Stalking Susan

by Julie Kramer

  “Congrats on the overnights,” she said. I simply nodded. Not 40, but closer than Channel 3 had come since the firebomb killed my husband. And since June wasn’t a ratings month, Noreen had forgotten all about that.

  She wanted a follow-up story. ASAP. “We can promote the hell out of this.”

  I was eager to comply. SUSANS wasn’t meant to be a stand-alone piece. I was counting on new tips to push the investigation into new directions.

  But first I had to chase the dog cremation story. We’d used Malik’s first and middle names and his cell phone number as the contact with the veterinary clinic. That morning, one week to the day that we had dropped off Lucky, Malik received a message from Dr. Petit.

  “Lucky’s ashes are ready. Please call to arrange a time to pick them up.”

  This time Malik wore a glasses cam. A pinhole camera was concealed in the nose bridge between the plastic lenses. The frames needed to be thick enough to hide both the camera and a thin cable that ran through one arm of the glasses, so Malik looked a little like Buddy Holly. The cable then ran under his hair, behind his collar, and down his back to a fanny pack with battery and recorder.

  “You’re sure these are Lucky’s ashes?” I asked Dr. Petit. His tie, featuring a chihuahua in a sombrero, distracted me for a second.

  “Absolutely.”

  We sat around a conference table. I glanced over at Malik, who stared steadily at Dr. Petit through the glasses. The vet pushed a small cardboard box toward me.

  “It’s such a comfort to know Lucky’s ashes are safe,” I told him. Now I regretted not spending an extra fifty bucks on an urn. That would have been a nice prop on the news set.

  “You have my word. It’s a special service we offer our pet families during difficult times. I hope to see you again under less painful circumstances.”

  “I’m certain we’ll meet again.”

  Quite certain. But I made no promises that our next meeting might not be under even more painful circumstances, once he learned we worked for Channel 3.

  Our local cremation expert confirmed that, as with Fluffy’s box, the contents of Lucky’s box contained no animal cremains. They were likely the same mixture of cat litter and landscape pebbles that the Texas lab had identified. We stopped by FedEx to overnight Lucky’s ashes so they could be tested as well.

  Back at Channel 3, I had a message to call Dusty Foster’s defense attorney. He had breaking news: based on our story he’d managed to get a Duluth judge to order a hearing on whether DNA testing of some old evidence should be allowed. Exactly the kind of follow-up Noreen wanted.

  We made the drive to Duluth that night, so we could roll tape first thing in the morning.

  “A blood spot on Dusty’s shirt was introduced at the trial,” his attorney said. “The prosecution argued it was the victim’s blood. Dusty testified he cut himself shaving. Lab work confirmed it was type O human blood, but both he and the victim had type O. We were hoping for reasonable doubt, but the jury went for guilty.”

  “To be fair,” I argued, “your client did have motive and opportunity.”

  “Yeah, but I think the blood influenced their verdict.”

  “How is this test different?” I asked.

  “Fifteen years ago it was too small a sample for further forensic testing, but science has improved since then and a lab might now be able to tell us whose blood it was or wasn’t. If it really is my client’s blood, I’ll argue for a new trial.”

  I was skeptical. “Would you get it?”

  “Maybe, but as far as I’m concerned, the best evidence of his innocence is his alibi for the other homicides.”

  All day Channel 3 promoted the story for all it was worth and then some.

  TONIGHT AT TEN, A NEW

  DEVELOPMENT IN THE

  SUSANS STORY…IS A

  CONVICTED MURDERER

  ONE STEP CLOSER TO

  FREEDOM?

  FIND OUT TONIGHT ON

  CHANNEL 3.

  Even I thought we were laying on the hype a little thick, but that didn’t stop me from applying more pressure on the Minneapolis police. After my set piece, the anchor turned to me on a scripted two-shot.

  ((ANCHOR/TWO-SHOT))

  RILEY, TWO OF THE

  MURDERS HAPPENED IN

  MINNEAPOLIS…WHAT

  ARE POLICE HERE

  DOING TO

  MOVE THE

  INVESTIGATION

  FORWARD?

