by Ron Fisher
“And my grandfather didn’t?” I said.
My sarcasm wasn’t lost on Hagood.
“Your grandfather was nothing like this man. Garnet’s editorials would often ruffle feathers, but I always found them to be fair and—”
“Look,” I said, cutting him off. “I really don’t need you to defend my grandfather to me right now. I need you to help me find a buyer for the Clarion. I don’t care if it turns out to be Heinrich Himmler reincarnated.”
Hagood’s face colored slightly. He thumbed through the file on his desk with more energy than was required, found a letter, slid his glasses toward the end of his nose again, and peered at it. “The man’s name is C. Wilson McCrary. He is headquartered in Des Plaines, Illinois. We can draft a letter of inquiry to him if you’d like.”
“Do that,” I said. I’ll listen to any offer.”
Hagood finally nodded, but it took an effort.
“Then we need to begin an audit,” he said, “and an inventory to help determine what the paper is physically worth. It would help if you could deliver the Clarion’s books to me as soon as possible. I have an accounting firm in mind that should be able to handle that part of it rather quickly—if they meet with your satisfaction. I’ll give you their number and you can talk to them if you’d like.”
“I’m sure they’re fine. I trust your recommendation. I’ll get the records as soon as I can—today if possible.”
“Good. And of course, we’ll need to find someone with knowledge of the equipment to estimate what that’s worth, and we’ll need a real estate appraisal. I can see to that too, if you’ll allow me.”
“Of, course, thank you.” I offered him my hand.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
Feeling like that old comic strip character that went everywhere with a small dark raincloud over his head, I headed to the Clarion. It was located several blocks south of Hagood’s office in a sprawling one-story white clapboard and brick structure with so many helter-skelter add-ons that if viewed from an airplane it would look like pieces on a scrabble board.
There were actually two things I wanted: the necessary financial records to set the sale of the paper into motion, and whatever I could find to help me track Grandfather’s movements from the time I called him to the message he left me. During that time, he had located the woman I was looking for, and I hoped a clue would turn up here as to how he did that.
But the offices looked closed; the only car in the lot was a Volkswagen Jetta the color of blue ink. I tried the front doors anyway, and was surprised to find them unlocked. Inside, the reception area was just as I remembered it: it featured well-used antique furnishings in dark shades—a décor similar to the study at Still Hollow—complete with Grandfather’s black and white landscape photography on the walls. There was no one about, but I could hear the clatter of computer keys coming from down a hall.
Doris Mozingo’s nameplate still sat on the reception desk, but her responsibilities, I knew, went well beyond that of a receptionist. She had been with my grandfather since the beginning, and was his personal assistant, office manager, confidant, and generally mother hen to the staff. Any duties of a more personal and undisclosed nature were unimaginable if you knew either one of them.
Grandfather’s office was to the left of the reception desk, the door closed, the room beyond the frosted glass panel dark. I walked over and reached for the doorknob.
“Excuse me.” The voice came from behind.
I turned to find a young woman standing there, her arms folded under her breasts.
“May I help you?” she asked.
She looked at me with an undisguised hostility.
“I’m John David Bragg,” I said, feeling like I should have a hat in my hands to roll and squeeze.
“I know who you are,” she said.
“And you must be Kelly Mayfield,” I said.
My mental picture of her couldn’t have been more wrong. This woman was no candidate for spinsterhood. Far from it. The only thing I’d guessed right about were the glasses, but these were thin-rimmed, small and fashionable, and gave her both an intelligent and a sexy look. She wore her hair long and straight and it was the kind of black that shined with blue highlights. With her dark eyes and high cheekbones, I wondered if she had Native American in her family tree.
She pointed toward my grandfather’s office with her chin.
“I’d rather you didn’t go in there. I’ve been trying to sort through some advertising contracts, and it’s a difficult task as it is without someone moving things around. Garnet had a rather unusual filing system.”
“He was an unusual man all around,” I replied, opening the door. “I promise not to disturb anything.”
The hostility flared in her eyes like a power surge.
“I said I’d rather you didn’t.”
I turned and faced her.
“I seem to be getting off on the wrong foot with everyone today, but I’m not quite sure what I’ve done to you. Maybe you could clue me in.”
She glanced out the window before casting the full force of her bottomless black eyes on me.
“You’ve done nothing to me, Mr. Bragg,” she said.
“But you don’t like me,” I said.
She didn’t answer one way or the other.
“Most people get to know me before they dislike me,” I said.
Her expression didn’t change. My self-deprecating charm had absolutely no effect on her.
“Your grandfather was a wonderful man,” she said. “I think you caused him a lot of heartache.”
I felt the anger warm the back of my neck like rising bathwater. “You don’t know anything about me,” I said.
“I knew Garnet,” she said.
We glared at each other for a moment and then she said, “If you want to go into his office, I guess I can’t stop you. But please don’t move anything. Now if there’s nothing I can do for you, I’d like to get back to work. The office is closed, but we will still have an edition to put out—eventually.”
