Gathering String Read online

  “Old family friend,” he said by way of explanation.

  “Along with everyone else in this room. Does everyone in the auditorium know you?”

  He grinned. “You didn’t.”

  She laughed, and he asked her advice on cropping and toning a few of his best shots. They chatted easily as he plugged his audio recorder into the computer to add some crowd noise and public-address announcer clips to a slideshow. After packing their equipment and stepping out of the pressroom, he said, “I really appreciate your help. All the technology changes so fast, I’m always playing catch up with something …” He broke off as two boys approached, one carrying a basketball.

  “You Jack Westphal?” one asked in the squishy tones of a voice in the throes of change. Jack nodded. “My dad says he went to every game you played in Ames while you were at Iowa State. He says he saw you sink 10 three-pointers in one three-minute stretch against K-State.”

  Jack laughed, shaking his head. “It was seven in about five minutes, and a fluke at that. I got hot, and K-State wasn’t very good that year.”

  The other boy spoke up. “Your dad was a good basketball coach, right? He taught you to play?" Jack nodded again. "Well, Ben and I thought maybe you’d show us a few moves.” He inclined his head toward the empty court. Jack looked around, noticing that there were still a few people lingering, some of them reporters.

  “Sorry, guys. Not tonight. I promised to walk this lady to her car.” Both boys flushed at the rejection. “But look,” Jack said, taking the ball, “here’s a tip. When you’re at the free throw line, hold the ball with the seam resting on the tips of your fingers. Just let it balance there, like this, see?” He held up his hands a little in front of his face as if taking a shot. “Let it sit right on the tips. When you’re ready to let it fly, flex those fingers, and you get a little bit more pop. Puts a nice controlled spin on it too.”

  “Dad says you shot over 90 percent from the line,” the squeaky-voiced kid said.

  Jack grinned. “Yep, but that was a long time ago.” He and Tess continued down the sideline, the boys trooping ahead of them.

  “So, you were a basketball star.” One of the boys turned back, a shocked look on his face at Tess’s ignorance. “That’s why they all wanted to talk to you about the game.”

  Jack shrugged. “I don’t know about being a star. We were a good team. All of us got a lot of press.”

  They reached the edge of the court, and the boys ran out ahead of them, Ben calling, “Hey Jack, throw it in to me.”

  Jack took a quick glance around. The cleaning crew was moving through the aisles, eyes on their work. Everybody else around seemed equally unaware, so he took two quick dribbles, raised his arms over his head in a graceful arc, and put the ball in from the sideline of center court, catching nothing but net.

  “Whoa!” Both boys stopped short, open-mouthed and delighted. Jack chuckled, gave them a wave, and taking Tess’s elbow, began walking. “Let’s go before they ask to see that again.” He looked around again, hoping no one noticed.

  “Not bad!” She was as impressed as the boys.

  He shook his head. “It’s easy without another guy right in your face.”

  “So, did you mean it?” He looked confused at her question. “About walking me to my car?”

  He grinned. “Sure.” Reaching out, he took her laptop. “Where are you parked?”

  “Actually, I walked through the skywalks from the Record.”

  She wondered if he would just go on his way at that, not wanting to walk all that way in the opposite direction, only to come back for his own vehicle. But he said, “That connects up on the mezzanine.”

  It was easy to talk to him as they strolled, comfortable and dry in the heated skywalk, the thick windows showing fat, heavy flakes sifting down and blowing under the streetlights. “So you played for Iowa State?”

  “Um-hum, about eight years ago.”

  He was only a little older than she. “What was that like, playing in front of a huge crowd like tonight?”

  “Oh, it was crazy, scary, exciting. I’d dread it, but once we started playing, I’d get lost in the game. When the buzzer sounded, I couldn’t wait to play again.”

  “I always wonder about how painful it is, being that young and blowing a play in front of so many people. That girl tonight, think of the courage it took to put up that last shot. What if she’d missed?”

