the street in front of the hotel now-and gave him the Smile. “Stevie, you were very brave to go after that bully,” she said. “You were also very stupid to stoop to his level.”
He started to respond but was just smart enough not to.
They went straight to Bobby and Tamara’s room to report what had happened. Kelleher was smiling when he opened the door. “So, you’re giving up journalism for boxing, I hear?” he said as he ushered the two of them into the room.
“How did you hear anything?” Stevie asked.
“Sit down and I’ll tell you. But first tell me if you’re hurt. You don’t look any the worse for wear.”
Stevie held up his left hand, which was still throbbing a bit. “I could probably use some ice for this,” he said.
Tamara jumped up. “I’ll go get some. Bobby, you fill them in on the call.”
“Call?” they both said.
Kelleher nodded. “Felkoff. I just hung up with him. I’m guessing David and Morra called him or their dad right after you all went in separate directions. He said he’s going to read the story and get back to us on whether there will be any comment from Doyle. He also said, ‘If it’s the bunch of lies that David and Morra say it is, I’ll get a court order to stop you.’”
“What’d you say to that?” Susan Carol asked.
“I suggested in the kindest terms possible that they deal with the facts in the story rather than making threats about it. We won’t be the only ones chasing this down-he might as well deal with us.”
Tamara returned with the ice and wrapped it in a towel for Stevie.
“So, let’s get to the good stuff,” Kelleher said. “Tell us about the fight. Felkoff claimed you jumped David.”
“Oh, that is such a lie,” Susan Carol said indignantly.
“I figured as much,” Kelleher said. “Did you hurt him when you punched him, Stevie?”
Stevie shook his head. “I doubt it. I caught him on the side of the head, and he’s got a pretty hard head.”
In a cab to the stadium, they actually talked about baseball and the chances of there even being a game seven for Norbert Doyle to pitch in. For that to happen the Nationals would need a winning performance from Shairon Martis against Daisuke Matsuzaka tonight.
“I just have this feeling,” Stevie said as they pulled up to the ballpark, “that this thing is going seven.”
“Me too,” Susan Carol said. “Stevie and I don’t do routine endings very often.”
“You got that right,” Kelleher said with a nod.
Even though this was only the third time Stevie had been through the Fenway press gate and walked down the hallway to the field entrance, he felt as if he’d been doing it all his life. He felt almost calm as they walked past the Red Sox clubhouse. The series could end tonight if the Red Sox won. Even if it went seven games, he would be back home in school no later than Friday. That thought made him less calm: he still hadn’t finished The Great Gatsby.
As soon as they walked onto the field, he heard someone call his name: “Steve, hey, Steve Thomas.”
He turned and saw a coterie of media heading in his direction. Right! He’d almost forgotten that he was news after Doyle’s accusations.
Kelleher held up a hand to stop them. “Okay, fellas, we know why you want to talk to Steve,” he said. “Why don’t you tell everyone who wants to talk to him to meet us over by the Red Sox dugout in five minutes.”
Phyllis Merhige was standing a few feet away. “Jeez, Bobby, you guys want to use the interview room?”
“No,” Kelleher said, not noticing the smile on her face that told Stevie she was joking. “The less time this takes, the better.”
“What do I say?” Stevie said as they walked in the direction of the dugout.
“Very simple,” Kelleher said. “You tell them that all their questions will be answered when you finish the story you’ve been working on, and that the Doyles don’t always get their facts straight. Do not call them liars, we don’t want to be that strong just yet.”
“And when they ask follow-up questions?”
“Just say, ‘Read my story.’ That’s your mantra.”
“Why don’t I come too,” Susan Carol said. She had walked up behind them while they were talking.
“Fine with me,” Stevie said. “I could use the support.”
A group of cameras and microphones were waiting for them.
It was Tyler Kepner, the New York Times Yankees beat writer, who asked the first question. “Look, Steve, we don’t want to make this a big deal,” he said. “But the guy who may pitch a potential seventh game in the World Series pretty much confronted you in the clubhouse the other night, then said you were pursuing his daughter. What can you tell us?”
