Stalking Susan

by Julie Kramer

  Nervously, I twisted my ring. “I’m not ready to take it off. I will when I’m ready to move on, but I’m not there yet.”

  Redding’s reasons were more practical then emotional. “It keeps patients from fixating on me if they think I’m married. It’s not unusual, in therapy, for them to develop an attachment. It’s called transference.”

  “Is that what happened with Susan?”

  He tried to mask his aggravation, but he set his cup of coffee down harder than necessary and it slopped over the edge, staining the tablecloth, the way my words were staining any chance of friendship.

  “Do you have any friends at all?” he said. “You really make it difficult to be around you.”

  Now he was touching on a sore point. Truthfully, I didn’t have many friends outside of work. And I wasn’t always sure the work ones counted.

  “You want to be friends? I thought this was a business lunch.”

  Redding paused, looking me straight in the eye. “I would like to be friends.”

  I held his gaze, conflicted because friendship implies trust and I was reluctant to trust anyone directly involved with the murder victims; at the same time I needed him to trust me.

  “Then let’s get the business part out of the way,” I said. “Tell me about Mayor Skubic.”

  Just then my cell phone rang. It was Malik. Time to head over to city hall. Redding and I both reached for the check. As our hands touched, our rings hit and made a soft metallic clink.

  SUSAN VICTOR REPRESENTED Minneapolis movers and shakers. The bodies of Waitress Susan and Sinner Susan had been found in her district, long before she was sworn in. I recalled lawn signs reading VICTOR FOR VICTORY lining the streets of the Thirteenth Ward, where I lived. A lopsided race, not in her favor, until federal agents executed a search warrant for illegal gambling on her opponent’s home and office three weeks before the election. Now she savored her first term as city councilwoman.

  My story gave her a chance to accomplish two goals simultaneously: get on TV and ingratiate herself with the mayor. When she introduced herself before the cameras, she placed a heavy emphasis on her first name. “Ssssusan,” reminding me of the hiss of a snake.

  “I certainly don’t think there’s a Susan killer loose in our city,” she said. “The media has blown this case completely out of proportion.”

  “All media?” asked one of the newspaper guys, going for a suck-up question.

  “No, in all fairness, the irresponsibility has come over the airwaves of Channel 3.”

  “Do you think they did it for ratings?” the newspaper guy persisted.

  “Absolutely. I intend to ask the FCC to pull their license.”

  Even the newspaper guy chuckled at the outlandishness of that remark. A broadcast license is essentially a license to print money forever. Yeah, the airwaves belong to the public, but everyone knows aggressive reporting isn’t going to get a license yanked. Indecency, now that’s a different story. Channel 3 would be dandy as long as none of us let the F-word slip during a live shot. Then F wouldn’t even begin to describe the resulting trouble.

  “We need to protect the public airwaves,” Susan Victor went on to say.

  “How about protecting the public?” I countered.

  “This is a very safe city,” she answered.

  “What do you think of the police investigation?” asked one of my competitors.

  “I have every confidence in Chief Capacasa. We just need to let him and his officers do their jobs. We don’t need amateurs jumping to crazy conclusions.”

  Deep within me, maybe deep within all of us, is a precarious place I call the abyss. Reporters like to imagine being one story away from awards and glory. I never forget I’m one story away from falling into the abyss. Damned if Susan Victor was going to push me over.

  I decided to up the stakes with an old reporter trick: phrasing a provocative question that puts the subject on the defensive.

  “You accuse me of doing this story for ratings. You’re not by any chance holding this news conference just to get on TV and increase your political visibility?”

  “I am not dignifying that with a response.”

  I only asked because she wore a red, white, and blue VOTE SUSAN pin on her lapel, even though, technically, no campaign waged.

  Usually when someone gets testy, their forehead scrunches up, but Susan Victor’s forehead stayed smooth and tight under the lights. She looked youthful for a woman pushing fifty, much younger than she looked last year when I interviewed her about air pollution from the city garbage-burning plant. I’d seen enough before and after in the TV business to suspect Botox.

