Bryan Gruley - The Skeleton Box

“Nope.” He reached into the fridge for another Blue Ribbon. “But I was out at Mom’s the other day and heard them making all sorts of noise.”

“They’re turning the hill into an ant farm. Got a backhoe going.”

“Bunch of crazy Jesus freaks, don’t want to pay their fair share.” It was Angie, shouting from her bar stool.

“Need a refill, Ange?” Soupy said.

She looked at her glass as if she hadn’t noticed it before. “Might as well.”

Soupy poured another tulip glass from the Busch Light tap and took it down the bar. When he came back, he said, “Where the hell was Tatch last night anyway?”

“He said family stuff.”

“Since when did Tatch give a shit about-” Soupy stopped and turned toward the front door as chilly air washed into the bar. Luke Whistler stepped in and closed the door.

“Gus,” he said. “Mr. Campbell.”

Soupy grabbed a bottle of Jack Daniel’s and slapped a shot glass down on the bar. “Chief,” he said, filling the glass and nudging it in Whistler’s direction.

Whistler looked at it for a second, smiling uncomfortably, then picked it up and drank it back in one smooth swallow. As he set the glass back down, Soupy held the bottle up for a refill. Whistler pulled the glass away. “No thanks.”

“I guess you guys know each other,” I said.

“I wouldn’t be much of a reporter if I didn’t know the town barkeep,” Whistler said. Then he said to Soupy, “You’re going to get me in trouble with the boss.”

“Who, him?” Soupy said. “He’s a goalie. He doesn’t worry about anybody but himself and his little net. Ain’t that right, Trap?” He grabbed the beer I had pushed away and shoved it in front of me. “Drink up. People are dying of thirst in Cambodia.”

I grimaced through another tepid sip.

“Saw your truck outside,” Whistler said. “Got a little info on that thing you asked about.”

Nye-less? I thought. “That was fast.”

“I wish I could take credit. This Google thing is pretty nifty.”

“What the hell are you talking about?” Soupy said.

“Nothing,” I said, standing up and feeling justified in keeping something from Soupy. “Can I have a Coke to go? And a bag of Better Mades?”

“Out of Coke,” he said. He snatched the potato chips off a rack on the back bar and threw the bag at me. I caught it in my left hand. “Nice save,” he said.

“You going over to the shop?” Whistler said.

“Yeah.”

“I’ll meet you there in five.”

Soupy grabbed my bottle, downed the dregs, and flipped it at the trash barrel. It bounced off the pizza box and shattered on the floor.

“Fuck it,” I heard him say as I went out the door.

The Pilot front counter was buried. There were newspapers-the Free Press, the Times, the Traverse City Record-Eagle, shoppers from Kalkaska and Bellaire-the weekend mail, and our weekly bundle of memos from corporate headquarters in Traverse City.

Plus the remembrances for Mrs. B: Bouquets of flowers. Baskets of dried cherries and fudge. A frozen casserole that must have come from some well-meaning lady who didn’t understand that Mrs. B was Darlene’s mom, not mine, or who just didn’t know what else to do when someone died but bake something stuffed with cheese and potatoes and offer it to the bereaved.

I needed to hire a replacement but didn’t want to think about it yet.

Whistler was hunched over his keyboard, batting away with his two forefingers. The plastic clacks of the keystrokes were punctuated by the metallic clicking of a fat gold pinkie ring slapping the shift key. A foam cup of coffee steamed next to him; he wouldn’t touch it until the steam was gone and the coffee was about the temperature of that beer I’d choked down at Enright’s. He said he’d gotten used to lukewarm coffee on winter stakeouts in Detroit.

I went to my desk and dumped the mail across my blotter. There were three March of Dimes solicitations; the spring sports schedule from Pine County High School; and press releases from an advertising agency in Traverse, the Meijer supercenter in Charlevoix, the winter park in Petoskey. At the bottom of the pile lay a manila envelope tied with string. It contained the ad layouts for the next day’s paper. I already knew what it would tell me: We had barely any ads, which meant fewer pages and less space for stories.

“Hey,” Whistler said. “Just sent you a story.”

The shrinking news hole hadn’t been a problem until Whistler showed up and started writing more stories than we had space for. It forced me to trim his stories, or hold them for the next paper, or just keep them out altogether, hoping someone would find them on our website. Whistler had complained only once so far, when I held a story he’d written about a road commissioner’s secret financial interest in an asphalt company in favor of an advance story on the River Rats’ chances in a Christmas tournament.

“Public service ought to trump kids’ play,” he’d said.

Hockey, I had replied, is more than kids’ play in Starvation Lake.

Now I hit a key and Whistler’s story appeared on my computer screen.

Pine County sheriff’s deputy Frank T. D’Alessio will challenge the incumbent sheriff-his boss-in November’s election, according to papers expected to be filed with the county clerk and disclosed exclusively to the Pine County Pilot.

Whistler was big on self-promotion, constantly mentioning the Pilot in his stories, what the Pilot knew “exclusively,” what it had reported before. I figured he did it because he had come from Detroit, where chest-thumping was part of the newspaper game. I usually sliced it out. Besides the AP guy in Grand Rapids, who seemed to come north only after the temperature hit eighty, we had no real competition except for Channel Eight. Readers and advertisers weren’t going away because we weren’t getting stories first. They were just going away.

I spun in my swivel chair to face Whistler. “Nice,” I said. “But do we have to do the commercial so high in the story?”

He propped a sneaker on the edge of his desk. “Why not tell the readers we’re kicking ass on their behalf?”

“I think they can see the paper they’re holding in their hands is the Pilot. Besides, doesn’t everyone know Frankie’s going to run?”

Whistler smiled the smile of a reporter who knew his boss was clueless. “According to the clips I read, everyone knew he was going to run last election, too. And he didn’t run.”

“He backed out because he knew he didn’t have a chance.”

“Correct. But everything’s different now, isn’t it?”

He had me there. The second and third paragraphs of his story were all about the break-ins, the murder, and Sheriff Dingus Aho’s inability so far to figure out what was going on. D’Alessio will love that, I thought.

“The story doesn’t quote D’Alessio and the department spokesman declined to comment,” I said. “So I’m guessing your main source is Frankie.”

Whistler shrugged. He took the pinkie ring off, rubbed the finger, put the ring back on. “I shouldn’t talk about my sources. But you should know that our friend from Channel Eight is snooping around, too.”

“Your friend,” I said. I tore open the bag of chips and popped a handful into my mouth. “You better hope D’Alessio doesn’t find out about you and your close relationship with her police scanner.”

“Ha,” Whistler said. “We better get that thing online, eh?”

“You think D’Alessio would do any better than Dingus?”

“I have no idea. Just a good story.”

I looked at the clock on the wall over the copier. Eight minutes after three. “Tawny Jane doesn’t have a program till five, but she could do a bulletin. Let me give this a quick read.”