Wands Have More Fun

by Rebecca Regnier

  “We started with the success of All Souls Festival, we’re halfway through our calendar of Celtic Holidays and events and local business owners are reporting they are having their most profitable year in decades. Miss Vernal Equinox is part of that larger piece of the big picture that will raise the profile of our beautiful town.”

  The event kicks off in March. Contestants were required to be over fourteen to participate. The winner will receive a $1,000 in cash, a year’s supply of maple syrup, and a gift certificate to Korda’s Hardware. In addition, they’ll be eligible to enter statewide contests with their Miss Vernal Equinox crown.

  The death of Mis Florine had left an opening in the judge's ranks, just as Pauline had grumbled. But I’d had zero inkling that opening was going to be filled by me.

  According to all the news releases, I had judging starting tomorrow. I had one last hope of wiggling out of this one.

  I popped upstairs to Pauline’s offices on the top floor of the Old Post Office building. She owned it; Your U.P. News rented from her. I got the feeling she was about to own me too. At least for the duration of the Miss Vernal Equinox festivities.

  “I’m being forced into this.”

  “I just heard! I’m so excited.”

  “I’ve never done anything like this before.”

  “Oh, you’ll be perfect. Don’t worry.”

  “I don’t want to do this, Pauline.”

  “Marzie, please, this will be fun. And I can’t have an even number of judges. If you don’t do it, I have four. I need five.”

  “There’s a blizzard on the way, a murder investigation underway, wands, and I forgot to tell you there’s a new vampire in town.”

  “Handsome?”

  “Uh, not exactly.”

  “Look, we’ll get you in and out every day, as fast as possible, you can still report. And it is a civic duty, community involvement. Your bosses said that was an important part of your job.”

  “I’m biased if I’m a judge. I can’t cover it for Your U.P. News as an impartial reporter if I’m also expected to have opinions.”

  “I told your newsroom it will be like you’re embedded in the pageant like war correspondents do.”

  “Yeah, that’s the same idea.”

  Pauline had thought of all the angles.

  “Plus, your judging cards will only be seen by the undertaker and me.”

  “What?”

  “I’m having Emil Sukulski tabulate the votes. He’s honest and Larry, the accountant, said they were too busy going into tax season. Emil can keep a secret, so he’s our Price Waterhouse for this!”

  “I’m too busy!”

  Pauline put her hands up to her chin as though she was praying to me and fixed me with a pleading look. Between Pauline and my boss, I could see I was not getting out of this.

  “You owe me one.”

  “For sure! Don’t worry, I’ll keep it running smoothly, so you’re in and out.”

  “Right.”

  On that note, I turned and made my leave. I was going to have to squeeze my regular stories in with the pageant stuff. And that meant no more arguing about the inevitable with Pauline. And maybe, if I played my cards right, I’d learn more about who or why someone would want to kill the judge I was replacing.

  That reminded me…I decided to call Detective DeLoof. I had him on speed dial.

  “Hey there, what’s new in the Miss Florine case?”

  “She’s still dead.”

  “Ha, good to know. Any heirs standing to inherit? Drug deals gone bad? Mineral rights under contention?”

  “Not that we’ve discovered so far. Pretty straight forward: her daughter gets the dance studio. It’s not worth a million dollars, in fact, Miss Florine rented the space, but I suppose we can put the daughter on the persons of interest list. You know, ‘cause inheriting leases on strip mall property is hot. Maybe the assets are worth something.”

  “You’re turning into a comedian these days. What can I report because you know I’m writing a story?”

  “Here’s the official statement, are you ready?”

  “I’m sitting down, my fingers are on the keyboard.”

  “The investigation into the death of Florine Laplaisance, under suspicious circumstances, is ongoing. The full resources of the department are being utilized. There are several persons of interests we are exploring, but to reveal those would jeopardize the investigation. There is no threat to the public at large at this time.”

