Chapter 10
As far as Arthur was concerned, everything was going to hell in a handbasket.
“Meredith! Tanner! Get in here.”
He knew he shouldn’t bark, but this was a newsroom dammit, and there should be some perks to being the editor. Hadn’t Ben Bradlee at The Washington Post barked at Woodward and Bernstein back in the day?
“Grandpa, we’re right next door,” Meredith said, her tone the verbal equivalent of an eye roll, as she appeared in the doorway with Tanner.
“Sometimes that’s the way it’s gotta be,” he told them. “Close the door. We have a shit storm on our hands.”
Tanner didn’t say anything—he just took Meredith’s elbow and led her inside. They both took a seat in front of his desk. If Arthur weren’t so upset, he’d have been tickled by the gesture. Meredith had sure as shooting picked a good one, and after he was gone, he knew Tanner would take care of her. Not that she needed it. But everyone deserved a good partner, and he was happy his granddaughter had found one, especially after the asshole she’d married the first time around.
“We have a new story we need to start pulling on,” he said, leaning back in his chair, the faithful squeak a comfort. Like his old bones, it was showing its age, but it came through in a pinch.
“What’s got you riled up?” Meredith asked, as sassy today as her red hair, it would seem.
“Cynthia Newhouse,” he said, pushing his glasses down on his nose to make the point. “J.T.’s ex-wife.”
Meredith’s brows shot to her forehead, but Tanner simply sat back in his seat, all cool like. Someone else might have misinterpreted his attitude as disinterest, but Arthur knew he got as still as a panther waiting to pounce when he was preparing for a new story. Oh, and he could pull together an article so beautiful it would make a grown man weep.
“I just heard from a first-hand source at the university that the new president, that Matthau fellow from California, met with J.T.’s ex-wife at The Grand Mountain Hotel, where she’s staying, it seems.”
“At The Grand?” Meredith asked. “Are you sure?”
“Woman, I just called reception and asked to be connected to her room.”
“Did you talk to her? Good God, what did you say?”
“Nothing. I hung up before she could pick up. I wasn’t trying to interview her. Only confirm her whereabouts. Good gracious, Meredith, have I taught you nothing?”
She leveled him an arch look, and he knew he needed to dial it back. It wasn’t like she was a rookie reporter.
“Then Jill did that whole text thing with me. Caroline was fired from Leggett Gallery this morning. Again, because of this Newhouse woman, it seems. I can see why Trevor calls her Sin City. She could drive a saint to sin with all her shenanigans.”
“Wait!” Meredith said, sitting up straighter. “Caroline got fired? Why didn’t I hear that?”
Arthur pushed his glasses up. “Apparently your sister calls me first in family emergencies.”
Poor Natalie had come into Jill’s office in tears. Of course, Natalie wasn’t normally this emotional, but she was pregnant, and Arthur knew pregnancy hormones sometimes affected women like that. His wife had been the same way.
“That’s dirty business,” Tanner said in his scary voice.
“Yes,” Arthur said, “which is why we need you to start looking into this woman. I know we have a personal relationship to some of our subjects here so we’ll do our best to be objective, but this is just going to be local news, I expect. My source doesn’t know what that Newhouse woman is up to quite yet, but you can bet it has something to do with undermining J.T. and the museum. This museum was approved by the board of trustees, and messing with that is serious news.”
Tanner nodded.
“I’ll call some of my old contacts in New York and see what I can find out about her,” Meredith said. “God, I feel so bad for Caroline.”
Arthur did as well. Even though his grandniece had planned to leave, no one wanted to leave a long-time job on such a sour note. “You can get the full story from Caroline when she comes home with J.T. Apparently he’s driving her back now so she can be around her family.”
Arthur had gotten a little emotional hearing that. The boy had listened and gone to Denver yesterday, it seemed. He was glad Caroline hadn’t left the gallery to go home to an empty house. Everyone needed support in a crisis, and now she was coming back to her family. He was grateful for that.
“How do you want to handle asking about Cynthia’s meeting with President Matthau?” Tanner asked. “The museum’s not yet public, so it would seem odd if we called and asked for an interview.”
“Let me talk to J.T. about it,” Arthur said. “I have a few close friends on the board I can talk to when the time comes. But I like the idea of asking Matthau right to his face. I’m still testing his mettle. I want to make him tell us straight out, but we need to approach him with some delicacy.”
“Which puts you out of the running for the interview,” Meredith said, a half smile on her face.
Had he said sass earlier? Yeah, she was sassy. Just the way he preferred. He didn’t want any of his family members to be milquetoasts.
“Let me do some digging,” Tanner said, “but if we decide to go straight to J.T.’s ex for an interview, maybe I should do the interview.”
“I hate to agree, Grandpa,” Meredith said. “Tanner is relatively new to the family and can project more objectivity.”
Objectivity. Arthur mulled that over. Investigating this woman wasn’t very objective, but she was bringing trouble to Dare Valley—and that made her and her plans news. He’d have investigated her even without the connection to J.T. But they would have to be careful like they’d agreed.
“We’ve dealt with exes effectively in the past,” Arthur said, catching Tanner’s eyes. “I seem to recall we gave Meredith’s ex the runaround.”
“But not before he caused us plenty of trouble,” Tanner said.
The couple shared a look, and Arthur knew they were remembering that difficult time. “But we got through it,” he said. “You two got hitched and now I have a great-grandbaby who I pray every morning and night has the black ink in his veins Jill seems to have missed.”
“Jill would have made a terrible reporter, Grandpa,” Meredith said with a laugh. “Like she says, she makes news.”
“Makes news indeed. I’ve never seen such a nut, but that’s why we love her. Let’s get cracking on what we can dig up on Cynthia Newhouse. I’m going to talk to Trevor in person. Sometimes pulling the threads in a conversation—”
“Helps you understand what to look for,” Meredith finished for him.
He tossed her a red hot. “Okay, hot shot. Why don’t you come with me? We can interview Trevor together.”
Tanner stood and nodded. “I’ll get started. We can brief each other when you guys return.”
Meredith ducked out, but he knew she was just grabbing her steno book and her purse. He tugged his coat off the rack and slapped a hat on his head. Damn if this March cold wasn’t chilling his bones.
“You ready, Grandpa?” Meredith asked, crunching on the candy as she came back in.
He grabbed his infernal cane and walked toward her, happy to feel his legs were solid. “Always.”
She took his elbow. “Just like old times.”
As they walked out, he memorized the moment, from the way the newsroom buzzed to the touch of baby powder Meredith had on her, likely from changing his great-grandson.
Yes, it was just like old times, and he hoped he and Meredith would have many, many more of them together. He remembered J.T. asking him why he refused to cut back on his hours or step away from the paper.
This is why he came to work every day.