Change-up: Mystery at the World Series

by John Feinstein

  “Whoa,” Kelleher said. “She’s come to play. You be careful, now.”

  Stevie smiled. “I’m fine,” he said, although he had to admit, if he didn’t know he was being set up and if he didn’t have a girlfriend, he would be pretty fired up about a lunch date with Morra Doyle.

  “Call me when you’re done,” Kelleher said as Stevie got out. “I’ll tell you how to get to my office.”

  Stevie slammed the door just as someone behind Kelleher honked at him to get moving. Morra Doyle was waiting with a big smile on her face.

  “Who was that?” she asked.

  “Bobby Kelleher,” Stevie said, remembering that Morra had never met him. “He works for-”

  “The Washington Herald,” she said. “I’ve been reading his columns after I read your stories.”

  Stevie was almost tempted to laugh. He wondered if pretty girls went to some school to learn how to make teenage boys do their bidding, or if it was just genetic. They walked inside and a moment later they were escorted up a flight of steps into a massive dining room. Clyde ’s had to be the biggest restaurant Stevie had ever been in.

  “Nice place,” Stevie said as they settled into a booth.

  “They serve everything here,” Morra said with a smile. “Since I don’t know what you like, I figured this was a good choice.”

  They ordered, then small-talked about the game the night before and the importance of the Nationals evening the series that night.

  “Manny Acta told Dad he might pitch game six or he might pitch game seven, depending on the circumstances,” she said. “Of course, we have to make sure we get to a game six or a game seven first.”

  “Wow, game seven of the World Series, that would be amazing,” he said. “Could make for a real Hollywood ending.”

  He said it intentionally, hoping to draw a response. If he caught her off guard, she didn’t show it, just smiled again without saying anything. She took a couple more bites of her crab cake and put her fork down.

  “So, you probably think I asked you to lunch so I could talk to you about your trip to Lynchburg yesterday,” she said.

  He had to give her credit for coming right to the point when she thought the time was right. “It did cross my mind,” he said. “How’d you know I was there?”

  “You have to understand something about my dad and David and me. There are no secrets. His new agent told Dad that the first thing any publisher or movie studio will want is to be sure that the story they’re buying is the real deal-especially these days. That’s why he sent his assistant-”

  “You mean Walsh?”

  “Yes, him-to Lynchburg. Dad didn’t know what was in the police report. I don’t think he really wanted to know. But Mr. Felkoff said we needed to know.”

  “But how did he know I was going to Lynchburg too? The cop I went to see-”

  “Hatley.”

  “Right. He said that Walsh told him I’d be coming.”

  “Susan Carol told David you were going.”

  Stevie was tempted to call her a liar, but she put up a hand as if anticipating what he was about to say. “She didn’t do it to give anything away. She asked David if there was anything you might find that he hadn’t told her.”

  “What did David say?”

  “That he didn’t know. Because he didn’t.

  “I know what you found out down there now,” she continued. “That there was only one car involved in the accident that killed my mother.”

  Clearly, Walsh had carried that information back to the Doyles and Felkoff. Since she had to know he’d looked at the report too, he shrugged and said, “That’s what the police report said.” He stopped there, not willing to tell her anything more.

  “Except it’s not true,” she said. “There was another car.”

  “But-”

  “I know what the report says,” she said, smiling to remind him, he guessed, that they were still friends. “But there was another policeman at the scene first, before Officer Hatley. I’ll bet you didn’t know that.”

  Interesting that she would bring up Joe Molloy, he thought, but he decided to play along and see where she was going.

  “What are you talking about?” he said.

  “His name is Joseph Molloy,” she said. “He’s a big shot down there now, I think a deputy chief or something.”

  “And?”

  “Dad told him about the other car before Officer Hatley got there. Molloy called him a liar, with my mother lying there either dead or dying.”

  “Why would Molloy do that?” Stevie asked. “And why didn’t Hatley mention the other car in the report?”