  I could have written the statement myself; it was standard issue.

  “What did she die of?”

  “Blood work is still being analyzed, but the initial observation is still the correct one. She ingested a toxic substance, vis a vie a liquid delivery system.”

  “Vis a vie? Loof! I thought we’d come so far, and you give me that? How about I say she swallowed poison with her morning coffee.”

  Byron slipped into cop-speak as his default. I’d pushed him to get rid of jargon when we did interviews, but he fell right back into it. His boss Budd Marvin, the Police Chief, was fine with the jargon as it offered nothing interesting nor inflammatory. I swore there had to be a class for law enforcement officers on how to annoy reporters.

  “Fine, but it’s all pending toxicology.”

  “Anything else readers of Your U.P. News need to know?”

  “No.”

  “What about the weather, you’re ready for it, safety wise?”

  “We’re always ready and will do overtime to keep the residents and visitors of Widow’s Bay safe during the predicted storm.”

  “Unless they happen to get some of that poison coffee?”

  “Are we done?”

  “I guess. Good talking to you, Loof. Tell Mary Jo I said hi.”

  He ended the call. I had only a few small facts to add to the homicide story. Which meant it would be snow prep all the way to get today’s daily quota of stories in.

  Winter storm coverage is the bread and butter of television news. You can get just about every single story you need somewhere else, from the internet, your friend’s Facebook update, or 24-hour cable.

  But when it comes to weather, you need that local weatherman or woman standing in front of a map, telling you what’s what. Weather people, in my estimation, are maligned more than they ought to be. I mean, I was asked to report murders, not predict when they’d happen, and yet that’s what meteorologists had to do each day. Tell us the future.

  In Detroit, the weather coverage war was intense. Because, you may be able to ignore politics, sports, or the murder of the day but if there was an ice storm headed your way or a tornado about to ruin your graduation party, the viewers better darn well turn to your station to know when to go get milk and bread, or head to the basement. If a television station gets you to trust them about the weather, they win. If they screw it up, they may as well forgo the rest of the news because it’s game over.

  Your U.P. News has a Facebook live Weather Lab. We are a mostly online news organization, which used to be the bottom feeding fish of media. But thanks to everyone living every minute with their smartphones, things were changing. MLive and Your U.P. News were giving WXYD, my old station, and other big news operations, a run for their money. I knew from my last days working for a big old media company that the little red-headed stepchildren of internet news sites were now scaring the big boys. And the weather was a key reason.

  The three meteorologists for Your U.P. News were on every fifteen minutes, doing Facebook lives, shooting the breeze with viewers, zooming in to each person’s particular neighborhood, and making viewers think they had their own personal weatherman. Garrett DeWitt was smart that way.

  I was an hour away from the main newsroom, I didn’t have a photographer, I made a tenth of the money I’d made as an anchor in the big city, but one place Your U.P. News didn’t skimp was weather coverage.

  I wasn’t a weather forecaster, but the directive was clear. Get all the stories possible, pictures of destru
ction, snow, salt piles, and grocery stores runs.

  I had done it all winter. And even though it was now almost spring, I headed out to the Widow’s Bay salt pile to assure the public we had enough.

  Lee Barton was the man in charge, and he’d had just about enough of me.

  “Honestly, Nowak, can’t you just replay the story you did in November, or December, or January, or wait, what was it? Oh yeah, February?”

  “No, sorry, Lee. I need a Facebook live update right now with the up-to-the-minute conditions.”

  “The conditions are the same; they are every time. We’re ready, and everyone needs to just be sure they have gas in their snowblowers and snowmobiles.” He wasn’t wrong. I’d done the story a million times, and I’d only been in town for one winter, but weather coverage was non-negotiable.

  “Sorry Marzie, I already talked to one reporter today, and that’s all I have time for.”

  I figured he meant MLive.

  “They’re not local like me.”

  MLive was the chief online competitor, but they didn’t have an office in Widow’s Bay.

