Who, what, where, when, die (An Avery Shaw Mystery) Read online

  Reporters are a curious bunch. I've come to the conclusion that, for the most part, the occupation breeds loners. As an only child, that fit my personality perfectly. I don't tend to like people -- whoever they are. I have friends mind you, but I don't need to surround myself with a lot of them and their inane chatter.

  When I entered the newsroom I did so via the longer route, which weaved through several empty conference rooms and came in through the back, so as not to run in to my editor. While he'd long ago given up trying to change the way I dressed, it didn't stop him from doing his trademark sigh and annoyed wave-off. His patent response was "Avery, you don't know." It was grating, whether he was talking about my stories or my apparel.

  I made my way to my cubicle. Now, it's important to note, that in the reporter section we had full walled cubicles (compared to the lower ones in the advertising department and on the copy desk) to cut down on our incessant talking. Apparently we were a chatty bunch. The only thing the cubicles managed to do was make us take our gossiping out into the main walkway between the cubicles -- something the editors pretended not to see.

  "Hey bonehead."

  I smiled to myself as I turned to greet my favorite friend at the paper. Marvin Potts is a 50-year-old newsaholic. He lives and breathes all things news and he's proud of it. He watches every local newscast daily (sometimes twice) -- and he sleeps with a police scanner under his pillow. He's got an abrasive personality (which he acknowledges) and somehow, despite that, he always gets the story.

  "Hey asshat," I congenially greeted him back.

  "Fish is going to have a heart attack if he sees that outfit," Marvin said, referring to our editor Fred Fish. The irony of that statement was that Potts never took time to think about his own outfit. Marvin, as always, was clad in his "uniform." It consisted of black polyester pants, a white cotton button-down shirt, black suspenders, white athletic socks and white tennis shoes from whatever clearance rack he managed to find them on. I'd seen him in it everyday, so I no longer even noticed it unless really pressed -- like when he'd screwed some waitress and then dumped her on sight, pushing her to fling mustard all over his black pants.

  "Fish has bigger things to worry about," I responded as I slipped into my cubicle and pulled out my notebook.

  Everyone's cubicles are decorated to their own taste at The Monitor. Marvin's is decked out with Shania Twain and boxing photographs. The old pervert at the end who wears his pants four inches too short and self masturbates with change in his pocket has that dark-haired chick from Desperate Housewives everywhere. The Polish shyster who always tries to put one over on everyone has mirrors throughout his so he can see when the editor is coming down the aisle and he can pretend he's actually working instead of doing just about anything else.

  Me? Mine is tastefully done in a Star Wars motif on one wall and Spanish tennis star Rafael Nadal on the other. I like all sports, but tennis is my favorite, and I have an unhealthy crush on the Mallorcan wonder. I'd rather do him than Han Solo, that's how serious my crush is.

  Currently, I had a choice, I could get ahead of the game and write the majority of my story and just wait for the press release to confirm it or I could go chat with my co-workers. It was a tough choice but, ultimately, I decided to go get the office gossip.

  I lucked out, because the editors were in the budget meeting for the day (where they meet to decide what stories go where in the paper). I smiled as I walked up to my friend Erin's desk. Erin works for the features department and is nothing like me. She's 4'11 inches (compared to my 5'6). She's got short curly hair (think Marsha Clark in the OJ Simpson trial) compared to my straight golden blonde locks (which come from a bottle). She always dresses appropriately. And, the biggest difference is, she's extremely nice.

  "Hey Erin, what's going on?"

  She greeted me with a delicate smile on her ultra pale features and a shy glance that probably had never laid eyes on a naked man. Ever. "Wow, you're tan. Did you get most of that today?"

  I looked down at my decidedly darker skin and shrugged. "Guess so. I guess it was a trade off. On one hand, I had to watch the world's ugliest man dance naked. On the other, I look so much hotter. Who knew? So anything fun going on today?"

