Bryan Gruley: The Hanging Tree

I slapped my back pocket. “Yeah. Why?”

“Observe.”

He leaned over and clicked his mouse. The screen went blank. Slowly, the frame of a web page unfolded. Most of it was empty. But the top of the page bore a title resembling a newspaper’s:

NEWS OF THE NORTH

“You’ve got to be kidding me,” I said. “Jimbo let us-I mean you-have a website?”

“Not exactly.”

I turned and leaned in toward the Penn diploma on the wall.

“Computer science, Philo?”

“I know a little.”

“You built us a website? And it’s not the Pilot? Or Media North?”

“What did I tell you?” he said. “The Internet to the rescue. It’s a little crude, but at least we don’t have to sit on our hands till Saturday. I’m tired of watching that Channel Eight chick get all the stories.”

“Wow. So-what? We just write? And then what?”

He laid out the plan: We’d write a main story that included the particulars of the day-Haskell’s arrest, the arraignment, the arrests of Jason and the others, the town council drama-as well as the exclusive stuff we had from my trip downstate. We’d write a sidebar about Kerasopoulos’s entanglements with Haskell, based on the state documents we had.

Philo would post the stories online the next morning, then send an e-mail announcing the new website to all the people who had signed up for Media North’s Internet service. By nine o’clock, everyone in Pine County would know what we knew.

“Oh, man,” I said. I was getting excited. I was a reporter again. I pulled out the blackmail note and gave it to Philo. “Look at this shit.”

He scanned it quickly. “Awesome.”

“Yeah. Yeah, man. We’re going to stick this right up Tawny Jane’s sweet ass.” At that moment, I almost high-fived Philo Beech. Instead I said, “Hey. Are you sure you want to nail your uncle, Philo? We don’t have to.”

“Don’t you think he deserves to be nailed?”

“That’s a complicated question for me. But for you, well… there might not be a lot more budget meetings in your future.”

Philo considered this for only a second. “I actually do have a trust fund,” he said. Of course he did. He turned the swivel chair toward me. “You drive.”

After the stories were written, Philo left the room and came back with two bottles of Amstel Light and a bag of Better Made potato chips.

“Amstel?” I said. “You’re going to have to change your brand if you want to work for a real newspaper.”

“If you say so.” He sat in the straight-backed chair next to me. “I’ve never done a real story before. This is a real story.”

“Yeah, man. Good work.”

We clinked bottles. We leaned back and drank. I couldn’t help but think of my best nights at the Times, when I had a great story all wrapped up and headed to the printing plant, a story that was going to cause all kinds of headaches the next morning for the Free Press reporter who had missed it. That first beer never tasted so good. Even an Amstel.

Philo said, “Can I ask you something?”

“Shoot.”

“Did you ever ride on one of those Zambonis?”

“Nope. The guy who drove the Zam most of my years here wouldn’t let us near it. Or her. He called it Ethel.”

“My father took me to a Baltimore Skipjacks game when I was little. I won some contest and got to ride on the Zamboni between periods.”

“Did you like it?”

“At first, sure, it was cool. It’s really a totally different perspective from down on the ice, seeing all those people in the seats. The lights are really bright down there too, and you can see how the ice isn’t nearly as smooth as it looks from the stands.”

“Things never are what they seem, are they?”

“Well, no, and especially so in this case.” Philo took a sip of his beer. “We were making our last little trip around the rink and I was looking up in the seats, waving to my father. We were supposed to turn but the Zamboni just kept going straight for the, what do you call them?”

“The boards?”

“The boards. I looked at the driver and he was slumped over, unconscious. I started screaming and yelling and all these men ran out on the ice but they were too late. We just slammed right through the boards and into the bleachers.”

“Were you OK? What happened to the driver?”

“It turned out he’d had a stroke. I had a couple of bumps and bruises, but mostly I was scared. I haven’t been to a hockey game since.”

I shook my head. “Crazy. I guess Zam driving is a young man’s game.”

“Yeah.” He set his bottle on the desk. “Talk about crazy. How about that Haskell woman? Did you see her outside?”

“Nah. I was dealing with Dingus and that briefcase.”

“She was hysterical. She kept trying to get in the police car with her husband. It took two cops to restrain her. Her poor son just stood there like he was in shock.”

“He probably was.”

“Which reminds me,” Philo said. “Was she the woman that fat guy at the pizzeria pointed out in the paper?”

“Supposedly.”

“What was that about?”

“Supposedly she was in the place with Gracie last week. I don’t know. Belly’s full of shit half the time.” I stood up, finished my beer, set the bottle down on Philo’s desk. What Belly had said didn’t make sense, at least not within the story line Philo and I had decided upon. I didn’t want to think about it. “We’ll have plenty more to write tomorrow. Maybe the cops will have grabbed Vend by then.”

“You think maybe Dingus really does have the wrong guy?”

“I don’t know.” I pulled on my coat. “There was a city editor at my old paper who liked to say, ‘They wouldn’t have arrested him if he wasn’t guilty.’ ”

Philo had a good laugh at that.

Starvation Lake was quiet as I drove to Mom’s, almost as if nothing of note had happened that day, as if no one had been arrested and accused of murder. I planned to go home and make myself a big fat fried bologna sandwich with lots of ketchup and onions, drink a Blue Ribbon or two, and get a good night’s sleep, get ready for my Internet debut.

I had to stop at the red light at the Estelle Street Bridge. I peered up the hill to the pizzeria. As usual, the place looked empty. I saw Belly’s head, wearing a white paper hat, moving around beyond the lighted windows. The stoplight turned green, but I sat there a bit longer, staring.

Belly had to be yanking my chain, I told myself. Or he was just plain mistaken. I hit the gas.

The diced onions had just begun to sizzle. I was peeling the ring bologna when Mom emerged from her bedroom in pajamas and robe. One lamp was lit in the living room, the lake invisible in the dark beyond the windows. Mom sat down in her easy chair, wrapped herself in my River Rats afghan.

“I hope I didn’t wake you,” I said.

“I was reading. I thought I might watch the news.”

The news wouldn’t be on for another hour.

“Can I make you a sandwich?”

Mom turned her head, gave me a look. “Do I look like your father?” My dad had loved fried bologna sandwiches, taught me how to make them. Mom never cared for them. “Phyllis made us a nice salad.”

“Good.”

She turned back to the living room. The TV remote sat untouched on the table next to her. I took out a cutting board and began to slice the bologna lengthwise into the pan. The long curls of meat crackled in the bubbling butter.

“It was quite a day in Starvation Lake,” Mom said.

I had decided I wasn’t going to tell Mom about my job situation until the website appeared the next day. I had some questions, but Mom wasn’t going anywhere, and I was hungry. I uncapped the ketchup and squirted it around the pan. The sugary tang filled my nostrils.