Homecoming, page 4
“Belle?”
The voice startled her, and she turned to see a ruggedly handsome man standing behind her. His hair was peppered with some silver, as was his well-kept beard, but his piercing grey eyes held hers, and she found familiarity there.
“Nathan? Is that you?” she replied.
He smiled and stepped to her. They hugged a little clumsily as though both somehow forgetting how adults acted, and instead, the ghosts of childhood past took momentary control.
“How did you know it was me?” she asked as they broke away.
“New face, small town, lots of gossip.” He shrugged. “Didn't expect a big shot returning home would be a secret for long, did you?”
“I guess not.” She laughed back. “So you're still here then… you and Tara both.”
“Oh, you've already met our own Dirty Harry then?” he joked.
“She was showing me around town until she got a call. Sounded serious.”
“I highly doubt that. Nothing much happens around here. Not much has changed since... well, since you left.”
His tone wasn't full of rebuke, unlike Tara’s, and she silently thanked him for that. He had always been an easy-going kid, despite the fact that his surname was Schaefer.
His father was one Dr Willard Schaefer, son of Edgar Schaefer who was founder of the Schaefer Institute. With a lineage like that, most kids had either wanted something from him or hated him for the perception of an easier life than the rest of them. Belle and Tara had never wanted anything from him save for his company. He'd been a humorous kid who had always been able to make her laugh, and the three of them had been a tightknit unit.
“Tara rode me about not ever, you know, writing and stuff. I guess I owe you an apology too.”
“Hey, you were just a kid. Whatever happened, you didn't have any control over it. Shit happens, I guess.”
“Afternoon, Doc,” an old man said as he walked past.
“I’m seeing you Thursday, Gene. Don't be late. We need to take those stitches out before they get infected. You’ve missed two appointments already. Don't make me come looking for you,” Nathan replied sternly.
“I know, I know. we’ll be there,” Gene said as he hurried by.
“So you went into the family business after all, then,” Belle said, amused. “Whatever happed to the boy who swore blind he would never be anything like his father?”
“Who says I am?”
“Oh, nobody, Doctor Nathan.”
“It's not what you think.”
“It never is.” She grinned back.
“Well I’m afraid that my plan to play centre-forward for Liverpool never quite panned out for me.” He smiled.
“And I bet you got so close too,” she teased.
“You know, you’re a fine one to talk. Didn't you take after your old man too?”
She knew it was meant as a joke, but it was a tender subject and a private one to boot. He must have seen something on her face because his suddenly fell.
“Shit, I'm sorry,” he added quickly. “Foot-in-mouth disease.”
“It's okay. I guess it’s harder to escape our paths than we thought,” she replied warmly.
“Well not entirely,” he said as they stopped outside a clean, white building.
The name over the door on a small plaque did indeed read ‘Doctor Nathan Schaefer’, but there was also an extra word beside it: ‘veterinarian’.
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CHAPTER 3
Old Habits Die Hard
Josef Vanek watched the trouble brew from a secluded spot on the McNichol farm beside the old barn he'd rented under the ‘Mr Smith’ name that he'd used around town including at the local cabin park where he was staying.
The small town had seemed like the perfect spot to set up a storage deposit. The place had a tiny population, which was concentrated around the built-up, and somewhat laughably called, downtown area. The rest of the locals generally resided at a few scattered farms around the vast empty forest that seemed to stretch on for miles and indeed did.
Mr Kline wanted a network of storage facilities around the country and had tasked his right-hand with setting it up. Vanek had already scouted out three others, but Wellspring was his favourite spot due to the fact that he could store almost three quarters of this year’s shipment here.
The barn was rented for peanuts, and the farm’s owner didn’t ask any questions other than how much he was going to get paid. That, combined with the fact that there were precisely two cops to cover hundreds of miles, should have meant that this was a perfect spot. But right now, half of Wellspring’s police force was standing about a hundred metres away from him.
Vanek was a professional. He believed in doing things the right way. He believed in running a tight operation with meticulous research and a tightknit unit under his control. It mattered little to him that his business was criminal in nature; good business practices were universal, regardless of your particular industry.
It wasn't just his mind that was well drilled and organised. He believed that everything about him should radiate control, hence the fact that he was dressed as a fisherman, complete with all the requisite equipment.
He'd rented a cabin from the only part of town that offered rental accommodation and had found his neighbours to be mainly temporary staff working at the Schaefer Institute.
He headed out every morning before dawn dressed appropriately and returned after dark carrying the day’s fish bounty, frozen fish that he'd brought with him.
The barn on the farm was far away enough away from the main house that he'd yet to see anyone, until that morning.
Some young kid had come wandering down and started poking around by the fence line. Vanek had watched him through a set of high-powered binoculars until the kid had gone over the fence and headed into the forest. Some time later, the farmer, Travis, had driven down on a quad bike to investigate before he too had gone into the trees.
