The News in Small Towns (Small Town Series, Book 1) (25 page)

“We’ll leave it to you, then,” said Cal.  “Sue-Ann, I guess this story you’ve spent so much time on will have to be our secret.  Excellent work, though.”  He took a breath and looked around the table.  “All right, let’s get our assignments straight for this week; I’m sure we all have places to go and people to see.”

Jack, Ray, and Becky left the room and I saw the three of them talking quietly outside as Cal gave out assignments—including one for me; I guess I didn’t look as sick as I had the week before.  Gina, who had kept her feet to herself through most of the meeting, stroked my leg again under the table.

The meeting adjourned and we broke up into other groups.  I took Gina aside and whispered, “Are you trying to make me completely lose it during a meeting?”

“Ah wanted t’see if ah could,” she smiled.

Cal, Ray, and Paul had gone into Cal’s office and closed the door.  Jack was talking to Becky.  I noticed a seriousness in his demeanor and Becky was nodding her head, trying through her shyness around him to be equally serious.  Jack took something shiny out of his pocket and handed it to her and she looked up at him with a puzzled expression.  He nodded at it and kept talking.  Gina was asking about Emmy the Enemy Hunter when Cal’s office door opened and the three men came out.  Ray quickly collected his daughter and they left the building.  I saw them get in Ray’s SUV and drive away.  Cal went back in the meeting room to collect his notes and, to my surprise, Jack went in and joined him, closing the door.

“What’s that about?” Gina asked.

“No idea,” I answered.

I talked to Gina about my assignment—there was a rumor circulating that certain school board members wanted to close Pine Oak High School and bus the students to Hanson’s Quarry.  I had to interview the board members and do a people-on-the-street survey of local opinion.  Gina had an appointment later in the week with Marty Harrison—the owner of the place Donny worked—to wrangle him into an advertising contract, and to get him to rethink his slogan of “Don’t blow it!  Tow it!  With Harrison’s!”

I had my own opinion.  “I don’t know, Gina, that slogan is pretty hard to—”

Cal’s door opened and Jack came out smiling. “Time to go, I guess,” he said.  He took Gina’s hand and told her, “Maybe if I get back in town, we can do a shoot.”

“Ah’d lahk that,” she replied.  “Ah think.”

I told Gina I’d see her later and walked outside with Jack.  He was headed for the car, but I stopped him.  “What was that all about with Cal?” I asked.

“I wanted to make him a proposition.”

“What proposition?” I asked.

“I wanted him to hire Rebecca,” he said.

“At
The Courier
?”

“Of course.”

“Right.  So on the masthead it would say Editor: Cal Dent, Reporter: Mark Patterson, Goth Girl: Becky Colley.  Are you out of your mind?”

“It’s not like that.  I asked if he would take her on as an unpaid intern.  She likes photography and I want to help her.  It’ll mostly be gopher work, maybe some typing, but it’ll keep her out of trouble.  Maybe she’ll even get a chance to take some pictures.”

“She doesn’t know the first thing about photography!” I told him.  “She just wants to do it because you do it.”

“And that’s okay.  Every photographer has to start somewhere, and when I get through with her she’ll know a lot.”

“What do you mean, when you get through with her?”

“I’m going to give her a correspondence course.  Whatever pictures she takes she sends to me in Iraq or Richmond or wherever I happen to be, and I’ll critique them.  I’ll give her advice on cameras, and explain darkroom techniques, and suggest books to read.”  He stopped for a second and looked away.  “Besides,” he finished, “she needs me.”

That was a switch, I thought, but I kept it to myself.

“What was that you gave her in there?” I asked.

“A camera phone.  I told her to call me whenever she wanted.”

“She already has a crush on you.  You want her to fall in love with you big time?

“I don’t mind,” he said.

And, I realized, I didn’t either.  Being needed was something I had had way too much of; it was the thing that was ultimately responsible for our breakup.  But I don’t think Jack had ever really been needed before.  I mean, it wasn’t as if he wanted to marry the girl, and even if he did, I wasn’t the one to accuse someone else of choosing an unlikely partner.  I put my arm around his waist.  “You go, boy,” I told him.  “If I wanted to be a photographer, you’d be the one I’d want to teach me.”

