Song of Suzies

by Dave Balcom

  Song of suzies

  By Dave Balcom

  Copyright © 2014 Dave Balcom

  All rights reserved.

  Smashwords Edition

  License Notes

  This e-book is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This e-book may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please go on line and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

  “I’m in Heaven, when I hear that suzie calling back to me...”

  From the song, Same Time Each Year, written and produced by Tom Paden

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  The term “suzies” has been used to describe hen mallard ducks since time out of mind, but tracking down the history or source of the term was a failure on my part; non-hunting readers will just have to accept its lower case usage.

  This book would not be possible without the help of thousands of volunteers who embrace the spirit and intent of Tom Paden’s beautiful tribute to Ducks Unlimited (Same Time Each Year) and the amazing creatures who hold all of us spellbound as they make their annual migrations from the breeding grounds in the far north to the winter habitats of the mid and deep south. DU, born of the Dust Bowl, invests money in the preservation of habitat throughout the migration cycle, and while the ducks and geese have thrived under this attention, so have countless other animals who call those habitats home.

  It also could not have been possible without the careful attention of the editor I sleep with. Her gentle but firm touch is everywhere in this effort except the errors; those are all mine.

  Prologue

  The late afternoon sun was putting the last taste of summer to the test, and offering a hint of the autumn that was to come.

  The girl was walking by herself. She could see her reflection in the storefront windows as she passed by, and she couldn’t take her peripheral vision off her reflected images as they flowed from one plate glass screen to a doorway to another full-sized screen, reflecting her easy stride and her athletic good looks.

  Her height was magnified in the reflections, as were the length of her legs as she glided effortlessly into a future that seemed bright and inviting.

  She was wearing new shorts her mother had bought her just today, and her blouse was one of the nicest she owned. “You never get a second chance to make a first impression,” she reminded herself. She noted her reflection again, the long strides, the rippling muscles of her calves, the rhythmic swing of her sun-browned arms.

  Her neck was accentuated by the angle of the reflection, and her face in profile seemed to take on a certain elegance, she thought, as the reflection elongated her already lithe and slender form.

  She studied her reflection one last time as she turned the corner for the long climb up a familiar hill to the next chapter in her life, and she liked what she saw – a healthy, happy young woman with goals and the will to accomplish them.

  She was at that time of her life where she thought long and often about what lay ahead of her. She wanted college, a degree that would lead to a career that would make a difference in the world. She wanted more races, more training, and more physical tests. She wanted life with the right guy, somebody who would stay with her, care for his family and not back down at the first difficult challenge.

  Her goals were not unique, she knew, but they were hers and this, as everyone liked to say, was the first day of the rest of her life.

  She started up the road. She had made this hill walking or running hundreds of times. She knew there was no sidewalk most of the way, and as she thought to move to the other side, facing traffic if any should come down this lonely stretch, she heard a car pulling up behind her.

  The car murmured gently as it pulled up next to her. She gave it only a quick glance, and then focused straight ahead, expecting a cat call or some other randy gesture from the car, but nothing came.

  She glanced again, and saw a familiar smiling face through the windshield. She smiled in spite of her mother’s repeated warnings.

  “It’s a hot night for a walk. You goin’ to the college?”

  She turned and was walking backwards as she looked into the car. She slowed her stride when she realized she knew the driver. It was the talent scout from UCLA, and a warm smile cracked her face. “Hi! Yes.”

  “Want a lift?”

  She started to say “no” out of habit from the years of warnings and lectures she had heard from her mom, but then she thought about the hill. She knew she’d be sweaty when she arrived at the dance, and her inner voice reminded her, “You never get a second chance...”

  She looked again, “Are you sure?”

  “I’m headin’ that way,” came the reply with a shrug of the shoulders.

  She thought about her mother’s warnings, looked up the hill and back at the open window as she stopped.

  “Sure,” she said with a smile, “if it’s not out of your way.”

  “No problem,” the driver said with a chuckle. “No problem at all...”

  1

  Mondays are the worst day of the week in the news business. Special features have to be planned for Mondays because not enough happens on Sundays to rely on for interesting stories. On the last Monday before Labor Day, 1983, Suzanne Czarnopias put the standing “Monday personality profile” on the spike.

  I had been at the Lake City Sentinel-Standard since March, and my wife, Sandy, and our three-year-old daughter, Sara, had come east to Upstate New York from our previous home in Michigan in July. Being the new managing editor of a 15,000-circulation, seven-day daily newspaper had been a serious breach of my comfort zone, but I was settling in.

  I had cut my management teeth on much smaller six-day dailies with staffs of four or five, including me. Having the responsibility for seventeen staffers, including three experienced desk editors, had forced me to codify some of the things that had worked so well for me off the cuff at earlier stops.

  “Mr. Stanton,” the voice whispered over the speaker on my desk phone. “Mr. Stanton?”