  She was nodding as if to say he was asking the right questions. “Molloy hated my father,” she said. “He and my dad pitched on the same team in Sumter, South Carolina, four years before the accident. Sumter is where my parents met.”

  This didn’t jibe at all with what Molloy had said about not being a baseball fan. Stevie was tempted to take out a notebook to write all this down but resisted. He wanted her to keep talking. If she was lying about Molloy, it would be easy enough to check out.

  “Go on,” he said.

  “Joe Molloy was dating my mom when she and my dad met. She dropped Molloy to go out with my dad. No big deal, she just liked him better.”

  Stevie sat back in the booth. He was beginning to wonder if anyone involved in this story was telling the truth.

  “My father did not cause the accident,” she continued. “A pickup truck going way too fast swerved into his lane, and he yanked the wheel to avoid hitting him.

  “When Hatley showed up, Molloy was screaming that Dad had killed Mom and that he was sure he was drunk. When Dad told Hatley there was another car involved, Molloy kept insisting he was lying. So then Hatley pulled rank and told Molloy he was going to take over the investigation.”

  “But if Molloy was convinced your dad was drunk, why didn’t he accuse Hatley of a cover-up after he wrote the report?”

  “I don’t know, and neither does Dad. All he knows is Hatley told him not to worry about it, that he’d taken care of it.”

  “You realize,” he said, “if it comes out that Hatley covered up for your dad, the movie and the book are probably out the window.”

  “He didn’t cover up!” she said, raising her voice for the first time. “My dad’s not a liar. If he said there were two cars, there were two cars. Molloy is the liar.”

  “Then why didn’t Hatley mention the second car in his report?” Stevie said. “Is he a liar too?”

  “No. I mean, I don’t know exactly.” Stevie thought her eyes were glistening just a bit. “I didn’t even know what was in the report until yesterday, remember?”

  Stevie nodded and decided to let the silence be his next question.

  She leaned toward him and smiled again, eyes still glistening.

  “Can I tell you something completely off the record?” This was happening just as Kelleher and Susan Carol had predicted it would.

  “Actually, I’d prefer you didn’t,” Stevie said. “I can’t take a chance that you’ll tell me something I already know, or might find out later, and then won’t be able to use because I agreed to let you tell me off the record.”

  For the first time since they had sat down, the look on her face betrayed a hint of anger. “You mean after all I’ve told you, you might still write a story?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know,” Stevie said. “But I can’t put myself in a position where I can’t write the story.”

  “But I told you what happened,” she said. “You can easily check what I told you about Molloy and Dad playing in Sumter. I’m not lying about any of that.”

  “I’m not saying you’re lying about anything,” he said. “But you don’t have all the answers either: your dad says two cars were involved; the police report only mentions one car. Was your dad drinking? One cop-who you say hated your father-insists yes. The other cop-your dad’s friend-says nothing about it in the report. And the fact remains
that the version of the story your dad has told you may not be the way it happened at all.

  “But what really bothers me is that David Felkoff, apparently with your dad’s approval, sent Walsh to Lynchburg to check the report and then sent him to tell-and I assume pay-Sergeant Hatley to keep quiet about it all. That doesn’t exactly make your dad out to be innocent.”

  “But I told you why Felkoff wanted to do it. He wanted to be sure no questions would come up later about Mom’s death.” Her tone had changed from flirtatious to angry. “He didn’t know what was in the report either. Walsh was sent there to make sure the report jibed with what had happened.”

  “Well, if your dad’s buddy Hatley wrote it, why wouldn’t it jibe? But it doesn’t jibe, does it?”

  He realized he was cross-examining her and that wasn’t the best way to get someone to talk to you. But there were so many holes in her story.

  “Don’t you understand?” she said, her voice rising. “Dad didn’t do anything wrong that night, but the truth is not what publishers and Hollywood producers want to hear. The truth ruins the story.”

  He leaned across the table. The tears in her eyes were, Stevie guessed, real.

