If It Bleeds Page 3

  “He won’t like that.”

  Mike grinned again. “You’re right about that, but he’s a pro. He’ll do what I say.”

  I smiled back at him, but I wasn’t so sure.

  “How should I…that is…how do you see it working?”

  “You write something. He’ll write something. You guys talk in between. It’ll all work out. You’ll see.” I must have looked doubtful, because he said it again. “You guys will work it out.” It was more order than observation.

  I might have said more—I could feel the words forming even as Mike was finishing speaking—but the elevator doors opened with an efficient swoosh and Brent Hartigan breezed into the newsroom. It was just after midnight, and he looked as bright and fresh as a Christmas tree on the first of December.

  SIX

  “Where’d you get to?” Hartigan asked as he walked past Mike’s desk. He didn’t look surprised to see me. I was surprised at how unsurprised he was.

  “I thought I’d get back here and start on the story.” I looked straight into his eyes as I said this. Laying it down while the editor looked on. Our editor, I corrected myself.

  My raised hackles didn’t seem to raise Hartigan’s at all, which annoyed me. It wasn’t that I wanted to annoy him. More like I wanted him to see me as enough of a threat that he’d be a little annoyed. But he looked at me mildly. Even smiled lazily. “Well, good then,” was all he said. “That’s just fine. And what have you done so far?”

  I was aware of Mike Webb watching us from his desk. I didn’t know the editor well enough to tell if he was amused or alarmed. In either case, I had a sense Mike wasn’t about to intervene.

  “Well…” I said, trying to think of a good answer. Coming up short. “Well… nothing, I guess. Not yet. Not so far. Mr. Webb—”

  “Mike,” he piped up from his desk.

  “Mike was just telling me how he thought he saw this going.”

  “Ah,” Hartigan said, more interested now. But only slightly. “And how was that?”

  He sat on the edge of Mike’s desk, supporting his weight on his heels. I waited for Webb to object, but he didn’t. And that action—a single bum on just one desk—did exactly what I guessed Hartigan had meant for it to do. It put me, the little girl who had lost her way back to Features, in her place.

  I hiked up my courage. While I did, I saw myself as I’d been in journalism school. The bright kid who’d known she was destined to help make the world a better place.

  Oh, sure. I had a way with words. I was good with people. But there was more to it than that. I had attacked my classes like someone who was hungry for each new assignment. No weekend keggers, trips to music festivals or skiing at Whistler. No hours lost on the beach or rollerblading the seawall. I’d used all my time to study and read and work. In short blocks of free time, I’d dreamed about what my life would be like, the reporter I would be. The difference I would make.

  None of it had come true. Things had happened in a way that my working-class upbringing made it difficult to fight. I’d skipped a few rungs on the job ladder. Gone from student to full-time reporter with her own beat. For someone of my age and experience level, the money was good. The money was real. Enough to allow me to buy a little car when I first started and some decent furniture and good clothes not long after. Hell, a couple of years later and here I was, the only one of my graduating class with an RRSP.

  And I didn’t hate the work. Sometimes it was even fun, and the food was great. I barely had to buy groceries. But standing here, with Brent Hartigan appraising me and finding me wanting, it all came back. All the dreams and desires I’d wanted so badly just a few years before. I’d never forgotten. And now it was back.

  “Here’s how,” I said, my confidence real. “You are the senior reporter on this story.” I smiled at him sweetly. “But it is my story. You wouldn’t have it at all if not for me. I have angles I wish to follow.” I saw his bent eyebrow. Ignored it. Went on. “And you likely do as well. We’ll set a time to meet before deadline. We’ll look over each other’s stories, edit what’s duplicated, then file it with Mike. He’ll run what he needs under our own bylines or with ‘files by’ bylines if that better describes it.” I’d been talking to Brent, but now I looked directly at Mike. “Sound okay?” I asked him, holding on to each shred of confidence for all it was worth.

