Sand City Murders

by MK Alexander

  I nodded.

  “Got ID?”

  I handed her my driver’s license and press pass. She handed back the latter. “Sand City PD said you might be showing up. You got the letter from Durbin?”

  I showed it to her.

  “Okay, c’mon through.” The security door buzzed. “How can I help you today?”

  “I’m looking for records, any county records on Lorraine Luis, DOB, seven eighteen, fifty-six.”

  “Criminal record?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Missing persons?”

  “Maybe. But I was thinking more along the lines of school records, birth certificate, marriage license, maybe scholarships or something.”

  “Hmm. Doubtful. I’m not even sure you’re allowed to search for a birth certificate. Wouldn’t have it here anyway. That be the county clerk’s office.”

  “They sent me here.”

  “Did they?” Wilma paused at the copy machine. “Well, I only have one rule…”

  “...Nothing leaves the library.”

  She laughed. “You must’ve been here before.” She showed me the microfiche projector. “If your gal has a record, it will be on there. Here’s the index… best place to start.”

  “Thanks.”

  “Sure thing, honey.” Wilma gave me a wink and headed back to her office.

  The hours passed. My eyes hurt from staring into the light. Luis seemed to be an extremely popular last name. Finally, and much to the probable annoyance of Wilma Peterson, I did find a birth certificate for Lorraine Luis, but certainly no missing persons report. I made a copy of the former; it was very old fashion, signed by hand, and there was an infant’s toe print smudged in the corner.

  ***

  I had booked a lunch date with Jack Leaning, a reporter at the Fairhaven Times. He was almost a friend. Odd name, Leaning. He should have been called Reaching, as in reaching for the phone. It seemed to be an automatic reflex for him, or a compulsion. Wavy hair, droopy eyes and a chin one size too large, Leaning had about ten years on me and was probably about a head taller. He had a kind face though, and was easy to talk to. We played ultimate frisbee and went drinking together more than a couple of times. Leaning was the bureau chief for the upper peninsula. His territory included Sand City, Oldham, and every town in between there and Fairhaven, namely Garysville and Eastport. He was always trying to coax me away from the Chronicle, but never with any real success. He took himself and his job way too seriously. We did cover a lot of the same stories, traded sources from time to time, and generally helped each other out, especially if one of us was late for a council meeting. He owed me a favor or two. Make that three now. I found a text message canceling lunch. Instead, I was to meet him at his office around four. I recalled our last conversation:

  “You know I can get you twice the money if you work here.”

  “Yeah, but it’s a daily, it’s got a different... I don’t know… rhythm.”

  “You get used to it.”

  “I like the Chronicle, it’s laid back.”

  “Okay. It can be pretty stressful here. I still remember my first day on the job,” Leaning had recalled, “Sitting in front of a blank Atex terminal with the orange cursor blinking... And the night editor on the phone asking for thirty or forty lines… and the clock is ticking… twenty minutes— that’s all you’ve got.”

  Deadlines were my life, I barely noticed that kind of pressure anymore; there was something else that stopped me from taking the job. I even tried to explain it, but Leaning didn’t seem to understand. “I just don’t have that barracuda in me, you know, that go-for-the-throat kind of instinct.”

  Leaning greeted me in the lobby of the Fairhaven Times. It was a big place, impressive in its own way and modern. There was money here.

  “Jack… how goes it?”

  “Hey Patrick. Long time, what’s happening in the city?” He signed me through security and we walked up three flights to his office in the newsroom. “I’m toying with the idea of moving to your neck of the woods,” Jack said on the way up the stairs.

  “Really?”

  “Well, Baxter Estates.”

  “You, a Baxterite? Cut me a break, Jack.”

  He ushered me into the newsroom, a vast arena filled with cubicles. It was quiet today but I imagined it was not always like this. It was dark now, the floor to ceiling windows were all frosted over from rain.

  “It’s the wife really. Got another kid on the way and we hear the school system is pretty good now.”

  “You should talk to Melissa.”

  “Melissa?” he raised an eyebrow. “Still as hot as ever?”

  “She is. As married as ever too.”

  “Yeah. What’s that guy’s name?”

  I was at a loss to remember. “Um, Julian, maybe?”

  “Why should I talk to Melissa anyhow?”

  “She lives there now. Her and her husband bought a house a couple of years ago.”

  “What’s he do again?”

  “Can’t remember really. Advertising?”

  “Neighbor Melissa…” Leaning considered. “Thanks for the tip, Patrick.”

  We sat in his small office after he closed the door.

  “Hey, how is Evan?”

  “Evan? Evan James, our stringer?

  “Yeah.”

  “You know him?”

  “Huge baseball fan,” Leaning said. “So… did you think about what I said?”

  “What?”

  “Selling that story to Sports Illustrated. They’d pay top dollar for it.”

  “No, it’s not for sale.”

  “Patrick, you’re sitting on a big story, c’mon… You gotta do something with it.”

  I was sorry I even mentioned it to Leaning now. It was a fluke, a lucky happenstance. I just happened to be in Partners when Bobby Baker walked in and sat next to me. I didn’t even realize he was a famous sports celebrity, make that infamous. He told me things he probably shouldn’t have, and I had repeated some of them to Leaning. A big mistake...