  “I’d check your facts, missy.” Lee was an old school. He felt it was fine to call me missy, or sweetie, or whatever other things that came to mind to make sure I knew he’d prefer a male reporter to a female.

  “You’re stocked up on salt?”

  “I said we’re fine, and yes, we have tons and tons of salt.” He was backing me out of the salt barn and back to my Jeep. So, I decided to fire my questions at him as he ushered me out.

  “Are you prepared for overtime shifts? Twenty-four hours on type thing?”

  “The protocol is the same as it was for the storm three weeks ago. Like I told you.” He put his hand out as if to sweep me out with a broom.

  “And the main artery map, like before?” I had shown readers how the streets were prioritized in my last round of storm coverage.

  “Yes, out.” Lee closed the door, and I had the urge to stick my tongue out at the security camera above the door. Or perhaps use a hand gesture to let him know what I thought of being shooed out. But I refrained.

  What I wondered was, where did MLive get off covering my beat? Widow’s Bay was a frozen tundra, for sure, but a hotbed of news. A hotbed I was born and raised in. I had zero competition here when it came to getting scoops, so it chapped my hind end that some MLive reporter had gotten the stupid snow prep story ahead of me.

  I could scrape together a story from my drive by with Lee, but still. This was MY town. I bristled at the thought. Though, I had helped raise the profile of Widow’s Bay this year by covering the new ski resort and all the big festivals.

  And the crime. Unfortunately, the murder rate here was also a headline. Maybe other news outlets were getting wise that we had interesting stuff happening in Widow’s Bay.

  My phone vibrated. It was Justin Lamorre, my assignment editor. I didn’t relish letting him know I had the same old same old when it came to snow coverage and nothing new on the murder. I’d still have to beat the bushes to find something decent to cover today.

  “Marzie, why didn’t we have this?”

  “What?

  “Look at the picture I just sent you.”

  I pulled down my phone and scrolled over.

  It was a text with a picture attached of a gigantic new snow removal vehicle.

  “What the heck?” I clicked on the picture. There was also a link to a story.

  It wasn’t MLive, it was a website called Man Cave. And the byline was a reporter named Yooperman. What the heck was a Yooperman?

  “Yeah, DeWitt gets wind of this, we’re all going to catch an earful.”

  “It’s ridiculous.”

  “Figure out who this is and don’t let this dude scoop you again.”

  “Yeah, yeah. I’m on it.”

  “What’s juicy? What can we stick Yooperman with?”

  “Uh, well, there’s enough salt.”

  “You gotta be kidding me? A potential blizzard, a beauty pageant, and a murder in your wacky town and you’re telling me there’s enough salt?”

  “I know, I know. I’ll find something better.”

  “And find out who the heck Yooperman is.”

  We hung up. I scanned the article again. And I decided to start where I stood.

  I pounded on the door that had just been slammed in my face.

  “Lee, what’s this new vehicle? My Your U.P. News readers need to see it!”

  “Go away, Nowak. You’ll see it when it obliterates snow from Main Street! Now, get out of here before I call WBPD and tell them you’re harassing us and impeding the public safety,” Lee yelled at me through the door.

  “You’re a public employee serving at the pleasure of the taxpayer! You have an obligation to answer questions from the press on behalf of the people. They paid for that gigantor machine!”

  “Which is WHY I already talked to the media, and you, and you can read more about it on that Man Cave Dot News.”

  Man Cave Dot News – who even had a dot news domain? Man Cave? I was grossed out by the very thought. And who was this reporter anyway? Yooperman?

  Well, I was Yooperwoman, dang it, and I was going to crush the competition.

  Out of nowhere, Yooperman had scooped me. I realized my jaw was clenched. I opened it and shut it to try to work the kinks out.

  I now had a new wrinkle to my day. But it was okay. I was used to competition. You didn’t get to be a news anchor in a major television market without throwing elbows.

