Silencing Sam

by Julie Kramer

  Buzz nodded sympathetically. “Were you glad you did it?”

  “No.” That was the truth and I meant it. “It was just one of those times when you snap.”

  “Was there much blood?”

  “Blood?” I recalled the red stain on Sam’s sweater. “There wasn’t any blood. It was wine.”

  “Wine? I was talking about the shooting,” Buzz said.

  “I wasn’t.” From the look on his face, I realized that what I viewed as amiable chitchat, he took as a murder confession.

  “I didn’t kill the guy,” I laughed. “In fact, I was starting to wonder if you might have.”

  “Me?” Buzz seemed amused by the idea. “Why me?”

  “Well, you own a gun, and I don’t.”

  He seemed startled that I knew that piece of information. And without saying anything, Buzz patted the outside of his jacket as if reaffirming the presence of a hidden weapon.

  “So where were you the night he died?” I asked.

  “None of your business,” he answered. “But you’re the one everybody thinks did it. You need an alibi more than me.”

  “But you hated the guy, too. After what he said in his column about your … you know.” Suspecting Buzz was armed made me cautious about how I phrased the statement.

  “Well, he was wrong about that.” Buzz’s voice dropped and took on an edgy tone. “And I got plenty of chicks who’ll testify for me.”

  Seemed kind of early to be talking about testifying, but I wanted to avoid an argument.

  “I don’t doubt it for a minute, Buzz. Most of Sam’s column was a lie—day after day. He lied about me and he lied about you. And he never ran a correction.”

  “Yeah.” Buzz calmed down. “Guess the day finally came when he lied about the wrong person.”

  “Most likely that’s what happened,” I said in agreement. Besides the initial embarrassment, I knew Buzz still got razzed about Sam’s article. At away games, it wasn’t unusual for fans to yell “Pants! Pants!” at him when he came on the court.

  I raised a glass and made a toast to the two of us. Buzz clinked his against mine. We each took a swallow. When I looked up next, he seemed to be gazing straight into my eyes. I blinked. He didn’t. Nor did he turn away. I cleared my throat, took another sip, then stared back at him.

  “You reporters, you’re always after the truth, right?”

  Those were the last words I expected to hear from his mouth. And he said it like he was looking for confirmation … not confrontation.

  “Certainly, Buzz. Truth is the essence of my profession.”

  He stammered a bit, as if working up the courage to tell me something. “Getting back to that ‘Piercing Eyes’ column Sam wrote about me …”

  “Yes.” I spoke softly, in case he might be poised to confess.

  “Gossip columnists aren’t the same as regular reporters, right?”

  “Absolutely. Our standards are quite different when it comes to truth.”

  “I was pretty upset with him.”

  “I don’t blame you.”

  I wish I’d have thought to roll a tape recorder from inside my pocket, but I’d never considered our conversation might go this easily.

  “I’m comfortable letting you be the judge,” he said.

  Now didn’t seem the time to point out that juries, not judges, and certainly not journalists, decide guilt or innocence in murder cases.

  “Go on, Buzz.” I smiled to encourage him.

  “Not here.” He shook his head. “How about we go to my place, and I’ll prove the truth about the size of my … you know.” He patted himself down there to make sure I understood his proposition.

  If my glass wasn’t empty, I’d probably have flung the contents at his face—or crotch.

  But I needed to keep open the possibility of future rapport, so I decided to appear flattered rather than disgusted by his offer. And maybe on one level I was. After all, the room was full of younger women who’d have loved to be sitting across the table from Buzz Stolee and going home with him later. And, I reminded myself, athletes act like all men would act if they could get away with it. So I extracted myself from a delicate situation by explaining that journalists can’t have physical relationships with sources.

  Tempted as I was.

  “Honest, Buzz, I could get fired.”

  He seemed to accept my explanation as the only logical reason a woman would turn down such an invitation—and didn’t appear to even consider I might be reluctant to be alone with a man I thought capable of murder.

