The shrinking news hole hadn’t been a problem until Whistler showed up and started writing more stories than we had space for. It forced me to trim his stories, or hold them for the next paper, or just keep them out altogether, hoping someone would find them on our website. Whistler had complained only once so far, when I held a story he’d written about a road commissioner’s secret financial interest in an asphalt company in favor of an advance story on the River Rats’ chances in a Christmas tournament.
“Public service ought to trump kids’ play,” he’d said.
Hockey, I had replied, is more than kids’ play in Starvation Lake.
Now I hit a key and Whistler’s story appeared on my computer screen.
Pine County sheriff’s deputy Frank T. D’Alessio will challenge the incumbent sheriff-his boss-in November’s election, according to papers expected to be filed with the county clerk and disclosed exclusively to the Pine County Pilot.
Whistler was big on self-promotion, constantly mentioning the Pilot in his stories, what the Pilot knew “exclusively,” what it had reported before. I figured he did it because he had come from Detroit, where chest- thumping was part of the newspaper game. I usually sliced it out. Besides the AP guy in Grand Rapids, who seemed to come north only after the temperature hit eighty, we had no real competition except for Channel Eight. Readers and advertisers weren’t going away because we weren’t getting stories first. They were just going away.
I spun in my swivel chair to face Whistler. “Nice,” I said. “But do we have to do the commercial so high in the story?”
He propped a sneaker on the edge of his desk. “Why not tell the readers we’re kicking ass on their behalf?”
“I think they can see the paper they’re holding in their hands is the Pilot. Besides, doesn’t everyone know Frankie’s going to run?”
Whistler smiled the smile of a reporter who knew his boss was clueless. “According to the clips I read, everyone knew he was going to run last election, too. And he didn’t run.”
“He backed out because he knew he didn’t have a chance.”
“Correct. But everything’s different now, isn’t it?”
He had me there. The second and third paragraphs of his story were all about the break-ins, the murder, and Sheriff Dingus Aho’s inability so far to figure out what was going on. D’Alessio will love that, I thought.
“The story doesn’t quote D’Alessio and the department spokesman declined to comment,” I said. “So I’m guessing your main source is Frankie.”
Whistler shrugged. He took the pinkie ring off, rubbed the finger, put the ring back on. “I shouldn’t talk about my sources. But you should know that our friend from Channel Eight is snooping around, too.”
“Your friend,” I said. I tore open the bag of chips and popped a handful into my mouth. “You better hope D’Alessio doesn’t find out about you and your close relationship with her police scanner.”
“Ha,” Whistler said. “We better get that thing online, eh?”
“You think D’Alessio would do any better than Dingus?”
“I have no idea. Just a good story.”
I looked at the clock on the wall over the copier. Eight minutes after three. “Tawny Jane doesn’t have a program till five, but she could do a bulletin. Let me give this a quick read.”
I read the story through, fixed a few typos, and hit Send. A goateed twenty-two-year-old at the main printing plant would have it on the Media North website in minutes.
“Done,” I said. “Another Whistler scoop.”
“That’s nice,” he said, “but really, BFD, you know, all we did was beat another reporter.”
“Isn’t that the idea?”
“Well, yeah. ‘Always first.’ But it’s one thing to beat a competitor. They’re just journalists, after all. It’s another thing to beat the cops.”
“Right. Like your ex-wife.”
“Tags.”
“Yeah.”
“Which brings me to this,” Whistler said. He kicked away from his desk, rolled over to me, and leaned forward in his chair. He had a printout folded in one hand. “Did a little Internet search.”
“You are cutting-edge for an old man.”
“Funny. Write this down.”
I picked up a pen.
“N-I–L-U-S,” he spelled.
I looked at it written on my blotter.
“Nilus,” I said. “As in nye-less?”
“Nilus Moreau,” Whistler said. “Father Nilus Moreau.”
“A priest?”
“He was the pastor of St. Valentine’s.”
“Here? In Starvation Lake?”
“A long time ago. I only did a quick search. Been spending most of my time calling around to cop shops that might be hearing echoes from Dingus and his guys.” He handed me the printout. “Found an obit in the Marquette Mining Journal, 1971.”
I scanned it quickly, three short paragraphs on an inside page of the Mining Journal from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Father Nilus Moreau had come to Starvation Lake in the early 1930s before it was even called Starvation Lake. He led the effort to build a new church at St. Valentine’s in 1951. He died in a nursing home in Calumet at the age of sixty-nine.
“So what?” I said.
“Where did you get this Nilus tip?” Whistler said.
I thought of Darlene. “I shouldn’t talk about my sources either. But it wasn’t D’Alessio.”
“OK. But you ought to run it down from here, don’t you think?”
“Fair enough.”
A priest? I thought, and an image of the crosses in the trees at Tatch’s camp popped into my head.
“Speaking of churches,” I said, “I was out at that born-again camp today.”
Whistler’s white eyebrows went up. “Whatever for?”
“One of the kids on our hockey team lives there. Took him his skates.”
“I’ll bet that was interesting.”
“A little weird, actually. Reminds me: Were you trying to get the records on that land?”
I could tell Whistler hadn’t expected that question. “I might have seen them if the wench clerk had let me.”
“You didn’t say anything to me.”
“Sorry, boss. I always go looking for the documents. The docs can’t kiss your ass and buy you lunch and make you write like a wimp, like those auto reporters back in-” He caught himself, perhaps remembering I had once covered that industry. “Oh, sorry.”
“I wish writing like a wimp had been my problem.”
“Anyway, I got nowhere with Verna the Vault. But it’s a story, right? The born-agains want to get out of paying taxes, or at least pay less. Kind of a sore subject in this economy.”
“Yep. They apparently have a lawyer now, an out-of-towner named Breck.”
Whistler sat back in his chair. “Breck?”
“Like the shampoo. Didn’t get the first name. Know him?”
“Nope.”
“Seems like he’s running things out there. They’ve got a backhoe tearing up that hill.”
“Really? Building themselves a church?”
“Nah. Something about a septic field leaking into their land. They’re going to try to use it to squeeze the county for some cash.”
“You can’t get blood from a stone.”
“Right.” I ate another chip. “But they might be making some hay about it at the drain commission tomorrow.
