Sand City Murders

by MK Alexander

  Those days were long gone of course, but I had heard all the stories: one-point sticky tape, ruby-lith, non-repro blue, wax machines, line lengths, specing headlines on the fly, and overset cut from the bottom with a razor knife. None of this was relevant anymore, it was a faux paste-up process. Eleanor would mark up the flats, the physical pages that we printed out for her, but the real edits were always made on the computer.

  And, we were completely online now. I bore the brunt of that, safe to say. I was responsible for our daily online edition and despite myself, became quite an expert at writing html code, among other things. I actually have two bylines, one real and one not, just so the casual reader might think our staff is bigger than it is. One name for print, the other was virtual, and I only used it online. All the locals know that they are both me and I get kidded about it a lot. Most of the tourists are none the wiser. I’m not going to tell you what my other pen name is, so don’t even ask...

  We hit the newsstands every Friday and there’s a weekly rhythm to our lives. Friday is almost like a day off, but by Monday we were back in full gear. What’s today? Monday, right...

  ***

  I pulled up and parked in front of the Sand City Chronicle. Circulation: 6,000. It stood on Captain’s Way, the main drag that cuts through the middle of downtown, the Village. Our offices were squeezed between the Candle Factory outlet, and an ice cream shop with a friendly cow on its sign. It had a name that sounded something like “Moo.” Fair weather friends at best— both places were closed for the off season. Number forty-seven must have once been a big old manor, maybe a rooming house or a tiny hotel from a hundred years ago. Two floors and a basement. Upstairs was storage, the archives, the morgue. I constantly worried that the creaky old floor was about to give way. It would all come crashing down some day, I was sure. And I’d be buried alive in stacks of faded newsprint. I was also sure we were the only newspaper in the country that had their morgue in an attic. An Attic? Whose idea was that? It was supposed to be in the basement. On the main floor was reception, two offices, one for edit and one for advertising, our break room and the studio out back. The basement was Jason’s. A dank place with a single server tower, a bunch of broken computers, and an old darkroom that nobody but me used anymore.

  Miriam looked up and grunted when I walked through the front door. She was our gatekeeper— no one got by her… She would probably use the word receptionist or executive assistant. Still, Miriam was gossip-and-chief, and mom to us all. Or maybe more like an annoying aunt. She was somewhere close to fifty years old, and no doubt Miriam had a last name, but I’m at a loss to say what it is. She always wore a colorful blouse and a skirt, or a decidedly polyester pants suit. To say she was blimp-like would be cruel. She had short dark hair in an almost manly cut, though she wore many hats: answering the phones, taking classifieds, the billing, subscriptions and counting newsstand sales. I swear she was made out of balloons. Short and squat, it seemed like she floated from place to place rather than walked. She followed me to the break room.

  That was my other job at the Chronicle: coffee maker. That wasn’t on the masthead either. I probably made it a little too strong but no one ever complained, at least not to my face. And everyone drank it, obviously, the pot was always empty. But only I ever made it. I liked my coffee strong with sugar and half-and-half.

  “Mr Chamblis was here this morning. He’s not at all happy about his green,” Miriam told me as I started rinsing out the carafe.

  “His green? His golf course? Or his yacht club?” I asked. Charles Chamblis was not my favorite person in the world, to say the least. If I had a nemesis he would be it. Almost lost my job a couple of years ago because of him… but that’s another story. I found the filters and added a couple of scoops of coffee.

  “His color green, in last week’s real estate ad.”

  “So?” I said and poured in some water; the machine started making slurping noises.

  “So, somebody has to fix it. He’s running six more times.”

  “Talk to Jo.”

  “Jo only sold the ad. She has nothing to do with the color.”

  “Did you mention it to Amy?”

  Miriam rolled her eyes. “Amy does not make mistakes. You talk to her.”

  “In the studio yet?”

  She just nodded, then added, “Unless she snuck out the back door again.” Miriam floated off to her reception desk.

