Lethal Little Lies (Jubilant Falls Series Book 3) (4 page)

Chapter 5 Addison

              Before I called Graham Kinnon, I needed to touch base at home.

Duncan answered on the second ring. I could tell from the sound of cattle and the
shug-shug-shug
of the milking machines in the background that he was in the barn.

              “I’m not going to be home for dinner,” I said as I lit another cigarette.

              “Story?” He’d heard that excuse before.

              “Yeah. Marcus’s wife apparently went out for a walk Sunday night and never came home.”

              “Oh?”

              “Yeah—he was too busy getting shit faced to notice and I rode his ass all day today when he came in late. Maybe if I hadn’t done that he’d have called her and she’d be home safe right now.”

              “How could you know that? Don’t blame yourself. You think she walked off or you think she’s in trouble?”

              “I think she intended to step away for a little bit and now she’s in trouble. Police have a BOLO out on her and her vehicle.”

              “You’re not going to try to cover this story, are you?”

              “I can’t, Dunk, much as I’d love to. I’ve got too many other things on my plate. I’ve got to get Graham Kinnon back in here—he’s on furlough—so he can cover while Marcus is dealing with all this.”

              “Fisher Webb left a message for you here today.”

              “Shit. I forgot all about the hospital PR job.”

              “He wants to come by tonight and talk to you about it—about eight tonight.”

              “I’ll be there. What are you going to do for dinner?”

              “I’ll find something. Isabella’s got late classes tonight. She’s going to eat at school.”

              Isabella, our daughter, was in her second year of college, studying graphic design. She had hopes of taking over Duncan’s part-time graphic design shop, Henhouse Graphics, which he ran from the farm. Isabella wanted to turn it into a full-time endeavor rather than the sideline business it currently was.

              “I’ll probably grab something here as soon as I can and head home.”

              “OK. Love you. See you when you get here.”

              “Love you too.” I air-kissed into the phone and disconnected, then immediately punched in Graham’s phone number.

              Graham had done a lot for the paper since he’d been here. He’d put us on the map in terms of investigative work. The number of Associated Press awards proved it. He’d been the point person for national TV interviews when a highway sniper decided to use Plummer County drivers for target practice. He’d gone undercover to expose filthy conditions in local egg farms.

              With his tall, thin physique and big flat feet stuffed into worn wingtips, Graham reminded me more of a young Jimmy Stewart, filled with the young reporter’s belief that he really was doing good and really could change the world. His daily uniform was khaki pants, thin suspenders and a white shirt—if the situation called for it, he could add his one of two faded, frayed ties and a jacket with suede elbow pads that had seen better days.

              As far as I knew, he lived alone. He never spoke of a spouse or a girlfriend—or even the occasional date—in the newsroom. Dedicated to getting the story, I often had to remind him not to work off the clock and to go home at the end of his shift.

I’d learned of his undercover work searching for the highway sniper just before the story broke and his life was in danger.

              His personnel file was filled with reprimands from Watterson Whitelaw—followed by AP awards commending him on the chances he took to get the story that resulted in the reprimand.

              Most of Graham’s awards hung beside his desk in the newsroom. The only thing missing was his Ohio Associated Press First Amendment Award. The publisher wanted it hanging in the front office downstairs, but I’d let Graham keep it at home.

Like me, he had all the possibilities of turning into a Class A workaholic.

              Somehow, I imagined Graham Kinnon living the life of an ascetic, in a sparsely furnished efficiency apartment. If he’d been raised a Catholic, he would have made one hell of a Jesuit. He could have been raised Catholic—I didn’t know. Nobody did. At any rate, I was sure by the third day of his furlough, he’d worn a circle in the living room rug out of sheer boredom.

              I was right: he picked up on the first ring.

              “Kinnon,” he said.

              “It’s me, Addison. I need you to come back into work. I’m cancelling—or at least postponing—your furlough.” Quickly I filled him in on the situation with Kay Henning. “Call the assistant chief, Gary McGinnis, and let him know you’re covering the story now at my direction. He’ll keep you informed about what’s going on. Got a pencil? Need his cell phone number?”

              “Already have it—and his home number. Will do.” A few more basics on the situation and we hung up. No chatter, no small talk. That was Graham. I could count on the story getting done and getting done right.

              Time to go. I pulled my large shapeless purse out of my bottom desk drawer and gazed across the empty newsroom before I walked out.

              Right now, it was those few hours of quiet between the end of the day shift and the evening when the sports staff—reduced to one full-time and a part-time writer—would come in write their stories. They would mock up their two pages afterwards, finishing nearly at one in the morning, and, if needed, I would finish them in the morning, adding early-morning copy from the sports wire or short news briefs to fill in the spaces.

              I loved this job. I’d been here for more than twenty years, starting as a reporter, covering everything from high school graduations to ribbon cuttings but never more in my element than when I was on a crime scene, something I probably got from my father Walter Addison, retired commander of the local Ohio State Patrol post.

              Very few people know my first name isn’t Addison—it’s Penny. Only those who know my past called me by that name: my husband, my father, my best friend Suzanne, every cop and sheriff’s deputy in this county—those who’d known me forever.

              I gazed at the blue computer screens on the empty desks, wondering if I could leave it behind for a PR job.

              There was no doubt newspapers as I knew them were dying. Advertising, which drove page count, had all but tanked following the October 2008 crash and the growth of the Internet. Newspapers that had regularly been thirty pages a day six days a week dropped first to twenty, then sixteen, and now we thanked God for the days when advertising brought in enough for a twelve-page press run.