Jack was looking around the parking lot.  “Is that a bookstore?” he asked.

“Only one in town,” I said.

“Can we go in there for a minute?” he asked.  “I read one of your Zane Grey books and it was pretty good.  Maybe I can find a couple, to take with me.”

“Let’s go in,” I said.

For once, there were several customers in the store and Benny was bobbing and nodding and clearing his throat in his best style.  Jack’s eye was immediately drawn to the small shelf of westerns and he began to browse through them.  The customers were all strangers to me, older women with bags of mysteries or romances to trade.  I was casually sifting through the self-help section when Benny extracted himself from the other customers and waddled toward me.

“Hoping you’d come in,” he began.

“Do I owe you money?” I asked.

“Naw.  Nope.  We’re square.  I got some news.”
“What kind of news?” I asked.

“I, ha, I had a customer,” he said.

“And you want me to write a column about it?” I asked playfully.  “You’ve got four or five customers here now. Maybe we can get a photographer and run a full-page story.”

“Naw,” he smiled.  “I mean somebody came in the other day and bought one of the new books on Santeria I just got in.  And I talked him into a couple of Aleister Crowleys.  I, um, I’m not sure I ever saw him before, but just wanted you to know.  Got his name from his credit card.”

“Hughes, right,” I said.  “When did you say he came in?”

“Hughes?  Naw.  Hmm.  Zimmer.”

“Adam Zimmer?” I asked.  “Are you sure?”

“Yeah, uh, wrote it down.  Not Adam, though.  Card said Gerald.  Early forties, heavy salt and pepper beard.  Looked kind of like a rumrunner.”

Adam’s father? I thought to myself, while my mouth was asking, “Benny, what does a rumrunner look like?”

“I, um, hmm, kinda thin, wrinkled clothes, you know.”

“Listen, Benny.  That might be really important information.  See that guy over there, the one that doesn’t look like a rumrunner?  Will you help him find some Zane Grey books and tell him I’ll be right back?  I have to run back to the office for a minute.”

“Ho ho. 
Wild Horse Mesa, Wildfire, Horse Heaven Hill, Valley of the Wild Horses
—”

I stopped in mid-step.  “Did you say
Horse Heaven Hill
?” I asked.  Is that a Zane Grey book?”

“You betcha,” Benny said, then continued, “
Mysterious Rider
,
The Thundering Herd . . .
”

I was out the door, rushing back to the office, knowing at last that my father had a good reason to choose Mr. Moon’s Horse Heaven Ranch when he sold Alikki.  Moon and my father were both Zane Grey fans.

`I almost bopped Paul Hughes with the door as I went in.  “Wait, Paul,” I told him and looked around the room.  Betty Dickson had come in and was back in her corner working on ads, but she was the only one I saw.  “Where’s everyone else?”

“They all went out,” he said.

“That’s all right.  You’re the one I wanted to talk to.”

“Me?”

“Right.  I just found out where that voodoo book came from—the one Pauley is so interested in.”

“I was wondering that myself.”

“Adam Zimmer’s father.  Either his father gave it to him or Adam stole it from his collection.  What do you know about Gerald Zimmer?” I asked.

“Jerry, I think he calls himself.  Nothing.  I’ve met him once when I took Adam home from my house.  Seems like a loner.  I think he works nights as a security guard at one of the interstate rest stops.  So you think he’s into, what, the occult?” he asked incredulously.

“I don’t think anything, Paul.  I’m just giving you a head’s up.  Gotta go.  Hope Paul Jr. shows up.”

Back in the car, me still driving, I felt sad that Jack was leaving, not just because of the danger, but because he wouldn’t be around when I got to the bottom of my goat story, which, despite what Cal and the others might think, wasn’t nearly finished yet.

“Do you still have a cell phone or did you give your only one to Goth Girl that was?”

