Excerpt: Murder on the Sports Desk

Hannah Montgomery drove her Toyota into the driveway of the parking lot. She stopped at the gate, where a security guard with a clipboard stood in a booth. “Your business, please?” the guard asked.

“I’m here to see Missy Goldman,” Hannah replied. “I’m going to be writing a guest column for the Capitan.”

“Ah,” the guard said, consulting his clipboard. “You must be Hannah Montgomery. For today, park in the front lot. The back door to the newsroom is around to the side.” The guard pointed toward the north side of the building. “You can go to the security desk in the lobby to get a pass that will let you into that parking lot.”

“Thanks,” Hannah said. The guard retreated into his hut, and a moment later the gate into the parking lot swung open. Hannah drove through and found herself a parking spot not too far from the building. She locked her car and started walking around the side of the building that the security guard had indicated, until she came to a door with two signs on it: a big, official looking one that said in bold print, “NOT AN ENTRANCE. EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY,” and a smaller sign that looked like it had been printed on a computer printer, laminated, and taped to the door that said “Ring bell for after hours entrance” and had an arrow that pointed to what looked like a very cheap doorbell held in place with duct tape. Hannah pushed the button.

She couldn’t tell that any bell had rung inside the building, but she did hear a muffled roar that startled her, and then she realized it was several people, mostly male, all shouting at once. After what seemed a long time, but was probably less than a minute, the noise subsided, the door opened, and Hannah was facing man, probably in his 20s, with reddish blond short hair and a build that was athletic but putting a bit of weight on at the middle. He was wearing khaki slacks, a white polo shirt, and a blue necktie. Why wear a necktie with a polo shirt? Hannah thought. Oh, well, there was probably some good reason for it. And certainly the students in her classes at Seaside Community College often wore far more outrageous outfits.
“Hi, I’m Hannah Montgomery,” Hannah said, holding out her hand. “I’m here to see Missy Goldman.”

“I’m Denny Damon,” the young man said, taking Hannah’s hand and shaking it. “Newest full-time reporter on the sports desk of the Siete Mares Capitan.” He led Hannah into what was a partly partitioned off corner of what Hannah could see was a very large room, about the size of a dozen good-sized classrooms put together. The room was filled with desks gathered in clusters of what would be cubicles, except that the partitions between cubicles extended only about 10 inches above the desk tops, so everybody could interact with everybody else. In this corner of the room, all of the people at the desks were focused on a small television set mounted near the ceiling, on which a hockey game was playing. Apparently, somebody in the game had just done something exciting, as the people at the desks let out another shout, similar to the one she had heard a few minutes before.

Denny apparently noticed the expression on Hannah’s face. “Now you can tell why the managing editor put the sports desk off in the corner,” he said. “We can get kinda loud. I think she hopes the chill from the door will settle us down.”

“I noticed the sign said no entrance,” Hannah commented.

“Oh, that,” Denny said, waving his hand dismissively toward the door, which had a similar sign on the inside: NO EXIT. EMERGENCY EXIT ONLY. “That’s because of the energy audit. There’s no airlock on this door, so it’s supposedly not for regular use. Not that anybody pays attention, and apparently just having the signs is enough to satisfy the energy people.”

“Yeah, we have a door like that at Seaside,” Hannah commented. “Only nobody bothered to put signs on it.”

At this point, one of the other people at the sports desk noticed Hannah. An older man, with wavy hair that had probably originally been dark brown but was now salt-and-pepper and twinkling blue eyes stood up and came over to where she and Denny were standing. He was dressed in slacks and a tweed blazer, and his belly showed what Denny’s might be like, given another 30 years or so. “Well, I see we have a visitor,” he said to Denny. “And a pretty one, too.” Hannah didn’t exactly consider herself pretty, but with her willowy figure, golden-blond hair, and vivid green eyes, many others thought her attractive.

“She’s come to see Missy,” Denny said.

“Oh, that’s a pity,” the older man said. “I was hoping she was bringing in a box score or volleyball meet results or something.”

“No such luck,” Hannah said. “I’m going to be writing a weekly guest column for the Features page.”

“Oh, I forgot to introduce myself,” the man said, offering his hand for Hannah to shake. “I’m Dean Michaels, editor emeritus. I used to run the Toy Department, but now I’m semi-retired.”

“The toy department?” Hannah asked.

“Oh, that’s what the folks in the rest of the newsroom call the sports desk,” Dean said. “You know, where all the fun and games are.”

“Well, I’m Hannah Montgomery,” Hannah said, “and I suppose I’ll be seeing you around if I’m coming in every week with my column.”

“The Hannah Montgomery?” Dean asked. “The one who keeps solving murder cases?”

“Uh, yeah, I, uh …” Hannah always hated it when somebody recognized her from the news.

“So why are you writing a column for the Features page?” Dean asked. “I would think you would do better on the crime desk.”

“I’ve been asked to share my expertise as an English teacher,” Hannah replied. “I’ll be writing about grammar topics and answering reader questions.”

“Hoo boy,” Dean said, turning to Denny. “I bet this is Missy Prissy’s back-door way of trying to get us to straighten our language up over here. I wouldn’t put it past her.”

“Nobody ever told me anything about straightening up the sports desk,” Hannah said.

“Oh, I wouldn’t put it past her,” Dean said. “She probably wouldn’t tell you about her plans outright. For that matter, she probably does want you on the crime desk, but you wouldn’t say yes to that, so she invited you to do this grammar column to get you into her parlor.”

“As in, ‘Come into … said the spider to the fly?’” Hannah asked.

“You got it,” Dean said.

Something happened on the television screen to make the people on the sports desk start shouting again, and Hannah decided to take the opportunity to take her leave. “Nice meeting you,” she said to Denny and Dean. “Where do I go to find Missy Goldman?”

Denny led her out past the partition that partly separated the sports desk from the rest of the newsroom and indicated a row of glass-windowed offices that lined the far wall. “It’s the second from the left,” he said. “The one with the blinds closed.”