  I actually looked around to see who was being paged. At the ripe old age of thirty-two, I wasn’t used to being called “Mister,” by anyone other than a troubled college professor, and I hadn’t had one of those conversations for more than seven years.

  I picked up the phone, “Jim Stanton, here. How may I help you?”

  There was a bit of an awkward silence, then the receptionist at the front desk regained her composure, “Mr. Stanton, there is a gentleman in the lobby to see you, may I send him back?”

  I knew she was trained not to ask the person’s business any more than she would have asked a caller for their name before transferring the call to my phone. The folks at Lake City were well-trained in the minutia of community journalism. She knew that if she asked and got a name, and it turned out I wasn’t available, the caller might think I was avoiding her. Or worse, that I didn’t think the call or caller important enough for my time.

  “I’ll be right up.”

  “Thank you.”

  While I had an office, with a door, I spent most of my time at the “universal desk” I shared with the news and city editors. It was located in the center of the action, between the reporter desks in front of it and the composing room behind it. I was still in the very early stages of creating change in this newsroom, and I kept myself in the middle of the staff as much as possible.

  It was just after eight o’clock in the morning, and while the newsroom had been bustling since five-thirty, things were still pretty sleepy in the rest of the building.

  The man waiting for me at
the front counter was a stranger. I stuck out my hand and announced myself, “Jim Stanton, the new managing editor; how can I help you?”

  “Fred McAvoy, Mr. Stanton. My family has a problem, and I’m hoping your newspaper can help us.”

  I did a quick read on the man, and saw signs of fear, embarrassment, and general agitation, from his dancing eyes to the beads of sweat at his temples, and on his hands.

  “Come on back, Mr. McAvoy. We can talk in my office.”

  I led the way back to the open newsroom. My office was on the street side, next to the “morgue” where back issues and clip files filled a glass-fronted office on one side and the news department’s “conference room” with a table and chairs for twelve on the other.

  I had spent my military service in Special Forces. While notionally an air traffic controller for the Navy, I was actually assigned to a secret, multi-service group that was a fore-runner hybrid of what had later become the SEALS.

  That training had given me lessons in making quick decisions based on scanty information. That skill had both helped and hurt me in my journalism career. I had taught myself to slow the process down with questions that helped fill in the blanks. There was no need for speed in this world – nobody died if I took a few more minutes to arrive at a decision concerning a news story.

  “What’s up?”

  He sat in the chair across from my littered desk, and put his hat on top of a pile of out-of-town newspapers I hadn’t had time to review. I asked him if he’d like a cup of coffee or a glass of water, and he declined.

  We sat in silence and I watched him control himself.

  “My niece, Suzanne Czarnopias, is missing and the stupid cops in this town are not doing a thing about it!” He blurted this out in a rush.

  “Excuse me, I’ll be right back,” I said.

  I hurried out to the newsroom and over to Cindy Shaul’s desk. The public safety reporter looked up as I approached. “Cindy, you have anything on a missing girl this morning?”

  “No,” she said as she grabbed her long skinny notebook and started thumbing through its pages. “It was a quiet weekend. There was a report on a disturbance at the Rooster, and there was a burglary at the country club in the early hours of Sunday – they took gin, cigarettes and golf balls.”

  “Give the folks at the LCPD a call, will you? Ask them for anything they’ve got on a missing girl, Suzanne... wait a minute.” I walked back into my office, and asked for a spelling of Suzanne’s last name. I picked up the phone and dialed Cindy’s desk and repeated the spelling and hung up.

  I turned to McAvoy, “We didn’t hear about this during our routine police run this morning. Our reporter is calling the city police right now. Why don’t you tell me what you think is happening?”

  “Suzanne went to the community college’s freshman mixer on Saturday night. She left her house on Owasco Avenue at just before eight. She was told to be home by midnight, and she’s never missed that curfew, not once. She’s a responsible, decent kid...” He shook his head, “She’s hasn’t been home since.”

  My phone rang. “Go ahead, Cindy.”

  “I talked with the desk sergeant, and he confirmed that there’s nothing on a missing girl on the blotter.”

  “The girl,” I said with a cocked eyebrow at McAvoy, “hasn’t been home since about eight Saturday night. Your sergeant probably won’t hear about it until the magical forty-eight hours are up. Call the chief, and find out which detective is on the case. Let’s have a story for the ten a.m. deadline; okay?”

  There was a click as she hung up. I turned to McAvoy. “You have a photo of Suzanne?”

  He nodded and fumbled in his jacket pocket before pulling out a wallet-sized graduation picture.

  “She still wears her hair like this?” I asked as I studied the photo. Suzanne Czarnopias was a brunette with luminous brown eyes that stared unflinchingly at the camera. Her smile displayed perfect white teeth.

  “She looks just like that, only prettier.”

  “Height, weight?”

  He thought for a minute. He had the habit of looking up at the ceiling, as if his memory was painted up there. “Five-feet, six-inches tall; maybe a hundred ten; she’s thin. Not much of a figure, but she’s attractive to boys her age. She always has been.”

