A gathering storm, p.7
A Gathering Storm, page 7
“Contractor,” Christine corrected.
“Right, contractor—she doesn’t like the term freelancer. She has a contractor sell her advertising.”
Dora was surprised. “I didn’t know that.”
“Tom did the same thing,” Christine explained, “and he would have been more upset than Sarah for you to know about it.”
Charlie nodded. “He had this vision of himself as a cross between Hunter Thompson and Tom Snyder.”
Christine shook her head. “Cooler—Jann Wenner. Or, even better—Ben Franklin.”
Charlie laughed, trying not to spit out his sip of wine. He covered his mouth with his napkin, his eyes tearing up. “Oh, Chris. Ben Franklin! Spot on, ego-wise. Mr. Gravitas magazine magnate. I mean, c’mon. He let himself be blackmailed over the death of his fucking daughter, by her killer’s father! Are you kidding me!”
“Kind of Shakespearean in a Hamlet-Lear sort of way,” Christine mused.
“If you mean sick and twisted, then yeah.”
Dora held up a “calm down” palm. “You guys are getting a little above my pay grade.”
Christine turned serious. “Sarah’s doing a good job. The paper’s editorial standards have probably improved, and she’s found ways of making it work business-wise, by aligning with chambers of commerce and running co-op ads. She really works at it.”
“And our Beach City Tourism ad campaign is in its third year and doing better than ever.” Charlie was particularly proud of this accomplishment. “It’s a three-way deal, between the city, my agency, and The Chronicle.”
“It’s because you had a great model for the ads,” Christine said, looking at Dora, who had been that model in a Rosie the Riveter-style campaign.
“Rumor has it you have an ‘in’ with the city,” Dora said, looking soberly into her food.
Charlie nodded. “Um, well…”
Dora smiled. She really liked them both, and she liked so few people. “So, when are you guys tying the knot?”
Christine looked at Charlie. “That’s what I want to know.” When her fiancé looked hurt, she waved her ring finger, which sported a large diamond on a platinum band.
“This probably bought him six months. He asked two months ago, but we haven’t set a date yet.”
“Congratulations!” Dora exclaimed, clinking glasses with Christine and Charlie. “Do you guys know what happened to Mrs. Volkov?” she asked. “What was her name?”
“Irene. She’s in a facility. A sad story. As far as she’s concerned, her daughter’s still alive.”
Charlie nodded. “Anne’s death broke her heart.”
“No—her mind,” Christine corrected.
Dora sat back. “So, you like your job?” she asked Christine.
“All those years I saw the way the city was run and knew the way it should run. Now I can make that happen.”
“To a degree,” Charlie said, raising an eyebrow.
“Right, but I have a lot of say. Ultimately, of course, it’s up to the voters. I get to build or contribute to building the departments we always should have had. I pick the department directors, and there’s no one better informed to do that.”
“Including the public.” Charlie nodded.
“Well, yeah. They picked me. I’ll work in their interest, best I can. But enough about us—tell us how you’re doing at the academy. I’ve gotta tell you,” Christine said, leaning conspiratorially toward Dora. “Knowing all I do about you and your past, well, you know—this took us by surprise.”
“Why?” Dora asked.
“Let me rephrase.” Christine spoke with exaggerated care. “You might not be the first individual to come to mind when I try to imagine a municipal employee whose job it is to hold us all to the letter of the law.”
“All right, all right.” Dora shook her head and tried not to look hurt.
“So?” Charlie waited.
“It’s okay.” Dora shrugged. “But the discipline’s a bit much.”
“See?” Christine turned toward Charlie.
“The academics are hard because it’s not all necessarily common sense, and I’m not the best book learner.”
“Like a lot of cops,” Christine suggested, shrugging.
“True,” Dora agreed. “And the physical stuff’s fine. The pushups, sit-ups, running—I can keep up. They have to make it so all sorts of people can pass.”
“And the hand to hand?” Charlie asked. “Bet you gotta tone that down.”
