Shunning Sarah (16 page)

A
woman with a hammer was pounding orange campaign signs in the ground near Chatfield, another town up the highway en route to Minneapolis. When I saw the notices were for Sheriff Eide’s rival, I pulled over.

Turns out, she was Laura Schaefer—his opponent—currently a deputy sheriff.

“So why are you running against your boss?”

I introduced myself as a TV reporter covering the murder of Sarah Yoder. I figured their race was too local for Twin Cities media, but I was still curious about their rivalry.

“Give me your campaign spiel, Deputy.”

“I’m running to make a point, and you can call me Laura.”

Her issue was that the sheriff was too free in handing out gun permits. One had gone to a buddy of his who had been convicted twice of drunk driving, and had been inebriated at the high school football game.

“A blatant example of public intoxication,” she said. “He ran out on the field and tried to stop the game when a call went against his team. He had to be dragged off so play could resume. No telling what would have happened if he’d been armed.”

After she outlined that story, I wish I hadn’t stopped to meet her. Now the newsroom spree shooting would torment me the entire drive back. I tried to shake it from my mind and instead
saw visions of bloody referee uniforms and fallen cheerleaders on the twenty-yard line while a coach tackled the drunken gunman.

“Certainly sounds like an issue worth raising, Laura. How did the sheriff react when you announced your candidacy?”

“Transferred me to the night shift.”

I believed her. Sheriffs generally don’t take it well when subordinates challenge them for their job. Besides being dark and lonely, the night shift is full of crazy calls.

“But working nights gives me time for this.” And she gave the sign a final pound, then stepped back to admire her work.

“What makes you think this guy and the sheriff are pals?”

“They’re more than friends. Roger Alton’s his biggest fundraiser. He hosts an annual party for campaign contributors.”

“How much does he raise?”

“More than five grand in an afternoon,” she said. “Certainly enough that no one’s wanted to run against him.”

“So how about you, Laura? Do you have any supporters?”

“Not nearly enough.” She showed me, in the backseat of her car, campaign signs with her name blacked out. “That’s why I’m out here today.”

T
he six o’clock newscast was still half an hour away while I waited for my set piece about the rogue bear. Then the desk got word that firefighters, with lights flashing and sirens blaring, were racing to a restaurant in south Minneapolis.

Malik was on his way home, not far from the blaze, so Ozzie ordered him to meet a live truck and broadcast from the scene. This week was Channel 3’s political reporter’s chance to audition for the anchor slot. After the standard good-evening greeting, he informed viewers of the two-alarm fire, promising a live report within minutes.

I watched the early action from the control booth, because I was the second story, after the lead about school referendums. After my wrap, the producer cut away to the fire, which by now, had been upgraded to a three alarm.

((ANCHOR CU))

NOW FOR BREAKING NEWS—

MINNEAPOLIS FIREFIGHTERS

ARE RESPONDING TO A BLAZE

THAT HAS ENGULFED GRETA’S—A

NEIGHBORHOOD RESTAURANT

THAT IS CONNECTED TO SEVERAL

BOUTIQUE SHOPS IN THE SAME

COMPLEX.

((DOUBLE BOX))

MALIK RAHMAN IS STANDING BY

AT THE SCENE WITH DETAILS

IN THIS LIVE REPORT.

Malik stood across the street from dramatic smoke and flames. Truck engineers manned the live-shot cameras to forestall technical difficulties. But Malik, despite wearing a mic and an earpiece, was silent.

“You’re hot,” the producer yelled in both his ear and the camera operator’s.

The anchor also stepped up to fill time. He didn’t have any facts about the fire but used questions.

((ANCHOR DOUBLE BOX))

WHAT’S THE SITUATION THERE,

MALIK? ANY REPORTS ON

WHETHER THE RESTAURANT

WAS EVACUATED?

Malik just stood there.

His lips weren’t even moving, so we knew it wasn’t that kind of an audio problem. The anchor referenced technical difficulties to the viewers. Then those of us in the control booth realized at the same time that the problem was Malik.

“He’s frozen.”

