by Kit Frazier
“Cauley MacKinnon!”
Too late.
“I am going to take a gun and shoot you!” he yelled from the back of the office, and Merrily March, the Sentinel’s most irritating advertising rep, popped her rigid blonde head out of the warren of cubicles, probably hoping for bloodshed.
“You wanna shoot me, you better get in line,” I yelled back.
Throwing my broken purse under my desk, I shoved aside a stack of death notices before booting up my computer. I logged on and pulled up the FBI website, looking for boundaries, jurisdiction and job description.
In my peripheral vision, I could see Tanner storming down the aisle toward me. He looked almost as menacing as Hugh Grant on a bad hair day.
“Hurry, hurry,” I muttered to the hard drive.
Ever since Logan’s secretary let slip that Logan was assigned to Organized Crime I’d been more concerned about what kind of trouble Scooter was in. I leaned closer to the monitor. According to the documents that popped up on my screen, FBI agents were often cross-trained and didn’t always work within their assigned field. I hit a link labeled Primary Function, and pulled up a brief description of jurisdiction:
The FBI’s investigative functions fall into the categories of applicant matters; civil rights; counterterrorism; foreign counterintelligence; organized crime/drugs; violent crimes and major offenders; and financial crime.
Hm. That didn’t sound like Scooter.
Tanner was spouting steam from his ears by the time he got to my desk. I hit print then exited the site and crossed my arms, arranging an innocent look on my face.
“What in the hell is this?” Tanner said. Death notices fluttered from my desk as he smacked the morning copy of the Journal on top of my bulging in-box.
“What?” I said, but I picked up the copy of the Sentinel’s main competitor. On the front page was a picture of me, scary hair and all, squinting in the sunlight as I led Scooter Barnes from the shed.
I swallowed. Former Dallas Cowboy Threatens to Bite Bullet, the headline read. The byline read Miranda Phillips.
“Ramsey,” I swore.
I could hear Mark Ramsey’s words echo in the back of my brain, You may not write this story, but somebody’s going to…
“Why am I reading about a Sentinel reporter on the front page of our rival-fucking newspaper?” Tanner roared. “Reporters write the news, Cauley. They don’t fucking make it!”
I snorted. “Are you calling me a reporter?” I said, but I stared at my awful picture.
“Wow. Look at your hair,” Mia said, poking her head around the corner. “You should call Beckett for an appointment.”
I turned to look at her. “You knew about this?”
She shrugged. “I asked if you saw the Journal.”
“Wow,” said Shiner, who’d sidled into my cubicle next to Mia. I turned and stared at his perfect, boy-band hair and scowled.
“What?” he said. “Oh, come on. It’s not that bad.”
Tanner stalked past us to the Cage, which is conveniently located right across from my desk where he can hear every inappropriate word that pops out of my mouth.
“Wait a minute,” I yelled after him.
I jumped up, all but knocking over my chair as I scrambled after him. In the Cage, I tossed the Journal on his keyboard, shoved aside a big jar of red licorice whips and hopped up to sit on his paper-strewn desk.
Tanner is a former ESPN anchor and he prides himself on being a premature curmudgeon. He’s pushing forty, but his stubborn hold on newspaper nostalgia is one of the reasons I genuinely like and respect the big jerk.
Tanner stared at my knees, then yanked a press release from under my behind and grumbled, “Do you even know how to use a chair?”
I ignored him. “What was Selena Barnes doing here?”
Tanner was aggressively chewing a licorice whip and didn’t answer. The office smelled like a cigar and I glanced up at the mangled smoke detector. “I thought you were going to quit.”
“I’m not the one on trial here,” he said, pointing the rubbery whip at my picture in the Journal.
Scanning the front page, I was glad to see the Journal’s crack reporters hadn’t gotten wind of my altercation with Van Gogh.
“You’ve got no business on a crime scene.” Tanner shoved his free hand through his network-news-anchor hair and I swear I heard it crinkle.
