Tuesday, March 7

The poor lamb. One week on the job and she made the worst mistake a reporter on The Hannawa Herald-Union can make.

She called me Morgue Mama-to my face.

It was right after lunch, on a horrible Tuesday in March. I was perched at the counter that separates the library from the rest of the newsroom, going through the metro section of that morning’s paper. I saw her coming at me over the top of my 250+ drug store reading glasses. She was tall and willowy and young. And good gravy, she was smiling.

She plopped her arms on the counter, side by side like the runners on a bobsled, and leaned forward, actually casting a shadow over me. “Hi, Morgue Mama,” she said. “I need all the files on the Buddy Wing murder.”

I kept working, marking which stories should be saved, and where. In the old days I’d cut the stories out of the paper, scribble a date on them, stick them in an envelope and feed them to the file cabinets. Now stories are filed in cyberspace. Click and the job’s done. No more scissors. No more envelopes. No more of that wonderful inky newsprint on your fingertips. Anyway, I ignored the Morgue Mama thing and kept on working.

“The Buddy Wing files-I’d like to see them,” she said, a little louder but no less cheery.

I peeked over the top of my glasses again. “You’re the new police reporter.”

“Aubrey McGinty,” she said.

“Well, Aubrey McGinty, just so you know, Morgue Mama is what you call me behind my back.”

“Oops.”

“In front of my back you call me Maddy.”

“I’m really sorry.”

“No crime committed. You called me Morgue Mama because that’s what you hear everybody else call me.”

“I really am sorry.”

I hate contrition, even when it’s sincere, which in this instance it seemed to be. “Apologize if it makes you feel better,” I said. “In a month you’ll be so sick of my crap you’ll be calling me Morgue Mama like the rest.”