Update On Crime (9 page)

L
OOK OVER THERE
, B
ESS
!” Nancy pointed toward the nearby highway overpass.

Two huge trucks had crashed into each other on top of the bridge. One of them, a tanker truck, was engulfed in flames. The other truck had smashed through the road barrier. It was dangling precariously over the edge of the bridge.

“Wh-what happened?” Bess tentatively raised her head to look where Nancy was pointing. “Oh, no!” she cried. “Someone is trapped inside that truck!”

Nancy could see the driver waving frantically. “It could fall over the edge any second,” she said tensely. “We've got to call for help!”

She was relieved to see a police car parked outside the convenience store. The officer inside must have heard the crash, too, because he came racing out, a half-eaten doughnut in his hand. He immediately got into his car and started talking on his police radio. Nancy and Bess assumed he was summoning emergency vehicles. Then he gunned the motor of the patrol car and raced out of the parking lot.

Nancy leapt out of her car, digging in her purse for some change. “I'm telephoning the station,” she told Bess. “This is the sort of thing they need to know about right away.”

She sprinted to the pay phone and dialed the station's number. When she described the crash to a newsroom assistant, Otto Liski quickly came on the line.

“What have you got?” he asked in his no-nonsense style.

Already, Nancy could see fire trucks and ambulances pulling up to the crash scene. A column of smoke was rising from the tanker truck. Crews were attaching steel wires to the other truck in an effort to keep it from falling off the bridge. She described the scene and the explosion to the producer.

Mr. Liski put Nancy on hold briefly, then came back on the line. “Nancy, all our other reporters are on assignment a good ways from that area,” he said. “I know this isn't part of your case,” he added quietly, “but I want you to go over there and gather the facts about what happened. Krieger's on his way, but we may need the
information sooner for our afternoon broadcast—we go on the air in less than fifteen minutes.”

“No problem,” Nancy replied. “I'll get right on it.”

“One of our camera trucks is around the corner from you, getting a weather shot, so I raised the crew over the two-way radio and told them to meet you,” Liski added. “When they get there, direct them to take pictures of whatever looks important. We'll need all the footage they can muster, and
quickly.”

Nancy hung up and jumped back into the Mustang.

“What do they want you to do?” Bess asked.

“They need me to work as a reporter, at least until a real one shows up,” Nancy said as she grabbed her pen and reporter's notebook. “You'd better stay here, though. It could be dangerous.”

“Don't worry—I'm happy to watch from a safe distance,” Bess replied. She looked nervously back at the two trucks, which were shrouded in smoke and flames. “Be careful, Nancy.”

Nancy jogged over to the crash site, taking care to stay out of the way of the emergency vehicles that were beginning to cluster on the scene. Paramedics and fire fighters had already rescued the driver of the burning tanker truck. So far they'd been unable to reach the other driver, though, who was still trapped in the cab of his truck, which was dangling off the edge of the bridge.

No one objected to Nancy's presence at the emergency scene—they were too busy concentrating
on the task at hand. She found a police sergeant who seemed to be directing the emergency operations.

“I'm with Channel Nine news,” Nancy said, showing her ID and opening her reporter's notebook. “Can you tell me what happened here?”

“It looks like one of the drivers fell asleep at the wheel and crashed into the other truck,” the sergeant replied. “It turns out he'd been driving for seventeen hours without stopping. He just passed out.”

“The state legislature just dropped some legislation that would have prevented truck drivers from working such long hours,” Nancy commented angrily as she made her notes. “That legislation would have prevented accidents like this.”

The police sergeant nodded. “If the public knew about the dangers of overtired drivers, there'd be a lot
more
safety regulations, I can tell you.”

Nancy looked up and saw the Channel 9 news van pulling into view. Marcus Snipes and Danny McAnliss jumped out of the van. Without a word, Danny quickly assembled his camera pack and began shooting the scene.

“Hi, Nancy,” Marcus greeted her, looking at the dangling truck. “Wow! Looks like we've got a big story here.”

“Liski wants this to go on right away,” Nancy told Danny and Marcus. “We'll need your pictures of the crash scene, Danny. Marcus and I
can interview the police sergeant I was talking to earlier, so we'll have him on tape. Let me call Liski again now and see what else we should do.”

Mr. Liski spoke rapidly when Nancy called him over the van's two-way radio. “Nancy, we're going on the air shortly, and I heard that the other stations have their crews on the way to the scene,” he said, his words tense. As he spoke, Nancy spotted a news van from a rival station coming up the road toward the crash scene. “I've assigned Krieger, but he's still fifteen minutes away. Do you think you could handle a live shot?”

A live shot! Nancy thought. That meant she herself would appear on camera, describing the disaster as it happened for thousands of Channel 9 viewers.

“I'll do my best,” she replied. She tried to sound calm despite the butterflies in her stomach. “How long do you need me to speak on camera?”

“About a minute and thirty seconds,” came Liski's reply. “You'll open with a description of the explosion and crash. Then Hal will ask you a couple of questions from the anchor desk.”

“No problem, Mr. Liski,” Nancy replied, wishing she were really that confident.

“Great. I'll have Danny set up the dish for a live shot,” Mr. Liski said, referring to the small satellite dish that sat on top of the news van. He quickly described the way the dish worked—it would transmit live pictures of the scene to the
station's remote broadcast tower. From there, the tower would beam the pictures into thousands of homes.

Nancy handed the phone to Danny, then quickly got to work. She interviewed the police sergeant again, this time with Marcus taping them.

