Sign Off (Caught Dead In Wyoming, Book 1)

Excerpt from LEFT HANGING

CONTINUE READING FOR AN EXCERPT OF LEFT HANGING

Book 2 in the Caught Dead In Wyoming Series

Death in the Bull Ring.

KWMT-TV anchor Thurston Fine's intoned words swelled across the newsroom, emanating from TVs hung from the ceiling like clusters of Chinese lanterns, so every staffer could see a screen. His televised expression remained solemn, despite the indignity of wearing a haphazard beard of pink and yellow Post-it notes.

More on the tragic demise of long-time rodeo contractor Keith Landry after we come back.

Actually, Fine didn't wear the beard. His televised image did. As a number of his colleagues-professional to the core-watched the five o'clock news and lobbed wads of sticky notes at the image. Only the best throws stuck.

"Oh, good one, Elizabeth!" a co-worker congratulated me. "Right in the eye. A buzzer-beater, too."

The giddy mood of cynicism that overtakes a newsroom when a big story combines with management ineptitude had infected the half-dozen staffers on hand. It's harmless, if tasteless.

Adrenaline churned up by a big story has to go somewhere. It certainly wasn't going into our coverage. We were the outsiders, the ones well beyond Thurston Fine's circle of trust. As a newcomer and the possessor of a one-time vaunted career, I was the farthest outside that circle, and that suited me-if you'll excuse the expression-fine.

"Thank you, thank you." I took a bow for my final shot before Thurston's face gave way to an ad for the Sherman, Wyoming Fourth of July Rodeo scheduled to start the end of next week. As if everybody in KWMT's viewing area didn't already know every detail. Especially after today's unnatural death of one the rodeo's main figures.

"So, tell us, Elizabeth Margaret Danniher," said sports anchor Michael Paycik into the fist he presented as a mock microphone, "did you feel the pressure to get that shot off before time ran out?"

I leaned over and spoke to his fist from an inch away, glancing up to make eye contact with a non-existent camera. "I take 'em one at a time, Mike."

"How does the thrill of hitting Thurston Fine in the eye with the sticky-note version of a spitball," he intoned in a plummy voice unlike his natural on-air delivery, "measure against years of spitting in the eyes of scumdom's major-leaguers?"

"I'll tell you, Mike-and I wouldn't lie to you-Thurston Fine ranks right up there."

"That sure as hell is true," Mike Paycik grumbled, dropping his assumed voice.

He nursed a grudge, because our anchor had decreed that coverage-done by guess-who-of stock contractor Keith Landry's death would be allotted all of the five o'clock evening news as well as the entire 10 p.m. newscast. Except weather. He'd left the weatherman a few seconds to report that the sky had not fallen. That's right. No national news, no international news, no features, no sports, and certainly no consumer news, which meant my scheduled contribution was staying in the can.

"Editorial comment creeping into your reporting, Paycik," I said.

"Your comments haven't been exactly unbiased, either. Especially not when Fine passed down his edict. God, who'd ever think I'd miss Haeburn."

Les Haeburn, who passed for a news director at KWMT, had gone on vacation earlier this week and left Fine in charge. It wasn't clear if Haeburn hadn't said when he was returning, or if no one had been interested enough to ask.

"That's where I benefit from having an older and wiser head, experiencing many years in this business while you were still in leading strings-"

"In what? Is that a synonym for playing pro football?"