Change-up

by John Feinstein

  “You just talked to us,” Stevie said.

  “I know,” Hatley said. “But the ship sailed on this staying secret days ago. I mean, what are the chances I could convince you this has nothing to do with baseball and that you shouldn’t write about it? About zero, I’d guess. So if it’s going to come out, it should come out the way it really happened.”

  “Norbert hasn’t told the truth about what happened,” Susan Carol said. “That makes it a story.”

  “Maybe. But maybe you can understand why he wouldn’t want it splashed over the headlines. Norbert was a good guy going through a very bad time: he was killing his career and his marriage with his drinking. He’s carried the guilt for Analise’s death around for twelve years, and I don’t think he’s had a drink since that night. That may not be the squeaky-clean, feel-good story people are looking for, but it’s not a bad story of redemption, if you ask me.”

  There was something to that, for sure. Susan Carol stood up. “Can we get a phone number for you?” she said. “I’m sure we’ll want to get back in touch before anyone writes anything.”

  He pointed at her notebook, which she handed him, and wrote down a phone number. “There’s my e-mail too,” he said, handing the notebook back. He led them to the door. “I’m sorry again about Friday,” he said. “I overreacted. All I really want is what’s best for Norbert and those kids.”

  They shook hands at the door and then sprinted back through the rain to the cab.

  “You guys okay?” Miles Hoy asked when they climbed back inside.

  “We’re fine,” Susan Carol said. “Just completely, absolutely, and totally confused.”

  Stevie called Kelleher from the cab to tell him they had spoken to both Molloy and Hatley.

  “That’s good work,” Kelleher said. “What’d you figure out?”

  “It’s complicated,” Stevie said. “The next train back is at four-thirty. Why don’t I call you from the train? I’ll fill you in then.”

  On the way to the train station, they told Miles Hoy about Hatley’s version of events.

  “I never heard about him teaching over at Radford,” Hoy said. “But that doesn’t mean it isn’t true. Easy enough to check, I guess.”

  “Miles, can we possibly ask you one more favor?” Susan Carol said.

  “Name it,” he said.

  “I know you weren’t here back then, but you must know some of the cops who have been on the force long enough to remember what it was like at King’s Tavern back then. We don’t have time to hang around here and try to track them down, but maybe …”

  “I can do that,” Miles said. “In fact, I think I can do better than that. I know the guy who’s owned the place since it opened. Mickey DeSoto. Nicest guy you’ll ever meet. I think he’d remember those days.”

  Stevie looked at his watch. “Is King’s open today?” he said.

  “Absolutely,” Hoy said. “They serve a brunch and then dinner on Sunday.”

  “Do you think Mr. DeSoto would be there now?”

  “I’d think so….”

  “We’ve got an hour and fifteen minutes until the train,” Stevie said. “How about we swing by there?”

  He looked at Susan Carol, who nodded. “Great idea,” she said. “Maybe we can get a better sense of who—if anyone—is telling the truth.”

  21: CONFRONTATION

  KING’S TAVERN LOOKED NOTHING like Stevie had pictured it. He’d imagined a dark place with tattered furniture and a bartender named Joe.

  Instead it was brightly lit, with comfortable-looking booths and tables with white tablecloths on them. The bartender was definitely not named Joe. Her name tag said Amber, and she reminded Stevie a little bit of Tamara Mearns.

  “Hey, Amber, is Mickey around?” Miles asked as the three of them approached the bar.

  “In his office,” she said, pointing in the direction of a hallway. “You want me to bring you something to drink back there?”

  The place was pretty full, considering that it was mid-afternoon. Stevie noticed TV screens placed strategically around the bar area, with a different NFL game being shown on each screen.

  “No thanks, hon, I’m fine,” Miles said, waving at Amber and leading Stevie and Susan Carol down the hall.

  “Are you the mayor of Lynchburg or something?” Susan Carol asked. “Does everyone know you?”

  “Something like that,” Miles said with a smile. He knocked on a door that was marked Big Boss and pushed it open just as they heard “Come on in” from the other side.

