“But these aren’t the Drillers,” I yelled. “You lied to us.”
“You have to do the story.” Sinclair looked over his shoulder. The mother and little girl had reached the field and were quickly approaching. “Think how disappointed the kid will be. You’ll break her heart and she has that awful disease.”
His mouth contorted into an over-the-top grin as he hurried to meet the mother and the daughter. “Are you ready to play some baseball?”
Bob picked up Sinclair’s hat, but didn’t follow him.
“Why is he dressed like a cowboy?” I asked.
“When Mr. Sinclair got here two weeks ago, he saw a forty-year-old picture of Jim Ensley, the original owner, in my …I mean, his office. Jim was a Texan and proud of it. Tom seems to think dressing like the picture is part of being general manager.”
I watched as Sinclair put an arm around the mother and took the little girl’s hand. “How exactly did he get this job?”
When Bob didn’t answer, I said, “Off-the-record.”
“From what I can tell, he made one heck of a first-class mess in his last position. The powers that be wanted him transferred fast, and I got stuck with him.”
“Why keep him around if he’s a screwup?”
“Nepotism.” Bob sighed. “He’s pretty much unfireable.”
Nepotism? If Leland Warner’s family tree was filled with idiots like Sinclair, then I understood why the man valued his privacy.
Bob continued, “They probably figured Tom couldn’t do much damage here, during the off-season.”
“They were wrong.”
Bob looked from Sinclair in the distance to me. “The Drillers have a long history of charitable works. We care about kids—really care about them. I’ve been doing fund-raisers for CASA and the Boys and Girls Clubs for years.”
“I know. I’ve covered them and I know you do a lot of things privately, without any publicity.”
Sinclair was now only a few yards away with the mother and child in tow. “Please,” Bob begged. “Please try and remember that, if this goes badly.”
“I think you mean when, not if.”
Sinclair came to a stop and bent down to the little sick girl. “Tell the nice lady how excited and happy you are. Tell her how much fun it’s going to be when you throw out the first pitch.”
The little girl looked down at her patent-leather shoes.
“Would you like to interview me?” the mother asked. “I have a lot to say about how blessed my baby feels.”
“I don’t think we’ll need to record you today,” I said. Her smile vanished. “I’m going to concentrate on your daughter. Get her perspective.”
“Fantastic.” Sinclair tossed his hand backward and struck Bob in the chest. “See, I told you. The players don’t matter.”
I lowered the sticks to the girl’s height and attached the camera. Her glasses were outrageously thick, but her gaze followed me as I moved to clip the mic on her dress.
“Hi there. Do you remember me?”
She looked in my direction and nodded her head. I crouched down next to the camera, and the girl’s head followed my movement.
“How old are you?”
She didn’t say anything. She looked at her mother, then back at the camera. She lifted a finger to her nose and reached inside.
“Baby!” The mother grabbed her hand. “Now tell the nice lady how old you are.”
“Four,” she said in a small voice.
“You’re a big girl,” I told her. “Do you like baseball?”
She didn’t answer.
“I love baseball,” I said. “My whole family used to come to games.”
No reaction.
“How about sports? Do you like sports?”
She shrugged her shoulders.
“Can you say in your own words how you feel about sports?”
She looked at her mother, then back at me.
I tried to give her a reassuring smile. “How does it make you feel to be here today?”
No answer.
“She’s shy.” The mother took the video camera out of her purse and walked behind me. “Baby, pretend it’s you and me. I’m the one taking the pictures, okay? Don’t be nervous because it’s just you and me.”
“How does it make you feel to be here today?” I asked again.
She thought for a moment, looked past me to her mother, then said, “I like ice cream.”
“Can you talk about that a little bit?”
“It’s good.”
I waited for her to continue, but nothing happened.
From a sound-bite standpoint, “It’s good” doesn’t cut it. At the very least I needed “Ice cream is good at the ballpark,” and even that wouldn’t make it on the air.
I took a deep breath and tried again. “In your own words tell me if you like ice cream at the ballpark?”
She looked at me. She looked at her mom. She didn’t say a word.
Sometimes when a kid won’t talk, it helps to play a game. It can loosen them up. At least you get video of a happy kid having fun. I picked up a softball from the grass and tossed it at her. “Catch.”
The ball hit her in the chest like a cannonball. She fell backward and for a few seconds the field was silent. Then the most gut-wrenching wail I’ve ever heard erupted from her prostrate little body.
FOUR
Baby.” The mother ran past me and dropped to the ground. Bob followed.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, then turned to Sinclair. “I don’t understand. She didn’t even try to catch it.”
“You know she’s blind, right?”
“She’s not blind, she’s going blind.”
“Who told you that?” He laughed. “She’s blinder than a bat.”
“She is?”
“Of course. Everyone knows that.”
The players wasted no time responding to the emergency. Soon a mini-mob surrounded the mother and child. “What happened?” someone asked over the child’s cries.
Another man in the crowd answered, “Somebody threw a baseball at the little blind girl.”
I started packing up gear in case the mob turned.
