strapping and fair?
“I’ll have an appletini.” She almost jokingly added “Sven” but worried she might be right.
The pale-eyed, square-jawed man smiled and nodded. “Coming right up.”
She wasn’t above snooping to get her stories, and she wanted to start off with a bang when she handed in her debut news story, like her father would expect. She’d been casing city hall earlier, had hidden behind the nearby bushes, and lo and behold, there was Sergeant Gunnar Norling slipping out the back door. She’d watched him exit the building along with half a dozen other people including this new Mayor Rask.
She’d combed through old council reports on the town website and noticed a tasty morsel—“A new committee has been formed to study recently discovered historical data.” What was that data, and where had it been found?
The website report went on to mention the list of names. The one thing they all had in common with the exception of one Native American, if her research had served her well, were Scandinavian names that went back all the way to the beginning of Heartlandia, back when it was founded and called Hartalanda. Of course, the Native Americans had been there long before them. Yup, her type A reporter persona had even dug into genealogy archive links proudly posted at the same website.
These people weren’t the city council, but they had been handpicked, each person representing a specific slice of Heartlandia life.
She’d met the handsome and dashing Gunnar Norling today, and the idea of “getting to the bottom” of her story through him had definite appeal. Her parents had trained her well: set a goal and go after it. Don’t let anything come between you and success. Growing up an only child in their multimillion-dollar Victorian home in Pacific Heights, Lilly’s parents had proved through hard work and good luck in business their technique worked. As far as her father was concerned, it was bad enough she’d been born a girl, but for the past five years, since she’d left graduate journalism school, they’d looked to her to stake her claim to fame. So far she hadn’t come close to making them proud, but this new venture might just be the ticket to their respect.
A half hour later, nursing her one and only cocktail, she was deep into conversation with the owner of Lincoln’s Place, a middle-aged African-American man named Cliff. It seemed there was more to Heartlandia than met the eye once you scratched the Scandinavian surface.
“Looks like you get a lot of tourist trade around here,” she said, having studied the bar crowd.
“Thank heaven for the cruise ship business,” Cliff said, with a wide and charming smile. “If it wasn’t for them, I’d never have discovered Heartlandia.”
“Are you saying you cruised here or worked on a cruise ship?”
“Worked on one. Thirteen years.”
“Interesting.” Normally, she’d ask more about that assuming there might be a story buried in the statement, but today she had one goal in mind. She took a sip of her drink to wait the right amount of time before changing the topic. “So where do the locals go? You know, say, like the regular guys, firemen and police officers, for example.” She went for coy, yeah, coy like a snake eyeing a mouse, looking straight forward, glancing to the side. “Where do they hang out after hours?”
He lifted a long, dark brow, rather than answering.
“I’ll level with you, Cliff, I’m the new reporter for the Heartlandia Herald. I’d like to bring the focus of the newspaper back to the people. I’ve got a few different angles I’d like to flesh out, and I thought I’d start with talking to the local working Joes.” Funny how she’d chosen “flesh out,” a phrase that had certain appeal where that Gunnar guy was concerned.
He nodded, obviously still considering her story. And it was a tall tale...mostly. She did have big plans to bring the human interest side back to the paper, but first off, she wanted a knock-your-socks-off debut. Introducing big-city journalist Lilly Matsuda, ta-da!
“There’s a microbrewery down by the river and the railroad tracks. To the best of my knowledge, that’s where the manly types go when they want to let off steam.” He tapped a finger on the bar, smiled. “Here’s a tidbit for you. Rumor has it that in the old days, down by the docks in the seedy side of town, right where that bar is today, an occasional sailor got shanghaied.”
“Really.” The tasty morsel sent a chill up her spine. She had a nose for news, and that bit about shanghaied sailors had definitely grabbed her interest. Though it was an underhanded and vile business, many captains had employed the nasty trick. The practice had been an old technique by nefarious sea captains. First they’d get a man sloppy drunk. Then, once he’d passed out, his men would kidnap the sailor onto the ship and the unsuspecting drunk would be far out at sea when he came to and sobered up. Voilá! They had an extra pair of hands on deck with no ticket home, and they didn’t even have to pay him. With Heartlandia being on the banks of the gorgeous Columbia River, a major water route to the Pacific Ocean, the story could definitely be true.
Wait a second, old Cliffy here was probably just playing her, telling her one of the yarns they told tourists to give them some stories to swap when they got back on ship.
“Yes indeed,” Cliff said, touching the tips of his fingers together and tapping. “Of course, a lot of the stories we share with our tourists have—” he pressed his lips together “—for lack of a better word, let’s say been embellished a bit. No city wants to come off as boring when you’re courting the tourist trade, right? So we throw in those old sailor stories to spice things up.”
She appreciated his coming clean about pirates shanghaiing locals. “I hear you. So you’re saying the shanghaied stuff may or may not be true?”
He tilted his head to the side, not a yes or no. She’d let it lie, take that as a yes and try a different angle.
“Hey, have you noticed any after-hour meetings going on at city hall? Or am I imagining things?”
He cast a you-sure-are-a-nosey-one glance. “Could be. Maybe they’re planning some big tercentennial event. I think the town was established around 1715.”
“Tercentennial?”
“Three hundredth birthday.”
“Ah, makes sense. But why would they keep something like that a big secret?”
“Don’t have a clue, Ms....” He had the look of a man who’d had enough of her nonstop questions—a look she’d often seen on her father’s face when she was a child. Cliff suddenly had other patrons to tend to. Yeah, she knew she occasionally pushed too far. Thanks, Mom and Dad.
“Matsuda. I’m Lilly Matsuda.”
He shook her hand. “Well, it was a pleasure meeting you. I hope to see you around my establishment often, and I think you’ve got what it takes to make a good reporter. Good luck.”
“Thanks. Nice to meet you, too.”
After Cliff moseyed off, attending to a large table obviously filled with cruise-ship guests on the prowl, she scribbled down: “Microbrewery down by the river near railroad.” She’d look it up later.
She’d been a reporter for eight years, since she was twenty-two and fresh out of college, and had continued part-time while attending grad school. Had worked her way up to
