Fall from Grace (37 page)

“Who knows, it still might be something,” Mandy said.

“Whatever,” Brent said, and he left.

As I watched his back, I knew that it would be something more than he expected. At the very least, he had the death of a retired police officer, the possible suicide of a cop who had recently broken the news of bad doings by bad police in the past. If Anderson played that one right, and he probably would because he was a decent reporter, he could run this for a few days, even turn it into something deeper: the culture of protecting bad cops by the police, and the animosity about rats even if they were exposing wrongdoing.

And if he got really lucky and the police discovered the significance of the stuff I left in the box, he would have a much, much bigger story and I would be relegated to helping him by writing a sidebar or two.

But I was okay with that. Even though I had no control over what stories came my way, I was hoping that things would stay calm in the newsroom, at least for a little while.

Whittaker tapped me on the shoulder, waking me up from my thoughts. “Now that’s settled, I got another story for you. Nothing big, but the police want a little bit of help from us.” She held out a press release.

“Right, boss,” I said, picking up my notebook and pen. “What you got?”

She read from the release. “It seems that there’s some guy out there robbing banks, nothing major, no violence, but the police are getting annoyed and want him to stop. Or at least they’d like to catch him. They’ve asked if we could run a short piece along with a photo from the security cameras. The photo sucks, you can barely see the guy, but heck, we might as well do it as a public service. Besides, it’s a good story ’cause all the tellers who have been robbed say the guy is nothing but really polite. If you got nothing better to do, I’d like you to handle it, otherwise I’ll give it to Franke here because he doesn’t need to drive for this one.”

Franke looked up expectantly, and I first thought about giving the story to him. He looked like he could use a break. Instead I looked at Mandy and gave the only answer I could give:

“How many words do you want?”

-30-

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

WAYNE ARTHURSON, like his protagonist Leo Desroches, is the son of Cree and French-Canadian parents. He has worked as a newspaper reporter, a drummer in a rock band, and as a freelance journalist. He was born in and lives in Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, with his wife and child.
Fall from Grace
is his first mystery novel.

FORGE BOOKS BY WAYNE ARTHURSON

Fall from Grace

A Killing Winter
(forthcoming)

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously.

FALL FROM GRACE

Copyright © 2011 by Wayne Arthurson

Edited by James Frenkel

All rights reserved.

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Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC

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ISBN 978-0-7653-2417-7

First Edition: April 2011

eISBN 978-1-4299-6861-4

First Forge eBook Edition: March 2011