The feedback regarding the first two issues of the newspaper was encouraging to say the least. Walt looked out his office window to see the good folks of Jordan’s Bend walking by with a copy in their hands or pulling one from the rack down the street at Wagner’s General Store. It was a good sign.

Like clockwork, Emma and Beatrice had shown up at the front door as promised, biscuits and gravy at the ready. After sharing breakfast and discussing whatever came to mind with Walt, the sisters were handed off to Amelia Stevens for an interview as the inaugural subjects of the first “Fresh From The Oven” feature. Walt knew they would be perfect for the first guests, just as he knew they would be a fountain of information about the people of Jordan’s Bend, in particular, the power players. And just like the breakfast they fed him, Walt knew the tidbits he gleaned from the sisters would go far to fill the minds of readers in the weeks to come. And he was right. He received several calls about Emma and Beatrice after their feature that came out yesterday. Sheriff Sparks called to say the inmates loved the piece and had sat around the table in the block to talk about it.

The only thing Walt needed to do now, was to dig a bit deeper on the clues the ladies gave him.

Cloyd Caple had helped get the first two issues off the ground. His time working at the Herald built invaluable experience not easily found in the general public. He knew how to run the press, how to build the plates and place the stories – all of which were new to Walt.

“How would you like to work here full time?”, Walt asked.

“Me?”, replied Cloyd, a look of genuine surprise mixed with excitement on his face. “You sure? I didn’t finish high school and folks say I’m not the sharpest tool in the hen house. Jus’ ask around.”

“I’m sure.”, Walt responded. “But under one condition.”

“Anything you say, boss.”

Walt put a hand on Cloyd’s shoulder and looked down at Charlie. “You’ve got to bathe that mutt. My eyes haven’t watered this much in my entire life.” Walt cocked his head down and looked into Cloyd’s eyes.

“Done. I’ll go do it right now!” Cloyd smiled the smile of a sweepstakes winner and bent to lift Charlie.

Walt stopped him and said, “Hold on. That can wait. First, I want you to tell me what you know about the history of this building.”

Walt had been too busy to dig into the corners and crevices of his new business. Although it was covered in dust, spider webs and smelled like the storage room of an ancient library, he knew there was information to be summoned up from the bowels of this particular beast.

“Where ya’ wanna’ to start?”, asked Cloyd.

Walt pointed to a room off to the side. The glass in the door was thick with decades of grime.

“That’s the Rue Morgue.”, said Cloyd.

Walt squinted and tilted his head. Hearing the words of an Edgar Allen Poe masterpiece coming from the mouth of a high school dropout was a juxtaposition he had not expected.

“You know about Poe?

Cloyd laughed. “The only thang I know about Poe is that’s sumpin’ ya’ call folks that ain’t got no money.”

Then, he said, “That’s what Mrs. Bonnie and Mr. Allen called it. They said ol’ newspapers are stored in the morgue an’ added Rue to it ’cause some famous writer said it was a place ta find clues on folks. Ya know, kinda like a detective.”

Bonnie and Allen Foster were the previous owners of the newspaper. Walt purchased it and the building from them several years after it had closed and no other buyers had come forward.

“Show me.”, Walt implored.

The door to the Rue Morgue creaked as it pushed cobwebs aside. Walt found this an appropriate introduction for the macabre nature of its name.

“Here’s where they keep copies of all the ol’ papers.”, said Cloyd. “One copy of each. Then they put ’em in a book, one fer each year. That ways you kin see what ya missed.”

Walt’s eyes widened. “Jackpot.”, he said.

“Huh?”, said Cloyd.

“Oh. Nothing.” Walt changed the subject. “How many people know about this room?”

“Jus’ me and Sir Lawrence.”, replied Cloyd. “Oh, an’ momma. Ever body else done died or moved on.”

Questions about Sir Lawrence and Cloyd’s mother would have to wait. Walt wanted to dig around in the morgue.

“Ok. Now you can go wash Charlie. Take the rest of the day to scrub him up good. Come back in the morning and we will get to work. How’s that?”

“Roger.” Cloyd whirled, swooped up Charlie and ran out the door, setting the bell above it into wild shakes.

*********

“Momma. Momma. I got a job!”. Cloyd ran in the house through the back room across a dirt floor and stepped up into the small kitchen of the frame two bedroom house on the edge of town.

“Take that damn dog outside! I could smell that mangy varmint a mile before ya got here!”

Edna Caple had long since gained so much weight that sitting was about all she could do. It began shortly after she gave birth to Cloyd several years ago. She wasn’t sure anymore, but she believed her son to be about nineteen years of age. Cloyd’s father had insisted on continuing a family tradition of his that Edna opposed. The men on the Caple side of the family all named their first-born son with a combination, a portmanteau of sorts, of the first names of the child’s father and grandfather. In this particular case, Edna’s son would be a mix of Floyd and Claude. Mulling the possible names, Edna reluctantly agreed to Cloyd, as she could not bear to name her child Flaude and the implications that came with it.

The strain of a forty-five hour labor with a midwife, which included a breach birth and difficulty getting Cloyd to inhale that first breath of life, was more than this once svelte woman could bare. She took to the bed. Floyd did what he could to help, but in the end, he was not up to the task and left without so much of a goodbye to Edna or his son.

Edna’s sister stepped to help raise Cloyd, but her time taking care of Edna surpassed her time with the young boy. He turned into a feral creature, went to school as required, but knowledge didn’t set in the infertile fields of his brain. He did learn to read & write, knew how to add and subtract, but that was about all.

Now, she sat in her kitchen on two chairs to hold her up. Trash piled up in the corner so high it reached near the top of the door. Utilities had been cut off to her house long ago for nonpayment. Candles were her light now. Buckets of water from the nearby river were hauled up by Cloyd each day. The linoleum worn through to the wood floor beneath from years of shuffling feet. Her legs swollen. Her hair held back with a Budweiser visor she got years ago as a give-away when the local liquor store opened. The dirty apron she wore over the biggest dress she could find smelled of fried onions and bacon. She kept her teeth in a glass on the kitchen window sill. Life had been hard, to say the least.

She couldn’t move her neck and turned her shoulders as she heard noise outside.

Cloyd came back in.

“Now, tell me about this job.”, said Edna.

Cloyd told all about Walt, how he said he could work at the newspaper “only if I scrubbed Charlie. He makes his eyes water.”

Cloyd had worked at other jobs around town, mostly as a handyman for the wealthy people who would pay him with food, clothes or some trinket that Edna found to be worthless.

“He’s payin’ ya money, right?”, asked Edna.

“I think so. He didn’t say.”

“What about the hours you work?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Well, what did he say?”, she asked.

“He said I could have a job if I scrubbed Charlie. He makes his eyes water.”

Edna put her hand to her forehead and rubbed the look of exasperation off her face. After a moment, she inhaled and said, “Well, I’m proud of ya, son.”

Cloyd smiled. “Well, I better get to scrubbin’ Charlie if I want a job.”, and ran out the back door. “Thangs is gonna get better from here on out! I kin feel it!”

(To be continued.)