“There is something you can do for me,” I said. “You can get me the paper’s financial records for the last five years.”
My request visibly startled her.
“Financial records? What on earth for?”
“I’ll also need the assistance of the company bookkeeper, accountant, or financial officer, or whatever you call that person here, to help explain these records to an outside accounting firm.”
“Just a minute—”
“They should also be prepared to meet with my attorney, Ellis Hagood, as soon as possible.”
“I’ll do no such thing,” she said, her cheeks turning a lovely shade of pink. “I’m going to speak to Eloise about this,” she said, moving toward the telephone.
“I would be upset if you bothered her right now,” I said.
She picked up the phone and began dialing. “I can’t be responsible for your emotions Mr. Bragg. But I am responsible for this newspaper. I’m not going to let you walk out of here with the records of this company without Eloise Bragg’s approval.”
“She knows what I’m doing,” I said, a small lie, since she really didn’t know—at least not in detail. “I don’t think my request is out of line since my grandfather left this newspaper entirely to me—not to my sister.”
She reacted as if I’d slapped her.
“I don’t believe that,” she said, staring wide-eyed at me.
“To be perfectly honest, neither do I,” I said. “But that’s beside the point. If you have to call somebody, make it Ellis Hagood, our attorney. My sister has enough to cope with right now.”
She put the receiver down slowly, the dawn of a suspicious idea showing on her face. “Why do you want the books?” she asked.
“So I can get some idea of what the place is worth.”
“You plan to sell the Clarion.” It wasn’t a question.
“I have no choice.”
Those dark eyes blazed again. “Then you have
my resignation, effective immediately.”
“I won’t accept it.”
Her jaw dropped. “You won’t . . . you don’t have a choice!”
“I don’t want your resignation, I want your help,” I said. “Somebody has to run this place until I can sell it.”
“Now there’s an attractive offer. My resignation stands.”
“How many people are employed here?” I asked.
She started to turn away, but the question stopped her. “Fourteen. Why?”
“Don’t we need to think of them too?”
“Just what do you mean by that?”
“If you leave, it won’t help them,” I added.
Her eyes became narrow slits. “You’re using them to blackmail me? You’re lower than I thought.”
For a moment I thought she might physically attack me.
“That isn’t it at all,” I said quickly. “What I’m trying to say is that the best thing for everybody is to keep this paper operating without a hitch. That way, all the employees—including you—will have more job security once new management takes over. Taking over a successful, well-run business will give the new owner less reason to screw with it. It’s the best way I know to protect everyone’s jobs.”
“What you really mean is that a successful newspaper will fetch a better price, right?”
“So what? It doesn’t change what I just said.”
“Then don’t try to con me. Don’t stand there pretending you only want me to stay because of the welfare of the staff. At least have the courage to tell the truth. Admit that you don’t give a damn about what happens to any of us. You just want to grab the cash as fast as you can, and be on your way.”
I felt the back of my neck getting even hotter.
“Some of these people have been here all their lives,” she continued. “Otto Williams, our pressman, is a second generation employee—taking over from his father when he retired. Doris Mozingo has been here for forty years. She’s given her whole life to this paper. A half dozen others have been here twenty years or more. If these people lose their jobs, some of them will find it hard—if not impossible—to find another one. They would have no other place to go, with families to support and mortgages to pay.” She looked at me sadly. “But you don’t care about that, do you?”
I shoved my hands in my pockets and tried not to let her see how much she was getting to me.
“Look,” I said. “I didn’t ask for this newspaper, but I’ve got it. And when I said I have no choice but to sell, I meant it for Eloise’s sake. I need to raise a lot of money for her, and I don’t know any other way of doing it.”
“I’m supposed to believe that?”
“I don’t give a damn what you believe.”
“Now he speaks the truth,” she said, walking toward the door.
“Wait,” I said, with enough force to stop her. “I’m sorry. We’re all under a lot of strain here. You deserve a better answer than that. Do you know about the loans?”
“Loans? What loans?”
“The Clarion is mortgaged to the hilt,” I said.
I could tell by her expression that she didn’t know that.
“Eloise doesn’t know it either,” I said. “The bank will probably want these debts settled right away. I don’t have it. We don’t have it. I’ve got to sell this newspaper or we lose the Clarion and Eloise and Mackenzie will have no income. I will not allow that to happen.”
Her eyes locked with mine then faltered slightly, as if she was beginning to believe me.
“I’ll try to do everything I can to safeguard the jobs of the people who work here,” I added, “but the bottom line is, I must sell the paper.”
She was still glowering at me, but she was listening.
“I don’t intend to take a nickel of it. But I need someone to help keep the place going. I would prefer it to be you, but if not, then I’ll have to find somebody else. Either way, I have no choice.”
“And I’m supposed to just take your word about this,” she said, but the defiance in her voice was gone.
“If you don’t believe me, just stick around and find out. At least it’ll give you a chance to show your resume to the new owner. Look on the bright side: the faster we sell, the faster I’ll be out of town. That prospect alone should be reason enough for you to help me.”
