The Violence Beat

by JoAnna Carl

“Thanks, Mickey. You’re okay, too.” I got out of the Lincoln, and Mickey sat and watched until I opened the door to my car. Then the window on the passenger’s side of his car went gliding down, and Mickey leaned across the car and spoke to me.

  “I wish I could be a mouse in your pocket when Hammond asks how you found out Bo Jenkins was dead,” he said. “I know you’re going to come up with a very creative yarn.”

  Chapter 8

  Mickey O’Sullivan waved and drove away. I sat in my car and tried to get my thoughts in order.

  What had Mickey meant? Why should Hammond wonder how I heard about Bo Jerkins’s death? I shrugged. All I had to tell him was that I heard it on the scanner.

  Unless it hadn’t been on the scanner. Cops are often sneaky enough to keep all references to some touchy subject off the radio. After all, scanner traffic is pretty public. Lots of housewives keep a scanner in the corner of the kitchen. Most cities had even taken steps to encode their scanner traffic, to keep the public, and more particularly the press, from knowing everything that was going on. I knew the Grantham PD had channels we couldn’t get on our radios.

  I decided I’d better check before I went rushing out to the mental health center. In fact, I decided I’d better check a couple of things.

  The Gazette doesn’t have a reporter on duty on Sunday mornings. One of the photographers was supposed to be listening to the scanner, in case there was a ten-car smashup or a multiple ax murder, but no one works the violence beat. Hardly anything ever happens on a Sunday morning that can’t be picked up after the nightside guy comes in at three p.m. The photog is authorized to call a reporter if something big breaks.

  So, if I knew about an investigation in progress, I could run on it. I didn’t need to tell some other reporter I was horning in on his beat.

  But Mickey had raised a key point. Hammond might not have realized that he had been broadcasting via the answering machine when he called Mike. He probably didn’t know there were others present when he called. He certainly didn’t know I was present. And I didn’t want him to know. So how else could I find out?

  Covering up sources is one of the main tricks to the reporter’s trade. Sometimes, for example, one of the secretaries in the assistant chief’s office waggles her eyebrows and tells me, “Hey, did you find the Sunday night traffic reports interesting?” That means somebody prominent got picked up for DUI or had a fender bender with a pretty passenger in the car who wasn’t his wife. If Coy-the-Cop asks me how I got onto the story, I’d never quote the secretary. I’d tell him I caught it when I checked the accident reports. It’s not really lying.

  But this situation was touchy. I couldn’t simply call the Grantham Mental Health Center’s public information officer and say casually, “Oh, by the way. Have you had any suspicious deaths out there this morning? Anybody who might have held me hostage yesterday?”

  Heck, I didn’t even know the name of the public information officer at the Grantham Mental Health Center. And who was the director out there? It wasn’t on my beat. I’d only been in the place a few times, when I was doing a story on the use of insanity as a defense in murder trials. I’d talked to some psychiatrist in the administrative section.

  A little time spent finding out a few things now might save time later.

  I jumped out of the car, searching my purse for the electronic card that opened the Gazette’s back door. The security guard is on duty only at the front door. He’d see me come in on the closed-circuit TV.

  I’d better call the health reporter, Mitzi Johns, and get some names. And I’d better check out whether there had been any scanner traffic on Bo’s death.

  Flipping lights on as I went, I headed upstairs to my desk and looked up the employee phone list on the computer. Luckily, Mitzi was home.

  “Mitzi, who’s PIO out at Grantham Mental Health Center?”

  “Rayette Lund. Her title’s ‘Public Information Specialist.’ Why?”

  “They’ve had an unexplained death out there. Who’s the director?”

  “Dr. Randall Wade. But he’s ‘president.’ Do I need to come in?”

  “I think it’s purely police. But thanks.”

  “Call me if it needs a health angle.”

  Then I checked the list to see which photographer was on call that morning. Bear Bennington. Good. He answered on the second ring. No, he said, he’d heard nothing on the scanner about a suspicious death anywhere in town. And he’d heard no traffic involving the mental health center.

