Exposé: First of the Sally Harrington Mysteries (The Alexandra Chronicles Book 5) Read online

  "So you think I should do it?" I ask him.

  "Are you kidding? Of course you should! You've been wait­ing for a chance like this ever since you came back to Castle­ford."

  "But—" I'm not sure if I should say what I'm thinking.

  "But?" he repeats, glancing over from the road.

  "I mean, what if this leads to other things?"

  He shrugs. "Then it leads to other things. What's the big deal?"

  This is what I hate about Doug. In one moment he can de­mand that I vow commitment to him, and in the next, indicate that I'm nothing to him and I can go on my way, no skin off his teeth. Of course, I feel exactly the same way about him, which is probably why our sex life tends to be rather good. We're always making love like it's the last time—or maybe the first-depend­ing if we're about to split up again or are unexpectedly back to­gether.

  I know, I know. You would think we could act like adults by now. We love each other and trust each other in so many vital ways, but every time we settle down to get serious, one or both of us shy away. I don't know if this is a sign that it's not a match, or that we each have a nervous trepidation about absolute com­mitment. Perhaps it has something to do with the way my fa­ther died so suddenly when I was young. Or how Doug's wife declared her vows on the altar with all sincerity, only to bolt three years later.

  "Won't it be a big deal," I say to Doug, "if I end up moving to New York or something?"

  He shrugs. "So you move to New York."

  "Okay," I shrug, "fine, I'm moving to New York."

  After a few moments, Doug says, "Scotty will just love being locked up in a New York City apartment all day."

  Creep.

  "And, of course, your mother will be devastated."

  "She will not!" I protest. "She'll be relieved I'm living my life. She still thinks I'm hanging around here because I'm scared she'll get sick again."

  "And you’re not?"

  "I'm not," I say firmly.

  After about a mile, he speaks again. Quietly. "If we're meant to be together, and you move to New York, I could apply for a job in the D.A.'s office and move there, too. Or maybe I could transfer to the Stamford courts and we could live in Greenwich or somewhere."

  "Greenwich? I don't have a million dollars," I say, irritated by the thought of having my wings in New York clipped quite so fast.

  "But you might," he laughs.

  "Right now I don't have much of anything," I complain. "I've got a car that's not paid for, a computer that's not paid for—"

  "You've almost finished your student loans—"

  "But they're not finished yet. I don't have any clothes—"

  "Ha!"

  "Not the kind of clothes I need to do this story."

  "You'll go to the outlets with your mother and you'll be fine."

  "What am I going to do about Scotty?" "Leave him with your mother. Leave him with me."

  "To live in a high-rise in downtown New Haven?"

  "You're looking for excuses, Sally."

  "I'm looking for excuses," I confirm, nodding, looking at the sun setting behind the hills of Connecticut.

  Doug reaches over to pat my knee. “It's okay to be a little scared. In fact, it's preferable. It means something new is finally happening."

  Doug doesn't stay the night. By the time we reach my house I am far too excited about the profile for Expectations to do any­thing but start on it. So he drives me down the long gravel drive of Brackleton Farm & Stables, and then turns off onto the rutted dirt road that serves as my driveway. We wind deep into the woods, far from the main house, and emerge at a large clearing where my one-bedroom fieldstone carriage house stands.

  For over a century the house was inhabited by a series of overseers for the Brackletons, who for generations were gentle­men farmers and horse breeders. Within the last decade, how­ever, the farm has been inherited by a son who prefers Boston, so while he leases most of the fields to other farmers, he is al­lowing some guy to dynamite one of the bigger fields to strip­-mine the stone and gravel and then sell the earth for topsoil, an exercise that is supposed to, in the end, create a beautiful man­-made lake (which, incidentally, is part of the heir's plan to ulti­mately convert his ancestral property into an eighteen-hole golf course).