Vanek had watched all of this intently, his body rock still as he evaluated the situation and processed what all this could mean for him and the piled-high shipment of drugs that were stacked in the barn.
The echoing gunshot had jerked him upright, and his hand had gone automatically to the revolver in the shoulder holster under his armpit. As a rule, he abhorred firearms; they were the refuge of the poor planner as far as he was concerned. He carried one simply because he was thorough, and the fact that from his experience, he couldn't trust amateurs.
A few minutes after the gunshot, he saw the farmer come staggering out of the forest, clutching a rifle, his face deathly white. Travis had used the radio on his bike before sitting down against it, looking like he was in shock. Vanek didn't move, even after the cop SUV came driving over the horizon before parking up next to the obviously distressed farmer.
Whatever had happened was bad, that much he could tell, but the barn wasn't in any immediate danger, not yet at least. There was no reason he could see that anyone would come over this way, but his mind was already working overtime deciding options and making contingencies.
After another half an hour or so, the remaining Wellspring police force showed up, and the three people all went back into the forest. After another twenty minutes, the three emerged, carrying what was obviously a body wrapped in sheeting.
Vanek assumed that it was the young kid’s body, but he couldn't know for sure. One thing he could see was that the cop in charge, a Constable Wagner, an overweight woman in her mid-thirties, took the farmer’s rifle but didn't put the man in handcuffs.
With Travis’s obvious distress, and the fact that he wasn't being arrested at the scene, Vanek realised that this bore all the signs of an accident. On the one hand, it was good news for him, but on the other, his landlord was going to be questioned in a police station in a distraught state of mind, the sort of state that might make him slip, that might spell trouble for Vanek and his boss.
He watched on as the body was loaded into the back of the woman’s Jeep, and then Travis was loaded in too.
The two cop cars then drove away, leaving Vanek behind with a thoughtful expression etched across his face as he processed the information in front of him and decided what course of action to take next.
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Belle stood outside the Herald building and felt the wave of her father rush over her once more. It seemed like his ghost was haunting every corner of this town.
She had agreed to meet Nathan later that night for dinner, and she was genuinely looking forward to it. Finding out that both he and Tara were still in town had been a pleasant surprise, and right now, she needed all the friendly faces she could get… not to mention the fact that Nathan’s friendly face always happened to be a very attractive one.
She suddenly wondered if he'd actually asked her out on a date, if she'd misread his intentions; she was also not entirely put off at the thought. But still, maybe she should find a way of asking Tara along as well. She had enough things to mess with her mind here without adding any unnecessary complications.
The small-town newspaper had been in existence since the early days of Wellspring, going from a single, double-sided printed newssheet into a fully functioning newspaper. Of course, times had changed, and she knew from personal experience that the printed word was a dying media form. Nowadays, everything was online, as a printed newspaper could only ever report yesterday’s news, and people wanted to know what was happening right now rather than what had already been.
Over the years, despite her best efforts, she had kept a small eye on the town, and while the Herald did indeed have a website, it was poorly run by obviously amateur hands.
Her father owned the paper and the building it sat in, which apparently, according to the legal papers she'd received, now belonged to her along with a house nearby, her childhood home.
She stood outside, staring at the pristine white offices and wondering just what the hell she was going to do with it.
“Miss Morton?”
She turned around, startled by the man's voice, and found herself looking at a white-haired man in his sixties watching her with a pleasant enough smile on his lips, but it was one that didn't quite touch his eyes.
“Hello?” she replied.
“Mason James. I work for your..., excuse me, worked for your father.”
“Oh, I see. Good afternoon, Mr James,” she said, already unsurprised that people knew her on sight now.
“We were all very sorry about your father. He was a good man.”
“I’m sure he was, but I really wouldn't know,” she couldn't help herself from blurting out.
Usually, she had a firm check on her emotions. She'd travelled the world on stories, always objective and often creative, but always in control of herself; it was a necessity when you wanted to get to the truth. But now, ever since she'd set foot back here, she felt like a child again, one not in control of a damn thing.
If the man felt awkward by her statement or her bitter tone, he didn't show it and only continued to smile pleasantly and patiently at her.
“So I’m assuming that you're the one running the place at present?” she asked, knowing that he was the most senior person of three at the paper.
She’d been sent a file containing a lot of information about the Herald from her father’s solicitor. The paper’s income, while steady, had not grown, which couldn’t be said for their expenses. As far as she could tell, the paper had been walking a fine line between breaking even and making a loss, and in the last six months or so, it had crossed that line.
“Just steering the ship until your arrival.” He nodded back.
“Um, Mr James...”
“You can call me Mason.”
“Very well then, Mason. Are you perhaps labouring under the notion that I’ve come to take over here?”
“Well... we had hoped...”