“Scooter called and said he wanted to talk to me,” I said. “I didn’t know it was going to turn into a crime scene.”
“You’ve got a whole stack of death notices and releases to rewrite in your inbox and a four o’clock deadline.” Tanner rubbed the back of his neck. “Second chances don’t come so easy in this business.”
Okay, that stung. Tanner had put his neck on the line to get me this job after I’d blown it at the Journal.
“I know and I appreciate it,” I mumbled. “I’ve got ninety-eight minutes to get my in-box out and I will.”
Tanner leaned back in his chair. “What the hell happened last night? Shiner said he heard a call go out near midnight.”
Shiner and his damn scanner. The man needed a hobby.
Sighing, I told Tanner about Scooter and the Feds, Van Gogh and my trip to the cop shop to file a report earlier in the morning.
Tanner’s left eye twitched as I told him about the carjacking and winding up in the lake.
I leaned forward. “Doesn’t it bother you that two branches of the federal government are skulking around an apparent suicide attempt? And why would a man threaten to chop off my ear to find out what Scooter said in that shed?” I shook my head. “He also said something about Scooter having something that didn’t belong to him. Something he was hiding.”
“You believe him?”
“Seemed pretty serious when he pulled that knife on me.”
Tanner’s nostrils flared like he could smell a scoop, but his gaze lingered over my bruises. “D’you go to the hospital?”
“The paramedics checked me out.”
He shook his head and sighed. “Who knows about this?”
“Cantu buried the report. He’ll keep it out of print and off air as long as he can. So far, I’m the only witness, and the cops don’t want to tip their hand, I think.”
“And the Feds?”
“Customs and FBI. They never talk to media anyway.”
Tanner nodded, but he was quiet for a long time.
“You should have called me,” he finally said. He got up and looked out his wide window where upscale suburban tract houses were steadily eating away at the rolling green hillsides. “You were hired to write obituaries, Cauley, and you’re still on new-hire probation.” He turned to look at me. “We all start at the bottom and work our way up. That’s how the news business works. You’ll get your break, but right now, you need to toe the line. You got to be patient or you’re going to blow your career before you even get started.”
“It’s not like I did this on purpose.”
Tanner moved to the door and opened it. “Give your file on Barnes to Shiner on your way out.”
I sat, perched on his desk and didn’t move. “Shiner is a sports reporter.”
“He’s on his way to City Desk,” Tanner said, giving me a poignant look.
I gritted my teeth. He and Shiner had sports in common, and there was no way I could breach that kind of male bonding.
“I can do this, Tanner,” I said, trying to steady my voice. “And besides. I can’t give it to him. I left my notes at home.”
Tanner ran his hand over his face and slammed the door shut. When he got his blood pressure below boiling, he said, “I shouldn’t have to find out what you’re doing in somebody else’s newspaper.”
“You’re right,” I said. “I’m sorry.” And I was. “I’ll do a better job of keeping you informed.”
“Doesn’t matter. You’re off Barnes.”
“Is this because Selena stopped by this morning? And what’s with the geek slobbering around after her?”
“Her attorney, David Banks.” Tanner looked away from me. “I’m going to ask you a question, and I’m only going to ask you once.”
He turned to look at me. “You got anything funny going on with Scott Barnes?”
“What?” I hopped down off the desk, memos and reports fluttering around me. “You would never ask Shiner something like that.”
“This isn’t a gender thing and you know it.”
I closed my eyes. “Is this because of Mark Ramsey?” I said. Some mistakes never really go away,
“I’ve always been honest with you, Cauley. Your past doesn’t bother me. But the news business it’s a small community. Word’s got a way of getting out and your little fling with your ex-boss at the Journal put a big dent in your reputation.”
“I know,” I said quietly, but I looked at him dead on. “Tanner, the only relationship I have with Scott Barnes is friendship.”
Tanner studied me for a long time and then nodded. “Okay.”
“That’s it? I can have Barnes?”
