When the Devil Doesn't Show: A Mystery by Christine Barber Page B

make out of it? A full story or something small?”
    “Something small for now.”
    “Okay,” she said. “So, what you want is a news brief. For that, you need to wait until just after ten o’clock tonight and then fax over a short press release with the information about the person.”
    “Why wait until ten o’clock?”
    “Because, my young padawan, by ten o’clock, every section of the newspaper has been cleared except the local section. They hold that section until eleven o’clock, in case some other news comes in, like a brief from the police. If you call before ten o’clock they might make a big splashy article about it on page one. After ten o’clock, you are guaranteed it will be only a news brief in the local section. If you call after eleven o’clock, the newspaper will already be on the press, and it’ll be too late.”
    “Should I call you at the city desk after I fax the press release?”
    “Um…” she said. “Let’s just say I’m not working in the newsroom tonight.”
    “That sounds ominous,” Gil said. “Is everything okay at work?”
    “It’s fine.”
    “It doesn’t sound fine.”
    “I’ve just moved to a different department.”
    “Was it voluntary?”
    “Yeah … so we’re not going to talk about this. Let’s get back to your press release.”
    “Will you be working in the newsroom again?” he asked.
    “You’re messing with me, aren’t you?”
    “For the record, let’s just assume I’m always messing with you,” he said. “So, why did you change jobs?”
    “What? I can’t … hear … reception … bad,” she said, while making staticlike noises.
    “Lucy, you just sound like a washing machine.”
    “In that case, I’ll just hang up on you.” And she did.
    *   *   *
    A half hour later, Lucy sat “in the rooms,” as they say, listening. They had gone around the circle of chairs, each person saying their name. She’d said, “Tina,” however, and she didn’t add the usual “and I’m an alcoholic,” because she didn’t consider herself one. She was an alcohol abuser, sure. But an alcoholic? She hadn’t ended up on the street or in the gutter. She hadn’t lost her friends or her job. Well, she’d sort of lost her job, but that hadn’t been her fault.
    She’d stopped drinking two weeks ago and had been coming to AA since then. She had yet to speak at any meeting, not sure what to say. She listened as a man across from her told his “getting sober” story. He had been a pastor at a local church, a respected member of the community. His life was perfect—except he drank. Secretly. Every night. That part sounded familiar to her, but while she was a beer-drinking girl, he was a vodka man. Lucy knew where this story was going. She’d heard it often over the last two weeks. The man would say that, one day, his wife left him or he lost his job and that’s when he realized he needed help. Instead, the pastor talked about his kids, especially his bright, gifted, funny seven-year-old son. Lucy wasn’t expecting the next part—when a drunk driver hit the wife and son. The wife lived. The son didn’t. The pastor fell apart. His secret drinking became less secret. He drove drunk one afternoon and almost hit a school bus. He tried to kill himself, but one of his other children found him. That’s when he decided to go to Mexico. He rented a casita on the beach. He called it his suicide shack. He locked the doors, turned off the lights, and sat on the couch—gun in his hand. But he didn’t do it. Instead, he stayed locked in the casita, thinking he’d kill himself the next day. But he didn’t do it. By the third day, the alcohol withdrawal was giving him seizures. He repeatedly woke up on the floor. Ten days later, he left the casita. Sober.
    Lucy listened to him speak and thought about her own “getting sober” story. It was nothing dramatic. She had just stopped. She wondered if that made her a failure at being an alcoholic. Not that she