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Wes Boyd’s Spearfish Lake Tales Contemporary Mainstream Books and Serials Online |
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Wes Boyd’s Spearfish Lake Tales Contemporary Mainstream Books and Serials Online |
George Webb had sort of promised Frank Matson that he wouldn’t get on Mike McMahon’s back about putting the hole-in-one story in the paper, but nevertheless, it was something he was curious about. He had seen the sports page, approved it, but hadn’t seen the story, but then, he hadn’t been paying a hell of a lot of attention, either.
If he had seen the story, he would have yanked it, or at least checked with Matson. Carrie probably would have, too, he realized, and maybe even Kirsten. George knew well enough the tension between Frank and Donna Clark, and he knew that if Donna knew Frank had been at the West Turtle Lake Club, there’d be a world of shit for Frank to face.
Slipping up like that was embarrassing, and George knew that at some point he’d have to apologize to Frank about it.
When he got to the office, things were much like normal for a Thursday. Carrie was setting some copy; Mike was trying to write something, but struggling with it while listening to the two girls talk, mostly talking about Kirsten’s latest infatuation.
Webb drew himself a cup of coffee then went over and leaned up against the Compugraphic where Carrie was working. “Hey, what’s this about Frank nailing a hole in one last weekend?” he asked.
“Oh, yeah, it was the talk of the club,” she said, her typing not slowing. Aced number four, first time in years for that hole. Dad said it was something to see The ball hit a tree and almost killed a duck in the process. Pure luck.”
“Who brought the story in?”
“Story?” she said, her typing stopping. “I didn’t set a story like that.”
“It was in the paper, down on the bottom of the sports page.”
Carrie’s brow furrowed. “I have no idea … Mike,” she called, “when you set those fillers Tuesday, was one of them about a hole in one?”
“Yeah,” Mike said absently, while watching Kirsten stretch.
“What’d you do with it?” Webb wanted to know.
“Right there in the out-basket,” Mike said, getting up and going over.
“Frank is not going to be real happy about that,” Carrie said, going back to her typing, while George and Mike dug down through the box of old copy, beside the machine; every now and then, it was necessary to go back and find the original of a story. It wasn’t down very far.
“Typewritten,” Webb said. “Good paper but no signature. Mike, where did you get this?”
“It was in my in-basket,” Mike said. “I don’t know how it got there. I thought you put it there.”
“Let me see,” Kirsten said. She walked over and glanced at the story for a moment. “I put it there,” she said. “It was in a stack of ad copy on my desk, and it said something about golf, so I just tossed it in Mike’s basket without reading it.”
“Was that copy that you’d picked up around town?” Webb asked, knowing that Kirsten also picked up the odd news item that people didn’t want to deliver themselves but knew she’d be coming around for ad copy.
“Yeah, but I don’t know where I got this,” Kirsten said.
“Beats the hell out of me,” Webb said. “People, we’ve got to pay a little more attention to where this stuff comes from. This time, it was a real story, but what if someone had been pulling our leg. We all screwed up, me included, and I’ll take my share of the blame. If any of you can figure out where this came from, I’d be curious to know.” With that, Webb went into his office, turned on the air conditioner, and began to sort the mail.
“Where all did you go that you could have picked this up?” Mike asked.
“Well, gee,” Kirsten said. “I was up and down Main Street pretty thoroughly. The bank, the Super Market, the appliance store, about ten other places, I guess.”
“That doesn’t narrow it down,” he said, and went back to his typewriter.
The young reporter stared at the keyboard for a few minutes, but nothing was coming to him on the story he was trying to work on; the news release on the hole in one kept drawing his curiosity. Finally, he went back over to Kirsten’s desk where it had finally wound up. He took it over to his desk. Shortly afterward, Carrie left on the doughnut run.
There wasn’t a clue that he could make out of it, except maybe that since it was about Frank Matson, it might have come from the bank. “Kirsten,” he said. “Where do you get the ad copy at the bank?”
“Usually from Mr. Matson,” she said, putting her files into her briefcase and getting ready to leave.
A few minutes worth of digging through the files of old ad copy gave Mike the answer he was looking for. It was only couple of dozen typewritten words, but it was enough to send him knocking on Webb’s door and being motioned inside. Even though it had been a relatively cool morning so far, it was much better inside the office.
“Got something you might like to look at,” Mike said, dropping the two pieces of paper on the desk.
“Why should I be interested in a rough of a bank ad from last month?”
“Compare the letters. See how the top part of the little ‘a’ is plugged up, but the bottom is open? They were done on the same typewriter, and by someone who’s not a real good typist.”
Webb looked at the typewriting carefully. There was a signature on the ad copy. “Now that’s interesting,” he said, finally. “Sit down.”
Mike took a chair, while Webb opened a drawer, and rummaged around in it for a half-empty pack of cigarettes and a book of matches. Even though he’d more or less quit years before, sometime a smoke still helped him think through a problem. He lit his cigarette, thinking hard, blew the match out and tossed it into the wastebasket, then took a deep drag on the cigarette. Why, that sneaky son of a bitch, whichever one it was, he thought. “That’s interesting,” he said again. “Kid, I think you get the fur-lined pee pot for that one.”
