Edited for Death Read Online Free Page A

anything up. Besides, I need you to deal with the Senator.”
    “Oh crap, that’s right. Well, let me go over to the cops and see what this is about first.”
    I nod as she bowls out the door. If this is just a lot of chat she’ll find out soon enough. If there really is something, it’s closer to home and needs to be covered. The bodies in Marshalltown may have to wait.
    I can still use the time on research. There’s a lot of background stuff I can dig up at the library. Nancy, the reference librarian, is still a friend from B.B.L., Before Brandon Left. A lot of my connections in Monroe are holdovers. Nancy’s special, though. Her daughter is the same age as Heather and when we arrived here, they became friends. One morning I went to pick Heather up after a sleepover and found Nancy sipping a Jack Daniels and Diet 7-Up. Right then I knew we’d be friends.
    Clarice comes looking for me after half an hour. She’s right, there is something going on. Terry James, a security guard at a local cannery failed to show up for work. When his supervisor called because he wasn’t at work, his daughter, Jetta Forth, said he’d left home at his usual time. Friends started a search. After several hours there was no trace of him so the local cops were called in. And once the cops were involved, Clarice was on the case like snow on a glacier.
    “Go ahead with it,” I say, underscoring her judgment “The cannery is one of the big employers in Monroe and people will be talking about this.”
    The rest of the day she trails about five minutes behind the cops as they interview everyone who might have seen the missing man. When she hears they’ve found the man’s car, she tears out to the gas station next to the freeway. She gets there in time to watch the cops pull a guard’s uniform shirt out of the trunk.
    “I know he’s been murdered,” she says, lounging against my door during one of her brief stops back in the newsroom.
    “There’s just too much coincidence. A neighbor told me the daughter’s boyfriend has been hanging around. He left last night after a screaming fight. Another neighbor told me her dad said if she, Jetta, didn’t dump the boyfriend, he’d kick her out.”
    Clarice’s voice is a dull background hum as I pull the daily story budget up on the screen. I ‘m looking for likely page one stories. I’m not ignoring Clarice. After two years, I find a nod or “um-hum” will hold her until I can focus on what she’s saying. Suddenly, I’m focused.
    “Wait, wait, why do you think this is a page one?”
    Clarice’s discussion has rolled right on like a juggernaut, assuming the missing man is the top story of the day. It isn’t an assumption I’m buying. She’s going to have to sell this a lot harder.
    “All we have is some guy who didn’t show up for work this morning and who doesn’t seem to be in any of his usual places,” I say, trying to keep the exasperation out of my voice. “The cops aren’t looking at this as too unusual yet. If we were to put this guy on page one, what about the next guy who gets tired of his life and takes off? We need a lot more to make this a page one story. Right now it’s the top of local.”
    Grumbling that she knows this was a murder, Clarice puts a lot of body English into her short walk back to her desk, where she whips out her notebook and starts typing.
    I’m stuck at my desk later than usual tonight so am still in my office when Clarice makes her routine nightly cops calls.
    Something is going on. I can hear Clarice’s voice rising, a sure sign of adrenaline ahead. I’m braced when her head appears around the door and she says, “Oh boy, the Rural Area Fire Department dispatcher just blew it! He told me that he thinks they found a body. There’s lots of cops and sheriff’s cars headed out there. I’m on my way!”
    She’s out the door before I can say anything. I know it’s going to be a long night. If there is a body, this can end up on page