Savage Heart

by M. G Scott

“Look Gregory, I’m moving on.”

  “But ‘Gin. I love you. I need you … badly. I’ve told you that a hundred times.”

  “Yeah, and you’ve also been abusive a tenth of that.”

  “I’m going to counseling,” he replied defensively. “You know that.” Gina sensed the tension in his voice.

  “Then what do you call your state of mind now? You sound like a wreck.”

  “Grief.”

  “I’d call it desperation.”

  “I’ve got to talk to you. I’m coming over right now. … And I don’t plan on going anywhere.”

  “The hell you are. I’m done with you … and the alcohol. I’m moving on … to a life that doesn’t include you.” She spat the last few words for effect.

  He breathed heavily into the phone. “You’re right,” he said more calmly. “I am a wreck. But it’s because I don’t know what to do.”

  Gina rolled her eyes. “I don’t care what—”

  “It’s my sister. She’s just been diagnosed with cardiomyopathy.”

  She paused, trying to register if he was being truthful or just saying whatever would put her defenses down. She had become close to Blair over the past few years and almost thought of her as a sister. But somehow she had the feeling he was playing games with her. “You’re full of shit.”

  “You don’t believe me?” Anger was clearly in his voice. “Why the hell would I make up something like that on my sister?”

  “I don’t know. Nothing surprises me with you.”

  “Please! Let me come over.”

  “What don’t you get? I don’t want to see you again!” Gina threw the phone down and ran into her bedroom. Tears dribbled down her cheek as she sat on her bed. She swiped at her eyes, pushing away the tears and hopefully the last emotional outburst with Gregory. She looked around the room and her eyes settled on the photograph next to her bed. It was from Costa Rica. A getaway her fiancé had surprised her with. She had her arms wrapped around him as tight as love would allow.

  What could’ve been better than spending the week with the man she loved? Breaking up, she answered to herself.

  Enough was enough. His anger—while he always apologized for it later after sleeping off the alcohol—stirred a collage of emotion that made her physically and emotionally tired every time it happened. She just refused to deal with it anymore. She would take the earrings to a pawn shop and see what she could get for them, she decided, and she would do it tonight.

  Gina pushed herself up. Suddenly, lightheadedness rushed through her. She started walking toward the end of the bed, but she clumsily stumbled along the way. Feeling as if she wasn’t going to make it to the doorway, she reached out, hoping to grab the bedcover. When her hand finally found the fabric, she slumped back onto the soft queen-sized bed. She turned toward the bright window, hoping the incoming light would stimulate her eyes.

  But it didn’t do any good.

  The helpless feeling that the world was collapsing in on her scared her. Thinking she didn’t have but a few seconds before passing out, Gina leaned back on the pillow and closed her eyes.

  “Why is this happening to me?” she whispered to herself.

  Before she could answer her own question, darkness folded in on her.

  Chapter 4

  Sabrina sighed as she looked around the sparse newspaper office located in downtown Neskowin.

  She was already in trouble.

  Barely twenty-four hours into her new job she was already at odds with her editor and boss, James Blogg. He had been a little, okay a lot, irritated that she had showed up late her first day on the job. But what was she supposed to do? A body washed ashore. She wasn’t just going to ignore it.

  That face.

  She just couldn’t shake it from her memory. His eyes, frozen with the agony of his last moments, left a quirky impression on her. She didn’t know a thing about him but would he really take his own life? It was probable of course, but there was something about him that suggested it wasn’t an accident or a suicide … but a homicide.

  She was sure of it.

  James Blogg surged through the door carrying a camera in one hand and a binder of papers in the other. Sweat was rolling off his broad chin onto his shirt and loosely wrapped tie. It was still jacket weather—a late spring chill had come in from the Pacific—but he obviously didn’t need one. He glanced at Sabrina as he headed to his office and then stopped. He turned around and walked up to her makeshift desk.

  “I like the copy you sent over,” Blogg stated. “Nice start to the career.”

