All the News

Chapter One

Bert Whitley, editor of the Lancaster Standard, cleared his throat and waited until the room quieted down. “We’re going to have to go with some of the cost-cutting measures the consultant has suggested.”
Everyone squeezed in the conference room on the third floor of the Standard building groaned in unison and then all started talking at once. The Sports editor was sitting beside me and reached for his breast pocket.
I nodded toward his hand reaching for phantom smokes like an amputee bending to scratch a limb that was no longer there. “You don’t smoke anymore, Ed.”
“You’ve never been through this before,” he said and awkwardly patted his shirt. “I have. Consultants are nothing but bush-league coaches who never picked up a bat.”
Bert was standing at one end of the oval conference table and he shouted, “Hey people! Let’s get some quiet in here! Nobody’s real happy with this, but that’s the way it is in corporate America.”
Ron Longenecker sat across from me “How many you pink-slipping?” he asked Bert.
“Mary Wolfstein and Pickles. I already told them. Lily Bell and Fiona were offered early retirements and took them.”
“Lily is a hundred and two. You call that early retirement?” Josh Ferosa said and got a laugh from the crowd, including me.
“Pickles’s wife has cancer. Where in the hell is he going to get a job at his age that pays health insurance?” Longenecker asked.
“There are some unfortunate repercussions involved with this restructure,” Bert said. “And there will be some unhappy people, but these decisions were made for the good of this newspaper over the long haul. I’m sure everyone in this room wants the Standard to be profitable.”
Bert Whitley was a good boss. Fair. Respectful. Not afraid to pat you on the back or kick you in the ass, whatever the occasion suited, but this speech was a canned, prerecorded load of bullshit if I ever heard one. I wondered if it was the same speech given to a roomful of Enron employees before their retirement packages were raided.
I was drifting off, as I am known to do when faced with something unpleasant. Pickles was in a pickle, I thought and had a silent, irreverent laugh to myself. His wife was sick, and he was midfifties and a fair editor at best. Mary Wolfstein was still in her prime and a pretty good reporter. She’d latch on somewhere. Maybe Harrisburg or one of the Philly suburbs papers. I drifted back to the present when everyone started laughing.
“What?” Cindy Hess snapped.
Cindy worked the courthouse and the county commissioners’ meetings, wrote a political column for the Sunday paper, and was never known to be reserved.
“You’re going to have to pick up Fiona’s column,” Bert said.
Cindy shook her head in disbelief. “She writes the Astrology column.”
“Astronomy. Not astrology,” Bert countered. “You studied geology in college. You told me yourself. You’re as close as we’ve got to a science guy. Brush up on your stars. Can’t be that much different.”
Ron Longenecker turned around in his seat to face Cindy. “Stars are rocks, after all. Just bigger.”
“Ron. You and Josh are going to have to share copywriters with Cindy and John. We aren’t hiring anyone after all,” Bert said.
“I was told when I came here I’d have a fulltime copywriter at my disposal,” Josh said. “You promised me.”
Bert flipped through his stack of papers lying on the conference table in front of him. “Promises are meant to be broken. Get over it.”
Cindy smiled at Josh. “Are you going to have to type your columns all on your own? What a travesty. The literary world is in tatters. Maybe you should quit and finish that novel you never started writing.”
Josh muttered something to Cindy.
“You wish,” she said.
“Editorially, there won’t be any changes in the foreseeable future, however, Doonesbury’s being pulled from the Funnies,” Bert continued.
“They’re pulling Doonesbury?” Ed asked.
“What do you mean the ‘foreseeable future’?” Josh said at the same time.
“Look people,” Bert said and ran a hand through his thinning hair. “We’re in a very traditional market. I’ll give up Trudeau to keep from having everything we write passed upstairs before it’s printed.”
“That had to come out of the marketing department,” Josh said. “They think we’re going to save a few readers if we dump a comic strip that takes potshots at conservatives.”
“It did come out of marketing. If this makes our advertisers happy without sacrificing editorial independence and they keep buying a million dollars’ worth of ads a year then we keep getting paid. This is a business,” Bert said. “Remember that.”
“Who gets Listening with Lily since Lily Bell’s retiring?” Melanie Thrasher asked from the back of the room. “Please don’t tell me we’re going to buy Dear Abby. It’s just not the same with the daughter doing it. I’d be glad to take it, Bert.”
“We’re not buying Abby. Lily’s column’s one of the most popular at the paper and we want to keep it in-house. It needs somebody with some years under their belt. Schram’s going to take it.”
