Bryan Gruley - The Skeleton Box

She blushed as she said it.

“Shit,” I said. “Frenchy knew we were coming here, didn’t he.”

“He helped us, Gus. I’m sorry. Besides, I thought, you know, the small world of newspapers, he might know you from your time here.”

“Oh, he knows me, all right.”

“What do you mean?”

“Never mind. I’m such a jackass.” I pointed at the clubhouse. “You don’t think he’s working for those guys, do you?”

“He works for a lot of people.”

“Great.”

“Should we call the cops?”

“No.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault. I appreciate the help. Talking to the priest actually made things a little clearer. I’ve got to get back and make sure Mom’s OK.”

“Give her my best.”

She stepped close and hugged me around the waist. The fragrance of her body wash was gone. She stepped back.

“I can’t believe you’re playing hockey,” I said.

She smiled. “Maybe we’ll get out there together sometime.”

“Maybe.”

“You know, Gus, you belong here.”

I slid into the truck. “Sometimes I wish I did.”

Brittle wind whistled through the hole in my window as I veered from Interstate 96 West onto U.S. 23 North. I didn’t want to stop long enough to patch the hole, so I kept my hat and gloves on and turned the heat up as high as it would go.

I turned on my phone. A tiny red light was blinking, telling me the power was about to run out. I wondered if the blinking light itself was wasting power. I wanted to call Darlene but felt like I had to call my mother’s attorney first.

Shipman was just heading into court. He told me he’d seen Mom in the morning and she was fine. The sheriff’s department was keeping her in hot tea and magazines. He had advised her not to talk, and she had obeyed for the most part, except for a brief conversation she’d had in her cell with Darlene.

High beams flashed in my rearview mirror, somebody wanting to pass. I glanced at the speedometer. I’d been driving in the left lane at sixty miles per hour, about twenty-five too slow for the maniacs escaping Detroit on I-75.

I eased the truck into the right lane and asked what Mom had said. Mostly small talk, Shipman said, though she let on that she might have said something about, as he put it, “the new guy with Tatch and the other religious folks.” You mean Breck, I said. Correct, he said, adding that he’d heard a rumor that Tatch also might have intimated something to the cops about Breck.

“Really?” I said. “Like what?”

Maybe, I thought, Tatch had had enough of his new “friend.”

“Not sure, but Dingus seemed more jumpy than I’ve-”

That was the last I heard.

I looked at my phone. The red light had stopped blinking. A car horn beeped. I looked to my left. The man in the SUV next to me flipped me off before speeding ahead.

A blue Volvo station wagon was parked behind the Pilot when I pulled in. I didn’t recognize it. You didn’t see a lot of Volvos in Starvation Lake, or northern Michigan, for that matter. If you did, you’d be in Harbor Springs or Petoskey or Charlevoix.

A man was sitting at the desk mounded with old newspapers where the Pilot ’s photographer had sat before Media North decided we didn’t need a full-time shooter. He stood and offered his hand, and the first thing I noticed was that he was even shorter than me.

“Gus Carpenter?” he said. “Bennett Fuqua.”

I shook his hand, thinking, The Media North bean counter, Fuckwad. Instinctively, I glanced over at the police scanner perched on a shelf behind Whistler’s desk. Whistler had left the damn thing on again. I wondered if Fuqua had noticed.

“What brings you all the way over here?” I said. “Did the board authorize the mileage?”

He smiled uneasily. “Ah, ha, well, I was coming over anyway. United Way meeting in town, and I’m on the board. See, I specialize in nonprofits.”

At first I didn’t get that he meant the Pilot. “Funny,” I said. As nonchalantly as I could, I walked over and turned the scanner off.

“Don’t you need that?” Fuqua said.

“The cops’ll call if there’s anything important.”

Fuqua considered that, then said, “How is your mother?”

“She’s fine, thank you.”

“Philo tells me you were quite close to the woman who died. My condolences.”

“Thanks.” I threw my coat on a stack of press releases atop a rusted Royal typewriter I hadn’t gotten around to throwing away. “Excuse me a second.” I plugged my cell phone into an outlet next to my desk. On my blotter I set a bottle of A amp;W and a brown bag holding a turkey-and-cheddar I’d picked up at the Twin Lakes Party Store. I sat and dumped the sandwich out, wishing I’d asked for an extra dill pickle.

Fuqua sat back down. A puddle of snowmelt glistened around his rubber-toed boots. In his creased black corduroy slacks and white turtleneck sweater, he could have posed for an L.L. Bean catalog. “I’m actually hoping to come back for the big game,” he said.

“You’re a hockey fan?” I said.

“Newly so.” I was a little surprised at how young he seemed. I had pictured him as a bald man in his sixties with a bullfrog neck. But he couldn’t have been much older than me, if at all. “My daughter started playing, and I got hooked.”

“That’s how it is.”

“Growing up in Ohio, we didn’t have much hockey around. But what a fast game. Pretty expensive, too. Of course my daughter had to play the most expensive position.”

“She’s a goalie?”

“That’s right. I think I heard that you’re a goalie, too, right? Someone said you played on the last great team around here. That must have been something.”

I decided I wasn’t going to let this guy soften me up. I’d imagined that Fuckwad was the kind of penny-pinching eyeshade who would piss on his grandmother’s grave for a nickel, and I wasn’t going to change my view because he helped the United Way and liked hockey. “It was something, all right,” I said. “Mind if I eat?”

Fuqua knitted his fingers together in his corduroy lap. “You know how much we-actually, I-admire you and what you do.”

“That and ten bucks will get me a fresh package of legal pads.”

I took a big bite of my sandwich. Not bad. I wished Fuqua would wait outside until I finished. But he went on doing what he’d really come to do.

“As I think Philo told you, the Media North board of directors met yesterday. They deliberated for quite some time about the futures of a variety of our properties. They had to make some difficult decisions.”

I went on chewing, looked up at the wall clock. D’Alessio’s dog-and-pony show at Tatch’s camp was supposedly going to start in a little more than an hour. “Hold that thought,” I said.

“Gus, this is important.”

I ignored him, took another bite, dialed my desk phone.

“Yo, Enright’s,” Soupy said. I heard the Guess Who in the background.

I swung my chair away from Fuqua. “Hey,” I said.

“You got my truck?” Soupy said.

“Yeah. I’ll pick you up in twenty.”

“I’m working, man. Just leave it out front.”

“Take a lunch.”

“Trap, I’m up to my ass. Why?”

“It’s a surprise. Bring some Blue Ribbons.”

I didn’t want a beer but figured it would hook Soupy.

“Oh, OK,” he said. “I can’t go long, but a six-that shouldn’t take long, eh? But I’ll have to kick Angie out. She drained half a bottle of Crow when I left her here yesterday.”

“See you in a bit.”

I hung up and turned back to Fuqua. “Sorry.”

He was sitting straighter, his hands now flat on the chair arms. “The board had to make a particularly difficult decision regarding the Pine County Pilot. ”