  “Bobby Baker, MVP for three years, Hall of Fame contender, probably the best second baseman MLB has ever seen,” Leaning persisted.

  “Listen, I just met the guy and we had a conversation. He had a few drinks, got a little too comfortable, and told me things he probably shouldn’t have. That’s all. It wasn’t really an interview.”

  “Didn’t he buy a big house up in the Dunes?”

  “That’s a matter of public record.”

  “Still, you talked to the guy. He hasn’t said a word to the press since he retired.”

  “Yeah, but it was a conversation, not an interview.”

  “Did he know you worked for the Chronicle?”

  “Not at first... but I told him eventually.”

  “Did he clam up at that point?”

  “No, I think he had a few drinks in him by then.”

  “You could sell this to Sports Illustrated at the very least.”

  “Jack, the guy just wants to retire. Lead a quiet life, raise his kids in peace.”

  “Did he talk about the game?”

  “What game?”

  “The game… the playoff game.”

  “I guess, a little…”

  “And?”

  “I’ve got nothing to say about it.” I paused and could feel my frustration rising. “Listen, it was worth the look on his face. He was so afraid I was going to publish, and I told him I wouldn’t if he didn’t want me too.”

  “The look on his face?”

  “Yeah. He broke out into the biggest grin I’d ever seen… relief, I guess.”

  “You really want a guy like that running the little league in your town?” Leaning asked.

  “C’mon Jack, it’s not like he’s a pedophile or something.”

  “Hey, you never know with a guy like that…”

  I was not going down that road. I paused again, uncomfortably. “Listen, I’m not really here about Bobby Baker. I need a solid from you
. I think you owe me by now.”

  “Okay. What do you want?”

  “A peek at your morgue.”

  “Do you now? And what’s that you’d be looking for?”

  “Anything on her…” I put the picture of Lorraine on his desk. It was the one Fynn had given me on the beach.

  “And who might this be?”

  “It might be Lorraine Luis.”

  “And she is?”

  “Well, that’s what I’m trying to find out.”

  “And what’s the story? Something I should know about?”

  “It could have a bearing on the murdered girl up at Sunset Park. Durbin sent me fishing.”

  “Did he now? Never said anything to me.”

  “That’s probably because he hates your guts.”

  “Truer words never spoken. I don’t know what it is about that guy. I try to be nice...”

  “Yeah well, what can I say?”

  “Okay Patrick, my good buddy, you’re in luck.” Leaning smiled. “I guess you heard we updated the archives… Everything has been digitalized and scanned and OCR’ed. We have instant access to one hundred and twenty-six years of the Fairhaven Times. Every issue indexed, categorized and cross-referenced, and searchable.”

  “Wow, that’s great. I’m impressed.”

  “You should be… cost the company plenty to set this system up. Come on over, I’ll show you…” Leaning slid his chair away from his computer and rolled up another. “We can access it all from the comfort of my office. You don’t mind if I look over your shoulder?”

  “Sure.” Somehow it seemed like I was looking over his instead.

  “Do you have a name, a date, a category?”

  “A name, Lorraine Luis.”

  “Luis, eh? That’s a big family name around these parts. Probably got thousands of listings.”

  “Really?”

  “Ever look in the local phone book, my friend? It’s crawling with Luis’…” Leaning typed in the name and an index page popped up with a long list of entries. I read to myself as he scrolled through: Alonso... Elaine… Ester…” He stopped on Lorraine. “Here we go,” Leaning said and clicked. The screen went blank, an error message appeared: file not found. “Well, I’ll be damned… Something’s wrong here. She’s on the index but there’s no content.”

  “Have you been hacked?”

  “Hacked? No way. Who’d want to hack this?” Leaning reached for the phone. “I’m going to find out right now.”

  “Well, thanks anyway, Jack. Listen, I gotta run…”

  “Aren’t you going to wait?”

  “No. But let me know if you find anything, okay?”

  ***

  Not much to go on after a whole day’s work… nothing to report. No story here. I had cub reporter Joey going through the Chronicle archives, but it was slow going at that. He hadn’t found a single reference to Lorraine Luis yet. Then I remembered something Leaning said: phonebook. I totally forgot. I hadn’t checked the phonebook like I promised. Most of all though, no missing persons report for Lorraine. Something was messed up. The inspector’s timeline didn’t jive here, nor mine for that matter. I decided not to say anything to Fynn, not just yet anyhow. I still had nothing definite.

  Finally Joey’s long hours in the morgue paid off. He came flying down the stairs one Friday morning. “I found something… Here: Lorraine Luis, winner of the Serenity Bay Arts Grant, 1975. Miss Luis is perhaps the youngest recipient of the annual SBA grant, this year winning the prize in sculpture. She is best known for her work in granite and inlaid metal. The prize money will be used for a public installation, planned for Central Park.” There was a blurry half-tone of a smiling young girl accepting a giant fake check. Hard to say for sure it was Lorraine Luis.

