“Do you get a lot of these reports?” Sophia asked.
“Nope. I mean, I don’t, but they say this kind of thing happens all the time.”
“And nobody reports it?”
The intern shrugged. “That’s how it goes out there. It’s, like, the Wild West, right?”
“Where is everybody, anyway?”
“At meetings in St. George.”
Sophia frowned and filled out the report, transcribing her notes onto the form. When she handed it back, the intern took it and set it on the left side of her desk, then decided it was better to put it in an empty basket on the other side.
Sophia drove back to her trailer and took a shower, but she really wanted a bath. She drank a beer, emailed Paul about her experience, and told him to watch out for a turquoise Ford. Who knew when he would get the message, but she sent it anyway. Her head dropped to the pillow, then she remembered Mrs. Gladstone’s request, so she pulled herself out of bed and slipped her feet into her sandals.
The summer twilight was still luminous as she crossed to the other trailer. Mikros barked and then retreated as she knocked. Mrs. Gladstone was asleep in her chair with her mouth open and her head back. Mikros was now on top of the chair, and she scrambled up to the counter and began eating something out of a green ceramic bowl. Sophia carefully opened the door and crept inside. She found some paper and a pen and wrote:
Mrs. G—I made it back safe and sound. It got a little crazy out there. I’ll tell you about it later. Thanks for the lunch. Tomorrow I go up to Bryce for my big presentation in the lodge. I hope you were able to take care of your friend, and I’m sorry for her loss.
Sophia
She tucked the note under the television remote that sat on the table next to Mrs. Gladstone’s chair. Mikros turned her head from the bowl, lowered it, and growled. Sophia backed her way to the door and let herself out.
Day Three
Fake news : Far from the Madding Crowd : A time of reinvention : Death by PowerPoint
Sheriff Dalton stood outside the HooDoo Diner, staring through the window, shading his eyes with one hand. He carried a copy of the Red Rock Times folded in thirds under his arm. The door opened, a bell jingled, and a heavyset man in denim overalls came out, working a toothpick in his mouth. “Stan’s in his regular spot,” he said, trundling past.
“Am I that obvious, Pete?”
“Pretty much,” he said without stopping.
Dalton yanked open the door and went through.
“It’s a heck of a thing,” the woman behind the register said.
Dalton held up the paper. “I know.”
“I meant Bruce. Didn’t figure him for it,” she said. “They say his wife found him. Is that true? Because if it is, I don’t know what kind of world we’re living in anymore.”
“Can’t talk about it,” Dalton said.
“It’s okay. I understand. I just wanted to say something.”
“Jenny, I’d speak to it if I could.”
“I know. You’re a good man. Can I get you something?”
“How ’bout a piece of Stan Forsythe?”
Jenny slapped Dalton’s shoulder and pointed to where Stan was sitting.
Forsythe was spread out across the whole table, an iPad on one side, a legal pad on the other, a plate with the remnants of his breakfast in the middle. He was scraping the last of his hash browns through a streak of ketchup. When he saw Dalton, he sat up and said, “Let me explain,” right as Dalton lobbed a copy of the paper into the center of Forsythe’s plate.
“There was still good food on there,” Forsythe said.
Dalton pointed to the headline: ARE THE FEDS BACK FOR YOUR POTS?
Stan looked down with a fork and knife sticking out of his fists.
“That is garbage, Stan,” Dalton said. “Completely false.”
“Garbage and falsehood are not contraries, Sheriff, and besides, a question can’t be true or false. This is meant to provide my readers an opportunity to ask questions and reflect. It’s called critical thinking. Backbone of a free democracy.”
“I’m not here to split hairs.”
Stan lifted the paper from his plate and turned it over, ketchup side up. “Splitting hairs requires a delicacy that is missing from this morning’s repartee.” He folded the paper in half the other way and set it aside, then looked at his plate and decided he was done.
“I told you we’d be issuing a statement,” Dalton said.
“I’m sure you will, but in the vacuum caused by your bureaucratic punctiliousness, a whole town is wondering why a pillar of their community took his own life on a morning he might normally have been found in church.” Stan gestured to the diner. Dalton looked around to see everyone frozen, watching him. Stan lifted a half-empty glass of orange juice and toasted Dalton.
“Don’t you have some oath to do no harm?”
“I’m a newspaperman, not a Greek physician. I ran a story with the best information available at the time. And if you had read past the lede, you might have noticed that the article doesn’t point a finger at anyone, it merely recalls comparable events from a few years ago in an attempt to make certain the citizens of our community don’t jump to any rash or uninformed conclusions. I mean, really, Sheriff. Those who do not remember the past are doomed to repeat it.”
Someone in the diner shouted, “Yes!”
Dalton looked around and lowered his voice, “There’s all kinds of reasons for a person to take his life that have nothing to do with federal government. You planted that idea in people’s heads, and now you’re responsible for it. Couple of months ago I went to the doctor for a pain in my eye. Thought I was going blind. Doctor said when you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras.”
Forsythe made a show of thinking about what Dalton said. “What was wrong with your eye?” he eventually asked.
“That ain’t the point.”
“You brought it up.”
“Plugged tear duct.”
“That’s awful. I had that happen to a salivary gland once. Fixed it with some of those sour candies.”
Dalton scowled. “This is an ongoing investigation.”
“I never said Bruce killed himself because of the Feds. That story was just a little history to provide context. When you’ve got something for me to print, I’ll print it. Were it left to me to decide whether we should have a government without newspapers or newspapers without a government, I should not hesitate a moment to prefer the latter,” Forsythe said.
Dalton threw up his hands. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You know who said that?”
Dalton shrugged.
“Thomas Jefferson. The primary author of the Declaration of Independence. Governor of Virginia. Secretary of state. Third president of—”
“I know who Thomas Jefferson was,” Dalton shouted, then he composed himself. “I’m just saying you made my job about a thousand times more difficult. You get this town tied up in knots, and we’ll have more grief on our hands than what we’ve got right now.” Dalton didn’t wait for a response. He walked to the register. Before he could ask for it, Jenny had a Diet Coke ready in a to-go cup with a straw. He took a twenty out of his wallet and said, “Thank you. This is for that muckraker’s breakfast. Please keep the change.”