Yesterday's News (24 page)

“To begin with, what are those white birds that stand on top of the cattle?”

Cabbiness hooted. “Those? Those are egrets. Believe they call them common egrets, the crows of the South. They got a museum over to the university, you need more detail.”

“No, just curious.”

“Didn't figure y'all flew two and a half hours for that one.”

“I didn't. I'm wondering if you can tell me something about a reporter who used to work here.”

“Might, might not. Name?”

“Jane Rust.”

“Ah, Janey. I remember her, indeed. What's this all about?”

“She's dead. Cops say suicide, I'm trying to …”

I stopped, because Cabbiness had taken off his spectacles and had rolled his rump up enough from the chair to draw a handkerchief from his back pocket. He wiped first the glasses, then his own eyes and nose. I found it a strikingly sincere gesture, and I waited until he spoke next.

“Suicide, you say?”

“Maybe.”

“Janey was … oh, hell, worse to speak too well of the dead as too ill. Janey worked here just a summer, my first year as managing editor. She was an intern, between semesters.”

“And?”

“And she, well, I guess the sociology folks would say she fell in with a bad crowd.”

“How so?”

“Janey was kind of … impressionable. She wasn't too well formed back then, kind of looking for a role model, I guess you'd say. Unfortunately, she found the wrong one.”

“Who was that?”

“Reporter here named Cassy Griffin.”

“Griffin, did you say?”

“Yeah, F-I-N at the end. Born to raise hell, that one. All the time doing things she hadn't ought to.”

“For example?”

“Well, we got us a little place on the West coast named Cedar Key. Kind of a resort town for this area, hour's drive. Hemingway-type bars, dockside cafes where you can see the dolphins—or porpoises, whatever y'all call them up in Boston—hunting in pairs in the harbor. Janey fell in with this Griffin, idolized her, she did, and got herself into all sorts of tight spots down to Cedar.”

“Drugs?”

Cabbiness raised his chubby shoulders. “Drugs, drinking. Men, too, the wrong kind, and too many. You know much about this part of the country?”

“You mean Florida?”

“No, but that's what I mean.”

“I don't follow you.”

“People from up North say ‘Florida,' they've got a picture in their head of Miami. Used to be beach and boardwalk. These days, cocaine and silk jackets, more likely. Gainesville now, this isn't Miami. This is the South. The Old South. Oh, the kids all go to the same schools, and everybody can eat in the same restaurants, no muss or bother. But white or black, y'all go to church on Sunday and say ‘yessir' and ‘nossir' and respect your elders. And a paper here can't tolerate behavior on its staff that the readers wouldn't tolerate in their homes. I let Janey finish her summer, on account of I didn't want a mark against her in the record, but I would have bounced that Ms. Griffin if she hadn't up and quit on me a week before.”

“Any idea where this Griffin woman went?”

“Nope. Couldn't have cared less, either, if you get me.”

“Could I look at her employment records?”

Cabbiness wagged his head. “Not even if we still had them, I'm afraid. But all the files from those days are already pitched. The paper keeps its old issues longer than its personnel files.”

“Anybody still here who knew her?”

He thought about it. “No, no everybody else from those days burned out or got kicked out. By me. Oh, there might be some production people who'd remember Griffin's name, but we get a dozen folk through here a year.”

“Can you describe this Griffin to me?”

“Well, let's see. She was about … wait a minute.” He hoisted himself out of the chair and moved to the decorated wall. “Yes … no, no that's not her, that was … yes, yes, this is her, with Janey at the staff picnic that year. Catherine Elizabeth Griffin, I believe, was her full name.”

I got up, joining him at the wall.

“Lordy, I did look some slimmer in those days, but then the lens, it can play tricks on you. Y'all know how they say the camera never lies? Well, don't you believe them. It can, it surely can.”

The photo showed thirty or so people arranged in a mock graduation shot, half in swimsuits, half with Softball outfits. Toward the center in the first row were two women, a nearly juvenile Jane Rust in a conservative one-piece, a long-haired stunner next to her in a revealing bikini, cradling something the way Davy Crockett might a Kentucky long rifle.

