Edited for Death (3 page)

“But for tonight, it’s a brief on the inside local page.”

It’s hard to dump on Clarice’s energy, but now I need to balance a lot of balls in order to get out the paper and help keep it solvent. The story stays as a brief even after the dead guy, Joe Baldwin, is identified and his death ruled a homicide. He’d been hit several times with the proverbial blunt object and was dead for about six hours when a kitchen worker came in to get a bottle of wine.

Even though he’d been murdered, he was a known drunk and panhandler. He’d been allowed to occasionally sleep in the hotel lobby, coming in late and leaving early so guests didn’t run into him. It wasn’t a spectacular murder. The victim wasn’t well-known. It’s unfortunate that in today’s news climate the random killing of a homeless guy doesn’t make much news.

But the next one does.

Janice Boxer’s body is found in her car. She’d been missing for three days according to the San Juan Sheriff’s Department.

This really hits home because Janice was the Marshalltown real estate agent I knew. We met when I thought I might sell my Monroe house and buy a mountain cabin. I threw the idea out with the first snowfall.

Clarice spends an hour or so on the phone piecing together the story. Boxer made an appointment to show a cabin to a buyer from the Bay Area. She left her office in the early afternoon to drive to it and that was the last anyone knew. The next morning it became apparent something was wrong. The last message on the office voice mail was Janice’s client, irate as hell for being stood up.

Co-workers called her house and cell phone. One of them drove to the cabin. It was locked, no sign of Janice. She checked Boxer’s house in town. No one. Her next call was to the San Juan Sheriff’s office. Janice Boxer was well known in the small foothill community and her usual movements were traceable.

Dodson said he checked her house, the post office, the garage where she had her Explorer worked on, the coffee shop, the weekly newspaper office and the Recorder’s office. He rallied Search and Rescue.

His teams combed the cabin and the surrounding clearing for several hours and didn’t turn up a thing that hadn’t spent the winter lying under several feet of snow.

Heading back down the hill, Dodson tells Clarice, the Search and Rescue Jeep was parked on the right-hand side of the road, pulled to the edge of a steep drop off. Janice’s Explorer had flipped over and wedged between two trees.

“We spent better than two hours going over the spot for forensics and came up with nothing; no skid marks, no brake marks. It looked as though she’d just calmly, quietly driven off the edge, into the void,” he tells Clarice.

“But I know there’s more to this,” Clarice has an ah-ha in her voice as she tells me the story.

“Just let it go, Clarice. There are accidents every year on those mountain roads. You’ve got a good little story there that you can follow if there’s any more information.”

“Alright, Amy, but this isn’t going to go away just because
you
think so,” she says and whirls on her heel. “Two deaths? It’s beginning to spell conspiracy to me.” Her nose wrinkles as the start of a frown.

“Conspiracy? What have you been smoking?”

She turns back at my office door. “I’m telling you, something’s going on. Both Baldwin and Boxer have ties to the hotel. And doesn’t it seem just the teensiest bit suspicious that people are dropping like fall leaves right after the old Senator goes? I don’t believe in coincidence,” she harrumphs.

“What do you mean?” I ask. “Baldwin was found in the hotel bar. That’s a pretty tenuous tie. And what tie did Boxer have to the hotel? “

“When Jim searched Boxer’s house he found a set of blueprints. They turned out to be a copy from when the hotel was renovated in the 1960s,” she says with impatience.

This seems a tad unusual, but I’m certainly not a commercial real estate person.

“I can see where a set of plans like that could be handy,” I say. “If Royce was looking for financing, he’d want to know how much renovation was going to be needed.”

“Huh,” Clarice snorts over her shoulder on her way out. “Don’t forget the ghost stories.”

CHAPTER SIX

I won’t let any of the
Press
staff know it, but I’m flattered when they come to me for advice. In a different world I may have gone into teaching, though a college classroom is too far removed from the adrenaline high of breaking news. I always feel a little tug of envy as Clarice heads out the door yelling, “I’ve got my cell phone,” when something comes over the scanner.

Clarice is opinionated, a little truculent, and argues about assignments. But she writes two or three stories a day and garners awards. She lives for the adrenaline of breaking news, hanging on the sound of the police scanner. Her co-workers call her the Angel of Death. They don’t know she thinks it’s a compliment. She doesn’t know it isn’t.

I nod as she bowls out the door. If this is just a lot of chat she’ll find out soon enough. If there really is something, it’s closer to home and needs to be covered. The bodies in Marshalltown may have to wait.

I can still use the time on research. There’s a lot of background stuff I can dig up at the library. Nancy, the reference librarian, is still a friend from B.B.L., Before Brandon Left. A lot of my connections in Monroe are holdovers. Nancy’s special, though. Her daughter is the same age as Heather and when we arrived here, they became friends. One morning I went to pick Heather up after a sleepover and found Nancy sipping a Jack Daniels and Diet 7-Up. Right then I knew we’d be friends.

Clarice comes looking for me after half an hour. She’s right, there
is
something going on. Terry James, a security guard at a local cannery failed to show up for work. When his supervisor called because he wasn’t at work, his daughter, Jetta Forth, said he’d left home at his usual time. Friends started a search. After several hours there was no trace of him so the local cops were called in. And once the cops were involved, Clarice was on the case like snow on a glacier.

“Go ahead with it,” I say, underscoring her judgment “The cannery is one of the big employers in Monroe and people will be talking about this.”

The rest of the day she trails about five minutes behind the cops as they interview everyone who might have seen the missing man. When she hears they’ve found the man’s car, she tears out to the gas station next to the freeway. She gets there in time to watch the cops pull a guard’s uniform shirt out of the trunk.