Before Stevie could give his Kelleher-coached answer, Susan Carol jumped in. “Here’s what I can tell you,” she said. “If Steve was pursuing Morra Doyle, the first person he’d have to answer to would be me-because I’m his girlfriend.”
“So there’s no chance he made phone calls without you knowing?” someone said.
This time Stevie jumped in. “Be serious,” he said. “If you looked like me, and you were dating Susan Carol, would you be calling another girl?”
That got a laugh.
“Why is Doyle making this claim, then?” Kepner asked.
That was when Stevie went into his routine about the story he was working on and the Doyles having trouble getting all their facts straight. Several people tried to get him to break down, pointing out that if what the Doyles said was true, Stevie probably shouldn’t be allowed to continue covering the series.
“That’s right,” Susan Carol said, jumping in. “But the Herald’s still got him here-another good reason to doubt the Doyles’ claims.”
Kelleher showed up at that point to ask if there were any more questions. There were none. “Thanks, Susan Carol,” Stevie said as the crowd began to break up. “You bailed me out…”
“Again,” she said. “I have to go find Tamara. I’ll see you in a couple minutes.”
Stevie and Kelleher were walking in the direction of the exit to head upstairs when Kelleher’s cell phone rang.
“Felkoff,” he said, looking at the number.
“I was about to give up on you,” he said, picking up.
“Fine,” he said in response to whatever Felkoff had said. “We’ll be there in five minutes.” He snapped the phone shut.
“He says Stan Kasten gave him use of his box for the next thirty minutes,” Kelleher said. “Let’s go.”
They took an elevator up to the luxury suite level. Stan Kasten, the Nationals’ president, was waiting for them as they got off. “These are the guys I told you about,” he said to the guard at the door. “They’re with me.”
“Stan,” Kelleher said with a smile, “tell me you’re not in cahoots with Felkoff.”
“I’m not,” Kasten said, clearly not as amused by Kelleher’s gibe as Kelleher. “But he represents my game-seven pitcher-if there is a game seven-and he’s all over me saying you guys are about to drop a bomb on us. I told him he could use our box to talk, so you can have some privacy.”
“Did he tell you what it’s about?” Kelleher said.
“No. And I don’t want to know unless you really are going to drop something big on us. Then I expect a phone call from you, giving me fair warning.”
“You got it, Stan,” Kelleher said.
They had reached the box marked Washington Nationals Ownership.
“He’s waiting,” Kasten said. “You’ve put me in a terrible position.”
“Why?” Kelleher said.
“I think I may be rooting for Felkoff on this one,” he said. “The thought makes me just a little bit sick.”
He headed down the hall.
“Ready?” Kelleher asked.
“Never more ready in my life,” Stevie said.
Kelleher pushed the door open. David Felkoff, printout of their story in hand, was waiting for them.
There were no niceties or phony handshakes when they walked in. Felkoff started right in on them.
“This story isn’t even close to true,” he said. “You print this, you’ll have libel suits coming at you from about ten different directions.”
“Really?” Kelleher said. “Doyle told Stevie his wife was killed by a drunk driver. Stevie got the police report, talked to the police officers involved and the Doyles’ babysitter to piece together the truth, and this is what he got. How are you going to prove malice, which you’d need to do in this case since Doyle’s a public figure?”
Felkoff stared at the two of them for a moment. “So you’re willing to put your paper’s reputation on the line based on the reporting of a fourteen-year-old?” he said. “I’m betting Wyn Watkins won’t be quite so confident about that when I call him in the morning.”
Wyn Watkins was the executive editor of the Herald. He had almost pulled the story Stevie and Susan Carol had written accusing the owner of the California Dreams of covering up steroid use by his players on the eve of the Super Bowl. But he hadn’t, and the story had been proven completely true.
“Go ahead and make the call,” Kelleher said. “Watkins has put his faith in Stevie on a page-one story before, and it paid off. I doubt you’ll have much luck, but please, be my guest and call him.”
