The Friday Edition (A Samantha Church Mystery) Page 11

  She nodded. “I’ll be ready.”

  Sam hesitated before opening her car door and looked at Rey.

  “One more question,” she said.

  His dark eyes were intense.

  “Last night when you came out with those other officers to start your shift, you gathered in that small circle. Remember?”

  Rey nodded.

  “What were you doing?”

  The concentrated look in Rey’s eyes yielded to softness. He studied her a moment, deciding whether to answer. Then he smiled and laughed a little as though what she had noticed had embarrassed him.

  “We were praying,” he said simply.

  Eighteen – Reporter’s Notebook

  I can’t sleep.

  I have often thought that the best time of day is getting in bed at night. There is something safe and secure about the darkness that surrounds me. It asks nothing of me.

  I have no commitments.

  It’s been more than a year since there’s been anyone on the other side to keep the bed warm. To keep me warm.

  April, my love, my heart, is sleeping safely, soundly across town and not in my arms, where she so often did as a little, little girl. Where I could wrap my arms around her and feel her young tender bones as soft and as fragile and limber as cooked spaghetti noodles. I simply ache for her to be near me again.

  I don’t have deadlines to meet. I don’t have to think about my stories. About what to leave in. Or what to leave out.

  I usually fall right to sleep, but not tonight. I can’t stop thinking about Rey. What we talked about last night. What he showed me in the records room. Is this for real?

  The blue light on the clock radio tells me it’s 4 a.m. And I have to get up in a few hours. I can’t sleep because I can no longer ignore what I now know. What Robin knew. There is a story brewing here. God is there.

  I can’t sleep because I have that adrenaline rush that reporters claim they get when they feel like they’ve stumbled onto a really big story. I’ve been told it’s the best feeling in the world. I wouldn’t know. This is the first time I’ve ever felt it. I am feeling so giddy with excitement right now that I could fly to the moon.

  Morrison is sleeping at the foot of my bed; his body is curled up against my feet. That little creature has brought me an unspeakable sense of comfort these last few weeks. I wonder if Robin felt the same about this little creature. I am envious he is sleeping so soundly. One of us should. But for me there are too many unanswered questions.

  What happened to the drugs that were taken?

  Was someone stealing them and then using them for their own purposes or were they being sold on the streets?

  Oh, God, Robin, please don’t be involved.

  I’ll have to tell Wilson what I know in the morning. But only him. Not Nick. He’ll give the story to another reporter, despite the work I’ve done. And he’ll be thrilled to watch disappointment dance across my face.

  I have no intention of letting that happen. This is my story.

  It means I’ve got to work quickly. I can’t screw up. One mistake will bury me.

  I have failed Robin in death. I couldn’t do anything about that then or now. But I can do something about what I know, what I’ve already learned walking in the traces of her footsteps.

  I can take it a giant step forward. And I will. Robin, for you, I will.

  Nineteen

  Sam was in a deep, dreamless sleep when her alarm sounded at 6 a.m. The buzzing noise jarred her slumber, dragging her unwillingly from the sanctuary of the unconscious. She immediately thought of Rey and the ride along the other night. She showered and was at work by eight, early by her standards.

  “You’re here before everybody,” Nick Weeks said, making no attempt to hide his surprise.

  She acknowledged him with a slight nod while her attention flickered toward her publisher’s office. It was still dark.

  “Will Wilson be in today?” she asked Nick.

  He glanced at his watch.

  “Around one,” he said, not looking in her direction.

  Her heart sank. The hours would be an eternity.

  Nick was looking through the mail at the front desk when Wilson Cole Jr., publisher of the Grandview Perspective, walked through the office doors.

  “Hi, Wilson,” Nick said. “Sam wants to see you. She said she has some important information she wants to run by you for a story, but I wouldn’t count on it.”

