Newspaper reporter Justin Weaver had originally hoped to use his job at the small-town Bloomington Times as a springboard to something bigger. But after a couple years on the job, dreams of moving to New York or Chicago seem as far away as ever, especially when his newest assignment is covering a memorial service in the rural village of Masontown.
A heroic war veteran and county sheriff for fifty years, Alvin “Pop” McDaniel, Masontown’s legendary local hero, was a friend and benefactor to all. Justin is sure the story will be straightforward, but things get complicated when his girlfriend and fellow reporter, Belinda Fanelli, shows up to rock the boat—and Belinda rocks it well.
As he researches the story and the memorial ceremony unfolds, Justin has a funny feeling. He suspects Pop wasn’t as perfect as everyone thinks he was. With the help of Belinda and their inside source Andy Kline, a local reporter who proves to be a useful ally, Justin goes on a thorough hunt for the truth. However, digging through the life of a dead man can be dangerous—especially if the dead man had something to hide.
Newspaper reporter Justin Weaver had originally hoped to use his job at the small-town Bloomington Times as a springboard to something bigger. But after a couple years on the job, dreams of moving to New York or Chicago seem as far away as ever, especially when his newest assignment is covering a memorial service in the rural village of Masontown.
A heroic war veteran and county sheriff for fifty years, Alvin “Pop” McDaniel, Masontown’s legendary local hero, was a friend and benefactor to all. Justin is sure the story will be straightforward, but things get complicated when his girlfriend and fellow reporter, Belinda Fanelli, shows up to rock the boat—and Belinda rocks it well.
As he researches the story and the memorial ceremony unfolds, Justin has a funny feeling. He suspects Pop wasn’t as perfect as everyone thinks he was. With the help of Belinda and their inside source Andy Kline, a local reporter who proves to be a useful ally, Justin goes on a thorough hunt for the truth. However, digging through the life of a dead man can be dangerous—especially if the dead man had something to hide.
eBook
Available on Compatible NOOK devices, the free NOOK App and in My Digital Library.
Related collections and offers
Overview
Newspaper reporter Justin Weaver had originally hoped to use his job at the small-town Bloomington Times as a springboard to something bigger. But after a couple years on the job, dreams of moving to New York or Chicago seem as far away as ever, especially when his newest assignment is covering a memorial service in the rural village of Masontown.
A heroic war veteran and county sheriff for fifty years, Alvin “Pop” McDaniel, Masontown’s legendary local hero, was a friend and benefactor to all. Justin is sure the story will be straightforward, but things get complicated when his girlfriend and fellow reporter, Belinda Fanelli, shows up to rock the boat—and Belinda rocks it well.
As he researches the story and the memorial ceremony unfolds, Justin has a funny feeling. He suspects Pop wasn’t as perfect as everyone thinks he was. With the help of Belinda and their inside source Andy Kline, a local reporter who proves to be a useful ally, Justin goes on a thorough hunt for the truth. However, digging through the life of a dead man can be dangerous—especially if the dead man had something to hide.
Product Details
| ISBN-13: | 9781475922912 |
|---|---|
| Publisher: | iUniverse, Incorporated |
| Publication date: | 05/31/2012 |
| Sold by: | Barnes & Noble |
| Format: | eBook |
| Pages: | 492 |
| File size: | 830 KB |
Read an Excerpt
Into the Blue
By Mark Spaid
iUniverse, Inc.
Copyright © 2012 Mark SpaidAll right reserved.
ISBN: 978-1-4759-2290-5
Chapter One
"Watch out, stupid!" an angry woman cried as she stumbled and fell to the sidewalk."I'm sorry," Justin Weaver said as he reached down to help the irritated woman to her feet, realizing that his habit of daydreaming while walking had once again led to a collision.
"Leave me alone. I can do it myself. You should watch where you're going, you clumsy idiot." With that, the woman struck Justin in the shoulder with her umbrella handle. She was all of maybe five feet tall and clearly on the downside of 60, but she could swing an umbrella like a .340 hitter.
"Ow!" Justin squealed. He was a gangly and disheveled reporter for the Bloomington Times, and his laid-back attitude showed in his appearance, which was always short of neat. He wore baggy pants and the same red tennis shoes every day. His long brown hair hung over his ears and was rarely combed. He never wore a tie, but always dressed in a shirt with the sleeves rolled up and never forgot to tuck a pencil behind his ear. He was every bit of 6'4" with a lope that had clumsy written all over it. He kind of threw his feet out one at a time when he walked and, to the casual observer, it appeared as if Justin might tumble forward with every step.
