by David Stout
The latest story said the kidnapping had drawn dozens of reporters to Long Creek, “once a thriving rail, coal, and steel center but for decades a decaying rust-belt town” that wasn’t used to that much attention from the outside world.
Sure, Fran thought. He had lived in the state long enough to know what that meant: Long Creek (and most of Hill County, for that matter) was isolated and didn’t care much for strangers. And the cops were reputed to be a bunch of bad-tempered head knockers.
Well, Fran thought, I ought to be able to handle this. Hell, I was a pretty good police reporter once. He put on his coat and headed for the coffee shop. He would get a couple of sandwiches to eat on the way.
One of Ryan’s assistants approached. “Don’t give me any new problems,” Ryan said.
“Relax,” said the assistant, a tired-looking middle-ager. “I just need to bounce some schedule changes off you.”
“Yeah? Well, there’s gonna be some more.” Ryan told his assistant about the encounter with the publisher.
“Shit,” the assistant said, “we’re supposed to pinch pennies. By logic, that means covering a kidnapping a couple of hundred miles away with the wire services. Yes?”
“Yes. Only now, the publisher wants to play newspaper. So we’re sending our own reporter.”
“Well, who’re you gonna send?”
“He’s sent already. Spicer.”
“Fran Spicer? Jeez, are you sure…?”
“How the hell can I be sure of anything?” Ryan snapped.
“I figured Spicer was our best bet to down-hold on the expenses and not screw up too bad. He still owes me, and he remembers. I didn’t come down too hard on him the last time he went off the wagon, after all.”
The assistant frowned and nodded. “Did you ask Will Shafer?” Shafer was the executive editor.
“Hell, no. He’s taking a long holiday. Publisher comes up to me and lays the problem in my lap, I gotta come up with something.”
“Hmmm. I just hope Fran doesn’t stop someplace on his way there, if you get my drift.”
“Yeah, I get your drift. Speaking of that, what do you say we head across the street for a little holiday-eve cheer.”
About the only thing that still worked reliably in Spicer’s car was the heater. He was thankful for that as he drove into the evening, catching a look now and then at the pink and purple sunset in the mirror. He had driven through traces of snow on the outskirts of Bessemer, and there was no telling if there was more ahead. The weather was likely to deal a lot of surprises this time of year: sixty degrees one day, thirty the next.
What had Ry said about getting a nice meal on Thanksgiving? “If I can find one,” Spicer whispered. The sandwiches from the coffee shop had been filling without being satisfying.
The more he thought about it, the more pissed he was at Ryan, and himself. The editor had just assumed that he had no Thanksgiving plans. Well, he didn’t—not exactly—but he had been looking forward to watching football. He liked to call Mark at halftime and talk about the game. A little father-son chat about football was good. At least his mother didn’t try to stand in the way of that, the bitch. Fran was proud: His ten-year-old son had a better head for football than a lot of high school kids.
Up ahead, Spicer saw an exit sign and on a hill to the right a big sign for a gas station. He would stop now; no telling where he’d be able to get gas tomorrow.
He pulled up to a self-service pump, put ten dollars’ worth into the tank, went inside to pay the attendant and use the john. Coming out, he saw a bar on the other side of the road not quite a hundred yards away. It was a low, dark structure. The cars out front were tacky-looking (Some are as bad as mine, Spicer thought ruefully). The very shabbiness of the place, especially its pink neon beer sign, was inviting. Spicer could almost taste the first jolt of peppermint schnapps, followed by that first long gulp of cold beer cutting through the sweetness.
Our Father, who art in heaven. Our Father…
Just in time, Fran got into the car and drove back onto the highway. He deliberately avoided looking into the rearview mirror.
The next time Fran felt the thirst, he was on the two-lane to Long Creek, just after he’d gotten off the expressway. It came without warning, as it usually did, although Fran thought it might have something to do with having seen the friendly-looking bar earlier in the evening.
With the thirst in his throat, he drove toward Long Creek. Once, he saw a white-tailed deer cross the road. He saw the creature’s eyes in his headlights for an instant. Then the vision was gone.