  “Morra,” he said softly, hoping to convince her he was still her friend, even though it was probably way too late for that. “Did your dad and Felkoff send you here today to try to get me off the story?”

  “No!” she said. “They don’t even know I’m here!”

  For some reason he was instantly convinced she was telling the truth-at least about this. Still not raising his voice, he said, “Morra, I know you don’t want to hear this, but the truth is the story. It’s the only story. And if your dad is lying on any level, it’s going to come out.”

  WHACK!

  Stevie felt his face sting and burn all at once and realized, since he hadn’t seen it coming, that she had just slapped him. He wondered if they taught that at pretty-girl school too.

  “Turns out David was right,” she said, standing up. “He said I’d be wasting my time trying to convince you there was no story to write, that you were so insanely jealous of him you’d want to get Dad no matter what.”

  “But this wasn’t a setup, right?” he said, gritting his teeth a little because he was in pain. She was stronger than she looked.

  And she looked as if she might hit him again-but she didn’t. Instead she just said, “I thought journalists were supposed to be the good guys-not people who ruin people’s lives.”

  She turned on her heel and stormed away from the table and out of the restaurant. Stevie looked around and saw people staring at him. The waiter hustled over to the table.

  “Is everything okay, sir?” he asked. “Do you need some ice or something?”

  Stevie figured his cheek was probably bright red, judging by the burning he was feeling. “No ice,” he said. “Just the check would be good.”

  He sat back in the booth again. Covering the World Series was becoming less and less fun by the minute.

  18: TO TELL THE TRUTH?

  STEVIE LEFT THE RESTAURANT QUICKLY, checking to make sure Morra wasn’t outside waiting for him. Seeing no one familiar, he called Kelleher.

  “How’d it go?” he asked.

  “It’s too complicated for the phone,” Stevie said. “I need directions.”

  Thankfully, the directions were pretty simple. Down three blocks to E Street and then up six blocks to the Herald’s offices.

  The guard at the door called Kelleher to come down and get him. When Bobby saw Stevie’s cheek, his jaw dropped.

  “What happened to you?” he said. “No, wait, tell me when we get upstairs. Clearly, it’s a long story.”

  For all the writing he’d done, Stevie had never been in the newsroom of a major newspaper before, and he was awed by how big it was. Since it was Saturday, the massive room was fairly empty.

  Kelleher led Stevie through the newsroom to the sports section. A number of writers and editors were sitting at their desks, some working on computers, others reading the newspaper. Several were seated around a television set watching a college football game.

  “Navy-Notre Dame,” Kelleher said. “Navy is trying to start another streak.”

  “Streak?” Stevie said. He thought he remembered that Navy had broken a forty-three game losing streak to Notre Dame a few years earlier. His dad had called it one of the great upsets in the history of football.

  “Yeah,” Kelleher said. “Navy beat them one in a row, then the Irish won last year.”

  “Hey, Matt, how’s Coach Rockne doing?”

  “It’s seven to seven in the second quarter,” Matt answered. “Coach Rockne just went for a fourth and nine and got stopped.”

  “Coach Rockne?” Stevie asked.

  “Yeah, we call Charlie Weis Coach Rockne because he thinks he’s so smart, he might as well be Knute Rockne. Not so much the last two years when he was ten and fifteen.”

  He introduced Stevie to Matt Rennie, who was the deputy sports editor.

  “You’ve done great work,” Rennie said, shaking Stevie’s hand. “Especially considering you’ve had to put up with Bobby.”

  “I’d be so much better if I had some decent editing,” Kelleher said.

  “Don’t hold your breath waiting for that to happen, pal,” Rennie said with a smile before returning to the game.

  As they walked back to the small glass office that said Bobby Kelleher on it, Kelleher said quietly: “Best editor we’ve got. By far.”

  “But you’d never tell him that, would you?”

  “I’d sooner die.”

  They sat down in Kelleher’s office.

  “So, fill me in,” Kelleher said.