  The camera switched to a close-up shot of me.

  ((RILEY, CU))

  THEY AREN’T SAYING…

  BUT CHANNEL 3 HAS

  LEARNED THAT THE

  MAYOR’S OFFICE HAS

  RECEIVED DOZENS OF

  CALLS FROM CONCERNED

  CITIZENS…MANY OF

  THEM NAMED SUSAN.

  That last bit of info came from our political reporter, who hadn’t seen the mayor that mad since a blizzard had threatened Minneapolis the same weekend the city hosted the Super Bowl.

  Both telephone lines were ringing as I walked back into my office. My flashing voice mail light indicated they weren’t the first viewers trying to reach me since the report ended three minutes earlier. When a story gets especially hot, some reporters prefer to let the machine take the heat, and they’ll return select calls later; but telephone roulette doesn’t scare me. I picked up the receiver, hit one of the lines, and smoothly said, “This is Riley Spartz, Channel 3.”

  “This is Karl Skubic, mayor of Minneapolis.” His voice was agitated, not smooth.

  “Hey, Mayor, thanks for returning my call.”

  I’d left a message with his media guy yesterday, ostensibly seeking city reaction to the SUSANS story in an on-camera interview, but really hoping to watch him squirm under the lights when I asked about his relationship to the first victim. The mayor had skillfully deflected that by declining the interview request through his press peons and refusing to take my call. I considered calling him on the secret number he’d given me Halloween night but decided to save that for a special occasion.

  “Can we tape that interview tomorrow morning?” I remained cool and professional.

  That stopped him, as he weighed the drawbacks to continuing our conversation.

  “No. That’s not why I’m calling. I just want to say, and I’m sure you’re not aware of it, but it seems to me the current path you’re on is less likely to help law enforcement and more likely to make our city seem unsafe.”

  “You’re welcome to say that on camera, Mayor. We’ll put it on the air.”

  “I really think it’s better to leave it to the police to make any appropriate comments. I’m certainly not going to impede their investigation.”

  While he continued with a canned speech about citizen responsibility to the community, I pondered the pros and cons of bringing up his college sweetheart. So far I had left that part out of the stories. It was such a loaded fact, I knew it would make the station attorney bonkers. We were nowhere close to meeting the legal burden of actually throwing a veil of suspicion on anyone, even a public figure like the mayor. True, a politician doesn’t get as much libel protection as a private citizen, but realistically I knew we wouldn’t be putting his Susan connection on the air anytime soon—if ever. But that didn’t mean I couldn’t bring it up right now, phrasing it in the form of a question, just to make him sweat.

  “Mayor Skubic, why exactly did you and Susan Redding break up?”

  No answer. He was so quiet I felt sure he stopped breathing. People often confuse action with drama, but silence can be even more dramatic. I finally broke the stillness because I didn’t want him to hang up. “It sounded like kind of a volatile relationship. Was it?”

  I deliberately used the word “volatile.” First, because I was fishing and wasn’t sure what I was hoping to find. Second, “volatile” is a good bait word because it sounds worse than its actual meaning, which is “unstable or changeable.” And tell me what relationship between a man and a woman isn’t th
at?

  Our phone connection ended with a click and a dial tone. A whimper, not a slam.

  Sometimes, if I’m honest with myself, I have to admit I’m the kind of reporter who deserves an occasional bouquet of dead flowers.

  But not twice in one week.

  CHAPTER 21

  This time I found a bouquet of blooms tucked under the windshield wipers of my car when I left work the next night.

  “At least they’re not dead lilies,” Malik said. I called him to videotape the yellow petals before they wilted any further and fell out. “This might not have anything to do with our story. What else have you done to piss anyone off lately?”

  “Except they’re black-eyed Susans,” I pointed out. “That’s the name of the flower. Black-eyed Susans.”

  “I’m a rose man myself. A nice, safe flower, suitable for all occasions. Nobody resents roses.”

