House of Smoke

by JF Freedman

  “When will I have your written report, like you promised me?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “Good. Maybe there will be something in it the next detective I hire can use.”

  No one else will touch this with a ninety-foot pole. Not in this world; not with that family. That’s why Kate was hired in the first place, or has Laura already forgotten that?

  “Please,” she beseeches Laura, one last time. “This is not your fight. It never was. Let it go.”

  Laura stands. Three strides takes her to the door.

  “Thank you for your … ‘help.’”

  “Thank you for shitting all over me” would have had less of a bitter ring to it, Kate thinks, as she inwardly winces.

  Laura closes the door behind her. Even in anger she’s too much the product of her breeding to slam it in Kate’s face.

  Kate slumps back in her chair. She did the right thing, she tells herself. An irrational client is impossible, particularly one who has never been told “no.”

  Still, it eats at her, and will for a while, until she’s able to look at it rationally, not emotionally. She did the right thing. She is a professional, and a professional acts from her head, not her heart.

  9

  THE PEN IS MIGHTY

  “SHIT. THAT SUCKS.” LAURA Sparks sits in her corner office, staring intently at the writing on her computer screen.

  Chastising herself for not getting it right. The story of her life.

  Laura started up The Grapevine—Santa Barbara’s left-slanted, ecology-oriented alternative weekly newspaper—two years ago, when she moved back home after graduating from Wellesley and living in New York. She had worked in the Museum of Modern Art’s documentary film department (two members of the museum board are friends of her family) for a while until it got to be boring, and followed that with a briefer stint as a production assistant in public television. That was even more boring, a lot of drudge work—getting coffee for directors and mundane shit like that—and hardly any flash, nothing like what she had envisioned. She had never been introduced to Jonathan Demme or Meryl Streep, for example.

  Being a newspaper publisher suits her. It’s hip, cutting-edge, relevant. She especially loves the perks of her position, the social parts: the art gallery openings, the literary cocktail parties, the UCSB fund-raisers, rubbing elbows with writers and artists, all that stuff. And it’s a real job, her own legitimate entry, not her parents’ or grandmother’s, it makes her feel grown-up and self-sufficient.

  The offices of The Grapevine are located on the second floor of an old commercial building off Gutierrez St., a stone’s throw from the freeway, which provides a constant teeth-jarring din throughout the building even when the windows are closed, like an urban crash of waves against rock.

  This raucous ambiance suits Lester Wolchynski, a transplanted Chicagoan who is the paper’s editor-in-chief and driving force, just fine. Lester is in his late middle age, a wire-haired dynamo who cut his teeth on Mike Royko and Studs Terkel; the paper reflects his progressive, in-your-face brand of political involvement.

  Laura funds the paper with her own money (actually a loan from her grandmother; she doesn’t come into the bulk of her inheritance until she’s thirty, but her allowance is generous, she can do most anything she wants, within reason). Once in a blue moon she’ll get her back up and contest some editorial policy or specific article that unfairly, by her lights, blasts a part of Santa Barbara that’s important to her. She’s progressive herself—at one time she was Dianne Feinstein’s deputy county campaign chairman, for example—but this town and what it stands for is dear to her, you don’t put it down for no good reason, throw a bomb for the sake of doing it.

  Lester likes to break plates to hear the noise. Laura doesn’t like uncomfortable sounds, anarchy is not her métier.

  It’s late in the evening; everyone’s gone home. The heat hangs heavy in the air. She’s wearing shorts and a tank top. Sweat moistens her upper lip. She wipes it off with a tanned forearm, scrolls up a page, makes a correction in her text.

  This is important, what she’s writing, the most important editorial she’s written. The only editorial; she’s never written one before.

  “What are you doing here, Laura?” The sudden voice is harsh, nasal, vintage South Side Chicago.

  “Ahh!” She screams, jumping half out of her skin. A row of rrrrrrrr’s, the last letter she was typing, skips across her computer screen. “Jesus, Lester, you scared the shit out of me!”

