Outburst

by R. D. Zimmerman

  On the other side of the edit bay, Bradley focused a Betacam—a new 300-A that needed hardly any light because of a new microchip—and said, “Okay, we're all set.”

  “Great,” replied Todd, who now wore a blue oxford shirt and a navy and yellow striped tie. “Can you leave it running, or do you need to stay?”

  “Oh, I'll stay,” he said, squinting as he made the last adjustments. “I just want to make sure you keep in focus.”

  Todd had no idea, of course, what type of interview Ron Ravell would be—he had sounded reticent on the phone, so he might not be too forthcoming—which was why Todd had decided on a reversal. Having himself taped as well, Todd had learned the hard way, would give him a few extra guarantees. If in response to a question like “Do you think Kenney should be put away for life?” Ravell merely replied with a nonanswer like “Well …” or “Yes, but …” or simply “Absolutely,” then at least they'd be able to edit in Todd and his words, which would give context to the reply. After all, Todd never did any self-editing during an actual interview like this. It wasn't until later, once they had it all on tape, that Bradley and he would go over this whole thing frame by frame, picking and choosing, cutting and butting one thing up against another, to get just the right play.

  Turning his attention to the router switches, Todd flicked one of the black buttons and saw the monitor in front of him fill with snow. Suddenly the screen went from a blizzard to a rainbow of colored bars, indicating that the uplink to the satellite was taking place. Immediately thereafter the L.A. station's call letters appeared and the ten-second countdown began. Todd quickly shoved a Beta tape into a recorder and picked up not an earpiece but a telephone receiver. He had all of ten minutes for the interview, which was about as long a satellite interview as he ever conducted, and all he hoped to snag in that time was a sound byte of some sort from Ron Ravell. If he didn't get a pithy, dramatic statement in that time—his personal rule was never one longer than nineteen seconds—he wouldn't get one no matter how long the interview.

  Suddenly the colored bars vanished and the image of a young man appeared on the monitor before Todd. He was a nice-enough looking guy, chestnut hair, striking eyebrows, and a broad, clear face. Seated in what looked like the L.A. station's newsroom, he wore a blue sport jacket and a tie and white shirt.

  “Hi, Ron, it's me, Todd Mills.”

  Spooked by the clarity of the sound, Ron jumped and looked around as if a ghost had just whispered in his ear. With his right hand he then nervously pressed the earpiece deeper into his ear, while with his left he touched the lav mike pinned to the lapel of his sport coat.

  “You look great,” said Todd into the phone as he stared at the monitor. “I can see you perfectly.”

  “Oh, good,” replied Ron, glancing around, not sure what to do. “Hi.”

  “I'm sorry you can't see me, too, but all you have to do is look right into the camera,” instructed Todd.

  Ron's hands settled back into his lap and he turned his eyes straight ahead. “Sure.”

  “That's perfect. I just want to say thank you for coming today. I really appreciate it.”

  “Of course.”

  This wasn't good, thought Todd. He had to get him talking. Get him to reply in more complete statements. And so Todd continued the banter.

  “Did you have any trouble finding the station?”

  “No. No, I knew right where it was.”

  “Good. And what's the weather like out there?”

  “Warm.”

  “Smoggy?”

  “No, not too bad.”

  “Well, it's hotter than hell out here,” said Todd, avoiding Minnesota's most famous, or rather infamous, quality: winter. “Humid, too, which I can't stand.”

  Ron smiled. “That's what I hear, that it can get pretty bad out there in the summer.”

  And then, boom: “Ron, I can't imagine what it's like to lose a brother to violence.”

  It was Todd's method, his trick. Relax them, get them to loosen their guard, then hit them with a horribly honest yet horribly sympathetic statement. And it worked. Just like a surgeon sticking in a knife at the opportune moment, Todd's words cut through any defenses Ron Ravell might have had, slicing through to Ron's true thoughts and feelings.

  Right off the bat Ravell blurted a sound byte Todd had only dreamed of getting: “It's been awful. Christopher Kenney is a monster, a cold-blooded murderer, and I'll never forgive him for killing my brother.”