  “What was she wearing when she left for the dance?”

  He studied the ceiling. “Police asked the same question. I asked my sister... tan shorts, yellow blouse with a green sweater tied around her waist for the walk home.”

  “Shoes?”

  “Cross trainers. She’s real athletic, you may have heard of her in track?”

  Then I did remember. Suzanne Czarnopias was a New York State High School champion in the two-mile run. We had published many photos of her.

  “Mr. McAvoy, you need to be home, or with your sister. Give me a phone number where I can ...” He interrupted with the number, and bounced to his feet.

  “Thank you, Mr. Stanton. We will wait for your call...”

  “One more thing; was Suzanne meeting anyone special at the dance? Girl friends or a special boy?”

  “She has no special boy. She told her mother the whole idea of a mixer was to meet new people... she isn’t all that chummy despite being voted the most popular girl in her class. She likes everybody and treats everybody with respect. She has never been one of those cliquey girls... you know?”

  I nodded thoughtfully. “Well, ask her mother if there are any girls she knows of who are also freshmen at the college, we can check with them to see when Suzanne got there and when she left and perhaps who she left with. Okay?”

  “I’ll do it, and we’ll wait for a call.”

  I walked him to the front door, and watched as he walked across the street to a late-model pickup truck. He climbed in and drove away without looking for traffic. I shuddered, hoping he’d get home safely.

  Back at the newsroom, I walked over to Jay Knight, the sports editor. “We’re working on a story in news about Suzanne Czarnopias. You might give us a hand after your pages are out.”

  “What’s with Suzanne?”

  “Her family says she’s been missing since Saturday night. Cindy’s working the police. If she’s missing, it’ll lead today’s paper.”

  He nodded. “I know her pretty well; great kid; nice family. She lives alone with her mom, Grace. Grace graduated a year, no two years, after me. Married the Czarnopias idiot right after high school. He walked out on them a couple years after Suzanne was born. Nobody’s heard of him since.”

  “You know Fred McAvoy?”

  “Of course, Jim; hell, I’ve lived here all my life except for two years in the Army. I know everybody. Fred and his brother, Ron, both younger than Grace, have been real involved in Suzanne’s life, especially in sports. She has played everything, but her real talent is long-distance running. She comes by her athletics honestly, Fred was all-conference in football at least once; Ron had a shot with the Pirate organization right after high school, but Uncle Sam took him in the draft.

  “That’s a great Lake City family right there, Jim. Born, bred and raised right here in the ‘Heart and Soul of the Finger Lakes,’” he said mocking the town’s slogan.

  “Get your pages out and check in with Cindy or me; see if we can put something together today. If she decided to start her post-high school career with a bender or a shack job, we’ll spike it at the last minute. If she’s really been kidnapped, we’ll make sure everyone in the region is looking for her.”

  I stopped at the darkroom’s revolving door that allows us access without “letting the dark leak out,” and knocked. Fritz Crawford was our photographer. Unlike the press photographers portrayed on television, Fritz was always nattily dressed, combed and presentable. He had prematurely receding hair that would leave him completely bald up top by the time he was forty, but in those days he kept what little hair he had up there combed over as best he could.

  “Enter!” He called.

  He was prepari
ng “PMTs” from wire service photos. That process required that the photos transmitted over the wire and printed out in black and white on the AP Photo machine could be cropped, sized and screened so they’d reproduce in shades of gray in the newspaper.

  “What’s up, chief?” he said as he waited for the machine to finish its cycle.

  “You could put together a contact sheet or two of your best Suzanne Czarnopias photos and send them to Randy’s desk when you can.”

  “Suzanne making news?”

  “Maybe; her family says she’s been missing since Saturday night.”

  “Oh, shit; that’s not a girl who steps out.”

  “So I hear.”

  The afternoon newspaper went to bed at about ten in the morning in those days, because of the time it took to create the pages for newsroom approval, then transforming those pages into negatives which then, in marriages of two, were made into photographic plates that could reproduce the page onto the rollers of the press and finally onto the newsprint. It took time.

  A breaking story such as this is known in the business as “pop and bang” news. Headlines sell single copies of newspapers; subscribers are in for the everyday, “grist of the mill” stories that portray and record the fabric of small-town life.

  Cindy was all over the Suzanne Czarnopias story, and at nine-thirty, she and city editor Randy Patterson, along with Knight, were feverishly writing the piece that would lead the newspaper that day.

  I had worked with Patterson and Knight to pick what we thought were the four best photos, an action shot of Suzanne breaking the tape at the state meet the previous spring; a photo of her playing volleyball and one of her with a teacher from the yearbook files in addition to the graduation headshot her family had provided.

  “Did we take a quote from her mother?” I asked Randy as he came back to the universal desk.

  “We sent a circulation staffer to pick it up; Grace wanted to write it out.”