  Mike grinned. I was beginning to realize it was his usual expression. “Sounds good. Let’s call it a plan and be prepared to alter it as we go. We good?”

  Brent and I both nodded.

  “Okay then,” Mike said. “Because Nicole isn’t based in the newsroom, we have a bit of a logistics problem. Scott is away all month. Nicole, I don’t see any reason you can’t do most of your writing at your desk on the fifth floor. But if you’d rather work here some of the time, or even just when you and Brent need to be in the same space, use Scott’s desk.” He looked us over like he might add something, then changed his mind. “All right, you two,” he said. “That covers it. And if we’re gonna get anything about Marsh into the morning edition, you guys will need to get to it.”

  I knew there was probably more I needed to work out with Brent, but I didn’t know the ways of the newsroom well enough to even start figuring out what they were.

  He caught me while I waited for the elevator.

  “Goin’ home?” he asked. It wasn’t a sneer, but it was close.

  I smiled sweetly. “More or less. I’m heading to Features. I will use Scott’s desk, but not tonight. I’ll work better in the space I’m used to writing in.”

  “Is that what you do there?” Brent asked, deadpan.

  The elevator came and I walked into it as coolly as possible, not answering him as the doors shut behind me.

  “Prick,” I said aloud as the elevator got moving.

  “Asshole,” I said to the empty corridor as I walked to my cubicle. And, potty mouth aside, his words, so mildly applied, had hurt. I mean, obviously, I wasn’t going to be nominated for any awards writing about society debs and corporate geezers. Just because the writing I did that appeared in the paper was inane and largely just captions for the photos I took, it didn’t mean I couldn’t write. I could. I hesitated. Then I corrected myself. I used to be able to write. It was so long since I’d done anything like report an actual story that I hoped I still could.

  The first few minutes at my desk didn’t help. The same insecurity that had stolen my words for a while at the crime scene came back and stole them again. I kept second-guessing myself.

  How should a story start? Where was the line that would sum up the whole piece in twenty words or less? What did readers most need to know about the death of Steve Marsh?

  I got up and grabbed a copy of the previous day’s edition, scanning opening paragraphs frantically, trying to size up the perfect hook. What made this one better than that one? What made that one work where this one did not?

  A man charged with the brutal slaying of women near the Commercial Drive SkyTrain station is being held by Vancouver Police though he has not yet been charged with a crime, the Vancouver Post has learned.

  Too much, I thought. Too many thoughts. Too much qualifying by stating the obvious. Emboldened by the ability to formulate a critique, I pressed on.

  Another story.

  Vancouver mayoral contender Campbell Baron is breaking new political ground in B.C. by raising his own money to finance political polling and hire a political staff.

  Lots of redundancy, and I wasn’t sure anyone would think that using your own money was actual news. Lesson one from journalism school—or perhaps lesson sixteen, but something near the beginning: saying something is does not make it so.

  I moved on.

  The Conservative government revealed Thursday that former Liberal MP Brewer Hudson spent almost $20,000 in public funds on a trip to Sri Lanka this fall to write a report for Prime Minister Theroux that is now being kept secret.

  Some of the grammar wasn’t even good here, making
me wonder about reporters or editors or both. That, along with the critiques I’d given the others, gave me the confidence I needed. The reporters who had written those stories weren’t necessarily better than me, especially not just because they had desks one floor down. They were human and flawed. And since I was also human and flawed, I had a shot. I put the newspaper aside and settled in to write.

  The Vancouver art world was shocked last night at the unexpected death of Steve Marsh.

  I winced a bit at that “unexpected.” Also, the line implied that it wasn’t due to foul play. I left what I’d written, but spaced down a few inches and started again.

  Prominent Vancouver artist Steve Marsh was found murdered in his car last night outside a gallery that had just opened an exhibition of his work.

  That was closer. But not quite.

  A few more inches down.

