Late Checkout

by Carol J. Perry

  “Take a cab,” he said. “I’ll put you on the a.m. show with Phil Archer. Get your car later.”

  “Yessir.”

  I reversed direction and headed back down the stairs, undoubtedly confusing the cat, who was half in, half out of my kitchen cat door. “Aunt Ibby,” I called before I’d even entered the living room. “Can you give me a ride to the station? Right away?”

  “Certainly.” She appeared in the office doorway. “I’ll back the car out while you change that old shirt and put on some lipstick.”

  I looked down at the sweatshirt. “Ohmigosh!” I ran back up the stairs, raced across the kitchen, and threw my closet door open. The jeans I was wearing would be okay. I’d probably be sitting behind the news desk anyway. I yanked off the sweatshirt, tossed it onto the bed, pulled a pink silk blouse from a hanger, and inspected face and hair in the mirror attached to the top of my bureau. Hair too curly, but not bad. I shrugged into the blouse and buttoned it on the way to the bathroom. A quick fix with mascara and eyeliner, a brushful of blush, and some pink lip gloss would have to do for the moment and Rhonda could help with any necessary repairs when I got there. I grabbed a white cardigan, my purse, and the handful of notes and photos and took off running.

  As good as her word, Aunt Ibby had the Buick warmed up and the passenger door open when I reached the back gate—and she hadn’t even asked what was going on! From my phone call to Doan to the moment I climbed into the Buick, less than fifteen minutes had passed. Phil Archer’s morning news show began at nine. We made it to the station with twenty minutes to spare.

  Chapter 11

  I had time to tap a few more notes into my tablet while Rhonda repaired my hasty makeup job. (She’s a Mary Kay rep in addition to her regular job and has a bottom drawer full of sample products for emergencies.) Between what I’d observed in the library the previous night, plus what Pete had told me and the information I’d found online and Aunt Ibby’s amazing cache of facts, I felt confident that I could scoop any of the competing morning news shows’ reports on Wee Willie’s demise.

  The flattering studio photo of a much younger William Wallace was ready for the telecast and Phil had quickly searched the station’s archives and pulled footage of Rockingham Park, Willie at some long-ago batting practice, and some of Francine’s recent footage of the Salem Main Library. By nine o’clock, when Phil’s theme music played and Wanda the Weather Girl was prettily posed in front of her green screen, no one would have guessed how quickly the whole production had been thrown together. I waited in a folding chair off camera for my cue to join Phil at the desk.

  Phil did his usual morning intro, wishing the audience a good day, referencing a few of the many Halloween-related celebrations going on around the city, then introducing Wanda, adorable in orange short-shorts, a lacy black peekaboo top designed to look like spider webs, and thigh-high black boots. As always, her thoroughly professional weather report belied her sexpot appearance.

  I was scheduled to do my “breaking news” story immediately after the My Pillow commercial. While the sixty-second spot ran I gathered my notes and walked quickly to the news desk on its raised platform.

  “Thanks for sending along the backup material and photos,” Phil said. “Between what you’ve learned and all the stuff I dug up in the station archives, we’ll be good to go for five, six minutes or even more. Marty McCarthy’s in the control room, so you know it’ll be smooth.”

  That was a relief. Marty is the best. “You think we can do five minutes? Even six?” I’d been thinking of about three. Five minutes doesn’t sound like a long time until you try to fill it with your own voice making some sort of sense. But Phil seemed confident. He must have found more material than I’d imagined. “Wee Willie Wallace sure got around a lot, moving from job to job, didn’t he?” I said.

  Phil nodded. “Sure did. So did Wally Williams. Ready, Lee?” he pointed toward the cameraman, who’d started the backward countdown. “Three . . . two . . . one . . .”

  “Who?” I stammered. But the green light was on. I smiled at the camera while Phil announced “Breaking news. Authorities have learned more about yesterday’s fatality at the library. Here’s our own Lee Barrett, WICH-TVs field reporter, to update us on this ongoing story. Tell us what’s going on, Lee.”

