Runner in Red Read online

  “What did you do?”

  “We stood face to face, as you know, all the photos show that, and I said, ‘What will you do if I don’t?’ And he said, ‘Don’t make me.”’

  “He said that?”

  “I said, ‘What will you do, disown me?’ and he said the words I will never forget, he said, ‘That won’t be necessary because you’re not my daughter anyway.”’

  “What?”

  “I never told anybody this, but that’s how I learned I was adopted, Colin, standing three feet short of the finish line at the Boston Marathon in 1971.”

  “I can’t believe it. He said that to you?”

  “It worked, because I stepped off the road. I was crushed. I failed to finish that day, but I decided three things. First, I decided I would never give in to anyone again, ever. Secondly, I decided I would erase all traces of Pop Gallagher from my life, and third—most importantly—I decided I would find my mother.”

  “Your mother?”

  “Yes. My birth mother, because until I find my real mother I’m Pop Gallagher’s daughter, a member of his family. I won’t be complete until I can look into my mother’s eyes and ask her why she abandoned me to be raised in a house with a man like that. Until I find my real mother, I will continue to live with a huge hole in my heart.”

  I watched her, half expecting a tear, not knowing what to expect, but there are no tears with Bridget and she said in an even tone, “So, there you have it.”

  “And the Runner in Red?”

  “The Runner in Red is important to me, Colin, because I believe she is my mother.”

  “What?”

  “That’s right. Roman has convinced me.”

  “How?”

  “He’s sending his son to the station next week with a man who claims to have proof.”

  “Junior is coming to town?”

  “He’s going to be the assignment editor at Channel 6 for the Runner in Red project. Some things we have to endure for a greater good.”

  “I can’t take this job, Bridget, if that’s the case.”

  “I need you, Colin.”

  “You don’t need them. You can find the Runner in Red on your own.”

  “Actually, Roman is critical. He has the resources to get the information we’ll need. We need Roman.”

  “He’s using you, Bridget, He’s got a shoe company. Stan told me. They make shoes called ‘Women First.’ He’ll let you find the Runner in Red, and he’ll make a ton of money off that, then flip the company. The same way he’ll flip you once you give him what he needs.”

  “By then I’ll have what I need. I will know who my mother is. But I can’t do this alone, Colin. I need you, someone loyal who does not bend and will not break.”

  “Ellen. That’s what I want, Bridget. I want to know your daughter better. But if I work with you, no way will she give me a chance.”

  “You lost your mother, Colin. I have never had a mother.”

  “How did you find that out about me?”

  “After you nailed Junior at the Haverford School, I did my research. Oh, by the way, I never let Junior put that little boy on the air.”

  “That’s good to know.”

  “I need you, Colin. Say yes, please.”

  I sat a long time without talking. How could I mend fences with Ellen if I said yes to Bridget? But I could hear Bridget’s desperate plea, her need to find her mother, and I found myself responding to that, to a call from a woman in motion. Possibly I could do both. Possibly I could help Bridget find the Runner in Red and get to know Ellen better at the same time.

  Making unconventional choices was not new to me, and certainly, I wasn’t afraid to take a chance. If you want to be an eagle you’ve got to fly like one, that was still my mantra. But I did hedge my bet.

  “On one condition,” I said.

  “Whatever you want, tell me.”

  “Never lie to me again.”

  “I never lied to you.”

  “You set me up, Bridget. You gave me Stan’s number that day in Philadelphia to set it up so I would be in Boston when you needed me.”

  “I saved you in Philly after you got off that bus, remember that?”

  “You’re my strongest supporter and I want to support you, Bridget. But never play me for a mark again. Promise me.”

  “I need you, Colin. There is no one else I would ask except you. But I hear you, and I promise I will never put you in a compromising position again. Will you run with me?”

  She raised her glass to clink with mine, at the same moment Tiger appeared at the table to ask for her autograph.

