The Best in the West

by Kathleen Walker

  Adkins stood over her, his fingers spinning through another Rolodex.

  “Here, here,” he tossed a card at her. “Try this.”

  “Unit Eight to Base. Eight to base.”

  “Go ahead, Cappy,” she answered.

  “Got some cops out here. Some hikers spotted something.” She could hear the excitement in his voice.

  “What?”

  “Don’t know. Ambulance here. Rafferty’s been called to do a flyover. Where’s Davis?”

  “News Base, this is …” The call letters were lost in static.

  “Sky Eye to Base,” it came again.

  “Hold on,” she told Cappy. “He’s on now.”

  “Talk to him,” she ordered Adkins as she turned to the speaker that gave her Ken Davis.

  “What’s up?”

  “Something up on Padre.”

  “I’m there.”

  “Hey, tell him to come here first and get me,” Adkins ordered

  “You got a story ready?” she asked.

  “Nothing out there,” he said. “Nothing to it.”

  “I need whatever you have.”

  “From a fucking puppet show?” he demanded. “Come on, Nancy.” Steve walked toward them with Mark Cunningham a few paces behind.

  “He can pick me up,” said Steve. “Charles can drive out there and meet Cappy. That will give us someone on the ground and I can be shooting from the copter.”

  “Hey, what’s going on?” Ken shouted on the speaker.

  “Okay. Steve, get your equipment and get up to the pad. Charles, take a van and go out to Cappy,” she ordered.

  “Ken,” she called over the radio, “get in here and pick up Steve.”

  “Everything under control?” Brown was talking again.

  “Should I take the live unit?” Charles Adkins shouted from the newsroom door. “We might need it.”

  “Take it,” she yelled back. “Everything is fine,” she told Brown.

  “What have you got?”

  “Don’t know. Ken is up and is going to pick up Steve. Adkins is on his way out to meet Cappy.”

  “Okay. I’ll be at home if you need me.”

  “Yeah, yeah,” she mumbled. She had to build the newscast.

  “What can I do?” asked Mark Cunningham.

  “Edit when we’ve got something to edit,” she told him.

  Tommy Rodriguez ambled into the room, a friendly smile on his face.

  “Where have you been?” she demanded.

  “I’ve been on my way here,” he said, the smile gone.

  “What have you got? What stories?”

  “What’s wrong with you?”

  “I’ve got everybody and their brother out on a rescue or something and I don’t have a newscast. What have you got?”

  “What kind of rescue?”

  “Just tell me what you have!” she shouted.

  “A couple of nothing pieces. I want to kill that day-in-the-dog-park thing.”

  “We’re not killing anything. Get it together and give me the times.”

  “Okay, but what’s going on?” He followed her to the wire machine.

  “Get the stuff to Mark,” she ordered. She ripped the paper and marched back to the desk, a long stream of wire copy trailing behind her.

  Tommy was right on her heels.

  “Somebody dead or what?” he asked.

  “This is Cappy to Base. Cappy to Base.”

  Tommy beat her to the desk.

  “Go ahead,” he said.

  “Looks like somebody fell. We’ve got some witnesses here. Who is this?”

  “Tommy.”

  “Can I get a reporter out here?” Cappy asked.

  “He wants a reporter,” he told Nancy. “Says he has witnesses or something.”

  Nancy looked up from her typewriter. She frowned. Those witnesses would stay there until hell froze over if they thought they were going to be on television.

  “Tell him Adkins is on his way.”

  She turned to the sound of the helicopter beating the air above the building.

  “Adkins’s on his way,” Tommy told Cappy.

  “Tell him I’m in the park. The entrance is on the north side. He knows where it is.” He doubled-clicked off.

  “Hi, how’s it going?” Scott Reynolds was standing next to her. Dependable and pleasant, he was the perfect weekend anchor.

  “Oh, God, Scott. I don’t have anything done. Would you check on the feed? Pick something up for the ten o’clock. Something is going on. A rescue, I think. That might be my lead, but I am going to need a few things off the feed. Something hard, something soft.”