“That there is Cassy, the one next to Janey. She was a beauty, she was. Even with that fish-sticker.”

Liz Rendall smiled back at me, the spear gun seeming a natural extension of the personality Cabbiness had described.

The midday flight back to Boston on Eastern took forever, including the serving of the “snack.” When the flight attendant finally delivered the sandwich, fruit, and cookies, the elderly man next to me said, “Two different kinds of bread.”

“I'm sorry?”

He pointed to his platter. “The sandwiches. The top piece of bread's pumpernickel, the bottom piece rye. Yours, too.”

I looked at my food. “I wonder why.”

“Probably the robot that makes these things went on a bender last night.”

It was a pretty good line, but I just didn't feel like laughing.

A
T THE CONDO
, I tossed the garment bag on the bed and called Liz Rendall. The bombardier receptionist said she was on another line. I told her I'd wait.

Two minutes later I heard, “City Room, Liz Rendall.”

“I'd like to speak with C. E. Griffin, please.”

No response.

“I think she answers to Cassy, too.”

“John, I—”

“Bullshit, Liz! What the hell do you take me for?”

“I take you for someone who understands people in tough situations.”

“You'll have to do better than that.”

“I will. Look, I can't talk now, not about this over the phone.”

“You've already had a chance to tell me about it, and you blew it.”

“John, please, you didn't know until Ida in the limo—”

“Goddammit, Liz, you knew! That's the point. You knew as soon as I asked about Hagan and Dwight Meller, and there was no bereaved aunt around then.”

“You're right. You're absolutely right.”

“Not to mention you could have saved me a trip to Florida.”

“How about I make up for that?”

“How?”

“Dinner at my place. Tonight. Please?”

“Liz, you don't see it, do you?”

“John, I have to go. Really. Please come by. Eight o'clock. I'll explain everything then. Please?”

“Eight o'clock. It better be good.”

“It will be. Bye.”

I depressed the plunger and dialed Nancy's office. She was in court. I left word that I'd be back, late.

Feeling the drag effect of travel without exercise, I changed into running gear and tried to jog the river. Before I'd gone a block, the scabs on my leg from the bridge incident said they weren't ready yet. I reversed direction and walked over to the Nautilus Club.

Elie smiled till he noticed my leg. “John, what happened?”

“I fell, scraped myself up a little.”

“Oh, I'm sorry. Where does it hurt?”

Pointing and flexing, I did my best to describe muscles I couldn't name. Elie took me over to a large drawing of a flayed, color-coded man's body. He helped me determine which groups I'd offended.

Retrieving my personal chart from the open file near the desk, he indicated which machines I should avoid as well as which I should use with less weight. Following the prescribed routine, I felt my body relax and my brain recover. As I was leaving, I stopped to tell him so.

“That's good, John, good. But it's not really me. It's the designer.”

“Sorry?”

“The man who designed the machines, remember? I told you, he thought through every aspect of the whole system, varying each machine so it performs its own task, separate from but with the others, too.”

“Give me that again.”

He did. “An integrated whole. You understand?”

“I think I do. Thanks.”

Back home, I showered and changed temporarily into a pair of tennis shorts. I had a sandwich and some ice water, then stretched out on the couch, mulling over a stop or two I ought to make on my way to the tugboat.

I drove up and down the streets intersecting with The Quay for ten minutes, but couldn't see any activity. Parking in front of Joe's Marine, I strolled around the back. The Alfa was behind one garage door, a soft breeze coming off the harbor. Walking to the other garage door, I peered through the webby glass. I could just see the windshield and outlines of a new black Olds. A little cute, but I had to concede there weren't many other spots to hide the car.

As I approached the dock, the tug was outlined starkly by the setting sun. I climbed the gangplank, Liz appearing at the galley door to buzz me through the gates.

Her left hand held out a wineglass. “Thank you for coming, John. Dinner can wait till after we've talked. The living room?”

I took the glass and followed her in.