  “Well, you get a thick skin real quick," he said. "There’s nothing as humiliating as going up for a dunk in front of a crowd of 14,000 and having the ball come winging right back into your face. Laughter that loud really bruises the ego.”

  “That happened to you?”

  He snorted, “More times than I care to remember. But I got better.”

  “You didn’t try to go on after school?”

  “On?” he looked over questioningly. “Oh, you mean pro ball? No. I wasn’t that good. Besides, I was a little on the small side.”

  “Small?” She leaned back, exaggerating the effort it took to look up at him. He smiled. “So you went to the Journal right out of school?” If there was a fly in this very good-looking Westphal ointment, it was that he was stuck at such a small paper.

  “No, I worked at the Cedar Rapids Globe a few years. They’re not corporate owned and I thought they’d be more nimble than Gannett's Record about adapting their business model. But even with them, it was just too frustrating. So I bought the Journal a little more than five years ago to take a crack at it myself.”

  “Wait," she stopped walking in surprise. "You own it?”

  His smile was more of a wince. “Well, technically the bank and I own it.”

  They were nearly to the branch off to the Record, and she was sorry. This guy was full of surprises. Where did someone so young get the money to buy a newspaper? “So you’re a publisher.”

  “I guess so,” he shrugged. “But I’m also a reporter, a blogger, the editor, a piss-poor photographer, and a lot of nights, I empty the trash.”

  They laughed together, stopping at the Record entrance. “Sounds like a lot of work.”

  He nodded. “More than I ever guessed. It’s good though. Lindsborg’s my hometown. I grew up there.”

  “So your family’s there?”

  The barest trace of a frown appeared between his eyes. “They were. Except for a great uncle and a couple of distant cousins, they’re all gone now. But it’s still home.”

  She heard the evasive note in his answer, but felt herself too much a stranger to probe. Nodding toward the windows, she took her equipment from him. “You’d better get over to Terrace Hill. Not many people get invited over there for an evening in front of the fire on a snowy night.”

  “Oh, Swede was close to my family. Watching out for me is just a habit.”

  “But nice of him.”

  “Um-hum.” Jack looked out at the snow, and then turned to her with his slow grin, “But I’ll head back on home tonight.”

  “Do you really think that’s a good idea?”

  “It looks like the worst of it’s passed, and the plows have been out awhile. It’ll take a little longer than usual, but I bet I can make it in about three hours.” She glanced at her watch. That would make it almost two in the morning when he got back, and only if he was right about the roads. “There’s too much waiting for me at work tomorrow to camp out with the Ericksons tonight. Besides, Betty isn’t a barrel of laughs. The hometown folks really aren’t her thing. Swede knows that. He won’t be surprised when I don’t show.”

  Tess looked doubtful. “She can’t be that bad. Why not stay warm and dry?”

  The smile played out his dimples. “Well, I also picked up a new Jeep last week. I haven’t had a reason to put it in 4-wheel-drive yet, and this is a pretty good snowfall.”

  “Well then, don’t let me keep you.” She had to laugh at the mischievous grin.

  But he didn’t seem in much of a hurry. “Right, well, thanks again. I’ve really got to do somethin
g about art for the Journal. It’s not my talent, and both the online and print products are kind of suffering for it.”

  “If you need a consult, you know where to find me.” Two coworkers came through the door, and stopped, asking Tess about the game. When she turned back to introduce him, he was already a few steps away.

  “I’d better get moving,” he called back to her. She was sorry for the interruption.

  Chapter 9

  The day after the tournament, she asked the columnist on the sports desk about Jack Westphal. He rolled his eyes and smirked, “Well, he’s not my type, but he’s always been a pretty popular guy.” He gave the word “popular” a twist that told her he’d been asked about Westphal by women before. “Read the clips. We’ve spilled a lot of ink on the guy.”

