He typed as fast as his two index fingers would allow. Behind the laptop, Woodward and Bernstein wrestled with each other like two sumo wrestlers, spewing wood shavings and pushing them into small hills along the cage’s edge. Clay barely noticed. He was Clay Whitefield, ace reporter, and he’d seen it all. Earlier that day he’d received a call from his editor, asking him to drive over to the Pump ’N Go. There’d been a run of young people pumping and going and not paying. The owner thought it might be some kind of game implemented by some of the high schoolers. Clay was sent as an investigative reporter. When he’d seen Evangeline Benson driving her car into the parking lot of the tavern, he quickly postponed the interview and followed her. By the time he’d made it inside, she was standing in front of a table near the back, where the sheriff and the new barmaid in town had apparently been sitting. Clay slid along the wall so as to go unnoticed, inching his way close enough to hear what needed to be heard and stopping at the far corner of the bar.