  At any rate, my little house is beyond the woods, away from the strip-mining, and I have ample privacy and quiet. If I had the money (dream on), I would buy as much of the Brackleton farm as I could and run it as a proper farm again. I would go in big for cash crops of tobacco. (A lot of people don't know that Connecticut tobacco leaves are used for the outside wrappings of good cigars.) I'd go into dairy and goats—goat cheese, that's big. Maybe I'd make ice cream that has so much butterfat in it that everybody would line up for miles. I'd grow asparagus, be­cause I love it, and I would probably grow some grains, and if I did that, I would probably want to build a small distillery, where people could come on tours, and where I would make some kind of rare whiskey or vodka that costs like a hundred dollars a bottle.

  (Mother says I'm a lot like my father in this regard, that I'm a dreamer. Perhaps I should start off with fresh vegetables like everyone else and ship them to New York.)

  If there was a drawback to renting the carriage house, it was the necessity of having to buy a four-wheel-drive vehicle to reach it. If the snow and ice in this hilly region is not tough enough to handle, our muddy spring seasons are. This is how I have come to own a Jeep Cherokee when what I really want is a Miata, not that I can afford either one.

  Doug kisses me good-night and waits in the car until I have unlocked the door and am nearly knocked over by Scotty's greeting. I wait until Doug has turned around and made the far comer of the drive before I let Scotty go, and then he is off into the night.

  I immediately head toward the comer of my living room that doubles as an office and turn on the computer. Then I go into the kitchen to start some coffee and pick up the phone to call a lawyer friend in California whose firm, I know, represents a lot of Los Angeles writers. Would he look over an agreement for me, for a piece in Expectations? Just make sure it was all right? I'd pay him of course.

  "Expectations! Sally!" he says. "One day you're working for the Joe Schmo Gazette in Nowhere, Connecticut, and the next, Ex­pectations?"

  I tell him he's a big-city jerk who's out of touch with America. What the hell does he mean the Joe Schmo Ga­zette? At least we report the news, not who is sleeping with an­imals or renting hookers like most of his clients do. I thank him and promise to fax the agreement as soon as I get it.

  I go into the bedroom to change into an extra-large t-shirt, then into the kitchen to let Scotty in the back door and give him a large Milk-Bone. Then, finally, I am able to sit down at my computer and travel the internet to www.dbs.com to see what the network itself might have to say about its president.

  I find Cassy Cochran with very little problem. And I am somewhat startled by how beautiful she appears to be. It's the kind of beauty that usually demands a career in front of the camera, and I can see how a profile of her will work well in Ex­pectations. She gives great face, as they say.

  While I'm waiting for my printer to spew all the on-line ma­terial on Cassy Cochran and on the network itself, I jump up to consult an old Who's Who in America I took home from the office when they got the new ones. Cochran... Got it. Huh. I'm a little surprised, because according to this, she's re­cently turned fifty.

  Fifty. This is what fifty looks like? Well, it is a press photo, no doubt retouched, and the definition over my computer is not the best.

  In the next three hours I hop, skip and jump around to all the usual internet resource databases paid for by the paper, and by two in the morning I have compiled a great deal of background information on my subject.

  Catherine Littlefield was born in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Her father died when she was eleven. She graduated Northwestern Uni­versity cum laude and immediately married Michael Cochran. They both worked at a TV station in Chicag
o, where her hus­band excelled. They had one son, Henry, and then the Cochrans moved to New York where Michael flew up the news ranks to become executive producer of WWKK. Cassy's ascent in TV was much slower but steady, and by age forty she had risen past the news division to become the first female station man­ager in New York, at WST. A year later, Michael was fired from WWKK and he went into independent production.

  Three years later Cassy was lured over to the newly formed DBS group to build the network's national news division. Within six months she was named president of the entire net­work and, for all intents and purposes, proceeded to invent DBS. She built—and sold—DBS to the affiliates largely around a talk show, The Jessica Wright Show, and DBS News America To­night with Alexandra Waring.

  During her first year at DBS, the Cochrans divorced and Mi­chael moved to Los Angeles. Eighteen months later Cassy mar­ried the flamboyant CEO of Darenbrook Communications, Jackson Darenbrook, who had been widowed young and had been one of the media's favorite eligible bachelors for years. He is only a year or two older than Cassy.

