Bubbles Ablaze by Sarah Strohmeyer Page B

eleven.”
    I spoke evenly into the phone. “Okay. So I was trapped in a mine, nearly blown up, and I don’t get to write anything about that because you have to play cards.”
    â€œYou can write a first-person account of the experience. Six inches only. We’ll box it and run it as a column next to the AP story. Esmeralda Greene’s a seasoned reporter. I’m sure her piece will be as airtight as all her stuff is.”
    Air wasn’t all that was tight in Esmeralda Greene.
    â€œDon’t be too disappointed, Bubbles.” Mr. Salvo’s tone softened. “Just bring your notes and those documents your cousin supposedly has to the newsroom next week and we’ll go over them together. See if there’s credible material. Then we’ll present them to Dix Notch and hear what he has to say. That way we won’t encounter the same legal problems we came across when you wrote that Metzger story. As you know, if we get sued again, I’m out of a job. This time for good.”
    That Metzger story was only the most riveting piece of journalism the News-Times had run since it uncovered the ten most dangerous intersections in Lehigh the year before. And it wasn’t my fault that Mr. Salvo’s job security was sketchy. That he had brought on himself.
    Still, seeing as how preppy managing editor Dix Notch was my sworn enemy, I didn’t hold out hope that he’d be game to give me another go at investigative reporting. Even if this time I did have notes.
    Already I was scheming. “Did you say Cora was on rewrite tonight?”
    â€œGood old Careless Cora. So speak slowly and clearly. Otherwise she’ll just screw it up.”
    Perfect.
    Roxanne didn’t realize the wealth hidden in her guest room undies drawer. Stinky, ever the meticulous geek, had retained every letter and memo on the subject of McMullen’s coal robbing. There were two maps that he must have copied and sent to his superiors showing where coal had actually been removed. Since the maps were intended for those without degrees in geographical cartography from Carnegie Mellon, even I could understand them.
    I was right. McMullen Coal had been violating federal and state regulations by entering the Number Nine mine and digging into the Dead Zone, possibly by as much as two-hundred-and-fifty feet. Stinky wrote in the letters that, although it was not his job to determine why the company had done this, he speculated that perhaps McMullen Coal did not want to wade through the lengthy regulatory process to receive approval to lift the mining ban. A process, he noted, that could take as long as ten years.
    At the bottom, hidden underneath a collection of pink phone slips, was a letter to Stinky from Craig Sommerville of the State Bureau of Deep Mine Safety. It opened with Sommerville commenting on their long working relationship and his professional respect for Stinky, whom he called Carl, of course. He went on to thank Stinky for the letters and maps, which he had forwarded to his colleagues on the federal side. He added that he was planning on making a surprise state inspection of the Number Nine mine. This week.
    Pay dirt. I dialed the number on the letterhead and got Craig on the second ring. Even though he was only a state bureaucrat, I was so excited to get hold of him he might as well have been Eddie Van Zandt. It was like a journalist’s fairy tale come true.
    I identified myself as a reporter and told him that I had hisletter in my hand, along with other documentation collected by Stinky indicating that McMullen had been—I stopped myself from using the inflammatory words “robbing coal.”
    â€œ. . . had extended its digging beyond the area of its permits.” There. That sounded innocuous enough.
    Sommerville didn’t say anything. I heard him flipping through a Rolodex. “Here’s the number for our public relations department—”
    I was prepared for