“Well then, let me disavow you of that notion right away, and please feel free to spread the word. I am simply here to facilitate the sale of the Herald if possible, and if not, then perhaps merely the building.”
“You’re not taking over?” he asked, with what appeared to be genuine surprise.
“Absolutely not, and I cannot stress that point enough. I have zero interest in assuming active control of this newspaper if you can call it that, Mason.”
“But your father...”
“My father is dead, Mason, and to put it bluntly, to me he died a very long time ago.”
She left him then and entered the building, mainly because she felt perilously close to tears and hated herself for it. Her plan had been to return to Wellspring, wrap up what needed to be done, and then get the hell out of there, all without breaking a sweat. That idea was already dead and buried as she couldn't shake the feeling that she was an impotent child caught in the glare of grownups. All the years spent preparing for this moment, and she already felt that she'd fallen flat on her face.
Pushing the double doors open too hard, they both banged against the wall on the inside and caused the sort of grand, attention-demanding entrance that she'd wanted to avoid.
According to the employee records, Mason was the senior man who ran the place day to day. He’d worked at the paper since he was a child and she assumed that he would be loyal to her father’s memory, something that irked her on an almost primal level.
Tina Bolton was the Herald’s resident photographer. The youngest member of the team at just 28, she worked only part time for the paper, but according to her website, her main income came from her wildlife photography business.
The third prong of the trident was Carrie Pope, whose job title read receptionist, and Belle guessed, given the size of the staff, that she was probably the go-to dogsbody for everything to keep the place running. Carrie Pope was the only member of staff who’d somehow survived from Belle’s time as a child here. She remembered the woman being more than a little cold even all those years ago, and even when Carrie had been a relatively young woman, Belle remembered her father once telling her mother that she was an old soul.
Belle had worked at a few newspaper offices as she worked her way up the food chain. She'd learnt the business from the inside before eventually breaking out on her own and enjoying the freedom of a freelance journalist. Now she set her own agenda and chased her own stories.
She now had two major media outlets that were guaranteed go-to options for stories: one TV station, and one online operator that was rapidly swallowing up the competition. As a result, she handled her own stories and had developed a reputation for always delivering the goods. It was a reputation that meant she was highly paid due to the fact that she was highly skilled. The idea that she would walk into a rinky-dink outfit like the Herald was simply laughable, father involvement or not.
A woman looked at her from behind a receptionist’s desk. She looked officious and more than a little irritated at her loud entrance.
“Hello, Carrie,” Belle greeted the woman, trying to damp down her own warring emotions.
“It’s Ms Pope,” the woman replied a little haughtily.
“Well, Ms Pope, I am Belle Morton.”
“I am well aware of who you are, miss.”
“Good, then that saves us all some time. I was sent the Herald’s financials up until last year. I would like to take a look at this year’s figures, up to date, please.”
“Oh, well Mr James would usually...”
“Well this isn't his paper now, is it? It's mine, Ms Pope, which means that everything in it is mine, and you work for me. If you'd like to continue to do so, then you will do as I ask; if not, then you know where the door is.”
She brushed past the desk then and further into the office. She didn't know where she was going, more that she was making a point about ownership. She knew that her discomfort wasn't really the other woman's fault, but she wasn't about to take anyone’s bullshit, not today and certainly not here. This was about reclaiming the upper hand in her own mind, and stomping all over her father’s territory might have been childish, but it made her feel more in control.
“Is Tina Bolton here today?” she called out over her shoulder, feeling Mason's presence rather than seeing it.
“Tina only comes when summoned,” Mason replied with somewhat forced levity. “I believe that she's due in soon for some shots at the school for the children’s winter harvest festival display.”
“The what?”
“Oh right, I guess that was a little after your time.” He nodded. “Well it’s been in effect now for some time. Just a festival to welcome the winter and to pray for the thaw, a bit of harmless fun that has become somewhat of a tradition ever since. People in small towns do love a little pageantry, I suppose, although Millicent Huffman does tend to take it a little seriously.”
“I see. Then I’ll address you all when you are together tomorrow. Shall we say 10am? And Ms Pope, I'll take the files now, please. I’ll use my father’s office.”
She'd spotted the door across the room and now headed for it. Her legs felt a little shaky as she walked towards it. Her domineering manner was weakening now as she remembered a wave of her childhood washing over her. There was a flood of happy memories spent in the building as a small child, a child who had adored her father like only a young daughter could.
Entering the room, it immediately became clear that someone, presumably Mason, had been using the office as their own.
The computer was on, and on the screen was some research on a recent local issue. Scanning the information, she saw that there had been a break-in at the Institute a couple of months ago, the same night that there had been a power outage in town.
Her journalistic mind couldn't help but nibble a little on the story despite it being a long way beneath her usual diet. A quick read through and she found herself a little surprised at the competency of the content. Her reading of the Herald had so far largely consisted of its financials and not the paper itself.