  I pushed harder to make her lose her control. “Then what, besides being named Susan, qualifies you to speak to this investigation?”

  “I represent women. And we refuse to live in fear.”

  “You don’t represent me,” I said. Even though I did live in her district, so technically she did represent me. “And you don’t even represent common sense,” I mumbled as I folded up the tripod.

  So in summary, Susan Victor stood for safety and against the media. A clumsy production, not likely to garner much press. Channel 3 had to cover it, because we owned the story. For that reason, the rest of the media pack would shy away. The other stations might run a short sound bite trashing us just for fun, but there was no point in making the case sound too intriguing, thus tempting their own viewers to switch channels. The papers would bury the news deep inside the Metro section, although the TV critics might side with Susan Victor because it’s easier to write nasty than laudatory.

  And that’s exactly how the news coverage played out, until later, when something happened that took SUSANS national, and got me taken off the story completely.

  CHAPTER 25

  Few of Minneapolis’s older homes have attached garages. New construction on a teardown lot might, but my house doesn’t. So I parked the car inside my garage’s narrow walls, then walked outside past a high border of evergreen bushes, along a twenty-foot stone path, up the porch steps to the front door, where I found a newspaper wrapped around a cone shape.

  Inside, wilted white and pink petals in a low-budget vase. My admirer was closing in on me. First my workplace. Then my car. Now my home. I contemplated what Susan connection these blooms held, but all I could see were snapdragons.

  “Oh, did you get flowers?” asked my neighbor.

  Mrs. Fredericks, a skinny black woman, had lived next door for the past twenty-seven years. I’d become cozy with her because she had several huge raspberry bushes growing in her yard, and being a neighborly soul she let me have all the raspberries I could reach through the fence. Besides gardening, Mrs. Fredericks was a one-person crime watch over the comings and goings up and down the block. 911 was on her speed dial, although she’d used it only twice that I knew. Once to report some kids toilet-papering a teacher’s house, and once to save my life.

  Mrs. Fredericks made that call about four months ago. She noticed me walk into the garage one morning, but not come out. She could hear the engine running.

  It was the day after the first anniversary of Boyer’s death. No objections from work when I called in sick the day before. The past year had been an unproductive one for me. I was just taking up desk space as far as the rest of the newsroom was concerned. “No problem,” the assignment editor assured me. “Take your time.”

  I didn’t make it to work the next morning either, but I did make it as far as my Mustang.

  I turned the key. Instead of hitting the remote to open the garage door and back out…I waited. I don’t remember why I waited, but it wasn’t for death, despite what everyone thinks.

  The fumes filled the garage and started to seep into the car. Just a little longer, I told myself. Just a little longer and I’ll hit the door-open button. But I couldn’t quite face daylight, and sometime during the next few minutes, as I listened to “Viva Las Vegas” on the car stereo, I fell into the abyss.

  I remember M
rs. Fredericks pounding on my car door. I don’t remember much else until halfway to the hospital, when I woke up in an ambulance with a mask over my face. Some things I still don’t remember. Mrs. Fredericks insists that, although the police were on their way, she came out to check because she heard my car horn. I don’t remember honking. I just remember waiting for…clarity.

  Now Mrs. Fredericks was giving me widow lessons, so she claimed, but I knew she had promised my mom she’d keep an eye on me. No problem here. One person’s nosy neighbor is another’s guardian angel.

  Mrs. Fredericks had lots of practice being widowed. I don’t even know her first name, but I know her first husband, Abe, died twenty-one years ago this coming December and there hasn’t been a day gone by that she hasn’t thought of him. Her second husband, Herbie, died nine years ago, but she hardly thinks of him at all. Her third husband, Eugene, died three years ago, but there are days she forgets he’s passed on. “Eugene, the mail’s here,” I sometimes hear her call on a hot day when the windows are open. Mrs. Fredericks had lots of practice being widowed.

