Bubbles Ablaze

by Sarah Strohmeyer

  Until I found his one weakness.

  But in the end what had it mattered? Metzger had flown off to Central America and died in a plane crash, and that was that. No prosecution. No compensation for his victims. Within weeks Metzger’s crimes were reduced to quaint, legendary tales. And somewhere my newspaper articles were yellowing with age, waiting to be committed to cyberspace and thrown in the incinerator.

  Like they say in the newsroom, you’re only as good as yesterday’s story. Well, today was tomorrow’s yesterday and I had better shape up, like Mama said.

  Already a press conference was underway. Dolled-up TV reporters with their severely plucked eyebrows, bright lips and impeccable hair faced Donohue and two men I didn’t recognize. One was in a navy blue windbreaker that read MEDICAL EXAMINER on the back. The other was a business-suited type.

  I searched the crowd for Stiletto, but he was nowhere to be seen. The other reporters wouldn’t let me get closer to the podium, so I was forced to the back of the crowd where it was impossible to see or hear bupkis. Can you say loser?

  “Loser,” said a nasal voice. “Those big-city reporters make me feel like such a loser.”

  A reporter with curly brown hair, black glasses and a press pass that said MYRON FINKLE, SLAGVILLE SENTINEL was by my side. He was no taller than my shoulder and the sheen of his tan shirt, along with his baggy pants, indicated that the Slagville Sentinel didn’t pay very well.

  He squinted at the press pass around my neck. “Lehigh News-Times? Where’s that?”

  “About an hour or so from here,” I whispered, trying to catch what Donohue was saying. “Lots of folks in Lehigh come from Slagville. Steel and all.”

  “Oh, yeah. The Lehigh Valley Railroad runs through town. Guess there’s a coal connection.” He lifted his chin toward the TV people. “We got TV reporters from Philly and New York here today. I bet they don’t even know the difference between anthracite and bituminous.”

  “You can say that again.” Bituminous was an eating disorder. Even I knew that. “How did they find out about Price’s murder, anyway?”

  “Are you kidding?” Myron pulled out a folded up newspaper from his back pocket. “It was in the morning papers all over the country.”

  Myron opened to a lead AP story from that morning’s Slagville Sentinel. It was brief, but it delivered the essentials. Bud Price, who recently won unprecedented legislative approval to open a casino in Slagville, PA, was presumed dead after a portion of the Number Nine mine had exploded. Rescue workers were attempting to retrieve the body. No comment from Price’s family or company, except confirmation he’d been in the area on business.

  “Shoot!” I said. “He beat me to it. Son of a gun.”

  “Who beat you?” Myron asked, refolding the clipping.

  “Steve Stiletto,” I said. My mind raced. It was impossible. To get the story on the wire early enough for the morning newspapers, Stiletto would have had to call it in by 2 A.M. And he didn’t get out of the mine until 2:30.

  Or did he?

  That dog. He must’ve found another exit after the cave-in and then somehow managed to get to a phone—a rescue worker’s perhaps?—before returning to the ambulance where I had been crying about him suffocating, blah, blah, blah.

  “Bastard,” I hissed.

  “Stiletto?” Myron said. “How do you think I feel? I’m the local cop reporter and I didn’t even know about the explosion until my editor got me out of bed this morning, yelling that we’d been scooped by a New York AP photographer and his girlfriend. Biggest story to hit this town in a century and a prize-winning reporter and photographer happen to be here on a romantic weekend. Is that bad luck or what?”

  I blushed. “That’s nice of you, Myron, but I haven’t won any prizes. Not yet.”

  “Not you,” he said, pushing up his glasses. “Esmeralda Greene. She used to be the regional AP bureau chief here and then got promoted to New York after her coal region series was nominated for a Pulitzer. Kick ass babe-a-lonia.” Myron stuck out his tongue like a panting dog. “That Stiletto is one lucky dude. Man, what I wouldn’t give to be in his place.”

  “You mean Stiletto and Greene are . . . a couple?”