  I worried that I might never succeed with her daughter, but I was satisfied that I was making the right call with Bridget. I clinked glasses with her, though I knew I was agreeing to be Bridget’s boy again.

  I thought to myself, here you go again, kid, just like the day you chose to give up a scholarship to Notre Dame for a chance to play baseball.

  The castle or the outhouse, no in between, as my dad used to say.

  CHAPTER SIX

  Fr. Pat O’Neill, my dad’s cousin, led the prayer ceremony for my father at Holy Rood Cemetery on Long Island Wednesday after a Mass of Remembrance earlier that day. I had not been home since my father’s death from cancer three years earlier, but as I stood at the gravesite beside Kenny and his wife, Rosemary, I felt a familiar tug, one that called me back yet pushed me away at the same time.

  A tall shade tree, its leaves curling in advance of winter, overlooked our group as we knelt on the moist ground. Kenny led us in prayer and I looked away, over the top of the two gravestones, especially my mother’s, where the inscription read, “I am the vine, you are the branches, says the Lord.”

  I listened to the soft, muted whistle of a Long Island Railroad train pass in the distance and I remembered how my mother had loved that gospel, the message that no branch could exist separate of the vine which nurtured it.

  I had cut that vine, and I was cutting it still.

  “So how you been?” Kenny said, as our group disbanded and we walked to our cars. Rosemary offered to take their three boys home in their Honda, while Kenny stayed behind and had a chance to catch up with me. I owed Kenny. He had given up a lot for me after our mother died, but this was payback time, I sensed.

  “I’m sorry I missed your police ceremony with the Mayor this summer.”

  He motioned for me to toss him the keys to my car. “Hey, no problem. I’m sure you were busy with your work at the TV station in Chicago. How did that job work out anyway?”

  I flipped him my keys. “I’m onto something new.”

  He got behind the wheel and we pulled onto Old Country Road and headed east to Hicksville, where Kenny and Rosemary lived in the house where Kenny and I had grown up.

  “I heard you met Clinton,” he said, his eyes focused straight ahead as he drove. Kenny was like our dad, solid. That summer he had broken down the door of a crack house in Brooklyn after a call had come in about a rape. None of the bullets fired by the three crackheads hit him, though they parted what was left of his hair, and the Mayor of New York gave him the City’s highest medal for bravery.

  “Yeah, I met Clinton. I doubt he aced his class in Compromise 101.”

  “In the ballpark where he plays you do it right the first time, or you’re dead. No second chances.”

  I shifted gears on the conversation. “How’re the cops treating you?”

  “Fine. But I broke the cardinal rule.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Don’t outshine the brass. The Captain didn’t like all the press I got, and they reassigned me to a new trouble spot in the city.”

  “Dangerous?”

  “They’re all dangerous, but yeah, this one is especially hot.”

  “What does Rosemary say about that?�
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  “She doesn’t know how intense it is, but I got another job lined up. Something that can be my substitute if I choose to retire from the cops.”

  “That’s good, especially if the new assignment is dangerous.”

  “I wanted to talk to you about it before I talk to Rosemary, though, and make my decision. But you never answered the letter I sent you.”

  “I’ve been really busy,” I said as we pulled up to the house. His boys’ faces appeared in the living room window, their noses flattened against the glass as they waved to their dad.

  “I got a chance to start a security company in the neighborhood,” he said.

  “Ah, no, Kenny. I hope this isn’t about me.”

  “Actually I was thinking about you, the two of us, brothers. Working together.”

  “That’s good for you, Kenny. But that’s not my thing.”

  “We can cover all the way from Merrick to Farmingdale. We’ll clear a hundred grand each. Take this opportunity with me, Colin, and I’ll leave the police. That will make Rosemary happy.”

  The front door opened, and Rosemary, a pear-shaped curly-haired girl he had married while still in the police academy, stepped onto the stoop. She waved for us to come in. “Dinner’s ready.”

  “I can’t, Kenny, really. I got a job already.”

  “A job?”

  “Yeah, in Boston, with a television station.”

