Crunch Time

I wake up early and note I have only been sleeping for four hours. This is the third night. I've taken to sleeping on the couch again, my roommate says I talk in my sleep and I keep waking him up.

The couch is nice enough though, except for the door. The towel is there constantly (again much to the chagrin of my roommate) but my eyes begin to dart there every few minutes...even in the day. Chalk it up to lack of sleep I guess. Stress, or at least that's what I want to think, because there is no other real explanation for what I saw.

I like my showers hot. Really hot. My skin was beat red this morning (not unusual) and the tiny bathroom filled with scalding steam. I was breathing deep, letting the hot air into my lungs as I stepped out of the shower and into the whiteness. I feel my way to mirror and wipe it down. I looked tired. The circles under my eyes are getting bigger. I begin to brush my teeth and that's when I feel something inside the room with me.

I couldn't see in the whiteness, but I feel it. Sensing it somehow. A presence. I swing my arms around, pushing the white wall apart only to have it pour back in to fill the gap. The room is small and I cover the space in no time. It is empty. But I still feel it.

My heart pounds as I fumble back to the mirror. I try to think about something else as I finish brushing. But I can't. I close my eyes and breath and now it was right behind me. I feel something on my neck again. I do not turn around.

I start to get dizzy and the white room start to spin. It is still there with me. Right next to me no matter where I turn. I slip and sink to the floor. I close my eyes again. Afraid of passing out. afraid of what It would do to me.

My ears are roaring with my heart beat and shut my eyes tighter. My stomach drops as if I was on a roller coaster.

It touches my forehead. A cool light touch in the heat.

The roaring stops and I open my eyes to an empty room.


A case of synopsises firing off randomly in my brain, a momentary case of a mental stutter, like de ja vu' . Couple it with a case of the heebie-jeebies thinking about a dead girl in the middle of the night and what else do you need to explain it.

As you can see, my mind keeps coming back to it. To her, the Room. They are the same thing to me now. I cannot think of Rose without seeing the door at the end of the hall. A door that isn't there anymore. I think about it almost all day, trying to fit together.

So my articles is going slow. My editor, a third year journalism major, is being unusually patient. I think she know that something big is coming. Last time I took this long on one article, the school Had itself it's first "award winning" student journalist.

I have the accident report in my hand now. It came yesterday and is not very helpful. It states the obvious. There was a fire in the room, security came first and could not enter, police and fire came. The fire is put out and Rose is dead. End of story.

All though it provides a useful time line, there is no new information.

But I'm writing the damn thing anyway. All I seem to have are puzzle pieces that seem to point, seem to allude that something about her death was wrong. All I can do is give the pieces to readers and let them decide. I have no answers for them, just things, questions.

I could sit on it. Wait for more, dig deeper...but I need to put this behind me. I need to stop thinking about it so much.

So I will write it. They will print it.

And maybe then I will be able to sleep.

The Local Color

Most people in Hayden distrust the students, the non-local ones anyway. We are the ones who want "to cause a ruckus" every Friday night at the usually quiet night spots (few of which stay open past 10pm).

This is most true, I think for PJ's Pub a dive bar within walking distance of Old Campus. Since WLU is a dry campus, PJ's is sure to be crowded with students from 5pm on Friday night to 2am Sunday morning.

A trip there on a week night, however, yields a different result. The jukebox is usually playing country music, and most of the patron are older men who you'd be afraid to even glace at in the outside world.

They are a motley crew made up mostly of guys who work menial jobs around town, construction grunts, janitors, mechanics, and if your lucky those who work behind the scenes at WLU.

I wasn't feeling lucky as I walked inside last night. Not surprisingly Johnny Cash rose into the air and mixed with the sound of pool balls clacking lackadaisically against one another. There are maybe only 10 people there and I am the only student. I get a few looks, but once the see it's me the hostility leaves their eyes and turns to simple disinterest.

"Hey you." It's Crissy the ever present Bar Tender. She is younger than most of the patrons tonight. Her nails are painted pink today, but are already chipped from grabbing bottles and wiping down the grimy wood on the bar.

"Hey" I say and sit down. I have to squint in the dim light to make out the names on the bottles behind her.

"What can I get ya?" She asks absently and scratches a tiny stud in her nose. I order a jack and coke and she delivers. Deftly making a strong drink in one fluid motion.

