Hello, Summer

by Mary Kay Andrews

  37

  Conley was sound asleep when her cell phone rang shortly before six Tuesday morning. She groped for it in the dark, dropped it onto the floor, and finally answered on the sixth ring.

  “Nice story, Hawkins.” It was Roger Sistrunk, her former editor in Atlanta.

  “Roger?” She yawned, still groggy from a restless night. “What are you talking about?”

  “Isn’t this your byline in The Silver Bay Beacon? It’s seven o’clock. Did I wake you up or something?”

  “Hell yeah, you woke me up. The Florida Panhandle is in a different time zone from Atlanta. Are you talking about the Robinette thing? Where’d you hear about it?”

  “Google Alerts,” Sistrunk said. “Hell of a story.”

  She swung her legs over the bed. “Yeah, it’s gotten kind of crazy with the widow and her son both declaring they’re gonna run for Robinette’s seat.”

  “I was gonna send Felker down there to do a follow-up, but then I thought, why not hire Conley?”

  That got her attention. “Me? I thought you had a hiring freeze.”

  “We do. I’m talking about freelance. I want to hire you to write me a Sunday piece. Say, eighteen hundred words? And we want that video and your still photos to go with it.”

  “Which video? The car fire or the video of Charlie Robinette? I shot the car stuff because a friend and I were the first ones on the scene that night. My colleague Michael Torpy scored the video of Charlie Robinette.”

  “Both,” Sistrunk said. “The video makes the story. Especially the part where the son talks about his mom ruining Thanksgiving by running against him. You guys own the video, right?”

  She went to the closet and started pulling out clothes. She was wide awake now, and the wheels were turning. If Sistrunk was waking her up at seven his time, they had a bona fide hot story on their hands. And she’d need to stay cool to leverage it into more than a one-shot Sunday reader piece.

  “Yes,” she said, laying clothes out on the bed. “The video is ours. But if you want it, you’re gonna have to pay for it. What kind of a rate are we talking about?”

  “Like $750. Don’t break my balls over this, Hawkins. You know the kind of freelance rates we pay.”

  Her phone beeped, indicating an incoming phone call. The number had a 404 area code, meaning it was from Atlanta.

  “That’s ridiculous,” she snapped. “Hang on a sec, Roger. I’ve got an incoming call I need to take.”

  She clicked over to the incoming call. “Hi. This is Conley Hawkins.”

  “Conley!” The woman’s voice was warm and vaguely Southern. “This is Selena Kwan. I think we met years ago at a press club forum. I’m the NBC bureau chief in Atlanta, and I want to talk to you about this sensational Robinette story of yours.”

  “I remember you,” Conley said warily. “From when we both covered the Atlanta public school cheating scandal, right?”

  “Good memory,” Selena said. “I’m gonna cut right to the chase here. We’re really interested in this story about your dead congressman.”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “This would normally be too regional a story for us, but the angle of the mother and son running against each other for Robinette’s seat is too good to pass up.”

  “I agree,” Conley said.

  “So couple of quick questions. Who owns the rights to that video?”

  “I shot the car fire video myself,” Conley said. “My friend and I were the first ones on the scene after the wreck. Well, the first that we know of. And my colleague at the Beacon, Michael Torpy, shot the interview with Charlie Robinette.”

  “Okay. Perfect.”

  “The story is still developing,” Conley said quickly. “Vanessa Robinette as much as told me that if Symmes deeded over the quail-hunting plantation to Toddie, his first wife, it was the cancer meds talking. I wouldn’t be surprised if things get nasty in a hurry down here.”

  “Better and better,” Selena said, chortling. “Who doesn’t love a messy family drama? So here’s what we’d like to do. The Washington bureau is going to send a camera crew to cover the memorial service at the Capitol today. Hopefully, we can get the widow and the son staring daggers at each other, with the flag-draped coffin in between.”

  “At the very least,” Conley agreed. “Vanessa is not your typical tea-and-cookies political wife, and she is not the type to fade into the woodwork.”

