Perdition

by R. Jean Reid

  When she entered the Crier building, both Jacko and Carrie were there. Carrie was saying, “It’s clear, Jacko, that you can’t cover this story anymore, so you might as well give it to me.”

  “I thought I was the one who assigned stories here,” Nell interjected.

  Clearly surprised at her appearance, Carrie mumbled out, “Nell, I didn’t see you come in. Jacko and I were just talking about things.”

  “Things?” Nell queried.

  Carrie took a breath and decided to plunge ahead. “Look, we both know Jacko can’t waltz into the cop shop and have them treat him like one of the boys anymore. Who else do you have besides me?”

  Nell took a long look at her, rankled at how clearly Carrie had read the situation and how she was using it as leverage. “I still know how to report a story.”

  “Well, even so, you need me to take over some of Jacko’s stories. You can’t do it all.”

  Nell gave her the barest of nods, then said, “Jacko, I want you to keep researching the jail, like we discussed. I was just talking to Doug Shaun, so I’ll continue to cover the police story. And you,” she said to Carrie, “need to head over to the sheriff’s office. Find out what you can—” Abruptly, Nell stopped. She’d been about to say “about the murder of Marion Nash,” but if Jacko didn’t already know, it would be a cruel way to break it to him. “Find out what they’ve been up to since Ronald Hebert died,” she amended. She was reluctant to trust Carrie to ask the right questions, but after her encounter with Sheriff Hickson last night, Nell figured she’d probably get less from him than even her green girl reporter would. Of course, Carrie would find out about the murder of Marion, but by the time she got back, Nell would have talked to Jacko.

  Carrie didn’t do a good job of hiding her disappointment that she was assigned the corpulent Sheriff once again while Nell kept Doug Shaun for herself. Having already gotten part of her way, though, Carrie pushed for it all. “Why can’t I cover the police chief as well? That way I can compare their approaches and keep track of what they’re both doing.”

  “I’m friends with Doug and I have an established relationship with him” was what Nell said, but the thought under her words was, it was me he kissed and not you.

  This flash of petty arrogance surprised her. She certainly didn’t need to compete with Carrie, and even if they did fight over Doug Shaun and he chose Carrie, it would just prove that the chief wasn’t someone Nell wanted to do more with than briefly kiss. But that quick intellectual overlay didn’t disguise the fact that a part of herself wanted someone to want her—to look at her that way. Nell didn’t know where this person would fit into the life of the widow and mother she was, so she turned away from it and back to her work.

  Carrie looked like she might say something more, so Nell cut her off.

  “Remember, we have a deadline looming. I need you to get as much as you can by five if not before. Otherwise, it’ll be in next week’s paper.”

  With that strong hint, Carrie grabbed her reporter’s tools and the purse large enough to carry them all and headed out the door, her only triumph a quick call of, “Hold the fort while I’m gone.”

  “So, do you want to take over the sewage and water board meetings?” Nell sardonically asked Jacko.

  “I might. Now that I’ve been outed, I can openly flirt with the chair. It might work as well for me as for Carrie.”

  “That’s all we need. A sex scandal.” Nell invented the headline: “Father of Five Caught in Sewer with Blond Hunk.”

  “Career Down the Drain,” Jacko punned.

  Nell shook her head, then remembered the somber news of the morning. “Come into my office, Jacko. I need to talk to you.”

  Once they’d sat down, Jacko opened the conversation. “If this is about Marion, I already know.”

  “It is. I didn’t know if you knew.”

  “You were going to tell Carrie to look into Marion’s death, then you stopped. You were trying to spare me. Otherwise, you’d have been reading her chapter and verse about what she needed to ask the sheriff.”

  “How did you find out?”

  “We have … friends in common. Someone called me.”

  Nell wanted to ask if it was Kate, but Jacko was clearly reluctant to mention names. Instead, she tried from a different angle. “How well did you know Marion?”