"Thanks. Hey is Bill Martsen here?"

"Yep. Right over there." She points to the corner by the dart board. I start to walk away and she grabbes my arm.

"He's drunk Chris."

"I know."

"Don't start any trouble here, ok? You know how he gets."

I tell her I know and not to be worried. Bill Martsen is leaning against the dartboard now finishing off a pitcher of beer. He is a big man with broad shoulders and huge hairy arms covered in tattoos. I guess his age at about 37 but he looks a lot older. As far as I know he has been working on the campus facilities maintenance staff since he was 19 or 20. His brow knots up as I approach trying to figure out who I am. His dark eyes light up.

"Lewis! How fuck are you? You slummin' it tonight er' what?" He pats me on the back a little to hard.

"Yeah yeah. I know I have come in in a while."

"Two weeks" Crissy yells from the bar.

"Yeah I've been busy."

"With da Williams-Cohen thing eh?"

"Yeah."

"Helluva goddamn thing Lewis" He says and takes a swig out of the pitcher. "She really was a good kid. Her dad's a piece of fuckin' shit is you ask me. But Rose was a class act."

"Did you know her well?"

Bill grins and raises his eyebrows and points a thick finger in my face.

"I know that look in yer' eye Lewis. Yer flippin' into reporter mode aren't ya?"

"Sorry."

"No, it's ok, ok? Yor a natural and it's what you do. I didn't know her well really, but she was always nice to me. Never afraid to say hi when she saw me on campus fixin' somthin' or something. "

He takes another swig and smile again, belches and continues.

" Once her shower drain got clogged, right? So they call me out and she answers the door in a towel. Wooo jesus she was hot! A looker yep?"

"I guess."

"You guess my ass! You know it. Anyways I fix it up right for her and the next night, she bought me a drink and this very bar! Right in front of her friends too. See what I mean class act."

"Where you there the night of the fire?"

"No I was off that night. But one of the new guys on security was there. Burt? Bart? Bill? No, no that's me. Anyways he was there an' he said it was awful."

"Are you working on the room now."

"Ayup. You bet. Holy shit kid you should seen the place. All burnt out and shit. But it's almost done but you know how we work. Sloooooow."

"Do you know what caused the fire? How did it start? There hasn't been a report by the fire department yet."

"Yeah it's weird. Now I don't know nothing about fires, so's when I saw the fire inspector in there when we started working, I ask him if we need to rewire anything or what and he just blows me off. The fucker!"

"Really?"

"So later I make a call to see if something was wrong with the wiring or stove or gas or what, but they don't tell me jack. Then my Martin Garvey gives me shit and tells me to drop it! Everything's fine he says, but how hell does he know? There aint' no report?"

I was stunned.

"So the head of facilities and maintainence told you not to look into the cause of the fire?"

"You bet kid."

"Can I quote you on that? Anonymously of course."

"Well my good buddy, I may consider it for another pitcher of beer..."

"Bill that's unethical."

Bill just laughs and pats me on the back again. I call for a pitcher of Guinness.

By midnight the two pitchers were empty and I was drunk. I finish my lecture to Bill on why I am still a fan of the LA Dodgers and totter out the door. Before I leave I remember to ask him one more question.

"Bill."

"Wha?"

"Did you find anything in the room? Like drugs?"

"Drugs? Huh? She did drugs?"

"I don't know. I think she had some problems we didn't know about Bill. Did you find anything out of the ordinary?"

"I don't think so. Um we there all the shit that wasn't totally toasted in boxes and shoved them in a storage building on campus."

"What storage? Where? Do you have a key?"

"Whoa, whoa! Not so fast. No I don't remember which one sorry."

"That's okay Bill."

Wave goodbye to Crissy and stumble into the night. I walked back to Overton through the fog. The sky was clear though and the stars were out and the air was cold and crisp.

I woke up this morning with a hangover and find a scrap of paper in my drunken hand detailing the conversation in the bar with Bill. I am surprised I retained so much of the conversation. I before I head to class I underline a few phrases and make a few notes.

I I ought to go the bar a weeknights more often...

The Fool

I'm not going to class today and I'm calling in sick to work.

I didn't sleep last night, spending the long hours of the night in front of the TV, not really watching anything, always looking out of the corner of my eye at the door, jumping every time a shadow swept across it. The hall lights never go off so I put a towel across the bottom again, but I still found my eyes wondering over to the door.