  It shocked even Todd that he got something so easily and so quickly, and for a moment he didn't know what to do. That was it. All he needed. The next instant, though, a rush of excitement whizzed through him. This was a hot one. And instinctively he knew there was more where that came from.

  He countered, “Los Angeles officials, however, ruled that

  your brother died from a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head. Why do you believe otherwise?”

  “There was no way Dave would have killed himself. Dave was just sixteen months older than me and we were very close. He was upset over his recent divorce, but that was it.”

  Okay, thought Todd. He wanted to get him to say it again, what Todd had earlier read about. It was tacky and insensitive of Todd to ask, but he pushed aside any hesitation. He had a job to do. If Ron got pissed off and ended the interview, then so be it. Todd already had what he needed.

  “Ron, was your brother gay?”

  Ravell's brow wrinkled downward, and then he said it just the way he had a couple of years ago for the papers: “Maybe, maybe not. But I can tell you one thing for sure: Dave didn't kill himself over questions of his sexuality.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because I'm gay, and Dave had virtually no problems with it. Who knows, maybe he was struggling with some sexuality issues. He never mentioned anything, but there are plenty of families where all the kids are gay.”

  “So you're quite certain—”

  “I'm quite certain,” interrupted Ravell, springing to verbosity as if he'd been waiting desperately for this opportunity, “that Dave was murdered by that drag queen.”

  “Christopher Louis Kenney?”

  “Yes. Dave was killed in that pervert's apartment, and I'm quite certain that Kenney was the one who fired the gun at my brother.”

  Suddenly Todd found himself in the position of trying to keep up with Ravell, and staring at the monitor, he said, “As I told you earlier, Christopher Kenney was arrested just last night in Minneapolis in conjunction with the murder of Minneapolis Park Police Officer Mark Forrest.”

  “I'm not surprised.”

  “But why do you think your brother was murdered, Ron, when the Los Angeles authorities believe otherwise?”

  “Because the evidence is overwhelming.”

  “What do you mean? Can you be specific?”

  “Dave was at Kenney's apartment, there was no one else there. Kenney's fingerprints were on the handle of the gun that killed Dave. And when someone—a neighbor—came in after the shot, he found Kenney just sitting there, staring at my brother, the gun on the floor between them.”

  “Yes, but what happened? Why did the Los Angeles authorities rule this a suicide, and why did the prosecuting attorney drop the charges against Christopher Kenney?”

  “They ruled it a suicide because the Los Angeles police and the medical examiner screwed up right from the beginning. First the police failed to do some kind of test, and—”

  “Wait a minute,” interrupted Todd, leaning forward, his eyes fixed on Ron's image. “I haven't heard about this. They failed to do what?”

  “There's some kind of test that shows if a suspect has fired a gun. They should've done it, but they didn't.”

  “You mean they didn't do a paraffin test?”

  “Exactly.”

  Incredulous, Todd sat there shaking his head. A paraffin test, which would have shown if there was gunpowder residue on Kenney's hands, should have been done right away, the moment he was brought in. Was Ron Ra
vell now saying it hadn't been done at all? If so, that would be ridiculous. And why the hell hadn't Todd seen mention of this screwup in any of the newspaper articles he'd read on Lexis-Nexis?

  Todd said, “But that should have been routine.”

  “I know, that's what I was told too. Somehow they messed up though. There were too many cops involved. One guy thought the other had the test done, the other guy thought a third guy was taking care of it. You know, it was just a total screwup, and no one realized the test hadn't been done until three or four days later.”

  “And that's way too late,” said Todd, knowing that you had a few hours, not a few days, before the residue was washed away by something as simple as hand soap. “That wasn't in the papers at all, was it?”

  “Of course not. You think the cops would let out something like that?”

  “Frankly, I'm really shocked.”

  “It's terrible. And then to top it off, the medical examiner who filed the initial report was arrested a day or two later for drunk driving. Everything he'd been working on was discredited, including the case he'd built against Kenney.”