  “If you were really hard up,” I told her, “I suppose you could call them flowers. But they’re not in very good shape. Any chance you saw who left them?”

  “No. You must have a secret admirer.”

  “More likely a secret stalker.” I showed her the dead blooms and explained about the other floral arrangements. “So if you see anyone hanging around, make a mental note of what they look like. I also wouldn’t mind a license plate number if they get in a car.”

  Mrs. Fredericks reached for the droopy bouquet.

  “Dog flowers,” she said.

  “No, snapdragons,” I corrected her.

  “We used to call them dog flowers back when I was growing up,” she explained, “because the center looks like the mouth of a dog.”

  “Dog flowers?” I repeated. Dog? That might change things. Was my mystery florist following the Susans or following me?

  I WASN’T PARTICULARLY worried about the flowers because in real life murderers seldom come after journalists.

  Reporters are most at risk just before airing a story that could put a crooked merchant out of business. You’d be surprised how quickly a small businessman can turn violent when he senses his livelihood disappearing, his reputation in ruins, or the prospect of jail time looming. My tangle with Dr. Petit and his stun gun wasn’t unique. A producer colleague of mine once got put in a headlock by a shady salesman and dragged down a dim hallway until the photographer talked him down. Didn’t even matter that the camera was rolling. These are the kind of folks who’ll show up at the state auto licensing counter trying to pop your home address. And long after you’ve forgotten all about that story…they’re the ones who’ll lunge at you while you’re signing autographs at the state fair or try to ram you with their pickup truck some dark night as you walk to your parking lot.

  Garnett slid into the booth across from me at Famous Dave’s BBQ at the mall. He wasn’t happy about my cryptic bouquets, but he doubted that the sender posed an actual physical danger.

  “If you were getting dead flowers from some boyfriend who wouldn’t take no for an answer, I’d be a lot more worried. This might just be a creative crank. Your line of work attracts them, and you have been out of the public eye for a while.”

  “Well, it’s a creepy welcome back.”

  “No argument there. And threat or not, I’d be happier if this guy didn’t know where you lived.”

  “If you’re hinting I should move, forget it.” I couldn’t leave the memories, but I didn’t say that out loud. “Why does everyone think I should move?”

  “Would you like to see a menu?” the waitress asked Garnett.

  I was already halfway through a barbeque pork entrée when he finally arrived. I’d stopped by his office first, but the guys at the surveillance wall told me he was at the theater complex investigating a report about a moviegoer surreptitiously videotaping the new George Clooney film. I left word for him to meet me at the restaurant after he finished protecting the world from copyright pirates.

  “I’ll have whatever she’s having,” he told the waitress.

  “Very funny,” I said. “It was Rob Reiner’s mom. I can’t remember her name. When Harry Met Sally, 1989.”

  “Actually, I wasn’t playing,” he said.

  “Yes you were.”

  The waitress gave us an odd look.

  “Just bring me a plate of that.” Garnett pointed at my meal, which was nearly gone. “To go.”

  GARNETT POINTED OUT some of the hiding places for the mall security cameras as we walked back to his office. While we were riding up an escalator, I mentioned seeing Dr. Redding again.

  Garnett snorted. “Another big waste of time.”

  “Maybe not. He knows something. Something about the mayor. It’s just a matter of getting him to talk.”

  “And you have a plan for that?”

  “I might have to bat my eyes a little.”

  I should have put two and two together when Garnett almost dropped his take-out dinner, but I didn’t.

  “Don’t you have some rule about not getting involved with sources?”

  “I’m not getting involved with anybody.” I was emphatic about that. “But I think he’s interested in me, and if I have to use that I will. Nothing personal. Just professional.”

  “His interest in you is probably professional as well. A chance to observe a type A personality under extreme pressure. He’s probably going to write a paper about you. Some continuing education for shrinks.”