  We hadn’t had time to rehearse any of this. I watched a monitor carefully so I’d know which film, which photo, which material the viewers were seeing while I spoke. I had the pages my aunt had printed for me, along with my own notes on the tablet in my lap, hidden from the camera just in case I needed to refer to them. “Thanks, Phil. Good morning ladies and gentlemen,” I began. “Yesterday evening seemed like a typical Friday at the Salem Main Library on Essex Street.” The monitor showed a split screen, with me on one side (the pink blouse looked fine) and a still shot of the handsome old building in full sunlight on the other. “But it turned out to be anything but,” I continued, watching, fascinated as the sunny scene morphed into a slow pan of two police cars with lights flashing, the coroner’s vehicle, and the plainly marked CSI unit, all with the library, windows ablaze, in the background. I hadn’t realized Francine had captured that one.

  “A library volunteer, returning a volume to the upstairs stacks, made a chilling discovery,” I continued. “The lifeless body of an elderly man lay sprawled in an aisle with books tossed in disarray all around him. The man has been identified as Wee Willie Wallace, one-time baseball player and sometime actor.” Here Marty had inserted a video of Wee Willie sliding into home plate, giving the catcher a high five and grinning at the camera. “Wallace’s baseball career was short-lived,” I said, “cut short because of gambling on his own games. He did some stunt work in Hollywood Westerns.” The studio portrait popped up, followed by a brief clip of a man who may have been Wee Willie on a horse. So far, so good. “Later, he had another brief career as a horse trainer at Rockingham Park in New Hampshire.” Nice professional video of Rockingham Park, probably from an old advertisement back when they still had races there.

  “So far the police have not revealed the cause of death,” I said, “although a police spokesperson stated that the man did not die of natural causes.” The screen once again showed Phil and me. A glance at the digital clock at the base of the monitor showed even with the generous use of the video clips, we’d not quite used up five minutes yet.

  “Thanks, Lee,” Phil Archer said. “We have a little more information about the man found dead at the library.” His smile just then was not the usual professional anchorman smile. It was real and broad. “While checking the WICH-TV archives, I found an old kinescope of a sports program made in this very building back in the fifties. The interviewer is sports announcer Larry Laraby and the man being interviewed is the same man who was found dead last night in Salem’s main library. I apologize for the quality but this recording was made before video film was introduced in 1956. Watch this, everybody!”

  The picture filling the screen was black and white and grainy. The voices had a kind of gurgly sound but the words and faces were distinguishable. “Our guest tonight is Wee Willie Wallace,” Larry Laraby said. “Willie had a shot at playing for the Sox, but what happened, Willie? You too short?”

  Willie’s answer sounded sincere, good natured. “More likely too young,” he said. “They like my speed, but they say I need more practice. So down to the minors I go. It’s okay. I’m only nineteen. Plenty of time.” He leaned forward and handed something to the other man. “Look. I brought you a team-signed baseball for your collection.”

  The camera was back on Phil and me. “That’s it, folks,” Phil said. “The rest of the kinescope was pretty bad. They used to reuse them until they were useless. I just thought you’d like to see that Wee Willie Wallace, who died last night in the Salem Main Library, was once a small part of the WICH-TV family. Thank you, Lee Barrett, for your excellent report.”

  He went to hard break with back-to-back national car commercials. I picked up my papers and shook
his hand. “The old TV sports show was the perfect ending for the piece,” I said. “Thanks for taking the time to search it out.” I checked my watch. We still had a couple of minutes before Phil had to resume the morning news. “Phil,” I said, “you mentioned Larry Laraby when we spoke a few days ago. The scattered books around both bodies just can’t be coincidence, can it?”

  He paused, looking around the studio before answering. He covered his mic with one hand. “It doesn’t seem so to me. That’s one of the reasons I checked the archives to see if Wee Willie was connected to Laraby somehow. I wasn’t even surprised to see that he was. I sort of remembered him being on that show several times but I didn’t have time to search the old records any further.” He looked at the clock. “Oh-oh. Back to work. Thanks again, Lee. Good job. Keep at it.”

  “I will,” I promised, meaning it sincerely. “But Phil, who’s Wally Williams?”

  “That would be a good place to start.” Broad wink. “Keep at it.”