  “But in the meantime,” Selena continued, “we’d like to buy the rights to both videos. For onetime use, I can pay $500, or better for you, $1,000 for exclusive, cable-wide use on all our platforms for the rest of the month.”

  Conley hesitated. “Just the video?”

  “What else did you have in mind?” Selena asked.

  “As I said, the story is just heating up. The cause of Robinette’s accident still hasn’t been determined.”

  “Didn’t the sheriff tell you he died of head trauma or something?”

  “Yeah. But what caused that accident? I was right there. Clear night, no other cars around. It was three-o-freakin’-clock in the morning, and he was a good forty miles from home. The car was a six-month-old Escalade.”

  Selena was quiet for a moment. “Can I ask you a personal question?”

  Conley knew what was coming, but she waited.

  “What’s a pro like you doing working for a tiny weekly paper in a town I can’t even find on a map? Didn’t I hear you left the AJC for a gig in D.C.?”

  “The job in D.C. didn’t pan out,” Conley said. “My family owns the Beacon, so I came home to spend time with family and to send out job applications, and this story exploded in my lap the second night I was in town.”

  “Lucky you,” the producer said. “Okay, would you be willing to freelance consult with us on the story?”

  “I would be, but I should tell you that I was on the phone with my old boss at the AJC when you called. He wants the video and for me to freelance a print piece for them.”

  “We don’t care about print, so go ahead with that if you want,” Selena said quickly. “But we would want an exclusive on that video.”

  Conley’s phone beeped with another incoming call from a 404 area code.

  “Can you hold for a minute, Selena? I’ve got another call I need to take. Be right back.”

  She clicked over to the new call. “Hi. This is Conley,” she said.

  “Conley Hawkins!” the man’s voice was a little too loud, a little too boisterous for such an early hour in the morning. “Peter Elkhaly, senior executive producer at CNN. Don’t we know each other?”

  Even though CNN was based in Atlanta, Conley knew only a handful of journalists who worked there. Most of the old barriers and animosity between print and broadcast had faded in recent years, but the economic ones still existed. Print journalists were paupers compared to the salaries broadcasters made in a major market like Atlanta.

  “Don’t think so,” Conley said. “What can I do for you, Pete?”

  “It’s Peter. I’ll be brief. We want that Robinette story you guys ran last night. Especially that video.”

  She smiled. “The thing is, I’ve got my old boss at the AJC and the Atlanta NBC bureau chief, both on hold. I’ll be brief too. What’s your offer?”

  “A thousand, and it’s ours exclusively.”

  “That’s all you got?”

  “What else do you want? We like the video, we like the family feud angle, but I’ll be honest with you. This is an election year, Conley. We got stories exploding all over the place. That’s about the best I can do.”

  “Okay,” she said. “Thanks for calling.” She disconnected and went back to her previous caller, hoping that the NBC bureau chief hadn’t hung up or given up. “Selena?”

  “Still here. What’s your thought on my offer?”

  “Well,” Conley said slowly. “That was Peter Elkhaly from CNN on the other line…”

  “That tool? I hope you didn’t cut a deal with him.”

  “I told him
I’d think about it,” Conley lied.

  “I had a chance to talk with my boss while you were busy,” Selena said. “He likes this story as much as I do, and we agree that it could have legs and that having you on the ground down there following up as things develop will give us a nice edge. So. We’ll figure out an associate producer contract for you, and in the meantime, we’d like to lock up the exclusive on both those videos. How does $2,000 sound?”

  It sounded like four car payments on the Subaru and a windfall for Michael Torpy. But more important, if the associate producing gig happened, maybe it could work into an actual job down the line—and a ticket out of Silver Bay.

  “Sounds fine,” Conley said. “I’ll have to speak with my colleague who shot the interview with Charlie Robinette, but I’m pretty sure he’ll agree. And I’ll need to clear the deal with my managing editor.”

  “Do that,” Selena said. “I’ll email you the contract as soon as legal gets it to me. And, Conley?”

  “Yes?”

  “Welcome aboard. I think we’re gonna have some fun with this one.”

  She clicked back over to Roger Sistrunk, who was still on hold, but he’d disconnected.