  When I got back to the station, I put a question mark by his name on the “Suspects with Carry Permits” chart. Under my theory, that left just Buzz and Tab Fallon. Both men had guns. Both had strong revenge motives. Whether either had an alibi, I didn’t know. But I’d made some progress today.

  So I went home—alone as usual.

  On the drive, I swung by Wirth Park, where the headless body had been dumped. I’d seen the crime-scene video, but that was shot during the day. I wanted to feel the killer’s world by moonlight.

  The moon was actually hidden behind the clouds. But there were plenty of streetlights in the parking lot. Woods and tall grass covered the park grounds of more than seven hundred acres. If the murderer had wanted to hide the body, plenty of places beckoned where it probably wouldn’t have been discovered until spring.

  Instead, the homicide was a stop and drop. Almost as if the maniac wanted his ghoulish work found. Was he just passing through town? Fantasizing about the discovery of his horror? Or was he a local? Watching the news coverage with satisfaction?

  I imagined tires rolling, a door opening, a torso hitting the pavement.

  CHAPTER 23

  A dead man is more newsworthy than a dead bat.

  So when Ozzie interrupted the morning meeting to say someone had been killed at the wind farm, I knew my story was gaining in respect under the TV news code of “If it bleeds, it leads.”

  Even Clay looked interested at the mention of death.

  I grabbed the phone Ozzie was waving and heard my dad explain how all the neighbors were abuzz about the dead body in the weeds by one of the turbines.

  “Did somebody shoot somebody?” Wouldn’t have surprised me after all the trigger talk the other day.

  “No,” he said. “There was another explosion. Nobody knows anything more. Your mom and I are safe.”

  The bombers apparently decided to escalate matters with a human casualty. Chances were, I knew the victim. We could have been related. The bloodlines along that Minnesota-Iowa-state-line neighborhood were intertwined pretty deep. Everybody was a cousin of everybody else. This story had the potential to jerk some tears. Even mine.

  “We’re on our way, Dad,” I said. “Tell folks not to talk to other media.”

  A bad break for me, the weather was clear but the chopper was in for maintenance. That meant it lay in pieces on the floor of the hangar. Sometimes the station rents a small plane for out-of-town shoots, but that only works if there’s an airport runway nearby. And the aerials are never any good; the fixed wings get in the way. So once again Malik and I drove south even though news was breaking.

  “No comment.”

  The county sheriff wouldn’t release any details over the phone about the mysterious death. I hoped by the time we arrived, he’d have a statement. But in the meantime, their tight lips might mean the rest of the media pack was unaware of this latest development.

  To save gas money, both the St. Paul and Minneapolis newspapers were attempting to conduct poignant telephone interviews about distant tragedies. Our television competitors hadn’t been covering the wind explosions much because they happened on the far edge of the viewing area and because, unlike Channel 3, they didn’t have dramatic video of a falling turbine.

  But a dead body could change everything.

  By the time we arrived at the wind farm, we’d missed the critical shot of the corpse being moved. Yellow and black crime-scene tape surr
ounded about two acres of land. In the distance, Scout and his handler, Larry, were sweeping the field.

  My bachelor farmer pal Gil Halvorson had discovered the body. Or parts of it. I wasn’t going to risk another live interview with Gil, so Malik rolled tape as we talked.

  “What happened?” I asked.

  “Still dark this morning. Heard a blast. No huge crash like when the turbines fell. But a big noise.”

  Prudently, Gil grabbed a rifle before going outside. “Didn’t want to walk into an ambush.”

  At first nothing seemed wrong, except for a burning odor. All the turbines looked fine under the moonlight. And he didn’t see any unusual movement. Then his dog started barking. Gil headed over and saw the animal carrying something—a human arm. Ends up the body was in pieces.

  “That’s when I called the cops.”