  “I can’t believe you. You would turn down family?”

  “Kenny?” Rosemary called from the stoop as we continued to sit in the car. “Dinner.”

  “A big-time TV reporter. She hired me this week. She said she needs me.”

  “I can’t believe it. You couldn’t save Mom, so now you’re gonna save distressed women.”

  “I didn’t say she was distressed. I said she needed me.”

  He stepped out of the car as his three boys ran to him and hugged his legs. “Look, you do what you want, OK,” he said, and he walked toward the house.

  “Kenny!” I called, as he climbed up the front steps. “It’s my life, right?”

  He turned to me. “That girl, the one who hired you. Is she the one Clinton told me about?”

  “I don’t know, what did Clinton tell you?”

  “‘She eats nails,’ he said.”

  “Screw you, Kenny.”

  “What was that about?” Rosemary said, whispering, but he waved her off as he stepped into the house. Inside, Kenny was quiet as Rosemary set the table. I played “Go Fish” with his boys until Rosemary called Kenny and me to the table before the pot roast got cold.

  “I’m sorry, Colin,” he said, without looking at me.

  “Potatoes?” Rosemary said.

  “I’m sorry I put that knock on your girl,” Kenny said, as he scooped potatoes with a spoon.

  Rosemary ladled string beans onto his plate, then signaled toward his lap. “Kenneth. Your napkin.”

  Still, I didn’t answer, and I smoothed my napkin before Rosemary could remind me.

  “It’s OK,” I said, but I didn’t look at him, and the only sound during dinner was the clinking of silverware.

  Back at the station, my first encounter with Junior went well.

  “Who hired you?” was his opening line.

  “Nice to see you, too, Junior,” I said, as the morning team gathered in the Channel 6 newsroom his first day on the job after transferring to Boston from Philadelphia.

  “My name is Steven.”

  “Is that with a ‘ph’ or a ‘v?’ Or should I just cut to ‘asshole?’”

  Bridget stepped in. “I hired him, Steven. That was my call.”

  “We’re cutting staff, not adding staff, Maloney.”

  “I’ve added Colin Patrick to my team, and you can see me about that if you have any problem, OK?”

  That shut him up, but he glared at me as he turned in his chair and returned to his computer.

  Stan, ever the mediator, stepped in, “Well, good morning, everyone. We have a big agenda on the Runner in Red docket today. Mr. Freddie Norman, a special guest, will be joining us on Heartbreak Hill. Let’s all saddle up and make our way over there for Mr. Norman’s presentation, shall we?”

  We went in two cars, Stan, Bridget and me in one, and Junior in another. We turned off Route 16 and onto Commonwealth Ave., where Stan and I had walked earlier. He parked just short of Centre Street.

  “This is it, I believe, the tree in question,” Stan said, and he tapped a tall strapping oak. “Colin, will you get some video of this? Get shots of this tree in the can for later use.”

  I didn’t know the purpose, but I shot the tree from different angles when a third car pulled up and Roman got out, along with a tiny white-haired man.

  “Morning, Mr. Roman,” Stan said, but Roman ignored him and walked directly over to Bridget. He was tall, tanned and imperially thin with slick black hair, but stiff, too, the kind of guy who stood so straight it looked like he still had his coat hanger in his jacket. He was all smiles with his slick coif as he approached Bridget but she gave him a perfunctory nod.

  Stan introduced me. “Mr. Roman, this is Colin, Bridget’s new cameraman. He worked for you in Philadelphia where folks I talked to said good things about his work.”

  “That’s why we pay people,” Roman said, flatly, without looking at me and he gave another smile in Bridget’s direction. Still, she didn’t bite. Then he turned to the tiny white-haired man.

  “Group, this is Freddie Norman, from Toronto, Canada. Let’s get right to it, OK? Freddie, why don’t you show everyone the photograph you brought and tell us your story.”