  “Mostly through the library. Some mutual friends.”

  “Are you aware of how she died?” Someone was going to tell him, Nell rationalized. It might as well be her. She wanted to see his reaction to the idea of Marion picking up a strange man and going with him to a cheap motel.

  “Only that she was murdered. It seems so strange, so impossible. Do you think all the deaths can be related?” Jacko suddenly asked.

  “Why do you think that?” Nell returned his question.

  “I don’t know … it just seems odd that this quiet town abruptly has two or more killers running around.”

  “Like evil should all come from only one source? And when you find that source and extinguish it, then the evil disappears?”

  “I guess so. I know it doesn’t really make sense. People get murdered all the time for all sorts of different reasons.”

  “Like you, I don’t have anything to pin it to, but there do seem to be too many killings here lately. Believing in bizarre coincidences makes the world seem just too random and chaotic. If you should stumble across anything …” Nell trailed off.

  “I’ll let you know,” Jacko finished for her. Then he quietly asked, “How did Marion die?”

  “I haven’t got much yet, but Doug Shaun said that it appeared she’d been murdered by a man she picked up. Mr. Wrong. Her body was found in that motel on 90 on the edge of town.”

  Nell watched Jacko’s reaction. He was clearly taken aback by that news, but she couldn’t tell if it was from the details of the murder or shock at Marion’s having casual sex with a man.

  “Marion out in some cheap motel …?” Jacko slowly said. “It just … doesn’t square with … what I knew of her.”

  “What did you know of her?” Nell asked.

  “Not … well, just that she didn’t seem the type to pick up men and go to hotels. More … well, a librarian. When we met we usually talked about books.”

  Nell remained silent, hoping that Jacko would continue. He didn’t.

  Finally, she asked, “Are you up to writing the obituary?”

  He briefly looked away, not so much avoiding her as holding some part of himself back. “Yes, I’d like to be the one to do it,” he finally answered.

  “Okay. Make it as long as you want.”

  Jacko nodded and turned back to his desk. Whatever Nell was going to find out about Marion’s life, she wasn’t going to find it out from him.

  She shut her door to do some work. It only took a few minutes for her to realize she wasn’t getting any editing done. Ina Claire’s fans might have to wait a week before they got a look at her stuffed flounder recipe.

  Instead, Nell picked up her phone, rummaging through her Rolodex for names she rarely called. Her first choice was John at the New Orleans Times-Picayune. If Jacko got a job there, he would still be close enough to occasionally do a feature story for the Crier. But that wasn’t the only phone call she made. She also called colleagues in New York, San Francisco, Detroit, Boston, and San Antonio, anyone she thought might appreciate someone with Jacko’s talent and hunger. I will miss him, Nell thought as she put down the phone. But taking care of a chore she had no choice but to do helped quell her nervous energy enough for her to settle in for a good bout of editing.

  Sometime in the middle of it, Dolan entered her office and put a tuna salad sandwich on her desk and had her sign a few checks, but his was the only interruption until Jacko came in and silently handed her the copy for Marion’s obit.

  He didn’t stay to watch h
er read it.

  Marion Allingham Nash

  Marion Nash, a librarian at the Tchula County Library main branch in Pelican Bay, was found dead Wednesday night. Police are investigating the circumstances surrounding her death. Ms. Nash was valedictorian of the Pelican Bay High School Class of 1995. She attended college at Vanderbilt University and received her MLS from the University of Washington in Seattle, Washington. After graduating, she lived in Seattle from 2001 until returning to Pelican Bay in 2007. While living in the Pacific Northwest, Ms. Nash was active in a variety of causes, including serving as vice-president of the local chapter of the Sierra Club, on the board of a social service organization, and as a volunteer for the Seattle AIDS Project. Upon returning to Pelican Bay, Ms. Nash was a member of the Unitarian Church and created a library outreach program to bring books into places where children and young adults gathered. A passionate outdoors women, she could often be found hiking or biking in local parks.