  I had much more than a casual interest in this case and I had every intention of keeping at it. Not only had I found the body, but I was still pretty worried about the possibility that I’d been seen by the killer there in the stacks. What if the killer was worried too? About what I might have seen. Until Wee Willie’s murderer was found, I figured that maybe I had good reason to be scared.

  Chapter 12

  I hung around the station for a while after my five minutes with Phil Archer. I waved hi to Marty as I passed the control room, then headed back upstairs to see if Rhonda had anything else scheduled for me before my usual afternoon check-in.

  “Lookin’ good, Lee,” Rhonda said. “I never could understand that old rule about redheads not wearing pink.”

  “Me either,” I said. “My red-haired aunt always told me it was an old wives’ tale—started by jealous old wives. Is Mr. Doan around?”

  “He is. Want me to buzz him?”

  “Please. I have an idea about this Wee Willie Wallace and Larry Laraby connection.”

  “Larry Laraby’s picture is in that rogue’s gallery in the hall by the elevator, right? Old Eddie says he used to do sports here back in the day.” She hit a button on her console. “Oh, Mr. Doan. You got a minute to see Lee Barrett? She’s out here by my desk.”

  She nodded, then jerked a finger toward the manager’s closed office door. “He says go right in. Good luck with your idea.”

  I knocked, and waited. “Come in, come in, don’t dawdle.”

  I pushed the door open and greeted Bruce Doan. “Good morning, sir.”

  “Yeah. Good morning. Good follow-up. You got more for later?”

  “Not yet,” I admitted, “but I’m really getting interested in Larry Laraby and his connection with Wee Willie. I mean besides the fact that their deaths were kind of similar.”

  “The books on the floor,” he said. “Yeah. Your cop boyfriend tell you about that?”

  “No. Phil told me about the books they found around Larry Laraby’s body even before Willie got—got whatever it was that killed him.”

  And I’m the one who told my cop boyfriend about it. “Did you know Laraby?”

  “No. That was before my time here at the station. Buffy and I aren’t natives like you, Ms. Barrett. When the station changed hands back in the early nineties, that’s when they brought me in from Springfield. What about Laraby and Wee Willie? I didn’t know the little guy had ever been on the station until I saw your piece this morning.” He raised one hand in a small salute. “Not a bad job, by the way. Not bad at all.”

  “I’d like to take some time to search the archives. The way Phil did. I know the kinescopes are pretty rough, but I have to start somewhere.”

  “I suppose you want to be on the clock while you do it?”

  I hadn’t thought about that. Money isn’t a problem for me. “I just like to have someplace specific to go in the morning,” I told him honestly. “I miss clocking in and out.”

  “Okay. This is strictly in the investigative reporting and research category, okay? Just don’t be horning in on Howard’s field reporting gig. Got it?”

  “Got it.”

  He shuffled some papers on his desk. “Well then, get moving. I’m not paying you to stand around. I’ll expect at least one update a day on the dead guy in the library story in addition to a bang-up investigative piece on the Laraby connection to air in . . .” He looked at the calendar on the wall. “In two weeks. That should do it. And don’t forget you’re working on the anniversary show too. Have you rounded up any of the old-timers?”

  “We found Ranger Rob. He’s in Rockport, running a riding stable.”

  “Good start. Keep at it.”

  Why is everybody giving me the same advice? I guess I’ll have to keep at it if I’m going to finish in two weeks. “Thanks, Mr. Doan,” I said. “I’ll check with Rhonda about getting into the archives.”

  No reply. I let myself out, gave Rhonda a thumbs-up and a smile. “I’ll be right back,” I told her. I was ready to get to work, but not before I got my beautiful car back. I called a cab, requesting my favorite driver, Jim Litka, and went outside to wait on Ariel’s bench, facing the harbor.

  Jim ‘s green and white cab pulled up beside me within minutes. He jumped out, ran around to open the passenger door. “Hi, Ms. Barrett. Back seat today, or up front with me?”

  “Up front please.” Jim’s a wealth of information on practically any subject that has to do with Salem. I gave him the name of the Chevy dealership. “Going to pick up my car. Had a scrape down one side. Shopping cart.”

  He nodded understanding. “Yep. Darn lazy folks can’t bother to put them into those little corrals.” He shook his head. “Saw you the other night talking about Wee Willie getting offed in the library.”