  Here's the thing. Erin is the nicest girl ever but she does have one flaw. She loves to gossip. This, of course, benefits me because I have many flaws and one of them is that I, too, love to gossip. Before she could respond, though, an unwelcome guest interrupted.

  "Well, well, well, look who has nothing to do as usual? Maybe I should talk to Fish about increasing your workload. They always say the day goes by faster when you have more to do."

  I didn't turn to greet the newcomer. I knew who it was by the sound of his annoying rat voice, copy editor Duncan Marlow, aka the office tool.

  "What Duncan? You took time away from your busy Civil War reenactment chat room to come and talk with lowly us?"

  There are no words to explain Duncan. He's just . . . psycho. He's one of those people that can tick off everyone in the room and yet actually believes that it's you, not him. I once read that's a sign of insanity. In Duncan's case, I agree.

  "I'll have you know that Civil War reenactments are cultural events. They are important to remember our heritage. Someone like you would never understand that. Just because they don't dress up like stormtroopers doesn't mean they're boring. This is real life. This is history. Real people lost their lives in the Civil War, not CGI people."

  Oh, yeah, Duncan thinks he's the smartest man in the room. In reality, he ranks in the bottom third.

  "I think they're just havens for latent homosexuals to polish their guns and get off on seeing each other in frilly outfits," I responded. Now, I just want to point out that I'm not homophobic. I just hate Duncan and he's one of those guys that is constantly bashing gay people -- yet watches the love scene in Brokeback Mountain over and over again -- so I went for the easy dig.

  "I don't know why you feel the need to sexually harass me," he complained, as he ran his hand through his shortly cropped brown hair. Did I mention he thinks he looks like Tom Cruise? Which is both untrue and disturbing. I fully expect Duncan to jump up on his desk one day like a moron -- of course Oprah won't be there to diffuse the situation.

  "Trust me Duncan, no one here wants to have sex with you," I replied, turning my back to dismiss him.

  "We'll see what human resources has to say about that," he huffed and walked away.

  I wasn't really worried about Duncan turning me in to human resources. He'd done it numerous times before. It was his way. My usual punishment came in the form of a sit-down with the big editor -- on the rare occasion when he actually showed up to work once every two weeks -- and get told, "just don't talk to that asshole." Like I said, I don't like to be bossed around.

  Before I could return to gossiping with Erin, the editorial assistant delivered a piece of paper to me that happened to be the press release I was waiting for on the barricaded gunman. Good news, he passed out and the cops took him away without incident. Called that one.

  I returned to my desk, cranked out my story and decided to call it a day. At least this way I could go home and play video games for a couple hours before I had to go to bed.

  I live in a city called Roseville. It's south of Mount Clemens but well north of Detroit. I have a simple one story, two-bedroom house with hardwood floors and a lot of clutter. Not Hoarders clutter, but still, I have my fair share.

  My neighborhood is decidedly white trash but entertaining.

  On the far end of the street, about ten guys live in one small house and run a chop shop out of the garage. They have two loud and annoying dogs, but the guys who live there are also friendly and mind their own business. They also pushed my car out of a snowdrift last winter – so I actually like them.

  On my right is a family who I have never talked to, despite living next to them for three years. Their kids shot an arrow into my house one time, but I just ignored it rather than be forced t
o introduce myself to them. They get odd visitors at all hours of the night -- except they all go in through the back sliding glass-doors -- even in the dead of winter. I'm pretty sure, given the look of the people who visit, they're dealers.

  Across the road from me, three new young guys moved in to a house that weirdly looks like a barn. They're white but they think they're black gangsters -- which is wholly annoying. They talk like they live in the ghetto of Detroit, their pants are always falling off their asses and they have big trucks with those aggravating neon running lights underneath them. I try to pretend they don't exist – which rarely works.

  The best feature of my house is that it has one of those huge old style front porches that I have a little bistro table set up on. I like to sit out there and contemplate life – okay, I'm a stress smoker, but I do contemplate some things while sitting out there polluting my lungs.

  Today, however, it was the people in the house on my left that were going to be my neighborhood annoyance for the day.

