The Bad Break

by Jill Orr

  “Thanks. And I’m not an intern,” I said.

  “Who’s your anonymous source?” Spencer asked, leaning against the side of my cubicle. “It wouldn’t be your buddy Carl down at the sheriff’s office, now would it?”

  “Are you unclear about the definition of anonymous?” I said, allowing a little bravado to creep into my voice.

  “Just because you and the new sheriff are old friends, don’t go thinking you’re going to get all the crime stories around here,” he warned. “This one shoulda been mine.”

  I felt the stinging sensation in the base of my throat that always accompanied confrontation. I could feel the color creeping up my neck as I looked at Spencer, desperately trying to think of some witty retort. When the silence stretched on a moment too long, he said, “Oh, relax, kiddo. I’m only razzing you.”

  I couldn’t tell if he had really been joking around, or if he had wanted to warn me for real but saw how freaked out I got and backtracked. Sometimes in a newsroom things could get competitive. I’d heard enough of Granddaddy’s stories to know that.

  I managed to laugh it off, and Spencer went back to his desk. I took a few minutes to get it together before what was sure to be my next uncomfortable conversation of the day: telling Flick I’d been assigned the Davenport obit. My stomach churned with dread at the thought of it. I didn’t like to have any conversation with Hal Flick, let alone one in which I’d be telling him I’d gone over his head to get a plum assignment.

  I hovered at his open office door. “Knock, knock.”

  He grunted an acknowledgment.

  I guess I was more nervous than I thought because when I spoke my voice sounded preposterously close to Helena Bonham Carter’s Bellatrix Lestrange—which is to say, comically aggressive (and inexplicably tinged with a British accent). “I was just coming by to tell you that Kay assigned me the obit for Arthur Davenport.”

  He looked at me with the same expression he might have while looking at a talking oven mitt.

  “I already have a file with a list of contacts and other stuff, so should I just get started on that and run it past you when I have a draft?”

  More blank staring.

  “Flick, did you hear me?”

  “I heard you. But I’m writing the Davenport obit.”

  “I’m sorry?”

  “You’re forgiven.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “You said you were sorry so I forgave you. That’s how these things work.” Flick gave me his steely-eyed glare but behind his eyes I swear I saw a flash of something else.

  “I was asked directly to write this obituary by a member of his family, Flick. It’s mine.”

  “Dr. Arthur Davenport was a prominent member of Tuttle Corner. The whole county will want to read about him, especially given the way he died. You’ve written one obit in your life. You are not qualified to write this one.”

  I glared back at him. I should have known Flick would try to take this away from me. “Kay gave it to me,” I said, defiantly. “Ask her.”

  “Ask me what?” Kay appeared in the doorway to Flick’s office.

  I hadn’t known she’d been walking past when I used her name or else I might not have been so cavalier about it. The truth was, I didn’t know what she was going to say. She might very well reverse course if Flick’s objection was strong enough.

  “Riley says she’s writing the Davenport obit,” Flick said. “C’mon, Jackson. The kid’s a cub. She doesn’t have the experience—”

  “How am I ever supposed to get experience if you never let me do anything?” All that was missing was a foot stomp and a guttural “ugh” sound and I could have won the Oscar for best dramatic performance in the role of a self-indulgent teenager.

  Kay ignored us both. “Riley’s going to take this one,” she said. “Flick, I want you to help her. Give her the benefit of your experience. We need to train new blood around here.”

  He started to object, but Kay talked over him. “You won’t live forever and when it comes time for the Times to write your obit, it’s probably gonna be Riley who does it, so teach her well.” She winked at me and blew down the hall to put out the next fire.

  The look on Flick’s face said Over my dead body, which was kind of ironic given the situation.

  “I’ll get you a draft soon,” I said, trying, and failing, to keep the smugness out of my voice.

  “You know this isn’t some sort of eulogy obit like the one you wrote for Jordan. This is a news story, as in real journalism. You’re going to need to cover the good, the bad, and the ugly. Think you can handle that?”

