Silencing Sam

by Julie Kramer

  Last year, on a slow day, I’d gathered a few interns to help draw up a spreadsheet of famous Minnesotans—rosters of politicians; business leaders; pro athletes; radio, television, and newspaper names; musicians; even bestselling authors—just for a handy computer shortcut to separating newsmakers from ordinary folk, because newsmakers make the most news. I’d even added birthdays and addresses when we knew them, because that can often help match computer data.

  So far, we hadn’t come up with the proper project to harvest them … but I thought this might have been it.

  “I will get started,” Xiong said.

  I left him to do his computer magic.

  By now I had nearly a hundred Facebook friends. And I could lurk on their pages and delve into their cyber lives. If I cared.

  Clay still had the most, though Sophie was catching up. She seemed to attract men. Single men. I seemed to attract people with problems. Some felt they’d been ripped off by car dealers or insurance agents. Others wanted me to investigate their neighbors for not separating their recyclables or for letting their dogs run loose across their yards.

  Facebook was proving almost as annoying as the Channel 3 tip line. Except here, the crazies had a direct hook to me.

  Before Fitz Opheim had left Channel 3 to consult at his next station of news dupes, he urged us to use the social network to promote our stories, but also to let viewers have a glimpse of our personal lives.

  “Tell them what you had for lunch,” he said. “Share what you’re reading. Let them see how you’re different from them, but also let them see how you’re the same.”

  Noreen had friended all of us in the newsroom so she could monitor how well we interacted with viewers and how many friends we’d acquired.

  “I notice you didn’t post your birthday, Riley,” she said.

  “I’m worried about identity thieves.”

  That seemed to throw her, as if she’d never considered the idea before.

  “Well, work on your numbers then. Instead of just waiting for people to friend you, you should friend them. Making friends is making viewers.”

  I didn’t necessarily believe her reasoning, but I also didn’t want to argue. I looked at Clay’s Facebook page to see how a man with a ten-gallon mouth had become so popular.

  He’d listed his status as “Clay is drooling for steak on the grill tonight.” Several folks had already commented on his good taste. Earlier in the day, he’d encouraged viewers to tune in to see his report on why the H1N1 flu vaccine was so slow in arriving. Normally that would have been covered by our medical reporter, but she was home sick.

  Clay and I had a few Facebook friends in common—local media junkies. But he had loads of his own. True, some were from back in Texas. But a surprising number heralded from the Minneapolis–St. Paul network. So in a flash of jealousy, I invited all Clay’s friends to be mine. In this computer age, stealing friends was lots easier than stealing a story.

  Then I went back to Sophie’s page and did the same thing.

  Within an hour, a couple dozen people I had never heard of had embraced our cyber friendship.

  • • •

  The next morning Xiong showed me the list of a couple hundred computer matches of people who carried guns. I scanned them for news.

  One of the sports figures was familiar, Buzz. I also noted a couple of other athletes—a football player hardly anyone had heard of and a baseball player everyone had heard of.

  One politician had supported gun-control legislation but now carried a firearm. That had some potential.

  As for media personalities, no shock to see that a highly rated local radio talk-show host packed heat. He’d already bragged plenty about being a gun-totin’ American and was true to his dogma.

  But a big surprise hit me in the gut when I saw Rolf Hedberg’s name on the list. To my knowledge, Rolf had never written about the right to bear arms, expressed a fondness for hunting season, or even worn camouflage. But Rolf was surprising me in a plethora of ways. Or maybe “frightening me” would be more accurate.

  “He is not working for the newspaper anymore,” Xiong said, “so we do not care about him.”

  Before I could refute my computer sidekick’s conclusion, he moved down the list efficiently until he reached the prize he’d unearthed—ten felons, who shouldn’t have been able to own guns, had been granted carry permits. A lead story, once we got reactions from the various sheriffs’ offices. And even better if we could get sound and video of the nefarious weapon owners.