  “Only odd thing this morning was a report that somebody stole a Salvation Army uniform,” he said. “Of course, I might have missed something.” Scanners pick up all kinds of emergency agencies—sheriff’s office, ambulances, civil defense, as well as police. There’s continuous talk on them, and most of all it’s along the line of “I’m 10-45 at Denny’s,” which means taking a coffee break, or, “There’s a flat cat in the 900 block of Main” which means the dispatcher should call the animal control officers. It’s easy to lose something important in the scanner trivia.

  “Should I get out there?” Bear asked.

  “Not yet. I’ll call if there’s a chance of a shot.”

  With my ducks in a somewhat ragged row, I headed for the Grantham Mental Health Center.

  The center has gorgeous grounds, with oaks, pines, and rolling meadows. Actually, the grounds are not that big, but the center got a grant for landscaping. The main building itself, about ten years old, sprawls like an octopus. Each of the center’s different functions—child counseling, outpatient drug treatment, alcoholism treatment—seems to have its own wing.

  Only one section of the center has a second floor. The ward set aside for potentially violent patients—those who might do harm to themselves or others—is on top of one of the back sections. The approaches to it are not exactly guarded—they’re just not convenient for the general public.

  The administrative section was locked, so I went around to the high-security wing. The PD’s mobile lab was parked outside. I flashed my press card at a uniformed guard inside a heavy glass door. He punched a button, then opened the door a crack.

  “Nell Matthews. Grantham Gazette,” I told him. “Your front door is locked up tight. Is Rayette Lund around here?”

  The guard turned and looked behind him, and I took the opportunity to push the door a little farther open and to slip inside. I looked in the direction the guard was looking.

  “Miss Lund!” he called.

  A woman and four men stood in a clump at the other end of a reception area. Three of them—the woman and two of the men—wore business suits. The third man looked as if the emergency had pulled him off the golf course. The fourth guy wore a navy blue uniform. That was Mike.

  The woman turned, frowning, and one of the suits, Detective Captain Jim Hammond, rolled his eyes in annoyance. “Nell! How did the press get hold of this?”

  “Well, hi, there, Captain Hammond.” I tried to sound innocent. “I got a tip that there was some excitement out here. I’d say your presence confirms it.”

  Hammond shook his head. Mike looked like thunder. The woman—a very attractive black woman wearing a red power suit—looked stricken, and the other two men glared. One was a detective, young and so short he would have barely passed the PD physical. I try to know all the detectives, but I hadn’t worked with this guy, and I couldn’t remember his name.

  The fellow in his golf togs was one of those who had gotten bald on top, so he shaved the sides off, too. His face looked as sour as a green persimmon. He turned to Hammond. “Captain, surely you won’t allow publicity about this!”

  Hammond’s eyes narrowed. “Sorry, Dr. Wade. This is a free country, and I have very little control over what Miss Matthews’s paper, or any other news media, puts out. And, considering the person involved, I think you can get set for some major attention. Like it or not.”

  “B
ut—but—” Wade sputtered. “We need to make our own inquiry. We don’t know what happened yet.”

  “Then don’t say anything,” Hammond said. He continued to glare at me.

  I tried to look serious. “I gather it’s true, Captain. Bo Jenkins is dead?”

  Hammond punched a finger in my direction. “Nell, how did you hear about this?”

  This was the key moment. I could see Mike opening his mouth. He still looked like thunder—and the bolts were aimed in my direction. I had to say something quick.

  “Aw, com’on, Captain,” I said. “You know I’ve got to protect my sources.” I held my hands out in front of me, wrists side-by-side. “So lock me up.”

  I was looking at Hammond, but Mike was right behind him, and, of course, I was more interested in Mike’s reaction.

  Mike laughed. That seemed to ease the tension, at least for Hammond. The detective gestured at a plastic chair in the small waiting area. “Nell, it’s going to be a couple of hours before I have anything for you.”

