Chapter 5

The Langford Review had been one of the mainstays of downtown Langford since 1928, when the building was first built.

It was the third building from the end of the block, located on the north end of a block that featured many buildings of the same age and structure.

The Langford Review building had an upstairs on it, one distinguishing feature that only the former bank building at the end of the block shared.

The years had not been kind to many downtown buildings in Langford. Neglect, variances in weather and failure to update marked all the buildings, including this building, although it was in much better shape since it had been occupied all these years.

Nothing much had changed with the Review building, until the last two months. Since Michael Hunt took over the Review, he and Sandy with some help from Squiggy and Mule, at least when they weren’t so drunk they threw paint everywhere, had painted the walls a bright white and the concrete floor a shade of grey.

It helped, but there was still a smell in the building of oldness, combined with decades of smoking cigarettes, pipes and cigars. Michael had instituted a no-smoking policy, which didn’t set well with his cousin, who now had to go out back to toke on her generic brand of smokes.

Michael had also purchased three new computers, complete with new software, along with modern printers. He planned to get new desks and chairs, but had yet to do so.

Inside the building were books with every edition printed since 1918. There were also boxes of pictures the newspaper had used through the years. Most of them weren’t all that good, but they were a key part of the history of Langford, the good and bad through the years.

At one time, Michael hated this building and the newspaper it hosted. A lot of that had to do with his father forcing him to work since Michael was old enough to walk. While other kids got to play sports and participate in other activities, he was writing stories and taking pictures with an old Pentax camera that his father had just recently retired.

Michael still had mixed feelings about the Langford Review, but since he took over for his father, he had tried to make the environment a lot better.

As he stood on the second story of the Burroughs Building across the street, seeing the building explode from the inside took away a lot of him.

His first worry was if anybody was inside. His other workers, Nancy and Teresa, had left for the day and as far as Michael knew, nobody else would be inside. He had left the door unlocked in the excitement, but at least if somebody did disintegrate, it wasn’t his responsibility.

It was a little amazing to see history go up in smoke like this. Michael was too stunned to move for several seconds, at least until Sheriff Patterson came up beside him.

“What the heck?” the sheriff said.

“It just blew up,” Michael said.

“Boom, huh?”

Michael broke his attention away from the burning building and looked at the sheriff. He wanted to say something about the sheriff’s intelligence, but didn’t feel up to it.

Instead, he shook his head and walked out of the room, down the stairway and out the back of the building. As he rounded the corner, Mule and Squiggy were advancing at a quick pace.

“We caught him!” Squiggy said.

Michael could only nod. He had been there and taken pictures, of course.

“You reckon there’s any reward for capturing the man who shot Porky?”

Michael shrugged again. He started walking away from them, but they quickly caught up.

“What was that noise?” Mule asked.

“Somebody just blew up the Review,” Michael said. He remembered that was talking to Sandy when the building exploded and would probably be wondering if he was still alive. “Let me use your phone, Squiggy.”

Squiggy frowned. He had to buy minutes for the phone and didn’t want to waste any. Big Uns, his sometime girlfriend, got awful fussy whenever the minutes were out and she couldn’t talk to him.

“Uh, I don’t got many minutes,” he said.

“I’ll buy some,” Michael said. “I need to call Sandy.”

“Where’s your phone?”

“I left it upstairs after the building exploded.”

“You could always go get it,” Squiggy said.

“Just let him use your phone,” Mule said.

Squiggy rolled his eyes and then glared at his buddy. “Just keep it short, okay?”

Michael nodded and accepted the phone. He started to dial but didn’t have any luck. “How do you use this dang thing?”

“You gotta use the code.”

“Well, what is it?”

“Here, let me have it. I’ll do it.”

“You fraid Mikey’s gonna steal your phone?” Mule asked.

“Uh, no.” Squiggy grabbed the phone and entered the code. He handed the phone back to Michael. “Here you go.”

Michael dialed Sandy’s number and waited a few seconds. Finally, she answered. “Somebody blew up the Review.”

“Are you okay?” Sandy asked.

“How’d you get out?” Mule asked.

Squiggy pulled his hat off and popped Mule with it. “That don’t make no difference. Let him get off the dang phone.”

Michael covered up the phone. “I wasn’t in there.”

“I guess that’s why you ain’t extra crispy, eh?”

They walked along the sidewalk next to the Burroughs Building. Michael was telling Sandy what happened when the phone beeped. “This thing’s beeping,” he told Sandy.

“Must be somebody calling,” Mule said proudly.

“Duh, you think?” Squiggy said. “Hang up! It’s probably Big Uns. She’ll think I’m talking to some other chick and pluck my back hairs out again.”

Michael told Sandy that he would call her back and handed the phone over to Squiggy, who quickly hit the button.

“Hey, baby,” he said. After a brief pause, Squiggy was quickly defensive. “No, I wasn’t talking to the redhead…Naw, she’s butt ugly…I was drunk!...Mikey was using the phone to call his chick…Naw, you’re the dadgummed idiot!”

Squiggy hung up the phone and shook his head. They rounded the corner and saw the fire was spreading to the adjacent buildings. The first fireman had just arrived on the scene and was standing in the middle of the street, dressed in his yellow outfit.

The Langford Fire Department was used to fighting house fires and grass fires. Twice before, part of downtown had burned. The old theater had caught on fire in the late 1970s while the funeral home burned in the 1990s. Sadly, like many volunteer fire departments in small towns, they didn’t have the equipment to fight a fire of this intensity.

A call had already gone out to the fire department in Poteau, requesting help. The Poteau Fire Department had the equipment necessary to battle a fire like this, but they were tied up at an apartment fire.

Within a minute, the first fire truck showed up. The firemen went to work, trying to keep the block from burning to the ground. Most of the buildings were empty and some thought it would be an improvement, but their job was to get the fire under control.

In the next few minutes, downtown was filled with onlookers. It was one of the worst traffic jams in Langford history. As Michael, Squiggy and Mule stood on the corner watching, Sheriff Patterson walked up beside them.

He held out Michael’s phone. “Here, somebody wants to talk to you.”

Michael grabbed the phone and answered. His blood soon turned cold.