Fran Spicer pressed on, into the gloom. The thirst was still with him, and his palms felt moist in his gloves. I’m getting such a bad case of nerves, I’ll be lucky to sleep tonight, he thought.
The more he thought about it, the more he thought Ryan had been a son of a bitch. How many goddamn years had he been at the Gazette, and how many good stories had he done out of the courthouse and city hall and the school board? Too many to count. It was the things you couldn’t control…
Our Father, who art in heaven.
He slowed down when he saw the liquor store by the road. He would be right in Long Creek in another twenty minutes or so. Probably need something to get to sleep with.
The cheap whiskey and port wine were displayed on a front counter.
“Cold out there,” Fran said. “Looks like snow.”
“You’re in luck,” the owner said. “Five more minutes and I woulda been closed.”
The thirst was galloping now. Fran’s heart was beating so fast, he was pretty sure he’d need help getting to sleep. He picked up a bottle of peppermint schnapps and a six-pack of beer. “Get me through the weekend,” Fran said, afraid that the owner had noticed the tremble in his voice and in his hands as Fran handed him a twenty.
But the owner, middle-aged and bored, scarcely looked at him as he rang up the purchase and slid the change over the counter.
“Thanks,” Fran said. “Have a good holiday.”
“You need any cups?” the owner said.
“No.” Fran thought that was a snotty thing for him to say, but he didn’t feel like telling him off. Why bother?
It had been some years since Fran had been to Long Creek, and the stretch from the interstate was longer than he had remembered. He was getting too old for long drives; his nerves would really be shot by the time he got there.
He had the thirst, all right, but he was pretty sure he could hold out until he got to Long Creek. He would be tired by then. Sure, that would be all right, to have a couple of drinks to help him get to sleep. The sun never came up on a day he couldn’t handle a story, especially a good police story, with a little something inside him.
Several minutes passed between the sets of headlights going the other way. Ahead, on the other side of the road, he saw a low concrete building: some kind of shop or garage. He could see a driveway leading around to the back. He slowed down, turned into the driveway, braked sharply.
Fran sat in the dark, his engine still going, as he stared into the oasis of light his high beams dug out of the blackness. He could feel his heart beating faster. The thirst was rising up in his throat. Our Father, who art in heaven.
He switched his lights onto low beam and drove slowly along the narrow driveway. When he reached the end of the building, he saw that the driveway turned sharply, forming a small parking lot at the rear.
Fran Spicer pulled behind the rear of the building, turned off the lights, cut the engine. He was alone in pitch-darkness. It was good that he was out of sight from the road. For God’s sake, if he did decide to have something before he got to Long Creek, he had to be out of sight of any cop.
Oh, Jesus. Our Father, who art in heaven.
Fran reached for the bag that held the schnapps and the six-pack. His fingers clawed at the paper, found the schnapps bottle. Could he still change his mind? Our Father…
Four
“No!” The boy’s outburst came from pure anguish.
“No, don’t!” the boy pleaded.
Another chuckle, softened only a little by compassion.
“No, no, no!” The boy was getting worse by the second.
His father only laughed. “What did I tell you, Brendan. Every time he tries to scramble, he gets sacked.”
Will Shafer sipped his beer and nibbled at his second slice of mincemeat pie. The neighbors who had come for dinner were gone. Will was thoroughly enjoying himself, eating leftovers and watching a football game on the big-screen TV in the basement rec room.
“No!”
“Easy, son. You almost knocked your sandwich on the floor.” Will was pleased: His son, soon to be twelve, wasn’t much of an athlete, especially compared with his youngster sister, Cass, but at least the boy was learning to enjoy some sports.
“Third and fifteen,” the boy complained. “Oh, man.…”
“Brendan, they need a quarterback with a couple of good legs. What’s his name’s too old.”
“He’s not that old. Is he? There! Run! See!”
“Fourth and nine. Thirty-three is old for a quarterback.”