  “Okay,” he smiled.

  Five minutes passed before the next interruption.

  “Live to Base. Live to Base.” It was Charles Adkins’ voice.

  “This is Base. Go ahead,” Tommy answered.

  “We’re going to do some interviews with the people who think they found a body,” Adkins said. Other voices interrupted.

  “Oh, yeah, well,” Adkins continued, “They saw what looked like a body and called the cops.”

  “Somebody dead, alive, what?” she demanded as she tore a script page from the typewriter. “Geez!” she cried. “I’m going to need an engineer. Tell him we’ll send out an engineer in case we go live.”

  She was breathing hard, like a runner. What if there wasn’t an engineer in the station? Those guys were never around. But, there had to be one, had to be. Sports usually had a live’er on the weekend and they had to have another engineer in the station to make sure everything was working.

  “Would an engineer please call the newsroom,” she called over the public address system.

  “And?” came the quick telephone response. “What can I do you for?”

  “I need an engineer out to my live unit. I may want to send something back and I might need a live’er tonight on the six.”

  “Why don’t you send somebody out to pick up the tape?”

  “I don’t have any time or any people,” she shouted. “I want an engineer out there.”

  “I am supposed to do a live shot for sports,” he reminded her.

  “I don’t care. Go out there and send the stuff back or bring it back.”

  “No can do right now,” was the singsong reply. “Nobody else in right now and I have that sports live’er from the arena. You can’t cancel that.”

  “Then find another engineer!” she yelled.

  “Double time,” he sang.

  “Pay it, damn it.”

  She slammed down the receiver. You couldn’t argue with an engineer. They did exactly what they wanted.

  “So, what do you need?”

  The short man who belonged to the telephone voice now stood over her. Damn, he must have been only a few feet away when he called.

  “I need,” she said through gritted teeth, “an engineer to go out to the live unit at Padre Peak.”

  “Why didn’t you say so?” He grinned.

  She stared at him. This is what she needed now, an engineer’s moronic sense of humor.

  “They’re in that park on the north side of the mountain,” Tommy told him from the seat he had taken at the assignment desk. “You know where that is?”

  The engineer nodded and stepped back as Nancy stood up and grabbed the pile of script papers. He followed her to the long empty table in the front of the room. He watched as she began to lay the lines of the newscast. Where a script page was missing, she inserted a sheet of yellow paper. Her movements were slow and deliberate.

  “You can’t get a live shot from there, you know,” he said from his position behind her. “Mountain’s in the way,” he said, clasping his hands behind his back.

  She ignored him and stared at the lines of white and yellow paper.

  “Your show,” he commented as he walked away.

  “How long is your story?” she called to Tommy Rodriguez.

  “That thing on the park will be about fifty seconds but you shou
ld toss it,” he said. “I also have that piece on the new sewage plant. I figure it at about one-thirty.”

  “Fine. Write the intros.” Her mind was now on her times. After a long stare at the table, she began to rearrange the sheets. She threw two yellow sheets to the floor. Like she needed this. Depending on what Adkins got, she would be standing here shuffling the script, exchanging yellow papers for white, right up until the last five minutes before the newscast. One yellow sheet headed the top of the first vertical row. That was her lead.

  “This is Sky Eye to Base. Sky Eye to Base.”

  “Go ahead, Ken.”

  “We got Rafferty lowering some guy on a rope. We got the body coming up on a stretcher.”

  “Body? You said body?”

  “That’s an affirmative. No doubt about it.”

  “Dead? What?”

  “I don’t know.”

  Great.

  “Get in as fast as possible,” she ordered. “We need that tape.”

  She turned to the two-way.

  “Cappy, you there?”

  “We got what we can out here,” Charles Adkins responded. “What do we do now?”

  Oh, crap, did she need that live’er now?

