Part 31 (1/2)
WE TURNED ONTO a shaded lane in a rural town. There had been people all along the route cheering us on, sometimes offering water, clanging bells, blowing air horns. But this street was different. Cherry Street. Families were gathered out in front of their homes, displaying poster-size pictures of cancer-stricken kids. Big-eyed kids, hairless kids in nightgowns, kids who had terrible things happen to them that never should have happened to anyone.
The families clapped as we went by. They called out encouragement. They yelled, ”Thank you, riders!” They made us feel like heroes.
If only they knew.
I WOULD RIDE. I would ride until I fell off. Until I blacked out. I would never give up. I would never surrender. I will push the investigation. I will go wherever it takes me. I will ask all the right questions. All the right questions. Of anyone and everyone. Even if I have to go back to Costa Rica. Back to California. I will go wherever I have to go. Do whatever I have to do.
IT WAS ABOUT 3:30 by the time I arrived at the Ma.s.sachusetts Maritime Academy on the west bank of the Cape Cod Ca.n.a.l, the end of the first day's leg. The end of the ride for me.
A huge tent had been pitched, and inside was all the free food a person could possibly want. I went right for the beer. Harpoon Lager. Poured by people who thanked me for what I had done.
I sat down at a long picnic table that happened to have an open s.p.a.ce and listened to the others at the table talk. Some were eating burgers, some clam chowder, some ice cream. Some, like me, were just drinking beer. Those guys, the beer drinkers, wanted me in the conversation. We all agreed that nothing in the world could possibly taste better than a fresh, cold beer after one hundred and ten miles of riding in the midsummer heat.
Where was I from?
What did I do?
”George?”
Somebody had heard me identify myself. I turned. It was Sean Murphy, a large cookie in one hand, a beer in the other, staring at me as if I were an apparition.
”Hey.”
He looked at the rest of my table, searching for a familiar face. He didn't find one. ”You rode?”
”I did.”
”I didn't know you even- Hey, can I talk to you?”
The Murph-Dog, with a cookie and a beer, in tight Lycra shorts, a colorful Pan-Ma.s.s riding s.h.i.+rt, and click-clackety bicycle shoes, wanted to talk to me in private.
WE FOUND A TABLE off by ourselves. Sean sat without using his hands. He was looking at me in a way he never had before. I a.s.sumed it was because he was impressed at my performance, my accomplishment, the mere fact that I was here in the beer tent at the finish line.
He said, ”Pretty good gig you got there on the Telford investigation.”
I drank because it gave me a chance to lower my eyes to my plastic cup.
”Office next to Reid Cunningham's, huh?”
He knew it was. I just nodded.
”I saw all those uniformed officers delivering files, so obviously something big is going on.”
”It's been going on for a while, Sean.”
”Cold case suddenly heats up, something new has happened.”
Sean was leaning forward, his wrists resting on the edge of the table, his hands still holding his beer and his cookie.
”You taking it before the grand jury?”
”Taking what, Sean?”
He smiled as if he recognized that a certain code had to be used, certain protocol had to be followed. ”Rumors are going around that there's new evidence the Gregorys might have been involved.”
I did not respond. This did not bother Sean in the slightest.
”Is the Senator going to testify?”
”Sean, tell me exactly what it is you're hearing.”
He looked left and right. He lowered his voice. ”I'm hearing there might have been an orgy going on at the Gregorys' that night the girl was killed. I'm hearing she might have been there and seen too much.”
There was something childish about the way Sean was addressing me. Maybe it was the cookie.
”You believe that?” I asked.
”What I believe,” he said, his eyes sparkling, ”is that Anything New Telford has been making the rounds for years telling people the Gregorys had something to do with the death of his daughter. What I hear is that he's got your ear now. What I see is you've suddenly got prime office s.p.a.ce and stacks of files. And I want in.”
”Want in how?”
”To a.s.sist you. To co-counsel with you. Whatever you'll give me. I heard you turned down Barbara.”
He took a big bite out of the cookie, what I thought was a rather vicious bite. Crumbs shot all over the place.
”Guys are talking,” he went on, his mouth full. ”They're saying, 'Why would he do that?' People are saying, 'Well, she doesn't have enough experience.' But me, I looked at it, I figured something else out altogether.”
He washed the cookie down with beer, dropped his voice even lower, and said, ”I figure, Barbara, she's from around here. She's tied in with those people. You can't have her going after them like you and I could.”
”By 'those people,' you mean the Gregorys?”
”d.a.m.n right.”
”And you wouldn't care which Gregory might be involved, as long as it's one of them. Is that what you're saying?”
Sean Murphy looked at me as if I had just spoken a profound truth, one that was going to make us great friends now that we shared this understanding. ”You got it,” he said. ”Case like this, f.u.c.king career maker, I'd go after the Senator's mother. Fry her a.s.s, if I had to.”
SEAN WASN'T THE ONLY ONE WHO WAS EXCITED.
On Monday I got a call from the Cape Cod Times, then one from The Boston Globe, then The Wall Street Journal, and finally the dreaded Fox News. I referred them all to Reid, who repeatedly denied that there had been any developments. He said the matter had never been closed, and praised Bill Telford for his diligence in never letting them forget that the killer was still at large.
There was other news in the office, too-news that was not worthy of journalists' attention, but that was of some significance to me. Barbara Belbonnet had unexpectedly announced she was taking a leave of absence. This threw operations into a tizzy because n.o.body wanted to cover her caseload. ”Domestic relations?” a woman said to me as she was trying to talk her way onto my project, ”yuck.”