  “Alright, maybe I’ll call the press guys. I’m sure it’s no big deal.” I poured a cup of coffee and walked to the back room, the studio. It had been recently renovated: a new window for lots of natural light and a nice plush carpet on the floor. The drawing tables were still old but also recently refurbished. They just didn’t make tables like this anymore; they stood at the perfect angle for our paste-up sessions. They ringed the entire room except for the corner where the computer desk was.

  Amy sat against the far wall hunched over a drawing table with an exacto knife. In years past she might have been called a production artist or maybe a typesetter. Amy Webb was of course a computer software expert, an InDesign jockey, fluent in that page program. She seemed able to effortlessly produce all the ads, layout the final pages with a bit of direction, and get the paper to the printer every week with remarkable ease. Amy also seemed to know every typeface known to mankind, from Aachen bold to Zapf Dingbats. She could spot any of them from a mile away. I have to say though, there was something odd about Amy. She was nice and all, but every time you walked away from a conversation, you felt exhausted, emotionally exhausted. I couldn’t put my finger on why exactly, but I know I wasn’t alone. Miriam, Eleanor, even Melissa would back me up on this. Frank, Donald, Joey and Evan were all a little less objective about Amy, absolutely ready to give her the benefit of the doubt. Jason had yet to voice an opinion.

  “Hey Amy, how’s it going?”

  “Hi, Mr Jardel,” she said and looked up from behind her over-sized glasses. I always thought Amy could put Jo and Melissa to shame. When she sat up straight and took her glasses off, she was a real beauty. Young, maybe twenty five or so, with shoulder-length dirty blond hair cut in bangs that fell nearly to her eyes. Most of the time, it was tied back in a ponytail. There was also the black nail polish and the diamond stud in her nose. Tattoos too, probably, though none were visible yet. I wondered why she wasn’t at her computer.

  “Patrick is fine. No Mr Jardel, okay? Anyhow, what— I’m like five, six years older than you?”

  “Yeah, old and creepy.”

  “Thanks.” I tried to smile but couldn’t. “Anyhow... Amy, just wanted to say what a great job you’re doing. Everyone is real happy… well, except for Mr Chamblis.”

  “Oh, I heard. That’s not my fault. He chose Pantone coated number three-thirty-nine.” She opened a drawer and took out a sheet of stationery and a business card. “See? It matches exactly.”

  “Right. And you checked it with Jason?”

  “Arg, Jason. Talk about creepy and old. I hate that guy.”

  “Amy, he’s like two or three years younger than you.”

  “No, he’s already an old guy.”

  “Well you better learn to like him… especially if you want to learn how to code.”

  “Really?”

  “Well yeah, you said you were getting bored, so we’ll train you on how the website works. You can help out there too.”

  “That would be fantastic.” Amy shifted in her seat and decided to give a big stretch. She put her glasses up on her forehead, raised both arms, and arched her back.

  I tried to look away. “Guess I’ll give Jackson a call over at the press. It was probably their f— up, anyway. Did Pagor give you his pick ups?”

  “Got the list right on schedule.” She went back to her cutting.

  “Amy, what the heck are you doing anyway?”

  “Making clip art for Saint Patrick’s Day.” She paused for a second and looked up. “Hey, is that your birthday or something?”

  “Funny… bu
t no, not my birthday. Can’t you do that on the computer?”

  “I can, but this way is easier. It’s a logo. I’m just adding a shamrock. Then I’ll scan it in at hi-res. Save it as a PNG file and send it over to Jason for the website.” She made a face. “That way, I don’t have to talk to him.”

  “Where’s Melissa and Jo? Do they have their pick ups yet?”

  Amy shrugged and went back to her drawing table.

  Melissa and Jo, our primary sales force. I mentioned them, right? Which one is hotter? That’s the real question. Jo was skinny, but with nice curves, and she was lithe. It was all about how she moved. I don’t think I’d ever seen her in anything but a short dress and a tight top. She had a dark complexion, olive eyes and jet black hair, straight and silky, reaching half way down her back. To me, Jo was just a friend. She was untouchable, unobtainable, always dating somebody else and always talking about how great they were. Rumor had it she was seeing Chuck Chamblis these days.