  Her piece focused on the statue sitting near the beachfront. After her run yesterday, she decided to revisit why the town had honored Little Johnny with a statue. What she found out from interviewing an old-timer townsperson as well as searching the newspaper archives made her glad she picked it as a first article. Little Johnny became a hero one night and paid the ultimate price for his bravery. Back in the 1930s, there was a nunnery that had started on fire, and Little Johnny, no more than twelve at the time, had run into the nunnery where fifty young women slept. Unfortunately, six died and he was one of them, but he had become a hero for how many he saved. No doubt there had been many stories written about the statue in the past, but her goal was to make it different by showing the human side of Johnny.

  “Thank you,” she replied. “I guess we’ll learn soon enough whether the readers like it or not.” Sabrina looked at his round face with black disheveled hair tossed every which way on his balding head. He wasn’t for a moment attractive, but his reasonable tone almost made her forget the fight they had yesterday. “I didn’t expect a compliment from you so soon after we spent the afternoon yelling at each other.”

  He hunched over her desk. “Let me tell you something Sabrina. One thing you’ll soon learn about my style is I don’t dwell on the past,” Blogg said in one breath. “We’ve all got jobs to do. Making a small-town newspaper succeed is damn hard enough without us fighting about it.”

  Sabrina flashed a smile. “I’ll take that as a suggestion to get to work on my next story.”

  Blogg tossed the camera he had been holding onto her lap. “Not so fast. You’re not done yet. I said it was a nice start. But I need more.”

  She stared at the camera. “A picture? I thought it was ready to go.”

  “Nothing’s ever ready in the newspaper business. And yeah, I need a picture of the statue you wrote about in the article … down by the water.”

  “I know where it is,” she shot back. “I’m a reporter, not a staff photographer.”

  A laugh ruptured from his belly. “That’s the funniest thing I’ve heard all day. If I had a staff photographer, I’d use ‘em. You keep this up and you can be my staff comedian too.”

  “I’m serious.”

  He grimaced. “Sabrina, let me give you one piece of advice. We all have to roll up our sleeves and pitch in. It’s the price we pay for making this small-town paper work.”

  She turned the camera over. “I don’t know how to use—”

  He cut her off. “I’m sure you’ll figure it out.” Blogg stood straight. “Now if you’ll excuse me, I’ve got a paper to run.” He headed toward his glass-framed office no more than twenty feet from her desk.

  She refused to leave until she knew what happened yesterday. “Have you heard from the coroner yet on the body?”

  Blogg stopped cold in his tracks and turned around. He flipped the binder he had been carrying onto an empty desk and pointed to it. “It’s all right there. They ruled it an accident.” He then walked into his office and closed the door.

  She glanced at the bound report and wondered if he meant it was okay for her to read it. Thinking that’s exactly what he meant, she leaped from her chair and collected the binder before sitting back down.

  Final Report of Autopsy—Coroner Case Number 92-18048, Sabrina read on the cover. This is it, she thought. But why would Blogg have it? Then she realized he was probably researching the report for a fol
low up article in tomorrow’s paper. She turned the page where the coroner had summarized the results. Sure enough, Blogg was right. The coroner had ruled the death an accident.

  Sabrina continued reading. The body was a Caucasian male. He was about six feet two and a hundred eighty pounds. He had sandy-blond hair with one recognizable feature on his body: a missing toe on his left foot—the third Distal Phalange to be exact. The coroner wrote, based on how the foot healed, that it was a childhood accident, possibly from his teenage years. The coroner concluded he died twelve hours before washing ashore. That meant there was nothing she could’ve done to save him. She counted back with her fingers—that would put his death on Sunday evening. All the abrasions and markings on his body were due to the trip down the ocean shoreline and there were no signs of foul play anywhere on the body. Blood samples indicated the presence of alcohol only.

  The last paragraph made her pause. While autopsying the heart, the coroner found ventricular fibrillation had occurred. The coroner ended the report by concluding the cause of death was sudden death caused by cardiac arrest.