“That’s not as old as you.”
“Not by a long shot. But it’s old for a quarterback. His future is behind him.”
“What’s that mean?”
“It means I feel like another beer.”
The rec room phone rang but stopped after one ring. That meant Karen had answered it upstairs.
“Will!” Karen shouted.
Will Shafer turned down the TV and picked up the phone. Please, God, don’t let it be Lyle Glanford. He had managed to forget all about the paper today. Shafer’s relationship with the Bessemer Gazette’s publisher had been tense lately.
“Will, it’s Tom Ryan. Look, I’m sorry to bother you at home. It’s about Fran Spicer.”
Damn, Will thought. Fran must have fallen off the wagon again, with a crash. “What is it, Ry?”
“He’s hurt real bad, Will. He’s in the hospital.”
“What happened?”
“Auto accident, Will.” Nervous pause. “He was on assignment.”
“On assignment? I thought he was taking a long Thanksgiving weekend.”
“He was, originally. But I needed, I mean, Mr. Glanford came up to me and…”
“Just tell me what happened, Ry. What’s Fran’s condition?”
“Critical, Will. He’s in intensive care, so he’s automatically listed as critical. But it sounds really serious.”
“Damn. He’s in Bessemer General?”
“Uh, no. He’s over in Hill County, actually.”
“Hill County? On assignment?” Now Will was flabbergasted. “Fill me in, Ry.”
Will stuck a finger into one ear to blot out his son’s groans and cushion poundings, and pressed the receiver hard to the other ear. Patiently, Will listened to Tom Ryan’s account, which was heavy on what the publisher had decreed, or what Tom Ryan thought he had decreed. Ryan even used one of the publisher’s favorite verbs, down-hold.
“Jeez, Will. I had to send him. There was no one else.”
“Okay, Ry. Okay. We’ll just have to make sure he’s treated okay.”
“He’s in Long Creek Regional, Will.”
“All right. Someone will have to…” Will paused, shook his head. “I mean, I’ll make a call and see that he has what he needs. Do we know anything about what happened?”
“Took a curve too fast, Will. Sideswiped another car. The driver, a young woman, she was banged up a little. Fran, uh, it seems he was drinking, Will. They found booze in the car.”
Will felt very sad. “Okay, Ry. Thanks for calling. I’ll get in touch with the hospital to see that Fran has what he needs.”
“Uh, Will. One more thing. Should we send flowers?”
Will smiled, but ruefully. “Sure, Ry. I’ll approve the bill myself.”
Shafer hung up, slumped in his chair. He was all but oblivious to the sounds of the game. He was sad over Fran Spicer and angry at Tom Ryan for sending him to Hill County. The sad truth was that Fran Spicer was the worst-possible choice for such an assignment. A major crime story, especially one that was still developing, required a reporter of resourcefulness and energy and good judgment. Fran had had all those qualities, once.
“But that was a lot of drinks ago,” Will said softly.
“What?”
“Nothing, son. Just talking to myself.”
The phone rang again. Will went to the foot of the stairs and hollered up. “Karen, can you please get that? I’m not here, okay? I don’t feel like talking to anyone right now.”
After a few minutes, Karen called down and said she needed to talk to him. Will went up to the kitchen.
“That was Lyle Glanford,” she said. “Something about Fran Spicer being hurt real bad?”
“Yes, that’s what the first call was about. He was in a wreck over near Long Creek. A bad one.”
“Oh, I’m sorry. The publisher wanted to be sure you knew about it. He said you should call him if you had any questions about what he wanted you to do.”
“Damn.” Will knew what that meant, and what he had to do. He dialed the publisher’s home number.
“Will?” the publisher said.
“Lyle, I just heard about Fran. Terrible.”
“Yes, it is. What the hell did Ry have in mind, sending him over there?”
A voice in Will wanted to say, Why don’t you ask him? He got his job by kissing your ass.
“Will?”
“I’m sure Ry had to make a spur-of-the-moment decision, Lyle.”