“I bought that one for her yesterday.  I was going to ask you to give it to her, but then she showed up at that meeting.”  He pulled another phone from his coat pocket and handed it to me.  I dialed Donny’s cell number from memory.  From the sound effects on his end, Donny was driving his truck and listening to the radio.  “Donny, it’s me.  Turn down your radio.”

“Who?  Sue-Ann?”

“Right.  Listen—”

“Hold it, Sue-Ann.”  He turned down his radio to the point where I could barely hear it.  “After we talked on Sunday I went over to Jerry Zimmer’s place and asked him some questions.  He said I was nuts! Adam was there, too, and he told me to bug off.  I don’t need any more advice that—”

Donny, stop!  Do you know where Adam is?”

“I guess he’s at home, why?”

“Linda C’s or Jerry Zimmer’s?”

“Jerry’s.  Linda only has him—”

“I told you last night that I think Pauley Hughes is out of control.  I think it’s a good idea if you’d find Adam and keep him with you until we know where Pauley is.”

“What about that girl?  Becky?”

“She’s safe.  I spoke to her earlier today.  She told me about the three of them stealing the goat and chickens and everything else I told you the other morning.  And she said that Pauley is getting weirder and weirder and Adam seems to idolize him, will do anything for him.  Adam needs somebody with him right now that’s not his father.”

“I don’t know, Sue-Ann.  I’m on my way home from an accident right now; I’ve got a totaled Ford in tow, and I’m already not welcome at Adam’s father’s house.  Linda C is a wreck and—”

“Listen to me.  I just found out that Pauley is carrying around an old sacrificial knife, and that he plans to use it.  I also found out that he’s been reading books on the occult that he got from Jerry Zimmer.  I know these things for a fact.  Just go over there to see if everything’s okay.  Apologize for what you were saying the other day.  Go out for drinks, buy them dinner, ask Jerry who does his landscaping, whatever.  What can it hurt?  Then take Adam with you in your truck.  Tell him he can see a lot of accidents and wrecked cars.  He’ll love it.”

“All right, Sue-Ann.  I’ll think about it.”

I hung up and handed the phone back to Jack.

“You okay?” Jack asked me.

“Just a little tired.”

“Who were you talking to?”

“Adam Zimmer’s mother’s boyfriend.  Adam’s mother is divorced and the father has custody.  Donny has been trying to straighten the kid up.  I hope he’ll go over and find Adam before Pauley does.”

“Is it like this in Baghdad?” he asked, smiling.

“Maybe it’s this bad everywhere,” I replied, smiling in my turn.  “But maybe it doesn’t have to be.”

“You thought about writing the text of that book yet?”

“What, you mean your book?  I don’t know.  Probably.  I mean, it sounds like something I’d like to do.  How do you want to work it?”

“Well, after I’ve been there awhile, I’ll select some photos.  I’ll email you a scan along with everything I find out, like whether something was destroyed by a U. S. missile or by a suicide bomber, or whatever.”

“Be as specific as you can.”

Driving down the interstate is something you do unconsciously; unless there’s a wreck or a hurricane there’s never anything interesting to see.  But it’s an easy drive for conversation and, for another hour, Jack and I talked.  Or I should say, I talked.  I gave him names of contacts both inside and outside The Green Zone in Baghdad, I told him some places where local cuisine was almost worth getting shot for.  I told him about the Baghdad Zoo and the 19 Arabian horses in the Iraqi National herd.

“My first shot,” Jack said, breaking his silence.

“What?”

“The horses.  That national herd.  The “after” shot.  I’ll try to round up pictures of the horses before the war.”

“Good choice.  Very good choice.”

When we got into Tallahassee we still had hours to spare, so I pulled into the parking lot of one of the malls to have lunch in a Thai restaurant I had been to once or twice before.  After that, we strolled along the mall, looking into shop windows and talking about how we would like to either have or not have whatever was displayed.  In front of a jewelry shop I halted so suddenly that Jack almost knocked me over.

“What’s wrong?” he asked.

“Nothing.  I just, uh, I think it’s getting late.  It’s a weird airport.  You have to get there like a decade before your flight leaves because of all the added security.  They’ve got some shops there we can look in if we have any extra time.”