  Malik followed me home and walked inside with me to check things out. I scanned a couple shelves in my home library and pulled out a book called The Meaning of Almost Everything. It listed supposed meanings of foods, colors, shoes…I flipped to the chapter on flowers.

  Lily meant “purity.” Black-eyed Susan meant “justice.”

  “Hey, those are good things,” Malik said. “Purity. Justice. It might not mean someone’s out to get you. It might mean someone’s rooting for you. Maybe a behind-the-scenes cheerleader encouraging you to keep on digging in that garden of clues.”

  “Except my flowers are always dead,” I reminded him.

  “Someone’s out to get you.”

  I scanned the list of plants. Could be worse. Begonia meant “beware.” And we all know what hemlock means.

  “What kind of plant is that?” Malik pointed to some dried leaves and white berries hanging on the doorway between the kitchen and living room.

  “Mistletoe. And don’t ask.” Boyer had insisted on year-round mistletoe, and I couldn’t bring myself to take it down.

  Malik left to do errands on his way home. I was in a research mode, so I grabbed the baby name book I’d given Boyer for his birthday. He had wanted a pack of kids, and even if I wasn’t ready to play mom yet, he was plenty ready to pick names. I found the S page and learned that Susan was one of the most popular girl names in America during the fifties and sixties.

  SUSAN (HEBREW) “LILY” APOCRYPHAL: AN ACCUSED ADULTERESS SAVED BY THE WISDOM OF DANIEL. Siusan, Sosanna, Sue, Sukey, Suki, Susana, Susanetta, Susann, Susanna, Susannah, Susanne, Susette, Susi, Susie, Susy, Suzanna, Suzanne, Suzette, Suzi, Suzie, Suzy, Suzzy, Zsa Zsa.

  At the mention of adultery I couldn’t help thinking of Susan Redding. Could this be a clue? While the other victims certainly weren’t virgins, I didn’t think they were adulterers. But I remained a little fuzzy on the nuances of adultery. If a married woman slept with a man other than her husband, that was obviously adultery. But what if a single woman had sex with a married man? Was she also an adulteress, or just a slut?

  The dictionary was no help, so I dusted off the Bible and skimmed the book of Daniel for such wisdom. His episode in the lion’s den was comforting. His vision of the four beasts was confusing. But I found no mention of any Old Testament character named Susan.

  I tore the Susan page from the baby name book and stuffed it in my briefcase.

  LIGHT SHINING THROUGH stained glass always seems heaven sent. The church across the river in St. Paul was empty the next morning except for a few devout parishioners kneeling in the back pews. I stuck my head into the parish office looking for Father Mountain.

  “He’s hearing confession,” a middle-aged lady behind a desk told me.

  I took a closer look and realized the kneeling parishioners were actually in line for absolution. I decided to wait for a few minutes of Father Mountain’s undivided attention. I was lucky the whole third grade of the parochial school wasn’t ahead of me.

  Father Mountain had been my rural parish priest when I was growing up, overseeing life and death in the Spartz family. He’d baptized me and buried my great-grandpa Riley a couple months later. Over the years he’d been promoted to larger, more urban parishes. We’d become reacquainted several years ago when I was working on a story about charity fraud. As an adult I had fallen away from the Church, partly because of official teachings, partly because of sex scandals. But I still believed in God. That belief took a beating when Boyer died, but Father Mountain was a merry man of the cloth whose company I enjoyed. He’d forgiven me for getting married in Vegas rather than letting him do the honors, and he had repeatedly urged me to forgive myself for the guilt I still carried about my husband’s murder.

  When my turn for confession came, I knelt inside the small, curtained booth and put my face next to the divider screen.

  “Bless me, Father,” I whispered. “I talked back to my boss and was mean to the mayor.”

  “Riley, is that you? What are you doing here?”

  “I have a question about adultery.”

  “Are you here to make a confession? You’re overdue, but this is not the sort of sin I expected.”

  “No, this is work-related, not soul-related. I checked the dictionary. I checked the Bible. I’m a little embarrassed to be talking sex with a man who embraces celibacy, but I figured you’d have the answers.”

  “How many people are behind you in line?”

