Face Time

CHAPTER 7

Franklin and I look back and forth between the two pictures, my fuzzy out-of-focus phone snapshot and the elaborately unrealistic prom photo. They look similar, but they’re clearly two different teenagers. Either one could have grown up to be the person in the nursing home surveillance tape. Or neither.

“Maybe Dorinda had plastic surgery? For some reason? And that’s why she looks different on the tape? It drives me crazy that all we have are pictures-the yearbook, my phone, that video. What can you tell from a picture? We have got to talk to Dorinda in person.”

“Could be a friend of hers.” Franklin takes the yearbook and begins flipping the pages. “We could compare your phone photo with all the faces in the yearbook. See if we get a match.” He reaches for my phone. “Let’s see it.”

I stare at the cell phone’s tiny screen, then I flip it closed, shaking my head to get my thoughts in order. “Wait. Why do we have to know who’s in the picture? Let’s not lose sight of our goal here. I just found it in the drawer-it doesn’t have to be some big clue. We need to advance the story. Find out what happened to Ray Sweeney. Why Dorinda was convicted.”

Franklin hands me back the yearbook, then scoops up the last bit of ketchup with a shred of onion ring. Only he would eat onion rings with a fork. “She confessed,” he says, examining his final bite. “That’s why.”

“Remember what Rankin and Will said?” I ask, ignoring the confession remark. “Dorinda’s mother forced her to marry Ray Sweeney. Maybe she knows something? Is she still alive? She’d be-how old now?”

Franklin shrugs. “Well, if Dorinda is forty, her mother is probably at least, I don’t know, sixty. Or older.”

I put my elbows on the table, put my forehead in both hands, and look up at Franklin through my laced fingers. “My mother,” I say, remembering. “This is bleak. I can’t believe I forgot. I still have to go see her today.”

I check my watch, feeling smothered by the unrelenting deadline pressures of Mom, Josh, Penny, Dorinda. Will and Rankin, who want Dorinda out of prison. Oz, who wants to keep her in. And Susannah, who wants a ratings boost. And that’s not even counting myself.

“Let’s get this show on the road,” I say. “Since we’re in Swampscott, let’s track down some of the people in the yearbook photo with Dorie and CC. See what they can tell us.”

Franklin looks skeptical, one eyebrow raised. “How do we know they’re still around? Needle in a small-town haystack, I say. I suggest we go back to the station, check computer databases, run some names.” He waves a hand around the crowded restaurant. “We can’t just go up to people and say, hey yo, do you know anyone in these photos? Wish I’d brought my laptop.”

“Good old-fashioned reporting,” I say, shaking an admonishing finger. “Never fails. Hand over that Seagull. We don’t need no stinkin’ computers.”

MYRA MATZENBRENNER IS WEARING pink-and-green flip-flops with flamingoes on the grosgrain ribbons criss-crossing her tanned feet. Her toenails match the flamingos, and her fingernails match her toes. She flip-flops across her kitchen linoleum carrying three plastic flowered glasses of iced coffee, one in each hand and the third balanced in her fingers between them. The names of the prom princesses listed in the yearbook had been Donna Mill, Sheila Fortune, Bitsy Bergman, Sharon Freeland, and Linda Sue Matzenbrenner.

With a name like Matzenbrenner, who needs a computer? How many Matzenbrenners can there be in town? And if there’s more than one, I told Franklin, they’re certainly related. One quick flip through the local phone book brought us to prom princess Linda Sue’s home. Turns out, Prom Princess Linda is long gone. She has a husband and children and a house of her own outside Detroit, we’ve learned, but her mother’s memories have remained.

Myra Matzenbrenner slides pink napkins toward Franklin and me and sets down our coffees. Continuing her nonstop newsreel of Swampscott High history, she pulls up a white rattan stool and sits down to join us at the kitchen counter. Her living room is set with three card tables, each topped with a poof of carnations, a dish of chocolate-covered almonds, a stack of notepads and tiny pencils. It’s bridge club day at the Matzenbrenners’, but Myra has agreed to talk before the “gals” arrive.

“And I don’t mind telling you.” She rips open two pink packages of sweetener and pours them into her coffee, stirring carefully. “My Linda Sue was not happy when Dorie and that CC were crowned prom king and queen. My Linda Sue had practiced wearing a tiara, you know? Had her hair done just right, so the queen’s crown wouldn’t slip.” She taps her spoon against the rim of her glass, puts it on a napkin. “That CC, though, he was a slick one. Charmed the pants off everyone-teachers, Principal Webb, coaches. He was used to getting anything he wanted. He wanted to be quarterback, he got it. He wanted the lead in the school play-Romeo and Juliet-and he got it. And when he wanted Dorie, he got her, too. She was the cutest little thing, I’ve got to admit. What we always called a good girl. Never smoked, never drank. And her poor mother, of course.”