I was busy picking some dirt out from under my thumbnail with the cap from my pen when Bert said my name. “Are you crazy, Bert? I can’t write love advice. I’m in the middle of three potentially major stories. I’m working sixty hours a week as is.”
“You can use Bueller for background stuff and get Thrasher to help you sort through the mail to Lily. That’s half the job. Deciding which idiot to write back to,” Bert said. “That’s it, folks. Back to work.”
Everybody stood and started to file out of the room, and Bert slipped by before I could catch him.
I veered around chairs and slow movers. “Cindy? Can I talk to you?”
“No,” she said.
“I’ll trade you Star Gazers for Lily.”
“Not a chance, Schram.”
I caught her elbow. “Aw, come on. You’ll be way better at Lily than I’ll ever be and we owe it to the old broad to do her column right.”
“The only reason you want me to take Lily is because I’m a woman,” she said. “I didn’t see you grabbing Ron or Josh.”
“Partly true. I’ll give you that. A guy writing this column just won’t be right. We just don’t give a shit about other people’s problems.”
“And you think a woman is more suited to the job.”
“Yes.” I nodded emphatically. “Yes. A woman would be. They’re naturally more empathetic. Women nurture. They empower others selflessly. They breastfeed.”
Of course, being a man, when I said the word breast, my eyes drifted downward to Cindy’s award-winning size Ds clad today in a knit sweater. I quickly looked up and smiled.
“You had me right up until you locked on my boobs, Schram,” she said. “Maybe getting in touch with your feminine side would do you some good. And I would never get in the way of a man trying to better himself.”
I followed Cindy out of the conference room into the lime-green hallway leading to the pressroom that always smelled so much of chemicals it made my eyes water. Melanie Thrasher was waiting for me there.
“Do you want me to start on the mail right away, John?” she asked.
“Yeah. Sure.”
Melanie was young and eager, on the chubby side by about fifty pounds, wore glasses that were forever riding down her nose, and sported a nervous tic that made me dizzy after a while. But then to her, I’m sure I was an old, flabby guy with graying hair at the temples and a wardrobe out of the eighties.
“I’ll find you something easy to start with,” she said and turned to the stairwell. “You watch. You and I are going to be a great team.”
I smiled, gave her a little salute, and made my way down to the newsroom in search of Kirk Bueller. I swatted him on the shoulder and told him we were going to lunch.
“I just ate breakfast,” he said.
I kept walking, completely confident that Bueller would be right behind me. I opened the front door of the building, stepped out onto the sidewalk, and soaked up the blaze of an October sun.
“Where are we going?” Bueller asked.
I turned right and headed for the Hamilton Bar. It was nine in the morning, but the door was open, and I went in with the kid right behind me.
“Hey, Pete,” I said to the guy behind the bar. “Any chance we can get some coffee?”
Pete looked at his watch and the pile of dirty glasses on the bar and shrugged his shoulders. I slid into a corner booth and pushed the cigarette ashes off the table with my coat sleeve.
“It smells in here,” Bueller said.
“The sweet aroma of spilled beer and yesterday’s smokes.” I took a deep breath and closed my eyes. Pete came over with two cups of coffee and tossed some creamers on the table.
“May I get a bottle of water, please?” Bueller asked.
Pete stared at the kid. “Yeah. Sure.”
“You don’t drink coffee?” I asked.
“Not that coffee,” he said and pointed. “There’s lipstick on your mug.”
I turned my cup around and glanced at the rim. “That’s why I’m drinking from the other side.”
Pete tossed a bottle of water from behind the bar and said, “Heads up.”
Bueller caught it right before it hit him in the ear. He twisted the cap off and took a drink. “So, what’s this all about?”
“You’re supposed to help me do some background. You have to know what I’m working on to do it. You did good work last February on the Democratic Dinner.”
Bueller fiddled with the paper label on the plastic bottle. “Thanks.”
“Look kid, I’m not going to try and steal your story like Josh. You do this right, keep it under your hat and get me the info I need, and I’ll give you a ‘contributing’ byline.”
“Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
“What are you working on?”
“Couple of things,” I said. “I got a source that says Wrightstown School District’s building project is going to be short a few million bucks.”
“School districts are always short of money. That’s not news.”
“It is when the school board fired their comptroller a month before. It is when the board president’s brother-in-law is a vice president of the construction company building their new school.”
“Could be news,” Bueller said with a smile. “What do you want me to do?”
“I want to know everything you can find out about Gerry McClain, he’s the school board president. And Phil Morris. That’s the brother-in-law that works for Field’s Construction.”
“OK. What else?”
“Let’s start there,” I said.
“Thought you were working on a couple of things.”
“I am. Just start with this.”