  Ms. Nash is survived by her mother, Mrs. Erma Nash, and two brothers, Mr. Robert Nash of Torrance, California, and Mr. Ervin Nash of Knoxville, Tennessee.

  The obituary went on to list the details of the service, to be held in Erma Nash’s Episcopal Church, Nell noted. She also noticed what was left out. The secrets of Marion’s life would be kept in death. The oblique reference to her volunteering for an AIDS organization and serving on the board of an unspecified social services organization were the only hints.

  Nell read through the copy again, several times, before she finally had enough distance to look at it with an editor’s eye. Two more reads only found one typo. She changed nothing that Jacko had written.

  “Mom?”

  Nell looked up. Josh was standing in her doorway.

  “Mom?” he repeated. “I’m sorry to bother you here, but the bike shop is closed and I forgot the house key.” Nell must have had a puzzled look on her face because he explained the relation between the two. “I’d planned to just hang out at the shop until I knew that either you or Lizzie were home and it wouldn’t matter if I had a key or not.”

  Suddenly, Nell felt very protective of her son. Another mother had lost a child today; life seemed too fragile for her not to be grateful that Josh was standing in front of her explaining mundane things like misplaced keys.

  “It’s okay. I’m glad that you came here,” Nell reassured him.

  “I hope that Kate’s not sick or anything,” Josh said. “The bike shop is always open.”

  “She’s young and strong,” Nell answered. “Whatever it is, I’m sure she’ll survive it.” She’ll just never be the same, she thought. She’ll just always carry an almost unbearable burden of grief. But Nell could think of no way to gently convey what she knew to her son. Better a soft lie than a hard truth, she told herself.

  But her gentle approach was quickly rendered useless. Carrie strode through the front door, and she had news to tell. “You won’t believe what’s happened! We’ve got a major sex and murder scandal. I just got the goods straight from the sheriff. Marion Nash, our quiet little librarian, was found strangled and naked—”

  Nell leapt from her chair, trying to silence her before Josh got all the gristly details.

  “Carrie!” she called from her office door.

  The young woman looked at her, but clearly was still too caught up in her supposed scoop to notice that no one else shared her enthusiasm. “Nell, this is front page. Give me half an hour to write the story and—”

  “Jacko’s writing it,” Nell brusquely told her.

  “Mom? Miss Marion from the library is dead?” Josh softly asked her, a waver in his voice she’d never heard until Joey was killed.

  “Jacko’s writing it?” Carrie questioned. “How? I just found out a few hours ago. I’ve been with the sheriff all day. This is my story. I even went to that hotel room and saw all the blood—”

  “Mom?” Josh asked.

  “Carrie!” Nell almost shouted. “My son’s here.”

  “It’s not fair. It’s my story.”

  “Write it then. Write it now. Just stop talking about it.”

  “But—”

  “Write it!” Nell ordered her.

  “But I get front page,” Carrie retorted.

  “Just write the story and we’ll see,” Nell answered, a hard edge to her voice. Only her son’s presence stopped her from telling Carrie to write the fucking story and shut the fuck up.

  “Mom? Mom, what happened?” Josh asked, standing beside her.

  “Come into my office, honey,” she told him, ushering him in with her arm around her shoulder and closing the door to anything that might be said in the other room.

  He looked at her, waiting for an answer. Nell could see the hope in his eyes that it would somehow all turn out okay after all.

  “I’m not sure quite what happened, but … but yes, Marion is … dead. I’m sorry,” Nell added uselessly.

  “But she was in the bike shop and she was okay.”

  “You saw her?”

  “Yeah, and she was fine. How can she be dead now?”

  “I don’t know, honey, I don’t know yet.” Nell almost questioned Josh about what time Marion was there, where she went afterward, did she and Kate seem friendly or cool? But this was her son and the questions could wait, if she asked them at all.

  “Will you find out?” Josh asked.