Sometimes the pressure of a live shot—knowing there’s no do-over—freaks rookies. By the time reporters reach a market the size of Minneapolis–St. Paul, they’ve worked through those issues or left the business. But Malik had never reported live before. He’d been able to re-record himself over and over until his lines were perfect. The same difference between acting onscreen and onstage.

“Camera off Malik.” The producer instructed the photographer
to pan to the burning building itself. The assignment desk ran over with a written page of details about the blaze which the producer rushed to the anchor to ad-lib under pictures of a row of firefighters aiming hoses of water at broken windows.

((ANCHOR NAT))

WE’RE ALSO GETTING WORD THAT

THE BLAZE HAS SPREAD TO THE

NEIGHBORING SUNFISH CAFE.

Then the producer gave a wrap and signaled him back to the comfort of the teleprompter and the original newscast lineup.

((ANCHOR CU))

WE’LL BE BACK IN A MOMENT WITH

THE DAY’S WEATHER.

((ANCHOR NAT))

AND YOU’LL HEAR FROM A

WOMAN WHO HAS SPENT HER

LIFETIME COLLECTING SALT

AND PEPPER SHAKERS … WHAT

DOES SHE INTEND TO DO WITH

THEM WHEN SHE DIES?

The newscast was crippled, but this week’s anchor sub showed he could adapt to the pressure of breaking news. I figured this now made him the leading internal candidate for the job. Normally the anchor would tease that more on the restaurant fire was coming after the break. But no such promise was made here.

My cell phone rang. It was Malik calling. I rushed back to my office before picking up.

“How bad was I?” he asked.

“Pretty bad.” Then I pretended to believe he had thrown the live shot on purpose to end one-man bands and return us to our specialized skills and the newsroom to normal. “But I know you did it for me.”

He rejected the out I was giving him. “No, I didn’t, Riley. I froze. Over the years, I’ve seen reporters freeze going live. And that’s what happened to me.” He drew a deep breath of discouragement. “I’m through with reporting.”

I urged him not to make any sudden decisions. That all he needed was some more training and he’d nail a live shot with the best of us. I reminded him live TV was unpredictable, and a poor appraisal of reporting skill.

“No matter how good you are, Malik, you can have a bad live shot. No matter how bad you are, you can have a good one.”

Then he told me Bryce had texted him to return to the station immediately.

“Malik, you need to point out to him you’ve never received adequate training for a live shot.”

I wished for the glass walls back so I could watch how their discussion went down. My answer came from Malik’s hunched shoulders as he left the news director’s office. At least Bryce didn’t tear his head off like the Amish doll sitting on my desk.

I offered to take Malik out for a comrade drink, but going home where people loved him sounded a whole lot better than being with someone who reminded him of his job.

Home had no particular appeal for me, though, so when I saw Nicole just finishing her shift, I invited her out for a drink and she eagerly accepted.

I
’d been trying to avoid my boss lately. And apparently I wasn’t alone.

Nicole and I headed across the street to Brit’s Pub. We were too late for the regular happy hour and too early for the late happy hour. So we both ordered fish-and-chips and a beer. I got an ale, she a lager. I tried to put the calories out of my mind.

I didn’t normally have much time for gal-pal socializing. But I rationalized that this was work-related.

I asked Nicole how she was enjoying the Channel 3 newsroom. Her story was unusual. She’d accepted an entry-level reporting job from Noreen a week before the shoot-out. So she’d never actually worked for the boss who hired her. Instead, Bryce was her taskmaster.

“It’ll be up to him whether I make probation or not,” Nicole said.

“At least he hasn’t made you be a one-man band.”

“I told him I’d give it a try. I have some experience shooting my own video because I come from a smaller market. But he says they will get around to me eventually.”

“Lucky you.”

“I’m worried. That makes me think he’s going to dump me.”

“No. You’re safe because you’re cheap. He’d like to hire more of you. I’m expensive, but he can’t dump me because I’m under contract. So he’s doing everything he can to make me quit.”

She seemed to mull over my words. “What kind of things is he doing?”