Sinclair raised his hands in the air and adopted what he probably thought was a statesmanlike demeanor. “Now, now. I’m sure doing violence to the guilty party would make us all feel a lot better—”
“No, no, I’m sure it wouldn’t.” Bob broke free from the crowd. “It was an accident. Remember that everyone. An accident.”
“Yes, as I was getting to before you interrupted me.” Sinclair glared at Bob, then continued, “No matter how good we might feel punishing the person who did this, and I’m sure it would feel very, very good …”
The crowd grunted its agreement. I wondered how fast I cold make it to the van carrying all my equipment.
“We have to remember, it truly was an accident and we have to keep things in perspective.” Sinclair gave Bob a superior smirk, then lowered his hands. Several men rushed in to ask questions.
“Bob?” I stepped to his side and tried to keep my voice level and calm. “Is the kid okay?”
He started to answer, but kept pausing to look at the potential catastrophe of Sinclair fielding questions from angry players. “Ah …she’s …”
The crowd parted and the mother charged at me. She cradled the girl in her arms. “How dare you assault my child like this?”
All eyes turned to me, and a frightening quiet descended on the field.
“I’m so sorry,” I said to the mother. “Of course your daughter won’t want to continue with the interview. Maybe if you’re not too busy caring for her I could interview you instead?” Don’t judge me. It was an extreme situation.
She tilted her head slightly. “I thought you didn’t want to interview me?”
“That was before this unfortunate accident.”
She looked at her daughter, who had stopped crying. The girl squirmed and contorted her body so the mother was forced to set her down.
>
“I think if she has another ice cream, everything will be fine.” The mother reached down and adjusted a ribbon in her daughter’s hair. “And after all, it was an accident. I certainly don’t blame you.”
The girl jumped up and down. “I want strawberry.”
The girl’s show of strength appeased the players, who drifted back to the outfield while Bob took the girl to get the promised treat. When I’d finished interviewing the mother, a player led the little girl to the pitcher’s mound and helped her toss the ball toward the catcher. Everyone cheered. Then, just like that, the photo op was over.
Sinclair pushed his way out of the dugout as players streamed in. “That was just great,” he said, and turned to gloat at Bob, who was carrying a box behind him.
The mother took the little girl’s hand. “Oh, yes. She loved it, didn’t you, sweetie?” The mother didn’t wait for a response. “Sports are so important to children and I feel terrible that she won’t …” She paused as if struck by an idea. “By the way, do you have something for me?”
Bob removed an envelope from his back pocket and extended it to the mother. “Here’s the—”
Sinclair snatched the envelope. “It’s my place to make the presentation, not you.” He straightened his jacket, then held out the crushed envelope to the mother. “Please accept this generous check on behalf of the entire Drillers team and myself personally.”
The mother took the envelope and tore into it. The contents made her smile.
Sinclair gestured to the box in Bob’s hands and asked, “Are those the items we talked about?”
Bob glanced at me before stepping closer to Sinclair and saying in a low voice, “Sir, I’m not sure—”
“Are they or are they not?” Sinclair cut him off.
“They are, but this may not be the best—”
Sinclair took the box and extended it to the mother. “In addition, please accept this selection of Drillers merchandise.”
Sinclair paused to smile at the little girl, and I thought he might not be that bad of a guy. The thought only lasted a moment.
He looked back up at the mother. “Merchandise which, I remind you, your daughter is contractually obligated to wear at various events for which there will be media coverage.”
“What?” I interrupted.
Bob groaned and placed a hand over his eyes.
My voice rose. “You signed an endorsement deal with a little sick kid?”
“It’s a very common practice,” Sinclair explained. “Tiger Woods wears Nike gear to all of his tournaments.”
I grabbed a Drillers cap from the box. “Is she contractually obligated to wear this at the doctor’s office?”
“Don’t be silly.” Sinclair laughed. “Nobody would see her there.”
Bob groaned again.
Sinclair extended the box to the mother, and this time she took it. “If any of it doesn’t fit or you need replacements, don’t hesitate to call us. You have my direct line because I’m taking charge of this project personally.”
“Thank you. You’ve been very kind. A true gentleman.” She took the cap from my hand, then looked down at her daughter. “You want to take some ice cream home?”
The little girl giggled.
“I’m sure we can arrange that,” Bob said. “If you’ll follow me …”
I wanted to stop him from going. An interview with Bob would be straightforward and to the point. He’d speak in nice sound-bite-ready sentences. Sinclair would be a disjointed, self-involved nightmare. But if I was going to sandbag one of them with a question about Valley Farms, Bob was much more likely to keep his head and not comment.
I let him leave with the girl and her mother, then held out a lapel mic to Sinclair. “May I interview you?”
“Of course.” He leaped toward my outstretched hand. “I’m only too happy to help.”
My cell phone rang as I was getting him miked up.
I checked the caller ID and let it go to voice mail.