  Several had been convicted of domestic abuse. Another had stolen cars. Yet another had a DWI felony. The prize: one had shot a man in the chest during an argument.

  All had been issued permits to secretly carry a loaded gun.

  Normally, I’d have been excited at the prospect of such a story. But all I could think about was Rolf Hedberg. Normally, I wouldn’t have been afraid of him. In a fight, I figured I could take him. Unarmed.

  But now I knew that Rolf owned a gun. And Rolf had displayed some very visible feelings that, even from the grave, Sam was ruining his life.

  I wasn’t sure just then whether to be more worried that Rolf might have killed Sam or that Rolf might kill himself.

  I decided to keep quiet about Rolf until I learned more.

  But when I showed Noreen what Xiong and I had on the gun-permit felons, she called Miles to come down and talk since, technically, the story involved nonpublic data. And with all the fuss the NRA was likely to make, she wanted to be sure it was solid enough for the station to go to the wall.

  Malik was in the photo lounge, so I briefed him quickly and pulled him and Xiong into the meeting.

  “What are you going to say when the cops ask where you got this information?” Miles asked.

  “It’s not a question of declining to reveal my source,” I said. “I don’t even know the source.” I told him it had arrived in the mail without a return address.

  “Then how can you be certain it’s authentic?” Miles had a valid point, but I explained that I’d already verified that some of the people with carry permits owned guns. Tad Fallon and Buzz Stolee, for example.

  “As part of the felon story, I’ll seek reactions from the sheriffs’ offices issuing the permits about how this could have happened, but first I’ll see if I can get the felons to confirm it.”

  “How are you going to do that?” Noreen asked.

  “We’ll make it good TV,” I promised. I told them my plan was for Malik and me to walk up to the felons and see if we could get them to show us their guns on camera. “I’ll explain we’re working on a story about the conceal-and-carry system and ask how well they think permitting works.”

  “Stop right there,” Noreen said. “What if one of them shoots you?”

  “Or me?” Malik had been quiet until then. “Sometimes they hate the camera more than the microphone.”

  “This could be a huge worker’s comp claim,” Noreen said. “We can’t afford that. I think you should just contact them by telephone. Run their mug shots for the story. Mug shots generally look scarier anyway.”

  CHAPTER 33

  Thinking back on the low turnout for Sam’s funeral, I decided to visit his grave instead of going to lunch.

  Since I knew I didn’t kill him and figured he must know I didn’t kill him, I thought he’d probably appreciate some company. And I felt it was the decent thing to do, considering how he and I had left things. And part of me just wanted to get out of the newsroom.

  The Lakewood cemetery office warned me his headstone wasn’t up yet but gave me directions to his plot and the names of other people buried nearby for landmarks.

  The landscaping was lovely along the path to Sam’s final resting place, but when I reached the hill overlooking his grave, I saw I was not alone. And neither was Sam. An older woman sat on the ground by his burial site, dabbing her eyes on her sleeve and praying. Then she picked up a handful of loose soil and put it clumsily in a plastic bag and kissed it
.

  I hung back, not wanting to disturb her grief, yet curious about her relationship with the deceased. After a couple of minutes of watching her struggle to her knees, I realized she was having trouble getting up. I walked over, gave her a hand, and pulled her upright.

  Tears streaked her wrinkled face, so I offered my condolences. She burst into noisy sobs, literally crying on my shoulder.

  While I consoled her, I noticed a bouquet of wildflowers propped in the dirt of Sam’s grave. The vase held an unsigned sympathy card reading, “God Overpowers Those Outside His Extended Limitless Love.”

  I had no idea what the message meant, but discreetly, I snapped a picture on my cell phone for later.

  “Now, now,” I told her, directing her to a bench under autumn oaks. “Come sit a minute and rest.”

  Neither of us spoke right away. Then she asked me if I’d ever lost a child. And I realized I must have been speaking to Sam’s mother.

  “No,” I replied. “I’m not a mom.”