She looks between us, confirming. “Well, I can tell you this. Dorinda was pretty enough, smart enough, but she’d never have been prom queen without CC. That’s what I say.” She makes a tsking noise. “It would have been Linda Sue.”

“You said ‘her poor mother,’” I begin.

“So why’d she marry-” Franklin says at the same time.

Both our half questions hang in the air. Myra Matzenbrenner absently pats her pepper-and-salt curls, finding the fuchsia-framed glasses on the top of her head. She pulls them off with a look of surprise, as if she’d been looking for them and had forgotten where she put them. Flapping the glasses closed, she points them at Franklin, then me.

“Well, it’s the same answer,” she says. “When Dorie’s father died, that left Colleen on her own with Dorie. They didn’t have much.”

Colleen. I make a mental note. I’ve left my reporter’s notebook in my bag, keeping it casual. I’m hoping whatever I don’t remember, Franklin will. But my increasingly unreliable short-term memory (did I pick up the dry cleaning?) is still pretty solid when it comes to research and reporting.

“Colleen worked at Bay State Insurance. It’s still there on King Street? And Ray Sweeney, of course, ran the place. Took over from his father.” Myra narrows her eyes disapprovingly. “Ray was a piece of work. Piece of work. All bluster and no brains. Just waiting to take over from his dad. Sniffed around Dorie when her mother brought her to the office.”

She stops, then frowns. “Dorie must have been fifteen when he started paying attention to her. Fifteen. Ray was what, twenty-five? You catch my drift? But he had money, no doubt about that. The Sweeneys had money.” She points to me with one pink acrylic fingernail, making sure I understand. “Money.”

“So Dorie’s mother-how do I put this-arranged? Pushed? Convinced? Allowed her daughter to marry Ray Sweeney?” I ask.

“Whatever word you choose,” she replies. “The prom. Then graduation. And before you could say, ‘oh promise me,’ Dorie was Mrs. Ray Sweeney. And before you could say ‘Uncle Sam wants you,’ CC had signed up for the Navy.”

I glance at Franklin, remembering his words in the Red Rock. I like the boyfriend. Maybe Franklin had something. Or maybe Colleen Sweeney, in a fit of remorse over pushing her daughter into marrying a sleazy local pol, had bashed her predatory son-in-law with an iron and pushed him down the stairs. I like it.

And for a moment, I almost believe it. But a grandmother in her sixties is not the likeliest murderer, no matter how unhappy her daughter might be. Of all the suspects, I sadly realize, the most predictable murderer is Dorinda herself.

Myra looks away. I see she’s checking the green numerals of the clock on the stainless steel microwave. Our time is up.

“Mrs. Matzenbrenner, you know them both. Knew,” I say. “Do you think Dorie Sweeney killed her husband?”

Myra Matzenbrenner slides off the padded chintz cushion of the stool, one foot hitting the floor, then the other, not looking at me or Franklin. She picks up her coffee, then wipes the counter with her napkin, back and forth, back and forth.

“Why do you think Dorie worked the overnight shift, all these years?” she asks, still focused on her shredding pink napkin. “To stay as far from Ray Sweeney as she could. That’s what I think. He had money, she wouldn’t have to work. She was getting out of that house. A man like that, catting after teenagers. Colleen should have realized Dorie wasn’t Ray’s first and wouldn’t be his last. She died years ago, in some nursing home. Dorie never forgave her. She told me once she swore she’d never allow her own daughter to end up like she did. Trapped. Ignored. Like I tell Linda Sue, money can’t buy you a loving family.”

Crumpling up the last of the napkin, Myra looks at Franklin and me. “Did Dorinda kill Ray Sweeney? Who knows. If I were Dorie? I certainly would have.”

This is not what I was hoping to hear. We’re on the trail for evidence to exonerate Dorie. Myra isn’t even skeptical of her guilt. We’re getting nowhere. My brain races through possibilities while Myra shows us out. I hand her my card. What did I forget to ask her?

“CC Hardesty,” I say, turning back to Myra as we reach the front door. “Where can we find him?”

Myra has one hand on the doorknob. She pushes it open, letting in the still bright afternoon. “Arlington National Cemetery, I would think,” she says.

“AND SO MUCH FOR the boyfriend theory,” I say, as we dump our newly collected files on our desks. At least, I’m dumping. Franklin is using a sharp-pointed black marker to make labels to put on a set of manila folders.