  The office wasn’t very big, or maybe it was but it appeared small when Mickey DeSoto stood up from behind the desk, hit a remote to turn off the TV, and came around to greet his visitors. He was, by Stevie’s estimate, at least six foot five, and although he wasn’t fat, he was just plain big—big shoulders, long arms, big all over. He had a shock of white hair and an easy smile.

  “Hey, Miles, what’s up!” he said enthusiastically. Seeing Stevie and Susan Carol, he stopped short and pointed. “I know you kids. Why do I know you kids?”

  “Kidsports,” Miles said.

  “That’s it!” DeSoto said. “Hey, grab chairs. What in the world brings you two to Lynchburg and my little establishment? Are you hungry?”

  Actually, Stevie was starving. “We’re kind of in a rush, Mr. DeSoto,” Susan Carol said as they sat down. “We’re trying to catch the four-thirty train to Washington.”

  “That’s in an hour!” DeSoto roared. “Tell me what you want and I’ll get the kitchen cranking. We’ll have you fed and out of here with time to spare, won’t we, Miles?”

  “Take him up on it,” Miles said. “The food’s good.”

  Stevie ordered a hamburger and French fries and, coaxed by DeSoto, a vanilla milk shake. Susan Carol asked for lemonade and a Cobb salad—which made DeSoto wince noticeably.

  “Come on, girl, we need to put some meat on your bones,” DeSoto said. “Best steaks in town. It’s on me. Give it a shot.”

  She thanked him but said no, and he raced off to put in the order.

  “We need to get cracking here,” Susan Carol said to Miles.

  “If we’re out of here at four-fifteen, even four-twenty, you’ll make the train,” Miles said. “Station’s five minutes away.”

  DeSoto came back in and sat again. “So, much as I wish it were true, you didn’t come to see me because you’ve heard how good our food is. What can I do for you?”

  They had decided before coming inside that the best way to get a straight answer about Hatley and Doyle was to just ask about what he remembered about the two of them from twelve years ago without going through the whole story again.

  “Mr. DeSoto—” Susan Carol began.

  “Mickey, please,” he interrupted.

  “Okay, Mickey. I’m sure you know what a great story Norbert Doyle has become during this World Series. We’re wondering what you remember about him from his days in Lynchburg.”

  The big smile vanished from Mickey DeSoto’s face. “Is this to be quoted?” he asked.

  “No, it’s not,” she said. “We’re just trying to confirm some things….”

  “Like the fact that he drank?” DeSoto said. “Look, the guy straightened his life out. He went to rehab. He’s raised those kids. Why revisit all this now?”

  “We understand what you’re saying,” Stevie said. “But there are conflicting stories.”

  “About what?” DeSoto said.

  Stevie looked at Susan Carol. She squared her shoulders. “How about if we ask it this way: what, if anything, can you tell us about Norbert’s relationship with Officer Jim Hatley?”

  The smile returned. “His relationship with Jim? Hell, he probably wouldn’t be alive if not for Jim Hatley. The number of nights Jim drove him home from here when he was drunk are almost countless. I remember one night the two of us couldn’t even stand him up. I had to throw the poor guy over my shoulder to get him to the car. How Jim got him inside his house, I have no idea.”

  �
��So Jim didn’t drink with him then?” Stevie asked.

  DeSoto laughed again just as the door opened and Amber came in carrying a tray full of food and drinks. She cleared space on a table next to DeSoto’s desk and set up the food. She put down a plate with a healthy-looking steak on it for Miles.

  “Amber, I didn’t ask for anything,” Miles said.

  “I know,” she said, smiling at him. “But I know what you like.”

  She walked out, leaving Miles looking a little bit red-faced. Stevie was curious but knew this wasn’t the time to ask Miles any personal questions.

  “You were saying about Jim Hatley,” Susan Carol said, taking a sip from her lemonade.

  “Jim never drank in here after work—never,” DeSoto said. “He came for the food and the company. That summer he just more or less adopted Norbert because the kid needed help. He was the one who got him to go to rehab after the accident.”

  “What do you know about Joe Molloy’s relationship with Analise Doyle?” Susan Carol asked, switching subjects on a dime.

