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“Not KBI? The Kansas Bureau of Inves—”
“No, no, he was from the Highway Patrol, I’m sure, totally sure, positive.” The forelock flops. Andersson brushes it back.
“He also gave you the information about the dream?”
“Yes, sure did, absolutely, even suggested I withhold that for my next issue. He said I’d still be scooping the regular newspapers. I thought that was a very good idea.”
“Do you usually take advice from anonymous tipsters, Mr. Andersson?”
He gives the unsettling titter. Davis could more easily envision this man killing Yvonne than Coughlin; in a TV show he would turn out to be a serial killer with some strange alias, like The Reporter.
“I rarely get tips, Ms. Davis. We’re basically an ad-based—”
“Inspector Davis,” she corrects, not because she’s in love with her title, but because she wants him to remember who has the hammer here.
“Asking again, did I print anything that wasn’t true, Inspector Davis?”
“I’m not at liberty to say, and it’s not the point. Although what you did was so irresponsible that I’d have trouble believing it if I hadn’t read it myself.”
“Now, now, that’s a little—”
“I don’t suppose you have a recording of this mystery call, do you?” She doesn’t hold out much hope of that.
He gives her a wide-eyed look and another unsettling titter. “I record everything.”
She thinks she must have misheard. “Everything? Really? Every phone-in?”
“I have to. This is a shoestring operation, Ms…. Inspector. I also work part-time at the lumberyard outside of town. You must have passed it on your way in. Wolf Lumber?”
She can’t remember if she did or not. She was thinking about Jalbert. She gestures for Andersson to go on.
“While I’m out at the yard or seeing to Ma—she takes a lot of seeing to—every call I get, most of them are about ads but some are from Hurd Conway, he does the sports, are recorded and zip directly up to the Cloud.”
“You don’t erase them?”
He titters. “Why would I bother? Plenty of room on the Cloud. Many mansions, as the Good Book says. My soul hath elbow-room. Shakespeare. Our set-up might not work for a big city newspaper, but it’s fine for us. Here, I’ll show you.”
Andersson wakes up his computer and types in a password. Davis is far from a compulsive neatnik, but the desktop’s screen is so littered with icons that looking at it makes her eyes hurt. Andersson mouses to the phone icon and pushes it. A message blares from speakers on either side of the room. He winces and turns down the volume.
“You have reached Plains Truth, the voice of central Kansas and the best buy for your ad dollar. We are a free news and sports weekly, sometimes bi-weekly, that is given out free of charge in over six thousand locations in six counties.”
If that’s true, I’ll eat my shorts, Ella thinks.
“If you have news, press 5. If you have a sports score, press 4. If you want to report an accident, press 3. If you want to place an ad, press 2. If you have a question about rates, push 1. That’s 5 for news, 4 for sports, 3 for an accident report, 2 to place an ad, 1 for rates. And don’t worry about getting cut off!” There’s the titter she’s coming to know all too well. “This is Plaaaiiiins Truth, where the truth matters!”
Andersson turns to her. “It’s good, don’t you think? All the bells and whistles. Bases covered.”
Under other circumstances Davis—curious by nature—might ask Andersson how much ad revenue Plains Truth generates. But not under these. “Can you find that anonymous call?”
“Yes, sure. Tell me the date I’m searching for.”
She doesn’t know. “Try between June 30th and July 4th.”
Andersson brings up a file. “That’s a lot of incoming, but maybe…” He frowns. The forelock flops. “Some guy called in about a chimney fire, I think it was after that. Pretty sure.”
Andersson clicks, listens, shakes his head, clicks some more. At last he gets a drawly farmer type who says he seen a chimbly fahr out on Farm Road 17. Andersson gives Davis a thumbs-up and goes to the next message. She has drawn up a chair next to him.
“It sounds funny, because—”
