A murder mystery about "The News Reporter"

Our blog assignment is to post our stories about our trips. I'd like to do that, but I haven't seen my story since I sent it off Friday night. I assume we are still working on it. The story is going to be long; it wouldn't properly fit into a blog post anyway. I took my creative writing minor and ran with it; I never get to use it in real-life situations. However, just for the sake of the assignment, I'm going to post what I wrote. It will be a teaser. If you want to find out how it ends, you'll have to find out from our other group members :). Let's embark on a murder mystery ...

The (Attempted) Murder of The News Reporter

He’s in critical condition, but they think he’s going to make it. That’s all we know right now. The News Reporter was a nice enough paper. There’s no obvious reason that anyone would have tried to murder him. The people of Whiteville, N.C. are worried. Of course they hope he makes a full recovery (almost everyone in town enjoys his news), but without knowing the motive, they can’t know who might be next.

We would like to tell these people not to worry. However, we can’t give that assurance. We’re Dr. Thornburg’s Fantastic Four – Amanda, Chelsea, Elizabeth and Lauren – here to save the town. Mr. High, the owner of The News Reporter, has hired us to find the culprit. But we’re totally unfamiliar with this foreign place, and scoping out suspects, clues and motives is a daunting task. Luckily, the people of Whiteville are talkative and friendly. As each hour goes by, they’re feeding us more and more useful information. That’s how we’ve come up with a fully comprehensive list of suspects. It’s also how, one by one, we’re marking them off.

So far, we don’t know who the attempted murderer is. We only know who it is not. Right now, I can certainly tell you that it’s not …

Renee Foster, continental breakfast extraordinaire

We met Renee at Best Western. We walked in, still almost asleep, at 8:30 a.m. “You girls are lucky,” she said. “I was just getting ready to put everything up and walk out.”

We dragged our feet across the floor to the small selection of food. Whereas some people might think of eggs, bacon, gravy and biscuits when they come across a “continental breakfast,” Renee only offered us a few different kinds of cereal, cans of fruit that were suspiciously wet and a couple of plain bagels. We sat down with our coffee, and before we could even begin to plan our course of action, Renee sat down with us. She didn’t ask where we were from or what we were doing.

“I’m so tired,” she said. “I was just getting ready to walk home. I’m taking classes over at the middle school for my GED right now. I’m taking language arts and math. I always hated math, but it’s easy. Well, it’s not easy, but once you get into it, it’s fun. Let me tell you, I love doing fractions!” Renee didn’t even seem to pause for a breath. She was a lot to handle at 8:30. She continued to talk for a while, and soon we had heard stories about everything from her grandbaby to her high school days.

“I’m leaving when I get my GED. I’ve worked at Best Western for two years, but I’m going to go somewhere else when I’m done.”

There was no way to smoothly turn this conversation in the direction we wanted it to go, so Elizabeth just finally stepped up. “How do you feel about The News Reporter?”

“Oh, what happened is a terrible thing. But honestly, I don’t have time to read it. I’m either at work or at class, and when I’m not, I just want to relax. I think it’s a great paper.”

Her story didn’t seem convincing. Although there was no obvious motive for why she would have tried to kill the paper, she didn’t have a strong emotional attachment to it. “Where were you on the night of the attempted murder of the paper?”

“Last Monday? I had class. You can check at the middle school if you want.” She paused. “Hey, would y’all mind giving me a ride? I live right behind the newspaper office.”

We agreed to give Renee a ride, and then we made a quick call to the middle school. Her alibi checked out. Suspect one was out.

We were back to having no leads, but that wouldn’t be our status for long. As we walked into the newspaper office, we met Mark, the man who designs the online portion of The News Reporter. “Hi, are y’all from Chapel Hill?” he asked. Apparently word about the Fantastic Four had spread quickly. “Let me take you to Mr. High’s office.”

As we walked into the tiny newsroom and down the hall, Mark briefly filled us in on his work. “We think that this online site is going to be the only way to save The News Reporter’s life,” he said. “It’s going to be a serious overhaul. Lots of plastic surgery will be involved, but at this point, there’s nothing else we can do. The paper will still exist in the print edition – we sell hundreds of copies that way – but we want this website to completely redesign the paper. It will be like a whole new life for it.”

“And I suppose you want us to help with that,” Chelsea muttered.