  “Yes.” But I knew I wouldn’t convince him with just talk—there was too much water under our particular bridge. I’d have to prove myself through my work.

  He stood up the way old men do, leading with his head and shoulders, and then slowly straightened out. He lumbered around to his antiquated army-green file cabinet and pulled out a manila folder. “This is the advance file we have on Davenport. You know that research I’ve had you doing that you hate so much? Well, it’s times like this that stuff comes in handy.”

  I took the file without saying anything. I felt a bit chastened. I had assumed Flick was just having me doing that research because he didn’t like me.

  I went back to my desk and began to work my way through the folder, making notes in the margins. One of the advantages of working for a weekly paper as opposed to a daily was that we could take more time with our stories. At a daily newspaper, a reporter had maybe four or five hours to write an obit. At the Times, I was grateful that we usually had at least a few days. Especially in this case where the cause of death was murder—and an unsolved one at that.

  I was just about to pick up the phone to check on Tabitha, when Kay Jackson’s voice called out from her office, “Ellison, can you come in here a sec?”

  I’d never been called into Kay’s office before. It made me a little nervous. “What’s up?”

  “Sit down. Close the door.”

  Uh-oh. My nervousness instantly upgraded to dread.

  “Mayor Lancett just called,” Kay said. “She wanted to thank us for the excellent reporting in the Davenport case.”

  I felt relieved. That was a good thing, right? I mean, I doubt it was every day that the mayor called to thank the newspaper for something! But my joy was short-lived . . .

  “Then she started talking about how tourism plays a big part in the economy of Tuttle Corner and how the perception of multiple murders in our town could have a disastrous effect on local businesses, etcetera, etcetera. And how the town was still healing after ‘that nasty business’ with Sheriff Tackett.”

  I wasn’t sure I understood what Kay was telling me.

  “She didn’t come out and say it, but my guess is this little phone call was a not-so-subtle suggestion to tone down our coverage of the Davenport murder.”

  “What?” I said, shocked. The mayor wanted to censor our newspaper because it might mean James Madison’s Fish Shack gets a few less reservations this summer? That was ridiculous—and unethical.

  Kay rushed in to reassure me. “Listen, I don’t want you to worry, we don’t answer to the mayor. Our responsibility is to our readers and to the truth.”

  “Okay,” I said, still surprised at the mayor’s subtle directive. “So what do we do?”

  “We do what we always do. But you will need to be extra careful, Riley. Every detail, every quote, every line has to be one hundred percent accurate, and one hundred percent verifiable.”

  I braced myself for her to ask who my anonymous source was. I wasn’t going to tell her—not until Tabitha said I could. I may have been a journalist for only a month, but that was long enough to know that you never betray a source. Not to mention a friend. (Or a frenemy, as the case may be.)

  “I understand that sometimes you need to print information from an anonymous source, but it’s not ideal. Next story we publish on this, I’d like to be able to go on record with an attributable so
urce.”

  I exhaled, relieved I didn’t have to refuse her any information.

  Kay exhaled too. She was tough as nails, but I could tell the mayor’s phone call had rattled her cage a bit. She confirmed my suspicion when she smiled at me and said, “Hell of a time for Holman to be out at sea, huh?”

  CHAPTER 8

  Tabitha lived in a condo complex just off the main square that was no more than a three-minute walk from the Times offices. The complex consisted of a series of eight row houses in the Victorian style, each painted a different color, with wrought-iron roof cresting and bright white gingerbread scrollwork. The effect was charming, if a little Stepford. In fact, some residents threw a fit when the units were built, calling them an aesthetic insult to the architectural integrity of Tuttle Corner. I thought that was a little dramatic—they were cute, maybe a bit planned, but cute nonetheless. Grant St. Simon, Tabitha’s father, built the complex and let his daughter live there rent-free.