“Great interview, Nancy,” Marcus said after they wrapped up the filming and were headed back to the van. “I can already tell you're a natural reporter. This will be a great debut for your career, if you want one.”

“Thanks,” Nancy said sincerely. She appreciated the compliment, even though she had no intention of taking up reporting.

While Danny set up his camera and angled the satellite dish for the live shot, which would be aired together with the taped report, Nancy walked back to her car to make some notes about what she would say in front of the camera.

“What's happening?” Bess asked anxiously.

“Bess, I need to borrow your compact mirror,” Nancy said. “I have to go on the air in a minute.” She quickly retied the belt of her coat. “Thank goodness we went out and bought all those new clothes!”

“You're going on
live
TV?” Bess exclaimed. “Nan, that's so exciting!”

Nancy was too nervous to answer. She quickly ran a comb through her hair and dabbed on some lipstick.

“Here, let a professional do it,” Bess said. She opened her purse and pulled out a complete
makeup and hair kit, including a miniature can of hairspray.

“We don't have time for that,” Nancy protested, but Bess ignored her objection.

“You have to make up for the camera—it washes out all the natural color,” she said firmly, dusting Nancy's face with some rose blusher.

Nancy grinned. “I can't believe you drag around all those cosmetics, Bess.”

“My motto is be prepared—you never know when you might have to look right for
Mr.
Right,” Bess replied. “Don't smile, Nan—you'll mess up the eyeliner.”

When Bess had finished applying the last spritz of hairspray, Nancy saw Danny signaling her from the news van. “Come on and watch, Bess,” she said as she sprinted toward the camera setup.

Marcus gave Nancy a tiny earpiece so that she could listen to what was being said at the station.

“We're almost ready to go on the air,” Nancy heard the producer explain over the earpiece. “You'll be able to hear what the anchors are saying, but obviously you won't be able to see them. Look directly into the camera when you're talking. Good luck, kid.”

“Thanks, Mr. Liski,” Nancy said, and took a deep breath.

“Forty seconds to air,” Marcus announced.

Nancy picked up the microphone and cleared her throat. She forced herself to relax—this was no time for stage fright!

“Five seconds,” Marcus said, then gave Nancy her cue to speak.

Nancy looked directly into the camera. “We're at the scene of a spectacular collision between two huge tanker trucks on Highway Forty-two at Isis Road,” Nancy began. She briefly summed up the basic facts of the crash, including the fire and rescue efforts. Then there was a pause as the tape of Nancy's interview with the police sergeant was played over the air. When the tape finished, Hal Taylor came on the line.

“Do we know yet what caused the crash?” he asked Nancy.

“Police officials say the crash was caused by an overtired truck driver who fell asleep at the wheel,” she explained. “This crash comes on the heels of the state senate's decision to scuttle legislation that would have prevented drivers from working double shifts.”

Nancy listened as Hal thanked her for her report. Then Danny signaled that they were off the air. Otto Liski's voice came over the line. “Good job, Nancy! You sounded like a real pro,” he said. “I liked the way you made the tie-in to inaction by the state legislature. And we beat the competition on this story by at least fifteen minutes, thanks to you and the crew.”

Nancy quickly began unfastening her microphone gear. Now that her reporting job was done, she was eager to get back to the station and pursue her investigation into the threats against Hal.

She watched as a tiny green sports car came racing up at breakneck speed. It threw up a spurt of gravel and dust as it screeched to a halt in front
of the news van. Gary Krieger jumped out of the car and rushed up to Danny.

“What've you got here?” he demanded. “An explosion?”

“You'd better ask
her,”
Danny said, nodding toward Nancy. “She already did all the interviews—and the live shot.”

“What?”
Gary's face reddened with rage. “Liski
knew
I was on my way! Why didn't he wait until I got here?”

“He just asked me to fill in temporarily so that we could lead the four o'clock news with the crash story,” Nancy explained. She held out her notes to Gary. “I'll be glad to fill you in on what happened.”

Glaring at her, he knocked the notebook out of her hand. “Don't think you're going to launch your broadcasting career on
my
beat,” he said with an ugly snarl. “You'd better stay out of my way, Nancy—or
else!”

N
ANCY MET
Gary's glare without blinking.

“Or else
what?”
she retorted. “Are you threatening me because you lost an assignment—just like you've been threatening Hal Taylor?”

Nancy hoped that Gary's anger would provoke him into revealing if he was connected with the attacks against Hal. To her surprise, all of the rage drained from the man's face. He looked stunned for a moment, then his expression became confused.

“You think
I'm
behind the attacks on Hal?” he asked incredulously. “Look, maybe I don't respect the guy, but I'd never actually hurt him.”

“It's hard for me to believe that, since you just threatened me,” Nancy replied hotly. “For instance,
it would have been very easy for you to have set that fire in Hal's office, considering your background as a fire fighter.
And
you were wearing a jacket like the one Clay Jurgenson saw right around the time of the fire.”

Gary looked defensive. “I didn't set that fire—
or
play that threatening tape the other night,” he insisted. He looked down at the ground and poked at the dirt with his toe. “I admit I fly off the handle sometimes,” he said. “But basically I'm pretty harmless. I always push hard because that's what it takes to be a good reporter. Anyway, I'm sorry if I offended you, Nancy.” He held out his hand toward her. “Truce?”

Despite her lingering suspicions about him, Nancy shook his hand. “No harm done,” she said.