Page 42 of Fire and Bones
Doyle didn’t press.
“I’ve been digging into the Foggy Bottom property. Did you find anything else down below that you might feel comfortable sharing?”
As a gesture I offered an insignificant detail. I told her about the glass shards.
“Awesome. The place has quite the colorful history. This is going to make a fantab story.”
Offering nothing further on her fantab scoop. Fair enough.
“I’ll be home by seven,” she went on. “Are you interested in dinner?”
“I don’t want to—”
“What shall I have Lan make?”
“I’m good with anything.”
“Any food allergies?”
Jesus. Was I going on a cruise?
“I don’t care for eel.”
“No eel it is. See you later.”
“Later.”
We disconnected.
The menu was staring right at me from the side of the truck. One small starter couldn’t hurt.
I went with a pork taco with mango salsa. A horchata to wash it down. What were the chances Lan would cook Mexican?
Lan went full-bore Thai.
Som Tam. Kaeng Lueang. Khao Pad. Khao Niao Mamuang.
Spicy green papaya salad. Yellow curry. Fried rice. Mango sticky rice. She explained each dish as it hit the table.
Despite my earlier snack at the Mucha truck, I did my share. More than my share.
Doyle and I exchanged small talk as we ate.
She asked how I’d come to be a forensic anthropologist. I outlined my post-Northwestern years in academia, my early focus on bioarchaeology, my unforeseen shift into the medico-legal world.
Out of courtesy, I queried her career path. She described the tortuous climb toward her current job at WTTG.
Following the completion of a degree in communications and journalism at Brown, Doyle said she’d taken jobs in Yuma, Arizona; Springfield, Missouri; and Sioux City, Iowa. After almost a decade in smaller cities, she’d been lured by an incredible offer to a station in Columbia, South Carolina. A midsized market.
While in Columbia, she’d been sent to cover the war in Afghanistan and had met Katy. Those reports had led to her shot at the big time: Washington, DC. The position wasn’t exactly what she’d envisioned for herself, but the US capital was a huge broadcast area and being there would put her close to breaking national stories.
At first, she’d covered traffic for the local CBS affiliate. After that, she’d worked as a field reporter and occasional fill-in anchor at the regional NBC station. Six long years, then a FOX producer took notice and offered her the position she now held.
As Doyle spoke, giving dates and durations at each location, I did that math thing you do in your head. Realized the woman was older than I’d estimated. Older than she looked.
Doyle’s dream was an anchor desk with a major network. And a nationally syndicated true crime series. For now, she was reading the news at four, seven, and eleven p.m., doing her podcast, and hoping to be discovered again.
Ivy Doyle was a poster child for the bright and attractive young women currently in demand by TV news departments. And definitely ambitious. Why, I wondered, had her career not progressed more quickly?