Silencing Sam

by Julie Kramer

  If those quotes hadn’t jived with how Jeremy described Sam’s folks over lunch, I would have accused Clay of making them up. He might have sensed my skepticism because he pointed out he had it all written down in black and white.

  “I’m telling you,” Clay insisted, “we Texans aren’t big on all this gay marriage talk, but this dad’s mean as a rattlesnake.”

  I was just starting to admire Clay’s wild metaphors when a thought hit me. “Do you think he might have killed Sam?”

  My blurting that out surprised Clay. Even me. Honest, I don’t know where it came from. Probably from him comparing Sam’s father to a venomous reptile.

  Filicide, the murder of one’s own child, usually is an impulsive act with young children as victims. For Sam’s parents to travel more than four hundred miles to gun down their adult son because they were homophobic seemed a trifle cold-blooded for such a supposedly God-fearing couple.

  But Clay still hadn’t answered. I should have just let it drop and pretended I was kidding; instead, I pushed too far.

  “Well, crime reporter, what do you think?” I asked. “You’re the one who talked to them.”

  “What do I think? I think you’re crazy as a loon. That’s your state bird, right? Now I know why.”

  That’s when I started fearing that clearing my name of Sam’s murder might be a losing battle, similar to Don Quixote tilting at windmills.

  CHAPTER 28

  Toby left a message asking to meet me at the dog park north of Minneapolis–St. Paul International Airport. He didn’t say why, but it was a relief to get outside.

  It wasn’t an official city park, rather eighty acres of land where the Metropolitan Airports Commission let owners exercise their pets off leashes because the activity helped deter car break-ins in their parking lots.

  Toby was already playing catch with two of his dogs, Husky and Blackie, when I arrived. He handed me a tennis ball, and I threw a bouncy toss for Husky. He fetched, I piled on some “good doggie” praise, and we repeated the maneuver.

  After a week of cool, gloomy days, I welcomed the warmth of Indian summer. Colorful yellow, red, and orange trees lined one side of the property by a small lake. An airport runway bordered the opposite end. Visitors could almost forget they were in the middle of a major city, except for commercial airplanes taking off and landing constantly.

  The property wasn’t completely fenced, so owners were cautioned not to let their pets run loose unless they could be recalled. That and scooping poop were the only real rules. About a dozen other dogs were frolicking in the area.

  “How are you doing these days, Toby?” Toby had the type of face that always looked sad, even on his wedding day. But on this day his whole being slumped, from his shoulders to his walk to his voice.

  “Same as always,” he replied.

  I felt obligated to ask but was actually relieved he didn’t volunteer any details. I figured he and Noreen might be having marital issues and I didn’t want to play mediator. Working for her was bad enough; I couldn’t imagine being married to her.

  Toby was starting to sweat and laid his jacket over a fence. He cautioned me to avoid tossing the ball into a marshy corner because he didn’t want muddy dogs in his Jeep.

  Then Toby got to the point of our visit. “I have another wind-bombing lead for you.”

  I paused, wondering where this might lead.

  “Worms,” he answered.

  “Worms?” I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. “Like crawling in the dirt? Earthworms?”

  He nodded, explaining that worms till the soil and help plants grow.

  “I’m a farm girl, Toby. I know all about worms, but what does this have to do with the wind farms?”

  “I met an animal activist who believes the vibrations from wind turbines harm worms.”

  Toby had always been strange, and some of the people he hung around with were even stranger.

  “It’s true.” Toby sensed I had some doubt. “He believes worms are a vital link in the food chain but are overlooked because they dwell underground.”

  That probably was true, but it might also have something to do with worms being slimy. “You should have brought him along, Toby. When can we meet?”

  That’s when Toby told me the man preferred to keep his work quiet “until the time was right.”

  “What does that mean?” I asked.

  “He wants to finish his research first.”