  He stands in the doorway. “You’re the last person I’d expect to find in here this late.”

  “I needed to write something and I didn’t want it to wait until tomorrow,” she explains, disregarding the cut, “I want it to be fresh.”

  “Want what to be fresh?”

  “I’m writing an editorial,” she tells him, trying to sound firm, assertive. It’s her newspaper, goddamnit, her money.

  “The editorial staff writes the editorials,” he firmly reminds her. “I write the editorials,” he adds, to make his point clear.

  “This one needs to come from me,” she says to him, her stomach churning.

  He glances over her shoulder, trying to sneak a look. She turns her body to face him so that she blocks his view. It’s a work-in-progress, not ready to be critiqued, especially by him. Even if it was good, which it isn’t yet, he’d tear it to shreds.

  “So what’s it about?” he asks.

  He’s mocking her, she can hear the mocking tone in his voice.

  “Drugs. In our society. What they’re doing to us.”

  “What are they doing to us?” he asks, pushing her.

  “You know what I’m talking about,” she answers.

  “The bust on your property, I assume. And the fallout from it.”

  “Partly.”

  “What else?”

  “Look, I’ll finish it, I’ll print up a copy and leave it on your desk, we can talk about it later.”

  “We send the paper out tomorrow morning,” he informs her, as if she’s a child who doesn’t know how the operation works.

  The paper is printed in Camarillo in a big industrial shop which does several small papers in the Tri-Counties. When the printing bill comes in, it’s her signature on the check, that she knows.

  “That’s why I want to finish this now,” she says.

  “It’s too late,” he argues. “There’s no room for any last-minute changes in this issue.”

  “We’ll make room. I’ll make room.”

  “You don’t do that,” he says forcefully.

  “This time I’m going to,” she says with equal force, surprised at hearing the defiance come out of her mouth. “Why are you here so late?” she asks, trying to change the subject, “are you spying on me?”

  “Do I need to? Maybe I do, if you’re going to start doing my job for me.”

  “I’m not trying to do your job, Lester, for godsakes. I’m writing something I think needs saying. I’ve never stepped on your toes, you should be happy I’m involved.”

  Bluntly: “I’m not.”

  “Are you telling me we’re not going to print anything I write?” she asks, directly challenging him.

  “The paper’s closed and I haven’t read it” is his answer.

  “Come back in an hour,” she instructs him.

  He stares at her for a moment before turning on his heel and stalking away.

  Goddamn him, she thinks, he doesn’t have to treat me this way. I give him plenty of space.

  She turns back to her processor and stares at the words on the screen. This has to be right.

  Lester marches into her office one hour later (virtually to the second) from when he had been asked to leave it, and demands to see her work.

  She’s been waiting for him. The editorial had been written, rewritten, buffed and polished as best she could make it. Then she had closed her eyes and gone inward, looking for the strength to stand up to him.

  She hands him the two dou
ble-spaced pages and sits back, waiting. It is her paper, her money. She is going to take a stand.

  He skims the first paragraph; then he rereads it, and the rest, more slowly and carefully. Finally he hands it back to her.

  “You’re short on proof,” he says flatly, the seasoned newspaperman’s antennae immediately aroused.

  “I know,” she agrees. “That’s why it’s an editorial instead of an article.”

  “Where did you get this information?” he probes.

  “I have a source.”

  “Someone inside the sheriffs office?”

  “No.” A beat. “Not precisely.”

  Keep him hanging, wondering. Mystery can be the great equalizer. Blanchard probably did have sources in the department; don’t all detectives? Blanchard had been a police officer once, Laura remembered, she had to know the police down here.

  More importantly: Lester thinks she, Laura, knows something, or someone, that he doesn’t know. That gives her power over him, real power for the first time. Signing his check doesn’t give any real power; knowledge does.