  “That’s the rumor. Supposedly they keep it hush-hush ’cause they work for the same organization. You know what the AP’s nepotism policy is like.” Myron said this with importance, as though he were tighty whitey with the AP honchos. “Management gets a whiff two employees are sleeping together and it’s curtains. That’s her over there, asking a question now.”

  A statuesque redhead towered above her colleagues. Even from the back of the press conference, I could tell that she was an arresting woman. Broad shoulders. Classic cheekbones. Her black suit lent a trim, stylish appearance and set off her shoulder-length, thick hair. She could have modeled more than women’s underwear. Esmeralda Greene was a stunner.

  “Chief Donohue,” she said, her voice crisp and clear over the crowd, “what can you tell us about a former McMullen Coal employee named Carl Koolball whose car was spotted at the Number Nine mine entrance around the hour of Price’s murder? From what my sources tell me, he had made numerous threats against his former employer and against Price. And, as an engineer, he would know how to set off a mine explosion. Is he a suspect in this case?”

  Showoff. No decent reporter would ask a lengthy question like that in front of other reporters. She had just handed the competition tons of information she’d dug up. Perhaps she was trying to impress someone—Stiletto?

  Donohue stepped to the podium, flushed and sweating. He looked like he hadn’t had much sleep. “I am not at liberty to discuss an ongoing investigation with the press, Esmeralda. Suffice it to say that Carl Koolball is not a suspect. However, I would classify him as a ‘person of interest.’ ”

  Person of interest. I wrote that down. What the heck did that mean? He was either a suspect or he wasn’t, right?

  “Perhaps I can shed some light.” The suit walked up to the microphone. “Hugh McMullen, owner of McMullen Coal Inc.,” he said, removing a sheet of paper from his breast pocket.

  My initial impression of Hugh McMullen could be summed up in three words: hungover Peter Pan. Although his wavy hair sported streaks of gray, it was boyishly (and, oh yes, expensively) cut and he had donned a spiffy pair of penny loafers. His posture was poor, he yawned as he prepared to speak and he seemed ill at ease, as though he were eager to return to the frat house.

  The reporters crowded closer, shutting me out completely. No way I was going to miss McMullen. I expertly wedged my body between a Barbie and Ken from Channel Three in a move I like to call the “Bon Jovi Butt.”

  It requires years of grandstand seating at Jon Bon Jovi concerts to perfect the Bon Jovi Butt, and the feat is not for the petite or polite. The trick is to resist the urge to say, “Pardon me.” Offers too much of a heads up. And once the butt is complete, never look back.

  “Hey!” Barbie objected. I ignored her and kept my eyes straight ahead on McMullen.

  “On Labor Day,” McMullen began, reading stiffly from a prepared statement, “it came to my attention that one of our top engineers, Carl Koolball, was suffering from mental health issues. Our company offered him a generous leave and medical help, which he refused. We had no choice but to let him go—for the safety of our other employees.”

  I scribbled as fast as I could and recalled what Vilnia had said about Stinky being fired from McMullen. I sensed a plant. Esmeralda’s question had been too detailed and McMullen’s answer too pat to be a coincidence.

  “Since then the Columbia County court has issued a restraining order barring Mr. Koolball from coming within fifty feet of the McMullen colliery and the Dead Zone, which we happen to be standing on right now. I’m not violating any confidentiality policies here. Everything I’ve just told you is in the public record. My primary goal is to be as upfront with you people as possible.”

  In unison, reporters whipped out their cell phones and dialed rapidly. I
predicted that within an hour the oblivious clerks in the Columbia County Courthouse would be flooded with news interns requesting copies of the restraining order.

  And then it struck me like an anvil falling on Wile E. Coyote. The Dead Zone. We were standing on it and it was right next to the Number Nine mine. I wiggled past Barbie, who threw me a darting look, to the back of the crowd where Myron waited, fed up.

  “I hate these reporters,” he said. “They’re so mean. They won’t let me get closer ’cause I’m from a dinky paper.”

  “You’re not missing much.” I smiled sympathetically. “Listen, Myron, if this is the Dead Zone, then where is Price’s casino supposed to go?”