  Melissa Miller was on the dark side of thirty. She had a five-year old in preschool and a husband I’m not sure I’d ever met, even his name escapes me. Melissa took great care of herself though. She was a brunette, toned, and her hair, nails and makeup were always perfect. If not beautiful then certainly stunning, Melissa had creamy skin, squeezable dimples and a funny little soft chin.

  The hard reality is sex sells ads, well, not sex, but flirtatiousness. Jo, Jo-Anne really, but nobody called her that, and Melissa, were experts. Between the two of them, they kept the Sand City Chronicle up and running. And Eleanor Woods knew that every minute of every day. Selling advertisements is not an easy job, it seemed to me— definitely not in my skill set.

  Every week they’d go out and drum up ads to go into the paper. Jo was a natural, she could wrap anyone around her finger in a matter of minutes. Melissa took a different approach. She just looked gorgeous all the time, as in hair-do, manicure, and designer clothes. Melissa was very attractive, very flirtatious and very persuasive. That’s what kept the whole engine running— certainly not the newsstand price or the subscriptions. So, we were dependent on them, or rather it was a symbiosis; because they were also dependent on us, especially in the summer months. Fifty thousand captive readers, every business hot to advertise… only there had to be something good to read: news, features… content— not just ads.

  Oh yeah, there was Herb too: Donald Herbert Pagor. You could call him Herb or Don, he never seemed to care which and responded to both. Eleanor always called him Donald. He was about fifty something, a big guy, somewhat over-weight, with slicked-down hair and a spongy kind of face. He always wore a shiny suit and he never talked, only bellowed. He didn’t have an inside voice. I sometimes suspected he was deaf and spoke so loud just so he could hear himself. And he was way worse over the phone. If on the rare occasion he called in from the road, I knew to hold the hand piece far from my ear. He sold ads just like the girls, and somehow, he was damn good at it. Sex probably had nothing to do with it in his case.

  Don had all the regular accounts. Not the new businesses, but the old ones, the funeral parlor, florists, restaurants, the antique stores and markets. Their weekly ad in the Chronicle was just a cost of doing business for them. They never changed from week to week. Pick-ups in the jargon. Don Pagor was on the masthead as Advertising Director. Thankfully, he wasn’t in the office much, usually on the road making sales calls. It’s also a big reason why our ad department had a separate office with a door that we could close. Every Wednesday, he’d layout the ads, figure out the percentage and tell Eleanor. Then we’d know how much of the paper we had to fill with news, features and photos.

  Pagor led a double life, one with us, and the other as the Voice of Sand City. He had figured out a way to make his most annoying attribute, a prized asset. I’ll admit he did put it to good use. He never needed a microphone or a public address system. He could bellow and boom all on his own, and his voice was clear and smooth, like an opera singer without the singing part. Every word that came across his lips was over pronounced, over enunciated. If there was a public event in town, a civic function, a parade, a fundraiser, or even little league opening day, the Voice of Sand City was at the center of it all. He was the Master of Ceremonies. Some people whispered about Pagor’s shadowy side but I never put much stock in it. He lived with his aged mother in the old family house up in Cedar Bluffs. It was a huge place, generally rundown, but with a functional widows’ walk; that is, it had a high railed terrace with an actual view of the ocean. No one had seen Donald’s mom in years and it was generally supposed she was an invalid. He never talked about her. I sometimes wondered if Pagor could ever remove his giant persona. He wore it all the time, everyday, like one of his shiny suits. Maybe he just hung it up in the closet when he got home, but that didn’t seem very likely to me.

  Pretty much the opposite of Pagor was Frank Gannon, our sportswriter. He spoke in a monotone and barely above a whisper. I had my doubts about Frank. I don’t think I ever saw him in anything else but a flannel shirt. He covered all the local sporting events, from the middle school to the high school in town. Why he wanted to cover local sports was always a mystery to me, but I have to admit he was pretty good at it. He always got great photographs, team pictures and even the occasional standout action shot. I would have thought he could put all that passion into following the big teams: the Celtics, or the Knicks, or whatever big market teams were nearby, but he showed absolutely no interest. He couldn’t even tell you the score from the big game, from the night before. Frank the sportswriter… I had my doubts about him. He was somewhere near forty and always seemed slightly befuddled. He had a scruffy gray beard and wire-rim glasses. He looked like the most un-sports guy you’d ever meet, except that he did wear a baseball cap, and was always incessantly fiddling with the brim. And it was the Rockies. The Rockies? Frank, have you ever even been to Colorado?

