As Mike filled in some of the information we’d gotten from Gina, Mona, Marty, Tom and others, I remembered the first morning he’d come to pick me up to drive to O’Hara Hill. I’d been thinking then that the small evening-ups in life like the teenage bitch queen who’d been the bane of your adolescence getting wrinkles brought the truest satisfaction in life. After seeing Ames Hunt, I’d changed my mind.
Letting go was, by far, the saner course.
Was I ready for some sanity?
“Here’s to a wonderful addition to our little community of journalists,” said Needham Bender, raising his glass. “Who was instrumental in finding a murderer in our midst.”
While everyone else drank, Mike leaned over and added quietly, “And who made a little girl happy.”
Later that night, I watched a copy of the wrap-up show. The segment I kept replaying was a shot Diana had taken that morning, with the eastern sky igniting clouds into puffs of flame, and the western sky grudgingly relinquishing its purple velvet. Amid golden light and long, lush shadows softening the stone of the courthouse, Tamantha Burrell walked down the front steps, holding her father’s hand.
It was the first time I’d seen Tamantha Burrell smile.
* * * *
I WAS AWAKENED by the phone the next morning.
It was Mel.
“Danny? You wanted firm, I got firm. Political talk show in St. Louis. Every Sunday. And consulting with the political reporting team. It’s not the big bucks you were making, but—”
“No.”
“No? But—”
“I’m going to finish out my contract here, Mel. I need these months. To think and plan. Come next fall . . . . Maybe then I’ll be ready to sign off news for good. I don’t know. But I know I’m remaining KWMT’s ‘Helping Out’ reporter E.M. Danniher until then.”
It took more than that to persuade him I was certain, but when I did, he accepted it, even supported my decision. That’s one of the benefits of blending personal and professional, I thought as we hung up.
As for the drawbacks . . . I would tackle him later about exactly what strings in his spider web he’d pulled to get me to KWMT-TV. To get me exiled instead of executed, so I still had the chance to make choices about my professional future. And the chance to ask myself questions about my personal future.
I filled the bowls on the stump with food and water for the dog, then sat on the steps by the back door. He came from behind the garage and looked at me for a long time. Slowly he advanced to the stump. He ate hurriedly, drank deeply. But when he was finished, he didn’t slide back into the shadows. He stood and looked at me. And I talked to him, soft and slow. He came toward me.
He didn’t come close, and he didn’t stay long. But I looked into his melting chocolate brown eyes and knew Brent and the police and the neighbors were right. He was my dog. That morning, I named him Shadow.
That afternoon, I answered a knock to find a tall, lanky man who looked like Abraham Lincoln’s good-looking cousin standing on my doorstep—my front doorstep, in full view of anyone who might be watching.
“Thank you, E.M. Danniher.”
And then he kissed me.
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Don’t miss any of the Caught Dead In Wyoming series:
SIGN OFF
With her marriage over and her career derailed by her ex, top-flight reporter Elizabeth “E.M.” Danniher lands in tiny Sherman. But the case of a missing deputy and a determined little girl drag her out of her fog.
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LEFT HANGING
From the deadly tip of the rodeo queen’s tiara to toxic “agricultural byproducts” ground into the arena dust, TV reporter Elizabeth “E.M.” Danniher receives a murderous introduction to the world of rodeo.
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SHOOT FIRST
Death hits close to home for Elizabeth “E.M.” Danniher – or, rather, close to Hovel, as she’s dubbed her decrepit rental house in rustic Sherman, Wyoming.
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LAST DITCH
A man in a wheelchair goes missing in rough country in the Big Horn Basin of Wyoming. Elizabeth “E.M.” Danniher and KWMT-TV colleague Mike Paycik immediately join the search. But soon they’re on a search of a different kind – a search for the truth.
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“Great characters” … “Twists and turns” … “Just enough humor” … “Truly a fine read” … “Exciting and well-crafted murder mystery” … “Characters and dialogue were so very believable” … “Couldn’t put it down” … “That was fun!” … “Smart and witty”
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Dedication
For Mom & Dad, who taught me to read, told me the stories, bought me the books, and let me read just a few minutes longer so many nights.
Your love for each other has taught so many so much.
Acknowledgements
The author gratefully acknowledges
—William Beagle, who answered many questions about TV news and reminded me when I was wondering why on earth I hadn’t just written about newspapers that it’s because I like to learn things. Oh, yeah.
—Bill White, who continues as a timely resource on things Wyoming. As I’ve said before, after he stops laughing, he answers all my questions.
—Pat Van Wie, who has fulfilled two roles in bringing this story to life, both amazingly well.
—TV journalists Patrick Comer, Steve Trainer, and Samantha Kozsey, who answered many questions when this story was barely a seed.
—Shirley Rooker of CallforAction.org and WTOP radio, whose generous sharing of her time and information sprouted that seed.
—Brian Wagner of WHIZ, who answered last-second questions with aplomb.
—Coworkers in the newsrooms of the Rockford Register-Star, Charlotte Observer, and Washington Post. Some of you are among my favorite people on earth. Others, not so much. The former I thank for your friendship. The latter I thank for being great fodder for fictional murders.