Given his walking handicaps, he was in a hurry, as usual. It was nine-thirty in the morning, and he was late again. Eddy Lopez would be furious, and Justin would have to think fast to soothe the ire of the bombastic and ill-tempered editor. It was Lopez who had given the young University of Missouri School of Journalism student a job as a cub reporter the day after graduation. And Justin was smart, driven to succeed, and tenacious when he had to be. His writing flowed in a style that was crisp, informative, and entertaining all at the same time. His feature articles were short but loaded with information, and he was thorough to the point of being anal as he delayed printing until he had all of the information. When Eddy hassled him about deadlines, Justin would reply that there was always a paper tomorrow, to which his sometimes-acerbic boss would reply with the usual answer that the paper would be able to go on without the services of the gentleman from Mizzou anytime its editor decided.
Justin, a mid-westerner born and bred, was at home in the sticks, though—like all beginning reporters—he dreamed of landing a job at a major metropolitan paper and achieving the ultimate spot: a regular column. Dreams come easy, but they can die fast and seldom last very long when faced with reality. Justin's hopes of parlaying the Bloomington Times into a springboard to the big-time had fizzled. In three years, he had nailed a few big stories, like the arsonist ring he broke in his first year and the Frobisher case, in which he rooted out the lawyer who had been siphoning off the entire estate of a millionaire industrialist that was supposed to go to his twin granddaughters.
Indeed, he had not been without his moments and, because of that, Lopez had been generous with him whenever there was a slow period. However, in the grand scheme of things, Justin's career in the newspaper business had been lackluster. Most of his time was spent covering city hall meetings, train wrecks, warehouse fires, and the small town basketball games that were so very important to folks in Indiana. As he approached the fourth floor, he steeled himself for the coming onslaught that would hit him as soon as he stood in the doorway of his boss's office.
"Hello, Eddy," said a smiling Justin as he ambled in and sat down in one of the rock hard wooden chairs spread haphazardly around Lopez's office. It was actually more of a store room-bulletin board. Eddy kept all of the supplies in his office, so if someone even wanted a pencil they had to listen to a lecture about wasting the paper's money. Taped to the walls were old stories and new leads to be tackled by the dozen or so reporters who worked the day shift. Lopez had been a reporter for the Chicago Tribune for 11 years when he got a call to edit the Times. Reluctantly, Lopez accepted the offer and had been there for nine years. Justin knew that Eddy was hesitant to leave only because he hated to leave the frenetic hustle of a big newspaper, where there was always a huge story, for the relative calm of the Bloomington Times.
For the first few months he'd wished he was still back in Chicago, but, as time passed he saw that there were stories in Central Indiana as well—maybe not as many, and maybe they didn't carry the same national or international notoriety as the ones from a major urban center, but they were important stories, nonetheless. The Times was a solid newspaper with a large circulation throughout Central and Southern Indiana. Lopez had been a good reporter, and he was a strong newspaperman who knew the business and how to get the most out of a story and, sometimes, out of his reporters.
"Tell me, Mr. Weaver, are we keeping you from your sleep these days? Because if we are, I'm sure some better arrangements can be made so you can get your rest and still manage to occasionally write a story for the paper." Eddy sat at his desk with hands folded on his chest. He spoke in that soft, patronizing tone that was usually a precursor to a volcano.
"Well, it would be nice to come in about noon every day," Justin remarked, figuring he had nothing to lose since the explosion was inevitable, no matter what he said.
"NICE IS NOT WHAT I HAD IN MIND!" Eddy was standing now, and the rather sleepy-eyed reporter instinctively slid down in the chair at the force of his boss's tirade.
"Sorry I'm late, Eddy, but ..." Justin started to explain.
"Don't give me any buts today, mister. You're on thin ice as it is," Eddy snapped as he sat down again, and then lowered his voice to a more reasonable level. "I wanted you here for an editorial meeting at eight a.m., if you remember me telling you that yesterday."