“I know he’s been murdered,” she says, lounging against my door during one of her brief stops back in the newsroom.

“There’s just too much coincidence. A neighbor told me the daughter’s boyfriend has been hanging around. He left last night after a screaming fight. Another neighbor told me her dad said if she, Jetta, didn’t dump the boyfriend, he’d kick her out.”

Clarice’s voice is a dull background hum as I pull the daily story budget up on the screen. I ‘m looking for likely page one stories. I’m not ignoring Clarice. After two years, I find a nod or “um-hum” will hold her until I can focus on what she’s saying. Suddenly, I’m focused.

“Wait, wait, why do you think this is a page one?”

Clarice’s discussion has rolled right on like a juggernaut, assuming the missing man is the top story of the day. It isn’t an assumption I’m buying. She’s going to have to sell this a lot harder.

“All we have is some guy who didn’t show up for work this morning and who doesn’t seem to be in any of his usual places,” I say, trying to keep the exasperation out of my voice. “The cops aren’t looking at this as too unusual yet. If we were to put this guy on page one, what about the next guy who gets tired of his life and takes off? We need a lot more to make this a page one story. Right now it’s the top of local.”

Grumbling that she knows this was a murder, Clarice puts a lot of body English into her short walk back to her desk, where she whips out her notebook and starts typing.

I’m stuck at my desk later than usual tonight so am still in my office when Clarice makes her routine nightly cops calls.

Something is going on. I can hear Clarice’s voice rising, a sure sign of adrenaline ahead. I’m braced when her head appears around the door and she says, “Oh boy, the Rural Area Fire Department dispatcher just blew it! He told me that he thinks they found a body. There’s lots of cops and sheriff’s cars headed out there. I’m on my way!”

She’s out the door before I can say anything. I know it’s going to be a long night. If there is a body, this
can
end up on page one.

For the next hour, I keep myself busy while I watch the clock and wait for the phone. Finally, I dial Clarice’s cell, and a deep male voice answers.

“She’s talking to the fire guys right now,” Schultz says in a don’t-mess-with- me cop tone. “I left my phone in my car and asked to use hers. I’ll have her call you.” The line goes dead.

CHAPTER SEVEN

The ten minutes before Clarice calls back are long. I can’t keep my mind together enough to edit stories. When the phone finally rings, I jolt.

“Where are you? Why are you letting the cops use your cell phone?” I demand.

“Hey, Amy, and how are you?” Clarice’s voice is cheery, not a good sign. ”Schultz asked to use my phone and I know you’re always preaching good, open communication, so I let him. They’re not using land lines right now so they can’t be traced over the scanner.”

“Well, where are you and Schultz?”

“We’re at the scene. They did discover a body and it sure looks like the missing guy. It’s about 60 or 70 yards off Granite Road, you know, the county road that leads down to the levees. It’s pretty moist out here. The body is in a patch of weeds—can’t tell what kind in the dark but they’re tall—and it’s lying face down in some shallow water.”

“How in the hell do you know that? What did you do, see the body? Isn’t the scene taped?” I’m clenching my hand, getting a fist ready to punch something.

“It’s taped … now.” The blonde’s voice is subdued. “Funny thing, it wasn’t taped when I got here. There weren’t even any homicide guys here when I got here. The tip from Rural Fire was real good. I walked out into the field to ask the guys on the scene what they’d found and, well, they’re standing over the body of an old guy dressed in a security guard’s uniform.”

Oh Lord, I think. I’m going to have to remake a portion of page one.

“OK Clarice, you win. This will go page one, but, BUT it’s not the lead story and you need to get your butt back here NOW and write it. I’ll need about 12 inches.”

“Well, that may be a problem.” Clarice’s voice suddenly sounds tinny, like she’s using a can and string. “I can do the 12 inches, but I can’t get back right now.”

“What are you talking about?” I’m almost yelling. It’s been a long day. My patience is as stretched as control-top pantyhose. “If you’re not back here in the next half hour, and it isn’t written 45 minutes after that, I won’t be able to hold page one.”

Clarice’s voice scratches and then takes hold. “It seems as though I got here too early,” she admits. “My car is inside the tape and the cops won’t let me out. They’re checking tire tracks now.”

I can’t even come up with a response.

When she parked her car on the shoulder of the road, it ended up in the middle of the crime scene. How the hell does Clarice manage to get herself into these situations?

“Oh God, hitch a ride with the fire guys, ask one of the uniforms to bring you back. I don’t care how you do it, but I better hear from you in a few minutes and you better be telling me you’re on your way back to the office.” I poked the phone off and massaged my right temple where an incipient headache was trying to stake a claim.

I’m on automatic as I call the news editor and tell her to leave a hole for Clarice’s story. I even offer to write a headline so that she can work on the remake.

Clarice blows in 15 minutes late, but in her solid way turns out a concise, readable story with a little time to spare. Once everything is buttoned up, I offer to buy her a drink and vent some of my peevishness over a glass of wine.

“You know, Clarice, this could become a big problem for the paper and for you.”

“I know, I know,” Clarice nods her agreement. “Already the cops think sometimes I’m too aggressive, and I don’t want them to shut off the information.”

“That’s part of it, but have you considered that you may end up being called as a witness?” I take a swig of wine. “Or that some of your stuff, maybe your cell phone or your shoes, could get tagged as evidence? And what about your notes? What happens if the DA’s office wants all your notes or subpoenas you? Should the
Press
go to bat for you, pay attorney’s fees?” I set my glass down on the bar a little too hard and the wine sloshes.