He held up his iPhone, which showed a rather nice picture of Michael on the camel.
“That’s great,” I said.
“Here, look through them,” he said, handing me the phone.
I paged through his photos. Rob was getting to be a half-decent iPhone photographer. Quite apart from the good shots of Michael, I wondered if any of his photos might help with the murder investigation. If I could see them full size, that is.
“Can you give me copies of those?” I asked. “Not just the ones of Michael, all of them.”
“Sure,” he said. “Let me have that for a second.” He took the iPhone back and began tapping on the screen. “There. I e-mailed them to you.”
“You’re getting signal?” Michael said, his hand reaching to the pocket where he kept his own cell phone.
“For now,” Rob said. “Out here in the boondocks, it’ll vanish again when the new storm gets going.”
“That’s right—you have Internet access on that thing,” I said. “Can I borrow it back for a few minutes? I really want to see what the papers are saying about the murder.”
“You just want to see if anyone said anything nasty about your parade,” he said, but he handed over the iPhone. “Use it all you like. Snow makes me want to hibernate. I’m going upstairs to take a long nap.”
He slouched out of the room.
“So, if the roads are open, will the chief and his troops be leaving soon?” I asked.
“No idea,” Michael said. “Sammy thought they’d want to use our barn for a while. At least I assume that’s what he meant when he said they were still maintaining their incident command center.”
“The chief must have sent him to some kind of training class,” I said, as I fumbled my way to the Internet. “Horace always talks that way for a week or two when he’s had some new kind of training.”
I wasn’t as deft at iPhone navigation as Rob—probably because I hadn’t spent every waking minute of the last year playing with the thing. But I opened a browser and navigated to the Trib’s Web site.
I winced to see that the story about our parade was the third one down on their home page. Did that mean it was on the front page of the print edition? With the headline SANTA SLAIN IN RURAL VIRGINIA PARADE?
“That’s awful,” I said aloud.
“What’s awful?” Michael asked. He slid a plate of bacon and eggs in front of me and leaned over my shoulder.
“What if some kid sees this?” I said, pointing to the headline. “Couldn’t they at least say ‘Santa Impersonator’?”
“Too long for a headline,” he said, peering at the tiny screen. “And I guess they figure anyone old enough to read it doesn’t have to be protected.”
“That’s true,” I said. He returned to his cooking and I figured out how to scroll down the article with one hand while eating with the other.
“Just our luck to have a Trib reporter here for the murder,” I grumbled, through a mouthful of eggs.
“Is it bad?” he asked.
“Could be worse,” I said. “And maybe I misjudged Werzel—this is certainly not the slash job I expected from him.”
“Probably because it’s not his byline.”
I scrolled up to the top of the article again.
“You’re right,” I said. “Good eyes; I didn’t even notice that. Who’s this Keating person?”
Michael shrugged.
“He must have shown up after Werzel called about the murder. Or maybe wrote it from the facts Werzel phoned in.”
“Good grief,” I said. “You should see what it says at the bottom of the article: ‘Staff writer Ainsley Werzel contributed to this report.’ I feel sorry for him. He hung around all day, had to rough it in our unheated living room overnight, and all he gets is ‘contributed to this report.’ That’s not fair!”
“Maybe that’s why he’s still hanging around again today,” Michael said.
“Werzel? Damn,” I said. “Sorry for him doesn’t mean I want him around. Maybe he just doesn’t know the road is open.”
“I think four or five people have already made a point of telling him,” Michael said. “He says he’s looking for his camera, but I suspect he’s on the prowl for dirt.”
“Has he reported the camera?” I asked. “Maybe he didn’t lose it after all—maybe Norris Pruitt lifted it.”
“Not sure he’s officially reported it, but I’m sure the chief knows it’s missing,” Michael said. “Maybe when they catch Norris Pruitt, they’ll find the camera.”