Chapter 5
Chapter Five
“Tell me again why both of you need to work on this story?” John Restyn leaned back in his chair and popped his gum.
The Beacon editor had stayed on after the merger, apparently content with the small raise that came with the doubling of his tiny staff, which Roz only knew about because she’d been privy to all the financial details.
The deal had saved her family paper’s legacy and given her ailing mother enough money to retire and move into a senior community in northwest Comet Cove where she could get the care she needed.
“Roz is good at the financial and government angles,” Alden told John. “And I’m good at the other things.”
“I think you’ve both proven you’re capable of all the things, and this is one dead guy,” John said, pushing his glasses up onto his head, where they almost got lost in his chaotic, gray-streaked black hair.
They left behind pink marks on either side of his nose.
He wore a golf shirt and khakis, standard office fare in Florida.
For this Monday morning meeting, Roz and Alden had cleared off two chairs to sit in front of John’s desk.
Issues of the colorful Courier-Beacon—much more colorful than the Courier had ever been—were stacked next to empty coffee cups, full pen holders, an Orlando City lion mascot bobble head, and photos of his twin girls.
“And what financial and government angles are you talking about?” John pressed.
“We did a lot of research yesterday, and then we called Sheryl and talked to her again,” Roz said. She and Alden had spent most of Sunday at his apartment on their respective computers, trying to track down anything they could about Wayne Vandershell.
John’s eyes lit up with interest under his bushy brows, and he looked through his glass wall into the bullpen to see if the freelancer had appeared. She hadn’t, though a few other reporters were out there. “Is she a suspect?”
“Not yet,” Roz hedged. “But she’s got a lawyer.”
John nodded. “Good. So what did she tell you?”
“She and Wayne had a casual relationship,” Alden said.
Roz gave him a sidelong glance. “I’m not so sure she thought it was casual.”
John smirked. “And?”
“And she said again that Wayne was putting down roots here,” Roz said. “And that he was creating a movie studio in Comet Cove.”
“Remember I told you I’d heard rumors?” Alden added. “I think they were about Wayne Vandershell.”
John sat up. “Where? Details?”
This was where Roz knew they had a lot of work to do. “We’re still working on that, but Sheryl said he had a partner who was seeking permits. She also said she didn’t know who the partner was.”
“Sure she doesn’t,” Alden said.
Roz frowned at him before turning back to John. “I think she’s telling the truth. I want to find out who it was. They could know more about him. And if they were filing for permits, there’s a paper trail.”
“Could the partner have killed him?” John speculated.
“We’re a long way from knowing that,” Roz said.
“We don’t have motive either,” Alden added. “Wayne was apparently the golden boy who made Hollywood dreams come true.”
“Wayne Vandershell was going to make Enolia Honeywood’s first hit book into a movie,” Roz affirmed. “Maybe more. And Sheryl said he was going to produce her screenplay, too.”
“Sheryl writes scripts?” John didn’t sound convinced.
Roz shrugged. “Her gardening columns don’t have any dialogue. Maybe it’s her secret weapon.”
“Maybe a shotgun is her secret weapon,” John said.
“Come on. You don’t believe that,” Roz answered.
Alden cut in. “We’re not even sure if that’s what killed him. I don’t think that was a shotgun shell on the ground, but it’s hard to tell from my photos, and Hai didn’t get many shots of the carnage.”
“Then what killed the man?” John asked.
“No official word. And Duke hasn’t returned my phone calls,” Roz admitted.
“Is the honeymoon over?” John snarked.
“Hey,” Alden said. “If she’s having a honeymoon with anybody, it’s me.”
Roz’s gaze snapped to his.
“I mean … uh …” Alden looked sheepish, but the embers burning in his gray eyes were only for her.
Her heart fluttered even as she lifted a scolding eyebrow. She wanted their relationship to be invisible at work, even though the editor was well aware of what was going on.
She turned back to John. “Duke and Deputy Byrd are heading up the investigation, and they were busy yesterday. And the sheriff wasn’t thrilled that Alden and I were on the scene before they were, so Duke is lying low. He’ll get back to me today. I’m sure of it.”
John sighed. “All right. The wire already picked up the story since it happened at an Enolia Honeywood signing, and I don’t want anybody coming in and scooping us in our backyard.