The bastard is making me paranoid.

And by the bastard I mean whoever R. is. He/she is playing with me for no apparent reason. At first, I though he/she would pan out as a source in this Williams-Cohen mess, but now I'm not sure.

I showed up at Williams-Cohen Hall about 10 after. I had to take the long way around because the football field was closed when the home bleachers stated to sink into the ground. The fog was out (as always) and I felt as if I needed to physically shake it off as I walked inside. The Hall was quiet as usual, and as I made my way to the room I realized that the door was gone.

The doorway to Room 312 was a gaping hole. Empty and covered by a thick white plastic sheet. I walked up and pushed it back and almost broke my neck, stumbling over a sawhorse and knocking it over.

The room was a maze of plastic sheets, one on each wall and a long multilayered one that split the space in to. They were two thick to see through, and I couldn't See the walls. but the floor was stripped bare down to the concrete and cans of white paint lay in seemingly random plies on the floor.

It was dark and I wasn't smart enough to bring a flashlight. The window was still boarded up but the sheets still rustled softly as if there was a breeze.

"Hello?"

Nothing. I continue to push through the sheets absently. There is a sound behind me. I turn around a little to fast.

Still nothing.

"Hey. Are you gonna tell me something or what?" Again there is a rustling sound, I throw open the sheet and try to go under it. On the other side is a second sheet. Was it there before?

"Chris."

In my ear, whispered.

"Holy shit!" I try to spin around and fall into the plastic sheets. It tears and falls on top of me. I'm trapped, flailing, wrapped in plastic. I thrash and spin hitting paint cans and gasping for air as I swim through, trying to find an opening.

I crash into a wall and finally get the goddamn thing off me. I stand up and I am shaking. The Room is silent. Several of the sheets hang askew. A puddle of paint lays in the middle of the floor. The can rolls, grating against the concrete. It stops at the wall next to me.

I am shaking, but I don't see anyone.

"Well fuck you then!" I shout, I doesn't come out like I want it to. My voice has a reedy quality that scares me even more.

I turn to leave and there is something taped to the wall by the doorway.

A tarot card.

THE FOOL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Fool_(Tarot_card)

The picture shows a man about to walk off a cliff. I curse again and shove it in my pocket and begin to walk away. I check the halls and they are empty. I am almost at the door when I hear the plastic rustle again. I turn around and see something move behind the veil.

"Gotcha bitch!"

I sprint back down the hall at full speed, crashing through the plastic and charging the figure.

"You think this is funny!"

I am talking to am empty room again.

Fuck.

The floor RA comes out to see what the hell is going on.

"Excuse me, your not supposed to be in there."

"I'm with the Journal, the campus newspaper. Your Sally Mendoza right? The RA for the floor."

"Yeah."

"Have you seen anyone poking around here lately?"

"You."

"Besides me."

"Um not really. Her friend Michelle comes sometimes. She doesn't go in though. She cries so I leave her alone. She's writing a book you know."

"I know. Did Rose ever get written up Sally?"

"That's none of you business."

"I won't print it I'm just curious. Did she?"

"Yeah a couple times for noise. and once for having a boy in the room after hours."

"Who was the boy?"

"...."

"I promise I wont print it."

"Dean Anett."

"Okay thanks." I walk away. Flustered and empty handed. The fog swallows me up as I walk out the door and into the night.

The Diary

A week has passed since my last entry, and I have spent it holed up reading the diary. I made copies and sent the original back to Michelle (no sense i getting stuck with that).

She is right, by the way. It is an old one, starting in 2005, which would have been her sophomore year, an in total is only about eight pages long... But what they say, I think, speaks volumes.

Oct. 21, 2005

"The saddest part, about the drugs anyway is that I have been like this since I was 13! But I'm trying to get clean now, and I think that if I really want it I can stop."

Oct. 30th, 2005

"Fuck it, did acid again. Me and XXXXX* decided to stay in the room. At first I though we got ripped off again by XXXXX, but after an hour it came on real strong. I remeber looking out at the windows on the University Ave house and they were eyes and I though they were trying to look for my soul, but they couldn't find it...I thought maybe I had lost my soul..."