“Well, you’ve seen how he’s thrown me out on stories without a photographer and without any camera training. My next job review will score something like ‘fails to meet expectations.’ This is all about getting rid of the high-salary people.”

“Is he doing anything else?” She asked the question like the answer really mattered. Not just small talk.

I weighed just how far I wanted to take our conversation. After all, she and I had sort of just met. I was a senior reporter, she a rookie. But, at the same time, newswomen need to stick together.

“He’s a little more touchy-feely than I like in a news director,” I said.

Relief swept across her face. “Me too.”

Sexual harassment used to be a bigger problem in the early days of women in news. There was still talk about an old cameraman who used to crank the air conditioning in the news cruisers to better see women reporters’ nipples. He was long retired, but I always wore a jacket on the job, just in case. Men were supposed to know better now.

Over the next ten minutes we developed a plan to try to alert each other if Bryce ordered either of us to come to his office. We’d text a * to the other as the signal.

“Then we’ll interrupt the other’s meeting,” I said. “The goal is that neither of us is ever alone with him.”

“Let’s leave his office door open, too,” Nicole said.

“Right, if he wants the door shut he has to say so. Even better, make him shut it himself.”

A lot could go wrong, and probably would. But it seemed worth trying.

Lacking the energy to cry myself to sleep that night, I reminded myself that the average news director’s tenure was only eighteen months. I breathed slowly and deeply into my pillow, repeating over and over, “I can outlast this jerk.”

The only flaw in that logic: my contract was up in a year.

A
s if deep in a cloudy dream, a voice sounded familiar. A couple seconds passed before I realized my cell phone was ringing, and Michelle Kueppers was on the other end. The clock read just past three in the morning. Unless Josh was missing again, I wasn’t sure I needed to have this conversation now.

“Sorry to wake you.” Michelle explained that she and her husband had just had an online video chat. “You said you’d like to talk to him, and he doesn’t get too many chances to call. He’s game if you are.”

That news woke me in a hurry. “What’s the time difference between us and him?”

“Nine hours.”

She gave me the website and user name as I scrambled for my laptop. Within minutes the three of us were staring at me through video boxes on my computer monitor.

Michelle handled the Internet introductions. She looked stunning, even on low resolution. Because she’d set up this cyberdate, she had time to prepare. Blush, mascara, a low-cut shirt with enough cleavage to make a man homesick. She also mentioned that Josh and his father had schmoozed a few minutes earlier about school and sports before Josh had crawled back to bed.

Brian Kueppers seemed understandably uncomfortable. Me, I looked like I’d just woken up. I’d have preferred the talk was just
between Brian and me, so I could be more candid. But I conceded that without Michelle present, he might not say a word. Agreeing to talk to me might be his way of convincing her that he had nothing to hide.

“What’s the temperature in the desert these days?” I didn’t ask for specifics of where he was stationed, because I knew military guys were closemouthed about location.

“About a hundred degrees,” he replied.

I also wished I’d had some notice so I could have recorded our exchange. But maybe they figured ambushing me gave them the interview advantage.

“Tell her what you told the police,” his wife said.

I waited to see if he would, glad that Michelle had brought up that awkward issue about law enforcement, but feeling like the whole thing seemed staged.

“I don’t know anything about this body Josh found,” he said.

True or not, I had a hunch the cops might want more than just his declaration. “Why do you think they’re looking at you?”

“I’m not taking it personally,” he said. “We’ve all got jobs to do. This is just a case of simple elimination. I’m doing everything I can to cooperate.”

“Like what?”

“Like a DNA test.”

That was the last thing I expected him to say. “When are they taking your sample?”

“Hours ago. Now we wait.”

My gut told me anyone with enough confidence to volunteer their DNA must be innocent. But then Michelle started talking about how the whole case against her husband was a pile of coincidences.

And I remembered that I don’t believe in coincidences.

“You’re talking about the location of the body being near your farm, right? And Brian not having an alibi for Sarah’s time of death, right?”

“Right,” she answered. “And us being at the Amish store earlier that day.”

“You were at Everything Amish the day she was killed? Both of you?” I hoped my voice didn’t reflect my incredulity.