  DeSoto shrugged. “Not much. I know that he had dated her before she ended up with Norbert, but to be honest, I don’t remember if I found that out before she died or—”

  He stopped in midsentence and smacked himself in the forehead. “I can’t believe I forgot about that,” he said, almost to himself.

  “Forgot about what?” Susan Carol said.

  “The night of the accident, Joe Molloy was in here.”

  “Afterward?” Susan Carol said.

  “No. Before. He came in for dinner and sat at the bar. I remember asking him if he had the night off, because he was having a glass of wine with his dinner. I was surprised when he said he had the graveyard shift, because it wasn’t like Joe to drink at all, much less drink before he went on duty.”

  “Did he drink a lot that night?” Stevie asked.

  “I don’t know,” DeSoto said. “I wasn’t working the bar, I just stopped to talk for a minute. He might have only had the one glass of wine. Even that surprised me. Like I said, he was never a drinker—still isn’t, in all the years I’ve known him.”

  This was an interesting twist to the story—or maybe not. Maybe it was another meaningless scrap of information. But what was truly important was that DeSoto had confirmed Jim Hatley’s version of his relationship with Doyle. They finished their food and thanked him for his time.

  “What kind of story do you plan to write?” he asked as they stood to leave.

  “Honestly? We have no idea,” Susan Carol said. “There’s one more person to talk to, and if he won’t tie up the loose ends, then they can’t be tied.”

  “Joe Molloy?” DeSoto said.

  Susan Carol shook her head. “Norbert Doyle,” she said. She reached across the desk to shake his hand. “Thanks very much for the meal. And the conversation.” She turned to Stevie. “We need to go catch that train.”

  Miles Hoy tried hard to turn down the hundred-dollar bill Kelleher had given Stevie that morning to pass on to him.

  “I’m not allowed back in Washington if I’m still carrying this money,” Stevie said. “You’ve more than earned it.”

  “I’ll take it on one condition,” Miles said. “You invite me to Philly for a game next year and Susan Carol comes up for the game too.”

  “Done,” they both said. Hugs were exchanged and they made the train with about a minute to spare.

  As soon as they were settled, Stevie called Kelleher, who was headed to the ballpark. “What’s the weather like back there?” Stevie asked.

  “Lousy,” he said. “It’s drizzling right now and cold. They say the rain will clear off but the temperature will probably be in the forties for the game.”

  Stevie groaned at the thought. He walked Kelleher step by step through their afternoon. When he was finished, Kelleher sighed.

  “Let’s assume that Hatley’s version is the truth,” he said. “That would mean Molloy has now lied twice. Is there more that we don’t know? That he’s not telling us?”

  Stevie thought. “Well, if he knows that going straight to the restaurant rather than just calling Hatley might have been the difference …”

  “Then he’s got a lot to feel guilty about,” Kelleher said. “It’s bad police work, and really bad human work. It probably would hurt his career. And it could hurt his reputation even more, especially with Norbert Doyle being a national hero right now.”

  “Why wouldn’t he just tell us about it off the record?” Stevie said.

  “With his wife maybe listening around a corner?” Kelleher said. “I doubt he’s ever told her or anyone else the truth, if that’s what the truth is. Plus, you guys told him he couldn’t go off the record today, right?”

  “True,” Stevie said. “So, what do we do now?”

  “We wait until tomorrow and find a way to talk to Norbert Doyle. Whether he’ll tell the truth is a completely different question.”

  Stevie hung up and filled Susan Carol in on what Kelleher had said. Which reminded him of something.

  “The thing you knew that you didn’t want to tell me last night,” he said. “It was rehab, right?”

  She nodded. “Yes. Now that three different people told you about it today, I’m off the hook. I never broke my word to David, and you’ve got the story anyway.”

  “I’m not so sure what we’ve got,” he said.

  “We’re close,” she said. “I think Bobby’s right. There is a missing piece to the puzzle. Molloy is still lying for some reason, and Doyle or Felkoff or both didn’t want us talking to Hatley because he might tell us the truth.”

  “But the part Molloy seems to be lying about makes him look bad, not Doyle,” Stevie said. “Molloy and Hatley both agreed that Norbert shouldn’t have been driving and probably caused the accident because he was drunk.”