  “This is inflammatory,” he tells her. “If I were you I’d be nervous about publishing this.”

  Nervous? Yes, but it’s a delicious feeling, like forbidden sex.

  She hasn’t used Kate’s name in the editorial, nor did she use the words “private detective” or “independent investigator.” Her terms were “reliable sources” and “on the condition of anonymity.” Like they use in the Washington Post.

  “Well,” he says finally, “it is intriguing. Your phone will be ringing tomorrow, that’s for sure.”

  She’s surprised. “You like it?”

  “Good old muckraking journalism—the smell of blood. Of course I like it. I’m not the one who has to pay the insurance premiums, though.”

  “Do you really think I might be sued?” she asks him. Her ardor has been so great, her concentration on getting it right so demanding, she hasn’t even thought of that possibility. As a publisher, she would demand more proof from a reporter than she has from herself. Maybe that’s why newspapers have separate publishers and editors.

  “If you don’t have backup you could be in trouble. Because Woodward and Bernstein got away with it doesn’t mean you can.”

  Woodward and Bernstein: the Holy Grail. They give Pulitzers for local papers, don’t they?

  “If I were you I’d sleep on this,” he cautions her.

  “What about if you were you?” she asks.

  “That’s a different story. Different situation.”

  “Because you’re a real newspaperman and I’m just a girl with a fat checkbook?”

  “Because I have nothing to lose, and you do. This is your hometown,” he reminds her.

  “That’s why it’s so important,” she answers. “Because it is my town.”

  “Are you sure you don’t want to think about this?” he asks, testing her nerve. “There’s always next week’s issue.”

  “If I think about it I might chicken out.” She gets up, stretching her back. The tension is physically painful. “Send it out for me, would you?” she requests of him. “I don’t know how to work the modem.”

  He takes it from her. For one second he lets a smile out, then his face reverts to its habitual curmudgeonly frown.

  “You’ve got more guts than brains, Laura.”

  It’s after midnight when Laura parks in front of her little guesthouse and turns off the car lights. Across the lawn she sees the light still burning in Dorothy’s bedroom. Reading in bed, Laura knows. Dorothy hardly sleeps. She’s getting older, she doesn’t have that much time left, she doesn’t want to miss anything.

  Getting out of the car, Laura takes the manila envelope from the passenger seat and walks across the grass to Dorothy’s house.

  The side door is unlocked. Dorothy never locks up until she’s ready to go to sleep.

  “Is that you, Laura?” she calls.

  “Yes,” Laura calls back.

  “What are you doing up so late?”

  “I was at the paper.”

  There’s a corked half-full bottle of Sanford sauvignon blanc in Dorothy’s refrigerator. Laura gets a wineglass from the cupboard, pours herself a generous amount. She’s earned it.

  “Bring a glass for me, too,” Dorothy calls out.

  The woman is telepathic sometimes. It’s scary.

  Laura walks through the house to her grandmother’s bedroom. Dorothy is sitting up in bed, bolstered by several pillows, reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. She lays the book facedown on the covers next to her.

  “I didn’t know you worked late,” Dorothy remarks, taking a sip of wine. “I thought that was for the peons,” she adds, smiling so Laura will know she’s kidding.

  “Tonight was special.”

  She reaches into the envelope, takes out some 8 x 10 glossies, hands them to Dorothy. Pictures of the wedding at the homeless encampment.

  “These are wonderful!” Dorothy exclaims. “These people will be very grateful.”

  Laura swallows a bracing mouthful of wine. She can’t avoid this any longer. She takes a copy of her editorial from the envelope, hands it to Dorothy.

  “What’s this?”

  “Read it. You’ll see.”

  Dorothy begins reading, her brow immediately furrowing upon seeing the headline.

  The furrow deepens as the gist of the piece comes clear.

  WHAT IS EVERYONE AFRAID OF?

