A sad day, she thought, when the press was pushed aside for overpriced, worthless junk. Oh, excuse me—”antiques.” She locked the van, then marched up the stairs and through the heavy door to the office.
Inside, the cavernous second story smelled musty and as old as it truly was, the warehouse space divided by padded cubicle walls that owner/editor Earl Ray Dansen had found in a business liquidation sale. Most of the cubicles were empty as there were only a couple of staff writers who actually worked at the office. The others, “contributing reporters” such as herself, worked primarily from home. The place always seemed wretchedly ancient and, she knew, was the home to nests of mice and probably rats; she’d seen the evidence herself, and Earl was always talking about getting traps or a cat to solve the problem.
“If feral cats are good enough for Disneyland, then they’re good enough for me,” he’d said on more than one occasion, though no feline mouser had yet shown up.
Today, though, Charity wasn’t going to think about cats, rats, or mice as she walked past the empty cubicles.
Along the north-facing wall, beneath a row of high windows, was a long built-in table separated into workstations. This area had been assigned to the online edition of the Clarion. Currently, the online department was run by Earl’s son, Gerry, a stoner who was forever high; he was clever when it came to high tech, but was way too touchy-feely for Charity.
He was already at his station, she noted, and she skirted his desk as best she could as, always smelling of weed, he’d laid a hand on her shoulder one too many times. With his man bun pulling back his still-thick hair, three days’ worth of stubble around his chin, and eyes that seemed to stare straight into hers, he was far too intense for her taste. And when he’d suggested they meet for coffee or drinks, she’d felt her skin crawl.
It wasn’t just that he wasn’t her type.
There was something about him that genuinely creeped her out.
She managed to get past him without him seeing her come in. Seated at a raised chair at his work area, his head swaying to some inaudible beat from his earbuds, his fingers flying over his keyboard, his back was to her.
Thank God.
Next to Gerry, in her own cubicle, Jeanette Flannery was sipping from a Diet Coke and giggling as she talked into a headset that was buried in her spiky blond hair. She was in her usual uniform of jeans split at the knees, black long-sleeved T-shirt, and tunic-length sweater. Today the sweater was an olive color. Jeanette wasn’t a reporter, but a proofreader and techie who helped Gerry and kept her ear to the ground for local gossip.
Charity slipped past her as well and headed to the far corner of the massive room, where the ceilings were so high Charity believed barn owls could roost there.
Earl wasn’t in his office, the one glass-walled area, filled by a massive credenza and an expansive L-shaped secretary’s desk straight out of the sixties. The desk was a mess of papers, coffee cups, pencils and tablets, two oversized computer screens, and Earl’s iPhone. Gathering dust on the credenza behind him sat an ancient Royal manual typewriter, handed down to him by his grandfather.
As far as Charity knew, no one had pressed one of its keys in decades.
Out of the corner of her eye, she caught sight of Earl as he walked along the short hallway that connected to the back exit and restrooms. Tucking in his shirt, he looked up and saw her waiting.
“Something up?” he asked.
No smile.
These days, Earl rarely grinned. What was left of his graying hair was slightly more salt than pepper, his eyes dark, almost black, his face gaunt, his body that of a long-distance runner despite the fact that he was over sixty.
No reason to beat around the bush. As they walked into his office, she said, “I’ve been doing research on the Cahill story. Background information on James Cahill.”
He rounded the massive desk, sat down, waving her into one of the side chairs. “I thought Seamus was on that.”
“It’s not sports, Earl.”
“So.”
“You and I both know he’s not all that into it. If the story doesn’t involve salary caps or yards carried or runs batted in, Seamus doesn’t give a rat’s ass.”
Earl lifted his coffee cup from his desk, then, seeing it was empty, set it down again. “Last I heard he was all over it.”
“Depends on what you mean by ‘all over.’ ”
“Watch it, Spritz,” he cautioned, putting on a pair of half-glasses and glancing at one of the computer monitors. “Your claws are showing.”
“That’s a sexist remark, you know.”
“Don’t know what you mean. Take it up with HR.”
The Human Resources Department was nonexistent, but she didn’t let it go. “You were intimating that I’m being catty, something always ascribed to women.”
“What side of the bed did you wake up on?” he asked, but held up a hand. “Wait. Don’t answer. That could be described as sexist too.”
“Give me a break.”
“You give me one,” he suggested, squinting as he glanced at his computer screen.
“I just want to dig deeper into the Cahill story.”
“You think it’s a ‘Cahill’ story, not a story about a missing woman?”
“They’re linked, obviously. You know that. And people, I mean readers, will be interested in his family. The Cahills are rich, high San Francisco society, and have more skeletons hidden away in their closets than all of the bones in Adams Cemetery,” she added, mentioning the one graveyard near Riggs Crossing.
“I’m listening,” he said, surprising her as he leaned back in his chair and finally focused on what