  Myron pointed to a cluster of orange ribbons tied around a few trees. “There. Though the entire complex of swimming pools, hotels, theaters and a shopping mall will be much larger. Probably take up all two hundred acres.”

  “Hmm.” I left Myron and hiked across the beaten grass, through the woods and over to the entrance of the mine, my heels slipping on the black slag scattered about. I was simply going to have to get new shoes if I was going to stick with this story. Nice if they made slingbacks with treads.

  The exploded mine entrance was littered with burnt wood, rock and settled dust inside a perimeter of yellow police tape. Let’s see now. Stiletto and I had entered here and then—I envisioned our underground path—we stopped there. I imagined a spot about a hundred feet away. That must have put us in the Dead Zone.

  I thought back to the article I had read in Roxanne’s bathtub. McMullen had sold the Dead Zone to Price because the coal company wasn’t permitted to mine under that land for safety reasons—namely possible encroachment by the Limbo fire. But what if McMullen had been robbing coal from underneath the Dead Zone and not documenting it, to escape state scrutiny? And what if Stinky had found that out and that’s why he’d been fired?

  The wheels in my head spun. I needed to get back to Roxanne and convince her to let me break our pinky promise so I could track down what she told me about Stinky. This could be a big story, I thought, heading out of the clearing and toward the woods. Especially with Bud Price, owner of the Dead Zone, found shot through the chest in the Number Nine mine.

  I scurried through the dappled light and around rotting tree trunks, my shoes not offering much traction on the fallen leaves. Which is why I nearly slid into a large figure who materialized in my path and grabbed my arm.

  “Bubbles,” he said gruffly. “Bubbles Yablonsky.”

  I caught my breath. He was a twenty-something man, tall, in a flannel shirt, jean jacket and a white baseball cap that sat on top of his ash blond hair. It was dark in the woods and I couldn’t see his face that clearly. He had caught me off guard so I had no option except to say, “Yes?”

  “Right.” He let go and touched his finger to the brim of his hat. “Just wanted to know what you look like.”

  He took a few steps back and it wasn’t until then that I noticed his hand had ever so slightly pushed aside his jacket to reveal a gun stuck in his belt. I lifted my eyes to his in total fright and comprehension of the message.

  “Stay safe now,” he said, smirking.

  I was going to say something, but as soon as I opened my mouth, I was speechless. He apparently found my shock and obvious fear amusing because he kept on smirking. And kept on staring at me, the branches of the bare trees clicking in the wind, reminding me that he and I were alone. In the woods. Next to a murder scene.

  “What are you waiting for?” he asked.

  What was I waiting for? I slipped past him and ran as fast as I could, leaping over fallen branches and ducking tree branches, until I emerged in the clearing back at the press conference. I headed straight for the crowd of cameras, tape recorders and shouting journalists, Bon Jovi Butting my way with gusto, ticking off any number of people as I rudely bumped the coroner and kept on going.

  I beelined for a satellite truck and turned the corner so that I was hidden by the open rear doors. My heart beat fast and I remembered that I didn’t have wheels. Now how was I going to get back to Roxanne’s?

  “What was that about?” asked a woman’s voice on the other side of the van door. There were footsteps on the gravel. Reporters leaving the press conference. “Did you see that crazy blonde in the low-cut number?”

  I stared down at Roxanne’s suggestive funeral dress.

  “Who was she?”

  “You don’t know?” replied a different woman. “That’s Stiletto’s flavor of the month. Bubblegum. She’s a hairdresser who goes around pretending to be a reporter.”

  Pretending? Why I’d . . . the two women had stopped just outside the van’s doors. I remained statue still.

  “A reporter? Where?”

  “Some shopper called the News-Times on the Jersey border.”

  For her information, the News-Times was not a shopper.

  “You’d think Stiletto would have matured beyond the sex kitten phase,” the first woman said. “Anyway, he’s too good to waste on a woman like that.” A soda can popped open. There was a slight fizzing sound.

  The other woman took a gulp. “It won’t last,” she said, burping slightly. “He just likes the conquest. That’s all Stiletto has ever loved is the conquest.”

