Page 59 of The Happy Month

“Well, I guess.”

“Uh-huh. No way. I’ll arrange everything. We’ll go over Wednesday afternoon and come back Friday. I would stay until Saturday, but I just took last Saturday off. And these guys want to look at houses on Saturday. I can take Thursday and Friday though.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. I can’t wait.”

After he hung up, I called The Freedom Agenda and asked Karen to give me the name of the journalist who wrote the article forThe Downey Ledger. Grudgingly, she gave me the name.

“Andrea Grubber.”

I asked her to spell it. Then I asked for the address ofThe Downey Ledger. With a sigh, she gave it to me. It was on Lakewood near the Coca-Cola plant.

Thanking her profusely only annoyed her more and she hung up on me. She’d been running hot and cold since the whole Stu Whatley thing. Though, to be fair, it wasn’t her job to get me information. In a more traditional office, she’d only be asked to work with legal documents since she was actually a paralegal.

The offices forThe Downey Ledgerwere located in a strip mall next to a Mercado. I walked through the door and was immediately confronted by a counter on top of which were recent editions of the paper. Behind the counter were half a dozen empty desks. On a stool was a young woman in her very early twenties. Since she refused to look up, I picked up one of the papers and flipped through. It was largely ads.

Finally, she looked up at me and pushed back her glasses, and asked, “Are you here to place an ad?”

“No, I’m not. I’m looking for a reporter who used to write for you.”

“We don’t really have reporters. We have a few freelancers, but most of what we publish we buy from the AP.”

“Okay. Would you have records for someone who was writing for you in nineteen seventy-six?”

She looked at me like I was the most annoying person on the planet. She and Karen ought to form a club. Finally, she said, “Hold on a minute.”

Walking to the back of the open area she knocked on a door, and after a moment went in. I waited. The place felt like a morgue, without the horrible smell. Finally, the girl came out of the office. Behind her, a man in his fifties. He wore a white shirt, navy tie and khaki pants. His sleeves were rolled up. He was overweight and his clothes were bunchy. There was something not very authentic about him, like he was dressed as a newspaper editor for Halloween.

“What do you want?” he asked when he reached the counter.

I figured a full explanation was in order. “I’m with The Freedom Agenda. We work on getting innocent men out of prison. We’re looking into the Pete Michaels murder from nineteen seventy-six. You had a reporter named Andrea Grubber who wrote about it. Do you have any idea how I can find her?”

“She really can’t tell you anything that wasn’t in the paper,” he said, gruffly. “She can’t reveal her sources.”

“That doesn’t mean she wouldn’t be able to give me more information.”

“Last I heard she was out in Riverside. That was ten, twelve years ago.”

“She worked for you for a while?”

“Five, six years. Not full-time. She mainly wrote newsletters for a pharmaceutical company down in Orange County.”

“Do you think her name is still Grubber?”

“Yeah. She got married but didn’t change her name.”

“All right, thanks.”

I walked out to the parking lot and climbed into my Jeep. I immediately dialed information and asked for the area code to Riverside. 909. Then, I dialed 909-555-1212 toget information. While it rang, I realized this was perfect. If we were going to Palm Springs, we could easily stop in Riverside. The operator answered. I asked for a number. She found three A. Grubbers. I wrote them all down and asked for the addresses that went with.

Then, I called the first number. A woman answered.

“Hi,” I said. “Is this Andrea Grubber?”

“You have the wrong number,” she said, barely waiting to hang up on me.

I lucked out on the second call. “Hi, is this Andrea Grubber?”