  “Yessir, I’m Freddie Norman, from Toronto. I’ve lived there my whole life, my 71 years. Been a runner my whole life, too. Ran 76 marathons in my time, including seven Boston Marathons from 1950 to 1959.”

  “Show them your photograph,” said Junior.

  “Yessir, this here photo is a picture of a tree, this here tree,” he said, and he pointed to the tall oak I had just photographed. “The tree is bigger now, of course, since it’s growed a lot since 1951. But this is the tree I was running by when I saw her, the girl in the red hood.”

  “Excuse me,” Stan said. “You saw a girl in a red hood in 1951.”

  “Yessir. Right here, in this spot. In front of this here tree, and the girl is in the picture, as you can see. My wife took the picture. That’s not Tim Finn in the picture. I ran against Tim Finn every race I did in Boston, from 1950 to 1959, and this is a picture of a runner in a red hood who is girl-shaped. Tim Finn was not girl-shaped then and never will be girl-shaped.”

  He passed the photo around and Bridget studied it intently before looking over at Roman, who smiled broadly now—a gotcha smile. Still, Bridget shook her head.

  “I don’t know,” she said. “This could be a woman, or it could be a teenage boy. I can’t say for sure.” Then she turned to Freddie Norman. “Did you talk to the runner in this picture?”

  “No, but I heard Tim Finn talk to her. He was in front of us, out of the picture, and I heard him call to her. ‘Stay up, Delaney,’ he shouted over his shoulder. ‘You can do it, stay up.’”

  “Tim Finn used the name, ‘Delaney?’ You say he called back over his shoulder to talk to this runner in the red hood?’”

  “Yes ma’am, he called her Delaney. I say ‘her’ because she was girl-shaped. And Tim Finn ain’t girl-shaped. Never was.’”

  “Did you tell this news to Pop Gallagher?”

  “Of course I did. I went up to him at the finish line. But you know Pop. Everyone knows how pig-headed Pop was then and I’m sure he is still. He insisted the runner in the red hood was Tim Finn, because Tim had a red hood, too, and the reporters believed Pop that Tim was the only one that day with a red hood. I didn’t have this picture of course. Not till last month after my wife saw Mr. Ro
man’s ad in the newspaper up our way in Toronto asking if anyone had pictures from the 1951 Boston Marathon. My wife went through old boxes to find this picture. Of course reporters back then wrote in their stories that it was Tim Finn in the red hood, since that’s what Pop told them. Everyone believed Pop and nobody believed me.”

  “Thank you, Freddie,” Roman said, and he gestured for Junior to take the old man back to the station, while signaling that he wanted to stay a moment and talk to Bridget. Freddie hesitated, saying, “Now, hold on a minute, Mr. Roman. Pop made it like I lied, when really it was Pop who was not telling the truth. I don’t want people to think I’m a liar.”

  “Right, right, whatever,” Roman said, gesturing again to Junior who leaned in close to the old man as he led him away and said, “You can relax, nobody’s going to doubt you anymore.”

  Bridget was responsive to Roman suddenly, even as he stepped in closer to her. This time she didn’t push back.

  “If this is true, Bridget,” Stan said. “It means Pop was either careless about the truth, or was actively working to cover up the truth. Not good for him either way, since he was the guardian of the rules.”

  “But good news for you, Bridget,” said Roman. “This gives you the leverage you need. Once you find this woman—the Runner in Red—you’ll be in a position to destroy Pop.”

  “I’m not eager to destroy him. I just want him to stop training my daughter.”

  “Whatever,” Roman said. “You’ve got a name now, ‘Delaney.’ I’ll have my team in New York scour City Hall in Boston and go through the archives. We’ll find Delaney.’”

  He motioned to Stan and me to step away so he could talk to Bridget alone. We did, but I could hear him in my earpiece as he took Bridget by the hand and walked her to a grassy patch twenty yards away, and I realized Bridget was wearing a live mic.

  “You’re the bright light in the family, Bridget,” I could hear Roman say. “Jack tags along, always has. Why not use this opportunity to come back to me?”