| |
I grabbed my phone and dialed Lottie. She picked up on the second ring.
"Hey, Lottie!" I said.
"Hey, Paige!" she replied. Her voice was cheerful, but I could tell she was a little surprised. "Great to hear from you!"
"Um... So, I don't mean to be a jerk, but what's with the article in the Herald today."
She laughed, but it was a confused laugh. "What are you talking about?"
"The article about the accident at the cannery...?"
"What accident at the cannery?" Now she was starting to sound concerned.
"There was an accident during Johnny's ghost tour last night. A catwalk fell."
"Oh my— Is he okay?"
I stopped for a moment, completely taken aback. "Lottie, you wrote the story. You know all this."
"No, I don't," she said, shocked. I could hear her typing on her computer. "I'm checking it up now. I mean..." There was a pause. "Okay, so I didn't write this story."
"You didn't?" I confirmed. This was just getting weirder and weirder.
I could hear her trying to make sense of this situation. "They must have gotten the bylines mixed up," she justified. "Sometimes these typos happen. I'll contact them to make sure they give proper credit to the person who wrote it."
I paused for a moment, trying to figure out who else could have scooped this story. "Um... could you call me back and let me know what you learn?"
"Sure!" she said. Now a little anger was creeping into her voice. Not at me, but at this whole situation. "I'd be happy to."
We hung up, and I puttered around, refilling the pastry case with three-dimensional witch's hats made out of marzipan and pumpkin cream cheese muffins. About ten minutes later, the phone rang again and I picked it up. It was Lottie.
"Paige? Okay, so this is super creepy. Someone set up an email account that looks almost exactly the same as mine, except it is off by one letter. My boss thought it was from me. But it wasn't. We have no idea who wrote this article."
Alarms were sounding in my head. "Is there any way to trace it?" I asked.
She sighed. "They're going to see what they can do, but it is a little local newspaper. They don't have a budget big enough to figure this out." She paused. "Why would someone claim to be me?"
I rubbed my forehead. "Okay, so there is a lot more to this story, too, but you have got to promise me you won't write about what I'm about to tell you yet. It's part of an investigation that Stan and Fred are just starting."
"Okay..." she replied, worried and confused.
I filled her in on exactly what went down at the cannery and how Stan had discovered that it appeared to be sabotage.
"First the boards in Ralph's shop. Now the cannery. Why?" she asked, horrified.
I sighed. "I think that is going to be our job to figure out."