Triple Shot Read Free Page B

partner even noticed. She was still staring at her sheaf of papers, muttering.
    ‘Is there anything I can do?’ I asked.
    The bells on the street side door jingled but Sarah didn’t look up.
    Nor did she answer me.
    I sighed and had started back toward the front of our shop when a familiar voice stopped me. ‘My God, what is that stench ?’
    I could retreat, but Sarah, still growling, wasn’t much of an alternative. The proverbial rock and a hard place, but in this case, it was more caught between the bitchy and the bitchier.
    Told you Brookhills is rife with them.
    Kate McNamara, editor and publisher of the Brookhills Observer and occasional on-air reporter for our regional cable news operation, stood inside the door, literally holding her nose. Next to her was a tall, dark-haired man gracefully graying at the temples, his camel sports jacket unbuttoned, Burberry scarf arranged just-so at his neck. Right behind him, as though she was drafting in his wake, came an angular young blonde wearing jeans and a parka. She didn’t register with me, but the man looked vaguely familiar.
    Noticing the others also reacting to our air-quality index, I said, ‘Sewer problem.’ To tweak the journalist, I added, ‘Surely someone called a breaking story like this into your paper, Kate?’
    Tien, her work done for the day, had departed, along with Jacque. Art had taken his coffee to the bar-top facing the window where he clacked away at his computer. Next to Elaine Riordan’s empty chair, a streaked-blonde Barbie sat texting, while MaryAnne and a fourth woman, a rare brunette in our town, had their heads together looking at a newspaper.
    All, apparently, was right with the world. At least, Brookhills-style.
    ‘Art, you need anything?’ I asked as I circled behind him.
    He shook his head without bothering to look up from the screen, so I turned to the newcomers. ‘Morning, Kate. What can I get you?’
    I wanted to find out who the man accompanying her was, but I knew from previous experience with Kate that any question beyond the one I’d already posed would just result in an unadvancing litany of her new conquest’s credentials, both personal and professional.
    However, as the Bible says: Don’t asketh and it shall be given unto you anyway. Or words to that effect.
    ‘Maggy, surely you know who this is,’ Kate practically purred.
    ‘I’m afraid I haven’t the faintest.’
    ‘No? How about Chicago?’
    Mercifully, before I could burst into a song from the musical, the man stepped up to me. ‘Ward Chitown.’
    He pronounced it ‘shy-town’. I stuck out my hand. ‘Maggy Thorsen.’
    ‘You’re kidding.’ Sarah had come up behind us.
    Chitown bypassed my hand and extended his to her. ‘Ah, I see my reputation has preceded me.’
    ‘Reputation?’ Sarah shook hands, while managing to whisper – audibly – to me, ‘I just thought it was a stupid name – Ward “Chitown” from “Chicago”?’
    ‘Shit!’ Art Jenada’s head had swiveled around from his computer. ‘Ward, is that really you?’
    Chitown, once-burned by Sarah’s attitude, was now twice . . . well, ‘chi’. ‘Umm, yes?’
    Art hopped off his stool and, nudging past the young woman in the winter jacket, went to pump the other man’s hand. ‘Damned if it isn’t . How’ve you been? What brings you up here to the boonies?’
    ‘Chitown’ was a nickname for Chicago, though not as popular as ‘The Windy City’. Or even ‘Second City’, though some of its residents might bristle at the implication that Chicago was Avis to New York’s Hertz. Probably the same people who considered everything north of the Cubs’ Wrigley Field the ‘boonies’.
    ‘Can I get you something, Kate?’ I asked again.
    And was roundly ignored. Again. ‘You haven’t read our Brookhills Observer ,’ Kate scolded Art. ‘Or even seen the television news. Ward’s producer here has been scouting our jewel of a town since last week and Ward arrived on Sunday.