CONTINUE READING FOR AN EXCERPT OF LEFT HANGING
Book 2 in the Caught Dead In Wyoming Series
DEATH IN THE Bull Ring.
KWMT-TV anchor Thurston Fine’s intoned words swelled across the newsroom, emanating from TVs hung from the ceiling like clusters of Chinese lanterns, so every staffer could see a screen. His televised expression remained solemn, despite the indignity of wearing a haphazard beard of pink and yellow Post-it notes.
More on the tragic demise of long-time rodeo contractor Keith Landry after we come back.
Actually, Fine didn’t wear the beard. His televised image did. As a number of his colleagues—professional to the core—watched the five o’clock news and lobbed wads of sticky notes at the image. Only the best throws stuck.
“Oh, good one, Elizabeth!” a co-worker congratulated me. “Right in the eye. A buzzer-beater, too.”
The giddy mood of cynicism that overtakes a newsroom when a big story combines with management ineptitude had infected the half-dozen staffers on hand. It’s harmless, if tasteless.
Adrenaline churned up by a big story has to go somewhere. It certainly wasn’t going into our coverage. We were the outsiders, the ones well beyond Thurston Fine’s circle of trust. As a newcomer and the possessor of a one-time vaunted career, I was the farthest outside that circle, and that suited me—if you’ll excuse the expression—fine.
“Thank you, thank you.” I took a bow for my final shot before Thurston’s face gave way to an ad for the Sherman, Wyoming Fourth of July Rodeo scheduled to start the end of next week. As if everybody in KWMT’s viewing area didn’t already know every detail. Especially after today’s unnatural death of one the rodeo’s main figures.
“So, tell us, Elizabeth Margaret Danniher,” said sports anchor Michael Paycik into the fist he presented as a mock microphone, “did you feel the pressure to get that shot off before time ran out?”
I leaned over and spoke to his fist from an inch away, glancing up to make eye contact with a non-existent camera. “I take ’em one at a time, Mike.”
“How does the thrill of hitting Thurston Fine in the eye with the sticky-note version of a spitball,” he intoned in a plummy voice unlike his natural on-air delivery, “measure against years of spitting in the eyes of scumdom’s major-leaguers?”
“I’ll tell you, Mike—and I wouldn’t lie to you—Thurston Fine ranks right up there.”
“That sure as hell is true,” Mike Paycik grumbled, dropping his assumed voice.
He nursed a grudge, because our anchor had decreed that coverage—done by guess-who—of stock contractor Keith Landry’s death would be allotted all of the five o’clock evening news as well as the entire 10 p.m. newscast. Except weather. He’d left the weatherman a few seconds to report that the sky had not fallen. That’s right. No national news, no international news, no features, no sports, and certainly no consumer news, which meant my scheduled contribution was staying in the can.
“Editorial comment creeping into your reporting, Paycik,” I said.
“Your comments haven’t been exactly unbiased, either. Especially not when Fine passed down his edict. God, who’d ever think I’d miss Haeburn.”
Les Haeburn, who passed for a news director at KWMT, had gone on vacation earlier this week and left Fine in charge. It wasn’t clear if Haeburn hadn’t said when he was returning, or if no one had been interested enough to ask.
“That’s where I benefit from having an older and wiser head, experiencing many years in this business while you were still in leading strings—”
“In what? Is that a synonym for playing pro football?”
I waved off that irrelevance. “—while you were playing pro football and otherwise frittering away your time. I don’t miss Haeburn even in this extremity.”
Commercials ended and, too soon for my taste, the face of Thurston Fine reappeared.
Keith Landry and his partner built their business up from their roots in Enid, Oklahoma, and had been stock contractor for the Sherman Fourth of July Rodeo in previous years. Glorious, successful years for our community’s greatest event.
The screen cut to a choppy montage of Cottonwood County notables riding in convertibles in parades.
“What do you know?” came from the back of the room. “Fine got in a shot of himself doing the parade wave.”
The montage continued with western-clad young men in various rodeo events, rodeo clowns playing tag with lumbering bulls, and a string of girls with big smiles, big cowboy hats, and increasingly outdated hairstyles. Going backward in time was a disorienting finish to the over-long, under-relevant package.
But last year, under new and inexperienced committee chair Linda Caswell— Back live, Fine’s voice and face registered grave disapproval.
Mike growled, “Wrong again, Fine.”
—the rodeo signed with a new company. In an effort to save money.
“It had to save money after losing sponsorships because the former committee chair and Fine’s great buddy was disgraced,” Mike inserted.
“Details, details,” I murmured.
But when that new, cheap rodeo producer turned out to be a chimera—
“A what?” chorused his newsroom audience. He’d pronounced it like shimmering, confusing those in his audience who knew its Greek mythology origins, along with everyone else.
—Keith Landry returned to Sherman in its hour of need and rescued this rodeo that he continued to love, even after it had thrown him over for another contractor.
“And was paid a big fat bonus for his trouble, which Fine would know if he’d listened to my reports,” Mike said.