  Huh. I look over my notes again and frown. There certainly isn't much bite in this story. And stories in Expectations always have bite. Maybe there was something in the divorce proceedings that would jazz it up.

  Maybe Verity is interested in doing this profile because Coch­ran is so beautiful and her husband is so rich. Or maybe this is a puff piece to lure advertising from all the Darenbrook com­panies, which include hundreds of newspapers, at least four­teen national magazines, six printing plants, a couple of satel­lites, the TV network and a group of electronic-information companies.

  Well, the only thing I can do is talk to Verity and see what it is she's looking for. And then maybe I can find a couple of peo­ple who can tell me some interesting things about Cassy Coch­ran, like her ex-husband. Step children. Or executives at com­peting networks...

  The telephone rings and I snap it up. "Hello?"

  "Hello," Doug says.

  "Hi.'1

  "Hi."

  "Well," I begin, "what do you want?"

  "You."

  I look at the clock. "It's almost three. Aren't you tired?"

  "Not if it means I can see you," he says. "I thought maybe you'd be through with what you're doing by now."

  This is strange. Very unlike Doug. "What's the matter?"

  A pause. "I don't know. I guess I was just thinking about your magazine thing. And I guess I figure I better spend as much time with you as I can—now. You know, because I may not be seeing a whole lot of you in the near future."

  I have to smile. "That's very sweet."

  "Does that mean yes, I can come over?"

  "That means yes."

  "Hooray!" he cries in a very unlike-Doug fashion (which I love him for) and hangs up. He'll be here pretty quick. I turn off my computer, give Scotty a scratch behind the ears and go into the bathroom to draw a hot bath. Life is good.

  6

  I first got my good look at Doug Wrentham in an elective En­glish course in my junior year of high school. He was new. His father was in the insurance business and had received a huge promotion, which meant he was transferred from Portland, Oregon, to the home office in Hartford. (The Wrenthams hated it here, and moved back to Oregon the day after Doug's younger sister graduated from high school.)

  Doug was about five foot ten, with dark brown eyes and dark brown hair. He was very handsome (more so back then, I'm not sure why) and—as hard as it is to imagine today—very, very shy. He was smart and a natural athlete, and had made the foot­ball team in August, no problem, so that first fall he had quickly gotten to know a lot of the jocks and the cheerleaders.

  I enjoyed sports but wasn't a jock, I was good-looking, but not elastic enough to ever dream of doing splits as a cheer­leader. (Also, I think I was just too cool, frankly, even back then, to be properly cheery.) I don't know what the heck I was, frankly, since I wasn't even an aspiring journalist because I thought the kids on the newspaper were weird. I did like the lit­erary magazine, though, and I dabbled in student politics, not because I cared all that much about the issues, but because I en­joyed winning elections. I also liked making speeches and kiss­ing up to the faculty, only to cut school the next day to go up­state and drink beer.

  At any rate, back to Doug. The elective class we took that se­mester was called General Semantics and it had to do with the effect that language has on human behavior. One of the myste­rious exercises we did in this mysterious class (because, truly, I'm not sure any of us got what we were doing, not until years later when we could see how language could incite, for exam­ple, race riots), was to go up to a selected student and, in confi­dence, say something nice about him to his face. Poor Doug was selected as the student—we knew the teacher picked him be­cause he was so shy—and was made to stand in the comer. Well, his face was scarlet in no time, and when it was my turn to go up to him, I did not hesitate, but looked him straight in the eye and said, "You are the best-looking guy in this whole school."

  He smiled, bowed his head and laughed slightly in response, and I think I walked away feeling more embarrassed than Doug.

  Fast-forward to our senior year when, as seniors, we got a small cafeteria-study room separate from the rest of the school. I saw Doug that first day back at school and I saw his face brighten at the sight of me. He said hi and I said hi, slightly amazed that this year he could speak.

  And I realized he liked me.