  Malik shot cover video of Gil and his black Lab walking around the farmyard. Every once in a while, the animal would head toward the police line, but Gil would call him back.

  “It could be worse,” he said, probably because he didn’t know what else to say.

  I could see scattered paint marks on the freshly cut straw field where a crew from the state crime lab moved around, gathering evidence. I tried calling the station before realizing I had no cell service. I figured authorities were again blocking calls until they cleared the area.

  Initially, the neighbors feared what I’d feared. That one of their own had taken a hit, victim of the mad wind bomber. But nobody from the surrounding farms seemed to be missing. Most were rubbernecking from the road. As for the dead man, being blown apart made visual identification impossible.

  Locals also concluded he must have been an intruder because no one they knew would ever do anything so violent. Or stupid. Their consensus: the evil bomb builder had accidentally blasted himself. They’d dismissed suicide bombing because he didn’t take anyone or anything else with him.

  “Are there any unknown vehicles parked in the area?” I asked.

  That might have indicated whether the trespasser worked alone, and might also have helped with identification through motor vehicle records.

  Gil shook his head. “Not unless it’s hidden in the corn.” Several of the surrounding fields still hadn’t been harvested because it had been such a wet fall.

  By then a small crowd had gathered around us. I wasn’t sure if they were trying to be helpful or just trying to get on TV now that the bad guy was dead.

  “That terrorist got what he had coming to him,” one of the farmers said.

  “Must have gotten a little sloppy with those explosives,” another added.

  They all nodded, relieved danger had passed and order had been restored.

  The sheriff went on camera saying the death was under investigation and he would release more details on Operation Aeolus as they became available. I was surprised to hear him use that term.

  Then the sheriff walked away, with me and Malik following. “Do you think the deceased was trying to bomb a turbine and accidentally detonated the explosives?” I asked.

  “Too soon to say.”

  “What kind of evidence were you able to recover?”

  “No comment.”

  “Could you tell if the man had partners?” I asked. “Someone must have driven a getaway car.”

  “That’s enough questions for now,” he said.

  Not a whole lot of usable sound. The sheriff was much chattier when there wasn’t blood and gore to explain to his constituents. Today, he was all law and order. Then I saw the FBI guy waiting for him at the command center and figured that was where he got his media coaching on Operation Aeolus.

  Charlie Perkins stood off by himself, watching the show unfold but not mingling. I pointed him out to Malik and told him to casually get some video even though he wouldn’t do an on-camera interview. I wanted a shot in case Charlie ended up being important. And now seemed as good a time as any to chat Charlie up about his past experiences as a power-line protester.

  “Does this remind you of anything?” I asked.

  He shrugged. “Not particularly.”

  “How about maybe thirty years ago and three hundred miles north?”

  Immediately he knew what I knew. “That was a different time and place.”

  “Forgive me, Charlie, but I do see some similarities. Transmission towers falling. Turbines falling.”

  “But there’re some major differences.” He started walking away. “There the energy companies took people’s land against their will. Here everybody in wanted in.”

  “Care to talk more in an interview?” I asked.

  But without saying anything more, he climbed into his car and drove back toward his place.

  With Charlie’s cooperation, a story comparing the wind farm bombings with the power-line protests would be fascinating. Without him, it would still be interesting. Two energy wars. Decades apart. But the news of the day was the dead man. So Malik and I shot a standup with the few facts we had.

  ((RILEY, STANDUP))

  LAW ENFORCEMENT TEAMS

  ARE SEARCHING THE AREA

  FOR CLUES, BUT THE BLAST

  DESTROYED MOST OF THE

  EVIDENCE … INCLUDING

  MUCH OF THE MAN’S BODY.

  I was just telling Malik we needed to swing by my parents’ place before heading north when I spotted a familiar face.

  Part of me wanted to rush over and wrap my arms around Nick Garnett. Our being apart made me realize I missed him. But people were watching, and other media were arriving, so after the mean dirt Sam Pierce had written about me being a bad wife, part of me just wanted to stick to the plan of pretending Nick and I had never met.