“Cauley,” he said wearily. “You say you didn’t sleep with Barnes I believe you. But Selena Barnes is in a delicate place right now. You’ll get other opportunities for ink.”
“Tanner, Selena’s leaving her husband. That’s why he keeps threatening suicide.”
“Selena said they’re trying to work things out. She came by this morning to ask me to keep you away from her husband. Says you’re making things worse.” Tanner leaned down, scooping up the papers I’d knocked to the floor. “Editorial meeting tomorrow at ten. Don’t miss it.”
I was being dismissed.
“I wouldn’t dare,” I said. Squaring my shoulders, I headed for the door with as much dignity as I could muster. “I’ll have the obits before four.”
“Leave Barnes alone,” he yelled after me.
“Leave Barnes alone, my ass,” I grumbled, and I stalked back to my computer.
“I hear you had a big evening,” Shiner said as he passed me on his way into the Cage.
“I handled it.”
“Yeah, I heard.” He snorted, handing me a stack of press releases I was supposed to sort. His blue eyes moved only slightly as he studied my bruises and scrapes. “Need some help?”
“No,” I said, and I knew he wasn’t talking about the jumbled stack of reports. “But I appreciate it.”
He shook his head. “Call me if you need me,” he said, and sauntered into Tanner’s office.
“Thanks, buddy,” I called after him.
Tanner slammed his door shut and yanked down the blinds so he and Shiner could discuss my story.
Almost resigned, I settled in to look at the death notices the funeral homes had e-mailed. Obituary writers write obituaries, but for the most part, we copy edit death notices sent in by funeral homes. Occasionally, we do the legwork for hotshots on the City Desk, which can be pretty interesting.
But there was no research today. There were, however, fourteen death notices, which meant there would be fourteen little paragraphs that summed up fourteen lives. Fourteen families whose lives had changed permanently overnight. I supposed if you did this long enough, you’d get some sort of sick sense of humor about it, or at least a tougher skin.
Like most medium-market newspapers, the Sentinel only runs one actual obituary each week. If more than one high profile or interesting person dies in a week, it usually gets bumped up to City Desk.
The rest of the Death Page is reserved for death notices, which are provided by the funeral homes, and memorials, which are paid announcements, placed through classified advertising.
I glanced up at my degree, which my mom had double-matted and framed in gold filigree. “I am one step up from the Classified department,” I muttered.
Sighing, I printed out the e-mails the funeral homes had sent. I would rewrite each of the death notices so they’d appear in tomorrow’s paper in neat, clean Associated Press style. I would choose one of the dearly departed this week and write a concise, twelve inch obituary that would encapsulate their life and herald them on into the hereafter.
I stared at my computer screen. “This is not how I thought my life would be.”
“Ahem,” Merrily March cleared her throat. She rounded the partition and was clutching her clipboard close to her chest. “Aren’t you supposed to be working on your obits?”
I narrowed my eyes. Merrily was a self-appointed office monitor and took scrupulous notes on everything from office supplies to employee efficiency. The new partitions that carved the satellite office into cubicles was one of Merrily’s brilliant ideas.
“Did you need something Merrily or is this just a courtesy call?”
She pursed her lips. “You owe me twenty dollars,” she said.
“What?”
“For Melissa’s baby shower.”
“Who’s Melissa?” I said, but Merrily had already minced back to her cubicle.
I sighed out loud, glancing at the big clock above Tanner’s office. Eighty-two minutes to deadline. Which meant sixty-two minutes to sneak in some research on Scooter, and twenty minutes to rewrite the death notices.
Plenty of time.
I logged onto LexisNexis, a legal-slash-news database for media, and ran a search for S. Barnes, Scott or Selena, it didn’t matter, but I keyed in Austin to narrow the results. Fifty-six articles on Scooter and eight on Selena popped up on the screen.
“You know, Merrily should have been a hall monitor,” Remie said. I looked up from my computer to find Remie filing her nails as she perched on the corner of my desk.