I’m sure the city is freaking out over another celebrity-adjacent death, especially after all that fuss a couple of months ago.
This is a quiet town, usually, and they want the money to keep rolling in. ”
“And our publisher does, too,” Alden pointed out.
John grimaced. “Which means I can’t waste my reporter resources. Get me something that makes it worth my while to have both of you on the story. We need to get something fresh online today, too.”
“Will do,” Roz said.
“And I want that feature on Enolia Honeywood to run Friday, which means you need to turn it around by Wednesday,” John told Alden.
Alden gave him a pleading look. “Not Thursday?”
“Wednesday,” John insisted. “I want to run it with a story about the murder. Which means you two need to get cracking. Roz, let me know what the others are doing, OK? I want a budget by noon.”
“Sure.” She got up, and Alden followed her out of John’s office.
Roz was both a reporter and the managing editor, a big title that didn’t mean much at a small publication like this one.
It was a nod to her role at the erstwhile Courier.
And it meant they really had her doing multiple jobs for the price of one, including writing and editing and wrangling the junior staff.
Which meant she had to come up with a story budget including summaries, story lengths and art possibilities so they could plan Friday’s edition.
She’d done most of that already, but she had to make sure everyone was on track.
She studied Alden as he sat at his desk, complete with his own piles of paper, a bust of Shakespeare wearing a Bohemia Beach bucket hat, and the hidden book of poetry filled with Donne and Marvell and compatriots that he didn’t think anyone knew about.
A poet with a cynical shell. Her … boyfriend? Lover?
Her employee? Ugh. No. But she did have to manage him a little bit, even though she left most of that to John, since the men had worked together before she came along.
Could she manage her feelings?
That was another question entirely.
Alden finished checking his email, grabbed his cooling coffee cup and sat at the table in the center of the bullpen, the open area outside the glass offices.
He glanced at the biggest fishbowl, where publisher Webb Howard would sit if he ever actually appeared.
His executive assistant, Helen, focused on her computer in his outer office, also behind glass, as was John on the perpendicular wall.
A rarely used conference room sat next to John’s office.
Maybe they were fish in a bowl. But they also had a private space Alden envied and nice views from the second-story windows, with the town laid out before them and glimpses of the ocean several blocks beyond.
“Gather round, folks,” Roz called out from the seat she’d claimed at the head of the table. The reporters in the room stopped chatting and scrolling their laptops and dragged themselves over, plunking down beverages and notebooks.
Alden turned his attention to his colleagues.
A few had worked with him when The Beacon was just The Beacon: Kat McClure, stylish and red-haired, whom celebrities genuinely liked but who could write anything with verve and often covered bigger news stories.
Tim Shepard, a short fair-skinned guy with shaggy brown hair and a beard who kept locals happy with his coverage of high school sports and the publisher happy with peppy pieces about the pro golfers who came to the recently expanded club near the wildlife refuge, Vesper Lakes.
Then there were the Courier refugees: young Bruce Price, pale with bristling dark hair, a native who backed up Tim on sports and covered more hard news, post-merger.
Janice Darby, with dancing, dark eyes and light-brown skin, who did a bang-up job covering environmental issues, a new beat for The Courier-Beacon.
She also wrote about schools and families—though she was single like everyone except Tim.
Then again, they were all pretty young, as reporters tended to be at this level and size of publication.
Hai appeared at the top of the open stairs—the floor below housed the ad and production departments. He strolled over and dumped his camera backpack next to a chair before he plopped down. “Sorry I’m late.”
Alden was struck by how much he looked like his mother, Mrs. Yung, who ran the Meteor Mart. Same spiky black hair and angled cheekbones. Only Hai was several inches taller.
“Hi, Hai,” all the reporters said with the usual teasing tone.
The shooter gave them a withering look. “Never gets old.”
The corner of Roz’s mouth turned up as she scanned them. “Let’s do this quickly, all right? Alden and I have to get on this story.”
“Get it on, you mean,” Bruce mumbled to giggles.
Roz’s hazel eyes lasered in on his. “Bruce, did I just hear you volunteer to cover the zoning board meeting this afternoon?”
“No, I—”
“Great, I’ll put you down for that. Talk to Janice about the impact of that new southside subdivision near the river so you ask good questions. And let me know if they talk about a movie studio, OK?”