  Stevie did-starting with the slap and then working backward. Kelleher let out a low whistle. “You have quite an effect on young women, don’t you?” Then he turned serious: “Clearly, she thought you’d be so charmed by her that you’d let her go off the record so she could take you off the story the way David did with Susan Carol.”

  “Susan Carol had no idea what he was going to tell her…,” Stevie said.

  Kelleher put up a hand. “No need to defend Susan Carol,” he said. “You know how I feel about her abilities as a reporter.”

  “What do we do now?” Stevie said.

  “First thing is pretty easy,” Kelleher said. “We check with the Braves to see if Joe Molloy played in Sumter.”

  He pulled out his cell phone and hit a few buttons. “Here it is,” he said. “Bill Acree.”

  Without explaining who Bill Acree was, Bobby dialed. Stevie heard a voice on the other end of the phone say, “I’m watching Georgia play Tennessee, why in the world are you calling me?”

  Clearly, Bill Acree was a good friend of Kelleher’s. “How close are you to halftime?” Kelleher asked, then nodded at the answer. “When you get there, I need you to check on whether someone played for you guys at Sumter in 1993 or even ’92 or ’94.” He paused again before saying, “Joe Molloy.” He thanked Acree, said, “Go, Dogs,” and hung up the phone.

  “Who’s Bill Acree?”

  “He’s the Braves’ traveling secretary,” Kelleher said. “Old friend. Very smart guy. He’ll check on Molloy at halftime and call me back. He said the name sounded familiar.”

  “So if Morra is telling the truth, what do we do next?”

  Kelleher shook his head. “You’re not going to like it.”

  Stevie looked at him. “You’re kidding.”

  “Is there any choice? You have to go back and talk to Molloy again, and you might have to try to talk to Hatley again too.”

  “Oh joy,” Stevie said.

  “Don’t panic. We’ll get you some help.”

  Stevie let out a sigh of relief. He would definitely feel better going back to Lynchburg if he had a grown-up with him.

  “Can the paper spare someone right now?” he said.

  “Don’t think so,” Kelleher said. “But the Post might be able to spring a freelancer.”

&nbs
p; “Susan Carol?” Stevie said. “I doubt she’d want to go.”

  “I’ll bet different,” Kelleher said. “We’ll tell her what happened when we get to the ballpark. I think you guys can stay for the game tonight and then go down tomorrow morning. You still have the card for that cabdriver in Lynchburg? I’ll bet he’ll help you again. Just tell him this time you’re going to pay him.”

  Stevie nodded. He suddenly felt very tired. He’d felt so good about mending fences with Susan Carol in the morning. He had thought he was back at the series for good. And he felt so comfortable and safe in the newsroom. Now he would be back on the train in the morning. If Susan Carol went too, it wouldn’t be so bad. Jim Hatley probably wouldn’t sic his dog on her.

  The phone on Kelleher’s desk rang.

  “Halftime already?” Kelleher said. He pulled out a pen and began scribbling on a notepad in front of him. “Got it, thanks a million. I’ll tell you the whole story very soon.”

  He hung up and looked at his notes. “Joseph Wilson Molloy. Signed out of high school by the Braves. Spent four years in the organization: one year of rookie ball in ’92, a year at Sumter in ’93 and two years in Greenville. Released at the end of the ’95 season.”

  “So Molloy’s a liar too.”

  “Apparently. Lying cops really piss me off. And this many lies usually means there’s a serious story. You’re going to have to go back, I’m afraid.”

  “This week just keeps getting better,” Stevie said.

  “Relax,” Kelleher said. “You’ve got Susan Carol back on your side. And you guys are undefeated.”

  “We’ll see,” Stevie said. He wasn’t sure if Susan Carol was actually back on his side. And he was really sure that he was a long way from undefeated. His burning cheek confirmed that.

  They made reservations on the 9:00 train, the first one available on a Sunday. Kelleher called Tamara to ask her to get to Nationals Park a little earlier than normal so the four of them could find a quiet place to talk. Kelleher and Stevie pulled into the press parking lot at four-thirty-four hours before game time.