  Less than three weeks ago one of the largest drug busts in the history of Santa Barbara County took place on a private dock. Over a ton of high-grade marijuana was seized, and two men were arrested. A third man, who apparently was the ringleader, was shot and killed while trying to escape by a member of the county sheriff’s deportment, which made the arrests.

  This drug bust was highly publicized. The sheriff’s department, acting on a tip from a county employee, moved quickly and decisively. They did a thorough and professional job, and they are to be commended.

  Subsequent events, however, have clouded these initial positive actions.

  One of the men arrested was the partner of the ringleader. Although he did not have a substantial criminal record, it seems obvious from his background that he and the man who was killed were experienced players in the drug trade.

  The third man, however, is a different story. His name was Frank Bascomb, and he had been the foreman of Rancho San Miguel de Torres in the Santa Ynez Valley for over ten years. He was an esteemed member of the community, and had no criminal record whatsoever.

  Frank Bascomb swore upon his arrest that he had no knowledge of the cargo of the ship he was on. There is compelling evidence that Frank Bascomb was duped by the other two men, whom he had known casually for many years. Bascomb claimed he thought he was on a pleasure cruise and was doing his friends a favor by allowing them to anchor their boat on his employer’s private dock because the harbor, in town, was overcrowded with boats celebrating Fiesta. The dock is owned by the Sparks family, who also owns Rancho San Miguel de Torres.

  The morning following his arrest, Frank Bascomb was found dead in a jail cell in the county lockup. A piece of cord was around his neck, the other end tied to a bunk.

  Although there were over a dozen men in that cell and those adjoining it, apparently not one of them saw this happen. They claimed they were all asleep.

  In less than 24 hours, the county coroner certified that Frank Bascomb’s cause of death was suicide. The body was buried a day later. No autopsy was performed.

  Since then, a veil of silence has fallen over this case. The third man was granted bail and has left the county for parts unknown. Whether he will show up for his trial is questionable. More importantly, there has been no inquiry into whether or not Frank Bascomb, a man with no criminal record, who had sworn his innocence, actually did take his life, or was killed in that cell by someone else.

  (A personal note, for the record: Another woman and I were on that boat with
Frank Bascomb. The dock is, in fact, owned by my family. The other woman and I were also told it was a pleasure cruise, nothing more. The police believed our stories, and did not charge or book us. Why, then, did they not believe Frank Bascomb?)

  Questions:

  1. Why did the sheriff’s department and the county coroner make the immediate and unconditional conclusion that the cause of Frank Bascomb’s death was suicide?

  2. The cause of death is officially “suicide, caused by suffocation by self-strangulation.” Why was no autopsy performed to make sure this was, in fact, the method by which Frank Bascomb died?

  3. Why weren’t the other men in the jail cell with Frank Bascomb detained and questioned? Every one of them was let out of jail less than twelve hours after Frank Bascomb’s body was discovered. They were all homeless transients. Their whereabouts are unknown.

  4. Why won’t the sheriff’s office talk about this case? Neither this reporter nor anyone else has been able to get any straight answers from the department. Their attitude is, “This case is closed, there’s nothing to talk about.” Unnamed sources close to this situation tell us that this case may involve organized crime figures, which stands to reason, given the quantity of drugs that were seized.

  The point of this editorial is not to accuse anyone of anything. It is to ask questions, and to try to shed light. The death of Frank Bascomb may be officially over, but it is not finished, not with so many important questions unanswered.

  Is there a cover-up going on? If not, why isn’t anyone in a position to know talking about this? WHAT IS EVERYONE AFRAID OF?

  Laura Sparks,

  Publisher, The Grapevine

  Dorothy finishes the editorial. The pages drop from her trembling fingers. Her heart rate has gone sky-high—she can feel it. She is an old woman, and at this moment she feels every one of her years.

  “Your unnamed sources. It’s that detective you hired, isn’t it?”

  Laura lies: “One of them.”

  “This is awful. You’re accusing the sheriff’s office of covering up a murder.”