  Toby was coy when I asked for contact information. I knew how protective these animal rights folk were of each other. I might have pushed harder, but in the distance we noticed a K-9 van pulling into the parking lot.

  A uniformed officer stepped out with his canine companion, a chocolate Labrador. Various law enforcement agencies used the park to exercise their four-legged partners. The man unleashed the dog and he raced off in the field.

  As they got closer, I recognized Larry Moore, the deputy searching the wind farm with his explosives-detection dog, Scout.

  “Anything new happening with the turbine investigation?” I didn’t expect him to reveal anything juicy, and he didn’t.

  “Scout and I just take it one smell at a time. Hoping we never have another day like that last one at the wind farm.”

  I introduced Larry to Toby and pointed out his pooch pair, playing in dog heaven as the red tail of a DC-9 roared overhead. “Toby is one of the most sincere animal lovers I know,” I said. “Not just dogs, but all creatures.”

  Larry called Scout over. On slow days, he dropped by the park to give his Lab a workout, for her body and her nose. The deputy tossed a spent shell casing far into the grass and ordered her to seek.

  Scout took off like the bullet she was chasing. In just over a minute she was sitting patiently on target. We all walked over and spotted the shiny object on the ground. She looked up expectantly with faint drool on her jaw; Larry reached into his pocket and rewarded her with a snack and praise.

  “She’s fed when she finds explosives,” I explained to Toby.

  Larry nodded and threw another shell casing, this time farther out, in fallen leaves. Again, he gave the command. Scout took off.

  “That’s remarkable training,” Toby replied as we walked in her direction. He was impressed by working dogs and had even donated my favorite, Shep, to the St. Paul Police narcotics unit, where his powerful nose for drugs made him a star. “Some dogs thrive on the excitement and structure of working for law enforcement.”

  “Scout was being trained as a guide dog for the blind,” Larry said. “But she was too curious. This job is a better fit.”

  The men chatted some more as we approached Scout. Toby respected her as a professional too much to try to pet her. Larry pulled out another treat, and we offered our verbal admiration for her hit.

  Toby needed to return home, so he grabbed his coat, called Husky and Blackie, and came back to say good-bye.

  Scout approached Toby, smelled his jacket, and sat down in front of him.

  “He can tell you’re a true pal, Toby,” I said. “He likes you much better than me.”

  While Toby smiled and headed back to his pickup truck, Larry passed a snack to Scout.

  “I’m surprised your friend is a hunter,” he said. “Him being so fond of animals.”

  “Toby’s no hunter,” I answered.

  “Scout alerted at his coat. I figured it must smell like gunpowder.”

  Toby. Explosives. I couldn’t get the thought out of my mind on the way back to the station. It might just have been a coincidence, or it might have been more. I knew some members of the Animal Liberation Front believed a blast was the best way to deliver a message, but I had always told myself Toby was more reasonable. And I truly believed he understood the power of the media. After all, we first met when he suspected a veterinarian of a pet cremation scam. Toby didn’t bomb the guy’s office—he came to me.

  I couldn’t approach his friends. They didn’t trust me. I couldn’t approach his wife. He didn’t trust h
er. Well, not enough to confide this kind of a blowup. And if I did share my doubts with Noreen, ended up wrong, and ruined their marriage … I’d be out of a job.

  CHAPTER 29

  As I stepped into the station elevator, one of the guys from sales followed me just as the doors closed. News and sales staffs generally don’t mix, so I ignored him. But he didn’t take the hint.

  Over the last few months, I’d developed a consumer series that involved reporting restaurant scores by city health inspectors. Viewers loved the hundred-point system, and the series didn’t require much work or expense and landed respectable ratings. Just the kind of story bosses eat up.

  “Are you planning another of those food inspector stories?” the sales guy asked.

  “I don’t discuss what projects I’m working on.” Actually, new restaurant data would be available in another week, and Xiong would start crunching the numbers. “Especially not to your department.”

