Free Vendetta Stone by Tom Wood Page A

Knight, as Pittard headed for his editing bay.
    “Glad you mad e it, Dan,” Bligh said. Fellow staffers hooted. “So what’s the latest?”
    “ We drove all over East Nashville, and nobody’s seen or heard from him. Well, except for his neighbor, Herb Fletcher. He said Stone made a short stop at his house and left without saying a word. His brother wouldn’t talk to us; neither would anybody down at this dive. I figured we’d been out there long enough. End of story.”
    “Wrong,” Bligh snapped. “This story’s just starting. How will we cover it?”
    “We start with the funeral tomorrow,” Cameron Knight said. Bligh nodded.
    “And the police just sent out a release stating that Chief King will hold a press conference tomorrow afternoon,” O’Day added. “That might be interesting.”
    “I thought I might try to profile the type of person Stone is chasing. And I want to delve deeper into Stone’s background,” Clarkston said.
    “Everybody’s going to be doing those pieces over the next few days,” Bligh said. “I want something different, people. This story’s got legs , and we’re not going to trip over them.”
     
    Back at the paper, Carrie Sullivan downed her fifth cup of coffee since coming to work that day. She met first with Casey and photo editor Brad Moore to select the shots they wanted to run in the daily. The fourth photo—the one where a visibly enraged Stone cocked his finger like a gun at the camera—won everybody over, although Casey argued that it cast Stone in a less-than-sympathetic light. They decided to use the third shot, with Stone’s eyes watering just before the media event, as either secondary art for the front cover or to run inside with the jump. Then they moved on to the design desk, where Carrie and Managing Editor Ken McGuire met with Janice Munro and her staff. They suggested several different scenarios for the front-page layout—whether to run the main photo over three columns or four. They considered page placement as either a centerpiece or a strip across the top. Should they go with a straightforward headline or a label head to convey the emotions of the story? Could they come up with any “breakouts”—informational or statistical data that are better as a chart—or “refers”—blurbs to tell readers on which pages to find related articles—to run with the story? How much space should be allotted inside for the story jump? Finally, everybody agreed, and it boiled down to making all the jigsaw puzzle pieces fit.
    Stil l waiting for my rewrite at eight fifteen, Carrie again went to the website and noted with satisfaction the slideshow attached to our updated story had already drawn over three hundred hits with ten pages of comments comprised of sixty-four replies. She printed the most recent posts for me to check later.
    At 7:59 p.m., MARYLOU wrote: “I don’t know Jackson Stone, didn’t know his wife Angela, but some mutual friends told me what great people they truly are. My heart goes out to Jack. I hope he won’t mind my coming to Angela’s funeral on Saturday at noon at Belle Valley Cemetery. My husband and I will be there to show our support for him, even though we disagree on whether he should pursue a course of vengeance. I think he should let the police find his wife’s killer.”
    At 8:04 p.m., EARLYTOBED wrote: “I can’t agree with WILDWEST . Violence is never the solution. It is A solution but it will surely land Jackson Stone in the pokey for the rest of his days.”
    At 8:11 p.m., JIMBOB78 wrote: “It’s a bad idea. My solution would be to get”—
    T he telephone ring startled Sullivan. She clicked off the website, and checked the system.
    “Y our story’s here, Gerry. Ken wanted me to ask what your plans are for tomorrow and what kind of help you need.”
    “I tho ught a little about that. Visitation starts at ten a.m., and the funeral is at noon. I just talked to Darrin Jensen. He set up a news conference for the police