Nov. 2nd 2005

"Satyed home this week. Told mom and dad I was sick and spent the last few night in the bathroom, they think its the flu. It hurts so much not to be able to say anything. I flushed all the shit down the toilet. It was right, but now I'm cold and shaking and I fucking want it..."

Nov.3rd,2005

"Can't do this, too tired. Found enough coke for a couple lines. I'm smoothed out now, going to find XXXXXX later, to get more...I really don't think I can do this double life thing anymore, one is gonna win out, I think but I don't think I'm strong enough to do this. I can't."

Nov.16th, 2005

"Went to a rave in LA, some warehouse XXXXX gets some Ex and some weed and we get faded and drive there. Met some guy from UCLA and he hooks us up with some speed...I started puking all over him and ran to the stinky bathroom. It smells and I cry in a stall till XXXX comes to find me. I don't remember doing it but she says I was screaming at the mirror. all in all kind of a downer night."

Nov.23rd, 2005

"I know I need help. I know it. I knew it when I sat down to write a suicide note last night. I was fcked up, but still... again can't tell my parents and can't tell the school. I'm the "good girl" the "community leader" and stuff and it makes me happy but this habit leaves me empty. I fill the void, I guess, with school stuff but all the time I have this sinking feeling in my stomach, cuz I know that when everyone goes away I will be getting fucked up on weed or acid or speed or coke or whatever else I can find and XXXXX and Michelle are the only ones who really know. I can see in their eyes that they are afraid or waking up one day and finding me dead. They worry so much but don't say a thing. I think the truth is that they would be better off with out me here to worry them so."

????(no date here) 2005

Some times I feel

Like an empty house

With empty rooms

My eyes like windows

full of light

To mask the void behind

What will the neighbors say?

When the bulbs BURN out?

When the paint begins to peel?

And they see

I am

Haunted

Dec.3rd, 2005

"Began my volunteer service at the shelter in Oxnard this week. I like going there because I think I understand some of the girls. I can't really tell them, but on a level. They know I think they can tell. I spent most of my time with a girl who is a cutter, and has awful scars on her arms. She is doing well, and I think 'at least I'm not that bad', and as bad as it sounds, it gives me hope cuz if she can get her life together. Maybe there is hope for me."

* The names here were blacked out, I assume by Michelle, but I can't be sure.

And that's all there was, only eight pages, but eight explosive ones nonetheless. NO ONE knew save Michelle and a few other souls. Who would have thought that Rose Cohen was a "troubled youth"? I had seen it before, you know the pregnant prom queen, the star jock with a bad meth habit...but Rose Williams-Cohen?

But it makes sense doesn't it? The money, the family, and add to that the stress any normal kid has in college and I suppose it can happen to anyone.

So why did Michelle show this to me? Dose she think there was something more to Rose's death?

There is still no official report on the fire, by the way and they are still working on Room 312. Campus is buzzing with rumors about who will or will not live there next. I'm still sniffing around at the office but NO ONE IS TALKING...

Yesterday, I was making copies of the pages in the Archives Warehouse for the Star, when the phone rang. Expecting the receptionist to answer, I ignored it. But it rang and rang and rang. Thinking maybe she was at lunch I cursed under my breath as I attempted to answer it.

ring

ring

ring

I try to navigate the massive maze of old, musty stakes of yellowed news print. The air reeks of mold and concrete is damp and cold. I take a series o rights and lefts, moving ( I hoped) closer to the phone...

ring

ring

ring

I hit the back aisle and the long fluorescent light is on the fritz. It flickers and twitches and phone keeps ringing.

The phone is at an old oak desk and the whole thing is covered in a fine layer of dust. I caught and pick it up anyway, sending the particles dancing in the strobe of the hinky lights.

"hello, archives."

"Mr. Lewis?"

"Uh yes?" I say. I haven't heard the voice before.

"Please come to your desk. There is a young lady here to see you."

"Huh? Who is it?"

" I don;t know Mr. Lewis, but she says its about some kind of a room."

I bolt out of the archives, picking up the copies and the diary on my way out. I hit the elevator,

and deciding not to wait, take the stairs. By the time I get to my desk my shirt is soaked I sweat.

"Hello?"

But there is nobody at my desk. I ask Lee Mann, the Obit writer at the desk next to mine I he saw anyone.