  “No, he says he wants to be friends.”

  “You don’t declare friendship, friendship just happens. I think he wants the inside track on the SUSANS investigation. You think you’re using him for information. I think he’s using you.”

  “Perhaps he is,” I said. “But I’m using him more. And I know what I’m doing. He’s clearly got issues with women. His wife’s been gone a long time. There’s no good reason he’s still single.”

  Garnett tossed his food in a garbage can. “I’m not hungry anymore.”

  “Hey, why’d you do that? I bet the guys would have finished it off.”

  That’s how dense I was. Looking back, he was throwing clues at me all night, but they went right over my head and right past my heart. I couldn’t see that our dynamics were changing—that Garnett wanted to be a source of comfort, not news.

  Then I made matters even worse.

  “Redding and I have both lost someone we loved. Violently. I’m not remotely interested in checking out his bedside manner, but I feel a connection. Like he might end up being important to me somehow.”

  I FIGURED THE odds were better than fifty-fifty the shadow was my imagination.

  It hadn’t been there when I left Garnett’s office. It hadn’t been there when I left the ladies room. I first noticed it out of the corner of my eye when I walked through the skyway linking the Mall of America to the parking ramp. Most of the mall stores closed at nine, but the ramp was still full of cars because the movie theaters, restaurants, and nightclubs remained open. I glanced around, trying to remember where I had parked the Mustang. One of the public relations flacks at the mall likes to brag that if visitors look hard enough, they can often count all fifty license plates parked here. I didn’t have time for that game, but I was more exasperated than fearful.

  About four pillars away, again, I caught a glimpse of what might be the shadow. Believing it better to confront trouble than to cower, I moved in that direction.

  My cell phone rang.

  “Don’t react to what I’m saying.” Garnett’s voice sounded secretive. “Someone’s following you.”

  “How would you know?” I glanced around nervously.

  “Don’t look. Just pretend you’re fumbling with your purse.”

  “Where are you?”

  “On the escalators, just coming down toward the parking skyway.”

  “How can you see me?”

&nb
sp; “Twiddle Dee and Twiddle Duce have you on camera. They tracked you through the mall and watched you wandering around the ramp—”

  “You’re spying on me?” I interrupted him.

  “Voice down. Not me, them. It was all very entertaining until they spotted a guy making the same rounds behind you, back about a hundred feet. They paged me. Might be a coincidence, but I don’t like it.”

  “Then I don’t like it either.”

  “I’m on my way and I’ve also got a couple thugs heading over. Stay on the phone and see if there’s somewhere you can hide. Don’t go to your car. I think that’s what he’s waiting for.”

  I caught another glimpse of the shadow I now knew was not a specter of my imagination. As it ducked behind an oversized van, I dropped to the ground and rolled under a pickup truck. I lost my cell signal. I closed my eyes and wished my overstuffed briefcase held a Taser instead of a stack of documents.

  Twenty minutes earlier, I’d been savoring the evening’s brainstorming success, now I was groveling in grime.

  Garnett and I had played an exhilarating round of Sherlock. I’d brought along notes from the SUSAN charts, interview transcripts, and calendar. Since the killer had been AWOL for the last decade, we had to consider he might be dead. Or in prison. If he was alive, we estimated he was between thirty and sixty-five. We had no conclusive evidence the killer was a “he,” but strangling requires strength, so we eliminated women. Paging through the pile, Garnett thought I should check the lily bed in Susan Moreno’s father’s yard and see if any flowers had been cut recently. Perhaps Tim Moreno held the answer to the dead flower riddle? I was adding the idea to my checklist, when Garnett suddenly hmmmed.

  “Hmmm what?” I said.

  “Isn’t Zsa Zsa another name for Susan?” he asked. He held Mayor Skubic’s background file. “Nanna Zsa Zsa? I’d forgotten about her.”