Silencing Sam (29 page)

She starting making wedding corsages as we spoke. The story she told was similar to his. After being deceived and dumped, she saw no reason to tell Sam she was pregnant.

“I never wanted to see him again.”

I didn't point out that now she didn't have to. But I did ask what prompted her to reach out to me.

“I wish I'd thrown a drink in his face,” she said. “So when you did, I wanted to give you an ‘atta girl.'”

I told her if I could take back that drink, I would. And if I could raise a baby with his father, I would. And if I could go back and introduce my most recent love to my parents, I would.

“My life is full of regrets,” I said.

“You have to also make it full of hope.” She picked up Jimmy and hugged him tight. I watched closely, trying to understand what might motivate Daisy, as both a mother and a murderer.

“Raising a child alone is a huge challenge,” I said. “Weren't you tempted to make Sam share the cost at least?”

“I didn't want his money.”

Just then the phone rang, and it sounded like an order for a green plant to be delivered to a hospital. Daisy handed her little boy to me as she wrote down the details. He and I stared at each other. As far as I could tell, he didn't have Sam's piercing eyes or big mouth.

“I didn't kill your dad,” I said as I bounced him in my arms.

His mom hung up the phone fast and took him back from me. But I felt I had scored a victory. She never would have let me hold her baby if she thought I was a cold-blooded murderer.

I handed her pictures of her flower notes with the codes written underneath. TARGET DIRTBAG. BASTARD. GO TO HELL. TRAITOR.

I didn't say anything because I wanted her to speak first. But all she said was that she needed to get back to work and that it was time for me to leave.

Clearly she hadn't wanted Sam's money while he was alive. Perhaps she decided his death would make it bearable.

• • •

That night when I drove up to my garage, my headlights shined on a vase of flowers sitting in front of the door. I got out of my car to move them so I could park. The bouquet was Daisy's signature arrangement. The note merely said,
“I hated him, but I didn't kill him.”
This time there was no hidden code.

I wasn't sure what to believe.

One of the jobs of Channel 3's phone operators is to keep written logs of viewer complaints. I think it's an FCC rule. Sometimes people complain about explicit violence on a prime-time show. Other times they fuss about talent, hair, or clothing in a newscast.

The main focus of complaints, the last couple days, was me behind the anchor desk. “Trashy.” “Insulting.” “Offensive.” But because the ratings continued upward in our favor, Noreen ignored all the adjectives, figuring our competitors to be the source behind them.

One call it would have been better not to ignore was from a viewer named Lois Tregobov. Rubbish, is how she summed me up. Turned out to be Judge Tregobov, the same one I faced after throwing the drink in Sam's face. The one who, on any ordinary day, hated the media with the same passion as any conservative radio talk-show host.

But her grumbling got buried along with that of folks miffed that our meteorologist didn't predict approaching rain and others mad about some line in a political story they considered too liberal.

So it was a surprise when my attorney, Benny Walsh, stopped
by the station to check if I had any boots and work gloves. “Judge Tregobov is insisting you do your community service garbage pickup duty tomorrow.”

Noreen was irritated by my sudden unavailability to read the day's news. “That's a Thursday. Don't these sentences usually take place on weekends?”

“Often work schedules are considered,” Benny admitted, “but the judge thinks a day off the anchor desk is just the lesson Riley needs.”

“You're supposed to be such a hotshot attorney,” Noreen said. “Can't you get this changed?”

Benny shook his head. “Judge Tregobov is insistent.”

“What about the station? This is only penalizing us. Why should her employer suffer?”

“Normally, that is taken into account, but the judge actually thinks Channel 3 needs to learn a lesson as well. So the less you say, the better.”

I could tell Noreen didn't like the sound of that. “So Riley'll miss the early shows but should be back in time for the late newscast, right?” Noreen asked.

The ten o'clock had the most viewers and the highest ad rates. And my boss didn't care that I'd be stiff, sore, and smelly from hauling trash.