Felkoff was red in the face. “How can you print this now? He may be pitching game seven of the World Series tomorrow night. You expect him to talk to you on the day he pitches game seven? Are you crazy?”
“He could have talked to us on the off day or today,” Stevie said, jumping in. “Instead he spent the time spreading lies about me and refusing our calls. So don’t blame us if the timing doesn’t suit you guys.”
“Was I talking to you, kid?” Felkoff said.
“You better talk to him,” Kelleher said. “It’s his story.”
Felkoff paced around in a circle for a few seconds. Stevie started to say something else, but Kelleher put a restraining hand on his shoulder.
“Okay,” Felkoff said. “Here’s the deal. You come to my Boston office at eleven o’clock tomorrow morning and I’ll have Norbert there.”
Kelleher shook his head. “No way we’re doing this on your terms or in your office. There’s a small park on the back side of the Marriott Long Wharf. It’s never very crowded. You guys meet us there at nine o’clock in the morning.”
“Nine o’clock?” Felkoff said. “You know Norbert won’t be in bed until one a.m. tonight. Why so early?”
“Because none of the writers will be in bed before two,” Kelleher said. “We want to be sure no one wanders by on their way out for breakfast. At nine o’clock it will be just us and a few out-of-work joggers. He can take a nap after the meeting.”
Felkoff stared at both of them with a kind of pure hatred Stevie couldn’t remember ever seeing before.
“All right, nine o’clock,” he said finally. “You better be quick.”
“If Doyle answers our questions, and tells the truth, it won’t take long at all,” Kelleher said. “We’ll see you then.”
They turned to walk out the door. “Hey, kid,” Felkoff said.
Stevie turned back. “The name’s Steve.”
“Yeah, whatever. Just one question: how do you sleep at night?”
Stevie looked at Felkoff, searching for an answer for a moment. Then it came to him. “On my side, occasionally on my stomach.”
Kelleher laughed out loud. And the two of them walked out the door.
• • •
The rest of the night was incident-free. And the game seemed pretty average too. Neither Martis for the Nationals nor Matsuzaka for the Red Sox pitched very well. It was 3-3 after five innings, but then Matsuzaka lost the plate in the sixth. With one out he walked Cristian Guzman, hit Elijah Dukes with a pitch, and then walked Ryan Zimmerman. After the pitching coach paid a visit to the mound, presumably to suggest in both English and Japanese that Dice-K throw strikes, Adam Dunn came to the plate for the Nationals.
Matsuzaka threw ball one. Then catcher Jason Varitek trotted out to the mound.
“Now they’re just stalling,” Barry Svrluga said. “They didn’t have the bullpen up soon enough, and they’re not ready.”
“Shouldn’t they get a lefty in here to face Dunn?” Stevie asked.
“They should get someone in who can throw a strike,” Mark Maske said.
“Sometimes you just have to take a sack,” George Solomon put in, causing everyone to stare at him as if he were speaking Japanese.
Matsuzaka threw ball two and the crowd grew restless, beseeching Matsuzaka to find the plate.
“Is he swinging here?” Susan Carol asked.
“If the ball’s anywhere near the plate, he’s swinging,” Svrluga said. “Dunn knows he has to come in with a fastball. This is his chance to break the game open.”
Matsuzaka checked the runners-who were all dancing around, trying to distract him even though they had no place to go-and threw again. Svrluga had called it. The pitch was a fastball straight down Broadway, and Dunn crushed it. The ball rose high into the night and easily cleared the wall in right-center field, landing in the Red Sox bullpen.
Except for a small coterie of Nationals fans, the ballpark was absolutely silent as Adam Dunn trotted around the bases. Terry Francona came to the mound to get Matsuzaka, causing Susan Carol to shake her head and say, “Talk about shutting the barn door too late.”
Even with a 7-3 lead the Nationals weren’t home free. Martis gave up a run in the sixth. Then the Red Sox scored single runs off the Nationals bullpen in the seventh and eighth. With men on first and second, and just one out in the eighth, Manny Acta brought in his closer, Joel Hanrahan.