  Steve Marsh, a prominent Vancouver artist as well as a member of the Point Grey Marsh family, was found murdered last night outside a Vancouver art gallery.

  That was just plain stinky. Again.

  Vancouver artist and man about town Steve Marsh was found dead last night outside the downtown gallery that had just opened an exhibit of his work. Foul play is suspected.

  That was it. I wasn’t nuts about the whole man-about-town thing. But it did imply what I didn’t dare say: spoiled dilettante son of a prominent local family.

  I forged on, incorporating what I did know. A little background and how Marsh fit into the city. The fact that the show had just opened, and what Marsh’s place in the Canadian art community had been. The fact that he’d been found dead in his SUV. It was important for readers to have that detail so they could build the right picture. The fact that he’d been found in an alley behind the gallery, while inside admirers were toasting his work. I added some—but not all—of the color I’d experienced. The summer night, the austere air in the gallery once Marsh’s death had become known. I dithered awhile about whether I should include my part in it, the fact that I’d found the body. In the end, I decided it wasn’t important. Including that detail might cloud the issue and bring my objectivity into question. There were times when knowing I’d been there would have been important, but my part in the discovery had been small. Mike Webb would be my net with this. If he decided it needed to be mentioned, he’d tell me so.

  I read it over a thirtieth time and decided I liked what I’d written. It was a good opening piece. I knew this story would continue for days and even months, depending on what the police investigation turned up. There’d be plenty of time to get more background and fill in the details as the story unfolded. My training told me the bare facts were what was needed for this first piece.

  With the story written, I connected my camera to my computer and uploaded the photos I’d taken. I chose the best four and emailed them to Mike. Then I gave my story a last once-over, changing a comma here, a word there, and emailed that to Mike as well. I checked my watch. It was 1:15. I was pleased with myself. I’d turned the story around in a couple of hours. I’d head to the news floor and check in with Mike, then home to get some sleep and be back early to get a big start on a follow-up piece in the morning.

  When I got there, the news floor was as deserted as I imagined it could ever be. Neither Mike nor Brent was there, and the two reporters I saw just looked at me glassily when I interrupted their typing to ask where either might be.

  I felt a tremor of doubt when Mike and Brent weren’t around, but only a tremor. I quelled the small voices. It was late. They might have gone for coffee or a bite, together or not. I left a note at Mike’s desk, letting him know about the email. Then I left. I was tired, and tomorrow was coming at me so fast it was already there.

  SEVEN

  I’m lucky. I always have been. Things fall into place. When graduation was near and I needed a job, one came. When the job turned out to be in downtown Vancouver, my family came through with my late aunt’s apartment.

  It was a tiny apartment in a co-op building off South Granville Street. I was surrounded on two sides by widows who’d been living in the building “since Trudeau was that exciting young man at 24 Sussex,” as one of them put it. This was Mrs. Noble, a woman so old I found it difficult to see the young woman she might have been. The fact that she’d been living in the building for over forty years gave me a clue to her age. I knew she’d had a life before that. She talked about it sometimes. A house in Kerrisdale. Kids, a dog—a husband, I presumed, though Mr. Noble was never mentioned and the kids never came by.

  On my other side was Mrs. Fast. “Call me Rachel, dear.”

  Rachel’s hair was not blue. It was a rich, dark blond, and though I strongly suspected the color was not her natural shade, I never saw a paler root or a hint of brass. Whoever did Rachel’s hair did a good job.

  Rachel Fast was a more recent occupant. She told me that when she moved into the building, my aunt Agnes had already secured her end-unit apartment. I knew Agnes had been keeping an apartment in the city since her engineer husband did well in the Alberta oil fields in the late 1970s. It afforded her more than enough money to escape the Edmonton winters and spend time with her brother’s family in Vancouver while keeping her own space. It all meant that Rachel had moved into the building more recently than Mrs. Noble, but she still might have been there a quarter century.