I stare at my phone, willing the red message light to go on. I wish Will Easterly would call to tell me the story-saving news that Dorinda has agreed to talk to me, that she’ll go on camera and spill the real saga of Ray Sweeney’s death. If she even knows it. “Should we, maybe, call Will? See whether he’s gotten anywhere? And aren’t Rankin’s people supposed to be coming up with evidence, too? Or do they just think the tape is enough to get Dorie exonerated?”

Franklin adjusts something in his file array. “Maybe we should-”

“Yes, absolutely,” I interrupt. “We need to hit that nursing home, the one where Dorinda worked. See how the surveillance tape system operates. See why no one checked it out.”

“Go to the bar,” Franklin continues as if I hadn’t interrupted him. “Is what I was attempting to say.” He turns away from his files to look at me. “We need to track down the customers and the bartender, don’t you think?”

“Good idea,” I agree. “Try to get some sense of that night, perhaps someone overheard what Ray was saying. Better yet, find someone who can positively identify who Ray was with, and not just from seeing a photograph. If Dorinda was at the bar, arguing with Ray, it’s likely she wasn’t at work. Which makes that surveillance tape incredibly suspect. And the murder-”

Poison. I’d know it anywhere. My nose wrinkles, testing, as a plume of fashion’s equivalent of toxic waste announces a visitor to our office. I know it’s oh-so au courant, and most people adore it, but to me, the perfume smells like bug spray. I sneeze once in involuntary olfactory protest, then again, as the clack of stilettos comes to a stop in our doorway.

“This is no time to get a cold, Charlie.” Susannah waves a French-manicured finger at me. “Be sick in August, if you must, or at least not until after we get your story on the air. Now look.” She flips open her lizard-bound clipboard. Two interlocking capital letter C’s look like an advertisement for something Chanel. “Here’s my little surprise for you and Frank.”

“Franklin,” he mutters. “Not that it matters.”

Susannah doesn’t seem to hear him. She continues her show-and-tell, her signature gold bracelets clinking as she points to the page. “This is our brand new graphic for Charlie’s Crusade.” She shows it to me, then Franklin, her face fairly luminous with her outstanding achievement in marketing. “You see? We’ve run this by design, and Kevin, and of course the general manager. It’s green-lighted to the top. Do you love it? I mean, do you love it?”

“I-” I begin.

“And that’s not all,” Susannah continues. She turns to the next page on her clipboard and holds it up. “Here’s the end page. It’ll be the final frame of all our video promotions. ‘Truth. Justice. The Charlie McNally Way.’” She shakes her head, apparently unable to comprehend the extent of her prowess and the potential for her own success. “The demos are going to eat it up.”

“I-” I begin again, then pause to see if she’s going to allow me to talk this time. She’s looking at me, expectantly, so I continue. “Susannah, you know I’m thrilled with the promo campaign.” This is actually true, because if you’re getting promos, you’re not getting fired. “But I’m just the slightest bit concerned that we’re a little ahead of ourselves.”

And actually, I think ripping off the Superman slogan is embarrassing. I keep that to myself.

Susannah’s face is hardening unpleasantly. She snaps her folder closed, and her nails tap, briefly, on its lizard skin cover. “Ahead? Of ourselves?”

“It’s just that Dorinda Sweeney hasn’t agreed to do an on-camera interview. Yet.” I’m trying to temper my annoyance with my understanding of office politics. But protocol aside, the news department should be telling the promotion department what to do, not the other way around. “And as I’ve discussed with Kevin, if we promise the viewers a story and then it doesn’t make the air, well, won’t that be difficult to explain?”

Susannah looks downright combative. Gold buttons at her wrists flashing in the fluorescent light, she pushes up the sleeves of her black-and-white houndstooth bouclé cardigan, seemingly in preparation for her return salvo. Before she can open fire, Franklin’s phone rings.

He looks at me questioningly. I wave him to answer. The interruption will give us all a chance to regroup. Especially me.

“Parrish, Action News.”

Susannah turns her attention to Franklin. So do I.

He tucks the phone into his shoulder, picks up a pencil and opens his spiral notebook.

Still listening to whoever is talking, he holds it up to show me the word he’s just written: WILL.

I look at Susannah, whose semi-snarky expression telegraphs I told you so. Fine with me. If she’s right that would solve a lot of problems.

Franklin continues the frustratingly impossible-to-gauge one-sided conversation. I can’t see his face. His only reactions are murmured and emotionless “mmm-hums” and “okays.” He writes again, then holds the notebook up a second time.

It’s two letters.

NO.