  My cheeks felt hot and I was tempted to turn the corner and give them a Liberty High School locker room special when the woman’s friend said, “So how come he hasn’t conquered you, Esmeralda?”

  Esmeralda? Esmeralda Greene?

  “He is damned good-looking, isn’t he?” Esmeralda giggled. Funny. I hadn’t pictured her as the giggling type.

  “Are you kidding? And you know he’s always had a thing for you. Remember that time when you two were assigned to cover the war crimes trials at the Hague and you had to share a hotel room?”

  “That’s not the kind of night I’d forget.”

  “And he had to—”

  “Shhh,” Esmeralda stifled her. “Here he comes.”

  “Hey, Esmeralda. Patty.” Stiletto’s voice was calm, coolly casual.

  I rounded the van door.

  “Bubbles.”

  Esmeralda and Patty’s faces dropped to the basement. But while Patty’s was pink with embarrassment, Esmeralda’s remained as cool as her Clinique sand foundation. Her skin was strikingly flawless, not a blemish or dark spot on her face. She was a perfect porcelain doll.

  “Have you guys met?” Stiletto asked. “I think you’d really like Bubbles. She’s got a hell of a news streak in her.”

  Esmeralda and Patty smiled weakly, an expression Stiletto obviously took for kindness. God. Men were so off the planet half the time. Did they have even a spark of intuition?

  “Uh, we better get back to New York, Steve,” Esmeralda said. “The national desk wants us for the afternoon meeting. And, as it so happens, I’ve got the car.”

  “Aww shit,” Stiletto said. “Bubbles, what are you going to do? You don’t have a way to get into town.”

  “No problem,” I said, hooking my arm in his. “You can drop me off at Roxanne’s on the way. If that’s all right with you, Esmeralda?”

  “Hmmm. I don’t know. It is a Miata and there’s not much of a back seat.” She frowned as though so very disappointed at not being able to help.

  “Not to worry,” I said. “I’ll squeeze in. Just like a brand-new kitten.”

  Esmeralda’s Potato and Green Tea Compress

  Esmeralda may be a former model and big time New York City journalist, but she’ll always be a Slagville girl at heart. Which is why she knows that sometimes the best beauty secrets involve potatoes. In this one the raw potato removes dark circles under the eyes while the moistened and cool green tea reduces the swelling—for that perfect porcelain doll look.

  ½ russet potato, grated raw

  2 green tea bags

  1 drop glycerin

  2 pieces of cheesecloth, approximately 6 x 6 inches

  2 rubber bands

  Soak tea bags in cold water while
you grate potato into bowl. Remove tea bags from water and shake off excess moisture. With scissors cut off top of tea bags and empty contents into potato mixture, along with glycerin. Stir.

  Divide mixture in half and spoon each half onto center of cheesecloth. Scrunch up cheesecloth and secure with rubber bands. You should have two pads of potato and green tea in cloth. Place on closed eyes and relax for a few minutes.

  Hint: For extra cooling and faster results, chill finished cheesecloth compresses overnight.

  Chapter 8

  It may have been my imagination, but I could swear Esmeralda was trying to kill me. Stiletto, ever the gentleman, had insisted on cramming his photo equipment and himself into the tight back while I sat in the death seat next to Esmeralda. Neither of us was pleased about that arrangement.

  Mama’s old race-car boyfriend would have applauded Esmeralda for zipping that bright blue Miata of hers up and down the back streets of Slagville, swerving occasionally toward a tree, lamppost or any convenient utility pole on her right. My palms were so sweaty they left marks on the butter-cream leather.

  “So how long have you two kids been working together?” I asked, trying to mask the nervousness in my voice. I was dying to tell Stiletto about my visitor in the woods, but I wasn’t eager to involve Esmeralda. She’d want to know why I was near the mine entrance to begin with. And that might tip her off to my simmering blockbuster.

  “It hasn’t all been work, has it Steve?” Esmeralda flipped down the visor and winked at Stiletto. I counted. Her eyes hadn’t been on the road for a good two minutes and we, or I should say I, was headed straight for an oak tree. This is what I meant by the trying to kill me part.