  The abode adjacent to my driveway is a two-bedroom ranch that houses a set of unruly brothers, the wife of one of the brothers and a toddler. The wife is extra chatty and the brothers are extra boozy.

  Today, the wife was sitting out on her front porch, too. I didn't think I could exit without being ridiculously rude, so I just tried to avoid eye contact with her. She didn't get the hint.

  "Did the cops wake you up last night when they were here?"

  I was surprised; I had no idea the cops had been here the night before.

  "No, why were they here?"

  "You know my brother-in-law Larry?"

  Of course I knew Larry. He was 55, he constantly tried to talk to me, offered to cook for me, and he had one of those shriveled hand birth defects. It was a case of not wanting to look but not being able to stop looking. Yeah, I'm that awful.

  "Yeah, what about Larry?" I asked.

  "Have you ever seen the movie Liar, Liar with Jim Carrey?"

  Hmm, I didn't exactly know where this was going but hey, what the hell.

  "Yeah."

  "You know the scene in the bathroom where he kicks his own ass?"

  "Yeah."

  "Well, Larry did that last night."

  Come to find out, Larry, on a drunken tear, had beat the living shit out of himself and then called the police and said his brother did it. Seemed he wanted a restraining order so the other brother would have to move out of the house their mother had left them both when she passed away a few years before.

  "Huh." What else is there to say to that?

  "Instead, Larry injured himself so bad they had to put one of those boot things on him and he's going to be staying in a nursing home for awhile."

  Ah, fun times in Roseville.

  "Well, that's too bad." Really, what do you say to that? "Well, I've got to go make dinner. See you later."

  As I was just about to make my getaway, the white gangsters across the street decided to throw their two cents in.

  "Hey, Princess Leia, do you wants to come play with my light saber?" It was the blonde one with the red do-rag who spoke, accentuating his white gangster accent, while thrusting his hips up in a guttural move.

  Being a girl who loves Star Wars, every guy thinks I wanted to be Princess Leia. If they only knew that I identified more with Han Solo.

  "No, but if you don't knock that crap off I'm going to blow your house up like it's the Death Star."

  Did I mention I really don't like people?

  Three

  After three hours of light saber duels on my Nintendo Wii, I fell asleep on the couch that night. My dreams were a jumble of hot sheriffs and naked, hairy fat men doing the rump shaker. I woke up feeling disturbed, by both the naked sheriff and the fat man.

  The first order of business was to get the paper. If we didn't get a free subscription, I would probably wait to leaf through it when I got to work -- after all, my meager proceeds from being a reporter usually went for DVDs, video games and shoes.

  I opened the front page, which featured my story as the main item with art of the SWAT team mobilizing. Of course, Jake managed to get in the picture. Some things are a constant.

  In Macomb County, we could only boast three celebrities (all white rappers) so as far as the residents were concerned, Jake was as good as a Beatle. He just had better hair. Go figure.

  As I was reading what everyone else contributed for the day -- Marvin had a hilarious story about a guy getting arrested in Warren for molesting a pumpkin in his back yard in front of the neighbor's kids -- I noticed a piece of notebook paper fall from the center of the paper.

  Curious, I opened it, and immediately wished I hadn't. The message was simple and to the point.

  If you don't start minding your own business, you'll wish you had.

  Hmm, the life of a reporter. I have the nicest fans.

  The sad thing is, this isn't the first threat I've ever gotten. In fact, this wasn't the first threat I'd gotten this month. However, this was the first one that arrived in person at my home. Sadly, though, people tend to threaten the welfare of reporters often. They just usually do it on my voicemail at work or the paper's message board.

  Since everything was spelled correctly -- a bonus -- I opted to do the sensible thing. I folded the note up, took it into my office, and filed it in my Darth Vader cookie jar. I wasn't totally ignoring it but, most times, people just feel the need to vent and then they're over it.

  I showered, watched the ladies on The View argue about whether or not American Idol had a future and then debated what to do for the day. One thing to note about reporters, you never have good hours. My shifts jump from day to night on a regular basis and, since I'd worked for Marvin the previous Sunday, I had this Friday off.