“Of course we do. But first on the agenda, we have to find the killer. Here is Mr. High’s office. He’ll be in within the next few minutes.”

We looked around the office. There was a copy of the paper on the floor, so we picked it up. Within the advertising section, we saw J. Ray Realty. We weren’t exactly sure why a real estate agent would kill the paper, but she immediately seemed suspicious. We had no other leads, so we formulated a plan to descend on her office immediately. As we ran out of the office, we ran into Mr. High.

“Hello, ladies. Where are you hurrying off to?”

“Sorry to just run off, but we think we may have a lead,” Amanda said. “We need to get to her immediately.”

“Who is it?”

“J. Ray of J. Ray Realty.”

“Oh, she worked for our paper for several years. She sold ads. I would be surprised if she had anything to do with it.”

“Mr. High, you might be surprised about a lot of things. We don’t know what a former employee’s motivation might be, but we need to see her right away.”

“Very well. You ladies are doing good work. Keep it up.” We continued to run out the door and to the car, but when we cranked it, it was dead.

“We don’t have time for this!” Chelsea said. She busted back into the office, and ran straight to the receptionist’s desk. “Does anyone have jumper cables?”

Everyone seemed to have jumper cables. Within minutes, half of the staff was outside. They did quick introductions, jumped the car and then the Fantastic Four climbed back in.

“Thanks!” Amanda said. “Oh, and we have one more thing. Where is J. Ray Realty?”

“Just go right up to Madison Street, take a left and go around the traffic circle at the courthouse,” the receptionist said. “Her building has a red awning over it.”

The Fantastic Four sped off to see their next suspect …

J. Ray, sassy real estate agent

J. Ray was less than 5 feet tall, but what she didn’t have in height, she made up for in attitude. She was friendly, but she didn’t mind telling us her opinion of everything we asked about and a lot of what we didn’t ask about. We sat down in the kitchen of her office, and she started talking before we even had our notebooks and pens ready.

“I’ve been on both sides of the advertising thing. I sold ads, and now I take out an ad. But I do it more out of obligation than anything else. The sellers want to see their ads in the paper, so I buy a bulk rate. I also do it out of a sense of community; it’s based on the relationship that I have with the people at the newspaper. I used to advertise every week, but it just didn’t seem like it was worth it. I’d really like to advertise with the paper online. I’ve heard that the website will save the paper’s life. If that’s the case, I’m excited. When people can click on my ad and go straight to our website, I feel like we’ll be getting a lot more business.”

“What does your company already do online?” Amanda asked.

“We use Facebook. Honestly, in a small place like Whiteville, people just want to use Facebook to get all up in everyone’s business. I don’t want any part in it. But if you want a successful business, you have to do it. That’s what people want.”

“What do you think about The News Reporter?” Chelsea asked.

“I don’t have time for the news. When I want news, I watch ‘Good Morning America.’ I scan the paper for obituaries, and I like to look at the ‘DIDYOB?’ section. I also try to look at the front pages and the pictures, but other than that, I don’t pay a lot of attention to it.”

“And besides ads, what do you think about having to reconstruct the paper so that it goes online?” Elizabeth asked.

“It doesn’t really matter to me. I don’t use the Internet at home. I have a Droid, but I’ve never even been on the Internet with it. People do seem to comment on our online presence, so I think it will be good for us.”

We were all thinking the same thing. J. Ray seemed to love the idea of having the paper online for her business. If she knew that an online reconstruction could save the paper, her business was the perfect motive for attempting to kill it. “Where were you on the night of the attempted murder of the paper?” Chelsea asked.

“Am I a suspect? That’s just silly. I was selling a house on Hickory Road to four girls who recently graduated from college. Here’s their number. Ask them.”

Chelsea called the number, and all four girls backed up J. Ray’s story. Once again, it seemed like we had hit a wall. Suspect number two was not the culprit. Defeated, we walked out the door and started to stroll down Madison Street.

However, our list of suspects wasn’t over yet. As we walked down the street, we saw a florist shop. We were initially attracted to it because of the mounds of Carolina décor in the window, so we walked in. It was there that we met suspect number three …

I'm impressed if you stuck with me thus far. That's where my part of the story ended, and Amanda picked it up. I'm as anxious as you are to read the rest ...