Tips
By Jim Getz
Diana Buchanan was banging out a wrap-up story on the Montgomery Water and Sewer Authority’s August meeting when her phone rang.
“Gazette,” she mumbled, focusing on sewer rate increases and her looming deadline. “This is Buchanan.”
“Check out the burn pile in the state park on the edge of town,” a voice rasped. “You might find something interesting there.”
“Oh yeah?” Buchanan asked, her skepticism coming through a bit too thick. “Like what?”
The rasper coughed. “Shoulda said someone. Or they were.” Click.
Buchanan stared at her phone a few seconds, unsure what to do, then dropped the receiver into its cradle, sprang for her city editor’s desk. She was 23 and didn’t want to mess up her first week of reporting with a stupid error.
“Carson!” the editor, Eric Rogers, bellowed after Buchanan ran the call by him — and added that the sewer story was nearly done anyway. Carson, the small daily’s burly photographer, lumbered over. Rogers turned to Buchanan. “He’s been here for years, knows everybody. You’ll be safe.”
“Go with her to the state park,” Rogers directed Carson. “Be careful. It’s getting dark. And don’t touch anything, you two. If it’s something or it’s nothing, let me know ASAP.”
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Vickie Johnson noticed the stranger in Bob’s Diner had been eyeing her for nearly an hour, even as he kept to himself in a booth to the back. Outside, the sun had set. The longtime waitress dealt with creeps occasionally, but this one hadn’t hit on her, so she offered him another warm-up of his coffee.
“Nah, I’m good,” he said in a low voice, not looking at her this time. “Just the bill.”
She brought it, got distracted by the handsome state trooper who smiled as he sat down at the other end of the diner, then heard a Harley roar to life outside. She first dashed to the door, saw booth man glow red under the neon and then get swallowed by the darkness of the two-lane highway that led to the interstate.
“Damn,” she hissed under her breath and marched to the booth, expecting nothing. Four twenties sat atop a paper bill for $16.32, beneath the coffee mug. She lifted it. Still warm. She pocketed the cash and immediately saw the scrawl on the bill.
“Darlin,” it read, “tell your trooper buddy to check out the burn pile in the state park on the edge of town.”
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Buchanan tried not to flinch — or vomit — when her flashlight beam hit the young woman’s body on the burn pile, lying on its back, arms outstretched. “First time?” asked Carson, in a tone that indicated it was not his first as he snapped photos, his flash exploding in the darkness.
Buchanan nodded, then whipped out her notepad and started her audio recorder. “Jesus,” she said. “Her fingertips — her prints — are burned off. All of them.”
Then they both heard the siren and saw the flashing lights entering the park. Buchanan saw Carson put his hands atop his shaggy head as the trooper car skidded to a stop in the gravel. She did likewise, still holding her notepad.
Trooper Bill Ewing emerged from his vehicle, spotted Carson immediately. “I guess they tipped us off first, Bill. And no, we didn’t touch anything.”
“I’ll still need whatever you know from this scene,” Ewing groused, motioning for them to put their hands down. “After we file the story,” Buchanan piped up.
“New here?” he asked, barely glancing at her as he walked by. He too squatted by the body. “Shit,” he said. “Burned off the prints.”
He stood quickly. “Well, we issued a bulletin on a Harley one minute after he left Bob’s, so he won’t get far.” Then, quickly: “You didn’t hear that from me.”
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Months went by. Buchanan and Johnson, despite their age difference — the waitress was nearly old enough to be the reporter’s mother — became friends after Buchanan interviewed her. Buchanan got a new neighbor in her small apartment complex whose ’70s rock music obsession easily filtered through her walls. Buchanan, who loved music but whose knowledge was limited to the 21st century, found it irritating at first but eventually tuned it out.
“Hey,” Johnson said to Buchanan when she finally visited the younger woman at home, bundled up against the winter chill. “Springsteen.”
“You know this stuff?”
“Know it — my mom forced me to listen to this album over and over because I was born the day it was released. Darkness on the Edge of Town.”
The waitress and the reporter suddenly went silent, staring at each other. Each slowly brought out their phones, even though the Springsteen lover could never have heard them.
Johnson dialed first as Buchanan headed onto her bedroom and shut the door.
“9–1–1,” the dispatcher’s voice answered into Johnson’s ear. “Uh, yeah — I was the waitress who worked with Trooper Ewing on the dead woman in the state park a few months ago …”
“City desk,” Buchanan heard. “Dave,” Buchanan pleaded. “Please tell me Eric is there.”
Seconds later, both women spoke into their phones: “I think I have a tip.”
— OCTOBER 2023
