by Destiny Ford
I pressed the button, watching the liquid stream from the machine as the smell of French vanilla wafted in the air. When the cup was full, I put the lid on, took a sip and closed my eyes, enjoying a few seconds of peace. When I opened them, I was greeted by a five-foot tall, judgmental beast disguised as an elderly woman named Mrs. Olsen.
“What’s that?” she asked in scratchy voice as she pointed at my coffee with a steady finger—quite an accomplishment given her age.
Growing up in Branson had taught me that if you were going to sin, deflection was your first option, followed by denial; if that didn’t work, outright lying was your best defense. I smiled sweetly, the bitter aftertaste of coffee still strong on my tongue as I answered, “Hello, Mrs. Olsen! I haven’t seen you since before I left for college.”
“What’s in your cup?” she asked again. Apparently she’d taken it upon herself to police Branson’s coffee supply. “Because I know a good girl like you wouldn’t be drinking coffee.” She said it like the name alone could cause Armageddon.
I put a hand to my chest feigning shock. “Of course not!” I said. “It’s just a cup of hot chocolate to get me through the rest of the day.”
She squinted, regarding me with doubt. I must have passed her inspection though because after a minute she said, “You better be careful. Sinners never prosper. Just look at the dead sinner at the lake.”
My mouth fell open, stunned at Mrs. Olsen’s ability to pass judgment on the dead when she didn’t even know who the person was. “How do you know the person was a sinner?”
She gave me a look like she thought I was crazy. “They’re dead, aren’t they?”
I thought about pointing out that everyone dies, and she might be on her way there soon too, but there was really no point in arguing with such ridiculous logic.
“The devil drinks coffee,” she said, “and nobody likes the devil.” She narrowed an eye like she was contemplating whether I’d been recruited to Team Devil. When she came to a conclusion, she added, “I’ll be watchin’ you.” She stepped to the side, allowing me to pay for my drink. I’d need it. I had a purple pig and a possible murder to investigate.
I spent the next morning scattering clothes around my blue and gray IKEA decorated bedroom looking for something to wear. I eventually decided on a pair of black dress pants, a light pink camisole, and a black suit jacket. I needed to interview people about Chelsea today. I thought the outfit might elicit more information than my standard uniform of shorts and a tee shirt.
I padded across the hardwood floors in my lemon-yellow kitchen and pulled out some bread. I made some toast, topped it with peanut butter and honey, and ate the food while leaning against the sink. I gulped down a glass of milk before grabbing my stuff and locking the door on my way out.
As I pulled out of the detached garage, I surveyed my new house with satisfaction. Cream colored siding blended with royal blue trim around the windows. The front yard was adorned with boxwood shrubs, smoke bushes, and a rainbow of petunias. The house is about two-thousand square feet. When the landlady had told me it would only be five-hundred dollars a month to rent, my jaw dropped. Thanks to small town low rent prices, I hadn’t had to move back in with my parents.
It was ten o’clock when I pulled into a crumbled asphalt parking spot behind the red brick strip mall that houses The Branson Tribune. I opened the back door and walked inside carrying my “hot chocolate” thermos full of homemade, heavily creamed coffee with chocolate flavoring.
The Tribune office is decorated, if you can even call it that, with sage and lime green speckled high-traffic carpet and second-hand chipped desks. The area has an open layout with only two actual rooms. One room serves as the private office for the Tribune publisher, Spence. The other is the newspaper archive room, tucked into the back, east corner of the building.
I have my own desk in a corner of the main room directly across from Spence’s office door. From my desk, I can see the front counter where a few high school students work as part-time office assistants. There are three more desks scattered around the office for other reporters to use. I put my bag in my bottom drawer and turned my computer on. I could see another “hot chocolate” thermos on Spence’s desk, so I knew he’d already been in the office and had probably stepped out to get breakfast.