  So it definitely wasn’t suicide as the detective ruled out. But it wasn’t a homicide either. And somehow, he had ended up in the water after his heart stopped. Seems odd, she thought. She wondered if he often went down by the ocean’s edge on a Sunday evening.

  She shook her head. Why did this case bother her so much?

  Whether it was suicide or an accident, it just didn’t seem realistic to her. She obviously didn’t know the man but why be standing near the ocean on a Sunday night? The problem was, she only knew one part of the truth—the hours after he died. And that urge to find his side of the story just wouldn’t leave her.

  Maybe it had something to do with her sister’s death. She felt like a powerless bystander when her sister was tragically killed—and guilt that she could’ve done more to save her. Although her sister lived with her in their cozy two bedroom apartment along Manhattan’s upper side, they were both busy with their lives—Sabrina as a fledging chef at the top of her class in culinary school and her sister a successful marketing executive. But somehow, on that devastating night, she had been so caught up in her own life that she walked right by the killer and didn’t notice a thing. It made her sick with guilt that she dropped out of school and started drifting through life. She kept telling herself there was no way she could’ve known that man was the killer, but it didn’t do any good.

  To this day, the killer has never been found.

  Sabrina grabbed the phone and dialed the Lincoln City Police Department. She needed to get the detective’s take on the report and see if he believed what the coroner concluded.

  “Lincoln City Police Department. How can I help you?” a woman’s voice said.

  “Yes. This is Sabrina Katz. I was the one who found the body on the beach yesterday and I’d like to speak with the detective on the case?” She kicked herself for not remembering his name.

  “Oh? Yes, let me get him right away.”

  While Sabrina waited, she grabbed a pencil. After a ten second pause, the detective’s voice could be heard. “Hello? This is Detective Sam Urbina. Who am I speaking with?”

  “Detective Urbina, this is Sabrina Katz—the reporter you met yesterday morning up here in Neskowin.”

  “Yes, I remember. The New Yorker.”

  “I’m calling about the body—”

  The detective cut her off. “Look, this is the third call I’ve received today on this. The coroner issued her report and as far as I’m concerned, the case is closed.”

  “Oh?” Sabrina responded, surprised. “So that’s it? No more investigation?”

  A pause. “Look, Ms. Katz. The coroner ruled it an accident so I washed my hands of it.”

  “I don’t get the sense you believe that. Maybe it’s my women’s intuition.”

  A sigh. “We’re not going to start that again. … Are we?”

  “Am I right? Does that mean you think it could be a homicide?”

  Another pause. “It was his eyes. There was something about them that seemed to suggest he knew this was coming. The report said he had a heart attack and fell in the water. If that’s what it’s ruled, then we’ll go with it. I’ve got five other investigations I’m doing and if I can get one off my plate, the others will be all the better for it.”

  She jotted down his comment. “So you think it could be foul play?”

  “Don’t go there, Ms. Katz. I don’t want any quotes showing up in the newspaper based on speculation.”

  She smiled. At least he was warming to her thoughts. “Have you had any contact with next of kin?”

  “Nothing.”

  “No missing persons report has cropped up?”

  “We’re still working that. Given it’s been in the paper now, we expect somebody will come forward and ID the body.” A pause. “Nice work on the article, by the way.”

  “I didn’t write it,” she replied flatly.

  “Oh? Well, tell whoever did that it was a fine write-up.”

  “I’ll see what I can do,” she lied. “Thank you for your time, Detective.”

  “Any time.”

  She put the phone down and looked at the words she had written. The phrase “something in his eyes” seemed to draw her attention. She circled it and then wrote homicide next to it with a question mark. She didn’t have any proof, and maybe she was going down a rat hole, but it just seemed plausible to her.

  Her thoughts were interrupted by a heavily bearded man storming into the small office. He wore a flannel shirt and a pair of old jeans that were shredded along the cuff line. He took a peek at Sabrina’s petite figure curled up on the chair, grunted, and slumped into the desk next to her.

