Edited for Death (5 page)

It was going to be hot again. At 7:30 in the morning it’s already pushing 80. The Marshalltown visit looks good. It’s usually a few degrees cooler up there.

I pick up all the papers from the driveway, take a fast walk with Mac and am in the office by 9. I check over the daily stories on tap and add a note that someone should watch the temperature. When I see Clarice’s head above the cubicles heading toward my office, I grab my purse.

“Aren’t you ready to go?” I ask in my no-nonsense voice.

Her smirky grin gives her away. “I can’t go right now. They’ve issued a warrant for Jetta Forth’s boyfriend and think they’ll get him this afternoon.”

“I stopped by the cops on my way in. When they told me about the warrant, I called Dodson on my cell and asked how it was going. He said things haven’t changed so I’m staying here to follow the James murder.”

A reporter who assigns herself.

“Boxer might not get any deader, but we made a big deal out of the two murders and I’m not going to just drop it.” I keep my voice down so the other early reporters won’t stare at my icy tone. “Keep on the cops here; I’ll talk to Dodson myself.”

Clarice smiles serenely. “He’ll just tell you the same thing,” she says as she heads to her desk.

I’m steamed. My day is shot to hell. I think about calling Clarice on insubordination but this is just peevishness and maybe a touch of envy. She gets to deal with murder and I get to pick up after her. I dial the San Juan Sheriff’s number.

“Hi, this is Amy Hobbes. Clarice just told me you have nothing new on the Boxer murder.”

“Well, she’s right and I’m not happy.” Jim Dodson’s voice is tired. “I’m thinking this might go cold. We’ve rousted everybody in town with a prior. Nobody knows a thing, but the rumors keep up; even the Bay Area link hasn’t given us squat.”

I’d planned to be in Marshalltown so I have a few free hours and a nagging sense I’m missing information. Maybe it isn’t as sexy as an arrest for Clarice. Maybe the sheriff is worn out. But I knew Janice Boxer and the coincidences of two murders and the Senator’s death are bothering me. I decide to spend my unexpected time in the San Juan Room at the library again.

Nancy compiled and catalogued the Monroe Library’s comprehensive collection of the area’s local history over the years. My first stop is the microfiche to read the
Marshalltown Crier
, a twice-weekly that folded in the 1980s.

Marshalltown is a gold rush town. Unlike places like Dogtown and Dry Diggings and Jenny Lind, Marshalltown has been able to maintain after the gold ran out.

It’s located in a valley on a trail into the mountains and became a traffic hub. With money pouring in, the town thrived. Streets were laid out; a dry goods, a grocer, a feed store, four churches, a twice-a-week newspaper, two lawyers and three saloons opened up along Main Street. The places of honor were held by the Marshall Opera House and the Marshalltown Hotel, on the corner of Main Street and Mine Hill Road, owned by the Calvert family.

The
Crier
recorded decades of traveling shows, government meetings, school graduations, weddings and funerals. The hotel hosted gatherings during the summers but during the winter was home only to members of the Calvert family.

I take a break from the microfiche to look the Calverts up in “Foothill Families.”

They came to Marshalltown in 1861 from Maryland. They weren’t the restless kind. They uprooted themselves about once a century, but when they decided to move they made it a big one. In the mid-1700s they emigrated from England. Paulson Calvert packed his family up and took sail around the Horn to California when the Civil War loomed.

He bought the Marshalltown Hotel from a miner who’d built it to have a roof over his head. The Calverts rebuilt and added to the hotel until it had three stories, 25 rooms, a restaurant, a ballroom and a saloon. For the next 100 years, civic events took place at the hotel, and Paulson’s youngest son was mayor of Marshalltown for four consecutive terms.

My eyes are burning. After ninety minutes of looking at microfiche and scanning a couple of books on early San Juan County history I’ve had it with research. Just one more microfiche and then I’ll quit.

The last sheet I grab is the
Crier
from the mid-1960s. I realize as I’m skimming that this was when the Senator began his run for national office. I slow down and begin reading.

Much of it was the “Local Boy Makes Good” variety. A story on his success in the primary. A recap of the family’s history in town. A longer story about his war years and commendation. The penultimate story on his winning the Senate seat took up most of the front page. The photo included his parents, his brother, his wife and son and a man named Ben Nevell, identified as a war buddy.

The last story on that microfiche was the sale of the hotel. The elder Calverts decided to sell after Robert went to the Senate. They moved to Berkeley to live with their oldest son, William, a historian at Cal.

I stuff my notes in my purse and head to the library door. A wall of heat smacks me as I open the door and I’m dripping as I come into the
Press
.

“OK,” I say. “Who’s doing the weather story?”

Five heads with blank faces swivel around to look at me.

“Hasn’t anybody been outside lately? It’s danged hot out there. Call the weather bureau, get the temperature readings and the forecast for the next three days. Get on line and find the average temperature for this date, the hottest it’s been and see if this is a record. Call city utilities and see if they’ve had any problems. Call the hospitals and ask if they have any heatstroke cases.”

I reach my office as I’m rattling off the assignments. I tell Louie, the lone photographer around, to go look for a heat picture as I fan myself with a handful of faxes.

A good weather story—heat, cold, windy, rainy, or, best yet, a huge storm or flood—makes great copy and saves page one several times a year. The staff gets tired of doing them, but readers always read them. This heat is a good backup. A balance to Clarice’s murder story.

