Diana snorted from where she still sat at the next desk, sunk down in the chair, with her crossed ankles resting on the edge of the desk’s dinged surface.
In case I didn’t interpret that snort, her tone conveyed scoffing disbelief. “You’re leaving it to the law enforcement professionals?”
“Yes. We don’t look into every murder — and especially not every death.”
“You’re thinking it’s suicide?”
“That’s certainly a reasonable explanation, and one that would not involve Thurston being a clever murdering mastermind.”
“If he did murder her, it sure didn’t reach mastermind status, considering law enforcement is talking to him the day the body’s found.”
True. Though beside the point — beside my point, anyway. “Either way, this situation doesn’t call for our talents. Law enforcement appears to have a handle on it.”
“What if they think it’s murder and it’s really suicide.”
“I’d expect you to have more confidence in Sheriff Conrad and his people getting to the truth.”
She certainly had confidence in Russell Conrad in other areas, not only her heart, but opening the relationship to her teenage children.
She’d taken that process slowly and carefully … until he recently used the L-word in front of the kids, apparently for the first time.
Men.
“I have all the confidence in Russ. On the other hand, with a different department spearheading the investigation and the possibility that said different department could land on Thurston as the killer when he wasn’t…”
“Doubtful. Besides, maybe he is. If it’s murder.”
“But you’re prepared to sit back and wait? That’s not like you, Elizabeth.”
Enough hedging. “Are you accusing me of something, Diana?”
“Like disliking Thurston enough to send him to the proverbial gallows by your lack of action even if he doesn’t deserve it? No—”
“You need to tell Conrad — because his department is involved — you think they couldn’t separate a murder from a suicide and would rush to judgment to convict someone you seem positive is innocent.”
“And you need to stop deflecting. As I started to say, no, I don’t think you’d do that. But would you avoid helping Thurston for another reason? Like, maybe, you’re feeling easily bruised with Mike in Chicago, Jennifer heading the same direction after the first of the year, and Tom keeping his distance.”
“I am not some hothouse flower who—”
“No. You’re human. And it would be hard not to feel the holes in your life from those— well, call them departures. Especially when something like this comes up, hitting closer to home, while also crying out for an investigation—”
“Crying out for? You do know I’m memorizing all this to repeat to our illustrious sheriff.”
“—and immediately after the previous one with all its reminders of who was gone and who would be soon.”
“Balderdash.”
“Really? Balderdash?”
“It’s a good word.”
She swung her feet down from the desk and stood. “If you say so. You certainly know how to use words.” She side-eyed me. “Especially to avoid acknowledging to yourself what’s going on.”
* * * *
Before she could expand or I had to respond, we turned at the sound of the outer doors being opened.
“Oh, my God,” Audrey said, not quietly.
Les Haeburn.
His need to wrestle closed the wind-driven outer doors and get the inner doors opened gave us time to exchange looks across the bullpen.
“You,” Audrey said to me.
No mistaking what she meant. I wanted to say that as assignment editor and de facto producer for both newscasts, she had the official honor of informing the news director of what was happening, now that he’d shown up.
But the woman had been swimming as fast as she could in the deep end all day. No sense hitting her with a tsunami-like wave, too, when I could handle it.
I charted a path to intersect his in the hallway outside his office. Diana followed me and Audrey met us. Leona, with Jennifer behind her, stood a couple feet away, where the hall turned to head back toward the studio.
“Les.”
He’d intended to walk past us without making eye contact, but my voice — backed by stepping in front of him — brought him up short. Fumbling with his phone in his pocket, still not saying anything.
“There’s something you need to know.”
I tried — hard — to keep out of my voice the subtext that he should have damned well been here. What the you-know-what had he been doing all day? And a couple more you-know-whats could possibly explain his failing to contact the newsroom?
“Sheriff’s deputies came to the station to talk to Thurston about the death of a woman. The deputies asked Thurston to go with them to the sheriff’s office.”
I waited.
For an exclamation.
For a demand to know if I was kidding.
For amazement.
For shock.
He continued to look down at his phone. I saw a string of unanswered calls from the same number starting with our 307 area code, but not long enough to get the rest of the digits.
Could Thurston have tried to reach him? Could that mean—?
“Did you already know about this, Les?”
“No. First I’ve heard. No connection all day.”
I wanted to ask where he’d been. I wanted to ask why he hadn’t been in touch with the newsroom all day.
But, in fairness, we’d never asked before when this happened now and then. We’d taken the gift horse without a glance in his mouth.
It wasn’t reasonable to fault him for not being here today because something major happened when we’d celebrated the other occasions.
“Thurston hasn’t been back since he left with the deputies. We haven’t heard anything from him. Audrey adjusted the stack and called in Leona to anchor. We’re working the story of the woman’s death. No official ID, though we have strong indications of who it was. She lived here in Sherman.”
I emphasized that fact hoping it would trigger the all-news-is-local instincts that had to be in him somewhere.
“We used a short, factual statement about Thurston in the coverage for the Five. We can get you the tape and fill you in on the blocks for the Ten to look over—”
“No.” After the single, sharp word, he appeared to have trouble swallowing.
“Had you already heard? Did you see the Five?”
“Told you, no,” he said. “I have calls to make.”
“For Thurston? Elizabeth already—”
I interrupted Audrey. “The station’s lawyer went to the sheriff’s department to connect with Thurston hours ago. James Longbaugh will give Thurston whatever help he needs.”
If Thurston listened to sense. Not a given.
Apparently, I shouldn’t have bothered with the reassurance. Les didn’t appear to hear anything we’d said.
“A woman died in Horse Creek County. I have calls to make,” he repeated. “Keep on with what you’re doing.”
He scuttled into his office and slammed the door behind him. We heard a muffled sound from inside I couldn’t identify. Could he possibly be in there sobbing? Over Thurston?
“A woman died in Horse Creek County? So we shouldn’t cover it?” Jennifer demanded. “Did he not hear the part about her being from Sherman?”
Then, from inside the office, we heard the distinct ringtone of Ding-Dong! The Witch Is Dead.
The owner of the station was calling the news director.
Before we could react, much less scatter, his office door jerked open and he pushed past us on the way to the outside doors.
He had been summoned.
And he left.
For a second there, I’d thought it might be like an ordinary station, with ownership chewing on the news director’s tail about coverage and the news director taking hold and turning up the heat under the staff and…
I cleared my throat. “Okay, let’s get back to it. We have another newscast to put together.”