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they’re pretty sure they didn’t pay close to a million dollars to live near one.”
    Seth grinned as he looked up from his menu. “Not after Minnie finished talking to them anyhow.”
    Minnie used to be president of the county’s Democratic Women and she’s shepherded me through both of my campaigns. Comfortably plump and fast going gray, she keeps an eye on the larger community for the family and rallies us to the cause when she thinks we’re needed.
    “Times like this, I really miss Linsey Thomas,” she sighed.
    The owner and editor of
The Dobbs Ledger
died in a hit-and-run almost a year ago, a case that remains unsolved despite the large reward posted by his loyal readers. I was still messing around with a game warden from down east then, with no thought of marrying anybody, much less Dwight Bryant, Sheriff Bo Poole’s chief deputy; but I remember how long and how hard Bo’s whole force worked to find the driver, only to come up dry.
    Linsey Thomas was a straight-shooting liberal from a long line of liberals. His grandfather was labeled a commie during the McCarthy era. His father had advocated integration during the civil rights movement, back when the KKK was still active in the county. They burned a cross on the Thomas lawn and shot out all the windows at the
Ledger
. When Linsey took over the paper, he continued their tradition. Didn’t matter if the miscreants were Republican or Democrat, the
Ledger
named names and kicked butt whenever county officials favored special interests or began to think no one cared if they bent the rules for themselves or their friends. Linsey cared and he made his readers care.
    Regrettably for us, he had been a childless only child and ownership of the paper had passed to a distant cousin down in Florida, who promptly sold it to a conservative conglomerate that looks upon a community newspaper as something to wrap around advertising and two-for-one or ten-cents-off coupons.
    The waiter returned with Daddy’s butter and took our orders—steak for Minnie and Seth, broiled shrimp for Daddy, grilled chicken salad for me.
    “Linsey would have explained exactly what a stump dump was and illustrated it with photographs from the one that caught on fire over in Johnston County,” said Minnie, handing her menu to the waiter.
    “He’d’ve printed who was asking for the permit and whether or not an impact study had been done,” Seth agreed.
    Daddy frowned. “Don’t believe I’ve seen a single mention of it in the paper.”
    “No, and you won’t,” Minnie said. She broke a roll in half and shared it with Seth, who grumbled that he was with Daddy when it came to dunking your bread in olive oil instead of buttering it like God intended. “Ruby’s not going to rock any boats. Long as the advertising keeps coming in, her bosses in Florida don’t care that she can’t put together a decent paper.”
    Ruby Dixon is a tall, horse-faced woman who had been a good reporter till gin got the best of her. Even falling-down drunk, she could write like an angel. Linsey had inherited her from his dad and didn’t have the heart to fire her. Before his death, she’d managed to stay sober till late afternoon. After he died, she was handed the editorship and now we hear that she starts her days with a glass of liberally laced orange juice sitting on her desk. The best reporters have drifted away and the
Ledger
doesn’t print much substantive news any more.
    What saves her is the county’s explosive growth. The paper’s advertising department sells so many ads that the inserts weigh at least three times more than the eight or ten sheets of newsprint. As long as deaths, weddings, and high school ball scores are reported, and which churches are having revivals or guest gospel singers, which kids have made the honor roll, and what the school cafeterias are serving this week, most people don’t seem to care that the
Ledger
no longer takes unpopular stands or tries to educate and inform. There