  38

  G’mama was talking animatedly on the phone when Conley walked into the kitchen.

  Winnie’s transistor radio was propped on the windowsill, and Buddy Bright was prattling on about the upcoming memorial service in Washington for Symmes Robinette.

  Conley went to the cupboard, found a box of strawberry Pop-Tarts, tore open the foil wrapper, and took a bite of the corner of the pastry.

  “At least let me put that in the toaster for you,” Winnie said, but Conley resisted.

  “I like ’em this way. It’s even trashier than if it’s toasted.”

  Winnie rolled her eyes in response.

  Conley leaned against the kitchen counter, unashamedly eavesdropping on her grandmother’s telephone conversation.

  “Harriet, Harriet. Let me stop you right now,” Lorraine said. “Is there anything in that article that’s untrue? You might not like what we published, but that does not make it filth. So no, I’m not going to fire my granddaughter, who happens to be an award-winning investigative journalist. And I’m not going to ‘make’ Grayson publish a retraction. She’s the managing editor, not me. And I happen to trust her judgment implicitly.”

  “She’s been getting calls like this all morning,” Winnie whispered. “Can’t even drink her coffee in peace.”

  G’mama listened patiently. “I’m sorry you feel that way. The Beacon values all its subscribers, but of course, if you don’t want to get the paper anymore, we’ll cancel your subscription. Which means you won’t get any more grocery store coupons. No, I don’t think we do offer refunds. All right, Harriet. Love to Smitty. See you at church.”

  G’mama put the phone down and penciled a hash mark on the back of an envelope. Conley counted eight of them.

  “Winnie says you’re having a rough morning?” She pointed at the envelope. “Are those all cancellations?”

  “No. These are people I’m making a note to shun after this. Harriet Steinmach is the only one who actually canceled.”

  “Well, thanks for sticking up for freedom of the press,” Conley said, brushing a kiss on her grandmother’s cheek. “Are you mad at us for running the Robinette thing?”

  “Of course not! That special edition you all put out last night was wonderful! It’s making people sit up and take notice, which we haven’t done in a long time. Pops used to say that was a newspaper’s job—not just to report the facts but to get them thinking about the facts, asking questions, get ’em riled up. I loved the ads too, once I got used to them flashing and blinking at me.”

  “That’s all Michael’s doing,” Conley said. “He really is a whiz kid.”

  “I’m sorry I wasn’t awake when Sean left last night,” G’mama said, picking up her coffee cup. “Did you two have a nice walk?”

  Conley poured her own coffee, avoiding meeting her grandmother’s probing eyes. “Very nice. We sat out on the beach for a long time, just drinking our wine and watching the sunset.”

  “I saw he finally bought an ad too,” G’mama commented. “Maybe that’ll make some of our other local businesses do the same.”

  “Hope so,” Conley said, swallowing her coffee. “I’d better get in to the office. Lots to do before the print deadline tonight.”

  “Wonder if they’ll show Symmes Robinette’s funeral on television,” Lorraine said.

  “I happen to know NBC will have somebody at the service today,” Conley said. “And that reminds me. We’ll need to pull photos of the memorial service off the wire.”

  She rinsed out her coffee mug and set it on the counter.

  “When are you seeing Sean again?” G’mama asked.

  “Not sure. I’ve got a crazy-busy week ahead.” She debated whether to tell her grandmother about the deal she’d worked out with the Atlanta paper and the network but decided to clear her arrangement with Grayson first.

  * * *

  She was driving down Main Street, headed for the office, when she saw a blue-and-white Bronson County sheriff’s vehicle parked in front of Kelly’s Drugs. She parked beside the cruiser and pushed through the door, setting the bells tied to the door handle jingling.

  Skelly was behind the pharmacy counter, deep in conversation with the deputy she remembered from the accident scene and from her later encounter at the sheriff’s office, Walter Poppell.

  Poppell looked up and gave her a smirking finger wave. Conley sat down at the soda fountain counter and turned her back to him, although she could still see the conversation in the back-bar mirror.