  Wilson flashed Nick a brief look of irritation as he sifted mindlessly through mail. He entered the newsroom a few minutes later and saw Sam on the phone. He walked to her desk and tapped her lightly on the shoulder. He was smiling at her when she looked up to him. She returned his smile and waved slightly. Wilson motioned toward his office. She nodded and turned her attention back to the conversation.

  He was typing on the computer when she knocked hesitantly.

  “Wilson?” she said.

  He removed his silver reading glasses and looked at her.

  “The door’s open,” he said. “Come in.”

  He was a tall, handsome man with a thick shock of silver hair. His midnight blue shirt and light print tie made him look more distinguished.

  Mail, file folders and other assorted paperwork covered his desk. Press association and other writing awards decorated the wall. He had spent his career with the wire services covering events worldwide. Five years ago, he retired, returned to Denver, and did what he always wanted to do: purchased a community newspaper.

  Wilson changed everything about the Grandview Perspective, from format to news content. When he took over, the newspaper’s circulation was 20,000. Within three years, circulation had jumped to 55,000. The paper went from fluff pieces to hard news and in-depth features and profiles.

  Wilson Cole Jr. looked like any other businessman, yet managed to project something more comfortable.

  Perhaps it was his face. At fifty-eight, it had begun to fold softly toward gravity’s pull. Perhaps it was his manner, described by those who knew him as very direct, but low key and, most of all, calm. People were attracted to Wilson because his style was thoughtful and methodical. He had tact and knew how, where and when to use it. Being overbearing, rude or callous were not part of his collective personality.

  He was smiling as she reached the desk and leaned forward with interest.

  “Sit down,” Wilson said and pointed with his reading glasses to the chair in front of his desk. “Nick said you wanted to see me about a story.”

  “Would you mind if I closed the door?” Sam asked.

  “Not at all.”

  Behind a closed door Sam told Wilson what she had done and learned since her sister’s death. When she finished, she stared at him hard waiting for his reaction.

  “Are you sure you can trust this Rey Estrada fella?” Wilson asked skeptically.

  “Yes, I do,” she said. “Robin was a good judge of character.”

  He nodded thoughtfully. “I’d still be a little reserved. Let’s see what happens.”

  Wilson quietly mulled over Sam’s revelations. He tossed his reading glasses over a pile of papers on the desk.

  “Roy Rogers, huh?” Wilson said. “That’s funny. I used to watch him and all the silver-screen cowboys when I was a kid. I used to order a Roy Rogers when we went to dinner.”

  He rubbed a finger over pursed lips and looked at her. “Sam, do you think this is something you want to do on your own?” he asked in a reserved voice.

  She planned to answer immediately, but then it struck her why he asked. She wanted to be hurt by his intention, but there was something pleasant, a naturalness about him that had a soothing effect on her. It made getting hurt or angry difficult. She knew from the short time she had been at the paper that Wilson was a good publisher who cared about his employees.

  Her face felt hot with an embarrassment she did not want him to see. She kept her attention directed to the pattern in her pleated skirt.

  “I know what you mean,
Wilson,” she said. “I know you’re good friends with the editor at the Post.”

  Sam flashed a quick glance at Wilson. His smile put her at ease and his eyes were more gray than blue. Wilson noticed that while Sam had been charged with energy when she entered his office, now she looked like a deflated balloon.

  And he knew of her struggles with alcohol. Not because of what the Post editor had told him, but because of his own desperate battle with the bottle.

  Wilson Cole Jr. was a recovering alcoholic and had been for years. He recognized another alcoholic when he saw one.

  Enough years had passed, but Wilson clearly remembered the morning he woke in his own vomit in a dingy motel room in Mexico City. The woman he vaguely remembered from the night before was gone. He didn’t know the name of the motel until he looked at a matchbook cover.

  He was a foreign correspondent for United Press International and had missed a crucial deadline. They had every reason to fire him. Missing that deadline was just another in a series of blunders.