  “I did read about that.” Todd took a deep breath, gathered his thoughts, and, staring at the video image of Ravell on the monitor, said, “So the charges against Kenney were dropped because the prosecutor didn't believe he could prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt?”

  “Exactly. And the reason he couldn't prove Kenney's guilt was because between the cops and the medical examiner all the evidence was either lost or ruined.”

  “I see, but—”

  “And an hour after that,” interrupted Kenney, “my mother … my mother …” He bowed his head slightly and pinched the bridge of his nose with his right hand as if to forestall any tears. “She was crushed by Dave's death. She'd been on medication ever since he was killed. But then an…an hour after she heard the news that Kenney was going free she had this horrible stroke.”

  This was good. Excellent. All of it he could use.

  Todd said, “I'm sorry.”

  “It was horrible.” His eyes red with grief, Ravell stared back up at the camera. “I've been waiting for this to happen. I hate to say it, but I've been waiting for Kenney to kill again. I knew he would.”

  Sometimes you got nothing, thought Todd. Sometimes you got an avalanche, almost more than you could use. And this was clearly the second.

  Wondering what a more moderate statement might elicit, Todd said, “Well, the authorities here in Hennepin County certainly have a challenging case. Kenney's being held at City Hall jail, but he hasn't yet been formally charged with first-degree murder, which he would be since a police officer was killed. That, I'm sure, will only happen when and if the prosecutor's office determines they have sufficient evidence against Kenney.”

  As if spent, Ravell quietly shook his head on-screen, his face drawn and achingly sad, and said, “Dear God, it would be a crime if they let him go again.”

  Todd asked him several other questions, none of which elicited anything insightful, and then closed him out, saying, “Ron, we have only a few more moments of satellite time, but I want to thank you very much for joining me and sharing your opinions. And my condolences to you for the tragedies you have suffered.”

  “Thank you.”

  Okay, thought Todd, but was the door still open? “Can I give you a call if anything else comes up?”

  “Of course. You might have to leave a message. I travel a lot—I'm a flight attendant out here—but I check my messages all the time.”

  “Listen, you take care,” concluded Todd. “We'll all be curious to see how this thing ends.”

  A sad expression on his face, Ron Ravell shrugged and said, “I just hope the legal system doesn't let us down again.”

  The next instant the satellite connection was severed and the monitor in front of Todd snapped into a blizzard of snow. Todd then hung up the phone, flicked off the router switch, and popped out the Beta tape.

  “That was kind of incredible,” said Bradley, turning off the camera focused on Todd.

  “No kidding. I still can't believe they didn't do a paraffin test. That's just outrageous. The cops have done that on every murder I've ever covered.” He thought for a moment. “But I don't think I want to touch that yet. I have to check it out, get confirmation from the L.A. police, so maybe that's something for tomorrow night's story.”

  Right. Keeping a story like this going was harder than hell, but a major mistake like that by the Los Angeles police—particularly if it had never been reported—was ample material for another story or two. Before touching that one, though, he really did need to do some research and conduct a few more interviews.

  He could see it now, how he'd do his next piece on the murder of Mark Forrest. They'd start out with the image of Ron, his harsh words. Then they'd cut to a variety of other images, footage that a producer had already requested from their L.A. affiliate and was due to come to WLAK on tomorrow morning's feed. Todd already knew they were going to get shots of Dave Ravell's body being carted from Kenney's apartment and then of course shots of Dave Ravell's funeral. There'd be tons of that footage. Todd would also ask the producer to get images of Ravell in his police uniform and of his mother as well. Perhaps all three—Dave, Ron, and Mom. Maybe he'd get a sound byte from the L.A. investigator. And music. Yes, absolutely. There had to be music in tonight's package. From watching Spielberg movies Todd had learned the importance of music to stir the emotions. But what could he use? In these midwestern parts any cop funeral was accompanied by a bagpiper, and he presumed that was the case in California as well.