  Answering her question out loud made me face a truth I’d been trying to push to the back of my mind since Hugh’s death. That I might never have a child. Most days I could live with that realization, but here, next to a grieving parent, it hurt. Seeing the pain of her loss made me understand how much I was missing. It was even harder than looking at the photo of Ashley Lind and her brand-new baby.

  “Would you like to see a picture of him?” she asked.

  “Sure.”

  She pulled a photo of a much younger Sam out of her purse and handed it to me.

  This was a determining moment. I had to admit I knew him or pretend I didn’t. Whatever choice I decided on would determine the course of our conversation.

  “He’s a good-looking boy,” I said, stalling for time.

  She wiped away a tear. “He deserved a better mother.”

  I wanted to hear more, so that meant pretending Sam was a stranger. “I’m sure you did the best you could.”

  She shook her head. “I had to choose between him and his father. I chose his father.”

  Wild-eyed, she outlined a story similar to what Jeremy Gage had told me, that they cut Sam off because they objected to his lifestyle. Considered it sinful, even. “We didn’t go to his funeral. My husband said it would be like turning our backs on our beliefs.”

  That seemed harsh, but I didn’t want to join their debate. “You came here today,” I said. “And that counts for something. You even brought flowers.” I didn’t really think the flowers were from her but just wanted to get that on the record and see where the trail led.

  “They must be from his ex-fiancée,” she said. “She owns a floral shop in the uptown neighborhood and used to arrange blooms like that.”

  She’d narrowed the geographical location of the flower shop, not realizing what a favor she’d done for me.

  “Have you spoken to her since your son’s death?” I asked. “Perhaps that might bring you some comfort.”

  “No. But my husband and I will see her later this afternoon at a law office for the settling of Sam’s estate.”

  She had my attention now. “I’m sure that’ll be difficult. Will it just be the three of you and his attorney?”

  “Not exactly. We always liked Daisy and would have welcomed her into the family.” Daisy, I thought to myself. An apt name for a florist. “But our son’s”—she paused briefly—“male friend will also be there. We’ve never cared to meet him and I fear it could be awkward.”

  “Your husband will be with you?”

  She nodded, explaining that he was waiting in their car, outside the cemetery gate, for her to return. To me, that seemed awfully cold, being that his only son was buried a couple hundred yards away.

  She could tell I was thinking something along that line and started to become agitated. “We compromised. He agreed to drive the four hundred miles but wouldn’t stand by our son’s grave.”

  I didn’t know how to respond, so I kept quiet.

  “I’d best be heading back before he worries,” she said.

  “Worries” wouldn’t have been the word I used, but I helped pull her up from the bench. I brushed some leaves from her jacket, then walked out beside her, amid her thanks. As I watched her climb into a blue sedan next to a white-haired gentleman, I made a mental note of the Illinois license plate.

  In movies, the reading of the will is a fictional device to create suspense and surprise. In real life, there’s no legal requirement that the estate attorney read it aloud before the named parties, but the fact that Sam’s attorney was assembling a crowd gave me the feeling something unexpected was under way.

  I glanced upward, telling Sam I’d come back for a proper visit later. Then I got behind my steering wheel and kept his parents’ vehicle in my sight line for the next two hours.

  For the first fifteen minutes, they drove like they were lost. And they probably were. Normally, it takes multiple vehicles for a successful surveillance, but when it comes to elderly drivers, fewer can work.

  Sam’s parents parked by a nondescript hamburger joint in Minneapolis called Matt’s Bar and went inside. Even though I was tempted to follow them and order a famous Juicy Lucy burger, I stayed outside, a newspaper in front of my face.

  I always kept a paper in the car for camouflage should surveillance needs arise; unfortunately this one was about a month old, so I got to read a “Piercing Eyes” column blasting a high school coach for suspending a couple of football players for stealing pumpkins.

  “Every boy should steal a pumpkin in his youth,” Sam had written.