* * *

The newsroom was humming from the sound of keyboards tapping and telephones ringing when I walked back to my desk. The energy level was up a bit from normal, probably because everyone was wondering how far down their name was on the downsizing list. I listened to the messages on my phone. My wife had called to remind me about parent-teacher conferences scheduled for this evening. Couldn’t wait for that. Herm of Herm’s Sporting Goods left a message that the rod and reel I ordered had come in. I pumped my fist and did a little silent hooray.
I opened my laptop and put a couple of finishing touches on a story about a Lancaster County native who worked for the Department of Justice in D.C. He had been working on a drug investigation and apparently turned over one too many stones for some New York gang to turn a blind eye to. Someone had shot him up with enough heroin to kill a horse, cut off his hands, put him in his car, and parked it two blocks from the White House. He sat in his car, overdosing and bleeding and dying long before anyone noticed. The FBI declared his death a suicide. I sent the story on its way to the copyeditor and closed my laptop. I picked up my cell phone and dialed.
“Fleece, Flanagan and Associates. May I help you?”
“This is John Schram from the Lancaster Standard. May I please speak to Mr. Fleece.”
“One moment please.”
“What can I help you with, Mr. Schram?” Tom Fleece said.
“I’m with the Lancaster Standard and I’m in your neighborhood. I’d like to ask you a few questions about the Wrightstown School District.”
“I am no longer employed by the Wrightstown School District.”
“I know. That’s what I wanted to talk to you about.”
“I’m very busy today. Maybe another day.”
“Won’t take more than ten minutes.”
“I don’t really have anything to say.”
“Then it’ll be five minutes,” I said.
Long pause.
“I eat lunch at Betty’s. You know the place?”
“Yep.”
“Twelve thirty.”
If I hurried and traffic wasn’t terrible, I could make it to Herm’s Sporting Goods before lunch with Tom Fleece. My cell phone rang just I was getting on Route 283. I was behind a dump truck that was hanging low and spewing clods of manure.
Lancaster County was endowed with some of the finest soil on the planet. Some woman, back when hunters and gatherers were the norm, stuck some corn kernels in the ground and ended up with the best patch of “Butter and Sugar” in the neighborhood. Of course, she headed directly to the nearest coffee shop cave to meet up with her girlfriends and pretty soon everybody was planting something, and the word got out that just about everything grew best right here in Lancaster County soil. More recently, the Germans that settled this area about three hundred years ago were highly industrious and generally humorless, so farming suited them fine. Their descendants still farmed Lancaster County, accounting for the dump truck of manure in front of me.
“Schram,” I said when I hit the talk button.
“Are you going to be home in time to get to the parent-teacher conference?” my wife asked.
“What parent-teacher conference?”
“You know very well . . .” Lynn began and continued into a full-scale bitch.
I let her go on until I scrolled to the Pandora station I wanted to listen to. “I’m just messing with you. I know it’s tonight.”
“This isn’t funny, John. I told you what Mr. Erlichman said.”
“Six thirty, right?”
“I’m getting paged. I have to go,” Lynn said. “See you at home.”
My wife worked for the Lancaster County Hospital. Over the years, she had parlayed a nursing degree into an administrative position, getting her master’s degree on the way. Lynn worked Monday through Friday and made almost twice as much as I did. My wife was the primary breadwinner in our home, and it didn’t bother me. I felt that said something about the confidence I had in my manhood. My mother said I was just too lazy to try and get ahead. I jumped off at the Mount Joy exit and pulled into Herm’s.
I spent twenty minutes listening to Herm tell me about the good old days and examining my new rod and reel. I checked my watch and hustled the old man along. I had to be at Betty’s in ten minutes.

* * *

I slid into the old-fashioned, high-back booth across from Tom Fleece. “Thanks for seeing me.”
“You’re late,” he said. “I went ahead and ordered.”
“Traffic’s a nightmare.” The waitress came over to the table and I ordered a cup of coffee since Tom Fleece was already eating his sandwich. “Going to have a nice big new school in Wrightstown, I hear. Funny they’d dump the comptroller who laid out the budget right before the project begins.”
“The new high school and its funding were voted on and passed by the duly elected members of the Wrightstown School Board. Site preparation has already begun.”
“I’m not looking for a quote,” I said. “I’m just trying to get a direction.”
“Direction to what?”
“To the reason the comptroller was fired without board approval from what I can tell from the published minutes. A comptroller who lives in the school district, works for a respected firm, and has been serving the board for over fifteen years. Show me the way to get the answers to those questions.”
“My services were no longer needed. Whether the school board president followed the law is not my area.”
I leaned forward over the table. “Doesn’t it piss you off?”
Tom Fleece concentrated on dipping his French fry in just the right amount of Heinz ketchup. He finally looked up at me.
“My youngest is a junior at the high school. My wife works for the Chamber of Commerce. I go to church with Gerry McClain. I don’t want my reputation and my family dragged through a bunch of political crap. I just dropped it, Schram.”
“I don’t blame you. But don’t sandbag me. Give me something. I don’t reveal my sources,” I said.
Fleece picked up his check and reached for his wallet. He threw a couple of bucks down on the table and stood up. I figured I’d lost him. This guy wanted to fade into anonymity in a few years and didn’t want to rock any local boats. Then Tom Fleece did the right thing.
“Check the subcontractors, Schram. That’s where you’ll find your answers.”