  “I’ll do what I can,” Nell promised him, hearing the echo of her mother-in-law’s request. She suddenly wished that she could turn away from this—not learn the haunting details, not be the one to have to decide how much of Marion’s life to expose for public scrutiny. And she should get Josh away from the news room and the world of writing obituaries and discussing murder. “Why don’t I take you home?”

  Josh just nodded, his emotions clearly veering from shocked numbness to fear and grief.

  “I’ll be back,” Nell said as she ushered her son through the main office. She was relieved to see Carrie actually bent over a computer keyboard and silent.

  As she got in the car, she hoped that Lizzie was home. She didn’t think it a good idea to leave Josh alone, but she knew that she would have to come back to work.

  Letting themselves into the house, Nell was relieved to hear the sounds of Lizzie at the computer. The door was barely closed before the phone rang. Lizzie started to grab it, but Nell was closer. She was too afraid it might be work—and today work included the murder of a family friend—to let her children answer it.

  “Oh, good, Nell,” Mrs. Thomas, Sr. said. “I was worried that the children were home alone. I know you’re likely to leave Lizzie and Josh alone when you’re at work.”

  Which, of course, was exactly what Nell was about to do.

  Mrs. Thomas continued. “And given what has happened lately, I think it’s something you should take particular care to avoid.

  Nell bit back her first reply: Thom didn’t leave me well enough off to afford a round the clock governess. Instead, she asked, “How is Mrs. Nash?”

  “Too hardy for her own good. She shouldn’t have to live through this, particularly given the smut that’s being said” was Mrs. Thomas’s succinct opinion.

  “What’s being said?” Nell asked.

  “Bizarre rumors about strange men in motel rooms. Not Marion at all. Her mother won’t hear such talk. The police had the nerve to ask her and then act as if a mother wouldn’t know her daughter well enough to know that couldn’t be true.”

  “The police came and questioned Mrs. Nash?” Nell asked.

  “Yes. That new police chief had the audacity to ask Erma about her daughter’s sex life. As if all unmarried women these days have one.”

  And tell their mothers, Nell silently added. Doug Shaun might be a good policeman, but he hadn’t won any Southern gentleman contests in this town. There might be ways to find the information he was searchi
ng for, but directly asking Mrs. Nash wasn’t one of them.

  “We finally had to shoo him away. You will tell him, won’t you, Nell, how far wrong he is?”

  “It wouldn’t be appropriate for me to interfere in a police investigation,” Nell stiffly replied.

  “Someone has to do something to quash these bizarre rumors. The police asking questions about such things won’t help matters.”

  “Mother,” Nell said, some of her exasperation finally coming out. “I don’t have the power to tell the police what questions to ask or not ask. They do their job. I only report on what they’re doing.”

  “Yes, of course, but still someone has to tell the truth about Marion.”

  And just what is that truth, Nell wondered. Was Marion the person her mother knew, the woman Kate Ryan kissed, or the woman the police claimed her to be?

  “I’ll do my best” was Nell’s answer.

  “You’re going to stay home with the children, aren’t you?” Her mother-in-law returned to the original topic.

  Nell saw no point in arguing this one. Instead, it was time for a flanking attack. “Of course. But I have to get the paper out. I need to make sure that whatever appears in print is appropriate. Can I bring Josh and Lizzie over to stay with you? As you said, it’s not a good idea to leave them alone.” Nell knew that Josh and Lizzie wouldn’t much like the idea, but she was also hoping that an evening with real live children might make Mrs. Thomas less likely to interfere, lest she risk more exposure to the increasing frequency of their adolescent squabbles.

  “You have to go back to work?”

  “The paper has to go to press,” Nell reminded her.

  There was a moment’s hesitation before Mrs. Thomas said, “Well, of course you can bring them by. It’ll be nice to spend some time with Elizabeth and Joshua. I’ll tell Bernice that we’ll have two more for dinner. Or do you think you’ll be done before then?”