Page 57 of Hello, Summer
Several lame jokes came to her mind, but she immediately shelved them. “So I guess there’s no way you can get to the newsroom to do a little research for me, huh?”
“Afraid not, hon. We don’t go home until Wednesday. What’s up?”
“I think I’m on the trail of a hot story, but I keep running into dead ends. I need access to some databases.”
“A hot story in Silver Bay? What? Somebody rigged the goat rodeo?”
“That’s hilarious, Butch,” she said. “But I’ve got a dead congressman and a lot of questions.”
“Oooh,” Butch said. “Now you’ve got me all hot and tingly. And speaking of, why not just give Kevin a call?”
“Absolutely not.”
“Get over yourself. The poor man’s been mooning around since you left. He’s probably in the newsroom right now, staring at your photo and pining away.”
“Stop. I can’t just up and call Kevin out of the blue and ask for a favor like this. Never mind. I’ll call Tiana instead.”
“You could, but I know for a fact that she’s in Memphis for her cousin’s wedding.”
Conley sighed heavily. “Okay. You two have fun.”
“We always do,” Butch said.
She stared down at her phone for a full five minutes, trying to think ofanother way to get the information she needed. In the end, she scrolled through her contact list and tapped Kevin’s name.
He picked up after the second ring. “Conley? Hey.”
“Hey, Kev. How are you?”
“Good. How about you? How are things down in Florida?”
“They’re different. I’m kinda working for my sister right now. Or I was.”
“At the newspaper? Wow. How did that happen?”
“It’s complicated. And I sort of already quit, but I’m onto a story, and I just gotta keep going.”
“Same old Conley,” he said without rancor. “Go ahead. I’m listening.”
That was one of the things that had drawn her to Kevin Rattigan. It was the thing that made him so good at his job. He was a world-class listener.
She recounted the details of Symmes Robinette’s death and filled him in on the hostility her rudimentary questions had triggered from the locals, including her publisher/editor.
“I think I saw an Associated Press wire story about your congressman’s death. How can I help?”
“I hate to ask,” she began.
“Just tell me what you need. I’m on my way to the office right now.”
“Okay,” she said eagerly. “I need some more info on Robinette. I guess I forgot to mention that I was there—at the accident.”
“Really?”
“Yeah. It was past three in the morning, so as you can imagine, the timing is one of the things that made me suspicious. My friend and I were driving back to town, and we came across this black Escalade. It had rolled over. We could see a man trapped inside. Then smoke was pouring from under the hood, and Skelly tried to break the window with a tire iron—”
“Who’s Skelly?” Kevin interrupted.
“Just a guy I grew up with. And then the car caught on fire, and the heat was so intense we had to back away—”
