Read Online The Weatherman by Steve Thayer - Free Book Online Page B

in Minnesota, long and narrow, almost skeletal, with sharp features and soft skin that tanned well. But it was her eyes that made the face. They were big, brown, and outrageously beautiful-the kind of bedroom eyes that made men fell in love, even men who only saw her on television. Her hair was bold brunette, so rich in texture she could wear it long or short, or pull it behind her ears and put a rubber band in it-didn’t matter, it always fell from her head like on a television commercial.
    At the same time Rick Beanblossom was showing a new intern the edit rooms, Andrea Labore found herself with her own intern to educate.
    “Hi, I’m Jeff. I’m beginning my internship today and I was told I’d be going out with you-I mean, working with you-today. Sorry.” He was tall, boyish-looking. He’d need another ten years of aging before viewers would accept him as a reporter. He was nervous as hell. Andrea popped a pair of pills into her mouth and chased them with a Diet Coke. She choked on his introduction. “Oh, okay. My name is Andrea.” She stood and shook his hand. “I do have a story to shoot later, but I’ve been filling in at anchor. Charleen just had a baby.” “I’ve been watching you. On TV, I mean.” “That’s nice to hear. I’ll show you around a little before we go out on our shoot.”
    Among the new hires Clancy Communications brought to Channel 7 had been Andrea Labore, a slender, athletic young woman, just a few pounds short of skinny. She escaped by an inch being tagged flat. It was the kind of figure fashion loved, and Andrea loved fashion. Every two weeks clothes ate up half her paycheck. Some weeks her wardrobe pocketed the whole thing. This was her one guilt trip. She tried to justify her spending the way other women in the business did: she had to dress for television. But she worried she was only trying to dress up a modest upbringing.
    Andrea was born and raised on Minnesota’s Iron Range, where ice hockey rules, where people still talk about that strange Zimmerman boy who ran off to New York City and changed his name to Bob Dylan. Life on the range is rough, the future bleak. When America’s auto and steel industries went into decline, Northern Minnesota’s economy collapsed. Iron ore stayed in the ground. Iron men lost their jobs. A pit of despair in an otherwise prosperous state.
    Come winter on the range Andrea didn’t go outdoors for the freezing sports. Swimming was her thing. Swimming was the best exercise known to woman. Gliding unimpeded through water shaped her body and mind in a way that became near-spiritual to her, as if she had been baptized in a pool of chlorine. She won a combination academic/athletic scholarship to the University of Minnesota in Minneapolis, and like many of its young people Andrea Labore left the Iron Range, never to return.
    Unsure of what she wanted to do with her life, she considered majoring in journalism until a professor she trusted convinced her that journalism school was a waste of time. “Get a good liberal arts education,” he told her. “You’ll be much more valuable to a newsroom.” She graduated with honors, earning a bachelor’s degree in political science with a minor in English literature. She picked up a teaching certificate for good measure.
    But it wasn’t a career in news, education, or politics Andrea chose upon graduating. About the time the brown-eyed beauty from the Iron Range was being handed her diploma, the city of Minneapolis hired a new and progressive police chief to upgrade its aging and conservative police force. This new chief made the recruitment of women and minorities a high priority. Andrea joined up, winning a top spot in the chief’s first graduating class. With a badge, a blue uniform, and a gun she went to work in a squad car patrolling the high-crime district of North Minneapolis.
    One night in late autumn when the leaves are off the trees and the Minnesota air is bitter with frost, Andrea Labore shot