  Miriam floated into the break room from reception while I was pouring another cup of coffee. We were still out of filters and sugar. I reached into the mini-fridge for the half-and-half but only found an empty container. There was some two-percent, a day off from its expiration date. This was a risk: gray coffee, or coffee with bits of curdled milk seemed to be my two options. Maybe there was some powdered non-dairy creamer somewhere. I started searching through the cabinets. Miriam stared at me and I glanced over. She looked different somehow. Her hair seemed less manly than usual and it was definitely frosted now.

  “Patrick, I need to talk to you,” she said in a hushed tone.

  “What is it, Em darling?”

  “Eleanor had lunch with Chamblis yesterday.”

  “So?”

  “I heard her talking to Mel afterwards,” Miriam whispered. “She’s thinking about selling the paper.”

  “We all knew that was going to happen sooner or later.”

  “She’s thinking of selling it to Chamblis.”

  I was surprised by this news. It seemed impossible. “What?” I said too loudly. Miriam covered my mouth and shushed me. “She’d never sell out to that bastard…” I said, rattled and disappointed all at once.

  “That’s what I thought too,” Miriam said quietly. “I think he wants to put Melissa in charge.”

  “She doesn’t know the first thing about running a paper— except for the ads.”

  “Well, I just thought you should know, that’s all.”

  “Thanks, Miriam… and keep me posted if you can. I guess it’s time to polish up the old résumé…”

  “Are you serious?”

  “No. I’ll take a wait and see attitude for now.” I started to re-imagine what it might be like to work on a daily. Would Jack Leaning be my boss?

  I was back at my desk a bit later working on the follow-up to the Baxter Estates story. After a close vote, the planning commission had approved the initial proposal, pending an environmental impact study. More drainage into the salt marsh, less trees in the woodlands. Somebody was making a ton of money off this and it wasn’t just Chamblis. And how the hell were they going to get past the wetlands protection act? I was going through my notes when I came across a printout stuck to my pile of scattered papers. It caught my eye. “Wow, who changed the masthead?” I asked Eleanor, knowing full well that only she could make that decision.

  “Is that a rhetorical question, Patrick?” she replied and smiled.

  “I guess so. It’s just that I’ve gone from reporter to senior correspondent.”

  “Yes, and congratulations…”

  “Thanks… And who is Lucinda?”

  “Patrick, sometimes I just don’t get your sense of humor.”

  I wasn’t joking. Who is Lucinda Roberts? And why is she on the masthead as an Account Representative? What happened to Jo-Anne?

  ***

  Eventually, it was time for a gentle confrontation with Inspector Fynn. Things could not go on as they were. Not for me anyhow. I found him in his office, or rather Chief Arantez’s. He was looking quite comfortable. The inspector greeted me with a big smile and a firm handshake. “Patrick, my friend, good to see you. And what brings you here today?”

  “Good news, bad news, I guess you could say.”

  “Eh? Well that’s better than good cops, bad cops.” He laughed at his own joke.

  I was less amused.

  “Start with the bad.”

  “There’s no missing person report for Loraine Luis.”

  “What? But how can this be true?” The inspector seemed surprised. He lowered himself back into the chair rather slowly. “Where did you check?”

  “Where didn’t I check?” I replied. “Most of all, nothing in the county records, at the courthouse.”

  “This surprises me.”

  “Okay, well more bad news. All the other records I did try to check are missing, maybe even sabotaged.”

  “But what can this mean?” Fynn asked with obvious concern.

  “Our own archives, the Chronicle’s morgue: missing issues… stolen?” I made a questioning face. “The library? Archives for the Bulletin and the Gazette? Inaccessible because of a broken microfiche machine. The Fairhaven Times?
Someone hacked their computer… all the records for Lorraine Luis? Gone.”

  “But this is incredible…”

  “That’s what I thought.”

  The inspector stared at me for several moments, then blinked. “Am I a suspect here? A saboteur?”

  “Are you?” I asked.

  “I suppose I am the former. But there are steps to be taken immediately, I should think.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “Practical steps.”

  “Like?”

  “To begin with, we must fix the machine at the library, yes? Or find another.”

  This was not the response I expected. Not at all. I was looking for evasion, vague replies, a dismissive attitude, or even a complete lack of interest. “It might take a couple of weeks,” I said.

  “That’s too long. Let me think for a moment… Alright, the Times in Fairhaven… surely their records must be duplicated by some other means? This microfiche again, or actual bound copies of old papers?”

  I hadn’t thought of that.

  “And the Chronicle’s archives? They are only on paper? There are no back-up records anywhere?”

  I hadn’t thought of that either.

  “I find this most distressing, Patrick. I’m glad you came to me. What can I do to help?”

  “You might be able to charm Mrs Lovely at the library.”

  “Then I will do so at once.” The inspector practically leapt to his feet. “And what about the good news?” he asked nonchalantly.

  “Right… um… did you know your wife was a sculptress?”

  “Of course I know this. She does beautiful work. Polished stone with inlaid metals…”

  “Well, one of her sculptures is still standing in Spooky Park.”

  “Spooky Park? I don’t remember that being on your map.”

  “That’s what the locals call it. On the map it’s labeled as Central Park.”