Dora nodded slowly. “Yeah. I’ve never been a big rule follower, and there are things I don’t love.” She rolled her eyes. “We’ll see.” She looked at them both for a moment. “I wanted to talk about what’s going on now. You guys are close with Agatha. Has she talked to you at all about what happened to her brother?”
Christine and Charlie shook their heads. “She’s pretty private,” Christine said. “And when I was clerk and she was on the council, we didn’t really run in the same crowds, you know?”
“Yeah, well, whoever killed Jesse’s still out there, so I’m not sure it’s the right time to be private, at least about the criminal aspect of it.”
“What can we do?” Charlie asked.
Christine nodded eagerly. “How can we help? The police are handling it, no?”
“They are. I don’t know. You’re two smart, good friends and…it’s all so awful and overwhelming for everyone—Vanessa especially, but Agatha too and oh my God, the kids!” She gave a long exhale. “Vanessa really could use a job.”
Christine and Charlie exchanged a look.
“My shop could always use a proofreader,” Charlie offered.
“Really?” Dora asked, then mused, “She’d need someone to watch the kids. I already told her I’d be interested.”
Now it was Christine’s turn to look surprised. “You?”
“What, kids can’t have a gay babysitter? Charlie, what would the hours be?”
“Are you serious about this?”
“Yes, I am. I can’t say what she’d think, but she does need to feed those kids, and I don’t know what the school district or the teacher’s union will do for Jesse’s family. I don’t know if he had tenure…”
Charlie nodded. “Let me get back to you.”
“Is what happened to Jesse connected to the oxy and fentanyl busts going on now?” Christine asked. “Did Jesse have a drug problem?”
Dora looked at them both. “The answer to both those questions is…we don’t know. I’m sure the police asked his wife, but I’m not sure Vanessa would open up to them about something like that.”
“Are you friends?” said Charlie. “Maybe you could ask.”
• • •
After dinner, Dora got into the Subaru and yawned. She had one more stop to make before turning in for the night. “Siri,” she said, “call Sarah at work.” She waited.
“Chronicle, Sarah speaking.”
“Hi, Sarah. Dora Ellison here.”
“Dora—oh, hi! How are you?”
“I’m okay. You?”
“Busy, but good.”
“Too busy for a short visit?”
“Never. You know where my office is.”
“Sure do.”
Ten minutes and a fun ride later, Dora was climbing the familiar, narrow, aging white stairs to The Beach City Chronicle’s office, which was technically a suite—two tiny rooms off a slightly larger common room that was a combination office, tech area, and waiting room, depending on the situation. The offices were more brightly lit than Dora remembered and had been painted a light beige over their ancient, original dirty white. Framed front-page headlines and stories adorned the walls. The waiting area had a long table on which sat two MacBook Pros; both offices had similar computers.
Dora knocked on the open outer door. Some kind of rock music from about ten years earlier was blasting beyond it. She knocked again. A woman’s head peeked out from one of the offices, and immediately the music’s volume was lowered.
“Sarah,” the woman called. “Someone here to see you.” She smiled—a beautiful, warm smile. “I’m sure she’ll be right with you.”
Sarah emerged from the other office. “Oh, hey!” She was a youthful thirty-six, with short brown hair cut in a purposely messy bob that looked as though she’d just fallen out of bed—a look that probably came with significant cost, not unlike distressed jeans, Dora mused. As usual, Sarah was dressed entirely in black—black knit sweater, black slacks, black neck gaiter, and black shoes.
They hugged briefly. Dora had eschewed hugging and shaking hands since COVID, but so many people had offered her hugs lately that her resistance was wearing down. She was vaccinated and hugs were nice, after all.
“Dora, this is Esther—associate editor. Esther, Dora.” Esther, a dark-skinned Black woman, nodded and smiled again. “Great to finally meet you.”
“Same.”
Sarah glanced toward the doorway from which she had emerged. “Lemieux—come out here. I want you to meet someone.”
The man who emerged from the second office was tall, thin, and balding. He waved. “Hallo.”
