Bylines & Deadlines

by Kimberly Vinje

  Table of Contents

  Table of Contents

  Cover

  Acknowledgements

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Back Cover

  Bylines & Deadlines

  by

  Kimberly Vinje

  CCB Publishing

  British Columbia, Canada

  Bylines & Deadlines

  Copyright ©2012 by Kimberly Vinje

  ISBN-13 978-1-926918-49-5

  First Edition

  Library and Archives Canada Cataloguing in Publication

  Vinje, Kimberly, 1970-

  Bylines & deadlines / written by Kimberly Vinje.

  ISBN 978-1-926918-49-5

  Also available in print format.

  I. Title. II. Title: Bylines and deadlines.

  PS3622.I563B94 2008 813'.6 C2008-905706-6

  Additional cataloguing data available from Library and Archives Canada

  United States Copyright Office Registration # TXu 1-579-438

  Disclaimer: This is a work of fiction. The characters, incidents and dialogues are products of the author’s imagination and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events or persons living or dead is entirely coincidental.

  Extreme care has been taken to ensure that all information presented in this book is accurate and up to date at the time of publishing. Neither the author nor the publisher can be held responsible for any errors or omissions. Additionally, neither is any liability assumed for damages resulting from the use of the information contained herein.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the express written permission of the author, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For other permission requests, please contact the author.

  Publisher:

  CCB Publishing

  British Columbia, Canada

  www.ccbpublishing.com

  To Anyone Who Has Ever Dared to Try

  Acknowledgements

  To my parents Kathy & Jerry - you have given me so much and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to thank you enough. You are appreciated and loved very much!

  Thank you to my friends - especially Terri Konte, who challenged me to write this and Maria Hinkel, who drove me to pursue publishing it. I can’t forget Carol Rock for pointing me in the right direction to get this published and Lisa Warndorf and Vicky Mayer, the “Eagle Eyes” who edited this book for me. I owe thanks to Tammy Quatman for helping me with the website.

  Cody, you are an amazing gift and so full of love. Thanks for letting me read portions of this to you so I could hear how the words sounded. More importantly, thanks for faking interest.

  To Paul Rabinovitch at CCB Publishing, thank you for your patience and encouragement!

  There are so many others… I’ll get you in the sequel!

  Prologue

  Kristine Larkin died at the age of 25 - just when she had begun to live her dream. She was an ambitious reporter, who worked hard to gain the respect of her editors and the people she approached when she had a good lead on a story. She was young and attractive - two strikes against her in the cut-throat fight for a byline. She ached to be taken seriously and grew more and more frustrated when she wasn’t. She didn’t hide that frustration well and commonly used sarcasm in her poor and unconscious self-defense strategy.

  She knew rumors swirled when she was hired fresh out of a small town university by a paper as large and reputable as the New York Chronicle. That’s why she was more tenacious, more aggressive and more arrogant than the seasoned reporters could accept from an unproven kid with a journalism degree. She was unexpected in their world.

  After a year, some of the reporters started to recognize her talents, but most of them still didn’t like her. The publisher and editors loved her. She raised the bar for some of the veterans who had become reactive and complacent. Instead of seeking a big story, a few of the reporters would wait for someone to drop one into their laps. They were living off their reputation. When Kristine arrived, she began to find the big stories on her own. She networked with anyone and everyone. She flirted with security guards, and she commiserated with administrative assistants.

  Her subtle manipulation of people bordered on the brazen. She finessed people using two rules: 1) a man’s vulnerabilities stemmed from ego and libido and 2) a woman’s vulnerabilities resided in ego and maternal instinct. If she could find common ground, she could work a person into revealing what she wanted to know. She almost always had an ulterior motive for engaging someone on the personal level, which she justified by convincing herself the ends justified the means.

  She spent so much energy making contacts outside the office she didn’t show much interest in her co-workers. She spent her time away from work working. She would listen to police scanners, read old news stories written by journalists she admired, or she’d go to a bar where she knew people with potential stories and secrets would be drinking…and talking too much.

  There was one exception to her disposable view of people - a man named Derrick. Derrick was a nurse at one of the busiest hospitals in the city. Privacy laws prevented patient information from being freely given by medical professionals, but Derrick liked to talk even if he wouldn’t see his name in print. He seemed to get some pleasure from knowing he was “an unnamed source” or maybe it was sticking it to the establishment that drove him. Most likely it was that he liked knowing things others didn’t and wasn’t good at keeping secrets for strangers. Either way, what had started as a reporter luring someone into her network of sources had turned into the closest thing she had to a friendship. Derrick didn’t give you the option to ignore him, and he was likable. So, Kristine allowed herself an occasional Sunday afternoon shopping or trying a new restaurant with him, but she always seemed to have one ear tuned to the conversation next to her. He was everything she wasn’t - a free-spirit and more interested in his personal than his professional life. He had different priorities, and Kristine found him interesting, even if she didn’t understand him.

