Chapter 5

“What do you think? Should we publish this is or not?”

Horndecker pushed the sheaf of papers towards Ivan Rothenburg who sat across the desk from him.

The editor of the River Bend Press, whose long, lanky frame was stretched out in a chair, eyed his boss and then grabbed the stack of papers.

“What you got?” He asked as he pushed his glasses up on his nose so he could read the papers. “Some last minute reader contribution to the paper?

Horndecker nodded. “Yeah, but I need a second opinion on this from someone like you whose expertise is in writing, since I’m mostly a businessman. I may be real good at convincing reluctant businessmen to buy an ad. Hell, I can even make up the ad for them but I admit I know nothing about writing. That’s why I hired you. You’re supposed to look after all the editorial stuff.”

Rothenburg nodded and muttered. “Yeah, such as it is in this rag.” As he began flicking through the papers, he was wondering why his boss was suddenly so interested in the editorial side of the newspaper because most of the time he considered local news nothing more than fodder to fit around his ads.

“After all, although River Bend Press readers like to read local items, it’s the ads that bring in the money, while the pages used for news stories actually cost me money because that space could be replaced by paid ads. On top of that I have to pay you and James Colbert, our sports reporter, plus Abigail a couple of bucks for doing up the women’s section.” Horndecker always used that principal as an argument whenever he wanted to cut out a few stories in order to cram in a couple more ads.

Rothenburg was expecting to have to read some trivia from a local who wanted some advanced publicity on an upcoming event. He was prepared to give it a quick perusal and return it to Horndecker with a thumbs up or down. He didn’t have time for much more because he was busy. This was Wednesday morning with a noon deadline looming. He had until six to put the paper together and from there the printers took over. They would work until midnight so the paper could hit the streets the following morning. It had to be done this way because a Thursday morning publication allowed the businessmen to advertise their weekend specials.

The editor glanced at the big clock that dominated Horndecker’s office and decided he could take a few minutes of his precious time to please his boss.

“Okay, I’ll take a quick look at it but I really have to get back to work,” Rothenburg muttered. From the first sentence his irritation faded as his interest grew. There was dead silence in the office except for the ticking of the clock on the wall while the editor read all the story.

When he finished he looked up at his boss who had remained silent with his hands clasped around his ample waist the entire time.

“Holy shit, where did you get this? It’s incredible.” Rothenburg looked at the front page of the manuscript and saw the author’s name typed neatly under the title. “And who the hell is Winston Conlee? I’ve never heard of him.”

Horndecker said. “Neither have I and I thought I knew all the locals for miles around.”

“Well then how did you get it?”

“I found it in the night drop box this morning along with this note. It’ll explain a lot of things. And as you can see it clearly states the conditions for publications, which leaves us with some important decisions to make.

Rothenburg seized the sheet of paper that his boss pushed towards him.