"Yes, I remember, Eddy," Justin said as he sat upright again, "but if YOU remember correctly, there was a call you placed to me this morning at one-thirty telling me to cover the fire at that lumberyard. Well, I was there until five-thirty this morning trying to get so much as a one-liner from someone at the company, which was useless, of course, since I think they had a gag order from the foreman. Silly me, but I thought I was entitled to at least a little sleep, and besides, the editors never listen to my opinion about what goes in the op-ed page, anyway." Justin yawned and slumped in the chair, obviously exhausted and in need of sleep. Lopez sat speechless for a moment and then went into his usual gyrations of nose-rubbing, lip pursing and ear lobe pulling that preceded a brilliant statement.
"All right. I'll forgive you this one time," Lopez said as he pointed a finger in Justin's direction. Justin knew that Eddy forgave him one time about every month or so. "I tell you what. You go home and get some sleep, and then come see me back here at nine in the morning. I have an assignment for you that could be big."
"You mean you're not mad at me anymore?" Justin asked as he slowly got to his tired feet.
"No, it doesn't mean I'm not mad at you anymore. It means I'm giving you a great opportunity at a good story, so get out of here before I change my mind." Lopez began working on copy at his desk as Justin walked out backwards, waiting for the eye contact from Lopez that never came. He walked a few steps away and breathed a huge sigh of relief that prompted a head peeking up over the divider.
"Dodged a bullet I see," Belinda Fanelli said in her soft, alluring voice. She was another young reporter whose specialty was fashion. She and Justin met at a party the weekend before she started at the Times, and she had set her sights on Justin that night and was determined to make him her conquest. They had slept together that night and many nights since then. They were not exactly going steady to the point where every weekend was an understood date; however, it was close because neither was seeing anyone else, and nearly every Friday and Saturday found the two of them together.
Justin was not very aggressive on that front, and it was usually Belinda that asked him for a date to which he had never declined. Her hope was that he would take the lead in their relationship. Not that she wanted to play the girl waiting by the phone, that was not her nature and never would be but she did want him to show more eagerness. The problem was that it was not in his personality and, perhaps more importantly, his interest was in his career at this point, and if he could advance by landing a job with a large paper in some far off city, he didn't want the complication of a relationship to clutter things up and make for a messy departure. Belinda had initially sought out Justin as she had schemed before with other men with a modus operandi to find someone who would agree to treat her like a princess and lavish her with praise and money. However, she found quickly that she had fallen in love with Justin, and she had feelings for him unlike she had ever felt towards another man.
"Got lucky this time," Justin said as he breezed by Belinda and headed to the elevator.
"How about dinner?" Belinda queried as Justin faded out of earshot.
"What about it?" Justin blurted as the elevator doors shut. Belinda sat down in defeat and pouted briefly.
"Did the princess get turned down?" Skinny Willis sneered from across the aisle. Skinny actually weighed about three hundred and fifty pounds and, though he was a good sports reporter, he was universally shunned by nearly everyone due to his arrogance and the odor of his cheap cologne.
"Cram it, scuzbag," Belinda fired back as she began pounding on her computer with a ferocity and brutality that was sure to relieve her anger and get her a new keyboard at the same time. She had graduated from Indiana University with a major in fashion and interior design and a minor in journalism, which is an odd combination, to be sure, but one that landed her a job with the Times when the fashion industry was in a slump. As Eddy told her during her interview, "Kid, if the fashion world is up, you can work there and things are great, but if it's down you go hungry. On the other hand, whether clothes are selling or not, you can still write about it, and people want to read about it. So, do you want the job?" Belinda accepted on the spot.
* * *
The tired reporter arrived back at his apartment and headed to the refrigerator to scavenge for something to eat before going to bed. It was practically empty, save for a withered orange, moldy bread, a gallon of chocolate milk, and a handful of condiments. He rarely ate at home and never cooked since the delicatessen and the hot dog stand across from the paper were his regular sources of nourishment. He poured a glass of chocolate milk and sat down at the kitchen table. It was piled high with books and old newspapers. In fact, the entire apartment was piled with clutter of all sorts, some of which literally reached the ceiling. He was a clean person, but not very well-organized.
As he sat drinking and sucking on what was left of the orange, the phone rang. He began pushing papers aside and looked for the ring that was coming from under the piles on the table. Finally, he found it and answered. "Yes, this is Weaver." He listened. And his expression changed from neutral to irritated, to downright angry. "I thought it was just a matter of procedure. They promised me a shot at it in the fall." He listened for a few more seconds and then shook his head in disgust. "Well, thanks, Gordy, for all of your help," he said sarcastically and slammed the phone down. He got up and made his way to the bedroom, where he slept 'til evening.
