Page 88 of Hello, Summer
“It’s been brought to my attention, that’s all.”
Conley felt her face grow hot. “Does that piece of paper you’re looking at tell you how Winnie ‘assaulted’ Robinette?”
“Nope.”
She recounted the story of the cancer cluster and how it had directly affected Winnie and Nedra and their neighbors, who’d been exposed to the contaminated soil and water in Plattesville, and Robinette’s role in defending the railroad.
“About a year after Winnie’s sister died from cancer, leaving Winnie to raise her three little boys, Winnie went up to Robinette at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for a VA clinic and tossed a handful of her sister’s ashes in his face,” Conley said. “He had her arrested and charged with assault. And for that, she spent twenty months in prison.”
He winced. “But, as you say, it’s interesting.”
“Winnie had nothing to do with Robinette’s death,” Conley said. “I was with her when we got the news that the wreck victim had been identified. She was as shocked as we were.”
“I’m not saying your housekeeper is a suspect. I’m not saying anybody’s a suspect,” Goggins said. “It’s still an open investigation.”
She heard her phone ping with an incoming text message. Glancing down, she saw the text was from Grayson.
Need you back here ASAP.
“Gotta go,” she said, stowing her notebook in her backpack. “Will you let me know if Poppell turns up any information on the mysterious men arguing in the nighttime?”
“Possibly,” Goggins said. “And you’ll do me the same courtesy?”
“Possibly.”
31
Lillian King pulled Conley aside as soon she as entered theBeacon’s tiny reception area. “It’s your lucky day,” she said, keeping her voice low. “Vanessa Robinette this morning and now Rowena Meigs in the afternoon.”
“Noooo,” Conley groaned. “Why didn’t Grayson give me a heads-up?”
“She was probably afraid you’d turn tail and run all the way back to Atlanta,” Lillian said. “They’re in her office now, waiting for you.”
“What’s Rowena want? She already turned in her column this morning. I haven’t even had time to fix that.”
“From what I could tell by eavesdropping outside Grayson’s door, Rowena has got herself a hot tip about Vanessa Robinette. She wants us to run it on the front page.”
Rowena was sitting in a chair facing Grayson, with her back to the door. Conley stood there and, catching her sister’s eye, put her forefinger to her temple and mimed pulling a trigger.
“Here’s Conley now,” Grayson said, a little too heartily.
“Hello, Sarah Conley,” Rowena said, giving her a curt nod ofacknowledgment. She’d been holding her Pomeranian in her lap, but the tiny ball of fluff gave a small yip of protest and jumped down onto the floor.
Rowena was dressed in a hot-pink tracksuit, blindingly white Velcro-fastened tennis shoes, and her customary string of pearls.
“Hi, Rowena,” Conley said. “Lillian tells me you have another story for us?”
“Yes,” Rowena said. “I was just explaining to Grayson here that I won’t be filing my exclusive unless she can guarantee me front-page, above-the-fold placement.”
“Oh?” Conley grabbed a chair from the outer office and rolled it in to sit beside the paper’s society columnist. She set her backpack on the floor. “What’s the big story?” she asked, feigning ignorance.
“Why, it’s just the biggest scoop this paper has ever seen,” Rowena said. “Much bigger than the time the PTA treasurer embezzled all the money from the school’s fruitcake sale to pay for her breast implants.”
Grayson gave her sister a weak smile. “Rowena managed to get an interview with Vanessa Robinette today.”
“An exclusive interview,” the columnist put in. “Vanessa is going to run for Symmes’s seat.”
“Really?” Conley said. “That’s quite an achievement. How’d you manage to pull that off, Rowena, if you don’t mind my asking?”