  Sabrina took a sip from her Diet Coke and followed his body language. “Having a bad day?”

  He flipped on his laptop computer, ignoring Sabrina’s question.

  She pushed herself away from the desk and stuck her hand out. “I’m Sabrina Katz.”

  He didn’t bother looking at her. “I remember Blogg mentioning we were going to have a new beat writer … doing puppy dog stories. I almost hung up the phone I was laughing so hard. ‘In Neskowin?’ I said. He said he knew what I was thinking but that’s the way it was going to be. ‘We did a survey and if that’s what the readers want, that’s what they’ll get.’ ” His voice was gruff and raspy, as if he were a three-pack-a-day smoker.

  What an ass. “I don’t think I’m going anywhere. So you might want to extend a welcome.”

  He slowly turned his head. “Look lady, don’t get sassy with me. The editor hired you, but that doesn’t mean we have to accept it.”

  “What do you mean ‘we’?”

  “Us. The staff. You’re going to be nothing but a nuisance.”

  That hurt. “I do have a name, you know. It’s—”

  He looked through her eyes, as if he could see everything she was thinking. “Listen lady, I don’t give a damn.” He slammed the lid down on his laptop and pushed away from his desk. “Now if you’ll excuse me.” He walked out of the office and disappeared into the sun-bleached afternoon.

  Sabrina slumped back into her chair. Now she was getting it. She wasn’t exactly being welcomed with open arms at the Beacon. And she didn’t know why. Why were they so against her? Did they feel threatened by the only woman on the payroll?

  The door squeaked open. It was the same Beacon employee returning with a cup of coffee. He stepped into the office and leaned against the milky-white framed window.

  She glared at him, wanting to confront him with both fists flying.

  “Why do you have to be such a jerk?” Sabrina blurted.

  He shrugged. “Life is what it is.”

  “So I mean nothing to you?”

  “Only if you stay out of my way.”

  She felt confused and angry at the same time. “Out of your way from what?”

  “From us doing our jobs. We have hard news we need to track down and I don’t want
some gardening story getting in the way of the real stories.”

  She was livid. “I guess had you been doing your job then Blogg wouldn’t have brought me in. But apparently that wasn’t the case.” She held up the coroner’s report. “Had you been doing your job then why am I getting so many calls about the poor reporting you did on the body that was found yesterday.” Sabrina knew it was a lie—even the detective said it was a good story—but she was intent on stoking the fire as much as possible.

  He glared back at her. “What the hell are you talking about? The facts are all there for our readers.”

  She held up the coroner’s report. “You wrote about the body and the circumstances. Big deal. I can read that from what the coroner said. What about a follow up?”

  The reporter grunted. “Follow up? This isn’t an exposé. It’s an article based on the facts and the facts are what they are. It’s one and done.”

  “Don’t you think you should be investigating a bit further? Maybe where the victim came from? What his family and career were like?”

  The reporter lurched forward, grabbing for the report. “Ever hear of minding your own business?” he hissed.

  Sabrina pulled away. “Not so fast lumberjack.”

  Blogg’s office door flew open. “What the hell is going on out here? I bet our neighbor three doors down can hear your damn voices.”

  “I told you we were going to have problems, Jim,” the reporter replied. “You bring in a know-it-all reporter who thinks she knows how to write a hard story and this is what we end up with.”

  Blogg eyed the two of them. “If I wanted to babysit five-year-olds, I would’ve gotten a job as a kindergarten teacher. So the two of you better get your act together or you’ll both be gone.” He pulled the coroner’s report from Sabrina’s hands. “And you need to back down Sabrina. You’re not an investigative reporter.” He was clearly ticked.

  “Don’t the readers want a little more than just the facts about a body?” Sabrina shot back. She was not going to back down, especially when she didn’t even start this fight.

  Blogg banged his fist on a table. “Look, that’s what I’ve got Getty for.” He flipped a finger in Getty’s direction. “That’s why he’s here, and he’s not going anywhere.”