January 20

Later in the Morning

Well, this was not going as she had planned. Mr. Gibson stood before her, his face red and stern, with beadlets of sweat at his brow.

"What do you mean that you cannot release the information to me?" She leaned towards the desk and his face became even redder in response.

"It means exactly what I said, Mrs. Coulter, that I am not allowed to disclose any information regarding any of my employees present or past."

A vein bulged out of his forehead. She would have thought it quite amusing except for the fact that she was the one who caused it and he was being quite stubborn at the moment. She exhaled and looked around taking a moment to reevaluate how to proceed. The Hope Valley Newspaper Office was quiet this morning, with two male journalists hammering out their latest stories on typewriters at old battered desks, and Mary, the secretary of the paper, sitting peacefully at her desk jotting notes on her calendar, the soft curve of her face a welcome sight in this sea of manliness.

Ah, that was it! Feminine charms always did the trick. She batted her eyelashes. She had gone about this all wrong. Perhaps she should follow Abigail's advice, that "honey attracts more flies than vinegar". Honey was what she needed to attract this big fly. Mr. Gibson looked at her, his eyes bulging, his neck protruding and tense. Mustering up all the 'honey' she could, she smiled sweetly and softened her posture.

"Mr. Gibson, I have never told you how much I sincerely appreciate the opportunity you have given me to write in the newspaper weekly—" she paused and evaluated his stance. So far his face still beamed red and his eyes were more stubborn than ever. "What I mean to say, is how wonderful that Hope Valley has an Editor-in-Chief such as yourself—" Still, she felt his disposition stiff and unrelenting. Perhaps sweetness would work on a fellow who had a heart, but this Mr. Gibson, he was a hard one to crack. She would have to resort to threatening him. In her soft, gentle way of course. She cleared her throat.

"As you know, I have not been paid one red cent for the exhaustive work I have done for your paper, not to mention the many lives I have affected… All I am curious to is the past of this article and I do not believe that is too much to ask of you."

She nodded, pride surging in her heart. She had phrased the words with a wonderful combination of pose, grace, and strength. What would Mr. Gibson say to that?

He gave a long, weary sigh.

"It remains to be seen if your article is actually an asset to our newspaper, Mrs. Coulter." He took a deep breath, his belly bulging over the waist of his pants. "But perhaps an exchange is in order." He snapped his fingers. "Mary, find me all that we have on the great Dr. Love and her articles."

Mary stood and turned towards them, her belly swollen under her maternity dress as she was obviously expecting her own little one, the first offspring of Dewitt Graves.

"Oh, Mr. Gibson, sir, I have already given you all that we had on that file."

Mr. Gibson's forehead rose in question.

"I placed it on your desk just last week."

"Very well." Mr. Gibson said. "Come, Mrs. Coulter."

She followed him back to his desk where he sorted through quite a flurry of papers, including numerous files with the contents spilling out. He opened the right drawer of his desk and shuffled through it and then closed it. He proceeded to open the other drawer with the same result.

"I'm sorry I guess you are out of luck, Mrs. Coulter." He shrugged his shoulders.

If the man thought she was going to give up, he had another thing coming. She was Rosemary Coulter, after all, and nothing would stand between her and this mystery. Even if she had to clean Mr. Gibson's desk herself. She looked at the desk and sighed heavily. Mr. Gibson stayed planted behind the desk, looking as if it didn't bother him one bit that his files were in such disarray. She tapped her foot. It was a stand off if she ever knew one. She wasn't leaving this office empty handed.

After a moment, Mr. Gibson shrank under her scrutiny and sank into his chair, picking up and handkerchief and mopping his sweaty brow. He looked as if he was desperate to be rid of her. She continued to stand, glaring at him.

He folded the handkerchief. "I told you, the file is missing, I have no idea about this Dr. Love and the mystery you're after."

She continued to stand, her feet firmly planted. This time, she put her hands on her hips.

A new coat of sweat had broken out on his brow and he swiped at it furiously.

"Okay, okay, I will tell you one piece of information and believe me, this is the one and only piece of information I remember."

She smiled and clapped her hands. "Oh, do tell!"

