Alvin Funderburk was 73 years old. He had
been a newspaper man for the better part of 50 years, always at small local
newspapers that still covered the town council, county government, sanitary
board, planning department, school district and local police, along with weddings,
engagements, funerals, traffic violations and hospitals. They still covered
high school sports including football, basketball, soccer, wrestling, hockey
and lacrosse and ran photos of kids, dogs, cats and trophy fish.
He wore long-sleeve flannel shirts even in
the summer time with baggy olive green, gray or khaki trousers and a sleeveless
gray cardigan sweater, unbuttoned, with unfiltered Camel cigarettes in one side
pocket and a scratched and dented silver Zippo lighter in the other. His shirt
pocket was stuffed full of red pens, even though editing at the Packet was done on a computer screen and
not on paper like the old days. Some habits die hard.
He was known to drink Scotch at his desk,
even during the day time and whether he had visitors or not. He smoked too
much, had the rattling cough to prove it, and couldn’t care less. “Somethin’s
gotta kill ya,” he always said when friends suggested he should quit. His
clothes smelled like he’d been standing too close to a bonfire and his office
smelled like an ash tray. If that offended people, they need not come inside.
He had been at the Packet for 38 years and nothing had happened in or around the
island that Alvin didn’t know about. That included the disappearance of Mellie
Swinson some 20 years ago. Rob wouldn’t need to dig into any archives to get
information about the missing girl. All he had to do was meet with Alvin on
Monday afternoon, sit quietly in a chair with his arms folded and his legs
crossed and listen to Alvin talk. Next to writing, talking was what Alvin
Funderburk did best.
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