  “An engineer is on his way. Wait for him and trade units, then come in.” She gave two clicks on the receiver button. What the hell was the engineer’s name?

  “Could the engineer please respond?”

  “You mean me?” the voice asked.

  “Right. Trade units with Adkins and head out to the sports thing.”

  “Like I said,” the voice sang. “I’m doing a live’er tonight for sports.”

  She could imagine the smirk on his face. Who cared? So far, so good. Sports was covered. She’d have Cappy’s footage and Steve’s. She had her lead, whatever it was. Good, she’d get out of here yet.

  48

  “Everything set up?” Rick Whalen, weekend sportscaster, stood at her desk.

  “If you set it up, it’s up,” she answered.

  He handed her script sheets.

  “This is pretty much how it’s going to go. I’ll wing it, but make sure they’ve got the scores.”

  He handed her another pile of sheets with the numbers and names that would appear on the screen.

  “You got anything good going?” he asked.

  “A hiking accident, maybe, something.”

  “Nice,” he said.

  It would be a good newscast, not that he cared that much. What he cared about were the big-money men who were in town during the winter months. All those guys from New York and Chicago were right now sitting around the hotel pools tanning their guts.

  At six o’clock, all those big time boys would be getting out of their showers, reaching for a drink from their mini-bars, and watching the news, especially the sports. And, he’d be there for them to see. Who knew where that could lead.

  “You know where to reach me,” he told her.

  She managed to type two pieces of copy before she had to reach for the phone.

  “Who is this?” The voice was low and urgent.

  “Who is this?” she demanded.

  “Brian Rafferty.”

  “Hey, Brian,” she brightened. “It’s Nancy Patterson. How’s it going? Still working hard?”

  “Shut up and listen,” he ordered.

  “What?”

  “Can you get to Brown?” His voice was muffled as though he was cupping the mouthpiece, hiding the movement of his lips from whomever might be watching.

  “Why?”

  “Listen, I shouldn’t be telling you this. This isn’t public yet, but I think Brown needs to know.”

  “Okay.” She waited.

  “You’ve got to get to Brown and tell him something and if you ever say where you got it, I swear to God I’ll say you’re lying. You got that?”

  “Okay, okay,” she agreed. She’d worry about that after she heard what he had.

  “It was one of yours,” he said. “That body I picked up was one of yours.”

  She felt the hair rise on her arms.

  “What do you mean?”

  “It was Hanson. Debbie Hanson.”

  “Oh my God,” she gasped. Tommy Rodriguez, back in his cubicle, looked up from his typing.

  “Listen, damn it,” Rafferty demanded. “Nobody knows, not yet. Not anybody who is saying anything. I had to tell the cops, but it’s not official. I can’t even tell my own people yet. Do you hear me?”

  “She’s dead?”

  “Yeah. They don’t know what happened. Look, I’m sorry. I met her a few times. Nice kid. I thought you guys should know before anyone else got it. I gotta go.” He hung up.

  “I can’t believe this,” she muttered, still holding the receiver.

  She took a deep breath and then turned to the two-way.

  “Get in here. Get in here now,” she yelled. “Cappy, Adkins, I need you now.”

  “What the hell is wrong?” demanded Tommy Rodriguez, standing over her again.

  What did she do? Tell him first or get to Brown?

  “Sit down, now,” she ordered as she checked the middle Rolodex for Brown’s home number. He answered on the first ring.

  “Jim, this is Nancy. I’ve got to talk to you.”

  “Go,” was his calm reply.

  “It was Debbie. That body Rafferty brought down, it was Debbie and …” She stopped abruptly. She could not hear him breathing. Tommy had jumped to his feet.

  “Jim?”

  “I’m listening,” he said quietly. “Go ahead.”

  “Rafferty called. He recognized her. No question about it.” Who cared if she told everyone it was Rafferty? Who cared now?

  “Do you have confirmation, DPS, hospital, anybody?”

  “No, we’re not supposed to know. Nothing is confirmed.”