“Certainly she'll be done in time for the ten,” Benny said. “No way they'll make her pick up garbage past sunset.”

I actually didn't mind the idea of a day off the anchor desk, I'd just have rathered any scoops I made be news—not filth. Especially when Benny explained that I was to report for cleanup duty the next morning on Boom Island, along the muddy Mississippi.

I knew the assignment was going to stink.

Liquor bottles, used condoms, hey, once human body parts even washed up on shore after being caught in the St. Anthony Dam.

• • •

A city employee handed out orange fluorescent vests, giant garbage bags, and long trash tongs to me and a dozen other minor lawbreakers, then split us up into groups of three.

“Now get busy” was the order.

My garbage team immediately recognized me from the news and felt lucky to be on assignment with me. To them, my presence made the chore more of a perk than a punishment.

“Can I have your autograph afterward?” asked a plus-size woman named Thelma.

“Sure,” I replied.

Thelma was there for a drunk-driving offense. Wearing a wide-brimmed hat, she seemed a trifle wobbly but sober enough to spear trash.

Our other colleague, Mitch, had just had his second conviction for shoplifting. He bragged about being a pro at litter cleanup, having done it once before.

“Try to do most of your reaching with the tongs.” He demonstrated for us. “Less bending you do, less sore you'll be at the end of the day.”

Because the end of the day could have been six hours away, that was useful advice. Our trio developed a system to pick up debris along the river's edge. Occasionally, we'd come across a real mushy item popular with maggots, so we'd do Rock, Paper, Scissors to determine whose turn it was to clutch the junk.

The station sent a photographer to shoot some quick video of me to explain to viewers why I wasn't on the news set.

((ANCHOR, CU))

RILEY SPARTZ IS ON

ASSIGNMENT TODAY.

((VID NAT SOT))

SHE'S OFF HELPING

CLEAN THE ENVIRONMENT.

SHE'LL BE COLLECTING

TRASH ALONG THE

MISSISSIPPI RIVER

AS PART OF A COMMUNITY

SERVICE PROJECT … BUT

WILL BE BACK IN TIME FOR

THE NEWS AT TEN.

Our rival stations were in a quandary. Normally they'd have liked to remind viewers that I was a criminal scofflaw, but currently that sort of journalism just seemed to backfire against them in the ratings. So the only other camera on the scene was the newspaper's. I could only imagine the cutline under the photo to be something along the lines of “Trashy reporter right where she belongs.”

Thelma and Mitch delighted in the prospect that they might end up on television if they stuck close to me. I tried telling them being on TV isn't always a coup.

“How are you going to explain your criminal record to your friends?” I pointed out.

Mitch insisted his buddies had all done worse yet never once landed on TV. Thelma felt the celebrity factor would outweigh any downside of being known as a drunk.

By then the cameras had left, so I gave up trying to convince them of the dark side of notoriety. Now the discussion turned to the cyber world of Facebook. Both my new pals promised to friend each other, and me, the minute they got home.

The day grew hot. And we grew sweaty. No different from the rest of our trash brigade. We were all spreading out farther to finish up faster. The novelty of separating glass, plastic, and aluminum recyclables from just plain ordinary garbage grew dull.

Suddenly Thelma screamed like she was auditioning for a slasher horror film. And had she been, she would have landed the lead.

I rushed to her side. “What is it?”

She covered her face but pointed toward something in a lumpy plastic bag just offshore. Pushing at it with my tongs, I saw hair and teeth. And I screamed too.

The head was bloated and slimy, the eyes ghoulish. So that grisly find, along with the lights and sirens that followed, put an end to our trash collection. The other miscreants were ordered home, but Thelma and I stayed behind to answer questions.

She didn't have much to say that wasn't a sob. And all her bravado about being a celebrity came to naught because she no longer had any desire to relive her gruesome moment of discovery for the TV cameras. Not even Channel 3's.