She was wearing a knit blouse and stretch pants that fit her like a second layer of skin. Sinking back casually in the sectional furniture in the living room, Rendall swashed the wine slowly around the bottom of her glass. She watched me take the rattan chair, my back to the stern and ignoring my drink.

“You don't like the wine?”

“I'm sure it's fine. Just had some bad clams in Gainesville, upset my stomach.”

“Oh, I'm sorry.”

“Yeah. Probably you could have warned me off the place, you knew I was going down there.”

“I tried to call you.”

“I didn't get any messages. Answering service on the office phone, tape machine at home. Nothing.”

“You must have left right after the funeral. I tried to get you at the Crestview, but Jones the Cro-Magnon said you'd checked out and hung up on me. I tried your office and home, but it's the sort of thing I couldn't leave a message about.”

“Exactly what kind of thing is it, Liz?”

“You already know most of it. Or think you do, which is worse. How about you give me five minutes to tell it my way, okay?”

Recalling the chair's tippiness, I leaned back gingerly. “Go ahead.”

Rendall put down her glass, positioning her body like a model for a photographer. “I was an intern on the
Beacon
the summer Dwight Meller died. Hagan and Schonsy let me get experience riding in the cruiser because they liked me, but they couldn't tell the brass about it. Well, I had a crush on Neil that was so heavy, it hurt. They were getting ready to drop me off when we all saw Meller breaking in some door. Otherwise, it was just like they said and just like I wrote. I got out of Nasharbor to go back to Simmons, and when I graduated, I raised hell in every town that would have me for almost ten years. Pot, coke, men, so many I lost count. I was searching for something, but I didn't realize I'd already found it.”

Her sincerity was hip-deep. I wondered how long she could maintain it.

“True love?”

The face hardened for just an instant, then, “Yes, that's what it was. Not just a crush. Neil Hagan was the only man I ever cared for. It took me years to realize that, but I finally came to my senses. An editor in Florida named Cabbiness canned me. He tried to blackball Janey, too, just for associating with me. That's the kind of boss he was. Well, I busted out of there and out of papers for a while into a bad marriage. A real disaster, like I told you. But at least the bastard was a rich bastard, and I was set. Financially.”

“But not emotionally. Spiritually.”

Rendall threw her wineglass at me. It boloed crazily before shattering against the wall behind me. “I won't have you cheapen us! It was a good thing, and still is, between Neil and me.

“But just a bit outside the bonds of matrimony. His marriage, that is.”

“His wife … his wife's been a good partner to him and mother to his kids. He can't just walk out on her. I understand that, and I'm willing to live with it. What I can't live with is never quite having Neil
and
losing my career here. I meant what I told you once, that I think I can be managing editor when they finally push Arbuckle out the door. And I'll be a damn good one, too. But none of that will ever happen if Arbuckle or anyone else on the paper can match up C. E. Griffin, intern and hellion, with Liz Rendall, professional journalist.”

I said softly, “How did you ever pull it off this long?”

She seemed to dwindle a little. “The name business or the affair?”

“Both. Start with the names.”

“Oh, back in seventy-one, this was a real hick paper. Lots of older reporters, been here all their lives but verging on retirement. The new ones were just coming in, baby boomers, and most of them weren't planning on the Nasharbor
Beacon
being their final rung on the ladder of success. So, by the time I came back, there really wasn't anybody I'd come in close contact with who was still on the paper. Besides, I was older. I looked different. I probably even carried myself and talked different, thanks to New York, Florida, and a bunch of stops in between.”

“And the affair?”

Liz twisted her fingers in the tails of the blouse. “We've been discreet. Nobody's trying to hurt anyone.”

“Not even Jane Rust?”

“I admit that was partly my fault.”

“You do?”

“Yes. When Janey applied for the job, she came through the city room and, well,
she
recognized me. After all, it'd only been five years since we'd worked together in Gainesville. I thought she was kind of shaky down there, but I also thought that Cabbiness hadn't been fair to her. So, I basically maneuvered her into a spot on the
Beacon.
That's what I mean, you see? If it weren't for me, Janey never would have been here, or gotten involved with Coyne, or become so depressed she killed herself.”