I finally glance at the faxes and the mail. I get a few letters to the editor every day, a chunk of them from four or five regulars. I had a spate from high school kids until I called one of the English teachers. Seems he’d designed this “Letters” project and graded the kids on how many letters were published. I lost it, and told him I wasn’t going to be the one who graded his kids. There are a lot of reasons letters get published. A well-written one from a teenager isn’t one of the criteria.

Today, I open a threat.

This one isn’t specific about how I’m going to “get it,” it just says, “Keep your God-damned nose, and your God-damned nosy reporter, out of our business or you’ll be sorry!”

The first threat I got when I took this job sacred me to the core. I wasn’t used to having somebody personally attack me for bringing the news. The writer was miffed—hell, just pissed—at the coverage of his sentencing because, as he said, “I told the girl I didn’t do it.” “The girl” in question was Clarice and he pleaded guilty at his arraignment. No matter, he wrote that when he got out he was going to come find me.

I called the Monroe police, took the letter over for fingerprinting (duh) and insisted they file a report. A couple days later I slapped myself for overreacting and every threat since then gets trashed. Today’s just gets tossed.

I’m reading the first draft of the heat story when Clarice comes in, drops keys, purse, notebook and phone and barrels into my office.

“Well, they put out a warrant for the boyfriend. He’ll be arraigned on first degree murder charges as soon as they bring him in. I’ve also got enough for a portrait, of Terry James…..”

Clarice’s voice slows like rain hitting desert sand as she sees I have my finger on the computer screen, keeping my place in the story.

“Jetta Forth’s car was also missing. The cops inventoried everything that was missing from James’ house, notified pawn shops in a couple of counties, sent out descriptions of the daughter’s car and issued a BOLO for it.

“As far as James goes, I’ve got some pretty good stuff. He was a quiet guy but well liked, sort of a behind-the-scenes hero. He’d worked for Martin Canneries for almost 25 years, the last 15 as a security guard, and missed work only when his wife died. I borrowed a couple of pictures of him from his daughter. She’s upset; not only is her dad dead, but her boyfriend likely did it. I think she’s feeling pretty hung out to dry right now.” The blonde has been chasing the story out in the heat all day and her flushed face and perspiration stains on her blouse show it.

“Thanks, Clarice. I want to get home earlier tonight and spend time with Mac. How about dinner, maybe next week?”

“Sure. Overtime is nice, but I won’t mind getting home early. I’ll have this wrapped up by 6:30 if you want to stick around to read it.” She heads off to get a bottle of water before she sits down to write.

Clarice turns in a story that makes Terry James a person missed by friends and not just a faceless victim. She hangs over my shoulder as I read it, making small changes.

We go for a walk. While Mac checks out where all of his pals have been, I beat up my brain. The Calverts were an upstanding family. They’d sold the hotel. Why did Royce Calvert buy it back more than 30 years later? Did James Baldwin’s and Janice Boxer’s murders have anything to do with the hotel or the Calvert’s? Maybe this is all just coincidence.

I force myself to stop with the Calverts. I’m going to San Francisco later to spend the weekend with an old friend and need to think through how I want his help.

Phillippe Etange is the arts editor for the
San Francisco Times
and we talk or email several times a month. We’d worked together at the
San Fernando Valley Globe
but never actually got together. It seemed like one of us was always in the middle of a relationship as the other one wasn’t. We’ve stayed in touch over the in-between years and I respect his judgments and news sense. This is one of the times that I want reaction from Phil. I want to pick his brains, want him to help me see the patterns in the two murders.

As Mac and I head home, I reap the benefit of the blistering heat. The evening air is softness on my skin; intimacy, closeness and weightlessness like a new love with no responsibility. Venus and a crescent moon hang near the bottom of a sky that isn’t lavender, isn’t purple, isn’t blue but a shade of lilac like a feeling, not a color.

I email Phil saying I’ll be there Friday night. I also outline the Marshalltown/Calvert conundrum with some information on the hotel and the murders. All the Calverts had ties in the Bay Area so it’s possible that I can mine the
San Francisco Times.

At least it will give us something to talk about.

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Jim Dodson
is
dishy.

The Sheriff isn’t tall, less than six feet, but carries himself well. He’s dressed in a nice shirt, patterned blue and gold tie and pressed chinos. His navy jacket is over the back of his chair.

When Clarice and I finally get it together and get in the car this morning, the drive to Marshalltown is pleasant and my little red Miata takes the curves like a pro. I bought the car when Brandon walked out. He’d always insisted on an SUV to fit in with his political crowd but she’s red and fast, like I want to be.

We drive through the small town first to find the few points of interest. The hotel. The San Juan County Courthouse.

We park behind the hotel and start walking. Marshalltown is small but it survived the past 150 years by being the county seat. Now, government is the second largest employer behind tourism. Cute and quaint shops line the main street—named Main Street—and a few cross streets. Signs for bed and breakfasts point up the rise behind the town’s shopping district.

We leave the hotel to do after lunch and walk into the Sheriff’s office in the Courthouse. Dodson is affable, Clarice is pink and I’m amused.

“Glad to see you again, Clarice,” Dodson says. “And Amy, nice to meet you finally.”