  But Wilson wasn’t fired and he had only his bureau chief to thank, a man who shared the same compassion for his employees that Wilson now did for his. But the bureau chief drove the young Wilson a hard bargain. He wanted Wilson to succeed, not just as a journalist, but as a human being.

  He recognized Wilson’s potential and suggested that he enter a rehab program. If he was successful, he could keep his job.

  In the early years of his sobriety, Wilson made a pledge. He couldn’t return the favor to his bureau chief, but a day would come when the opportunity would present itself in someone else.

  Wilson practiced the “anonymous” part of Alcoholics Anonymous. He always had. Very few people knew his past.

  He looked across the desk at Samantha Church and wanted to tell her why he knew about her struggles with alcohol. He knew her to be what he was at her age, a functional alcoholic, and, like him, a very good one. But he elected to pass. He had no doubt that he would tell her someday about his past, but not today.

  “Don’t you think I can handle the story?” Sam asked.

  She was surprised at the calmness in her voice. She didn’t feel as defensive as she might if she were having this conversation with Nick Weeks.

  “It’s not that at all, Sam,” Wilson said and rested against the tall back of his chair. “I just think you should have help from another reporter.”

  “It’s my story,” Sam shot back, pointing a finger at her chest.

  Wilson nodded. “Of course, I know it is.”

  He could see the sense of desperation rising in her eyes. He knew the investigation and the writing of Robin’s story was all that remained for her. It was the only way she could redeem herself professionally as well as personally. The only way she could face her demons and conquer them.

  “What my sister stumbled onto cost her life,” Sam said in a slow, deliberate voice. “And I am going to find out the rest of what she knew, who killed her, and write this goddamn story, even if it kills me. It’s the only way I know that she’ll rest in peace.”

  Sam was quiet for a moment, too overcome to speak.

  “Then she won’t have died in vain. And I can go on with my life.”

  “Do you think Robin started drinking again?” he asked.

  Sam shrugged her shoulders impatiently. “I don’t know. I doubt it. She wasn’t that kind of person. Her sobriety and AA meant everything to her.”

  Wilson nodded knowingly, in a way he knew Sam could not understand. At least now.

  Sam smiled. There was something warm in it. Something ardent and moving in her smile.

  “What?” he asked, his curiosity rising.

  She shook her head, but her smile remained.

  “I went with Robin to an AA meeting on her first anniversary. Everybody clapped for her. I was puzzled because it had been longer than a year she had been sober and attending AA. It wasn’t until I heard her story that I knew what she meant.”

  “What did she tell the group?”

  Sam’s face softened.

  “She said ‘I know I’ve been coming here for well over a year now, but I’m saying this is my first year because I feel this is the first year that I’ve done everything right.’ Robin told me later that she had been going to AA, but couldn’t go more than two, three months at a time without messing up. But once she made it through a full year without a drink, she knew she’d never look back.”

  Sam was silent a moment. Her smile had fallen, but her face remained smooth with the fond memory of that summer afternoon.

  “AA was important to Robin, but, I don’t know, Wilson, to me AA is a crutch.”

  He raised his eyebrows. “What makes you say that?”

  “What’s all that higher power crap?” she asked and shrugged. “Some in AA are better off being a damn drunk. AA is sadder than being a drunk.”

  The desire to tell her about his past rose fiercely in Wilson, but he resisted the temptation. He clasped his hands over the top of his silver hair and studied Sam.

  “Want to know my impression of AA?” he asked.

  “Sure,” she replied and leaned forward in her chair.

  “There are some people, and, I think, we both know that those like Nick Weeks believe that drunks who go to AA meetings are losers. Bums, because they don’t have the strength to get through their own trials without a crutch. That’s not taking anything away from Nick, or people like him. They’re entitled to their own beliefs.”

  Wilson fell silent a moment in thought.

  “Then,” he said, continuing, “There are people like me who believe that drunks, or alcoholics, who go to AA to help them cope with their sobriety are aristocrats.”