  Tabitha lived in the blue condo on the west end of the complex. She hadn’t answered any of my calls or texts, so I decided to pop over to see if I could catch her at home. I saw her car out front and felt a wave of relief. But no one answered when I knocked. I knocked again, this time harder. “Tabitha? Are you home?” I waited for a response. “I really need to talk to you.”

  I knocked some more, and waited some more. As I was about to shout even louder and beg her to open up, the door to the townhouse next to Tabitha’s swung open, and Millie Hedron peeked her head out.

  “Oh hi, Miss Hedron,” I said. “I’m sorry if I woke you.” Millie was still in her robe.

  She waved a dismissive hand. “I’ve been up for hours with all the action around here.”

  “Action?”

  She nodded and pulled the sides of her robe together. “Carl Haight came and took Tabitha down to the station about two hours ago. And boy-howdy can that girl scream.”

  “What?”

  “Mm-hmm,” she lowered her voice to a conspiratorial whisper. “He and Butter marched right up here, pounded on her door loud enough to wake the whole neighborhood. I couldn’t hear everything Carl said, but—” she looked from left to right, “I have a feeling this has to do with Thad being arrested for his daddy’s murder.”

  I was truly shocked. Had Carl figured out that Tabitha was the anonymous source from my piece? Had Tabitha told him what she did? I needed to find out—and quickly.

  “I’m sorry, Miss Hedron, but I have to go,” I said, already halfway down the walk. “Sorry I woke you!”

  “You didn’t, remember?” She called after me, but I couldn’t stop to respond. I turned the corner and sped off toward the sheriff’s office.

  “I’m sorry, Riley,” Gail said. “I can’t let you see her. Rules are rules.”

  “Can I at least talk to Carl? Please?”

  “I don’t know.” Gail looked over her shoulder toward his office. “He’s been up half the night. I’m not sure now would be the best time—”

  “I’ll just be a minute! Thanks,” I said without waiting for her response. When I got to Carl’s door, I paused, took a deep breath, and readied myself. I wasn’t sure what he had on Tabitha but I knew one thing for sure: I was not here to make her situation worse by giving away information she had shared anonymously.

  “Sheriff Haight?” I said as I peeked my head into his office.

  Carl had dark circles under his eyes and a two-day stubble on his chin. He looked like he hadn’t been home in a while. “No comment for the press, Riley. We’ll have something for you soon—but not yet.”

  “That’s not why I’m here,” I said. “I heard you’re holding Tabitha—”

  “No comment.”

  “Just tell me what she’s charged with and I’ll go away. I promise.”

  He looked at me, his lids heavy from exhaustion. We’d known each other long enough for him to know I was going to keep asking until I got some sort of answer—one way or another.

  “Fine,” he said, waving me inside. “She hasn’t been charged with anything. I’m holding her for assaulting a police officer.”

  “What?” This was not what I was expecting to hear.

  “We went to her house to ask her a couple of questions, in part based on your story in the Times, and she just got mad as a hornet. She ordered us to leave and when we wouldn’t, she pushed Butter and he fell backward off her front step onto a little garden ornament thing she had setting out. An angel, I think. Those wings were awful sharp. Poor Butter had to have five stitches in his backside.”

  An involuntary giggle bubbled to the surface.

  “It’s not funny, Riley. Tabitha needs to control herself. Butter coulda been seriously hurt. And I need all the deputies I’ve got right now.”

  “I’m sorry. It’s not funny, you’re right.” I dropped into the chair in front of his desk. I felt badly for him; he was clearly exhausted and overwhelmed. He’d only been in the position of acting-sheriff for a couple of weeks and a murder case like this had to be incredibly stressful. I felt a kinship with him in that moment: we were both new to our jobs and both in just a little bit over our heads. “Have you been home since this all happened?”

  “Just once to change my clothes and kiss Lisa and the baby.”

  “You know, I’m writing Dr. Davenport’s obit for the Times. I’ll be conducting interviews with the people who knew him best. If you want access to any of my notes, I’m happy to share.”