He gave her an irritated look, then continued. "The author of Dr. Love's column— I never met her in person. In fact, we had a system of sorts of how she would drop off her article. While you rely Hickam to slip your article under the door every Thursday morning on his way to work—"

She gasped. She would have to be having a talk with that Hickam. Obviously he was not as discreet as she would have imagined. Perhaps he was the reason why her whole identity as the advice columnist had been revealed. He was the weak link. She crossed her arms.

Mr. Gibson continued on. "Her preferred method of submitting her article was quite odd indeed. Every Thursday afternoon, I would receive a letter postmarked from Edmonton with her beautiful script written on the outside of the envelope and inside a perfectly handwritten article. Dare I say, I didn't have to edit one single word." His eyebrow lifted. "Unlike someone I know."

She scoffed. "Are you meaning to imply my articles are less than perfect? It's your editing that eradicates all the pizzazz and flavor from my writings, leaving them with only half the life they once had." Her cheeks burned. The man was outrageous!

Mr. Gibson exhaled slowly as if he were praying for patience. "As I was saying, I often thought her method for sending in her article was odd, being sent from Edmonton and all."

She let down her hackles for a moment to consider what he was saying. "That is odd considering she is a resident of Hope Valley."

He lifted a finger. "Oh, I never said she was from Hope Valley. I naturally assumed she was since she conveyed details in her articles that were only privy those belonging to our town, but even the payment, she had me submit it through the bank in Edmonton." Mr. Gibson bit his lip, looking as if he wished he could grab that last piece of information back.

Interesting. So, Dr. Love submitted her articles through the Edmonton mail service, was paid through the Edmonton bank, yet knew so many intimate details of the residents of Hope Valley she must have been one herself. That was something she for sure would be scrawling down in her sleuthing notebook.

Mr. Gibson stood up and ushered her to his office door. "Good day, Mrs. Coulter," he said in way of dismissing her.

"Good day. Oh, and I forgot to mention— how kind of you to send the articles over in the first place." Her words dripped with honey.

His face softened. "Oh, sure, sure. Mr. Coulter mentioned you were in need of something to occupy your time. Did you make some headway through the articles I sent over?"

She smiled and paused by the doorway. "Yes, I have in fact." And she had this past week, meticulously pouring over the articles scouring them for any clues to who this Dr. Love truly was.

"Yes, well from 1907 to 1910 was about the run of her career." Mr. Gibson said as Rosemary scratched her head. Something was nagging the back of her mind. "The last letter I received from her—" Again, a niggling thought, "said she was dreadfully sorry but because of personal circumstances she was going to have to withdraw from authoring the Dr. Love column."

"Wait!" The thought snapped into place. "You said a letter came every Thursday? For three years?"

Mr. Gibson looked confused. "Yes, nearly three years. She never missed a submission."

Her lips lifted. "Mr. Gibson, by what you are telling me, Dr. Love should have nearly one hundred and fifty articles she penned. Is that correct?"

Mr. Gibson looked as if he wanted to scratch out the problem on a sheet of scrap paper. "Well, she worked from June of 1907 until, was it May 1910? Yes, there about. And with each year having 52 weeks and give or take an article…"

She waited for him to come around.

"Yes, that sounds accurate. All I know is it was the longest run we have had by a singular advice columnist, but you may surpass that, might you, Mrs. Coulter?"

"That is definitely my intent." She nodded. "But, I assumed the papers you sent home with Lee were the extent of Dr. Love's articles, but perhaps they were more of a sampling?"

"Oh, yes. Mr. Coulter happened to come in when I was purging some of my files, and well, after talking about your nasty fall and all as well as your love for the paper, well it just seemed natural to send the old papers home with Mr. Coulter."

"So you have more?"

Mr. Gibson waved at the file cabinets out in the front office. "Heavens, yes!"

Rosemary released the breath she had been holding.

"Mary, where are the rest of the newspapers from our five year purge?" He looked out to the secretary sitting at her neat desk.

Mary's mouth formed an 'O'. "Mr. Gibson, sir, Mr. Jameston just picked up the papers for kindling this morning."

Rosemary flew into a panic. She would need to track down Mr. Jameston at once. She had half a mind to throttle Mr. Gibson for the way he ran his business. Old papers given as kindling? What of records? Of preserving the past and such?

Mr. Gibson shrugged.

Rosemary sprung to action. "Thank you, Mary. Have you any idea of where Mr. Jameston was headed?"