CHAPTER ONE #2
He grimaced. “Even if that’s true, I can’t tell you any more than I already have. Sorry.”
“Okay.” I sighed. “Well, I’ll be around if you decide you want to talk.”
He nodded and turned back to the scene. I watched him walk away, not sure what to make of our interaction.
I was pretty sure the victim was Eddie, even though Declan had refused to verify that.
Maybe my time would be better spent talking to people who’d actually known Eddie.
I’d need to write a piece about Eddie for the paper.
The more I knew about him, the better the story would be.
I spent the next two hours at the harbor, talking to anyone who’d talk to me.
I’d been in Coral Cove long enough to have bought enough rounds at the Rusty Anchor to earn a baseline of trust. One of the few useful things I’d carried out of my Portland career was the understanding that sources were people first and information second, and that the difference between a good reporter and a bad one was whether you remembered that.
Whether Hale would confirm it or not, everyone I spoke to believed the victim on the boat was Eddie Salcedo.
I learned that Eddie was fifty-eight, married to Rosa for thirty-one years, and the father of two grown kids who’d both left for Portland.
He’d been fishing these waters since he was seventeen.
Quiet, reliable, and universally liked, which in a community this small and this competitive was unusual.
He’d partnered with Gil Moran for eight years, and by all accounts it worked, though a few people mentioned that recently Eddie and Gil had been arguing about something.
Nobody knew what or why, or if they did, nobody wanted to say.
By noon, the fog had lifted entirely and the harbor was bright and almost cheery.
If not for the crime scene tape strung up on the Pacific Lady, it could have been a scenic postcard from someone’s happy holiday.
Officer Nakamura was standing watch, but the crowd had thinned quite a bit.
I’d have bet money most of them were warming seats at the Rusty Anchor, already lifting pints to Eddie’s memory.
As I walked up the hill toward town, my phone buzzed with a call from my boss, Margot.
“Where are you?” she asked.
“I’m at the harbor.”
“I had a feeling you would be.” She laughed gruffly.
“I’m going to need about fifteen hundred words from you by tomorrow afternoon.
The grim stuff up top and then the more sentimental piece below.
We want stuff about Eddie’s personal life, how he was such a fixture in the community. You know the drill.”
“The police haven’t confirmed the body is Eddie yet.”
“They will soon,” she said. “I know someone at the police department. She says the body is Eddie’s. They just want to tell the family before the news gets out.”
“Okay, then I’ll do my best to write a moving piece about him.”
“I know you will. That’s why I hired you.” A pause. “Talk to Rosa first. Take your time with this one, Spencer. This town is small and people are going to be hurting.”
“I know.” I cleared my throat. “There might be more to the story though.”
“Meaning what?” she asked sharply.
“Well, Chief Hale took his sweet time checking out the Pacific Lady. I mean, he spent a serious amount of time on that boat. He even had his officer hang crime scene tape.”
“Oh, come on.” There was the sound of shuffling papers. “That tape is just to keep people away from the scene.”
“True.” I watched a sailboat in the distance, tacking away from the harbor. “But I think Hale has questions about how Eddie died.”
“But he didn’t tell you that, right?”
“No.”
Her tired exhale came over the line. “Look, if it wasn’t an accident, we can run that type of story later. If Hale didn’t tell you anything, we don’t know anything. I won’t speculate in print. That’s not responsible journalism.”
I frowned. “Of course I’m not saying we should run a story saying Eddie was murdered.
Odds are his death was accidental. But I’m telling you, there was something about the way Chief Hale was acting that makes me think something is up.
I could just poke around a little, subtly, of course.
People were saying Eddie and Gil had been fighting recently. ”
“So? People fight.”
“I know.” I grimaced. “And if Chief Hale had just verified Eddie’s death was an accident, we wouldn’t be having this conversation. But he didn’t. Don’t you think that warrants looking into?”
“Spencer, if you start asking questions, you could start rumors. You know how this town is. All I need from you right now is for you to write a heartfelt piece about Eddie’s life.
Go talk to his wife, Rosa. You’re not looking for a scoop, you’re writing about a man who lived his whole life here in Coral Cove.