  “Well, in the interests of the struggling media climate these days, you should be aware of the need to stay on good terms with station clients.” Then he listed three large restaurant chains that advertise on Channel 3. “Just to help you use some discretion.”

  It was a blatant attempt at advertising coercion. What made it unusual was it came from within the station. Usually the advertisers issued their own ultimatums to reporters.

  “You’re not allowed to talk to me,” I told him.

  I got off the elevator and took the steps downstairs straight to Noreen’s office and repeated our conversation.

  “Can you imagine, Noreen, what it would do to our credibility if we left advertisers who scored poorly off the list?”

  Then I sat back and waited for her to call his boss and raise hell. But that didn’t happen.

  “Riley, the budget is very tight right now.” So Noreen suggested that for the time being, instead of airing restaurant inspections, it might be better if I focused on investigating government agencies.

  She didn’t bother explaining why and didn’t even have to … I already knew it was because the government doesn’t advertise and can’t sue the media. It makes them an easy mark for journalists.

  “I understand completely,” I said. “Do you?” She didn’t answer, but I noted that she couldn’t look me in the eye.

  I’d always been proud that Channel 3, historically, didn’t take guff from anyone.

  A former station general manager, whom I adored, was once confronted by a shifty car dealer who threatened to pull his ads unless a fraud story about his dealership was killed.

  The GM simply told him he wasn’t allowed to advertise on their air anymore. “Airing your ads would be a disservice to our viewers.”

  Back then, there were enough advertisers that a station could take such a stand. And the deep pockets of advertisers funded good journalism. Now, with the economy forcing a media meltdown and two years out from huge political campaign buys, the few remaining advertisers apparently had more clout.

  I certainly had less. Although I couldn’t be sure how much of that slump had to do with the economy versus the Sam Pierce scandal. Either way, I was hosed. And Noreen knew it.

  I decided to make one last pitch for the monarch migration trip to Mexico. It was visual and uncontroversial.

  “It’s the kind of good news that our consultant talked about, Noreen. I know viewers would tune in to see that fluttering wall of orange and black.”

  Then my boss reminded me about a reality of local TV news. Foreign travel can only be justified on anchor trips. No big budgets for reporters. Just talent. And those days, it had to be a hard-hitting story, like Iraq or Afghanistan.

  “So forget the butterflies, Riley. I want an investigative story, and I want it to lead tonight’s ten,” Noreen said. “So get busy.”

  The assignment was an in-the-face reminder from my boss that the days of long-form news investigations were over. Newsrooms used to brag about how long they spent on an investigation.

  ((ANCHOR, SOT))

  TONIGHT AT TEN, THE

  RESULTS OF A SIX-MONTH

  CHANNEL 3 INVESTIGATION

  INTO HOW FLOOD CARS ARE

  MOVED ACROSS STATE

  LINES AND RESOLD TO

  UNSUSPECTING CONSUMERS.

  Time used to mean quality. Now time meant wasted time. Quick-turn stories were where the profession was headed.

  So I shuffled back to my office to call sources and see who had something ready to go that Channel 3 could promote as an investigation.

  I got lucky with an email from one of my favorite lunch spots. The manager of Peter’s Grill sent me a photo he had taken with his cell phone. This picture, he claimed, was worth jail time. It showed a man, perhaps in his thirties, having lunch alone.

  “He’s the dine-and-dash thief,” he wrote with pride.

  So far, the restaurant’s most famous lunch guest had been President Bill Clinton in 1995, but that could change if this led to an arrest.

  I grabbed Malik and headed on over to the restaurant to get some sound. Because few restaurants have surveillance cameras, the manager had discreetly snapped photos during the last two weeks of all solo male diners—the modus operandi of the culinary crook who’d been walking on the check in Minneapolis restaurants. Click. Click. Click.

  Finally, one who disappeared without paying his bill.

  “He stuck us with a twenty-dollar tab,” he said. “But he picked the wrong place to chew and screw.”

