Free Small Town Spin by Lyndee Walker Page B

scribbled that down.
    “Listen, folks,” Zeke said, “every hotel in Gloucester and Hampton is full of news crews, and what happens here has the potential to happen in other places because of that. This is new territory for me, this national stage thing. But I want to do everything I can to keep any more children from dying.”
    I nodded, catching every word. I was pretty sure I still had the suicide prevention stuff in my files from the other cases.
    “I have some public service announcement stuff on this topic I can use in my copy,” I said. “But once we run it, it’s going to go all over, just like TJ’s story did. We can’t control what the other media outlets do.”
    Sheriff Zeke sighed.
    “I know.” He dropped his head. “Dammit! If TJ Okerson was standing here right now, I’d take a swing at him, hand to God. The Cobbs... I’ve never heard a human being make a sound like the one that came out of Tiffany Cobb when I showed up at her house tonight. Sydney stopped answering her phone a little after seven, she said.”
    “They were having a party that early?” I looked up from my notes.
    “It was dark. They’re upset.”
    Huh. I glanced between Zeke and Lyle again, but they didn’t look like that was out of the ordinary. Damn.
    So now this girl had killed herself because of what had happened to her boyfriend, who may or may not have killed himself? It was a shitty story all the way around.
    “How old was Sydney?” I asked.
    The sheriff reeled off all the vital statistics and I took them down while Lyle stood by with his tape recorder. When Zeke excused himself to check something for a young deputy, I turned to Lyle. “I went by your office today,” I said. “I wanted to introduce myself. I’m Nichelle.”
    “I know who you are.” He shoved the tape recorder into his pocket and looked up at the underside of the bridge.
    “Listen, the Okersons have a friend who works with me,” I said. “It wasn’t personal.”
    He nodded. “Hard to take it any other way when you’ve covered every jaywalking ticket in a town like this for ten years. Then something like this happens and I don’t get the call.”
    “I can certainly understand that. Y’all had great photos of the snapping turtle rodeo, by the way. And your story on TJ was good. The football coach didn’t talk to me.”
    “Coach B will talk to anything in a skirt, but not seriously. We had a female photographer on our staff for exactly half of one football game. He told her women weren’t allowed on the sidelines, and she clocked him. She got fired.”
    “And arrested?” I asked.
    “Nope. Zeke said he deserved it, and coach didn’t want to admit it hurt bad enough for him to press charges.”
    “See? I didn’t know to call him, and I might have punched him, too, so thanks for the heads up.”
    He grunted a reply, eyes roaming around the scene.
    I followed suit, standing in silence and hoping to overhear something useful.
    “What a week,” Lyle finally said.
    “Jesus, you can say that again,” I said. “I’ve spent more time in your town than in mine.”
    “I’ve worked out here for a long time, ma’am.” Lyle leveled a gaze at me. “I’ve never seen anything like this. This is a great town. Good people. God fearing. Hard working. Two dead kids in two days? And these kids? TJ and Sydney were the goddamn homecoming king and queen, for chrissakes. This is going to hit these people hard. And Zeke is right: it could spread like brush fire. I wish y’all would all go home and just let it die with Sydney.”
    I took a deep breath. “I can understand, and even sympathize. But you know as well as I do that that’s not going to happen. So what can we do to help, Lyle?”
    He stared at the ambulance on the other side of the bridge embankment for a long minute. “I don’t know.”
    I dug a card out of my bag and jotted my cell number on the back. “If you think of something, call me.”
    He stuck it in his pocket, only half