Though he enjoyed his work on the Times and Lopez was in many ways a good boss and an easy one to work for, even given his idiosyncrasies, Justin had, for some months, been cultivating his contacts with the St. Louis Post Dispatch. Gordy Wilkins was a pressman for the Dispatch and had been passing Justin's name around to a couple of his reporter friends who led Gordy to believe that his friend had a good chance for an interview and a probationary job. It had apparently fallen through, however, and now it appeared that the ambitious reporter was stuck at the Times for the foreseeable future.
Bloomington is not a large city, but it boasts some fine restaurants, and Justin's favorite was a little out-of-the-way café called Mickey's. It was owned and operated by a little Irish guy called Mickey O'Doul. At least, that's what he called himself. Many times, Justin thought he used that name for the atmosphere, and that it was really a marketing ploy. Nevertheless, he served great food and, on St. Patrick's Day, there was corned beef and cabbage and green beer and whiskey and any number of whimsical accessories that go with the Irish on March 17th. As was usual, Mickey recognized Justin and came over to greet his favorite customer. At least, he called him his favorite customer. Justin thought there was a strong likelihood that he had a dozen or so favorite customers—all of whom Mickey sufficiently greased up to encourage the flow of money on food and booze during the course of the evening.
Justin was devouring his steak and chasing it with beer and ginger ale. It was an unusual drink combination, but his philosophy was that the ginger ale would counteract the sleepy effects of the beer and help keep him alert. He was enjoying his solitude when he sensed the presence of someone standing in front of his booth. He recognized the perfume, and he didn't even have to look up to know that it was Ms. Fanelli.
He kept chewing, as he looked her up and down. He had to admit she looked good, and that fashion sense of hers was paying off. She wore a short black dress with a plunging neckline that left little to the imagination. There were plenty of stares as she walked in and a couple of whistles.
"Can I sit down?" she asked with one hand on her hip and the other holding a purse on her shoulder.
"I think you better for the sake of propriety," Justin squeaked out after swallowing. "What are you doing here?"
"Looking for you, obviously," Belinda said as she brushed the black hair off her face. She placed both hands on the table and leaned forward, smiling.
"You know if I'd wanted company I would've asked you to join me," remarked Justin as he downed a large swig of the dark beer that he liked.
"Am I that repulsive?" asked Belinda with the smirk that Justin had learned to recognize.
"You're beautiful as always, but I'm not much of a conversationalist tonight. You could have had a better time with someone else," Justin said.
"Why don't you let me decide that and, besides, I'm not looking for conversation tonight," she said flirtatiously.
Justin stared at her and shook his head in bewilderment. Belinda liked to party at the drop of a hat, and she liked to party with him. He knew what the progress of the evening would be, and he was, admittedly, unwilling to stop it.
"Are you hungry?" Justin asked politely.
"In a way, I guess I am," she said with a grin.
"Here's a menu, then," Justin said as he handed it to her.
"I didn't say I wanted to order," as she passed the menu back.
"Interesting," Justin said as he leaned back in the booth.
"It could be. I guess it's up to you," she said as she ran her fingers down the neckline of her dress and tapped her rather ample visible cleavage.
"I'll probably regret this in the morning, but I suppose life's full of regrets." Justin threw a twenty-dollar bill on the table, finished his beer, and got up to leave. Belinda followed closely behind and took his arm as they walked down the street.
Driving back to his apartment, he saw that she was, in fact, as stunning a beauty as he had remembered from previous dates when she dressed to the hilt, and his sexual desire for her was as great as it had ever been. So, what was holding him back? Why shouldn't he fall in love with her, get married, and live happily ever after?
Why? Because that was the stuff of fairy tales, and real life could be quite different. Besides, his career aims could easily trample a marriage and lead to divorce, an ex, alimony and all of the rest, which was not something he wanted to complicate his life. Belinda was a fine girl and any man would be thrilled to have her as a steady mate. Justin never doubted that. She was beautiful, incredibly well-built and enticing in all of the physical ways that arouse a man and start the fires of passion burning. There was no doubt about that. He saw how other men ogled her when they were together, and he knew that they saw the same things he did.
(Continues...)
Excerpted from Into the Blue by Mark Spaid Copyright © 2012 by Mark Spaid. Excerpted by permission of iUniverse, Inc.. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.
Excerpts are provided by Dial-A-Book Inc. solely for the personal use of visitors to this web site.