              There was even talk of cancelling the Monday paper, which usually had the least amount of advertising.

              The furloughs, ironically, made it harder to sell ads and shot single copy sales in the ass. When we weren’t generating local stories, we were forced to run wire stories, and folks wouldn’t buy newspapers when there weren’t any local stories on the front page. If circulation dropped, advertisers didn’t want to buy ads if no one was going to see them.

              It was a vicious cycle.

              But could I leave it behind? I flipped the overhead light off. Depending on what Fisher Webb had to tell me tonight, maybe I’d know.

****

              Webb’s big shiny, red Cadillac was parked next to Duncan’s battered F-150 farm truck as I pulled up the long drive to the farmhouse. Some long-ago McIntyre decided that there was more sense in farming the land between the road and the white frame farmhouse set back off the road. Every night as I turned off County Road 122, I had a minute of watching crops growing or the Holsteins grazing— a full 60-second decompression session—before my Taurus found its way up the gravel drive to the kitchen door.

              Duncan had a pot of coffee already made and was pouring Fisher a cup at the kitchen table as I came in the door.

              I dumped my purse and keys on the counter, took a cup of coffee from Dunk and slid into a chair at the kitchen table across from Fisher.

              “Another late night?” he asked.

              I took a sip of coffee and shot a look at Duncan. “There have been later nights. This isn’t too bad,” I said, smiling.
You have no idea
, I thought to myself.
The night is young, and a reporter’s wife is missing.

              Fisher was silent for a moment as he turned his coffee mug between his hands.

              “I don’t believe in beating around the bush, Addison,” he said. “I’ll just lay it out on the table and let you and Duncan talk it over. Like I told you last week, I need a public relations manager at the hospital. I can pay you a helluva lot better, increase your insurance benefits for less than what you’re paying now and just about guarantee you hours that will allow you to have a life of your own. Family members who want to study healthcare in college could get tuition reimbursed.”

              “What will my responsibilities be?”

              “You’ll be responsible for generating content for the monthly newsletter that goes out to all the county residents and local businesses, providing press releases as needed to the local media—both the J-G and the local TV stations— and writing speeches for me. In the event of a large media event, you’ll serve as spokesman and media coordinator for the hospital.”

              I nodded. “OK. And you understand that what you get when you get me is someone who doesn’t play the corporate game very well. I smoke. I swear—and I don’t tolerate assholes very well.”

              Fisher laughed. It was the easy, polished laugh of a man who spends a lot of time at public events, shaking hands and schmoozing. “You sell yourself short. You have a lot more poise and professionalism than you think. I’ve been on the other side of your questions and I’ve been impressed.”

              Duncan looked at me and raised his eyebrows as if to say, “See?”

              “And I know that ‘large media events’ don’t necessarily mean a mass casualty drill,” I said.

              “No. We have three fund-raising events each year for the hospital: the annual Holiday Ball the first weekend in December, the Founder’s Day dinner in the spring and the Valentine’s Day event for the cancer wing.”

              “If I took this job—and I’m not saying I will—I’d like to see some fund raising for the mental health wing.”

              In high school, our daughter Isabella was diagnosed with bipolar disorder after slitting her wrists. Stable now with the help of Lithium, her disease was likely a cruel sentence from the law of genetics. My mother June screwed her way through the Ohio State Highway Patrol post roster and shopped her way through every store in town before my father, an OSP trooper, threw her out and I lost contact with her forever. The hospital psychiatrists had saved Isabella’s life—and diagnosed the genetic component of my daughter’s misery.

              “If it wasn’t for the hospital, I don’t think we’d have our little girl today,” Duncan said softly.

              “We can do that,” Fisher said.

              My cell phone began to buzz in my purse.

              “Excuse me.” I dug through my purse till I found it and touched the screen to answer. “Hello?”

              “Penny?” It was Gary McGinnis, one of the few people in Jubilant Falls who knew me well enough to call me by my birth name.

              “What’s up Gary? You find Kay Henning?”

              He was quiet for a moment.

              “No. It’s Virginia Ferguson. She’s been shot.”

              “What?”

             
“And before she went into surgery she said Rick Starrett was the one who pulled the trigger.”

              “Shit.” I looked over at Fisher, who was staring intently at me over his coffee mug. “He came into my office today. Said he was going to get back at her somehow for the ugly campaign.”

              Gary grunted. “Why does that not surprise me?”

              “Is he in custody?”

              “No. He’s not at his apartment in Columbus, he’s not at his ex-wife’s house—nobody knows where he went. He’s disappeared. Can you meet me at the PD and give me the details of your conversation today? It’s not looking good for our soon-to-be ex-golden boy.”

              “Sure. See you in about half an hour.” I touched the phone screen again and disconnected. “I’m sorry, guys. I gotta go—big story.”

              “That’s OK.” Fisher stood and placed his coffee cup on the kitchen counter. “Before I go, I want you to look at something.” He pulled a piece of paper from his pocket. “This is my offer. I know it’s more than you make now. Think about it and get back to me.”

              He shook my hand, then Duncan’s and left.

              I opened the folded piece of paper and gasped. I handed it to Duncan. He looked at the paper and then at me. I could see in his face that Fisher’s offer would solve a lot of our financial problems: Isabella’s college tuition could be paid without loans. We could replace our rickety milking equipment, buy a new tractor or even a new truck, not to mention put money in the savings account.