  He was right. Whatever Jack’s protest at the word “star,” he was the driving force behind Iowa State’s basketball teams after his freshman year. On top of that, there were several references to the personal trauma that had shaped his college years. Skimming, she quickly found the story that explained it all.

  His parents, older brother and younger sister had gone to the first home game Jack played his freshman year. It was a cold, foggy fall night when the Westphal family started the two-hour drive back to Lindsborg, and speculation was that there was an icy patch on bridge over the interstate. Or maybe Jim Westphal fell asleep. In any case the car, traveling at a high speed, had gone into a skid, went airborne, and rolled into a ravine where it burst into flames. All four were dead at the scene.

  Tess studied the photo of a heart-wrenchingly young Jack Westphal leaving the church after the funeral, head down, longish blond hair falling over his eyes, the future Iowa governor’s arm around his shoulders, his eyes red-rimmed.

  One accident, his whole family gone. The entire state had followed the young man’s career with an interest that went beyond sports. She understood it. Nearly all of Iowa must have been pulling for him to overcome, to thrive. He hadn’t let them down. Team leader, conference champions, making it to the NCAA Final Four his senior year, plus the double major in journalism and business with a 3.7 grade-point average, the story on Jack’s graduation was triumphant.

  One brief story was about him losing his driver’s license when he was 19 after three violations for excessive speed. There was also a later piece by the Record’s state columnist titled, “Jack Westphal: All Grown Up,” written about a year into Jack’s tenure at the Cedar Rapids Globe:

  “He tries not to dwell in the past, either the pain or the glory. He rents out his father’s 1200 acres, banking the profits, working hard and living quietly in a small apartment with a Doberman and a blond named Bambi.”

  Tess’s eyebrows went up at this last, and as she flipped the screen, she found dozens of upset letters to the editor, despairing that the clean-cut young man everyone was so proud of was living openly in sin. Finally there was another clip, just a squib really, about Jack buying the Lindsborg Journal. The files had no more personal mentions, no wedding announcements, no divorce decrees.

  She went to the Journal’s website, and smiled as she read some of his work. He had a strong voice, a good eye for detail, and cranked out content like a machine. Although his pictures weren’t very good, nearly every story included a video as well as a slideshow with audio. The guy had to work constantly.

  What she read stayed with Tess, and she thought about Westphal more often than she would have been comfortable admitting. But when she didn’t hear from him, she figured Bambi, or some more recent version of her, was probably in the picture.

  It was nearly two weeks after the basketball tournament that the deep-voiced question came through an office phone without preamble. “Did you mean it?”

  Tess frowned suspiciously, waiting for what might come next. Nothing did. “Who is this?” She was busy with something difficult on the screen and didn’t have time to entertain some screwy reader.

  There was a soft laugh. “Jack Westphal. Did you mean it when you offered to advise on the Journal's art problems?”

  She felt her face flush along with a pleasant uptick in her heart rate. “It depends. I’m on deadline at the moment. But if you …”

  “I’m thinking about this weekend. I’ll be in town Saturday and need to buy some software. I’m having a hell of a time getting all this new photo equipment to interface with what we’ve got. I thought if it wasn’t too much trouble, you could help me out? But if you have to work …”

  “Actually I’m done in the early afternoon.” She didn’t hesitate to let him know that she was free. “Where should I meet you?”

  “I’ll pick you up at the Record about 2 o’clock. Hey, you wouldn’t be free for dinner too, would you?”

  She felt a smile spread across her face. “Some friends and I were talking about taking in a movie, but nothing’s firm. I could manage it.”

  “Great.” He sounded pleased. “I’ll tell Swede I’ve got a date.”

  “What? This is a dinner with the governor?”

  “Yeah. It’s his birthday, and he always asks me up.”

  “Look, if it’s a family-and-close-friends kind of thing, then …”

  “Oh no,” it was a chuckle, “no ditching me now. Besides, Swede’ll think it’s great. He’s been on me about living like a monk. See you Saturday.”

  The line went dead, and Tess muttered, “Oh shit,” turning back to her work.

