I jumped out and spotted what looked like another dirt road cutting into the orchard. The police cruiser, a circling stream of red and white light shooting from its roof, blocked the road. I had my camera out, gear bag strapped across my chest, and the sticks up on my shoulder before the two cops could get out of their cruiser and stop me.
The female officer took the lead. Her partner was a younger Latino man with dark patches on his face I guessed were acne. He hung a few feet back but smiled in a friendly way. Both wore the brown uniform of the Kern County Sheriff’s Department.
“This is a crime scene,” the female officer said. “Turn your vehicle around and return to the highway.” Her voice was matter-of-fact. She held a flashlight, but was careful to keep it out of my face.
“All I need is a statement and a couple pictures of your car with the lights going.”
She shook her head. “Not tonight. We’ve got a complete media blackout in effect. Order came down from the top.”
I glanced toward the dirt road. Visibility lasted about three feet beyond the police cruiser, but somewhere down there was the crime scene. Was my job worth making a run for it?
I turned my body away from the dirt road. “I guess the crime scene is in the orchard anyway.”
“It’s down that road, but we’re . . .”
I ran straight for the trees. “I’m so sorry,” I yelled.
Considering all the equipment I was carrying, they should’ve been able to stop me. I think it was simple shock that held them back.
“Sorry about what? Where are you going?” she shouted. “I said the crime scene is off-limits.”
“I have to get some shots.” My voice echoed as I disappeared into the fog. “I’ll be real careful.”
The last thing I heard was the male officer’s quiet lament “Tell me that didn’t just happen.”
I went in the direction I thought the road would be. I’d gone a couple feet when I hit a tree. The sticks, balanced on my shoulder and jutting out in front of me, took the hit. I readjusted and stumbled on an irrigation hose.
I pushed forward, reasoning that if I moved in the opposite direction from the police lights, I’d travel directly down the dirt road. Before long, even those tiny flashes were smothered, and I was plunged into complete darkness. I could have used my camera light, but if one of the officers followed me, I’d be a sitting duck.
“His head looks like the inside of a watermelon.” The man’s voice came from my right.
I dropped the sticks and flipped on the camera light. Tree limbs poked out of the fog. Small white flower buds dotted the dark foliage.
“More like sloppy joes,” a second voice teased from behind me. “You know, with extra sauce.”
I swung the camera around. Nobody was there.
“Show some respect for the dead, you jackass,” the first voice scolded.
I did a 360-degree turn, confirming I was alone, and switched off the light. Fog can do strange things to sound. The men could have been a few feet away or a mile.
“Oh, and I suppose your watermelon crack was respectful?” They both laughed.
I knelt down onto the rock-hard dirt and thought about my options. I could keep moving forward, hoping I was going toward the crime scene, or I could turn around and try to find my way back to the van. The latter might end with Trent firing me.
A breeze came though the trees, turning the beads of sweat accumulating around my hairline into icy pinpricks. It must also have cleared some fog because, for an instant, a dull flash broke through.
I lifted the sticks back onto my shoulder and carried the camera with my other hand.
Another flash of light. I followed.
Some distance later I emerged, unseen, at the edge of a large clearing in the heart of the orchard. Water particles danced in the beams of a powerful work light and made the air appear dense and alive. On one end of the clearing a series of official vehicles stretched down a dirt road into the darkness. At the opposite end sat a large, white, unmarked tractor-trailer. Through the open side door I saw two men with the Technical Investigations logo on their jackets. They took photos inside the semi’s empty cavern while a female TI appeared to be taking fingerprints from the open cab door. At various places around the clearing numbered, yellow plastic markers were placed in the dirt.
On the ground, in the middle of all this, two plainclothes officers squatted next to a blue tarp. I recognized their laughter.
A crash of metal startled me and I turned to see two attendants pulling a stretcher from the back of the coroner’s wagon. “Hey, are we clear?” the first one asked.
One of the officers stood up. He wore a badge on a chain around his neck identifying him as Arvin PD. “You’re fine. They got photos and did a grid search.”
“For all the good it’s going to do.” The second officer stood and watched the attendants wheel over the stretcher. “I know you’re upset we missed jurisdiction by two miles, but I’m glad the Sheriff’s Department is stuck with this case. Who knows how many footprints and tire tracks those security guards destroyed driving through here.”
Still unobserved, I opened my sticks and attached the camera.
“You’re right, but I still don’t like getting cut out of a murder case this close to Arvin.”
My fingers fumbled for the record button. My eye looked through the viewfinder. I cranked up the iris and the grainy black-and-white scene sprang to life.
Behind me I heard soft steps in the dirt. “There you are.” I recognized the voice of the young male officer I’d run away from. “You’re not supposed to be here.”
I ignored him and focused on my shots. Close-up of the word MORGUE. Medium shot of the blue tarp. Close-up of a shell casing next to a numbered, yellow marker. Wide shot of the clearing. Every extra second it took to get me out of there was another shot I could take back to the station.
A walkie-talkie crackled and then I heard the young officer say, “I found her. We’re on our way back.”
“Ten-four,” the female officer’s voice replied through static.