“He’s got no choice,” Maske commented. “He can’t trust anyone else at this point.”
Hanrahan struck out Youkilis and got Pedroia to pop out to end the inning, and the Nationals clung to their 7-6 lead. Wanting to be sure the lead stayed at one, Francona brought in closer Jonathan Papelbon to pitch the ninth, and he held the Nats right there.
“This won’t be easy,” Stevie said, looking at his scorecard as Hanrahan warmed up. “Ortiz, Bay, and Lowell.”
Ortiz proved him right, crushing a 2-0 Hanrahan fastball into the gap for a double to start off the ninth inning. Hanrahan then walked Bay. Out to the mound came Manny Acta. Stevie hadn’t even glanced at the bullpen, since the Nationals already had their closer in the game.
“Wow, look at this,” Svrluga said when Acta waved his arm in the direction of the bullpen. “This takes some guts.”
Out of the pen came John Lannan-the Nationals’ number one starting pitcher. “He hasn’t pitched in relief all year,” Susan Carol said, her media guide already open.
“It’s the World Series,” Maske said. “Those two runners score and the season is over. This is what they call all hands on deck.”
Lannan came in throwing strikes. He was quickly ahead of Lowell with no balls and two strikes. His next pitch was a darting slider that Lowell tried to pull to left field. Instead he hit the ball right at Guzman, who flipped to second baseman Ronnie Belliard for a force at second base. Belliard’s relay to first easily beat the slow-footed Lowell. The crowd, which had been on its feet as Lowell came up, sat down. The tying run was on third, but now there were two men out.
“Manny is magic,” Susan Carol said.
“Not yet,” Svrluga said. “Lannan still has to get Drew.”
And he did. Drew hit a long fly ball to dead center field. If he had pulled the ball to right field, it might have been a series-winning home run over the Green Monster. Instead Dukes, the center fielder, drifted back and made the catch, and just like that, Manny Acta was magic and the series was tied at three games apiece.
Part of Stevie wished that the Red Sox had ended the series. But another part of him knew that a seventh game with Norbert Doyle pitching for the Nationals against knuckleballer Tim Wakefield pitching for the Red Sox was the way this series was probably supposed to end.
There were two questions left: who would win game seven, and what would be the big story the day after?
Stevie set the alarm for eight. They had decided that he and Susan Carol would go to the meeting with Kelleher and Tamara nearby if needed.
“Felkoff may not like you, Stevie, but he hates me,” Kelleher said. “And I think Doyle will be less antagonistic to the two of you than to Tamara and me.”
“Do you think we can ask all the right questions?” Susan Carol asked.
“I know you can ask all the right questions,” Kelleher answered.
The four of them met for breakfast at eight-fifteen. If there was one thing Stevie would miss about Boston, it was eating breakfast looking out at Boston Harbor. Just before nine, he and Susan Carol walked out the back door of the hotel to the picturesque little park that separated the Marriott from the residential section of Boston ’s North End. They left Kelleher and Mearns just inside the door.
“We’re on your speed dial, right?” Kelleher said to Susan Carol. “Any trouble at all, hit that button and we’re there in about sixty seconds.”
“Got it,” Susan Carol said.
It was a brisk, breezy morning. It would be cold in the ballpark that night, but at the moment it was cool and, with sweaters on, quite comfortable.
Doyle and Felkoff were standing by a bench that looked out at the water-a slightly incongruous pair, with Felkoff in an expensive suit and Doyle in sweats and a baseball cap.
“Good morning,” Susan Carol said as they walked up. The response was a curt nod from Felkoff and a halfhearted wave from Doyle.
“Maybe we should sit down,” Stevie said.
“No need, we won’t be here long,” Felkoff said.
Even in sneakers Susan Carol was a couple of inches taller than Felkoff. She walked over to him, looked down, and said, “Mr. Felkoff, we need to ask our questions, and we need to tape-record Mr. Doyle’s answers so we get this story exactly right. So the three of us are going to sit down on the bench and talk. What you do while we talk doesn’t really matter; you’re free to stand if you like.”
