Chapter 10

10: When Kenn, Stratford, Bill and Mina arrived at Marble Cliffs Today headquarters, she led them down to the copy editor's office and found Jeffrey sitting at his desk.  The office was underground with only one window which abutted the ceiling.  Six desks formed an island in the middle of the room with three and three back to back with each other so that the people who sat in them were facing each other.  Jeffrey's desk was in the far corner underneath a broken light which the maintenance man kept "forgetting" to replace.
  "Dad, what the hell are you doing here?"
  "Son, please don't start.  I can't take it right now.  I don't know how to tell you."
  "What, that I'm wasting my life away at this unworthy job because I should have been a doctor or lawyer?  Or could it possibly be that you're struggling with trying to tell me that mom's gone?"  Bill looked at his son in confusion.
  "Oh yes, I already know.  The police called me because they couldn't get a hold of you at the A Mart and of course you don't have a fucking cell phone because you don't want brain cancer or whatever bullshit."  Bill didn't know what to say.  He just broke down with loud, body-wracking sobs.  Jeffrey sat for a long time breathing hard and staring with an intense disgust at his father.
  "Wait a minute, Jeffrey," Mina spoke up.  "You know about your mother's murder and you're still here working?"
  "What the fuck, Mina?  The cops said they found absolutely nothing at the house.  Not a single fucking sign of any struggle.  No sign of a forced entry.  No blood.  No body.  Just an empty little domicile in the desert.  Someone had made an anonymous call from a goddamn pay phone.  They said it was probably just a crank call, but now they're looking for old Billy Bob here.  They probably think it's quite suspicious that you haven't made any attempt to contact them and they can't find you anywhere."
  "That's impossible.  I saw her myself.  There was no way for someone to clean up that crime scene in the short amount of time before the police arrived.  I was the one who reported the murder," said Kenn.
  "Mr. Trenchcoat with Barnaby the Magic Parrot on his shoulder?  Maybe YOU know what happened to my mother."
  "What an asshole," squawked Stratford.
  "My name is Kenn Varson.  I'm a detective and this is Stratford.  I got a tip that something was going to happen at your house so I rushed over there to try to help, but I was too late.  Your father and I both saw her body in the bathtub full of blood.  I just told the police what I saw."
  "How do we know you didn't do something to my mother?"
  "Even if I did, I've been with your father since we saw the body and so somebody else would have had to get rid of all the evidence in an incredibly short amount of time."
  "Maybe she ran out on yo ass, daddy.  Did you ever think of that?  Maybe she skipped town with the milkman."  Before anyone knew what was coming, Bill raised a hand threateningly at Jeffrey.  His face had turned a deep shade of purple.  At this time of day, when the sun was about to set, was the only time that any sunlight came directly through the office's sole window.  The lonely ray of light illuminated the dust particles floating in the air.  It was into this beam of solar light that Bill's hand penetrated.
  When Bill saw how his hand caused a shadow to pass through the sun light, he shut his eyes and lowered his hand. "You are my son and I have never raised a hand to you before, but I swear on my father's grave that I am this close to losing it with you.  We need each other right now.  Don't push me away.  If your mother is still somehow alive out there, she needs us to be strong for her.  You and me have had our differences, but I love you and so does she, wherever she is."
  Even though the hand never struck, Jeffrey reacted as though it had.  He withered under his father's impassioned gaze.  He let out a deep sigh and his shoulders sank as he squeezed tears from his eyes.  "I know she loves me.  I know I know I know.  I don't know what the hell is going on, but I'm scared.  Fuck!  You always make me feel like I'm twelve years old."  He paused for a long while and then said, "Where the hell is my mom?"

Chapter 4

4: When Mina went to work, Jeffrey the Annoyer, who had been copy editing even longer than Mina, came in with his usual greeting of "Good evening, individuals."  Jeffrey was really only a kid who looked like he was twelve years old and acted like he was two.  She had heard that he was actually in his late twenties, but he looked like a punk with spiked hair and a silly looking steel pokey thing sticking out underneath his lower lip right above his stupid-ass goatee.  He somehow thought that being a copy editor for as long as he had been made him the god of the newspaper.  He acted like he knew everything and everyone else was a moron even though his work ethic could best be summed up with his phrase, "I work very hard...to look busy."  He claimed that if he worked at his full capacity, he would make everyone else look bad so he would "pace himself" for the sake of the greater good.  Of course, pacing himself meant falling asleep at his desk.
  After he had repeatedly asked out Ashley from payroll despite her obvious disinterest, she had dubbed him with the title, Jeffrey the Annoyer and he had lived up to it every day.  People in the office generally just tried to ignore him.  Of course, living in his own little world as he did, he was completely oblivious to this.
  Mina sighed at the 600 pound gorilla pile of work sitting exactly where it wanted to, squarely on top of her diminutive desk.  Just another fun day at the office, she groaned.  Shuffling through the jumble of articles and photographs, she spied a picture of a man wearing a cheesy trench coat that she recognized.  It was that damn kooky detective she had seen on her television last night.  The caption for the photo said that his name was Kenn Varson. "Detective Kenn Varson is pictured here third from the right in this grouping of five gentlemen," she read aloud.
  She took one look at the photo and caption and thought about it for a second, even looking at her hand to verify the stupidity of this choice of words.  "Who the hell writes this shit?  Third from the right in a group of five?  Why not third from the left or dead freakin' center?"  She saw a shadow appear on her desk and when she turned around she saw that Barney Abbot, the senior editor was right behind her and right behind him was Jeffrey with a huge smirk on his face.  Mr. Abbot was a slightly heavy-set man who tried unsuccessfully to wear shirts large enough to hide his gut.  She couldn't quite place where he might be from, but her guess was some place in the Middle East.  His ethnic heritage, background and origin weren't exactly the elephant in the room at this particular moment.  All that she was thinking about now was the fact that he was her boss and she might have just pissed him off.  Jeffrey had his hand over his mouth in an attempt to obscure his wiley grin.
  "I didn't even notice that," the senior editor frowned.  Behind him, Jeffrey rolled his eyes.
  "Yes, sir.  Please excuse my outburst, but I just thought it was rather arbitrary so I was going to change it to say, 'Detective Kenn Varson is pictured here in the center of a group of five gentlemen.'"
  "Yes, that does sound more clear."  The senior editor was impressed by her keen attention to detail.  "How long have you been copy editing here?"
  "About a year now, Mr. Abbot."  Mina inwardly winced because she didn't know if she was going to have to start looking for a new job or what.
  "I take it you're not just another one of these young bucks here with a Journalism degree in one hand and a silver spoon in the other."
  "Well, I have a degree in Creative Writing and one in Literature in one hand and a plastic spork made in Taiwan in the other."
  Barney laughed at that.  "Two degrees?  Well, I'd say we've been wasting your talents here.  How would you like to try your hand at writing a story for the paper?"
  Maybe dumbstruck would have sounded better than dumbass, but, "Uh...uh a story?" was all she could get out.
  "Why don't you come upstairs with me and I'll find you something to write."  Mina had been working with this newspaper company for almost a year so this came as a huge surprise.  Jeffrey stuck his tongue out at her just out of Barney's line of sight.  Mina headed out the door with the senior editor to receive her first real assignment.  She couldn't resist turning around to Jeffrey and flipping him off with her third from the right finger.