  I heard Eleanor Woods call out to him in her craggy voice. I lingered at the door and peeked inside the office. I knew she was holding her pale blue marking pen.

  “Frank, what’s the final score of this game?”

  “Which game?”

  “North Central verses the Ospreys.”

  “What did I write?”

  “One-o-three to seven.”

  “That can’t be right. Let me check my notes.” Frank pulled out a skinny notebook from the back pocket of his jeans. He flipped through the pages. “Hmm, that must be wrong.” He looked at Eleanor blankly. “I’ll have to call the coach.”

  Eleanor gave him a small satisfied smile. She liked that Frank was thorough at least. He didn’t seem to have the coach’s number on hand, but was sure it was in his car somewhere. He disappeared. I poked my head into the office and looked at Eleanor. She was wearing her usual dark gray suit and a frilly white blouse. Her hair was pulled back tight and her glasses were exactly where they always were, just at the tip of her nose.

  “Does Frank have kids?” I asked.

  “Two children, Jamie and Jane. I believe they are both in middle school.”

  “That explains a lot.”

  Also on the masthead and listed as correspondents were a couple of regular stringers, freelance writers called in to do stories for a set fee, covering zoning meetings, the planning commission, the school board and alike. Evan James was our main man, the man with two first names. He was a competent writer and had a good eye for detail. There was Kevin Marchand too, the old guy from the Historical Society. Never really saw much of him, but if there was ever a question about Sand City’s past, he was the person to call. We talked on the phone a lot. Kevin served a dual purpose. He wrote a column for the Chronicle’s op ed page, and he had a mandate: ensure architecture and paint schemes for every building and structure were in keeping with the character of the Village.

  There was also an endless list of other contributing writers who appeared on the masthead on a rotating basis. I could never keep track of them all… people who did guest editorials and nature piec
es. I think Tracy Hastings wrote a lot of columns about bird-spotting, at least once a month, but I can’t say I ever read any of them.

  Speaking of columns and never reading them, there was also Molly, Molly Gossip. That was really her name, Molly, not Gossip— that’s what she called her weekly column. If you lived in town and had something to hide, Molly was your worst enemy. She never named names though, ever. It was always Mrs Smith and Mrs Jones. Mr Somebody, or Mr That and Mr This. If more characters were needed, she’d draw upon Mr Flint or Mr Rubble, apparently not common surnames in Sand City. I always thought her stuff was insipid and trivial. I never said so, but I avoided her whenever possible. Luckily, she emailed in her piece once a week and I just printed it out for Eleanor to mark up. I will say though, her column did account for at least half our subscriptions. Last week she wrote:

  Party Dress—

  A certain Mrs Somebody held a gala dinner last week, up in the Bluffs. She invited everyone, the Smiths, the Joneses, the Flints, and the Rubbles, just to name a few. Trouble is, she told everyone it was casual dress, everyone but Mrs Jones. Guess who made her grand entrance in a glamourous evening gown? Touché, Mrs Somebody! And you looked stunning, my dear Mrs Jones.

  Oh, and I almost forgot to mention Joey, Joey Jegal: our cub reporter, imported straight from the midwest, some land-locked place, Ohio or Indiana. Clean cut, eager, always smiling. I think he qualified as the nicest guy I’ve ever met. Reminds me of me from when I first started. He was also on staff, and got to cover Village meetings, the Council, conferences, the Chamber of Commerce— all the fun stuff— and one feature per week. I started at that age too, eight years ago. Wow, eight years… Where the hell did it go? I probably don’t smile as much as Joey does. Probably never did. He claimed to be half-Italian, half-Korean— what a combination.

  “Joey, how does a half-Italian, half-Korean guy from Ohio end up here in Sand City?”