He didn't. In fact he tells me, there isn't even a working phone in the archive warehouse. I tell him about the one in the back and he shrugs, maybe he forgot, but he says he's sure that it been at least 30 years sine there was a working phone there

There was a note, sort of. On my computer screen.

C.L.

Tomorrow in THE ROOM 10pm

R.

I delete in and make a note.

After my shift I go back to the archives and walk all the way to the back again. Someone fixed the light, but the phone and desk are gone.

The Williams-Cohen House

Is a massive custom home that sits safely behind several way, fences, and guardhouses is small gated community in North Hayden, were small city suberbia begins to give way to the flat agricultural terrain of Camarillo.

It was a fifteen minute drive from the cemetery, I had never been there but all I had to due was follow the limos again. I was swept through the gate and followed them up through winding streets where the homes sat perched back in groves of trees and veiled by ornate fences. This was were the movers and shakers of Hayden live. The Mayor, half the City Council, and all major players in the community all living within a few blocks of each other. It was the place to be, anyone who is anyone in Hayden lives in The Grove.

Which is probably why Richard Williams-Cohen II decided to take up residence here instead of his ancestral home in South Hayden Village. He and his wife, so it goes donated the multi roomed Victorian monster to the Hayden Historic Society and it is now a museums dedicated to "The Founding Family of Hayden".

Luxury cars littered the driveway and I was forced to park mine on the street. The "small gathering" was, in fact a large one; I stepped into the marble entryway and guessed that there had to be around 40 people there. Many were neighbors, fellow elite from The Groves and other VIPs who were family friends.

It made me feel a little odd, being the only person under 30 in sight, and I made my way into a plush sitting room to the open bar set up in the corner. Mr. Williams knew his booze well, and I opted for a scotch, guessing that it would be both expensive and good...I was right.

I found Mr. and Mrs. Williams-Cohen in a small sitting room, engulfed in a crowd of friends. Helen Williams-Cohen, a thin woman with her daughter's eyes and blond hair, sat with he husband sobbing lightly as they whispered, mumbling to the group.

As I was working up the nerve to speak to them, I spotted a girl sweep past me and move into the entry. Relieved to find someone my age I followed her.

It was Michelle Levin, I caught a glimpse of her as she dashed up the stairs. She nodded her head before disappearing into the hallway.

There were many doors on the second floor, but at the end of the hall only one stood open. She was sobbing heavily as I stepped inside.

"You want me to leave?"

"No. No."

"You sure?"

"You know, this was her room. Before she, before she moved to campus."

"Yeah."

"Your the guy from the paper right? Lewis or something?"

I just nod, she tried compose herself, slipping a finger through her hair and fixing her glasses. She fidgeted with the hem of her little black dress.

"So?" She says.

"What?"

"You want a quote or what?"

"Uh yeah, sure. If your up to it. You were best friends right?"

"Yes" she says. "We were roommates freshman year. We got real close. I feel like she was my sister." She starts sobbing again.

"I'm sorry. It must be hard."

"Yes, she was such a wonderful person. I, I'm gonna write a book about her life."

"Really?"

"Yes. She was such a beautiful person, people need to know that. She had her struggles, but she was an angle. The things she overcame to become the person she was..."

"Struggles?" I asked, smelling something in the air.

"Yes. well..."

"Look Michelle, I won't give your name if that's what you're worried about. But if there is something you know."

"It's nothing. A private matter to Rose, you know, but the police, they aren't saying anything about the fire you know."

"I know."

"Yeah well, there's things about her...Rose. That people don't know."

"No one is perfect. What kind of things Michelle."

"Look. I'll show you." She gets up and heads over to a desk in the corner of the room. opens a drawer and pulls out a small pink book.

"This is an old diary. I found in in here stuff here. She showed it to me once, when I slept over. I remembered it and Her parents let me see her stuff for the book, you know?"

She hands it to me.

"Its old, kinda, her other diary...you know burned..."

"Yeah."

"Read it you'll see. People should know how brave she was. What she went through. They need the truth, you know?"

The question was pleading. I took the book and put it in my coat. I got a few more quotes and left. I finished my drink and left, not wanting to face the family knowing I was snooping into there dead daughter's things.

I hold it now, the diary... in my hands not quite knowing what I will find.

Funeral

They held the service on Sunday.