The community is grieving. Don’t look for something that isn’t there. ”
“Even if something might be there?”
“Until the police say there is, we don’t so much as hint at Eddie’s death being anything but accidental.” She sounded exasperated. “Do you understand?”
“Yes,” I rasped. “But I really don’t see the problem with just talking to people behind the scenes. I can be discreet, Margot. This isn’t my first rodeo.”
“Look, I know that you’re a very talented journalist. I also know that you might be getting tired of writing about teachers retiring and fishing regulations.
But that’s what you signed up for when you moved to Coral Cove.
I don’t need you getting people all worked up over nothing.
If you start asking people questions, they’re going to think you know something.
That’s how rumors get started in a little town like this. ”
“I know what you’re saying, but—”
“Please, Spencer, drop it for now,” she said, and she hung up.
I scowled, looking down at the harbor from where I stood on the hill.
Brightly colored boats rocked against the dock, and the dark shape of the Pacific Lady with the crime scene tape flapping in the wind.
The breeze off the ocean smelled like salt and fish and the firs that grew right down to the cliff edge on the north side of town.
I felt Margot was being shortsighted, but I also knew I had a problem with letting things go.
If I thought there might be a story, I struggled to move on.
I was trying to be better about that, and I felt that if Chief Hale hadn’t spent so much time on Eddie’s boat, I’d have written his death off as an accident, like everyone else was doing.
But Hale had looked like a hunting dog who’d caught the scent of something. That had sparked my interest.
This is just the sort of thing that Marcus had hated about me.
My ex had resented my inability to turn my brain off.
He’d hated that I couldn’t drop a story once I believed there was something there.
It hadn’t mattered that nine out of ten times, if I’d kept digging, I’d find the story I suspected was there.
He’d resented the long hours I’d worked and the birthdays and anniversaries I’d missed.
And yes, I could be obsessive and distracted.
But that relentless drive had sniffed out a lot of corruption in Portland, from things like a city councilman taking kickbacks from developers to cops using excessive force and oversight failures, and I’d exposed housing fraud and slumlords.
Sure, I’d missed a few holidays here and there, but wasn’t that a small price to pay for uncovering all that corruption?
Marcus hadn’t thought so. After three years, he’d left me with just a note, telling me he was tired of coming in second to a byline.
He’d accused me of caring more about chasing a story than I did about him.
His leaving me had been a wake-up call. I had loved him, but I hadn’t been protective of our relationship. I’d put the job first. Always.
Losing Marcus had made me realize that even if I loved my job, if I didn’t want to die alone, I needed to find balance in my life.
I’d also realized I was never going to find that living in Portland.
There was too much corruption. Too many stories needing to be written.
For an obsessive person like me, staying there would have been like an addict trying to get clean while living in a heroin den.
So I’d come to Coral Cove, population forty-eight hundred and change.
A town where the biggest crime spree was kids knocking over parking meters on Main Street.
It was my hope that living in Coral Cove would help me get in touch with the old me.
The me that could talk to people without wondering what they could do for me and my career.
Of course, Margot could be partially right.
Maybe part of me truly believed there was a story in Eddie’s death, but another part of me needed there to be a story because I was bored.
Life here was very quiet compared to Portland.
And even though I’d moved here because I’d wanted a change of pace, I could admit I was lonelier than I’d anticipated.
I liked that I had a steady paycheck and I got to live in a picturesque location, but meeting people was a problem.
Not only had I not met anyone worth building a future with, hookups were few and far between.
The few guys I’d slept with hadn’t been locals.
They’d been tourists, just guys passing through looking for a little fun.
Was my lackluster personal life fueling my desire to find a titillating story where maybe there wasn’t one?
God, I hated to think I was that shallow.
I let out a tired breath and headed home.
I’d do what Margot had asked. I wouldn’t actively go around Coral Cove looking for conspiracy theories.
I’d interview Eddie’s wife, Rosa, and friends so that I could get an intimate glimpse into the man that Eddie had been.
Then I’d write the best piece about Eddie that I could.
Because Eddie deserved that.