  “What brings you here?” I wondered if his mysterious assignment was over or if this was it and he didn’t want to tell me.

  Because we were out in public, I compromised by playing our relationship cool and professional. My businesslike attitude annoyed him, but he followed my lead.

  “I’ve been assigned to this case,” he said. “The Department of Homeland Security is helping coordinate the various agencies involved in the bombing investigation.”

  “Anything you can share about today’s explosion?”

  “We’re still in the early stages and will release information as it becomes appropriate.”

  “Now that there’s a dead body involved,” I teased, “the public might demand answers a bit faster.”

  Garnett glared at me.

  “Honest,” I whispered, “you’re sounding like a government bureaucrat.”

  “And you’re sounding like a media asshole.”

  “That’s not the kind of cop talk I like.”

  Malik looked straight ahead, climbed into the van, and turned on the radio to give us some space. I leaned against the driver’s door to block his view of our conversation.

  “Really, Nick, you know I’ve been covering this story since day one; you should have given me a heads-up you’d be here.”

  “In this situation it would have been awkward. But now that we’re both here, how about we make peace?”

  I gave him a two-fingered peace sign, but he had something else in mind.

  “Sounds like you’re heading over to your folks’ farm,” he said. “This might be a good day for us to meet.”

  Garnett had been pushing to meet my parents for the last few months. The geography was complicated. Because he lived in Washington, I was in Minneapolis, and my mom and dad were almost in Iowa … this convergence had been easy to stall.

  “Don’t they live just a couple miles down the road?” Garnett pointed east. He knew what my family’s farm looked like from an old aerial photo that hung in my kitchen. If I nixed the meeting, I wouldn’t have put it past him to drive over and introduce himself without me.

  “Well, yes, they live nearby. But I think I need to prepare them first. Especially after that ‘Piercing Eyes’ newspaper column and Sam’s murder. Please understand, Nick, this is sort of tricky.”


  He didn’t look like he understood. “Speaking of tricks, Riley, I’m starting to think you want to keep our relationship secret forever.”

  “I just don’t want to flaunt it right now.”

  “Flaunting sounds negative. Are you ashamed of us?”

  “Absolutely not, but I feel like a lot of eyes are watching me, and I need you to keep a low profile because the last thing I need is more gossip.”

  His face did not sport the look of a happy boyfriend.

  “Come with me.” I gave him a playful shove.

  Our voices were getting louder and I didn’t want Malik overhearing any more than he already had. I motioned Garnett toward some end rows of corn left standing for the pheasants. We walked and talked.

  I remained convinced that his timing regarding my parents was all wrong. I knew them, and I knew once we got past the formality of their meeting Garnett, they’d grill me about our “plans.” That future was still too vague for such a debate. I thought it might be better to wait for a traditional holiday, like Christmas. Travel could always be delayed by weather.

  Garnett maintained it was now or never. And he made it sound like an ultimatum.

  “What’s the rush, Nick? It’s not like you’re asking my father for my hand in marriage.”

  “What would be the point? You’re clearly married to your job.”

  I could have said the same about him, but I didn’t. “This is not a conversation I want to have in a cornfield.”

  “Well, I’m tired of sneaking around.”

  “For a guy who doesn’t like sneaking, why don’t you tell me what you were doing in Minnesota the day before you came to see me?”

  I stopped walking because I wanted to look at his eyes when he answered. I wished I hadn’t, because they looked hurt.

  “What do you mean?”

  “I saw your boarding pass,” I said. “I know you flew in a day early.”

  “You can’t turn off that reporter urge to snoop, can you?”

  “You left it in my house.”

  “I’m pretty sure I would have put it in the trash. Are you nosing through my garbage? Maybe that judge was right about you journalists.”

  That settled it for me. “I don’t want you to meet my parents today. And I want my house key back. You call me when you want to apologize.”