“Okay,” he said to me. “Time to go.”
I kept my eye glued to the viewfinder. “Just another minute.”
“You could contaminate the crime scene, jeopardize evidence.”
“I promise I’ll stay right here.”
The two gloved attendants lowered the stretcher and knelt next to the blue tarp. I knew the shot of the night was about to play itself out. The wheeling of the body into a morgue van would be the perfect five-second distillation of an unfathomable tragedy, easily conveyed to the morning TV audience over their oatmeal. Without that shot all my little close-ups were worthless.
The morgue attendants lifted the blue tarp off the ground.
Sloppy joes.
My stomach did a somersault and I tasted burnt metal at the back of my throat. The two Arvin PD officers walked away and disappeared behind the truck. Behind me the male officer took several deep breaths.
I continued to record as the attendants carefully bagged the victim’s hands, then lifted the body into a black bag on the stretcher.
The officer behind me took a final deep breath and said, “Time to go. I really mean it.”
“Just another minute.”
“No. If you don’t come with me right now, I’ll tell one of the detectives in charge and you’ll be arrested for trespassing and tampering with evidence.”
Cops don’t arrest the media. It’s bad PR. If you misbehave, they usually complain to your news director or even the station’s general manager. Even so, I was pushing it and I knew I should leave. Not just because I didn’t want to go to jail, but because I didn’t want to jeopardize their investigation.
But the shot was seconds from playing itself out. I think my staying had more to do with that, the compulsive need to get it right, than trying to please Trent.
The officer took a few steps back and called to someone off-camera. “Detective? We have a situation over here.
”
My finger gently pressed on the zoom as the attendants wheeled the body to the morgue van. The picture grew in size and panned in exact synchronization. It was textbook smooth. I was in the zone. As the van doors closed a hand covered my lens.
“Turn it off,” said a voice featured prominently in my fantasies.
TWO
I hit the off button and pulled away from the viewfinder.
The man standing next to my camera exuded confidence. His good looks stood out even in generic slacks, cop buzz-cut, and Sheriff’s Department jacket.
I tilted my head up and tried to look him straight in the eye, but chickened out and focused on the bridge of his nose. “I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
One night at a gang shooting, the story went, a reporter had called him Handsome Homicide. It had stuck, but only the very brave or very stupid used the nickname to his face.
“I don’t think you’re the least bit sorry.” Handsome turned to watch the morgue van pull out. “This area is restricted to the press. We could arrest you right now.” He turned back to me as the van disappeared into the fog. “I may still do it if you’ve destroyed evidence stumbling around here.”
We both looked down at my feet. I told you earlier I was small. That’s not exactly true. There’s one part of me that’s huge. I’m five-four and I wear size-ten shoes.
Handsome eyed my giant, muddy, masculine boots, then looked at the younger officer’s name tag. “Soto, we’d better confiscate those boots for comparison.”
Soto lit up. “Yes, sir. I’ll get an evidence bag.”
He disappeared and I was left alone with one of Bakersfield’s most eligible bachelors. I hadn’t got past the first date with a guy in two years. I don’t know why. Evenings always began well, but ended with the guy mumbling an awkward “We should do this again, sometime,” then the screech of tires on asphalt.
Desperation compelled me to attempt small talk with Handsome. “Your job must be very challenging.”
He managed a diffident shrug.
“But very rewarding too,” I continued. “The harder things are, the more you get from them, right?”
Handsome ignored me and looked longingly after Soto.
So much for small talk. I stopped sucking in my stomach and glanced around the crime scene. The female TI had begun taking photos of the ground where the body had lain. One of the two men working inside the truck called her to the open side door.
“Looks like he found something,” I said.
Handsome’s head whipped around in time to see the male TI raise several small, transparent packages in his gloved hands.
I stepped toward the semi trying to get a better look. “Is that what’s left of the cargo? What was the driver hauling?”
Handsome stepped in front of me. “We’re not waiting here so you can ask questions. You may have contaminated evidence in a murder investigation.”
I smiled. “So it is a murder?”
His entire body tensed as he realized what he’d done. “That was off-the-record.”
I shook my head. “No, it wasn’t. You have to ask before you start talking.” I barely paused. “What time did the murder take place?”
“No comment.”
“Any suspects?”
“No comment.”
“Why aren’t you making a statement for the press?”
“No comment.”
“The cop out at the road said the order had come down from the top.”
Handsome was spared having to repeat “No comment” by Soto’s return.
He carried an evidence bag and a pair of blue bootees. “Shall I bag them here, sir?”
Handsome nodded. “Yes, then get her out of here.”
Soto knelt and reached for my shoelace.
“Hold on,” I said, and jerked my foot out of his reach.
Handsome took a deep breath and spoke in a controlled monotone. “What now?”
“If I’m giving up my shoes, I want a statement.”
“This isn’t a trade. I can arrest you for tampering with a crime scene. Is some lousy story worth getting arrested for?”
“It isn’t only for the story.” My raised voice drew the attention of the TIs. The two Arvin PD officers, now drinking coffee down where the cruisers were parked, also looked in our direction. “My news director says if I don’t come back with something fantastic, he’s going to fire me. And nobody’s going to believe that no cop on this entire case would give me a statement.”