  I had to go to a family dinner later in the night, but I had a good five hours to burn and was debating what to do. I really wanted to jump back into The Force Unleashed on my game console, but figured it was such a nice day I should get some exercise instead. Ultimately, the gym was unappealing so I opted for a visit to Metro Beach.

  Macomb County is home to many beaches, most pristine, and most you wouldn't want to enter the water at. St. Clair Shores is contaminated with PCBs and many of the other beaches are contaminated on a regular basis with e.coli. Swimming wasn't an option, but people watching always was.

  I spent the day eating hot dogs, visiting the Nature Center to say hi to my friend Abby and soaking up the rays on a bench. Before I realized it, it was almost 3:30 p.m. -- and if I expected to make it to the family restaurant in time for dinner, I had to get moving.

  Despite being an only child, I have a rather large extended family. They own a diner-style restaurant in a small town about an hour north of the city and every Friday at 5 p.m. whoever can make it congregates for dinner.

  The best thing about the family restaurant is the fact that you would never know that gang wars are located only fifty miles away. The town was so small that people forgot about the urban chaos that was so close.

  As for family dinners, the rule was, if you can, you're expected to make it. Actually, the only acceptable excuse for missing dinner was arrest or work. Depending on the family member -- both were utilized often.

  Truth be known, crazy as they are, I like my family. They're entertaining and no matter how bad my life is at the time, their life is always worse. In essence, it's always good times listening to their weekly travails.

  Plus, according to the tersely worded message left on my cell phone by my annoyed mother, my great-grandmother (who generally resides in Florida) would be making a cameo after returning from her honeymoon with her third husband.

  If I missed dinner tonight it would be a week of guilt ridden silence and then an angry phone call from my mother. Love the woman, but man she can hold a grudge.

  Rather reluctantly, I made my way to the car. I looked in the mirror once I was settled, saw I'd received a lot more sun than I realized, and debated about going home to change my clothes
. I knew the Goonies "Truffle Shuffle" T-shirt I was wearing, the lack of makeup and the fresh sunburn were all going to be bulls-eyes on my chest when my mother caught sight of them. I weighed which lecture would be worse -- being late or my attire -- and ultimately decided to just suck it up. Truth is, sometimes I like watching my mother's head implode when she sees my outfit. It's just one of the fun games we play.

  I immediately jumped on the freeway and started my trek north. I figured I might as well not put it off.

  The family restaurant is really a throwback to the 1950s -- which is when my great-grandmother and her first husband opened it after they got married. I call him her first husband instead of my great-grandfather because I really can't remember the man. I have one memory of him playing chess with my uncle Tim, his namesake.

  What's interesting about Great-Grandpa Tim is that I always heard he was this mellow dude who was kind of, well, boring. Funny thing is, he died while having sex with my great-grandmother (they were in their sixties at the time, mind you) and when the paramedics came he was stone dead with a stone hard-on. My family was mortified and tried to cover him up with a sheet, but the tent was still obvious. After his death, a long held family secret came out that my great-grandfather had fathered another child out of wedlock -- with my great-grandma's sister. Guess he wasn't that boring after all.

  Anyway, after his death, my grandparents Jasper and Tilly took over and now my uncle Tim runs the place -- with unwanted oversight from my Grandpa Jasper. For her part, my great-grandmother Edith moved on to marry a mean man to get his money and now a nice man on his last leg -- who also happens to be rich.

  I guess you could say I come from a curious gene pool. The restaurant side of the family is my mother's side of the family. She and my father divorced a few years ago and his family is just as weird -- but in a different way. Oh, and my dad's side of the family can't cook for crap but is uncomfortably tight-lipped while my mom's side of the family are all gourmet cooks and never met a piece of gossip they didn't want to spread. Funny thing is, while the so-called adults in the family get embarrassed by each other's antics, my multitude of cousins and I just find it entertaining and fodder for dinner conversation.