The night before I’d worked on a couple of stories about Chelsea: a news story about her death, and I’d started outlining a feature story about her life. I sent a quick email with the drafts for Spence to look over. I snapped my memory stick into the computer and downloaded all the photos I’d taken at the lake and the Crandall farm. I was sorting through the photos when our volunteer archivist, Ella James, walked in.
“Hey there, cutie,” she said with a smile. Ella is a petite seventy-five-year-old with bluish-white hair and amber eyes. Ella’s husband, Jay, had died of a stroke ten years ago. Ella started volunteering at the paper as a way to get out of the house. As the archivist, she spends her time filing old newspapers by the issue date. The archive allows Tribune staff to easily access the old issues and look up past story information. Most newspapers have archives online, but the Tribune isn’t quite that advanced. Ella doesn’t have a set schedule and I usually only see her a few times a week.
She put her “hot chocolate” thermos down on a desk as I eyed it suspiciously. I was beginning to think the “hot chocolate” thermos was just a cover and everyone really had coffee in there. I could probably investigate and blow the coffee-masquerading-as-hot-chocolate story wide open.
“Hi, Ella,” I said. “How are you today?”
“Still kickin’,” she answered. “Horrible news about Chelsea Bradford. I’m just sick over it.”
My mouth fell open. News in Branson travels fast, but I didn’t think Chelsea’s name had been released—apparently it had. “How did you know the name of the girl who died?”
“The Ladies called me.”
I leaned back in my chair, shaking my head. “I always forget you’re one of The Ladies. You’re so much nicer than the rest of them.”
“Oh, we get better with age. And they let me in by default because I came from family money and Jay was a doctor. If it wasn’t for that, I would’ve been kicked out a long time ago because I don’t follow their rules. I’m always tellin’ ’em what a bunch of crazy, entitled women they all are. Guess they don’t like hearin’ about their faults.” She leaned against one of the desks and took a sip of her “hot chocolate.” “The older Ladies are mellower though. Mostly, I just hang around them to hear the town gossip.”
I snickered. “I like you more every time I talk to you.”
“Stick with me, sweetie,” she said as she did a little dance that involved moving her hips more than I was comfortable with. “I know everything that goes on in this town.”
Ella went back to the archive room as Spence walked into the office. He was wearing his standard jeans-and-a-polo-shirt uniform and carrying a box of doughnuts from the local bakery, Frosted Paradise. Every time I looked at him, I couldn’t help thinking that Daniel Sunjata had stepped straight out of my Rescue Me fireman fantasies to act as the publisher of The Branson Tribune. With Spence’s dark skin, square jaw, dimples, and basketball player build, he and Daniel could be twins.
Spence is twenty-nine. He moved to Branson and took over as the Tribune publisher a few years ago. He’s young, but opportunities to buy into successful print newspaper businesses are rare. The only people embracing technology in Branson are under the age of thirty, so the Tribune is still profitable. Small town weekly newspapers are organized differently than large daily papers. Everyone wears a lot of hats, and even though I’m the editor and Spence is the publisher, we often work together on stories and ideas. Plus, one of us is always on-call in case any breaking news happens.
Spence set the pastry box on the table next to the mini-fridge. “If you have a doughnut in there with chocolate frosting and nuts, you’ll be my hero for at least a day,” I told him. He opened the p
ink box, tilting it so I could see a glazed doughnut with rich dark chocolate frosting on top and peanuts that had been chopped so fine, some of them had turned to dust. It was pastry perfection and one of my main motivations for moving back to Branson.
“Well then,” he said, “let me bring you a doughnut. I don’t want to miss my chance to be Superman.”
He handed me the doughnut with a napkin. I smiled as I took a bite of the delicious glazed bread. “So,” I said, licking chocolate and glaze from my fingers, “where do you keep your unitard, cape, and cute red underpants?”
The corner of Spence’s mouth twitched. “Wouldn’t you like to know.”
Spence and I had been engaging in mild flirtation since he offered me the editor job. Unfortunately for me and my Daniel Sunjata fantasies, the banter didn’t seem to be going anywhere . . . though I couldn’t exactly put my finger on why.