  After a moment, she got up, went behind the counter, and fixed herself a glass of water. Ten minutes later, she saw Poppell leave, and Skelly walked over slowly, installing himself behind the counter.

  “What was that all about?” she asked.

  Skelly fiddled with a stack of laminated menus. “I guess it’s okay to tell you. I mean, he didn’t say not to. They wanted a list of all the prescriptions I filled for the Robinettes, going back for the past two years.”

  She leaned in. “Really? Plural? Symmes and Vanessa? Did you give it to him? I mean, are there any HIPAA regulations prohibiting that?”

  “He said it’s a criminal investigation.”

  “I know you can’t tell me anything about Vanessa’s meds, but what about Symmes’s? He’s dead now, so the rules don’t apply anymore, right?”

  He poured himself a mug of coffee. “Want one?”

  “Thanks, but I’m already buzzed, and it’s got nothing to do with caffeine. Come on, Skelly,” she pleaded. “Vanessa herself told me about Symmes’s cancer and said he was on chemo. She even blamed ‘chemo brain’ for the fact that he’d get up in the middle of the night and go driving around. She said he wasn’t thinking right when he deeded over the quail-hunting plantation to Toddie.”

  Skelly tugged at his ear, a nervous gesture she remembered from their childhood.

  “No,” he said, shaking his head. “This doesn’t feel right. It’s an invasion of his privacy. I’m sorry, but I really can’t tell you anything without Vanessa’s permission.”

  She gave him a sheepish grin. “I figured you’d say that, but I had to ask, just in case.”

  Skelly touched her hand. “Can we talk about last night for a minute? I’d really like to understand these mixed signals I’m getting. I mean, one minute we’re rolling around on the sand and you’re ripping off my pants, and five minutes later, it’s like nothing even happened.”

  “God, I hate this stuff,” Conley muttered.

  He raised an eyebrow. “Stuff? Like talking about emotions? Admitting you care for somebody and want to be with them?”

  “I should never have told you any of that juvenile stuff about my crush and the condom. Any of it. It was teenage fantasy.”

  “Then why did you?” He didn’t look away, so she did, gazing out throug
h the drugstore’s plate glass window at people strolling by on the sidewalk outside.

  Conley glanced at the old red Coca-Cola clock on the wall, with its THE PAUSE THAT REFRESHES logo.

  “Grayson’s gonna kill me if I’m late to work,” she said. “It’s deadline day, and we’re still chasing a huge story.”

  He clamped his hand over hers. “Can you at least answer my question before you run off to chase your Pulitzer Prize?”

  “I don’t know. Talking about old times, maybe I was feeling sentimental.”

  “Nope,” he said. “Not buying it.”

  “Okay. Maybe I was still curious. About what I’d missed out on that night at the country club dance.”

  “That is a completely lame, bullshit answer.” His hand didn’t move.

  “Skelly.” Her voice was pleading. “I know you’re looking for more. You deserve more. But right now, I need to concentrate on work. I wasn’t going to say anything earlier, but this Robinette story is blowing up. My old boss at the AJC called this morning and wants me to freelance a Sunday piece about it. While I was on the phone with him, the NBC bureau chief in Atlanta called. She wants me to cover the story as it unfolds. And then CNN called too. Their offer was bullshit, but still…”

  He slowly lifted his hand, releasing hers. “What you’re saying is this story is your ticket out of Silver Bay. And the Beacon. And your family drama. And it’s a one-way ticket, party of one. Right?”

  “Maybe. I don’t know. What I do know is, there are no jobs in print journalism right now. Nobody’s hiring, at least at my career level. I’d sort of halfway thought about trying to make the switch to broadcast, but that didn’t seem realistic. Now there’s a possibility that this NBC thing could work into something more. Like a real, full-time job with boring stuff like benefits.”

  “And way more prestige than working for your family newspaper in some swampy Florida backwater,” Skelly said.

  Conley slid off the barstool, snatched her backpack off the counter, and hitched it over her shoulder. “Ambition isn’t a crime, Skelly, and I won’t let you make me feel guilty for having it.”