“I guess.” I sighed. “What do you expect from a woman whose name is an adverb?”
Mia rounded the corner of my cubicle, set mismatched china cups on my desk and began pouring green tea.
I looked back my computer screen. “Anything bother y’all about Selena?”
“Want a list?” Remie said.
“You’re just jealous because she won Miss Texas,” Mia said.
“First runner up,” Remie snipped. “You’re just defending her because she’s Hispanic.”
“Argentine,” Mia said. “Hispanic is just a word y’all Anglos made up so you don’t have to learn geography.”
Half-listening to them argue, I stared at the screen. “Maybe. But she accused me of having an affair with Scooter.”
Mia laughed out loud.
“Okay,” I said. “I’m going to pretend that did not hurt my feelings.”
“Oh, come on, Miss-Digging-For-Compliments. It’s just that Scooter’s a one-woman man,” Mia said.
Remie snorted. “No such thing.” She turned to me. “You comin’ out tonight?”
“She can’t,” Mia chimed in. “Cauley’s got a date.”
“With a man?” Remie said.
“No, with a goat,” I said, and glared at Mia.
“You do need to start dating, querida. We’ll be over at six to help you get ready.”
“Yeah,” Remie said, inspecting the bruises on my face. “You’re going to need all the help you can get.”
Mia nodded. “We’re only telling you this because we love you.”
I looked back at the death notices on my desk.
“God protect me from those who love me,” I muttered, and turned back to my computer to get some work done.
Chapter Seven
I’d managed to rewrite most of the death notices, but I just couldn’t concentrate with the front page of the Journal taunting me from the top of my in-box.
Staring at my full-color photo, I picked up the phone, punched speed dial and waited for Mark Ramsey’s secretary to pick up. By the time she patched me through, I was so mad I was grinding the enamel off my back teeth.
“Ramsey,” he said absently.
“You jerk!”
“In general or is this something specific?” he said, and I could practically feel him smiling over the line.
“The front page, Ramsey! The freaking front page!”
“Liked that, did
you?”
I stifled the urge to scream. “You could have told me.”
“I would have if you hadn’t thrown me out.”
“That’s not the point and you know it.”
“You want to be the Obituary Babe forever?”
“I’m going to do this the right way this time,” I said, hoping I didn’t sound as bitter as I felt.
“Listen, hot shot. We got a couple solutions here. You could come back to the Journal and be a real reporter…”
“I would rather drip honey in my navel and roll in a mound of fire ants.”
“Better uses for honey, babe,” he said.
I growled.
“Or we could work this thing together. Share information. Call it a dEtente.”
“Share information, my butt,” I said. Mark already knew more than he was letting on or we wouldn’t be having this conversation. “I’m not in the mood for a truce.”
“Not even a French one?” he said, and I could tell he was still smiling. “What are you doing for dinner tonight?”
I twisted the phone cord around my finger. “I have plans.”
There was a long silence on the line, and I started to feel guilty. The truth is, sometimes I miss Mark. He gave me my first break in journalism. But he’d also taught me the disappointing difference between the way you think things will work out and the way they eventually do.
I sighed. Maybe going out with a new guy would help get me over him, since I apparently couldn’t be trusted with bourbon and e-mail.
“I see,” he said, and I was afraid he really could. “Well, then, take care, Cauley. And try to stay out of trouble.”
He disconnected, and I could feel the weight of the silence on the line. I thought about calling him back.
Opting to err on the side of discretion for a change, I hung up and checked my messages. I had about thirteen thousand calls from my mother and one from the Colonel, with my mother shrieking in the background. Apparently the Journal’s front page had made its way through the fog of CNN. Thank God they hadn’t caught wind of my episode with Van Gogh. Some things, I decided, you just shouldn’t tell your family.
I’d return their calls later.
Resigned, I turned back to my computer and finished up the last notice, re-wrote a press release and e-mailed the whole she-bang to Tanner with ten minutes to spare.