  Susan Carol nodded. “You’re right. The big difference is that in the Molloy version he’s the hero because he forced Doyle to go to rehab. In the Hatley version he and Norbert decided that on the night of the accident.”

  “Seems to me we’re splitting hairs here—especially in terms of what the public outside of Lynchburg, Virginia, cares about.”

  “Good point,” she said.

  Stevie reopened The Great Gatsby, hoping to get some serious reading done before they got back to Washington. It wasn’t a very long book if he could just focus for a while. Susan Carol was working on her computer, finishing her paper, writing along as if it were a ball game sidebar. He decided to try to finish his book before the train pulled back into Union Station.

  Twenty minutes later he closed the book after having read about two pages. He couldn’t stop thinking about Doyle and Molloy and Hatley and Analise and David and Morra. He must have dropped off, because Susan Carol roused him as the bright lights of the station came into view.

  “Come on, Sleeping Beauty,” she said. “With luck, we’ll be at the park in time for first pitch.”

  They actually walked in during the national anthem, drawing comments from their seatmates about how nice it was of them to show up.

  “Believe it or not, we had to catch up on our schoolwork today,” Susan Carol said as they sat down. “We’re only moonlighting here, you know.” In her case, at least, there was some truth in what she was saying.

  Game five, unfortunately, was a lot like game one, except that the weather was miserable. Even wearing a sweater and a rain jacket, Stevie found himself shivering as the temperature kept dropping.

  The Red Sox jumped ahead 3–0 in the first inning when Jason Bay hit a three-run home run, and the Nationals simply couldn’t touch Josh Beckett’s pitching. He left after seven innings with a 5–0 lead even though he had thrown only eighty-two pitches.

  “Why would they take him out after he’s only thrown eighty-two pitches?” Stevie asked.

  “So they can bring him back if they need him to pitch an inning or two of relief in game seven,” Barry Svrluga said. “Smart move by Francona, unless the bullpen blow
s up.”

  It didn’t. Okajima walked Ryan Zimmerman and Adam Dunn to start the bottom of the eighth and stir the crowd slightly. John Farrell, the Red Sox pitching coach, trotted to the mound.

  “What does he say to a Japanese-speaking pitcher in this situation?” Stevie asked.

  “I think ‘Throw strikes, damn it’ is a universal in any language,” Svrluga said.

  “I’ve always wondered what they say on the mound,” Susan Carol said.

  “Well, it’s not like Bull Durham,” Svrluga said. “They don’t talk about getting candlesticks for a wedding gift or gloves being jinxed. In this situation it’s basic: ‘You’ve got a five-run lead, let them hit the ball.’ Sometimes the pitching coach will come out because he sees something technically wrong. Other times it’s to talk about how to pitch to a specific hitter.”

  “And sometimes,” Mark Maske put in, “it’s just to give the guy a rest or to stall so the bullpen can get ready.”

  There was no one warming in the Red Sox bullpen at that moment, and Farrell appeared to be talking animatedly to Okajima, who kept nodding his head. Stevie decided Svrluga was right: “Throw strikes, damn it” was a universal.

  Whatever Farrell said worked. Okajima found the plate as soon as he left the mound and got the next three hitters in order. The Red Sox went down one-two-three in the ninth, but it didn’t matter. Jonathan Papelbon was lights-out in the bottom of the inning, ending the game with a three-pitch strikeout of Aaron Bleepin’ Boone.

  This time Kelleher wanted Stevie in the Nationals clubhouse to get the hitters to talk about why Beckett—who was now 10–2 lifetime in postseason and 4–1 in the World Series—was so unhittable in October.

  “If you see Doyle, just keep moving,” Kelleher said. “We don’t want to talk to him until tomorrow in Boston at the earliest.”

  Stevie kept an eye out for Doyle as he moved around the quiet clubhouse. He had talked to a few players but then wandered over to Boone’s locker, since he had made the last out and was always good for a smart one-liner or explanation of what had happened.

  Just as he arrived, a TV crew from Boston pushed in close to Boone and a guy with a blow-dried TV haircut stuck a mike in Boone’s face and said, “After that strikeout in the ninth, Aaron, do you feel as if the Red Sox evened the score with you in this World Series?”