  “Aristocrats?” Sam echoed.

  “Aristocrats,” he repeated. “It takes more strength than people realize to admit they’ve failed miserably. They know they’re nothing but a lousy drunk, but what makes them different is that they’re willing to admit it. They want to do something about it.”

  Wilson looked at Sam, who was listening attentively. He went on.

  “Think of the deer. In order to get to freedom, it had to jump the obstacle in its way, the fence. Soon after the deer jumped the fence, it ultimately got hit and killed by a car.”

  “It was the deer’s need for freedom that killed it,” Sam said.

  He looked intently at her his blue eyes blazing, and nodded at her response.

  “Have you been to Tim’s Place yet?” Wilson asked, changing the subject.

  “I’m going after work tonight.”

  “Be careful,” he said.

  “I will,” she said. “Can I go forward with this?”

  “Yes,” Wilson said.

  “Alone?” she asked and their eyes met and locked.

  “Yes,” he said. “But keep me posted.”

  She nodded. “I will.” She slumped in her chair as if to preface what she was about to say. “I know you’ve worked hard to build this newspaper, Wilson, but I wish we were a big daily to break this story.”

  Wilson allowed a small smile.

  “I want to show you something, Samantha,” he said.

  He turned to the bookcase directly behind him. A framed standard broadsheet that depicted the Grandview Perspective before Wilson became the publisher was on one side. On the other was the same product, completely redesigned.

  “That’s a Chevrolet. And that’s a Mercedes,” he said, pointing to the respective pictures.

  He kept his attention fixed on them. “You’ve worked for us, what, about a year?”

  “Almost,” she said.

  “Now that you’ve been here, you should be able to see how much more of a story this will be published by us. When you worked for the Post, did you read our paper?”

  Sam nodded. “Of course. The reporters on the beat covering the West Side suburbs read it all the time.”

  “When we did scoop the Post on a story, how did your editors feel?”

  Suddenly she knew what he meant.
And she began to think how her own impression of a weekly community newspaper had changed after coming to the paper.

  “When I was a little girl, the Perspective was delivered to our house for free,” Sam said quietly. “I never read it, the only thing I remember was stepping over it in the yard. I don’t mean that in a bad way, Wilson.”

  “No offense taken,” he said and he smiled genuinely. “Allow me to give you a little history lesson about people’s perception of weeklies, or the lack thereof. When people think of newspapers, they tend to think dailies.

  “They think if there’s not another daily in town, then there’s not another newspaper. But there’s lots of competition that happens between dailies and non-dailies. Weekly journalists have always called their work community journalism and community journalists are just as committed as the reporters who work for the wire services, or dailies. I know, I have a staff full of committed reporters.”

  Wilson’s voice was more animated than she had ever remembered hearing. She knew by the inflection in his voice that he was passionate about his paper.

  “Even journalism schools are getting into the act,” Wilson went on. “It used to be the mindset among educators ‘if you’re not daily, then you’re dead.’ Now they’re beginning to focus on the fact that the majority of print journalism jobs are with weekly newspapers. Journalism on the web, of course, is another story entirely.”

  “We covered the suburbs, Wilson, and so did the Rocky,” Sam said as if for some reason she had to defend the dailies.

  Wilson nodded and as he spoke, gestured with his hands, as if to drive the point home.

  “But it’s zoned coverage. And, yes, zoned editions of daily papers are a constant threat for weeklies. But the truth is, Sam, daily newspapers have tried zoning for years and it doesn’t work.”

  “Why not?”

  “Zoning is generic news. That kind of news doesn’t get into the heart and soul of a community,” Wilson said, turning again to look at the difference between the old Perspectives and the new.

  “There’s a range of quality in journalism among weekly papers. Some are little more than ad-type sheets of paper without much editorial content,” Wilson said. “And there are those who are very serious about what they’re doing journalistically. I was determined when I bought this paper that the news wouldn’t be found on the refrigerator.”