Page 95 of Summer of '69
Not long after Patty tells Kirby the ghastly news about Mary Jo Kopechne, Mrs. Bennie calls Kirby into work. Although Kirby’s psyche is now frayed thanks to too much drama and not enough sleep, she has no choice but to go. She arrives back at the inn, still in her yellow daisy dress, and is immediately shuttled into the office with Mrs. Bennie and an Edgartown police officer named Sergeant Braga.
“Where’s Mr. Ames?” Kirby asks.
“He has already given the sergeant his statement,” Mrs. Bennie says. Kirby notes that her hair has been pinned back up in its usual bun, and any sense of fun or frivolity has been replaced with mournful gravitas. Kirby wishes she knew what Mr. Ames told the sergeant.
“We’re trying to corroborate the senator’s story,” Sergeant Braga says. “He allegedly left the party at the Lawrence cottage around eleven fifteen and offered to give Miss Kopechne a ride to the ferry so she could return to her lodgings in Edgartown. However, the senator got turned around in the dark and accidentally drove off the Dike Bridge, where the car flipped over and submerged. The senator says he repeatedly tried to dive down to free Miss Kopechne, who was in the passenger seat, but he was unsuccessful. After a brief rest, the senator walked back to the Lawrence cottage to alert his cousin Mr. Gargan and a friend about what had happened. They too dove down in an attempt to free Miss Kopechne but were unsuccessful.”
Kirby steadies her breathing. She can’t believe that Mary Jo Kopechne, Sara O’Callahan’s friend in the navy sheath and pearls, a person Kirby had metonly the day before,was dead.
Dead.
The senator left the party with Mary Jo. This seems incriminating, doesn’t it? Or maybe it was innocent. Maybe he was, as he said, driving Mary Jo back to the ferry. If Kirby had attended the party, it could easily have beenKirbyhe was driving to the ferry. It could have been Kirby trapped in the car underwater.
“The senator says he entered the hotel at around a quarter past one. Does that sound right to you?”
One fifteen? That doesnotsound right. Luke came into the lobby at one thirty, Kirby recalls. The cab arrived around two, and Kirby returned to the hotel at ten minutes to three. Mr. Ames said the senator had shown up at two thirty. Right? Surely Mr. Ames has told the police this, but if it differs from the senator’s account, then Kirby’s recollection would be very important—except she hadn’t been there.
“I didn’t see the senator at all,” Kirby says.
“But he went up to his room,” Mrs. Bennie says. “You must have given him his key.”
“Mr. Ames gave him his key,” Kirby says. She stares at her hands in her lap. “I was off the property when the senator returned.”
“What?” Mrs. Bennie says.
“I was dealing with an intruder.”
“An intruder?”
“My roommate’s boyfriend came into the lobby. He was acting inappropriately, raising his voice. He was drunk and angry. We put him in a taxi.”
“I should hope so!” Mrs. Bennie exclaims.
“I went along with him,” Kirby says. She appeals to Sergeant Braga because she’s too ashamed to look at Mrs. Bennie. “I knew I wasn’t supposed to leave the inn but I needed to make sure Luke went straight home. I was afraid he would hunt down my roommate and hurt her.”
Instead of being impressed by Kirby’s brave display of devotion and friendship, Sergeant Braga looks disappointed. “So you didn’t see the senator at all? You had no contact with him?”
“None,” Kirby says.
The sergeant stands up. “All right, I’m finished here. Thank you for your cooperation, Mrs. Bennie. I’ll let you know if I need anything else.”
Mrs. Bennie rises while resting a firm hand on Kirby’s shoulder to let her know to stay put. “Please do, Sergeant,” she says.
The instant the door to the office closes, Mrs. Bennie says, “The senator didnotkill that girl. It was anaccident. We all take our lives into our own hands when we get into a car.”
Kirby can sympathize with Mrs. Bennie’s distress; in fact, she shares it. There’s nothing quite so disheartening as discovering your hero is just an ordinary man. However, unlike Mrs. Bennie, Kirby thinks the senator might very well be responsible for Mary Jo Kopechne’s death. It sounds like he was the one who drove the car off the bridge, and it also sounds like he left the scene without pulling Mary Jo from the car. The senator had asked Mr. Ames if he was sure it wasn’t earlier than two thirty. He must have been looking for an alibi that would put him at the hotel and not on Chappaquiddick!
Kirby’s theorizing is interrupted by Mrs. Bennie sighing. “Unfortunately, I’m going to have to let you go,” she says.
“What?”Kirby says.
“You left the property without permission,” Mrs. Bennie says. “We don’t pay you to gallivant about, no matter how noble the crusade.”
“But…but…” Kirby’s protest sputters out.
Mrs. Bennie removes her reading glasses and lets them rest on her bosom. “I know it’s difficult, Katharine,” she says. “We’ve been very pleased with your performance here. I wish none of this had ever happened. The poor, poor senator—”
“And poor Mary Jo!” Kirby says. “Mary Jo isdead.” Kirby nearly mentions that she met Mary Jo briefly. Shemetthe young woman who drowned in an accident that was probably caused by Senator Kennedy. Maybe history wouldn’t hold on to the name Mary Jo Kopechne, but Kirby certainly would.