Handsome didn’t move. Whatever he was thinking, he kept it to himself.
“Come on,” I said. “I’m a damsel in distress.”
“You don’t strike me as the kind of person who needs rescuing.”
I paused, then nodded. “Okay. Like I said, I’m sorry for causing all this trouble.” I indicated to Soto that he could remove my shoe, and once he’d knelt down, I leaned into Handsome as though I needed help balancing. He frowned, but supported my arm. The TIs went back to their work.
“But here’s the deal,” I whispered. “You already told me it’s a murder. I’m going to quote you on the air. You can’t control that now.”
Soto removed the first boot and placed it in an evidence bag. He slipped a blue bootee over my bare foot and continued with the next boot.
“Now you have to decide how you want it to look.” I kept my voice in a whisper and my head bent in toward his chest. “Did you deliberately disobey orders and talk to the press, or were you an incompetent ass who got tricked into saying something he shouldn’t have?” I gestured to the Arvin officers. “And they’re mad the Sheriff’s Department got jurisdiction on this case. They’d love to tell every law enforcement agency in the county you got suckered by a girl shooter.”
A smile crept in at the corners of Handsome’s mouth. “Like I said, you don’t look like someone who needs rescuing.”
Soto put the bootee on my second foot and I let go of Handsome.
He gestured to the evidence bag in Soto’s hands. “That isn’t big enough for both her shoes. Go get another one and bag them separately.”
“Yes, sir.” Soto darted away.
Handsome turned to me. “I’ll give you a brief statement, now.”
I didn’t waste time thanking him. I raised my sticks to Handsome’s height and hit record. “Say and spell your name for me.”
He complied and I checked the sound levels and adjusted the shot. Without the boots I was even shorter than usual. I had to stand up on the tips of my toes to see through the viewfinder.
“All right.” Handsome pulled out a notepad and flipped the pages. “I’m going to make a statement on behalf of the Kern County Sheriff’s Department.”
He took a deep breath. “At approximately eleven thirty p.m. a 911 call was received stating that a man had been shot in the Valley Farms orange grove on Weedpatch Highway. A patrol unit was dispatched and the orchard’s private-security firm was notified. The deceased is a black male. He was pronounced dead on the scene. Preliminary evidence suggests foul play, and we ask members of the public who might have information to come forward.”
Handsome consulted the notebook and then looked up. “That’s it.”
“Who called 911?” I asked.
“Get out of here before the detective sergeant gets back and I arrest you.”
• • •
I cursed the old, cantankerous gate as I waited for its ancient machinery to let me into the KJAY parking lot. At the first possible second I nosed the van into the slowly widening gap. That early in the morning the lot was mostly empty, and I had no trouble finding a space near the rear door of the station.
My paper bootees made a loud swishing sound against the industrial-tile floor as I entered the newsroom from the back hallway. Rows of desks, their surfaces crowded with old PCs, filled the room. A series of sliding glass doors extended down the wall on my left. Inside each was a small alcove with editing equipment. Most of the edit bays were empty, and onl
y a handful of the newsroom desks were occupied, but in a few hours the place would be a madhouse.
I placed my tape inside the large basket hanging on the wall by the first edit bay. “I’m back from the murder,” I called over to our assignment manager.
Callum’s tired, jowly, old newshound face looked down at me from the raised platform where he reigned over the room. The assignment desk rose only two steps above the newsroom floor, but it had a view of almost everything. A long wall about five feet high ran along the front edge of the platform with a counter behind it that served as Callum’s desk. Behind him a bank of monitors screened satellite news feeds while scanners on each side blasted the city and county emergency frequencies.
He pulled phones from each side of his head, revealing the tufts of gray hair that grew from his ears. “How’d it go?”
I waited to reply until I was standing directly in front of him. “A complete scoop. I even got the body being loaded into the morgue van.”
Callum’s black-and-gray unibrow parted and a small hairless strip of skin emerged above the bridge of his nose. “No kidding?”
“No kidding.” I grinned. “And when I left, the other stations were parked out front with nothing.”
“Lilly, you’re gold.” His face lit up as he hung up one of the phones. “I knew you’d break out of your slump. Won’t be long before all the reporters are begging for you to shoot their stuff again.”
I must have made a face because Callum shook his head. “Not that you’ve turned into a pariah or anything. Rod still asks for you, and he’s the best we’ve got.”
I rolled my eyes. “Rod’s not our best, despite those cheesy ads Trent’s been running.” They were truly awful. A voice-over promised honesty and trust while an off-camera wind machine caressed our star reporter and the American flag behind him.
“Are you kidding me?” Callum scolded. “He’s the hottest thing we’ve had in years.”
I absentmindedly reached for my jacket’s zipper. “I know he has a fancy doctorate in communications, but he’s only been here for six months and this is his first reporter job.” I lowered the zipper several inches, remembered the Care Bears shirt, and immediately reversed direction. “And out in the field he sits in the van fixing his hair while I do all the setup. Last time he was out there for thirty minutes.”
A Bad Day’s Work Page 2