  I was just thinking that if I had been a public pumpkin pincher, Sam would have run a graphic of a jack-o’-lantern with my face on it. Just then his parents got back in their car, and I tailed them to the parking lot of a law firm. They appeared to argue for a few minutes before going inside.

  I hooked a tape recorder up to my cell phone and used the next hour to call some of the gun felons. I identified myself as a Channel 3 reporter and said I was surveying some firearm owners about how well they thought the carry permit system worked. Already three had confirmed they owned guns.

  I hung up on a fourth when a young woman carrying a toddler pushed through the front door of the law firm and headed for the parking lot. They looked like the same mother-child pair who had dropped the flowers off for me at the station.

  Sam’s parents chased them through the parking lot. His mother and father moved fairly slowly, but the woman had to buckle her child into a car seat. So the contest for them to reach her vehicle before she started the ignition was essentially a tie.

  Sam’s mother seemed to be pleading. I unrolled my car window and tried to listen.

  “Let me hold him,” she begged. “I’m his nana!”

  The child was crying. His mom was telling Sam’s mom to keep back.

  Sam’s dad pulled at his wife’s arm. “You’re scaring him,” he told her, then said something about “later” and “lawyer.”

  The young woman, Daisy, I presumed, gunned the accelerator, leaving them standing alone.

  I turned my key, intending to follow someone, though I hadn’t yet decided which one. Then I saw Jeremy Gage leaving the building. I pulled up alongside him, unlocked the door, and gestured for him to get in.

  He hesitated, surprised to see me, considering that the happenings inside were technically none of my business.

  “Come on, Jeremy,” I urged him with a smile. “We need to talk.”

  He sighed and climbed in, but the first words out of his mouth were not promising. “It’s complicated.”

  Just then, Sam’s parents’ car started to move, and I found my attention torn between the man in the seat next to me and the couple getting away. I gave their vehicle a two-block lead out of the parking lot, then took off after them.

  “Hey, stop the car,” Jeremy said. “Let me out.”

  “Later. I need to keep them in sight.”

  Again, Sam’s parents drove conservatively, making t
hem easy to follow. Rush hour was just starting, so I stuck to their bumper to avoid getting caught at a light.

  “Scrunch down a little bit,” I advised Jeremy. “Just in case they recognize you.”

  He refused, so I handed him a Notre Dame baseball cap I kept in the car just for undercover emergencies. He gave an exasperated sigh but donned it.

  “So what happened in there?” I asked.

  “It’s complicated,” he repeated.

  “I’m a smart reporter,” I told Jeremy. “No matter how complicated this mess is, I’m confident I can follow it.”

  He paused, like he was trying to figure out just where to begin.

  “How about if you start out telling me whose kid that was?” I said. “Or should I save time and suggest it was Sam’s?”

  He shrugged but didn’t say anything.

  “Don’t make me play twenty questions, Jeremy. Or you’ll never get home in time for dinner.”

  Two months ago, he explained, Sam had stopped at Daisy’s flower shop for the first time since they’d broken up nearly two years ago. He needed a bouquet delivered and thought enough time had passed that he could give her the business without a fuss. The baby was asleep in a playpen by the cash register.

  “Sam did the math and decided he was the father,” Jeremy said. “But Daisy refused to discuss it.”

  “The Sam Pierce I knew didn’t seem the paternal type.”

  “He felt it might be his only chance to raise a child. He thought he could do a better job than his own parents did.” He said Sam hired a lawyer, demanded a DNA test, and vowed a custody fight for visitation.

  I followed Sam’s dad onto a freeway ramp, hoping they weren’t driving the six hours back to Chicago tonight.

  “Is this why you two broke up?” I asked.

  “He felt his odds in family court were improved without me.”

  “Brutal.”

  Jeremy nodded.

  “So why were you at this legal meeting?” I asked.

  “I handled Sam’s finances.”

  He explained that Sam died without a will. Under the law, if baby Jimmy was his son, Jimmy would inherit the entire estate. If Sam was not his father, the estate would go to his parents. Estranged or not.