Photos on the screen showed a middle-aged man, his belt dropped low by the bulge above it. His hair was going gray under the inevitable cowboy hat. In all but one photo, he’d posed wearing sunglasses, smiling broadly and with at least one arm slung across the shoulders of a companion. The exception was a candid that caught puffiness under his small eyes and his mouth in an arch of displeasure.
Then, tragically, the white knight of the Sherman Rodeo—a groan filled the newsroom—lost his life before he could enjoy the fruits of his rescue efforts by seeing next weekend’s spectacular rodeo.
“Yeah, boy, I bet he’d’ve been happy to be stomped to death by bulls if only it had happened after the rodeo. Don’t even know why the bulls were there anyway.” Mike added in a mutter low enough that only I heard, “We should be on this story.”
Yes, the long, successful, storied association between Keith Landry and the Sherman Fourth of July Rodeo came to a tragic end today in the Sherman rodeo grounds’ bull ring. Fine shifted to a ghoulishly chipper tone to add, More on that when we come back, including exclusive video from KWMT.
“Twice! Twice the jerk called it a bull ring, like Keith Landry was a matador. God, I told him in the pre-rodeo meeting that it wasn’t a bull ring. I told him three times.” Paycik’s dour mood was beginning to worry me.
“That isn’t even where Landry was found. He was in a bull pen, not the arena,” said a cameraman named Jenks. Since he and Fine had been first on the scene—literally—he should know.
They’d arrived at the rodeo grounds for an early morning interview, then discovered Keith Landry would not be granting any more interviews. Unless he answered questions from St. Peter.
“I bet you never saw a case like this in your big-city reporting, did you, Elizabeth.”
“You’d win that bet, Jenks.”
After a career-long, steady climb on the TV news ladder, I’d had the ladder and my job yanked out from under me. Call it a final, surprise clause in my divorce decree from my network exec ex. To complete my contract, I’d been ordered to work in a market struggling to attain the status of small.
When I arrived in Sherman this past spring, my coworkers were wary. The attitude of some had undergone KWMT’s version of global warming since Mike Paycik, a camerawoman named Diana Stendahl, and I put together a special about a murder case a few weeks ago. News Director Les Haeburn and Fine, however, remained rock solid on their polar caps. The other holdouts were primarily Fine’s pets. Until today, that had included Jenks.
“We should be out there reporting this,” Mike grumbled. “It should be my story, anyway.” He was the only full-time sports reporter, in addition to being sports anchor.
“You’ll have to take that up with our fearless leader,” I said.
He grumbled a suggestion, the fulfillment of which would have required far more flexibility on Fine’s part than he’d shown any evidence of possessing.
Diana Stendahl, the KWMT shooter I most often worked with, peered around the doorway that separated the battered and cramped newsroom from a hallway. I waved her in. She said, “This is something, huh? I can’t ever remember a death where a bull was the weapon.”
“Is it still a weapon when it’s an accident?” debated Audrey Adams over my shoulder. She was one of KWMT’s utility infielders—officially an assignment editor, but frequently used as a producer/director. At the lower pay level, of course.
“Sure,” I declared airily. “If someone’s accidentally shot, the gun’s still a weapon.”
“Is it weapon or weapons when it’s a bunch of bulls that did the killing?”
Such debates can go on for days in a newsroom not otherwise kept busy. I’ve seen editors come to blows over a comma versus a semicolon—and that was for on-air copy when no listener could tell the difference.
Everyone had something to add.
“Weapon if you can pin it on one bull.”
“Weapons. It’s the cumulative effect.”
“Weapon, since the herd of bulls did the killing, and you view herd as a collective noun.”
“Shh! Fine’s back on. Don’t want to miss this.”
Before we show the next piece of video, I want to warn our audience that it is not for the squeamish. Parents should consider before exposing children to this sight. Mr. Landry’s remains—
“Not much remaining,” muttered Jenks.
He’d told Fine not to use this. Not only had Fine insisted—at suppertime, no less—but he’d screamed at Jenks, demanded a new shooter, and sent Jenks back to KWMT, where the convert to the not-so-Fine camp entertained us with footage of the tantrum. It was captured because one of Fine’s rules is to never stop rolling until he says so. He’d been too busy having a fit to say so.
That was not the only footage Jenks shared. He’d also shown us what had happened when he and Fine encountered the body.
It started with Fine’s fussy instructions over exactly what B-roll to shoot. From the arena, Jenks and Fine had moved around the end chute used by bull riders to mount bovine tornadoes and started down an aisle beside a holding pen, with close-ups of bulls’ massive bodies, intimidating horns, and occasionally malevolent expressions.
“What’s that?” Jenks’ sharp question was caught by audio, as he’d zoomed in on a lump that trailed partially out of the pen.
Fine’s peevish voice demanded Jenks stay focused on what he wanted—texture, he kept saying. His foot came into the frame. Then everything happened fast.
Jenks snapped, “Stop. Don’t step on it. I think . . . I think it’s somebody.” The camera bobbled.
“That’s ridic—”
The sound of Fine screaming. I would describe the high-pitched sound as being like a little girl, except I know a number of little girls who would never scream like that.
Sign Off (Caught Dead in Wyoming, Book 1) Page 26