“Huh?”
“You told me a detail about the Matson-Clark thing I didn’t know. You get the fifty bucks and the dinner at Rick’s.”
“But what did I tell you other than the fact that someone used Mr. Matson’s typewriter to write the story?”
“If you can’t answer that yourself, you haven’t gotten the basic part of the bet right, yet.” Webb said, taking another deep, satisfying drag on his cigarette. “So I ain’t gonna tell you.”
“Damned if I can figure it out,” Mike protested.
“I’ll help you this much,” Webb said. “You get the right piece of information, and everything else will fall into line like a platoon of Marines when the sergeant yells, ‘Fall in.’”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You will, Mike,” Webb said. “You will.” He took one more drag on the cigarette, then said, “Let’s keep this between you and me for a while. See if maybe we can sneak one past Virginia. No one gets to do that too often.”
A block and a half away from where Mike McMahon and George Webb were conferring, Frank Matson punched the second button on his telephone. “Hello, mother,” he said.
“Why you idiotic, immoral little worm!” her voice blasted in his ear.
Yes, she had seen the Record-Herald.
Her voice was so loud that Frank couldn’t keep the phone up to his ear; quietly, he set it down on a stack of papers on his desk, then got up and walked out to the front office, leaving his mother raving to an empty desk.
While his secretary sat there watching, Frank picked up her phone, and punched the other line, calling Diane at home. “We got anything on the rest of this week, or this weekend?” he asked.
“Nothing except the chili thing Saturday,” his wife told him.
“Well, all right,” he said. “Kids at home?”
“Yes, I was getting just about ready to take them to the park.”
Frank smiled. “Don’t bother,” he said. “Is the Record-Herald there yet?”
“Not much in it, this week,” she said.
Frank smiled again. “Get it, and look at the bottom of page ten.”
Diane left the phone, and came back in a couple of minutes. “My God,” his wife said. “Your mother is going to blow a fuse when she sees that, and I don’t really want to be around to hear it.”
“Me either, and it’s blowing now,” Frank agreed. “What say you and the kids get packed up, and we spend the next few days out there?”
“If you want to, it’s fine with me. It’s probably the safest place to be,” Diane agreed.
“Fine,” Frank said. “I’ll drop by in a few minutes.”
As he hung up the phone, he could still hear the gabble of the phone receiver laying on his desk in his office. “Mrs. Masterfield,” he said formally. “You are aware how if something comes up that needs my father’s attention, how I have to go out and see him?”
“Yes,” Jane said, wondering what the last few minutes had been all about.
“If, in the next few days, something should come up that should need either my or my father’s attention, then I shall expect you to bring the news out to us, the same as I have done for my father.”
“You don’t mean …”
“I do indeed mean, Jane. If you need me, come out to the West Turtle Lake Club and find me.” Frank reached in his pocket and checked to see that he had his car keys. “Oh, and by the way, do a favor for me,” he said. “Call Kate Ellsberg and tell her that I’ve been called out of town unexpectedly, and I won’t be able to judge the chili festival.”
“But …”
“Don’t say ‘but,’” Frank said. “Say ‘yes,’ and things go so much smoother.” He turned on his heel and headed back to his office.
He picked up the phone and waited for his mother to pause for breath; she had been going pretty good for a while, now. “Mother,” he said in a loud voice, “I don’t have to put up with this abuse from you any longer. I am taking Diane and the kids out to the West Turtle Lake Club for the weekend, and perhaps longer. I will not put up with you saying one word about this to me, Diane, or the children.”
With that, he hung up the phone and strode purposefully from the office.
* * *
Spearfish Lake Record-Herald, August 20, 1975
SPEARFISH LAKE NOTES
by Virginia Meyers
Record-Herald Social Editor* * *
Mrs. Donna Clark was admitted to Camden Memorial Hospital on last Thursday. She is reportedly in good condition, but it is reported that, due to heavy sedation, she isn’t up to receiving visitors just yet. However, she thanks her friends for their concern about her condition.
* * *
Mr. and Mrs. Frank Matson spent the weekend out of town with friends, at their country estate. Mrs. Matson reported that it was a very relaxing weekend.
Jane Masterfield watched Frank walk out of the bank with fire in his eye; she’d never seen him quite that mad before, especially at his mother. She knew, of course, that Donna could get emotional, sometimes frantically so, and she fully expected that this would be one of those times.
For a moment, she pondered what to do, then picked up the phone and called Kate Ellsberg, who lived just up the street from Donna. “You’d better go over and check on Donna, right away,” she said. “She and Frank just got into a shouting match, and I’m afraid she’s going to do something crazy.”
That was warning enough for Kate; she put down the phone and headed out of her house, only to see Donna careen past in her car, headed downtown.
“Now what?” Kate thought. She started for her car, planning to follow Donna, but suddenly heard a crash up the street. She turned around and ran back out to the street to see Donna’s car wrapped around a tree in the distance. Using her head, she ran back inside and called the sheriff’s office.
She could hear the fire siren going when she went back outside. Heading for her car, she got in and drove up the street to the accident.