People in Branson constantly called Spence a menace to society for being older than twenty-five, still single, and one of the few non-Mormons in town. I’d heard The Ladies had tried to convert him and marry him off on many occasions, but he wasn’t interested in religion or matrimonial bliss. I was just glad to know I had something in common with at least one person in town.
I let my eyes dance playfully as I looked him up and down. “I’m awaiting the reveal with bated breath.” I took another bite of my doughnut. “I emailed you drafts of two articles about Chelsea. Were you able to find out anything about why she left Branson?”
Spence’s eyebrows knit together. “Not much.”
I took a drink from my thermos to wash down the frosted heaven I’d just eaten. Ella poked her head out of the archive room. “Chelsea left Branson five months ago.”
Spence and I both turned to stare at Ella as she sauntered out. She grabbed a plastic cup and poured a glass of water from the water cooler.
“Did you know her?” Spence asked Ella.
“Yeah, what else do you know about this?” I wondered.
Ella took a drink before answering, “Her parents yanked her out of school and kept tellin’ people she was visitin’ friends and travelin’, but she was gone a long time. If she was just visitin’ friends, that was one heck of a visit.”
“Huh, that’s strange,” I said.
“That’s what I thought,” Ella said, taking a doughnut and walking back into the archive room.
I leaned back in my chair, doodling on a piece of paper as I thought about Hawke’s suspicions that Chelsea didn’t actually drown. That, combined with the fact that she’d been away and then had suddenly shown up dead in Emerald Lake, made my reporter senses tingle. Maybe Hawke was right and there really was more to this story.
Spence and I spent the rest of the morning working together. This was a huge story for Branson and would be in the paper for weeks. We started outlining story angles to figure out which articles would need to be written first. Feature stories about Chelsea with interviews from her friends; the news story and follow-ups; an editorial about the tragic loss of someone so young. We had a few correspondents who helped cover stories for the various newspaper sections (Features, News, Sports). We assigned a few of the stories to them, but I would be covering the news related articles. To do that, I needed to interview Chelsea’s parents, but I wanted to give them time to grieve before having to deal with a reporter.
Just because I wasn’t talking to Chelsea’s family though, didn’t mean I couldn’t talk to people who had known her. At Chelsea’s age, school would have been the most important part of her life. Teachers often know more about what’s going on in a student’s life than their own parents. I thought Chelsea’s former teachers might have some insight into why she’d left town.
The school is open during the summer to accommodate people taking summer school classes. I decided that would be a good place to start my investigation. I grabbed my purse and took off for Branson Falls High School.
As I wound through the halls of my alma mater, I was hit with the familiar smell of lemon-scented cleaner and new paint—part of the maintenance that was done on the school every summer to get the building ready for a new year and new students.
A cute girl with curly strawberry blonde hair and a heart-shaped face sat behind the front desk of the main office.
“Hi,” I said with a disarming smile. “I was wondering if I could talk to someone on the faculty about a former student. Her name was Chelsea Bradford.”
The girl’s eyes got wide for a second before she glanced down at her desk. I wondered if she’d heard about Chelsea’s death. “We can’t give information about students to anyone but their family members.”
“You can’t even tell me when she left?”
Her light lashes blinked several times in quick succession, and she held her bottom lip with her front teeth. She seemed upset, but answered in a quiet voice, “We’re not supposed to.”
She must have known Chelsea. I didn’t want to cause her more distress. “Is there anyone I can talk to about it?”
“Kate Saxee?” I heard a voice ask. I turned around to find my old high school counselor, Martha Chester. Her blonde hair was highlighted and she wore it wrapped in a chignon at the back of her neck. She was around six feet tall. Before I started at Branson Falls High, she had coached the girls basketball team. She still looked like she could run circles around the kids she taught. She gave me a hug and smiled.