“Dora,” Sarah said. “This is Lemieux—reporter and chief of IT.”
He nodded. He had a fringe of black hair, pale pink skin, and blue eyes. “And sometimes ad sales associate, sometimes floor sweeper, toilet cleaner, hanger and framer of pictures, phone answerer…”
“And extreme wise ass,” Sarah finished.
“Pleasure,” Dora said, exchanging nods with Lemieux. “Is that your first or last name?”
“No one knows,” Lemieux claimed, mysteriously.
“His first name is Yves,” Sarah said.
“Please, call me Lemieux,” Lemieux insisted. “Otherwise, it sounds like you’re making a nighttime date.”
“Okay, Lemieux.” Dora smiled, then looked at Sarah. “Can we talk for a sec?”
“Use my office,” Lemieux insisted. “I have to reboot the server. Incoming.”
Sarah nodded toward one of the computers on the nearby table. “That’s our server. Where the photos, ads, and, particularly, videos come in. We use lots of bandwidth.”
“Ah,” said Dora, and slipped past Lemieux and into his office. Sarah followed.
“Still the same old place,” Dora mused.
“We’re hoping to get out of here into someplace nicer, and bigger,” Sarah said. “A lot will depend on the winter—especially holiday ads.”
“So, you’re the boss now,” Dora said as they both sat down.
“Livin’ the dream. Coffee?”
“Too late for me.”
“You don’t mind if I—?” Sarah looked at Dora as she poured from an industrial-sized coffee pot.
“How do you sleep?”
“Haven’t since 2012.”
“Ah—Hurricane Sandy.”
“More or less.”
“So, I guess you like the business?”
Sarah gave a half smile. “I guess I do. Was kind of running the news end all along, with occasional help from a stringer reporter, Charlie Bernelli’s graphics guy and his video person—who uses an iPhone on a little gimbal, believe it or not. We all do a bit of everything around here. Oh, and I have someone selling advertising, but that’s always been the case. Good to keep advertising and news separate. And how do you like the police academy? Is it like the movies?”
“Um, no. The training has its ups and downs.”
Sarah waited, but Dora had nothing to add.
“So, what’s up?”
“What’s your relationship with the police?”
“We have a working relationship. We’re a city news source. A lot of our news is about police-related activity or issues. And they want us to be friendly to them, tell the truth, not skew things in any particular way. They like us; we like them. I mean, we all want a safe city and we work together toward that end.”
“So, you know about Agatha’s brother.”
Sarah nodded. “Well, I know the basic facts—we ran them. We know he was found beaten to death in an alley. Doesn’t sound as though he was killed somewhere else and moved there.”
“And the relationship between his death and the police fentanyl and oxy full court press?”
Her brow creased. “I don’t follow.”
Dora shifted in her seat. “Are the police pushing you to connect Jesse’s death with an uptick in recent drug-related deaths?”
Sarah shook her head. “Not any more than I would otherwise. I’m not aware of any facts that directly link the two. Circumstantial, yes, but not facts on the ground. Mentioning a trend in drug-related deaths along with a somewhat high-profile murder in circumstances that may be drug-related—nothing wrong with that. As long as we’re clear with the facts.”
Dora sighed softly. “The man left two babies.”
“I know. I’m sure it’s rough for his wife and family.”
“Sure is. I was hoping we could put our heads together…”
Sarah pressed her lips together. “I don’t think I have any special insight to share.”
“You know about his son, Julius?”
“It’ll be in the paper this week.”
“Well, I came because if anyone can see patterns in any of this, it’s you, Sarah, and you’re privy to information the rest of us don’t have—on a timely basis.”
“I want to help. I just don’t know what I can do. I like Agatha, I care about you, and I care about this city. So, if there’s something I can do, information that comes my way, and sharing it doesn’t jeopardize some situation, story, or relationship that’s on my plate—I’m here to help.”
Dora rose. “That’s all I can ask. Thank you, Sarah.”