She found Donna relatively unhurt, but pounding her hands against the bent steering wheel and raving incoherently. She tried to calm Donna down without any noticeable success; fortunately, the police and the ambulance arrived within a couple of minutes, and Mike McMahon from the Record-Herald roared up no more than a minute later.
They got Donna out of the car and loaded into the ambulance with difficulty, finally having to strap the raving woman to the gurney. As a friend, Kate followed the ambulance to the Spearfish Lake hospital.
Old Doctor Brege was in the hospital that day, as he had been a quarter of a century earlier on the day that a police car had brought a similarly raving Donna Clark to the emergency room. It was necessary to sedate her in order to work on her injuries, and he remembered the scene; now, it was happening again.
Thus it was that Jane got her first word of what had happened to Donna when Dr. Brege called, looking for Frank. “He’s not here,” Jane said. “He went out to the West Turtle Lake Club for the weekend.”
She could hear Dr. Brege stifle a small laugh, then said, “Now why did I suspect that was involved?”
“What’s the problem?”
“I think we need to send Mrs. Clark to Camden for evaluation, but I would like to have approval of the next of kin,” Dr. Brege said, avoiding the use of the word “commitment,” especially to a woman he knew to be a key part of the Spearfish Lake gossip circuit.
“He made it pretty clear that he didn’t want to be disturbed. I suppose if it’s absolutely necessary to get Mr. Matson, I could send someone out to get him,” she said, then added, “I wouldn’t go out there myself, under any circumstances.”
“I don’t suppose you would, Jane,” Dr. Brege replied. “Mrs. Clark doesn’t have a lot left around here in the way of kin, anymore, does she?”
“Well, there’s Brent. He’s her stepson, but they’ve never been close.”
Dr. Brege thanked Jane and told her he’d give Brent Clark a try.
Brent Clark was in his office at Clark Construction Company when Dr. Brege called and explained what he wanted. “Old bat’s stripped her gears again, huh?” Brent said.
“’Bout like she did when you and Ursula got married,” Dr. Brege agreed.
“Well, we’d better ship her off to Camden, then,” Brent said. “It’s what Dad would have wanted.”
It was just before Jane’s lunch hour when Kate Ellsberg called Jane back; they agreed to meet for lunch at Rick’s Café.
“What happened at the bank?” Kate wanted to know.
“Donna called Frank a little after nine this morning,” Jane reported. “I could tell she was very upset when I talked to her, and she lit into Frank so hard I could hear her from my desk. Finally, he told her, ‘I don’t have to take this abuse from you any longer.’ and told her he was taking Diane and the kids out to the West Turtle Lake Club for the weekend, and he didn’t want to hear any more about it. Then he hung up the phone and left.”
Kate nodded. “Donna must have been on her way over to have it out with him in person when she hit the tree.”
“I can imagine her being too mad to see straight,” Jane agreed. “But Frank was pretty mad, too. Oh, by the way, he told me that we’d have to find someone else to judge the chili contest, too.”
“I cannot for the life of me understand why everyone thinks that judging the chili contest is something like the Spanish Inquisition,” Kate said. “I have heard some of the thinnest excuses in creation from people when I asked them to be judges. Bud would quit in a minute if I let him.”
Jane smiled. She had never been a big backer of the chili contest despite it being something that Donna and Kate both pushed for. “You don’t suppose Roger Augsberg getting hospitalized for stomach pains after last year’s contest had anything to do with it?”
“How was I to know that his ulcer would flare up?” Kate said. “Anyway, we’ve got to come up with another judge. I must admit, that was a good idea that Frank came up with yesterday.”
“The Langenderfer girl who works for the Record-Herald?”
“Yes, it gets some younger blood,” Kate agreed.
“Excuse me, Mrs. Ellsberg?” a voice said.
Kate looked up to see the young, new reporter from the Record-Herald. He had been at the accident scene this morning, but she hadn’t had time for him then. “Can I help you?”
“I was wondering if you know how Mrs. Clark is?” he asked.
“They’re taking her to Camden for observation,” Kate said. “You’re the young man from the Record-Herald, aren’t you? I can’t think of your name, right now.”
“Mike McMahon.”
Jane could see the light bulb come on in Kate’s mind. “Are you going to be at the chili contest?” Kate asked.
“I have to be there to write it up for the paper. I’m kind of looking forward to it.”
“Do you like chili?” Kate pressed a little harder.
“I like some better than others,” Mike said.
Kate decided the time was right to strike. “Since you’re going to be there anyway, would you like to be one of the judges? We need to replace someone who was called away unexpectedly.”
Mike had heard the stories but didn’t believe anything could be that bad. He’d have to sample some of the various chilis, anyway, to write about them, but he wasn’t worried. He liked Mexican food, after all, and he liked it hot. Besides, it couldn’t hurt to make contacts, maybe friends with some of these Woman’s Club types, who seemed to swing a lot of weight in Spearfish Lake.
Besides, he’d be with Kirsten for a while; perhaps it could be parlayed into another quasi-date.
“Yes, of course,” he said after a moment. “It ought to be fun.”
* * *
