Клэр Донелли - Hiss And Tell

Sometimes Sunny wondered if she’d made a mistake, seeking a career in a dying field. Then someone offered her a chance to go to a press conference, and she was immediately all fired up.

“Did I ever mention that I met Augustus de Kruk once?” she said.

Ollie asked what everyone else was thinking. “How did you get through to a big-bucks guy like de Kruk?”

“Well, maybe ‘met’ is pushing it a little,” Sunny admitted. “I was in the same room with him and about ninety other journalists once, when he talked about his latest building project.”

“Did anyone call him Emperor Augustus?” Ken was in full interview mode now.

“Not to his face. But from what I saw, the nickname suits him. He was pretty darn autocratic. No questions. It was a case of get into the room, take down what he had to say, and get out. I got the impression he wouldn’t bother even having a conversation with anyone who has less than a nine-figure fortune.”

That widened Nancy’s eyes. Ollie cleared his throat. “He’s a touchy old goat.”

Sunny laughed. “Like with his name. He tells everybody ‘de Kruk’ rhymes with ‘truck.’ It drives him crazy if anyone pronounces it ‘crook.’ I worked on a story about when Augustus tried to sue a little bar in Brooklyn out of existence, claiming they were using his name—and the wrong pronunciation. Turns out the place had been founded more than a century and a half ago by a distant ancestor who did pronounce his name ‘de Crook.’” Sunny grinned. “Augustus lost that one. The place wound up with landmark status because Walt Whitman used to drink there.”

“That’s great stuff,” Ken said enthusiastically, then paused. “Not that we could use it in this story.”

“Hey, I’d be happy just doing the pictures.” Sunny turned to look at Ollie. “If it’s okay with you.”

“Who am I to stand in the way of American journalism?” Ollie sighed and leaned back in his chair. Then he came forward again. “And if you get any more de Kruk stories, I’d love to hear them.”

“You’ll probably see more of the Kingsbury compound than I’ll ever get to,” Will complained.

*

So, not toomuch later that day, Sunny sat in the backseat of Ken’s old Dodge, fiddling with a freshly minted press pass and making adjustments to a camera that was probably even older than the car.

“They probably aren’t going to announce anything very important,” Ken said, loading an extra supply of batteries from a box on the car seat into his jacket pocket. Sunny knew about that from the older reporters she’d worked with, batteries had been the life’s blood for the all-important recorder. She’d used a rechargeable minidisk recorder herself, but Ken was more old school. “Probably they want to establish some ground rules, keep us at arm’s length while they relax before the wedding. I’m told everybody in the family has turned up already.”

“Will mentioned the Senator and both governors would be there,” Sunny told him. “And we saw Caleb Kingsbury’s yacht sailing by on Saturday.”

“There you go.” Ken had to pay a little attention to his driving. They’d taken the coast road, which made for a very scenic—albeit sometimes demanding—drive, as the highway hugged the rocky shores. In any event, Sunny wasn’t in a position to enjoy the scenery as she tried to familiarize herself with the equipment.

By the time she finally looked up, they had reached the outskirts of Wilawiport, a prosperous town, and found themselves at the end of a long parade of various news vehicles.

“Looks like the whole gang is here,” Sunny said when she spotted microwave masts on several of the vans ahead of them. “The networks, as well as the local affiliates, are getting into the act.”

“That’s what happens on a slow news day,” Ken said. “But I don’t intend to let them slow me down.” The public road ended at a sawhorse barrier with the notice, NO TRAFFIC BEYOND THIS POINT, and a couple of Maine state troopers nearby to back up the message. Their blue gray uniforms with the black pocket flaps were unmistakable—not to mention the black Mountie hats they wore. Ken made a turn onto a side street. “Figured this would happen. That’s why I called ahead to a pal in the area.”

He pulled into a driveway and parked his car a few blocks away from the beginning of the private road that led onto Neal’s Neck. Lugging their equipment, Sunny and Ken approached the official roadblock on foot. As they came to the last intersection, Sunny spotted a very harassed-looking Ben Semple trying without much success to unsnarl the traffic.

A beefy-looking trooper waved them down, checked their credentials, and even took a cursory glance inside Sunny’s camera bag. Finding nothing more lethal than a couple of extra lenses, he let them in.

“Pushing things a little, aren’t they?” Sunny looked from the barrier to the last two houses facing the public road. “They’ve cut off access to both of their neighbors here.”

“Those aren’t neighbors. The Kingsburys bought both those places in order to keep prying eyes at bay. They also serve as extra guest quarters when a lot of people are visiting the property,” Ken explained, politely stepping aside as a pair of young women dressed in about as little as Robin Lory had worn on Ben Semple’s boat emerged from one of the houses and strolled ahead of them. “From what I hear, today’s get-together is supposed to introduce the families and the members of the wedding party to one another.”

“How nice for them.” Sunny watched the girls go off to the left while a guy in a dark Windbreaker with “Security” in large white letters on the back turned to watch them. As Ken and Sunny approached, however, the security guy directed them down a path to the right.

Sunny glanced over her shoulder as she followed Ken. Mr. Security was still checking the girls out.

They joined a growing crowd of newspeople facing an improvised outdoor stage, and Sunny began worming her way through the assembled camera people and press photographers to find a decent vantage point.

As it turned out, she really didn’t have to kill herself. There wasn’t much worth photographing. Ken had predicted correctly, this was just a preliminary press conference, conducted by Fiona Ormond. No famous—or even semi-famous—Kingsbury faces were in attendance. Fiona repeated several times in different ways that this was just a social gathering, a chance for the families to spend time together well in advance of the wedding itself. In spite of her attempt to downplay the visit, she also tried to lay down some press ground rules, stressing the security arrangements around the nuptials both now and months in the future.

Either they’re afraid of party crashers or paparazzi, Sunny thought as she nevertheless dutifully shot various angles of Fiona as she spoke on the stage, turning a bit to catch some of the cameras and press people as well. For Ken’s purposes, just having all these media people converging on the county would make for a good story. Asking a question would just be icing on the cake.

But Ken did speak up, making a rather pointed inquiry about how many local businesses would be contributing to the upcoming nuptials. Good one, Sunny thought, fighting her way around to get a picture of Ken as Fiona launched into a speech similar to the one Sunny had already heard her give at the 99 Elmet Ladies event about looking into local sources for services like catering, transportation, flowers, and so forth. “We’re even inviting local bakers to submit designs for the wedding cake,” she finished.

“Are the de Kruks staying here for the wedding preparations? Have they arrived yet?” a new voice cut in, brashly asking what everyone really wanted to know. The Kingsburys were big fish, especially in Wilawiport, but there was no doubt that it was the nationally prominent de Kruks who had drawn all this attention.