Felkoff stared at her for a second, then snapped, “Now look, we can just call this off right now if you’re going to cop an attitude-”
“It’s okay, David,” Doyle said, finally speaking up. “Where do you want me to sit, Susan Carol?”
She pointed to a spot on the bench, and he sat. She sat next to him, with Stevie next to her. She produced a tape recorder and put it on the bench between them. Felkoff stood behind the bench, arms folded, looking extremely unhappy.
“If you’re going to record, I’m going to record too,” he said, pulling a tape recorder out of his suit pocket.
“That’s fine,” Susan Carol said.
Susan Carol looked at Stevie, who nodded that she should begin.
“We didn’t want it to come to this,” she said to Doyle.
“Then why has it?” Doyle said. “What did I do to deserve having the two of you digging into my past?”
“You weren’t honest about your past,” Stevie said, leaning around Susan Carol to make sure Doyle could look him in the eye. “If you had told the truth about the accident from the beginning, we wouldn’t be sitting here today.”
“And Disney, DreamWorks, and Universal might not be in a bidding war for his story either,” Felkoff said angrily.
“I guess they won’t be after tomorrow, will they?” Doyle said.
“I don’t know,” Susan Carol said. “Sometimes the truth makes a better story than a fantasy. I know you feel terribly guilty about what happened, I understand-”
“No, you don’t!” Doyle shouted. “How can you know what it feels like to be responsible for the fact that the mother of your children died when they were two years old! Do you know how that feels!?”
No, they didn’t.
Susan Carol took a deep breath. “I apologize. Bad choice of words.”
Stevie stepped in now. “Would you tell us what happened that night? Can you help us to understand?”
For a moment Stevie thought Doyle wasn’t going to answer. Finally he nodded and started to talk very slowly.
“We’d gone out to dinner,” he said. “We needed to talk about… things. It was a long night, a difficult one. I don’t think, to tell the truth, I could tell you how much I had to drink. At that point I had a pretty high capacity.”
“Did the conversation end well?” Susan Carol asked. “I mean, did you resolve things?”
“I don’t want to get into that,” he said. “It has nothing to do with the accident.”
“It might,” Stevie said. “It might explain why the accident happened.”
“The accident happened because I was an alcoholic,” Doyle said flatly.
“Did it also happen,” Susan Carol said, speaking very slowly, “because of Joe Molloy?”
He stiffened and gave them a funny look. “Why would you ask about Joe?”
“We heard that you suspected there was something between Joe and your wife…”
“Oh-that.”
“Is it true? Is that what you were arguing about at dinner?”
“No. I might have thought that once or twice, when I’d been drinking, but it wasn’t true. We weren’t talking about Joe.” Doyle paused a moment and then let out a breath he’d been holding.
“Analise told me in April, right at the start of the season, that she was giving me until her birthday-August twelfth-to get sober, even if it meant going to rehab and missing part of the season,” he said. “That night at dinner she told me she was done, she was going to leave me. You’d think that’d be enough for me to set my glass down, but no. Instead I got drunker. It was a terrible night. Analise was drinking too-which was unusual for her.”
He stopped, and Stevie wondered if he was going to keep telling the story, but after a bit he continued.
“When we were leaving, the manager tried to take the keys from me, but I wouldn’t let him. He said he’d call someone to take us home…”
Tears suddenly appeared in Doyle’s eyes. He put his hand up to wipe them away, then buried his head in his shoulder.
“Come on, Norbert, let’s go,” Felkoff said, putting a hand on his shoulder. “Enough is enough.”
“No!” Doyle said fiercely, pushing Felkoff’s hand away. “I’ve had enough of slippery half-truths…”
They gave him a while to compose himself, before Stevie prompted, “So, the restaurant manager said he’d call someone to drive you home…”
“Yeah. Jim Hatley’s always felt that if he’d gotten there sooner, he could have prevented the accident, but I don’t know. I wouldn’t give up my keys to the manager, and I might not have given them to Jim either.”
“But it wasn’t Jim the manager called,” said Susan Carol. “It was Joe Molloy.”
