Corpse Had a Familiar Face (Revised, Updated)

by Edna Buchanan

[jnkay01]

From the department of Things That Aren't There Anymore:

"From the beginning, it was a comfort just to see the Miami Herald building looming huge and permanent against the skyline. It made me feel secure. It still does. You can see it from the expressway, the causeways, from downtown, and from the bay. Just look up. The Herald building sprawls over an entire block of prime waterfront. Employee parking lots are slowly swallowing the surrounding neighborhood. Sometimes the world's biggest barge is moored at the back door, delivering newsprint.

The yawning fifth-floor newsroom is the size of a concert hall, with a spectacular view. To the east, beyond the glass cages of the executives, lies Biscayne Bay, its surface dotted by the bright sails of weekend regattas, the spans to Miami Beach, and the resort skyline with the sea beyond. The panorama is so clear and beautiful that any imperfection is quickly noted. Twice over the years one sharp-eyed editor has spotted from his office desk, and hastily reported to the proper authorities, dead bodies adrift in the bay. The vista to the west is an overview of stunning skyscrapers, Overtown slums, spectacular sunsets, and the lights of the Orange Bowl, above which the Goodyear blimp hovers during big games. Brown pelicans and Chaulk's seaplanes swoop gracefully past the newsroom's picture windows to land at Watson Island just southeast of the building. The blue-and-white seaplanes arc in a sharp turn so close to our windows that even veteran newsroom habitues sometimes catch their breath. A stranger visiting my desk gasped and would have hit the floor had he not realized that all around him it was business as usual.

Somewhere in the heart of that mammoth structure, buzzed by birds and planes and strafed by the politicians that it gores, a newspaper is actually printed."