  The suspect was clean-shaven, with brown hair, a suit and tie. A briefcase lay on the table across from his plate. He blended in with the hundreds of other businessmen in the downtown skyways each day. That’s why the description from previous restaurants had been so vague. But now, armed with a photo, I suspected identification was not far away.

  “I’ll have to show it to other places where he skipped out,” I said. “Just to see if they recognize him.”

  Peter’s Grill had already given the picture to the police. So Malik and I swung by the cop shop for verification that they, indeed, considered this man to be a suspect in many of the recent meal thefts.

  Over the past month, police had logged more than two dozen restaurant complaints of filched food, from upscale eateries as well as greasy spoons. And they’d already gotten confirmation from three other dining establishments that this was the same walkout guy who’d hit them. The PIO gave me a tip-line number for viewers to call, as well as a nifty sound bite.

  “If we have our way,” he said, “the next meal this jerk eats will be jail food.”

  This is where television news excels. Broadcast a suspect photo. Promote it during prime time. Wait for the tip calls. Take credit the following day.

  ((ANCHOR SOT))

  TUNE IN TONIGHT AT TEN,

  WHEN CHANNEL 3 BREAKS

  OPEN THE DINE-AND-DASH

  LUNCH CASE WITH AN

  EXCLUSIVE PHOTO OF THE

  ALLEGED FOOD VILLAIN.

  ((PETER’S GRILL/SOT))

  HE PICKED THE WRONG PLACE

  TO CHEW AND SCREW.

  No mention was made in the station promotion about the amount of time we’d invested in the story.

  CHAPTER 30

  Ten minutes before airtime, I found a surprise in the green room when I went to check my hair and makeup before breaking my dine-and-dash exclusive.

  Buzz Stolee was primping for a live interview on Sports Night, which followed the late news. Apparently he’d been the star player in that day’s basketball game with a last-second three-pointer to win.

  “Weren’t you watching?” he asked.

  “I’m afraid I was working.”

  “Bummer.”

  We both stood in front of the Hollywood mirror, fixing our hair. Buzz had to scrunch down a little because of his height. I considered leaving, but I didn’t want him to think he unnerved me. And I was still hoping he might let something incriminating slip about Sam.

  “Hey, can just anyone write their name on this wall?”
he asked.

  “Anyone who’s a guest on our air,” I replied.

  So he did. With his jersey number next to it. One more autograph for posterity on the pristine green room wall.

  Apparently Buzz had been talking with the Channel 3 sports team about our encounter the other night. And they’d assured him that hitting on me was worth his while by clarifying the definition of a reporter-source relationship.

  “You see, you and me, babe, we aren’t working on a story together,” he said. “So I’m not your source. So we could do a little messing around, and you wouldn’t get fired.”

  He smiled and nodded as if glad to have cleared up that business for me. “So you stick around until after Sports Night, we can pick up where we left off.” And just in case I’d forgotten, he grasped his crotch.

  “A wink would have been enough, Buzz.”

  “Okay then, meet you back here later.” He winked. “See, I can please a lady.”

  “I’m sorry, but I already have plans tonight.”

  “Course you do, so do I. I’m the team hero. Groupies are waiting for me.”

  He then shared his philosophy of plans being made to be broken when something better comes along. He seemed to think that would flatter me.

  So I owned up that I was Seeing Someone Special, even though Garnett and I were still on the skids. “And I sort of have a policy, Buzz, of not socializing with celebrities, because you could become news at the drop of your pants. And that could be awkward.”

  “Listen,” he said, lowering his voice, “if this is about my … you know. I say we settle things here and now.” He shut the green room door and glanced over at the couch.

  “There’s nothing to settle, Buzz.” I glanced at my watch. “I’m four minutes from airing my restaurant rustler story. The floor director’s probably looking to mic me now.”

  “Oh, I get it. You don’t want to be rushed.” He winked again.

  “No. I don’t want to be alone with you. You and me are never going to happen. End of story.”