  “Don’t call anybody. Don’t use the two-way until I get there. You understand?”

  “Yes, I understand.”

  She took another deep breath. She knew what she had to do. She had to put a newscast together, a new one. She had less than two hours. She looked up at Tommy Rodriguez.

  “You have those intros?” she asked.

  “Are you kidding me?” His face was ashen.

  “Do them. We might not use them. I want them done, in case.”

  “What are we going to do about Debbie?” he cried.

  They stared at each other.

  “What the hell were you yelling about?” Cappy called out as he marched into the newsroom, Charles Adkins close behind him. “We were practically in the garage.”

  “It was Debbie,” Tommy blurted out. “That person they found was Debbie. The body up there.”

  Adkins’s knees seemed to buckle. He grabbed for the desk. “Jesus Christ. What are you talking about? What happened?”

  “Brown’s on his way in,” Nancy said, her eyes going from one face to another. “We have to sit on it until he gets here. Nobody is supposed to know.”

  “No way,” Adkins stated. “We should get it on the air right now. Do a break-in. It’s our story.”

  “What about her family?” Cappy asked, looking from face to face. “Does anybody know her family?”

  Where was her family, Nancy wondered. Who had the phone numbers? Did they have to get someone in from the front office to handle this?

  “What about Carter?” Tommy asked. “Are you going to call him?”

  “Scott!” she shouted to the newsroom. “Scott, are you in here?”

  “Scott Reynolds,” she called over the PA system, “Scott Reynolds to the newsroom.”

  “What do you have?” she asked Cappy. “We have to get something together.”

  “We have those interviews with those people who saw the body. A couple of shots of people walking up the trail. You know,” he said without meeting her eyes.

  “Steve will have the shots from the copter,” Charles Adkins added.

  “Where are they?” Tommy vied for his own position in front of her.
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  “There,” she said, and they all looked up at the noise of the helicopter making its rooftop landing.

  “What do you need?” Scott Reynolds walked to the desk.

  “That search-and-rescue was Debbie Hanson,” she told him. “We don’t know how or why. We don’t know anything, but it was her.”

  “No. How is she? What happened?”

  “She’s dead,” she said bluntly. “And we don’t know what happened. Brown is on his way. We have to get ready for the six. What do you think we should do about Carter?”

  Let him decide. He was the weekend anchor. It was up to him to decide if the newscast should be turned over to Carter, at least until Brown arrived.

  “I can’t believe this,” Scott Reynolds was shaking his head. “Dead? She’s dead?”

  “What about Carter?” she demanded. She didn’t have time for this.

  “I guess I can call him,” he said. “What will I tell him about Debbie?”

  She shrugged. Tommy Rodriquez and Charles Adkins also waited for her instructions. Cappy stood next to them, his camera resting on the desk.

  “This is …” Brown’s voice rattled through the call letters.

  “Go ahead.”

  “Who’s there with you right now?”

  “Rodriguez, Adkins.” Both of their voices were light, unconcerned, for the benefit of anyone else listening.

  “We don’t you get Tommy on some sort of look-back piece, not too long. We’ll save that for later.” It almost sounded as if he was smiling

  Tommy nodded.

  “I’ll be there in ten,” Brown said and clicked off.

  “Scott, call Carter,” she ordered, “and don’t tell him anything over the two-way.”

  “What do you want me to do?” Adkins asked.

  “Get the rescue piece together with Steve.”

  Cappy’s face fell. What about him?

  She turned to him. “You work with Tommy on the retro about Debbie. And move. We’ve got about an hour and a half.”

  “And,” she instructed all of them, “no phone calls out on this. None. You got that?”

  Fat chance, she thought, fat fucking chance.

  *

  Across the Street they had been listening to the calls. The weekend producer sat back in his chair, tapping on his chin and wondered why Jim Brown was on his way into the station. Something was breaking. Christ, what the hell was it? He sure didn’t have anything except the body Rafferty brought in. A good lead story, but nothing major without more info.