  “Sure,” I said. I parked my fanny in the chair he’d indicated, clutched my notebook, and tried to look bright-eyed. “Have you told the family yet?”

  “No! And you’re not going to tell ’em, either!”

  “No way! That’s your job, Captain. I wouldn’t go near them. Until after they’ve been informed. I may not be perfect, but I’m not Channel Four.” Channel Four is Grantham’s sleaze channel, the one that specializes in dead bodies and gory scenes and relatives in hysterics.

  Hammond turned to Dr. Wade and jerked his head toward a locked door at the back of the reception area. Wade looked at Rayette Lund and jerked his head in my direction. The guard pushed the proper buttons, and the four men went into the high-security unit. Rayette Lund obeyed her boss’s pantomimed instructions and came over to me. She straightened her red jacket and stood erect, but I could see she was upset.

  I smiled brightly at her. It’s important to have the public information officer as an ally. That’s one reason I try to be nice to Coy-the-Cop. I extended my hand. “I’m Nell Matthews, Rayette. Mitzi Johns says you’re terrific to work with. Very professional.”

  “Well, I try. But this situation—” She shook my hand, and I could feel her hand trembling. I decided she was younger than I am. I’m twenty-eight. I guessed her at twenty-four. This was probably her first job out of college. Her duties, if this was a typical public-information slot, would involve putting out a newsletter for the employees and sending out news releases when Wade and the other top staffers gave speeches. Wade had probably hired her because she was inexperienced, and therefore cheap. I felt sure Rayette had never been forced to deal with a suspicious death before.

  She definitely hadn’t handled one that was going to get regional, maybe national, attention.

  Public agencies like the Grantham Mental Health Center are answerable to the press, because we represent the public. But they often want us to tell the good stuff, to support their fund drives or expansion plans or special events. They don’t want mishaps and mistakes and misuse of public funds mentioned.

  Rayette was trying to act her part. “I don’t know what’s going on with the police investigation, but at least I can offer you some coffee. In the break room, down the hall.”

  “Thanks, but I’d rather stay here, just in case Captain Hammond decides to make a statement.” I tried to give her a reassuring smile. “I know this is really hard for you. I mean, things happen! And the bosses in agencies like this one rarely understand how important it is to deal frankly with the public.”

  “Oh, Dr. Wade is wonderful with the public. It’s just that—well, they discovered Mr. Jenkins’ body only a short time ago. Nobody understands just what did happen.”

  “I know you had him under a suicide watch. Just what does that entail?”

  She relaxed slightly. A factual question. One she could answer. “Under a suicide watch, the attendant is in constant visual contact with the client. The client is not allowed anything potentially harmful, of course. His belt, shoelaces, and other things are taken away.”

  “No knives, guns, or explosives. Was Bo restrained?”

  “Oh, no. They would be very hesitant to use a straitjacket or anything like that. But he was in an actual padded room. No sharp corners. The room has a big window, so the client is visible from a central area.”

  “How about access to the client? Who can talk to him?”

  “Oh, that’s limited, too. Normally, no one would be allowed in.” Rayette tensed up again, and her hand began to tremble once more.

  Ah, ha! She had put just enough extra emphasis on the word “normally” for me to figure it out. Someone had gotten in to Bo from outside.

  “That’s interesting,” I said. “I’d expect that there would be people—family, friends—who could soothe a potentially violent patient.”

  “Possibly.” Rayette stirred in her seat and looked at the door to the secure section. “But the doctors have to evaluate just who would be helpful and who would not. Of course, they hadn’t had time to decide that in the case of Bo Jenkins.”

  I nodded. “So it’s not like the movies, where they call in the patient’s mother or the family priest.”

  Rayette winced and jumped to her feet. “I’d better check on some things,” she said. “You’re sure you don’t want some coffee?”

  “No, thanks. But I appreciate your giving me this background.”

  Rayette looked more panicky than ever. “Please don’t quote me! I’d much rather your information came from Dr. Wade.”

