gives you the perfect excuse to shut the Pilot down.”
“We’re done here.” He picked up the papers and stood.
“You can make a big show out of firing me, wait a few weeks, then tell the good people of Starvation Lake, Sorry, this libel suit is too much for your little rag and its subpar profit margins, we’ve got to shut it down. Then you throw a few hundred grand at Haskell to make him go away-if he’s not in jail by then-and your year-end bonus will be secure. Great plan.”
“I would fire you this minute if the lawyers would let me.”
“Go ahead. Stand on principle, Jim. Or is now not really the time?”
The door behind him opened. A slender young man in a security guard’s uniform stepped into the doorway and stood with his hands folded at his belt. He had a badge but no gun. He also seemed to be trying to grow a mustache, without much success.
“This gentleman will show you out,” Kerasopoulos said. “You are hereby suspended from your job indefinitely, pending further consideration by the Media North board of directors. In the meantime, you are barred from the Pilot newsroom and any of its facilities. We will arrange for you to collect your personal items in due time. In the meantime, please do not attempt to contact any of the newspaper’s employees, including Mr. Beech. If you choose noncompliance, rest assured we will promptly take appropriate legal or other actions.”
“Other actions?” I said. “I thought you were just a lawyer.”
He glared at me one last time and left the room.
The fuzzy-lipped rent-a-cop placed a hand on my elbow and led me silently to the elevator, down to the first floor, and across the lobby to the glass double-door entrance. Outside, a thin gray sleet had begun to fall. As I started out the door, I turned to the guard. “I hate fucking Traverse City,” I said.
“Have a good day,” he said.
My windshield wipers made slurping slaps as I steered my pickup past the fudge shops along the bay east of Traverse. I turned on the radio, thinking naively that I might catch a bulletin on Haskell’s IRS troubles. A country song came on. Despite myself, I laughed. I had nearly lost my job and my girlfriend. “Good thing I don’t have a dog,” I said aloud.
What was I going to do now? A newspaper reporter wasn’t much without a newspaper. Even if I did get to the bottom of Gracie’s death, who was I going to tell? Not Michele Higgins, that was for sure. There was my mother, of course, and Mrs. B. They would listen and tell their bingo and bowling and ceramics partners only those things they wished to believe. And those women and men in turn would translate only those things they wished to believe, until it all became a fiction.
But there was Dingus, of course, who could do the right thing. And there was Darlene. Maybe. Besides, a man had pissed all over my notebook. I had to know why.
My phone rang. I snatched it off the console, hoping Darlene was calling to say she had lost her temper.
“Did you hear about Laird Haskell?” Philo said.
I didn’t answer right away.
“Gus?”
“Yeah. On the libel suit? Or the IRS?”
“Pardon me?”
“Never mind. You go first.”
“All right. I hear he’s going to do some sort of mea culpa at today’s town council meeting.”
“Who told you that?”
“Let me put it this way. At first I was told not to bother with the council meeting and instead cover a girl’s volleyball match at the high school.”
“I remember.”
“Then I got a call about fifteen minutes ago saying go to the council meeting.”
Of course, I thought. Kerasopoulos had made his secretary run out and get him a Free Press. Then he called Haskell or Haskell’s attorney.
“So Uncle Jimbo’s running coverage now, huh?”
“I didn’t say that, but… Gus?”
“Did you see the Free Press this morning?”
“I have it here on my desk. But listen-”
“I’m afraid I can’t help you any more, Philo. Your dear, fat-assed uncle just told me I’m no longer welcome at the Pilot. I’m reckless and irresponsible. If I were you, I think I might just go to the high school. Tough to be reckless and irresponsible covering volleyball.”
“Gus, would you please just shut the hell up and listen?”
It was the second time I had been told to shut up that morning. By members of the same family no less.
“Sure,” I said.
“I went through those documents you FOIA’d.”
He pronounced it FOH-ahd. “FOY-uhd,” I corrected him.
“OK. You told me to call if I found something interesting.”
“Right. But I’m not supposed to be talking to you.”
“I need to talk to you about these documents.”
“Go ahead.”
“I can’t now. I have to go take a photo of a new pizzeria.”
At the Pilot, we routinely published photos of new businesses, the owner smiling in front of a burger stand or a real estate office. They were essentially free ads, handed out in the expectation that the business would reciprocate by buying an ad or two. Some did, most didn’t.
“What new pizzeria?” I said.
“Roselli’s, up the hill across the river.”
“Roselli’s? You mean Riccardo’s?”
“Well. Yes.”
“That’s not new. They’re just changing their name again.”
“Exactly.”
“Jeez.”
“It pays the bills.”
I slowed my truck as I neared the intersection with U.S. 131 in Kalkaska. Waiting at the light, I considered detouring north to the Twin Lakes Party Store for one of their tasty egg sandwiches. What was I bothering with Philo for anyway?
“Listen, Philo. How do I know you’re not just spying for your uncle?”
He waited before he answered. “Look. I think I might know something that you probably don’t. You want to know what it is or not?”
“Fair enough.” I pushed the pickup straight through the light. “Tell you what. I’ll meet you there-Riccardo’s, Roselli’s, whatever-around noon. Don’t worry, it’ll be empty. Bring the documents.”
“Done.”
“And, Philo? Could you look up a phone number for me?”
Felicia Haskell jingled a wine charm on the stem of her half-full glass and gave me an innocent smile. “I am not a drinker, Mr. Carpenter.”
“Gus. Didn’t think you were.”
We stood on either side of the butcher-block island in her kitchen with the wall of windows overlooking the frozen crescent of the lake. Beyond Felicia Haskell was a room bigger than a two-car garage. Half of one wall was consumed by a fireplace at the bottom of a tower of cut granite. Muddy boot prints marred the carpet in front of the hearth. There was a hint of smoke in the air.
Across the room, a grand piano stood before the wall of glass. Outside, the sleet had given way to snowflakes the size of silver dollars. Mom’s house was invisible in the gauze of white.
“I just-” Felicia Haskell shrugged. “I have to have something that reminds me of civilization.”
“Understood.”
“Once in a while. I’m sorry. I know you love it here.”
“Some of it, yes.” I drank from my glass of orange juice.