“Who told you that?” Doyle seemed genuinely surprised.
“He did. And Jim Hatley confirmed it. But Jim said that Joe called him instead of going to the restaurant himself.”
Doyle was silent for a moment. “Huh,” he said. “Well, there are parts to the story even I didn’t know, I guess. But that would explain why Joe was there later.”
“At the accident scene, you mean?” asked Stevie.
“No, before then.”
Now Stevie was completely confused. But Doyle pressed on with his story.
“I insisted I was okay to drive home, which, believe it or not, I probably was. I knew how to drive slow and careful when I was drunk. I’d had a lot of experience.”
“Only this time you weren’t okay,” Susan Carol said.
“I don’t know,” Doyle said. “I never got to find out.”
“What do you mean?” Stevie said, struggling to keep up.
“We got about a mile down the road,” he said. “I was driving carefully, but all of a sudden a police car came up behind me and pulled me over. I couldn’t figure it out. I really thought I was driving fine.”
“And?” Stevie said, hoping he didn’t sound as impatient as he was.
“It was Joe Molloy,” Doyle said. “He asked how much I’d had to drink. I told him not that much, and he asked if I’d take a sobriety test. I really didn’t want to do that, but I bluffed and said, ‘Sure, fine.’ Then Molloy said, ’Tell you what, since we’re old teammates, I’ll cut you a break. Let Analise drive home, and I won’t test you.”
“Oh my God,” Susan Carol said, the truth hitting her at the same instant it hit Stevie.
“I agreed,” Doyle said, starting to sob. “Analise might not have been as drunk as me, but she’d probably never driven drunk in her life. We’d gone a couple miles when we came around that curve too fast and…”
His voice broke up and he buried his head in his hands.
“Feel pretty good about yourselves?” Felkoff said low in Stevie’s ear.
“Shut up, Felkoff,” Stevie said. “You’re not helping.”
Susan Carol had her arm on Doyle’s back.
“So, Analise was driving when the accident happened?” she asked softly.
He looked up at her, tears rolling down his face. “Do you understand?” he said. “If I’d been driving, we probably would have gotten home okay. But I didn’t want to take that sobriety test. A DUI would have got me suspended, heck, maybe released. It wasn’t like I was pitching all that well. So she drove. And she lost control of the car.”
“But the police report?”
“I asked Jim not to tell anyone Analise was driving. It was my fault, and I didn’t want the blame to fall on anyone but me. I never even told Jim that Molloy pulled us over… I don’t know if he knows…”
“Do the kids know? Any of this?” Stevie asked.
Doyle shook his head. “No. When they were little, I told them there was another car involved-it just seemed easier than the complicated truth. When they were older and figured out that I went to rehab right after the accident, well, I’m sure they put it together. I’ve told them some of my memories about the accident scene because they seemed to need to know, but I’ve never told them all that led up to it. And I certainly never told them Analise was driving. Now I guess they’ll know everything.”
“Not if they can’t prove you said all this,” Felkoff said. He reached down suddenly and swiped both tape recorders off the bench and began running. Stevie jumped off the bench and chased him. It wasn’t hard to catch him-Felkoff was overweight and over forty. Stevie tackled him halfway across the minipark, and they rolled in the grass.
Stevie saw one tape recorder fly out of his hand. He twisted Felkoff’s wrist and heard him scream in pain. Then Felkoff kicked him in the stomach, and it was Stevie’s turn to yell in pain.
Then, all of a sudden, someone was pulling Felkoff off of him. Had Susan Carol been able to call Kelleher that quickly?
No. Stevie looked up and saw Felkoff struggling in Norbert Doyle’s arms. “Stop it, David,” Doyle said. “Look at yourself. It’s not worth it. It’s over.”
He looked at Stevie, who was sitting up with a bad stomachache.
“Write the story,” he said. “Twelve years of lying is enough.”
Susan Carol was standing right behind him-with the tape recorder in her hand-and Stevie could see Kelleher and Mearns sprinting toward them.
Doyle pushed Felkoff out of his grasp, turned, and walked away.