The Dying Hour Read Free Page A

the police scanners. Never let the Seattle Times or Post-Intelligencer beat you. Write exactly to the length we tell you. Never take criticism of your writing personally. Everybody produces crap and the day side knows jack.
    Obey and learn.
    Jason knocked out exactly one hundred words, then sent his story to the copy desk.
    Behold the lot of a cub reporter on the police beat of a major metro.
    Discarded sections of the Mirror, the L.A. Times, and USA Today were splayed on his desk. He considered them along with the used-up notebooks, junk food wrappers, outdated press releases, and his future.
    He was failing.
    He was a month into the paper’s legendary soul-destroying six-month internship program and all he had to show for it were eight bylines. He had to get his name in print more often. This was his shot at a job with the best damn newspaper in the Pacific Northwest, a kick-ass operation.
    He couldn’t afford to fail.
    Jason called up the wires, scrolling through them for anything breaking. Little had moved since he last looked. He checked regional Web sites for press releases, then made more checks going down the tattered list of numbers for police, fire, paramedics, and port people throughout the Sea-Tac area. Call after call yielded nothing new.
    Except for the organ lady’s death, it was an uneventful night.
    Jason went to see Vic Beale, the night editor, typing before a large flat-screen monitor.
    “Instead of searching the wires, I’m going to call around the state, see if I can dig something up.”
    Beale, a craggy-faced man with wispy gray hair, peered over his glasses. His attention paused at the silver stud earring in Jason’s left lobe, then the few days’ growth of whiskers that suggested a Vandyke.
    “We’re jammed for space. If you get anything, it’d better be good.”
    “I’ve got nothing to lose.”
    “Knock yourself out.”
    At his keyboard, Jason summoned the Mirror ’s universal call list, a massive file of names, numbers, and contact information for anything and everything. He decided to start with the border and work his way south.
    He called the Blaine crossing.
    “Hi, Jason Wade from the Seattle Mirror. Anything shaking up your way tonight? Any arrests, seizures? Any oddball incidents?”
    The duty officer gave him an officious brush-off. “You guys know you’re supposed to call the press office.”
    “Yeah, but those people don’t know as much as you. And I bet they don’t work as hard.”
    “You got that right.”
    “So between you and me, did anything happen for you tonight, anything worth pursuing?”
    “Naw. Try Sumas. I heard there was something out that way.”
    “Thanks.”
    The woman who answered the line at Sumas was cheery.
    “Nothing going on here, dear. I’d try Lynden.”
    The number for the Lynden border crossing rang and rang. Jason was hanging up when the line clicked, and he pulled the phone back to his ear.
    “No, nothing here.” The Lynden man’s name was Jenkins. “Sorry, you got a bad tip.”
    “Well, I’m just poking around.”
    “That thing’s got nothing to do with us.”
    That thing? What thing?
    “Excuse me?” Jason sat up.
    “You want the Sawridge County Sheriff.”
    “Why, what’s going on?”
    “Likely nothing, but they found an abandoned car on 539 about ten miles south of us.”
    “Abandoned car? What about it?”
    “I guess they’re trying to find the owner, a young Seattle woman.”
    “Why? Is there foul play or something?”
    “I’ve got no idea. Call the county, but you didn’t get it from us.”
    Jason persisted with several calls to Sawridge County until he connected with Detective Hank Stralla. The cop listened patiently, then told him they had concerns over a car abandoned on 539.
    “We’re attempting to locate the owner to be sure she’s unharmed.”
    “Why concerns about a car? I mean that sort of thing happens all the time, right?”
    “We’re going to wait until tomorrow before releasing