“I’ll think about it,” she finally said.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Although Kelly Mayfield remained less than friendly, she was at least cooperating. She called the Clarion’s accountant at home and in fifteen minutes a bespectacled and prematurely balding young man by the name of Raymond Brown showed up. With an impressive display of raised eyebrows, he listened to me explain what I wanted and why, and went to work without argument. He informed me that to gather everything I needed, it would take him at least a day—maybe more, but he could probably have some ballpark figures within an hour. I agreed, and Kelly Mayfield went with him to lend a hand, if for no other reason I suspected, than to speed my departure from the premises.
I stood and listened to the sound of file cabinets opening and closing, the pecking of computer keys, and the drone of a copier, coming from down the corridor. Satisfied that Mayfield and Brown were laboring diligently, if not willingly, to fulfill my request, I went over to Mrs. Mozingo’s desk and found her appointment calendar. As I expected, one of her duties was to schedule my grandfather’s appointments. Monday showed a breakfast with the Downtown Business Alliance, a ribbon cutting for a new Pizza Parlor, and a meeting of the Rotary Club—nothing atypical or noteworthy. Tuesday, the day he died, there was one appointment in the afternoon, a school board meeting, but she had drawn a line through it. Perhaps it had been cancelled after I called him and changed his afternoon agenda.
Next to the appointment calendar was a three-ring binder with a ballpoint pen connected to a small chain. It was a log to keep track of the comings and goings of staff members during office hours. There were sign-out sheets with spaces to record the time of their departure, their destination, and their return. Monday and Tuesday showed a number of entries bearing Grandfather’s name, written in a small neat hand that matched the appointment calendar. Perhaps Mrs. Mozingo’s attempt to keep track of him.
On Tuesday, she signed him out at eleven-thirty, which would have been right after I called, and he was back at twelve forty-five. His destination was noted as the “Register of Deeds Office, and lunch.”
The part of my call that interested him the most was clear, because as soon as he got off the phone with me, he made a beeline for the land office, most likely to find out who was buying and selling land in Eastatoe Valley.
Eloise said she called him that afternoon, and at six, according to the sign-out log, he left for the day. Thirty minutes later he’d called me from Grady Morton’s garage. So, somewhere in between he managed to get a line on my missing girl and come across something that “troubled” him. Impressive work for the short amount of time spent.
I put the sign-out register back where it belonged and went into his office, quietly closing the door behind me to avoid another run-in with the disagreeable, but comely, Ms. Mayfield. The office was as cluttered as I remembered it, with every surface and shelf filled and spilling over with books, files, magazines, and stacks of old newspapers yellowed enough to have been there for a while.
The walls held forty years of mementos in cheap metal frames—Grandfather posing with the famous and the infamous: lawmen, politicians, dignitaries, a lantern-jawed minor Hollywood actor, an evangelist as popular in the Bible belt as the Pope is in Rome, and plaques, citations, and awards of all shapes and sizes, garnered throughout the years for one journalistic accomplishment or another.
The most significant award of course, was the Pulitzer. It was displayed among the others as if it held no more importance than the plaque from the local United Way that hung next to it. I sat down at his desk and opened a drawer, careful not to disturb the advertising contracts that were stack
ed on the desktop, presumably the work in progress of Ms. Mayfield. Inside the drawer were several pouches of pipe tobacco at various stages of depletion, the mellow aroma bringing an instant vision of Grandfather so clear I expected to turn and find him standing in the doorway.
Underneath the tobacco was a large loose-leaf book that I first thought was a photo album, but when I took it out, I saw that it was actually a scrapbook. Evidently, the artifacts on the wall weren’t the only mementos he collected. The first thing in it was an old newspaper clipping dated August 15th, 1943, which was long before his time with the Clarion. It was a story about some of the area families with sons serving in the military. The Braggs were featured, with four boys, all single, and all in service at the same time—three in the army in Europe and one in the Navy in the Pacific. These were my great uncles, Grandfather’s older brothers.
In later years, multiple family members would be prohibited from serving in combat at the same time; it was a rule adopted too late for my great-uncles. None of them would return to Pickens County alive. Luckily, the war ended before Grandfather was old enough to enlist, since his overly developed sense of honor and duty would have surely compelled him to join up at the first opportunity. Considering the bad luck that befell his brothers, he could have been killed too, preventing the eventual entry into this world of my father, and later, one John David Bragg.
I studied the yellowed photograph that accompanied the article, which pictured the Bragg sons, grandfather included, posing with my great-grandfather, the old bootlegger himself. They were standing in a group out by the barn at Still Hollow, an American flag suspended from the eaves. My great-uncles were resplendent in their uniforms, and my great grandfather was clad in overalls and wearing a snap-brim hat. A young Garnet Bragg kneeled at their feet. They all stared into the camera with matching bleak looks, as if they had somehow caught a glimpse of their future.