The small chapel was packed with mourners, family, students, about 200 all told. They spread out from the flowered alter and into the court yard. At some point, they spilled out into the street, or so I'm told: I had a good seat in front with Luce, the Journal's photographer.

The service in the chapel was as short as it could be. The day was hot, hitting over 90 by noon. I hardly remember looking up to the alter with the ivory casket, but rather scribbling furiously as the many speakers rattled on about the Rose and her "young, vibrant life".

It was the usual eulogy, but with a star studded list of names. It began with the WLU President, who announced the formation of the Rose Williams-Cohen Civic Scholarship and a memorial rose garden that was to be planted in the chapel courtyard.

Next there was a city council woman, a Friend of the family and I'm sure, followed by Michelle Levin, Rose's "best friend since childhood" and finally her father and mother.

Last there was a swift blessing from the Lutheran Pastor as the air conditioning unit kicked into full gear, trying to even out the white hot light that glared through the massive stained glass windows. There was a massive exodus as the crowd moved out into the day, making their way to the various cars, following the hearse and the line of sleek black limos to the burial site.

March Meadows is one of the oldest cemeteries in Hayden. The old section stands beneath a series of small hills, and the stones are crooked and unreadable from years of wear. Much of the Williams- Cohen family lays there, side by side four generations of Hayden's founding family.

I heard the soft sounds of weeping as they laid here to rest in a fresh grave next to her grandparents, forever altering the order of the stones.

More notes, more quotes, my notebook nearly full, the crowd fell away slowly to return home. I make my way to a meeting of "close family friends".

It is here I expected to find some real material for the paper.

But I found much more...

Phone Calls

Believe it or not I have a job.

I work as a stringer for the local paper, The Hayden Star. Its a pretty good deal I guess. I get my own desk, something resembling decent pay (sort of) and the paper gets an errand boy to check facts, get lunch, sort files and the added bonus of them being able to boast that the have an "award winning student journalist" on staff at the paper.

They rarely print the articles I submit and the the pay is pretty much shit but what my job lacks in monetary compensation it makes up for threefold in access...

And to a journalist (sorry, student journalist I mean) that's itself is worth its weight in gold.

Yesterday most of the real reporters were out on assignment and I had nothing to do, so I popped into the paper's source database and pulled the number for the Hayden Fire Marshall.

Fire Marshall (FM) - Hello, Don Barnett.

C.L.- Hello Mr. Barnett, this is Christopher Lewis, I'm with the Western Luther University Student newspaper-

Barnett- Ah, um how'd you get this number son?

C.L.- I'm sorry sir but I cannot divulge my sources. Anyway, I am doing a follow up article on the Williams-Cohen fire and was wondering if you had any comments on the nature of the fire?

Barnett- Huh? Oh well it was tragic I feel for the family-

C.L.- Yes. But what about the nature of the fire? How did it start? I remember there was an investigation and-

Barnett- A routine investigation son, we do that with all fatality fires. The inspector has ruled out fouls play we've already told that to the press.

C.L. - Yes I know sir, but has the investigation yielded the cause of the fire yet? Its been almost two weeks and there is still no report.

Barnett- The report is still being complied. These things take a while sometimes.

C.L.- Of course sir, but can you give us any information as to what started the fire, the student body-

Barnett- The student body will have to wait for the report just like everyone else. Now Mr. Lewis if you will excuse me, I about to run out to lunch. You can quote me as saying that the investigation yield no evidence of anything other that an accident.

C.L.- But I thought you said the investigation wasn't fin-

click!

What a fuck.

I was bizarre. If it was something so routine, like an accident. Then was has it taken so long? I wasn't too suspicious before, but this was odd, especially considering the fact that a campus facilities crew has been working on Room 312 since yesterday (I assume fixing it up). So how the hell does that work?

I try to call Mr. Barnett back but get a gravelly voiced secretary with a lisp who stonewalls me. She won't even give me the extension for the fire investigation unit. I tell her its public record and she hangs up on me.

I call the police and ask for an investigation report (which is public record) and get the same shit form yet another secretary. They say that the "investigation is still in progress" but that they "believe all evidence shows it was an accident". They offer to mail me a copy of the "incident report" and I give them my address on campus.

Dead fucking end...

There are other ways to go about finding things out.

There are other phone calls to make.

On the upside, I think I have the headline for my next article in the Journal.

"Officials Drag Feet in William-Cohens Fire"