“Hmph. Well, it’s done. Will, we need someone over there to look after him.”
Ah yes, Will thought. The paternalistic publisher. And who might that “someone” be?
“Will, we just have to.…”
“I understand, Lyle.” Will said good-bye and hung up.
Will’s job had not been secure lately (at least that was the feeling he had been getting), partly for reasons beyond his control. He knew he might have to leave Bessemer someday, and he knew in his heart that he could cut it in a bigger city, but he wasn’t ready to do it now. And he certainly wasn’t ready to quit the Gazette. There were a lot of reasons; two of the simplest were the new furnace and the braces on his daughter’s teeth. Damn, he wouldn’t get to say good-bye to her, because she was at a friend’s house.
Will went upstairs and packed an overnight bag. An hour later, he was on the highway, heading toward Long Creek. He was on edge, probably from the coffee Karen had made him just before he left. She insisted that he needed a jolt to minimize the danger of falling asleep at the wheel after too much to eat and two or three beers.
His wife was right, Will realized as he drove into the night. Ruefully, he thought that Long Creek had caused him plenty of trouble even before this latest, unexpected event. Long Creek had been a target of several on-again, off-again circulation drives by Will’s paper.
Will had long argued that the Bessemer Gazette could make real gains in and around Long Creek. The cities nearest to Long Creek were Binghamton and Elmira, and neither paper in those communities had done much to court Long Creek readers. Perhaps that was because both Elmira and Binghamton looked down on Long Creek. Elmira and Binghamton were relatively prosperous, having more or less made the change from economies based on heavy industry to ones founded on services and high-tech products.
Long Creek had never made that adjustment. Some of it was due to a lack of political leadership, and some of it may have had to do with Long Creek’s location: stuck in a rocky valley, with not that many good roads in or out in any direction (decades before, the city fathers had staked Long Creek’s future on rail transport), and those roads apt to be snowed in from December through March.
In any event, New York State’s other major papers had done precious little in Long Creek, whose own community paper was parochial and pathetically boosterish. Time and again, Will had argued w
ith the Gazette’s publisher that the paper might as well try to win some Long Creek readers; after all, the Albany papers weren’t, and neither were the Rochester papers.
Besides, Will had argued, a dying city like Long Creek, with aging politicians and labor leaders (often, they were the same) and probably more than a little corruption, was a wonderful opportunity for three or four aggressive reporters. The Gazette might win some prizes as well as readers.
Depending on his mood and the latest balance sheet, the Gazette’s publisher, Lyle Glanford, was more or less persuaded by Will’s arguments. Unfortunately, building circulation in an area required patience and commitment, not a stop-and-start effort, and the Gazette had never stationed any reporters in Long Creek full-time.
When the Bessemer Gazette showed signs of doing well in Long Creek, the publisher seemed to think the circulation had been his idea. “And when things go lousy, it was all my idea,” Will said aloud. “What could be fairer than that?”
Five
He paused on the hill to look back at the tracks left by his snowshoes and the sled bearing the Christmas tree. His legs were pleasantly warm from the uphill trek, and the air tasted cold and pure. All around him, it was still, and the sun was setting through a gap in the pines over the ridge that lay ahead of him.
Usually, the sunset at this time of year was a faded peach; this evening, there was more orange in it, and he wondered why. He would tell Jo about it. Maybe she was watching the sunset right now. He hoped so; it would be almost gone by the time he got to the cabin.
Happiness filled his chest when he thought of the cabin. Jo would have the fire going just right (she built better fires than he did), and she had been baking bread when he left to find a tree. He had been gone longer than he’d expected, and the bread would be done by now. Just the thought of it made him smile so broadly that the frost on his beard and mustache crinkled. Could there be a better night to eat warm bread by a warm fire? He would sip whiskey (standing in the cold, he could almost smell it, feel it in his throat), would cut some of Jo’s bread into pieces to dip in the beef stew that had been simmering all day. Later, he would gently rub Jo’s belly, where the baby was growing. They would name it Jason; it would be a boy. He knew it.