• • •
Once back in her apartment, she opened a can of beer, sat down on the couch, and turned on the TV. She drank the beer, went back to the kitchen and opened another, but knew she wouldn’t finish it. She’d eaten too much of Charlie’s outstanding beef stroganoff.
Once in bed, Dora turned over on her right side. “Hey, Babe.” She had saved some of Franny’s clothes, kept them unwashed, and piled them under the blankets next to her in a shape approximating her beloved girl. She rolled toward the clothes, burying her face in them and inhaling what was left of Francesca’s smell. As they did every night, the tears came.
• • •
The next day brought new classroom and practice experiences at the academy, including Handcuffing, Defensive Tactics, Police Baton Training, and an interactive Engaging the Public class. This was followed by an introduction to Juvenile Offenders and the Law, which was taught by an extremely bureaucratically-minded Sergeant Gary “Re” Morse, whose answer to many issues seemed to be “there’s a form for that.” Dora decided that his goodwill might be worth cultivating.
When she stopped at her locker midday, she noticed there was a message on her phone from Sarah, but knew she couldn’t listen to it or return the call until the end of the day.
To date, all of her classes were interesting from the point of view of a recruit eager to join the force, yet Dora felt as if she were going in the wrong direction. She could feel her hackles rising, her resistance to being told what to do increasing, and she didn’t know what to do about it. She talked to Franny about it every night—which for Dora was a form of prayer.
The early afternoon brought a subject that caught her attention: Modern Police Science and Substance Abuse, taught by a Lieutenant Heather Fulman, a fit woman of mixed race, with short curly hair and warm brown eyes. She was one of very few women, Dora noticed, who were teaching at the facility.
“Tens of thousands of deaths each year are attributable to opioid addiction,” the instructor explained. “When dealing with addiction—say, a heroin addict, or someone who is high on heroin—what is our job?”
Tina put up her hand, and Fulman called on her. “Protect the public—make the arrest if there’s possession or sale. Administer Narcan, if necessary.”
“Okay,” Lt. Fulman agreed. “How do we prevent recidivism?”
“Lock ’em up,” said Kenny Moore, a hefty recruit with frizzy reddish hair—a nice guy, in Dora’s experience, but a little too cocky.
“Give me thirty,” the instructor ordered.
“Sorry,” Moore offered, and raised his hand, realizing he should have done so before answering, but it was too late.
“Fifty,” Fulman said. “Want the class to join you?”
Moore began doing his pushups, slowing noticeably at thirty, and paused, arching his back and holding the up position to rest on the last five.
“Anyone else know how we avoid recidivism?” Fulman scanned the room. Either no one knew, or they were afraid to answer.
Dora put up her hand, and when the instructor widened her eyes and quickly nodded, she said, “Teach them to quit.”
“Okay, good! But how?” She looked at Dora, who didn’t answer, then around at the rest of the classroom. “The day you arrest a heroin addict, the day you Narcan someone and maybe save their life, may just be the worst day of their life.” She looked around. No one said a word. “It’s an emotional day. Their best friend, the drug, has deserted them. And understand this: they may not want their life to be saved.” She began walking up and down the silent aisles. “But there’s teaching potential in that moment. When are you most likely to be willing to learn a difficult skill? C’mon. You guys are in that boat right now.”
A hand went up. “Skinny Aldridge.”
“When you’re on a career path you’ve always dreamed of?”
“Really? Well, okay, you guys are learning skills in which you are emotionally invested. But that’s not when you’re at your most motivated.”
Another hand went up.
“Racquel?”
“When your life’s on the line.”
“Ahh!” A small smile crept onto the instructor’s face. “What’s my job?” She nodded at Moore, who was still red-faced and breathless.
“Police instructor.”
“True. Think of the subject at hand. Eve?”
A woman with a thin nose, deep-set gray eyes, and a bit of a smirk answered. “Drug counselor.”
“Good guess. Close—social worker.” She let that sink in. “My job includes identifying and engaging members of the public who have substance abuse issues, are in need of treatment, and…? Anybody? What’s the most important criteria for quitting alcohol and drugs?”