  “Just one. A lady with blue hair and a fur-collared coat. She told me to go ahead, she’s still examining her conscience.”

  “That’s Mrs. Tate,” he told me. “Comes twice a week. Doesn’t mind waiting ’cause she likes to visit afterward. We trade church jokes. By the way, did you hear the one about the priest, the rabbi, and the minister in a fishing boat?”

  “No, but I’m kind of on deadline now.”

  “All right, so what’s your question?”

  “If an unmarried woman sleeps with a married man, is she an adulteress?”

  “No. Technically, she’s a fornicator. Adultery is complicated. The biblical concept had less to do with the sin of sex than the sin of ‘trespassing’ on another man’s property. It created a double standard because for the act to be adultery, the woman had to be married. So if a married man had relations with another man’s wife, the Bible calls them both adulterers. But if he sleeps with an unmarried woman, he’s in the clear.”

  “That is so unfair!”

  “Keep your voice down or Mrs. Tate will think I’m doling out heavy penance today. Absolutely it’s unfair, which is why Church tradition, to preserve the sanctity of marriage, considers an affair adulterous if either party is married.”

  “I was researching the name Susan.”

  “I watch the news. What did you find?”

  “An accused adulteress saved by the wisdom of Daniel. But I don’t know what that means. I read Daniel but couldn’t find any Susan.”

  “Actually, it’s Susanna. And the questions you’re raising deal with some of the Church’s most intricate theology. You shouldn’t pop into a confessional looking for quick answers. You should join a Bible study group.”

  “I don’t have the time or the heart for that level of research right now, Father. It’s a long shot that this is even related to what I’m working on. How about you just give me the basics? Who’s Susanna?”

  “All right, but I want you back here for a real confession when this is over.”

  “Deal. Susanna?”

  “She was a beautiful, pious wife who was lusted after by two Jewish elders who schemed to blackmail her. They threatened to accuse her of having a lover unless she slept with them. She refused, choosing to fall into their power and face death rather than sin before the Lord.”

  “This story is in the Bible?”

  “Daniel, chapter thirteen.”

  “I didn’t see it, and I just looked this morning.”

  “What kind of Bible?”

  “I don’t know. Probably one I took from a hotel room. Is that a sin?”

  “Different faiths use different Bibles.
Each believes theirs to be the true interpretation. The Roman Catholic version has more books than the Protestant one, including two extra chapters of Daniel. Stop by my office on your way out and tell my secretary I said to give you a real Bible.”

  “So about Susanna? Saved not stoned?”

  “That’s where the wisdom of Daniel comes in. Read it for yourself. It’s time for Mrs. Tate now. In the meantime, give me ten Our Fathers and fifteen Hail Marys.”

  CHAPTER 22

  My conscience was clear.

  Plenty of reporters simply rush up to the target of an investigation, stick a camera in their face, and yell, “Why are you cheating people?”

  That’s called an ambush interview.

  The ensuing chaos often results in good TV—it can certainly help the pacing of a slow story otherwise cluttered with documents and talking heads. But it seldom results in a substantive answer to the question of why people are being cheated. There’s also something unsportsmanlike about playing the championship match with an opponent who doesn’t realize the game is under way.

  I prefer landing an on-camera/sit-down/face-to-face interview because…well…sometimes crooks say the darnedest things. Like the time I confronted a shady car dealer about lease improprieties and he blurted out, “We’re not intentionally scamming them.”

  Why would any adversary agree to such a showdown? For some, their ego can’t fathom that their trickery has been discovered. Others, deep down, think they can explain it all away with fancy words or complicated math.

  On my end, it’s important not to let on that the jig is up. So when I first called Dr. Petit, I didn’t say, “The Texas lab just confirmed Lucky’s ashes are a fraud and I’m doing a story on what a horrible excuse you are for a vet.”

  What I said was: “I’d like to interview you for a consumer story on pet grief and cremation.”

  I hoped the hunger for hoopla might make him bite. After all, free publicity could bring a fresh menu of gullible victims. Dr. Petit, however, seemed to sense this television opportunity was too good to be true.