  “Yep. Quite a night,” I agreed. I never have to lead Jim to a topic. He just dives right in. “One of my other regular riders remembers him pretty well. Knew him when they both worked at your TV station. ’Course that was a long time ago. She’s pretty old now.”

  Wee Willie worked at the station?

  “No kidding. He worked there? I knew he was a guest on the sports show sometimes. Is that what she meant?”

  “Oh, no. He worked there for a long time after he couldn’t play baseball no more.”

  “Wee Willie did? You sure?”

  “Sure I’m sure. Nice old lady like that wouldn’t lie about it. She says he didn’t use the name Wee Willie though. Kind of ashamed about booting the ball career, you know.”

  “Who is the nice old lady, anyway, Jim?” I asked. “Do you think she’d talk to me about when he worked there?”

  “Probably. She lives over on Highland Avenue. She walks to the Market Basket over there every Monday to do her groceryin’, then calls me to pick her up. Give me your card and I’ll give it to her on Monday. She’ll call you I’m sure. Quite a talker.”

  “What’s her name?” I fished into my handbag for a card. I used the field reporter card. Didn’t want to scare her away with the investigative reporter one.

  “Her name’s Agnes,” he said. “But she used to be Katie the Clown.”

  Chapter 13

  Jim Litka dropped me off at the dealership, where I was so happy to see my beautiful shiny Corvette it almost brought tears. I touched the side where the horrible scrape had been—ran my hand along the place, looking for imperfections. Perfect. I paid the bill, put the top down, and before long I was happily cruising along Route 114 with Lady Gaga’s “Is That All Right” blasting from the ten-speaker audio system with bass box and subwoofers, heading back to the station.

  Now I had one more piece to add to the puzzle, one more name to chase down in the WICH-TV archives. Katie the Clown, aka Agnes. I was sure Jim would give her my card and it was a good bet that she’d call me. But that couldn’t happen until Monday and I was impatient. Maybe I could pull personnel files. There couldn’t have been too many women named Agnes on the company payroll, even back then. Another name I’d look for
was the name Phil Archer had mentioned. Wally Williams. Maybe Wee Willie had simply switched first and last names. William Wallace became Wallace Williams. Easy-peasy. I parked in my usual reserved space, regretfully put the top up, used the studio side door, and took the metal staircase up to the second floor.

  Rhonda gave me directions to the archived materials and said she’d pull whatever old personnel files she could find. “I’m looking for Agnes somebody who performed a kids’ show as Katie the Clown twenty-five, thirty years ago. I remember it from when I was little,” I told her. “Besides Agnes I’m looking for William Wallace or Wallace Williams or both.

  I started for the downstairs dataports, small rooms Mr. Doan had set aside for reporters to use for preparing scripts, making phone calls. I made good use of the tidy little hideaways. I reached the head of the metal stairs and turned back. “And Rhonda, if you don’t mind, would you see what you’ve got on Robert Oberlin? He used to be Ranger Rob.”

  “Sure thing. I’ve seen videos down in the control room marked ‘Ranger Rob Show.’ You could pull some of those. If you want to take some home to watch them, I have to make out a card.”

  “Like a library card, huh?”

  She smiled. “Something like that. You working on pulling together that anniversary show Doan wants to produce?”

  I smiled back. “Something like that.”

  Once inside the dataport I pulled the notes from the morning’s news show along with the printouts about Wee Willie Aunt Ibby had prepared for me. I checked the Wikipedia article about Wee Willie again, just to make sure I hadn’t missed anything. Funny that it hadn’t mentioned his working at WICH-TV. I know we’re not very big as TV stations go, but we’ve been around a long time.

  I tried Wallace Williams. Bingo. A photo accompanied the article, but the man in the picture didn’t look much like the baseball player or the cowboy stunt man. He had jet black hair, a pointy beard, and a luxurious handle bar mustache. He’d apparently been an actor on the New England dinner theater circuit, usually playing villains, and had also played “character parts on a local television station in his home city, Salem, Massachusetts.” The article didn’t mention the parts he’d played. I calculated the dates and figured that the local acting must have happened before the racetrack mess. That would put it right around the late nineteen eighties. I printed out the article and the photo and added the pages to my growing collection.