It wasn’t that I didn’t like my uncle Bud. When I was a kid, I used to love when my father’s much older brother rolled into town. Bud never failed to stop by for a home-cooked meal between escapades and misadventures. He was mischievous, slightly seedy, delighted in provoking my straitlaced mother, and had no problem getting down on the ground to play with his little nieces. He was old enough to be my grandpa, but in his way seemed younger and more alive than my quiet and deliberate father.
But despite the occasional voice-mail messages we exchanged around holidays, and despite our being the only two members of the family left in Bakersfield, I hadn’t seen him in twelve years. I assumed this message would tell me how sorry he was we hadn’t connected for Thanksgiving. He’d go on to suggest, in a vague way, that we do something for Christmas. Later in the day, I’d call him and leave a similar message. At Christmas we’d repeat the whole thing.
I didn’t know how we had got into this loop. Probably it started after my father’s death, when neither of us wanted to be reminded of the loss, and then became a kind of self-fulfilling prophecy. I didn’t know what I’d say if I actually had to talk to him. I think he felt the same way. My calls to him always went to voice mail too.
I raised the sticks to Sinclair’s height and began triple-checking the camera settings. “This will only take a second,” I told him.
“How on earth did you end up in a job like this? You’re much too pretty to be carrying all this equipment around.”
His oily tone made me want to give him a nasty put-down and head back to the station, but I hadn’t even tried to get the Valley Farms sound bite. “I needed a job and an old friend was the chief photographer at the station. He got me on part-time, but I did well and moved to the regular crew.”
“Is your boyfriend still around?”
I stayed focused on the camera and didn’t look at him. “If you mean my friend the chief photographer, he’s working in Las Vegas now.”
“If you ever want to get together for a drink, let me know.” He followed my gaze to his wedding ring. “It would be strictly business, of course. I’d love to discuss my plans for the team.”
“I’m sure you have all kinds of plans,” I said before I could stop myself.
Luckily, Sinclair didn’t appear to notice the sarcasm. “Tons and tons. I’m going to whip this place into shape.”
I began the camera recording and asked him some basic questions. He spoke in run-on sentences about children being the future and the team’s commitment to charity. Once that was out of the way, he quickly resumed talking about his own accomplishments and plans for the Drillers.
Finally he paused to catch his breath. I jumped in with a question I hoped would set me up to ask about Valley Farms. “Where were you working before you came to the Drillers?”
“That was a very different business. But my role there was similar. See, I look for big ideas and—”
Fearing another monologue, I interrupted. “Bob mentioned you were transferred from somewhere else in the same company.”
“That’s right. One of our wineries, but I’ve also worked in real estate and construction.” Sinclair smiled. “Actually, I’m being groomed to take over. That’s why I move around so much. I’m getting a good overview of all the different aspects of the business.”
“It’s terrible about the murder last night at Valley Farms.”
He didn’t say anything. In retrospect, that should have been a sign something was wrong. I didn’t notice, though.
“It must be upsetting for something so gruesome to happen on company property,” I continued. “I was actually there last night taking pictures. Some of the things I photographed should never be seen on television. It must be very unpleasant for you to be connected to a crime like that.”
This was where he was supposed to smile and tell me everyone felt terrible and hoped the criminals were caught and prosecuted.
Instead, I watched in shock as Sinclair turned and ran for the dugout.
&nb
sp; Chaos spiraled around the now packed newsroom. An intern sprinted between desks, then exited toward the control room. An editor burst from his edit bay just as I placed my tape in the raw-video basket, and almost ran into me.
I stopped one of Callum’s desk assistants as she prepared to run a handful of tapes to Playback. “Everything okay?”
“Noon’s crashing,” she said. “Marcie got way behind without Rod, but it’s okay. He’s back now.” She turned to go, but stopped. “I thought you went home?”
“No. I’ve been shooting the little blind girl.”
“Oh, right.” She looked confused, but continued on her way.
I walked to the assignment desk, now decked out in festive garlands, and pinched Callum on the shoulder.
He noticed me for the first time and pulled the phones away from his ears. “How’d it go?”
“Video’s in the basket. I got the kid throwing out the first pitch and an interview with the mom. It’s cued up.” I was crossing my fingers nobody decided to rewind the tape. Throwing a ball at a little blind kid was not the way to revive my reputation. “Anything new on the murder?”
“Rod and David are back. They got enough for a package.”
I shook my head. “No, I mean new information.”
“Oh, sure, didn’t anybody tell you? It’s solved.” He smiled sweetly. “It was Miss Scarlet with the lead pipe.”
“I’m serious.” I stepped up onto the platform and sat on the edge of Callum’s desk. “Something weird happened at the ballpark.”
He hung up one of the phones. “Something newsworthy weird or something I’m-wasting-Callum’s-time weird?” Before I could answer, he leaned around me and shouted, “Carl.”
An editor appeared in an edit-bay doorway. “What? I’m crashing the second package.”
“We need you to edit the sick-kid VO/SOT for the noon.”
“I just told you I’m crashing the second package.”
“Lilly, you’re back.” Rod was doing a walk-and-talk across the newsroom while juggling scripts and wire copy. “I’m producing the noon for Marcie.”
A Bad Day’s Work Page 5