“OK,” Bruce mumbled into his chest as the others snickered.
“Janice, what’s happening with the wildlife preserve?”
“Construction has started on the parking lot, the nature center, and a boardwalk trail over the wetland. They’re planning to create a couple of paths, though they’re keeping most of it wild,” Janice said. “The nudists aren’t happy, though.”
“The nudists?” Alden asked.
“There’s a small beach on the south end that’s been popular with a local nudist group for years,” Roz said. “Officials overlooked it because they didn’t see the harm.”
“But now most of the council thinks it doesn’t fit the ‘family-friendly’ vibe they want,” Janice added. “The nudists are planning a protest tomorrow morning.”
“You’d better go to that,” Roz said. “You too, Hai. But keep it PG.”
“I’ll try to find some palm fronds I can shoot through.” Hai’s remark prompted more chuckles.
Round Roz went, getting story statuses, making sure art was assigned, asking questions.
Alden loved watching her work. She didn’t just break their balls.
She complimented them on their good work, too.
“Great photos Saturday, Hai. Tasteful. And we’ll use the book signing pics with Alden’s story about Enolia Honeywood. ”
“I saw yours in the system, too,” he said. “Nice.”
She smiled. “I just took advantage of our access. But thanks. OK, everybody—email me your updated budget lines.”
And they were off.
Alden stood and sidled over to her. “You’re so good.”
“Don’t think you’re getting special treatment,” she quipped, soft enough so only he could hear.
“I expect very special treatment.”
Her face turned pink, and he bit back a smile.
“Don’t make me send you to the zoning meeting,” she said.
“That might not be a bad idea. Especially if they talk about the movie studio.”
“That’s what I want to nail down, whether such a thing even exists. Sheryl was scant on details.” She moved to her desk at the edge of the room—she’d been offered the glassed-in conference room as an office after the merger but turned it down—and he sat in the chair next to it, facing her.
“I’m going to work one of my sources at City Hall, see what they can tell me,” she continued. “Have you been able to learn any more about Wayne Vandershell’s movies?”
He shook his head. “I can dig some more while you make your calls. Then we can confer?”
“Deal.” She quirked her mouth at him. “Then we can ‘get it on.’”
Alden snorted. “I haven’t hazed that boy properly. Give me time.”
Roz smiled. “Whipper-snappers.”
“Says the old lady of thirty-two,” he threw over his shoulder as he returned to his desk. He was only a couple of years older than she was, but after all he’d seen, sometimes it felt like decades.
He opened his computer to dig. On Sunday, they’d found a few facts about Wayne’s undistinguished youth in California and a couple of references to him attending UCLA film school.
There was almost nothing online about what he’d been doing since then.
And there was only so much information web surfing could unearth, especially when it came to the entertainment business.
Celebrity-chasers reported rumors as fact.
Even if a movie deal was real, so many films never came to fruition.
It was hard to know what stories to trust. Oh, the irony. He’d fed that rumor mill himself.
He went back and checked the film database site they’d looked at yesterday and Wayne Vandershell’s credits.
He had a short film picked for a few festivals, though it apparently hadn’t made it online yet.
A student film, maybe? It was more than ten years old.
Shouldn’t it be on YouTube by now? And there were other producer credits, but as creative as Alden got in his searches, he couldn’t find more information on the movies.
A couple of them had release dates in the past. Had they gone straight to video? Maybe with a new name? It happened.
Vandershell had a few older credits as crew, too. One was on a heist movie he’d actually heard of, Fastest Spin Wins. Alden recognized another name in the credits, an assistant director he’d written nice things about—a guy Alden had had a few beers with in LA who was now frying much larger fish.
As Alden opened his contacts on his phone, he startled as a hand lightly touched his shoulder.
It was Roz. “Am I interrupting something?”
He spun to face her. “I was focused, is all. Tracking something down.”
“Good. I’ve got a lead. But I want to talk to my mom about it.”
He looked up at her in surprise. “OK. Want to ping me afterward? I might have more on Vandershell by then.”
“Sounds good. We can grab a quick lunch and see where to go from there, OK?”
He grinned. “Get it on, Ms. Melander. Get it on.”