Death of A High Maintenance Blonde (Jubilant Falls Series Book 5) Read Online Free PDF

sell—and editorial had to fill with stories—often on short notice.
    Large or small, every newspaper has a yearly plan of special sections. Bridal sections, home improvement sections, tax season, car care, a preview of the county fair and a fair review that ran pictures of champions and lists of results were some of the standard sections we did each year, in addition to what was known in the newspaper business as the “progress edition,” which highlighted particular themes or businesses in the community.
    Earlene took it to extreme.
    Since Earlene had been here, she’d pushed all kinds of moronic ideas—a celebration of barbeque when there were no BBQ joints in town, and the crowning humiliation, an edition printed with the fold on the right hand side of the paper—essentially upside down—for Left Hander’s Day, highlighted by a rambling story she wrote about the daily struggles (really?) she and other left-handers faced. Of course, she wouldn’t let me edit that piece of shit for clarity or content.
    I took phone calls all day about that one, including one from Gary McGinnis who was laughing so hard he could hardly speak.
    It was no wonder our most consistent advertisers were beginning to feel tapped out after so many requests to advertise—and embarrassed about the advertising product their name was often attached to.
    As a result, too, the long-stable advertising sales staff began to turn over on such a regular basis there was talk a revolving door should be installed. We’d been through three advertising directors since Earlene took over. The position was currently vacant; Jane, the department secretary, told Dennis that Earlene’s bizarre demands were the reason for the volatility.
    When I should have been improving the quality of the journalism in our paper, I was scanning the calendar for made-up holidays, like Celebrate Cabbage Day to head off Earlene’s crazy ideas. I staved off International Popcorn Day with a couple wire stories on the food page; I talked her out of a front-page story on National Donut Day that involved members of the police force.
    A few of these goofy calendar recognitions did give us ideas for stories, but they never seemed to spark interest for her. A series on bullying was first shot down, but we went ahead with it anyway. When it won a state Associated Press award, Earlene wouldn’t speak to me for days.
    Over the last few week’s she’d started showing up at my Monday afternoon staff meetings, much to the staff’s chagrin.
    “Hi, Earlene,” I said slowly. “Come on in.”
    Marcus Henning rolled his eyes at Dennis as Earlene, nearly six feet tall in her turquoise stilettos, with a matching silk flower in her sky-high Miss Texas hair, sat down beside him, hiking her skirt as she did so. Dennis and Charisma bit their lips, hiding their smirks. Only Graham, with all the exhaustion of a new parent, didn’t react.
    The luckiest member of the staff was photographer Pat Robinette, who had a dental appointment, and was missing this show. At that moment, I wished I were having a root canal, too.
    “So what’s up?” I asked.
    “So next Thursday is National Newspaper Day,” she began, twisting her chunky turquoise necklace with her long manicured fingers.
    Oh Jesus, how did I miss that? I wondered.
    “And I had this wonderful idea of doing a front page on the process of putting together a newspaper, starting from when the truck pulls up in back with the big rolls of paper to what ya’ll do in the newsroom and what advertising does, right to the end when the paper hits the street.”
    “Hmmm,” I said. This might not be a bad idea, depending, of course, on how it was presented. One of my chief complaints about my readers—and my publisher— was how little they really knew about the news business. This could be, as they say, a teachable moment. “So how would the story run?”
    “Well, I would write the story, of course…”
    Oh shit.
    “And I thought, wouldn’t it