  Right, to wrap the whole thing up he'd show Ravell's body being lowered into the ground as a lone, mournful bagpiper toiled away. And the final sound wouldn't be Ron Ravell's condemning words of Kenney, but Todd wondering how this mystery was yet to unfold.

  33

  It took him a long time to go to sleep that night, not because he was nervous or upset, but because he finally knew what he was going to do next. What he had to do. After days of sitting in this room, he'd finally come to the realization that he had no other choice, that there was no other way to end this.

  He'd been out of his room at the Redmont only a scant few times since the night Forrest had died. He'd ordered room service three times. He hadn't let the maids in to clean. No, mostly what he'd done was watch the news—the sunrise, early, midday, five o'clock, six, and late-night broadcasts to see what that fool Mills had to say. And he hadn't spoken to anyone but her, of course, and only then because she kept phoning, so worried was she about how things were going. Well, fuck her, the stupid bitch. Couldn't she tell? Couldn't she see that things were all fucked up?

  He rolled onto his left shoulder. Just get some sleep. Tomorrow's going to be another big, big day. And you need your sleep, you most certainly do. Just gotta be sharp as a tack. Just gotta keep the ball rolling down that big, bad hill. Yes, it was time to act, no doubt about it. Hoping it would lull him to sleep, he chanted: “GMF, GMF, GMF…”

  He tossed the other way, squirming and now rolling onto his right shoulder. Was this a dream or was it a nightmare? At this point he had no idea. But, oh, shit. Why had he done it? And why the hell hadn't he met Mark Forrest before her, before she'd wormed her way into his life?

  He still couldn't believe it. Believe that he'd gotten away. After all, everyone thought they knew what was going on, but no one knew what he did, now, did they?

  34

  By the next morning Rawlins had everything he was going to get, at least in the time he had. They hadn't been able to get a match on the fingerprints they'd recovered from Mark Forrest's car, there were no more interviews left, and there were no more trails that could be followed before noon today when Kenney's thirty-six hours expired. Either they had him now or they didn't.

  Tucked into his manila folder were formal statements from Todd, from Christopher Kenney's cousin, and from an L.A.P.D. homicide investigator who'd worked on the Dave Ravell case. Ad
ditionally there was the preliminary blood work that showed that the blood found on the yellow rain slicker was the same type, B-positive, as Mark Forrest's. For now it was the best Rawlins could do. The hoped-for ace in the hole—a direct DNA match to Forrest's blood—was going to take another fifteen days.

  “This is good, but it sure isn't perfect,” said Denise Daylen as she rose from behind her desk and handed him the formal complaint against Christopher Louis Kenney. “What about Kenney's therapist? Anything there yet?”

  “No, nothing. Not even a name. And at the U they won't even tell me if Kenney's part of their gender program.” Rawlins rubbed his face and said, “I was up a good part of the night working on all this.”

  “I don't doubt it.”

  He tugged at his dark gray sport coat, then fidgeted with his tie. “So you think he'll sign it?”

  “Well, Judge Hawkins certainly isn't going to ignore the fact that Kenney has already been arrested in conjunction with a cop-killing.” Escorting him to her door, she kept her voice low as she whispered, “Frankly, I wouldn't have written this one up if it was anyone else but Hawkins. Stopping this one certainly wouldn't make him look good, that's for sure, what with all the get-tough-on-crime talk and everything.”

  “Well, wish me luck.”

  “Break a leg.”

  Carrying the NCIC printout, various forms, his report, and now the formal complaint, Rawlins headed for the elevators. Riding the lift up a single floor, he got out and went around to the receptionist, who was squirreled away behind bulletproof glass. Eventually Hawkins's administrative clerk, Marge, an older woman with short, curled hair, came out to get him.

  “Good morning,” said Marge. “This way, please. The judge is expecting you.”

  Rawlins took a deep breath and followed her, hoping like hell that, at last, this was it, the end of the beginning.

  35

  Todd was slow getting to the station that morning mostly because he'd slept like crap the night before. Jazzed by the satellite interview with Ron Ravell, worried about Rawlins, he hadn't been the least bit tired and had ended up reading until the early hours.