  I was the first reporter on scene at breaking news from car crashes to armed robberies to house fires. I had scooped The Detroit News, WDIV, MLive, and Good Morning America. I had a regional Emmy for best breaking news coverage of an unscheduled event!

  Yet I’d been scooped by someone named Yooperman. And I didn’t like it one fragging bit. I knocked on the door again

  “You open this door right now and let me take my own picture of that Optimus Prime Snow Plow, or I’m going to do a month-long series on every single line of your budget!”

  I had no reason to suspect any issues with Lee Bardon’s budget, but by his general disposition toward me today I figured having me take a microscope to his department would be something he’d want to avoid. A little of me now or a lot of me later.

  He chose a little of me now.

  “You have five minutes.”

  Lee directed me to the gated part of the garage, and while we walked, he told me about the new machine.

  I was second on this story, but at least I had it.

  Onward to crush Man Cave Dot News!

  Chapter 5

  “Have you looked at Facebook?” It was Tatum on the phone, seconds after I finished my snow story.

  “Apparently not enough today.”

  “Well, I didn’t either, but one of my waitresses saw it.”

  “What?”

  “There’s breaking news over at The Broken Spine.”

  “Is Georgianne okay?”

  “Yeah, but her business may not be.”

  “On it.”

  I had barely made it to my car when Tatum called to tell me I was missing breaking news at one of my best friend’s businesses. The Broken Spine was a bookstore that served coffee and best sellers to the public. They also did deer processing in the back half of the store during hunting season. It was an enchanted repository for the Grimoire we were now studying, as well as witchy charters and genealogy. And a place to break down your five-point buck after you bagged it. Weird, but it worked.

  I opened the Facebook app, and my feed was filled with Widow’s Bay news that was news to me.

  “Yooperman here at The Broken Spine where state authorities have closed down the business to the public.”

  “This is out of control. I didn’t even receive a single notice of that.”

  Georgianne was arguing with some official that I didn’t know and Yooperman, who’d remained behind the camera, made sure to get every syllable of Georgianne’s predica
ment on his Facebook feed.

  I quickly made my way to The Broken Spine and parked my Jeep. One last look at the live feed showed people liking and joining in on Yooperman’s coverage by the dozens.

  I was going to catch hell for this one too.

  I was tempted to hit the live button and let the chips fall where they may. But I couldn’t. The unchecked need to get on the air no matter what you actually knew about a situation was a situation ripe for disaster. I needed some sort of context for what the heck was happening.

  I watched Georgianne argue with a man who looked official. That conversation was broken up by a crew of movers hauling a bunch of her deer processing equipment out of the store.

  And there, in the middle of it all, was the increasingly famous Yooperman. He turned the camera on himself and appeared to have the entire story:

  “It’s a well-known fact in Widow’s Bay that The Broken Spine, in downtown, has seen better days. Since the owner’s husband died, both the bookstore and the deer processing services have suffered. Today came what might be the final blow. State officials have shut down the deer processing for health code violations so numerous it would take me all day to list them. Many in town agree that, without her husband, Georgianne Parris, has been in over her head with running the place. I spoke with several people in town who said it was about time the state stepped in and shut this hazard down. Which is exactly what has happened. The business has been told to close until further notice. This will leave a gap in services come this fall during deer hunting season. Luckily, the local Moose Lodge has generously stepped in and announced they’ll be able to handle any of the business that formerly came in here to The Broken Spine. In terms of the establishment’s bookselling, it remains to be seen if this poorly managed bit of blight in downtown Widow’s Bay will ever or should ever open again. That’s the full truth from Yooperman – visit us at Man Cave Dot News for more coverage. Yooperman out.”

  Yooperman was probably around my age, I estimated. He wore a Stormy Kromer hat, with the flaps down, baggy jeans tucked into calf-high duck boots, a Cabela’s sweatshirt, and a well-worn down coat slopped over the whole look.