  Because I had run in so many student elections over the years, my classmates were accustomed to voting for me for any­thing, and so when nominations were made for homecoming queen, a lot of misguided souls automatically put my name for­ward and I found myself one of five candidates. I was horrified. Also nominated were the two co-captains of the cheerleading squad, our class valedictorian and a beautiful girl from the South who had the most spectacular breasts of anyone at school. I was neither spirited nor rah-rah nor ooh-la-la.

  My responsibilities were to get dressed up and drive around town in a convertible in the homecoming parade, and then be trotted out at halftime of the football game when the homecom­ing queen would be announced. And then, that night, I was supposed to go to one of the cheerleader's houses for a dinner and then on to the homecoming dance where we would all be introduced yet again.

  I found this whole exercise mortifying be­cause I knew I was not going to win, and I made a point of only running in elections where I knew I would. On the other hand, I realized that as a member of the homecoming court, I would be an excellent date for Doug to take to the dinner and dance that night, seeing as he was on the football team and knew all of the boys who were going out with the other girls nominated.

  But would he ask me? I thought not, because when I crossed paths with him again and again in the senior commons he would just turn red, say hi and walk away.

  "So who's your date for the dance?" one of the cheerleader captains asked me. "I need to know, because if you don't have a date, I can get one for you."

  Well, that did it. I had turned down two offers already in hopes Doug would ask me, but he hadn't, and the idea that someone was going to have to fix me up was simply too much to bear. Doug, at that moment, was getting a soda out of the Coke machine and so I walked right over and tapped him on the shoulder. "Doug, will you take me to the homecoming dance? Because if you don't they're going to make me go with somebody else and I'd rather go with you."

  "Um," he said, eyebrows rising high in surprise. He bent down to get his soda from the dispenser and turned back to face me. "Yeah, okay. Sure."

  "And I'm afraid we'll have to go to Susie's before the dance, for dinner."

  "Oh, yeah, I was invited."

  "Great! Thanks," I said, and I walked back across the senior commons to Susie. "I'm going to the dance with Doug Wren­tham."

  "Really?" she said, openly surprised. "You and Doug?"

  "What's the matter with that?"

  "I didn't even know you knew him," she confessed.
(I sus­pected something then that would be confirmed months later, when Susie got loaded after graduation and cried on Doug's shoulder that she had always loved him.)

  Anyway, that was that and it was great and I was happy. This would be, I swear to God, the first time I ever went out on a formal date with a guy I actually liked. Before, I'd always had a crush on one guy and then ended up dating his friend. Or I would find out that the object of my crush was in reality a jerk, and as soon as I wasn't interested in him anymore, he would suddenly decide to pursue me.

  Doug showed up at my house to pick me up in his family's station wagon and mumbled something in reply to my mother's questions that were meant to relax him, but which ut­terly failed. And so Doug and I drove over in his family's sta­tion wagon to Susie's, where we did not speak to each other or even look at each other for the entire party. Then everyone started to leave and so we kind of headed toward each other and walked out to the car. We got in and he cautiously turned to me and asked, "Would you—maybe—want to, urn, have a beer before the dance?" and I looked at him with wonder and awe. There seemed to be more to shy Doug than I thought, and he drove us to the parking lot of the Castleford Country Club and reached for a cooler from the back that had some "pony boys" (seven-ounce bottles of Miller beer) in it. We each had one. It was icy and good, and we were on our second when the security guard from the club came out to talk to us.

  We were on private property and I was about to freak, for this is where all the rich people in Castleford belonged and I was certainly not one of them. But Doug, cool as could be, rolled down his window and said, "Hi."

  "Are you a member of this club?" the guard asked.

  "Yes," Doug said.

  "The name?"

  "Wrentham," he said. "W-R-E-N-T-H-A-M."

  "Okay, but you shouldn't stay here long. And don't let any­one see you with those beers." And he walked away. Doug started the car.

  "I didn't know you belonged here," I said.

  "I don't," Doug said, backing the car out, "but if you act like you own the place, people usually think you do."