  I smiled my reassuring smile. “Oh, yes. I’ll talk to him. But this background will help me ask the right questions.”

  She went away, down a hall I thought must lead to the main administration wing. I thought about what she had said and how she had acted. She’d been doing pretty well. Then she’d panicked when I mentioned the family of the patient. Did that mean someone from Bo’s family had gotten in to see him?

  But our interviews yesterday had established that Bo had no family in the Grantham area. Except Julie, his ex-wife. And little Billy, whom he had held hostage. I couldn’t believe Julie had come to see him. Or that the dumbest attendant would have let her in.

  Just exactly what had I said to Rayette? Something about “his mother or the family priest.” Well, Bo hadn’t belonged to a church, either. Of course, J.B. had done that interview with the director of the Salvation Army Shelter, the shelter where Bo had been staying.

  Wahoo! The lightbulb in my brain lit up. The Salvation Army is a social service agency, but it’s also a church. And it’s a church with clergy who wear distinctive garb. And Bear had heard on the scanner that a Salvation Army officer’s uniform had been stolen that very morning. Bingo!

  I stood up and walked over to the guard on duty, trying to keep from jumping up and down in excitement. “Is there a pay phone around here?”

  “Down the hall.” He pointed in the direction Rayette had taken. “But you can call out on this one.”

  “Thanks, but a pay phone’s fine.” And, I hoped, more private.

  The phone was nearly to the main lobby. I could see both ways, so nobody could sneak up on me. I looked Bear Bennington’s number up and dialed it.

  “Bear here.”

  I cupped my hand around the receiver. “Bear, this is Nell. Did you tell me that the director of the Salvation Army shelter reported his uniform stolen?”

  “Yeah. But it wasn’t the director. Just one of the officers. But it’s weird. Who would want a Salvation Army uniform?”

  “Maybe a murderer,” I said. I thought about what to do next.

  “Do you need me?” Bear’s voice was curious.

  “Get hold of Chuck.” I said. Our Grantham State part-timer would be covering nightside police on a Sunday afternoon. “I’m at a pay phone, and I don’t have a phone list.”
r />   “Sure. What do you want him to do?”

  “Tell him to get out here to the Grantham Mental Health Center. In about an hour they should have a statement.”

  “What happened?”

  “Bo Jenkins is dead. In the high-security unit. And as near as I can tell, the cops don’t think it was suicide.”

  Bear whistled. “Wow! And where are you going to be?”

  “I’m heading for the Salvation Army. Bear, maybe you’d better meet me there. There could be a photo in it. But get Chuck out here first.”

  I smiled at the security guard as I asked him to let me out the door. “Gotta check on something,” I said. “Another reporter will fill in for me in a few minutes.”

  Something was tickling at the back of my mind, and I swung by the Gazette office. I hurried in through the electronic door and up the back stairway, turning on lights again. I went to the computer and made a quick access to the Gazette library—when it computerized, it lost its old-time nickname. Our newspaper no longer has a “morgue.”

  I pulled up stories on the Salvation Army shelter for the current year. Ha. I found it. Mitzi had written a story. She handled nonprofit organizations, as well as health.

  The shelter had had a mini-scandal six months earlier. A young guy had complained that an older man had made improper advances to him. In the end, the police had concluded that the young guy’s story wasn’t very credible. Coy-the-Cop was quoted as saying no charges would be recommended to the DA.

  But the Grantham Salvation Army commander, Major Harold Smith, had announced a new policy. From that time on, not only would there be a professional shelter director, who was a social worker, on duty, but also the male Salvation Army officers assigned to Grantham would take turns spending the night at the shelter.

  “We not only want to avoid evil, we want to avoid the appearance of evil,” the major was quoted as saying. He was prepared to take his turn sleeping at the shelter, alternating with his three junior officers, he said.

  So, I deduced as I closed out the library files, any reader of the Grantham Gazette could have known that a Salvation Army officer routinely slept in the shelter and might logically assume that he took his uniform off when he climbed into bed. I turned out the lights and left the Gazette building.