  He still drove too fast. She noticed that from the minute she got into his Jeep. He wasn’t an aggressive driver, or even an impatient one. He just handled the wheel with a confidence that seemed completely at ease with the traffic and his ability to zip around it, his judgment of space, speed and distance unerring.

  As he put in the clutch and glided into a parking space at the Apple Store, she couldn't stop the question, “Do you collect speeding tickets?”

  He shrugged, pulling open his door. “Not as many as you might think.” He walked around to her side, extending his hand as she hopped out. “I tell you what, though, I was well under the speed limit driving home from the tournament the other night. I probably should have listened to you and Swede. It was a long trip home.”

  “I hope the new Jeep didn’t let you down?”

  “No, it was great, but the drifts out on the farmhouse road were pretty deep. I had to take a couple runs at a few of them to get through. I kind of took a flyer through the last one, ended up facing the way I came, right on the lip of the ditch. I thought for a second she was going to roll on in, but she hung on.” He smiled as he talked, clearly enjoying the memory.

  “You live on a farm?”

  He nodded and looked over to see her reaction. “My folks’ old place. My grandfather was born there.” She smiled.

  He didn’t really need her help. He’d obviously researched what he needed and had the savvy to understand the fine points. “Too bad the software can’t take the pictures for us,” Jack said as he tossed the bag onto the back seat of the Jeep. “None of us on the staff are very good.”

  “It’s a craft, just like any other. You improve with practice,” she said.

  He nodded and started the Jeep. “Improve, yeah, but I just don’t have the eye for it. Not like you. You hungry? We could stop somewhere.”

  “Not hungry, but I’d love a cup of coffee. There’s a nice little shop down by the Record.”

  They sat at a back table talking, laughing often, and sharing stories. She told him about her family, though he still hadn’t brought up what happened to his.

  He did tell her how absorbed the years had been since buying the Journal. “I had no idea what I was taking on,” he shook his head, remembering. “All the equipment was ancient, and so was most of the staff. There were a thousand details, and I sweated them all. When I put in the new computer and network system, I thought I’d never sleep again. Between that and the renovations of the building, I’d lie awake wondering how in the hell the bank ever thought I was worth the risk. But then we got a tidy litt
le side business going, providing templates and support to small business that need a web presence, and our press does all the printing for publications in neighboring counties, even some for ad agencies in Des Moines. Those revenues more than cover the payments. Most of the old guard’s retired, and the Journal operations have finally crawled into the black.”

  “So it’s a success story.” She was honestly impressed.

  “Well, I still hold my breath every time I open the bill for newsprint. The print product’s days are numbered, but Iowa is full of old folks who still like to hold a paper to read their news, so for now we'll keep it going. Meanwhile the website is booming, and I’m focusing on working in more interactive stuff. There’s always something new to learn, new to try. It’s fun now, watching it all come together. Of course, my personal life hasn’t been much to speak of.”

  “Ah, so that would be why the Governor is worried about you being a monk?” He just shrugged. “Tell me about this unusual relationship you’ve got with Erickson. I can’t imagine that he takes an interest in the love life of all his friends.”

  Jack rolled his eyes. “Well, we go back a ways.” Suddenly he looked at his watch. “Speaking of Swede, we need to leave for Terrace Hill in about an hour.”

  She hadn’t realized how much time had passed. “I’ve got to get home to change.”

  He shook his head. “No need. You look great.” She was wearing black jeans, half boots and a gray sweater.

  “Oh no, I am not going to dinner at the governor’s mansion wearing this.” He started to protest, but she held up her hand. “You still want a date?”

  He nodded. “Get going, and I’ll pick you up in 45 minutes. Where?” She gave him the address and hurried out.

  It really was just a small group of friends and family, about 12 in all. Tess enjoyed the evening more than she expected. In spite of the grand setting, it felt like a casual dinner party. The most ill at ease seemed, oddly, to be Elizabeth Erickson.