  I thought this sort of open communication could help us both. After all, in a small town people were far more likely to talk to an obituary writer than the law. And if Carl would open up and let me in on where things were in the investigation, it would certainly help me keep printing stories that had accurate, attributable information, like Kay wanted.

  “Thanks,” he said, but his lack of enthusiasm gave me pause.

  “Unless you think you already have your man?”

  “Riley—”

  “Do you? Do you think Thad Davenport killed his father? Because from what I’ve heard it seems like there’s room for doubt—”

  He held up a hand to stop me. “I’m talking here friend-to-friend, okay? No chance of this ending up in the paper?”

  I hesitated before nodding. On one hand, I wanted to know what he was going to say. But on the other, I’d already been warned about too many “off-the-record” moments.

  “All right,” I said, figuring if he gave me something newsworthy, I could set about finding another source to confirm it for publication.

  “It’s not looking good for Thad,” Carl said. “Between the knife and the drugs, it almost doesn’t matter what the official cause of death was, because either way Thad had means and opportunity. As for motive,” he paused, and I knew what he was going to say before he said it. My stomach churned with guilt. “The story in the paper from your anonymous source supplied plenty of motive.”

  “Carl, I—”

  “It wasn’t all that. The family bank account was motive enough, but the details you reported on didn’t do him any favors. Tabitha’s in a heap of trouble too.”

  So either Tabitha had told Carl everything, or he had figured it out on his own. I felt slightly relieved even though I didn’t know what it would mean for Tabitha moving forward. My mother always said the truth will set you free, although I guess in this case it had had the opposite effect, given that Tab was being held in the county jail.

  He went on. “And Thad’s brother, David, 9 can’t confirm Thad’s alibi because he was working late at the hospital. So what am I supposed to do here? I have a guy who fought with the victim, stood to gain financially from his demise, has no verifiable alibi, and had access to the murder weapon . . .”

  “Then why don’t you seem convinced?”

  Carl again rubbed his forehead, and I could practically feel his headache from across the room. “It doesn’t matter what I think. I’m paid to follow the evidence, and so far it is leading straight to Thad Davenport. Do you know the k
ind of pressure the mayor is putting on me to wrap this up ASAP?”

  “I heard.”

  “That Toby calls over here every hour asking if we’ve set the charges yet.” Carl looked like a man being squeezed between two heavy books. He leaned forward and lowered his voice to a whisper. “Honestly, my gut is telling me there’s more to the story here.”

  I had the same gut feeling, despite the evidence. “What if I do some digging around? I have to talk to people for the obit anyway.”

  Carl was quiet for a long moment. And then he took out a slip of paper from his desk and wrote his personal cell number on it. He slid it over to me the way people made job offers in old movies. The implication, if I was reading him right, was that he wanted my input, just not officially. That was good enough for me, so I grabbed the slip of paper and went on my way.

  CHAPTER 9

  I was a little rankled by how hard Mayor Lancett’s office was pushing Carl and the newspaper to close out the Davenport case. I guess I understood why she’d want it to go away, but shouldn’t she be more interested in seeing that justice was served? In any event, I reminded myself that her agenda had nothing to do with mine. My job was to find out as much as I could about Arthur Davenport’s life, and if the information I turned up just happened to shed light on who might have wanted to kill him, then so be it.

  The first person I needed to talk to on both scores was Thad’s brother, David. I got his number from Tabitha’s file and texted to see if he could spare a few minutes. He texted right back that he had a break coming up soon and if I could get to the hospital right away, he’d be happy to talk to me.

  I flew over to the hospital and ran inside, large iced mocha in hand. I wasn’t four steps inside the building when I tripped over a cord running across the floor and promptly fell flat on my ass. My mocha went all over the place, the ice cubes making the sound of shattered glass and skittering across the highly polished floor. Several people gasped as all eyes in the place turned to me.