I've smelled the odor of rotting flesh before, the real thing as well as a corpse flower. So I managed to take a closer look at the pale face of the detached head than most people would have under the circumstances. While I couldn't tell age or gender, I could have sworn the tangled hair was blond.

Predictably, Burrel thought I was trying to horn in on his story. “I've been on the case from the beginning,” he said. “It's mine.”

I understood his being irate—good reporters fight for their stories—but heck, I found the head. And when it comes to news, finders keepers.

“We don't know for sure that
my
head is
your
head,” I said.

“How many missing heads do you think there are in this metropolitan area?” he asked.

“He's got a point.” Noreen sided with Clay, making it seem like I had a conflict of interest—a big journalism no-no. “Riley, you're actually part of this story, too, so I don't think we can have you covering it.”

“But who better to cover it than a person with firsthand knowledge of the event?” I asked. “Isn't that why sports reporters go to games, court reporters attend trials, and political reporters watch the legislative debates? My being on the scene makes me the best-qualified person for the story. Especially since the cops aren't talking.”

Not all murders are created equal. The amount of media attention often comes down to that early journalism lesson of who, what, where, when, why, and how.

Who
might be the most significant. If someone important or interesting is killed, that pushes the crime to the front page and the top of a newscast. If the homicide is just one gang member shooting another, the public won't much care. But if the victim is an innocent bystander, perhaps a child hit by a stray bullet, that's a whole different story.

What
is fairly obvious. Murder, what else? Used to be every homicide was assigned a reporter who scrambled to make sure the victim's name and picture made air. Now, run-of-the-mill murders might get a ten-second mention unless they're part of a particular trend.

Where
can make a big difference. If someone is killed in a school, church, or courthouse, viewers are curious. If murder happens in an alley in a bad part of town, a blame-the-victim mentality might kick in and affect coverage.

When
only really counts if it's a holiday. If someone is slain on Christmas, when news is slow, a camera crew will be knocking on the family's door, wanting to videotape the unopened
presents under the tree. Get killed on your birthday or wedding day, and that can be newsworthy, too.

Why
might be the least influential when it comes to weighing how much play to give a murder, at least early in the news cycle, because
why
goes to motive, and police don't often discern that until later, when a suspect is in custody. And sometimes not even then. If
why
is obvious, like in a liquor store robbery, that also lessens the mystique.

How
is the most morbid of the criteria and perhaps the most riveting. That's why a headless body—or bodiless head—trumps most other news of the day.

Noreen offered a compromise in which I'd anchor the newscast, toss to Clay for the report, then ask him a question in a tag.

“Why should I ask him a question?” I said. “What does he know? I'm the one who was there.”

So we struck a deal: Clay would do a live shot from as close to the river scene as the police would allow. He would give the main summary; I would be next to him in the field, where he would interview me as a witness about the gruesome find.

((TWOSHOT/CLAY))

RILEY, DO YOU THINK THE

HEAD FOUND THIS

AFTERNOON MIGHT BE FROM

THE DECAPITATED WOMAN IN

THE WIRTH PARK MURDER?

((TWOSHOT/RILEY))

TOO SOON TO TELL, CLAY.

POLICE WILL HAVE TO WAIT

FOR DNA TESTS. BUT I CAN

TELL YOU THAT TODAY'S

REMAINS DEFINITELY HAD

TEETH. SO THAT MEANS

DENTAL RECORDS WILL BE

AN IMPORTANT CLUE FOR

IDENTIFICATION.

Clay and I went back and forth a few times about missing people in the area and our interview was replayed coast to coast. I found myself hoping a 24/7 cable network might hire him. I wondered if he had any outs in his contract that would allow him to leave Channel 3 without much notice. Maybe if I made him look good during this coverage, I could get him out of this market.

But then I remembered that I had a much more serious problem than scooping competitors.

For the last twenty-four hours, distracted by an unidentified head, I had been able to forget the murder of Sam Pierce.

Another message from my Texas Facebook friend Sally Oaks greeted me at my desk. By her current book cover posted, I could see she was reading an adventure story about an iceberg.