J. Wachowski - In Plain View

This is another thing I wasn’t used to in my new life-the dead weight of other people’s needs. On my own, I’d have a story half in the can already. It took my college boy twenty minutes just to fill the gas tank and buy us a newspaper.

“What the hell took you so long?” I crabbed when he finally returned.

“Not much of a morning person, are you?”

“I’m a busy person, College. Busy, busy, busy.”

Ainsley shrugged the obvious. “Had to take a leak.”

“Pee on your own time. When I’m waiting in the car, tie it in a knot.”

“Easy there, Boss. Don’t get your knickers in a twist.” College tossed the newspaper onto my lap. “Take a look at page three.”

Don’t get your knickers in a twist? Bold talk. That was promising.

Above the fold on page three of the Clarion was a quarter-page reprint of the photo I’d left Melton: tree, ladder, rope and a crowd of men in uniforms. Most of the body was blocked by the ring of men. The caption read, “Unidentified man in Amish clothing was found dead yesterday in a field just south of Route 59. Police and fire department services were brought to the scene by an anonymous phone caller.”

“Wonder if anyone else picked it up,” I said.

“We could call the station. Ask them to check the wire and keep an eye on the noon news until we get there.”

“Good thinking, College.” My congratulations should have included letting him make the phone call. Reception put me straight through to Gatt.

“Where the hell are you?” my new boss blared.

“In the van, with Ainsley ‘Life Is A Journey, Not A Destination’ Prescott. You remember, my partner?”

“Cut the crap and get your fanny in here now.”

“My what?” I cracked a grin. I hadn’t had a fanny since I was ten.

“You heard me, O’Hara. I got some township sheriff sitting in my lobby threatening to get a subpoena and trash my office.”

“Sounds like Curzon read the paper this morning,” I reported aloud for Ainsley’s benefit. “What’s he want?”

“Photos of a crime scene. I thought Ainsley told me you didn’t get any video on that suicide.”

“We didn’t get any video.”

Gatt wasn’t an idiot. The silence hung between us like a bad smell. “Just get in here and deal with him.”

“On the way. Hey, Gatt? Remind me again, how’d you get tipped on the story yesterday?”

“Phone call,” he spouted. “Civilian asked for me, so I assumed he’d called the network hotline and they’d put him on to me as the local contact.”

“Weird.” It made sense network would call the crew that was closest to look into the story. But no network hotline on the planet turfed a call that fast-Ainsley and I had arrived within twenty minutes of the cops. Which meant Gatt had gotten his call within minutes of the authorities. This reminded me of Ainsley’s homework assignment. “Later, Gatt.”

“Sooner, O’Hara.”

“Right, right.” I pressed the button that made him go away. “What’d you find out about Sheriff Curzon, College?”

“Not much,” Ainsley said. “I asked around but nobody knows why he might be shy about reporters.”

“Shy? I’d call it hostile. Who’d you ask?”

“Guy I know on the city council.” He shrugged his bony shoulder. “And my mom.”

“Your mom? You called your mother to ask about Curzon?”

The tops of his ears turned red. “Yeah. I had to talk to her anyway, you know, about Mr. Lowe.”

“No. I don’t know.”

“Come on. It’s not like that guy agreed to be interviewed because he wanted to be on television.” Ainsley snarfed. “I asked Mom if she’d, you know, vouch for you. She knows a lot of people. She’s been involved in town politics for a while.” He paused and seemed to think better of what he was going to say next. Which is why I was surprised to hear, “Oh, and she and Curzon’s ex-wife go to the same hairdresser.”

“Same hairdresser. Right. Stop there. You’re scaring me.”

Ainsley gave another friendly shrug to say, whatever. He concentrated on singing along with the radio for the rest of the drive while his ears cooled back to their normal color.

Small town politics-where political science meets the theater of the absurd.

Curtain up. Sheriff Curzon was awaiting my entrance.

10:19:44 a.m.

We pulled into the rear dock at the station within ten minutes. Despite the lobby’s visual clues to the contrary, WWST was on the cutting edge of the television business in a few significant ways. I’d been pleasantly surprised to discover the remote operations equipment was state of the art.

According to the trades I read, the entire office had been established as an experimental sister station to a downtown Chicago minor network affiliate. It began as a way to divide the grunt work it takes to run a station, while boosting the signal coverage. All the boring, space-consuming aspects of the business-like the video library and the accounting department-were routed to the hinterlands where real estate doesn’t do such a ream-job on the bottom line. Over time, everything but the main news studio and the general manager’s office had been shifted westward.

As far as I was concerned, if they could find a way to lose sales and promotion, it’d be an ideal work environment.

“Barb-A-Ra!”

Ainsley and I could hear the shout all the way at the back of the building. This time it wasn’t Gatt calling her. It wasn’t a voice I recognized.

“Barbara, I need you! Now!”

We came around the corner just as Barbara marched by, fists clenched and sensible shoes clomping across the linoleum like combat boots.

Ainsley blew out a breath and shook his head. “She hates when he does that.”

“Who?”

“Jim, the sales manager. Barb works for Uncle Rich, you know. But Jim’s such an-” Ainsley dropped his voice to a whisper, “-asshole-his secretaries keep quitting. Barb gets stuck helping him out.”

A door slammed, muffling the roar of battle. Ainsley grimaced.

Up and down the hall, a flurry of action ensued. Somebody called, “I’m on the phone, people.” Another door-slam echoed. Another shout of “Keep it down.” Then, from behind us, the deepest voice yet called, “Quit slamming the fucking doors!”

One big, happy family, as they say, just living the dream.

“That last guy you heard was Mick, one of the engineers.” Ainsley threw a thumb over his shoulder pointing down the hall that led to the edit bays. “I’ll introduce you later. You’ll like him. Maybe we should go in the back way, to be safe?”

“Sounds good.”

We entered Gatt’s office through a back hall door. Gatt was seated in the same position I’d first found him in yesterday-phone against his ear, slouching deep in the chair behind his desk. “Tell him to kiss my hairy butt and call my lawyer. No way am I giving him two runs in prime.” He looked up and saw us in the doorway. “Gotta go. Call me if you hear any more.”

“We’re here. Where’s Curzon?” I asked.

“In my lobby.” Gatt’s phone rang again almost the instant he hung up. “Go talk to him. Be diplomatic.” He snatched up the receiver and growled, “Hold on-I’m in the middle of something here,” then he called to Ainsley, “Go with. Watch her. She screws up, come get me.”

Diplomacy at its finest.

Sheriff Curzon almost seemed at home in WWST’s retro-tacky lobby. Except for the fact that his suit was too fine-a dark summer-weight wool, lightly breaking cuffs, crisp white shirt, dark narrow tie-he looked like a cover model for an old Detective Magazine. Standing in the center of the room, with his cell phone pressed tight to his ear, his body language said he didn’t want to get too close to any of the solid surfaces. Not that I blamed him.