Stone Cold Dead, James Ziskin [best ebook reader android .txt] 📗

“Darleen Hicks.”

“Yes, Darleen Hicks. She’s a ninth grader who disappeared a couple of weeks ago. Charlie wants you to look into this. I’m not convinced, of course. Seems like a lot of nothing.”

“By the way, what were you working on this morning?” asked Charlie. “I’ll reassign it.”

“Actually, I was working on the Darleen Hicks story.”

The two men exchanged glances. Charlie shrugged.

“Don’t you know what your staff is doing?” Short frowned, taking a seat at his desk.

Charlie threw me a withering look.

“Darleen’s mother came to meet me and told me the whole story. She asked me to help her.”

“What have you got so far?” asked Short as he shuffled through some papers.

“I’ve interviewed the mother, the neighbors, and two of her teachers.”

“What’s next?” he said, not even looking at me.

“Her friends,” I said. “A couple of girls and her boyfriend.” I paused. “Then there’s her stepfather. And of course the sheriff.”

Short rose from his desk and began digging through a filing cabinet against the wall. “I still don’t think there’s much of a story here,” he said, his back to me. “If I did, I’d put George on it, you can be sure of that. He wrote the first couple of stories on this when it happened. He says it’s a dead end. And I don’t like the idea of wasting manpower.” He turned halfway around to look at me. “Or should I say girl power in this case?”

“There could be something to this disappearance,” said Charlie. “Let’s give her a week to dig around.”

Artie Short yanked some papers from the filing cabinet and returned to his desk. He wrinkled his nose, as if something in the room smelled bad, and cocked his head.

“I don’t like it,” he said, shaking the papers in my general direction. “But if she doesn’t neglect the basketball and other assignments . . .”

That was our cue to leave. Charlie and I stood and made for the door. Short called after him, “I’m expecting her to deliver on this. I don’t like wild-goose chases.”

Charlie and I filed out of Short’s office and headed toward the newsroom. We didn’t speak as we went, but we both knew a debriefing was in the offing. I followed him into his office and leaned against the bookcase.

“Well, that wasn’t so hard,” he said. “Now you’d better get something on this story, or Artie will kill it.”

“And if I do find something, he’ll hand the story back to George Walsh,” I said.

Charlie had no answer for that. Instead he asked me what I had learned so far. I filled him in, saying I wasn’t even sure if she’d been the victim of foul play or if she’d simply run off.

“Is there any legwork I can do for you? Anyone giving you trouble? Or maybe there’s someone you can’t reach?”

I shook my head. “I can manage. But speaking of your help, I know the car you got for me was pulled out of the lake last August. Thanks a lot.”

He stared dumbly at me for several seconds. Then he got that trapped-animal look in his eyes.

“Sorry about that, Ellie,” he said finally. “I just couldn’t swing another. As it is, after you drove the first car into the tree, Artie wanted to take it out of your salary.”

“You make it sound as if I hit the tree because I was primping in the rearview mirror. Someone cut my brakes, Charlie. They were trying to kill me. Not like Fred ‘One for the Road’ Blaylock. What’s he driving these days, by the way? Something shiny and brand new, I’ll bet.”

“I told Artie it wasn’t your fault, but he’s old-fashioned. Doesn’t like the idea of women in the workforce, let alone behind the wheel. That’s why you’ve got to lie low and keep up with your other assignments.”

I pouted, dissatisfied with the car discussion. “Why can’t Georgie Porgie take some of what I’m doing? Local theater, for example. The Mohawk Valley Players are doing South Pacific this year. Give that to George. But don’t tell him how the war ends; you’ll spoil it for him.”

Charlie said nothing. He often indulged me, especially where George Walsh was concerned. George was Artie Short’s son-in-law and strutted around the newsroom like the cock of the walk. George’s antagonism toward me was well known to all at the paper. He routinely tried to insult me by talking down to me in meetings and asking me “to be a good girl” and fetch him some coffee. He stopped doing that once he noticed the coffee I’d given him had an odd taste.

But when it came to getting the better of George, it was mostly George who did the heavy lifting anyway. His miscues were legend at the paper, like the time in June of 1959 when his headline proclaimed, “Ingmar Bergman Knocks Out Floyd Patterson in the Fourth Round.” (He even got the round wrong.) Twice he referred to Pat Summerall as the placekicker for the San Francisco Giants, who don’t play football. And in general, his sports stories rang false; his shallow knowledge of the games and awkward grasp of their lexicon always bled through the ink. He wrote strange headlines like “Speed-Ball Ace Timmy Vardon Twirls Two-Hit Gem in New Holland Tilt.” Georgie’s articles had the mawkish, homespun feel of a Boys’ Life story from 1925.

Walsh and his father-in-law hated me, never more so than during the Jordan Shaw investigation just a month earlier when George tried to muscle in on my story. In the end, despite his aversion to me, Artie Short had to hold his nose and go with the girl reporter over his own son-in-law.

“I’ll try to get you another car,” said Charlie.

“Forget it. I love that car now, mildew and all. It’s mine.”

“There must be some help you could use. I can put Norma Geary at your disposal.”

“Norma? From the steno pool?”

“She’s smart, Ellie. And eager. She can make calls, run errands, get you coffee. Give