  On the rare occasion Kristine stopped chasing her next byline, she could be enjoyable. No one saw this side often enough to admit it existed, though. In fact, no one really knew too much about her - and really, she didn’t either. Becoming a Pulitzer Prize winning journalist was her goal - okay, obsession - and the rest of her life could wait. Kristine had no idea how little time she had.

  This is the story of the demise of Kristine Larkin.

  Chapter One

  It wasn’t every day Kristine Larkin took time to notice something as inconsequential as a pretty sky. Today was different. The sun had just risen and the sky was so blue it reached out to touch you. Kristine had just come out of her favorite coffee shop with her vanilla flavored (and very expensive) coffee. The smell of the shop meant a new day, new opportunities and a new byline. She inhaled deeply and smiled to herself at the excitement of the possibilities of the story she would dig up today. She pulled her sunglasses down over her eyes and smoothed the hair where the glasses had been sitting. She stopped at a crosswalk a
nd took a sip of coffee while she waited.

  It was already hot. The air was so thick with humidity it stuck to your skin. Summer in New York. It was oppressive at best. It also smelled - really bad. Urine from the homeless or a drunk guy who thought it was a good idea to relieve himself on a sidewalk after a night of bar hopping baked into the concrete. Garbage cans along the street sped the deterioration of discarded food and acted as a beacon for rats and roaches from what she was sure were the depths of hell. When Kristine moved to New York, the rodents were the toughest part of her culture shock. Oh, and the sewers… the sewers were sewers. Enough said.

  Kristine hiked her bag up on her shoulder and pushed her sunglasses up her nose. She flipped her long, thick brown ponytail over her tanned shoulder as the “walk” light flashed white, and she started across the street. She had gotten sun just from walking around town every day. The tan made her eyes seem even greener.

  There weren’t many New Yorkers up and about at this hour so the streets were just busy and not jam packed. As she dodged people crossing the street against her, someone slammed into her so hard her coffee splashed through the little hole in the white cap. She jumped back to avoid being splattered with coffee.

  “Hey! Watch where you’re going,” she called as she turned a bit to see who had practically run over her. There was a woman hurrying away, hastily turning from her. Kristine thought she may have looked nervous, maybe distracted. She also knew if she didn’t get out of the street she’d be fair game for traffic when the light changed. New York was always in a hurry. The people walked with a purpose - like they always had someplace to be and were hell-bent on getting there. Kristine could relate to that.

  Once across the street, she looked down at her white, spaghetti strap top. There were no signs of coffee stains, and it was still neatly tucked into her navy and white pinstriped skirt. It was too hot for her suit jacket, which was draped over her bag.

  “You’re here early today,” Ed the security guard said as she walked past his desk. Ed was probably 80 years old and resembled Yoda more than the Terminator. Ed wasn’t going to stop anyone who wanted to come into the building. He had a nightstick, a walkie talkie and a case of bursitis.

  “Good morning, Ed. You know you say that to me every day,” Kristine called back as she walked into a waiting elevator. She pushed her sunglasses back on top of her head. She punched the button for the 17th floor, sipped her coffee and wondered why anyone bothered to remove the 13 from the buttons. If 13 was truly a bad number, did it matter there was no button? The poor fools on the 14th floor were still on the 13th floor no mater what you called it. She sighed, took another drink of her coffee and thought how silly the superstitious could be.

  The elevator car dinged, and the doors opened. The lights on the floor were on. They were always on. No one ever bothered to turn them off when they left. Of course, she thought, the evening shift, which was mostly copy editors, left only hours before the reporters showed up in the morning. She walked down the hall past the desks piled high with old newspapers, files, books and other materials that would make that person seem busy. The thing about being a reporter is you could take off during the day chasing a “lead” and actually be in the park playing Frisbee - well, unless you had an assignment and a deadline. Kristine was sure there were people who did this, but she wasn’t one of them. If she didn’t have an assignment, she would listen to police scanners waiting for something interesting or start going over public records looking for something - anything - that would make a good story.

  She rounded the corner and headed for her desk. This was the best time of the day - when Burt Newman wasn’t in the office. Burt was a slob. He was the stereotypical news guy from the movies times 10. He always had coffee dribbled down his shirt and white stuff collecting in the corner of his mouth. She took a second to consider what that white stuff was…never mind, she thought. She didn’t want to know. Burt’s belly lapped over the top of his pants, and his shirt gapped between the buttons over his midsection. His ties were always too short and didn’t match the rest of his attire, which usually consisted of a cream colored, short sleeve shirt, which in the past decade had most likely been white. Yellow arm pit stains accessorized the shirt. She considered the stains proof Burt rarely, if ever, bothered with antiperspirant. He must have either had a closet full of brown, polyester pants with a thick waistband absent of belt loops, or he wore the same pair over and over. She shuddered at the thought.

