Yes, I thought. Yes, I actually can. She was the only witness. She saw a hit-and-run. She was sure of it. “She was crying really hard.”
Mary Jean waved her hand at me, then slipped her cheaters back on and turned to her computer, dismissing me. “She cries all the time. She likes the drama. It’s a ruse.”
“Not this time. This was no accident and no natural death. This was a manslaughter at the very least. Maybe a murder. There was a car involved, and a witness saw it. And we owe it to the public to report on what actually happened.”
Her mouth turned down in pitiful concern, as if she were feeling sorry for me. She took off her glasses and carefully placed them on the desk. “Did you see it happen?”
“No.”
“Did you hit the man yourself?”
“Of course not. But I was on the scene immediately afterwards.”
“But you weren’t there to see him actually die.”
“No.”
“And did you talk to the witness yourself?”
I paused, realizing that she had me. “No.”
“Charlie, however, did talk to that witness, and he did look over the body, and he’s reporting it as a plain, old, natural death.”
“Charlie?”
“Chief Henderson,” Joyce called from her desk. “He and Mary Jean go way back.”
Well. That was concerning. The police chief, whose delinquent son was always skating out of trouble, and the newspaper editor, whose job was to report on delinquency, were old pals.
Mary Jean flicked a glance at Joyce, then leveled her eyes at me. “My friendship with Charlie has nothing to do with this. We can only go on what the chief has reported to us.”
“That’s not true,” I said. “That’s precisely what we can’t do. We can’t mislead the public, or give them partial facts. It’s our job to seek out the whole story.”
“But if you didn’t witness it, didn’t talk to any witnesses, and didn’t even investigate the body up close, you’re making assumptions, and that is precisely what we can’t do. We’re not medical examiners. We report on facts, not on suspicions. You know this, Hollis.”
“But if I talked to Agnes—”
“You would be wasting your time. She’s an unreliable source, and nobody in this town would take us seriously if we were to quote her in our paper. Again.”
“So I can’t even just interview her? Find out what she saw?”
“No. I’m ordering you to stay away from her and focus on your assigned stories.”
My mouth dropped open, incredulous. “Ordering me to—”
“We have to report reality, and the reality is I know Charlie very well and I trust him.”
The reality was I might have an actual heart attack if she kept talking like that. I was stumped. I had no rebuttal for such an unbalanced system. The sad part was, I was pretty sure Mary Jean truly believed in her system. She had no idea it was all kinds of wrong. It was our job to dig for the truth. To talk to every witness. To view the story from every angle.
But wasn’t that the chief’s job, too? Yet he was shutting down the case before even opening it. Why? Surely Paulie’s privileges didn’t extend this far. Mary Jean was trustworthy, and I didn’t believe she would ever be part of something unethical on purpose. But she was also very trusting, and I couldn’t say for sure that the chief wouldn’t do something unethical—not when it came to protecting his son.
Mary Jean patted my hand and gave me a soft, motherly smile. “I know it’s hard for you, coming from your old newspaper to this one, but we do things a little differently here. It’s what our cu—”
“I know,” I said, resigning. “It’s what our customers expect.”
“You’ll get used to it,” she said. “Give it time. So tell me about the new roller.”
“We got interrupted during my interview, so I don’t have much.” I shrugged. “It’s a hot dog roller. Not sure what else there is to say.” You can find one at any gas station on I-70, I didn’t add.
“That’s okay. There’s a youth football game going on out there this afternoon,” she said. “You can go back and get a quote or two. That way Evangeline’s mom can see her daughter’s name in the paper. She’ll love that.”
“With all due respect, Mary Jean, I just don’t think this is the best use of my time. Surely there are other stories…”
“Evangeline’s family will be expecting it, so we can’t back out now. Her mother is ninety-eight years old. She doesn’t have many more years to wait for her daughter to end up in the paper. We’ll keep it short. Consider it a human interest piece.”
Except I couldn’t think of a human who would be interested.
“Okay.”
“See if you can get it to me by tomorrow morning. And there’s a soft opening today of the new housewares store. I’d like you to get that. And grab some obits and ads from Joyce. You can do those and this week’s events calendar from home again. Just email it when you’re done.” She checked her watch, grabbed the doughnut box and shook it at me. “Feel free.”
“No, thanks,” I said. “I’m not hungry.”
She dropped the box on her desk and resumed working, dismissing me. Defeated, I started back toward my desk. “And Hollis?” She didn’t look up from the paper she was writing on.
“Yes?”
“I’d better not find out that you went anywhere near Agnes Tellerman.”
And in a town like Parkwood, I had no doubt that if I tried, she would find out. I gritted my teeth. “Understood.” She didn’t seem to have any more to say, so I continued my trudge toward my work station.
Back to the hot dog roller, and now a housewares store, a handful of ads and obits, an events calendar, and the big old kibosh on