“How are you, Mrs. Chester?” No matter how old I got, I would never be able to shake the habit of calling people older than me Mr. and Mrs.
“You’re not in high school anymore. You can call me Martha.”
“Thanks, Mrs. Ch—I mean, Martha.”
“What are you doing at the school? Is there a story you’re working on?”
“Actually, there is. I’m looking for some information about a former student—Chelsea Bradford.”
Martha gave me a look that indicated I shouldn’t say more. “Her parents pulled her out of school so she could travel. It was a great opportunity for her,” she paused. “You know, you’re one of the only alumni of Branson High to go to Gretna University,” she said. “I’d love to hear more about your experience there so I can tell other students what to expect from a small liberal arts college.”
I took the hint to stay quiet about Chelsea. “Sure, any time.”
“Why don’t we go to my office and talk? We can set up a time for you to talk to some of the seniors about the college and what it’s like to be a newspaper editor.”
“That sounds great,” I said, following Martha to the counseling center.
Once we were safely inside her office, Martha shut the door and pressed her lips together. “I’m sorry for the brush off in the main office, but I didn’t want anyone to hear this,” she said. “I really shouldn’t talk about it, but given what happened to her—” Martha broke off and took a deep breath. Clearly, she’d also heard about Chelsea’s death. Word spreads fast in a small town.
I sat in a chair across from her desk. “I understand if you can’t give me details. I was just hoping you could tell me a little about why she left.” I took a notebook and pen from my purse.
Martha sat, absently picking at non-existent lint on her pants. After what seemed like an hour, she looked at me. “I’m telling you this as a neighbor. This is just local gossip among friends. Do you understand?”
I nodded. “I won’t use your name and I always keep my sources confidential.” Truly, I was happy to have a story in Branson worthy of a confidential source.
“Chelsea was a senior and only four months away from graduating when her parents suddenly pulled her out of school. They said she had the opportunity to travel with friends and that she’d get her GED instead.”
“Why would her parents do that?” I asked, shaking my head. “Wouldn’t they want her to have a high school diploma?”
Martha raised her shoulders in an, I-give-up gesture. “It’s not the first crazy thing I’ve seen parents in this town do when it comes to their
kids, and it won’t be the last.”
“Were you Chelsea’s counselor?”
Martha nodded.
“Did you talk to her before she left?”
Martha nodded again.
“Do you know the real reason her parents pulled her out of school right before graduation?”
Martha looked out the window for several moments. “Chelsea was one of the popular girls. She was on the dance team, the yearbook staff, and had boys trailing after her like she was the only girl on earth. The weird thing was that she never really seemed interested in those boys. I heard rumors that she’d been dating someone though.”
I wrinkled my brow. “Who?”
“The rumors going around indicated he was the son of some sort of politician.”
“Do you know the name of the politician or his son?”
Martha shook her head. “Like I said, it was just a rumor. I never found out a name. Chelsea was pretty private when it came to her personal life.”
I tapped my pen against the arm of the wood chair I was sitting in. “I just don’t understand why her parents would take her out of school?”
“I wish they would have given me a better explanation. I tried to find out more, but they wouldn’t go into detail.”
“Do you think her parents would talk to me if I asked them about it?”
Martha shrugged. “They might, but it doesn’t mean they’ll tell you the truth.”
“Why would they lie?”
“The whole situation was fishy. I don’t know the reason they pulled Chelsea out of school, but I don’t think it was just to travel. You know how important perceptions are in this town. People will do almost anything to maintain their status.”
I nodded as I put my notebook and pen back in my bag. Since Branson was founded in 1873, townspeople had been judged by four things: the size of their home; how much money they made; how expensive their clothes were; and most importantly, if they were Mormon and went to church every week. It didn’t matter if they actually followed the teachings of the church, what mattered was that it looked like they did. I zipped my bag shut. “Thanks for your help Mrs. Ches—Martha,” I smiled in apology. “I know you shouldn’t have spoken with me, but I appreciate the information.”