  There were four apartments to a floor. Two two-bedroom suites—and Mrs. Fast and Mrs. Noble each had one of those—and two very small apartments, mine and another across the hall that was owned by a dentist from Victoria, who we never saw.

  I made my way up the stairs to the third floor of the four-story building. I didn’t see anyone, nor did I expect to. This late at night, it was unlikely anyone else would be stirring, the Mesdames Fast and Noble firmly tucked away in their beds.

  I didn’t realize how tired I was until I closed the apartment door behind me and dropped my bags on the table in the small foyer. I aimed to hang my jacket on a hook in the foyer and didn’t notice I’d missed altogether until I heard the leather hit the hardwood. I was too tired to pick it up. Too tired to care.

  My kitchen is tiny. All sunny yellow tile and ancient appliances. I put the kettle on to boil, then perched at the counter, too keyed up to do anything but make tea.

  Something was bothering me. I am no kind of mechanic. And I’m not an expert on tools. But the one sticking out of Marsh’s neck had been odd. And not just because it was stuck in his neck.

  I grabbed my camera and scrolled to the photos I’d taken of Marsh in his SUV. When I found what I was looking for, I enlarged the image until the handle of the tool filled the entire frame. Then I could see it. The thing that had been bugging me. Though I couldn’t see the part buried inside Marsh, the tool was unlike anything I’d ever seen. It looked like the handle had been turned on a lathe. It was fine work. And it was old. And worn. I sat back and sipped my tea. It made no sense to me, but a picture doesn’t lie. The murder weapon was an antique. Perhaps even distinctive and of value. I didn’t know what that meant.

  I was bone-tired, but I dragged out my computer and checked Google. I couldn’t find anything about Steve Marsh that connected him with antiques. In fact, his art had been opposite. It was new and vibrant and modern. Nothing old about it. I dug further.

  Family connections. As far as I could tell, no one in his family collected antiques. There were too many Marsh mentions to sort them out, though after a while I got the idea that the wealth of the prominent and proper family had come from questionable sources. That wasn’t unique. But the Marshes’ connections were more colorful than most. There were hints of rum-running during Prohibition in the 1920s. Canadian rye whiskey, probably acquired through legal sources in Canada, shipped by boat to the United States at great risk and for great profits. But that was long ago. I did the math. Three generations? These present Marshes probably had no recollection of anything beyond private schools and exclusive clubs. I shut my computer. It was interesting stuff, sure. But all it
was doing was keeping me awake.

  When I went to bed, I was afraid I’d never get it all out of my head. But I was wrong. I was so tired that as soon as my head hit the pillow, there was just nothing at all.

  EIGHT

  In the morning I got up earlier than usual, wiping sleep out of my eyes. Somewhere nearby there was a coffee with my name on it. More important, there was a newspaper with my name on it, not in it as was usually the case. I couldn’t wait to get out of bed so I could see my first-ever page-one byline.

  Since I have the society beat, I end up working most nights. No one expects me to show up at the office until late in the day. Sometimes I wondered if anyone would notice if I didn’t show up at all. If I just filed my stories via email. I wondered, but I’d never tested the theory.

  Since no one was expecting me—perhaps ever—even though it was nine in the morning on a weekday, I pulled on my running gear and charged out the door.

  I ran down Fir Street toward the seawall, then pounded past Granville Island Market and around the island, slowing only for the last half kilometer before I got to Starbucks for my mocha. I grabbed a paper while I waited for my coffee, but I didn’t even look at it until I’d sat down and had my coffee and a pastry in hand. I knew this was a moment I wanted to remember. I took a sip of my coffee and forced a bite of my pastry before I spread the paper in front of me.

  The story was there, of course. Right on the front page, just as I’d known it would be. One of my photos was there too. But it wasn’t my story. Not even a bit of it. And under my photo, it said Vancouver Post staff where my name should have been.

  Brent’s name was there. Of course. And as I read the words under his byline, my disappointment grew into something more dark.