  It gets worse. Burt was crowned with gray, greasy hairs. Well, maybe there was just one long hair he wrapped around his head over and over again. His black, thick-framed glasses had a coating of gunk on the lenses that probably impaired his vision. These were the trademark fashions of Burt Newman. If that wasn’t bad enough, his personality wasn’t exactly congenial either.

  If there was a group of people about whom Burt could be intolerant, he was. He said America was being taken over by foreigners. No amount of arguing about how anyone who wasn’t Native American was a foreigner, or how one of the strengths of the USA was the fact it was built on the blending of so many different cultures could convince him otherwise. The only thing Kristine had in common with Burt was a stubborn streak and a dislike of each other.

  Perhaps even more annoying than his lack of hygiene and perverse attitude about people was the way he pounded on a keyboard as if the added pressure on the keys would give his words more emphasis. He mumbled to himself as he beat up the alphabet. Kristine couldn’t hear herself think when Burt’s words flowed. She was convinced people went on the record with Burt simply to get rid of him. If she was correct, that would be the only plus side to being that repulsive. For all the turmoil Burt brought to her life, his stories usually ended up buried deep inside the paper or held over for a slow news day.

  She put her bag and coffee on her desk and noticed a bulge in the front pocket of the bag. Reaching in, she pulled out a disc. There was nothing written on it, which meant it wasn’t hers. She always labeled her discs. She took out the laptop and clicked it into the docking station. She leaned back in her chair and waited for the computer screen to go through the flashing it took to get to her main screen.

  Suddenly she noticed a pungent smell. She felt her face crinkle as she sat upright and looked around.

  “What the hell is that smell?” she said out loud to no one. She looked across her neat, clean desk over to the piles of chaos. It had to be Newman. No one irritated her quite like he did. She stood and walked around to his desk. She took a pencil from one of the stacks and used it to move some of the debris. There it was - a half eaten tuna salad sandwich. The only thing that smelled worse than fresh tuna was tuna salad that had been sitting out for God knows how long. She didn’t know what shocked her more; that Burt had left half a sandwich uneaten or that he was just that much of a slob. She put the eraser of the pencil on the paper holding the sandwich and dragged it to the edge of the desk where she had Burt’s garbage can ready to catch it as it fell. She dropped the pencil in with it and took the garbage can down the hall to the Sports Department. Most of those guys traveled, and the rest wouldn’t be in until later in the day. Plus, they may not even notice it, she thought. She stopped by the ladies’ room to wash her hands just in case she caught any Burt cooties.

  When she got back to her desk, she pulled out the can of disinfectant she kept in her top drawer and sprayed Burt’s desk and chair and then her own. She shook her head and considered what it would be like to sit across from someone who didn’t require you to decontaminate your work area on a daily basis. She put the can back into the desk drawer and closed it. She sat back down, picked up the disc and looked at it. Could someone have mistaken their bag for hers last night?

  She thought back to the previous evening. She had been finishing a story about city workers drinking on the job and the dangers to the public and then filed it from home. The disc wasn’t in her bag last night when she arrived at her apartment, because she remembered removing a business car
d she had received earlier in the day. She had to have gotten this disc somewhere between her apartment and the office this morning. Maybe someone in the coffee shop gave it to her, but she was still too tired to remember sliding it into the pocket. Then she remembered the lady in the crosswalk. She closed her eyes to remember what she looked like. She looked like she was in a hurry, which didn’t set her apart from any other New Yorker. “Think,” she muttered to herself. “You get paid to notice details.” She shook her head. The only other things she remembered were the woman had brown hair, wore sunglasses and seemed anxious. Again - not unlike most of the population of the city. Her cell phone rang. She looked at the number and recognized it as Derrick. He was her closest friend.

  “Hey, what’s up?” she asked.

  “Girl, I just got off the late shift. Meet me for breakfast and a facial - my skin looks like hell with these bags under my eyes.” Derrick was a nurse and usually worked the emergency room. Kristine had met him while working stories - waiting for patient updates and trying to talk to family members of victims. Derrick was gorgeous and gay.

  “Can’t. Sorry. Gotta work,” she said staring at her screen. “Meet for dinner?”

  “Can’t. Gotta date.”

  “Who?”

  “Dr. Feelgood,” he said triumphantly. Kristine smiled and sat up in her chair.

  “No you don’t.”

  “Oh yes I do.”

  “I thought he told you he was straight.”

  “Turns out he couldn’t resist this.”

  “Well, congratulations! You have to tell me all about it. Where’s he taking you?”

  “Don’t know. Don’t care. I’m outta here. I’m giving myself the spa treatment today. I may even get a bikini wax,” he said.

  “Don’t let them wax your eyebrows again. Remember the last time? You looked like an idiot.”