Alpine Nemesis

I hate the term scoop. I don't know its derivation in newspaper terms, but I hate it anyway. What I hate even more is having it done to me and The Alpine Advocate. But two months ago that's what happened for the first time in my career as an editor and publisher. Spencer Fleetwood, owner and operator of my nemesis, radio station KSKY, managed to scoop me on a story about a missing snowboarder on Mount Baldy. I've never liked Spence, as he calls himself, probably because he's so full of himself. And, to be candid, because he's provided the Advocate with the only serious competition I've ever faced. Furthermore, I think his radio station with its weak little signal and prepackaged DJs is just one step up from shouting through a megaphone on a soapbox in Old Mill Park. But he beat me on the snowboarder story, and I'm still mad. It started with the "exclusive report" of the missing snowboarder. I'm still not certain how Spence got the so-called scoop, but it was probably from one of the park rangers. In the past, they've always come to me first with any breaking news. I suspect Spence was hanging on to a barstool at the Venison Inn when one of the rangers came off duty and the story fell into his lap before he fell onto the floor. "You're being unfair," Leo Walsh, my ad manager, declared for about the fiftieth time in the ten weeks that had passed since the snowboarder's disappearance. "Drop it. That's the only story he's beat you on since he started up the station last summer. Face it, the Advocate's a weekly. With daily radio competition, you're bound to get beat now and then." I shook a finger in Leo's weathered face. "Don't patronize me! Don't humor me!" "Hey!" Leo batted my hand away and scowled. "Don't wag your finger at me!" I stared into Leo's green eyes. He was wearing the look that he usually reserved for advertisers who were late with their payments. It was also a look he'd probably used in years gone by for his ex-wife, the publishers who had canned him, and the bartenders who'd refused him a last drink before closing time. I backed off. "Okay," I said crossly. "I'm sorry. But you, of all people on the staff, know what a pain in the butt this Fleetwood is. You've had to hustle twice as hard since he got here just to keep us faintly in the black." The hard-edged glint faded from Leo's eyes as he perched on the edge of his desk and lighted a cigarette. "Get used to it," Leo said, squinting through a cloud of smoke. "He's been around for a while. Besides, I thought you'd be in a better mood these days since your knight in shining armor showed up." I thought I detected bitterness in Leo's tone, but maybe I was flattering myself. "I was glad Tom visited me, of course," I said in an uncharacteristically formal tone. "I hadn't seen him in over a year." More like two, I thought with a pang, but managed to keep my head up and my gaze steady. Leo burst out laughing. "Come on, Emma, you practically hyperventilated the day he got here. How many times did you walk into the wall? Four?" "Twice," I said sharply. "But that was because the phone rang the first time, and the second time Vida screamed." "The mouse," Leo said, looking amused. My House and Home editor, Vida Runkel, was afraid of neither man nor beastexcept for mice. "TheDaheim, Mary is the author of 'Alpine Nemesis', published 2001 under ISBN 9780345421258 and ISBN 0345421256.