“Who can I talk to that remembers those high school days?” I asked. “Are there any teachers still around?”
“Jacob Solomon. He taught Latin at both Catholic and Washington high schools back then,” Daniels said after pondering my question for a few minutes. “He’s in his nineties, but still sends me newspaper clippings and notes of congratulations. He’s invited me over for tea several times, but I never can find the time.”
“Stan, what do you think really happened?” I asked.
Stan took a deep breath. His eyes flirted with something in the distance and then settled again, cold and dark, on the floor.
“She’s dead,” he said. “There is no way Celeste would run away and not contact us. Her disappearance killed the souls of my parents, completely drained their marriage and faith. Every time the phone rang, they expected it to be her. My mother refused to leave the house, not wanting to miss a phone call. My parents didn’t attend my high school graduation, never went to one of my college football games. Both died before I graduated from Florida, simply quit wanting to live.”
He looked up at me and voiced the question I wanted to ask.
“How did I cope with it?” He took a deep breath. After all, he had told this part of the story before and was used to telling it. “I turned to alcohol. Avoided, by the grace of God, any DUIs but totaled two cars before I hit thirty. My wife stood by me. Eventually, I became a friend of Bill W.”
I asked, “Bill?”
“A member of Alcoholics Anonymous. I’m a recovering alcoholic, haven’t had a drink in twenty-seven years. Bill W. is Bill Wilson, one of the founding members of AA.”
Stan Daniels was human after all. He put the yearbooks down, picked up his jacket and headed for the door.
“Where do you expect to take this?” Daniels said as he shook my hand, more perfunctory than warm this time. “Why dig up painful memories?”
I said, “I don’t know if Hines and Wittman had anything to do with your sister’s death, but I will talk to Mr. Solomon and see what he remembers about all three of them.”
He stood there half silhouetted by the sun in the skylight and said, “I wonder what our world would be like . . . you know . . . if she were here.”
Yeah, I thought, sometimes a person’s absence goes on like a living thing, still affecting the living.
Daniels looked out the window down Palafox Street and continued, “Don’t use my sister to save your hide.”
“I won’t,” I said as he shut the door, knowing that was exactly what I had to do.
I am an ass, I thought.
29
After Daniels left, Big Boy sauntered downstairs, having had a nice rest after his walk with Tiny. He found a piece of donut in Jeremy’s trashcan and began to eat it on the couch.
“You really are disgusting,” I said. The dog ignored me and finished his treat. “Come on, I need the exercise.”
We went out for a short walk. Since this was his second one of the morning, Big Boy wasn’t in any hurry. Good thing, my head and ribs still couldn’t handle even a light jog. The binding around my chest itched.
My first scheduled blog post went live at 8:30 a.m. as we were walking:
BUZZ: WHAT SECRET?
The suicide note believed to be from Sue Eaton Hines will be authenticated soon by the state attorney’s forensic experts. Below is the handwriting report from our expert.
The question on everyone’s mind is what secret? And for whom was the note intended? Who is “Sweetie”?
Within five minutes my cell phone vibrated. It kept vibrating every few minutes. Big Boy and I were still a block away from Pensacola Bay. I didn’t answer any of the calls but checked the caller ID. They were from Dare, Gravy, Clark Spencer, Jim Harden, and a number I didn’t recognize. My head hurt too much to be yelled at before noon.
Gravy texted, “Where the hell are you? Both the attorney general and state attorney want you in their offices today.”
A block away from the Pensacola Insider office, I spied a group of gray-haired retirees with posters. An empty donut box in a nearby trashcan indicated they were probably charged up on Krispy Kreme and coffee. The dress code for the men apparently was black socks with sandals. The women wore red, white, and blue tops over white shorts. The protestors blocked the entrance to my office.
Save Our Pensacola saw an opportunity to pile on the Herald’s coverage and attract attention to their petition drive. The protest would bring free publicity and draw television crews. The signs read “No More Fake News,” “Take a Walk, Walker,” “Bought and Paid-For Reporting,” and “Boycott the Insider.” The protesters, about a dozen, give or take a walker or oxygen tank, shouted, “No more. No more fake news. No more deaths. No more Insider.”
I took off Big Boy’s leash, and he walked right past the picketers unscathed and unbothered by the commotion. He sat on the mat in front of the door. I swore he smiled at me, daring me to follow him. I hated that dog.
I saw one of my “shadows” from last week’s meeting at New World Landing—crew cut, Hawaiian shirt, khaki shorts, and the prerequisite socks and sandals. Walking up to him, I asked if I could help him.
“We’re shutting you down, Holmes,” he said, not removing his aviator sunglasses. “Your bull crap must stop. Attacking the good name of a dead woman is low even for scum like you.”
He jabbed me in the chest to punctuate his last sentence. I was getting tired of people doing that. I hoped I didn’t wince because it felt like I had been stuck with a hot poker.
“Freedom of the press is a bitch,” I
