Shunning Sarah (3 page)

If I hadn’t been on a highway going nearly eighty past farm fields just then, I would have closed my eyes to shut out the memory of him shrieking outside my locked office door, while I cowered behind a desk, trying not to confirm my presence by breathing too loud.

I didn’t pull the triggers that killed anybody that day, but I felt plenty of survivor’s guilt. As did all my colleagues who lived through that fatal afternoon. The dead were dead physically; but the rest of us were dead emotionally. Especially the guy who stepped in and executed our attacker. Once upon a time, he and I were in love. But that seemed so long ago.

The first week after the station rampage, Channel 3 had broadcast the news from its State Fair building using a remote truck to transmit the signal. The Minnesota State Fair functions like an entire city for twelve days a year. Each of the local media outlets—newspapers, TV, radio—has its own building on the fairgrounds. The station retreated there, broadcasting newscasts on schedule, until the network managers could determine how best to react to the shoot-out.

Police had cleared the murder scene almost overnight. There was no “whodunit” drama surrounding this triple homicide. Crime scene decontaminators were brought in to remove all forensic traces of my coworkers and their attacker.

But still, business couldn’t possibly run as usual. As long as any of the staff working that dark day continued to be employed at Channel 3, hints of the ambush would linger. I still remembered the shots and screams vividly. And nobody wants to stand over the spot where a colleague bled to death, even if the carpet has been replaced.

Physically altering the newsroom might be the only way to begin to help us repair emotionally. So the floor plan was remodeled,
and the anchor desk where Sophie Paulson lay, a bullet in her brain, was thrown out. A new one was designed and moved to the opposite end of the space. Noreen’s news director’s office was also torn down and her formerly prime office space became a copy center/storage closet that no one liked to enter.

If we needed copies made, we asked an intern to perform the task.

Some of the newsroom remained unchanged. The assignment desk, where Ozzie had crouched on the floor with a telephone and a 911 operator tight to his ear, looked just the same.

Maybe because my office is down the hall from the murders, there are moments when I forget the violent assault. But each day, when walking into the newsroom for the morning huddle, it still feels like a chamber of death.

B
y the time Malik and I arrived on the scene with a camera, the little boy was safe.

My first reaction was that in missing the rescue shot, Channel 3 had made a long drive for nothing: my new boss would be pissed, and I would be toast.

Then I was ashamed of myself. It wasn’t that I wasn’t rooting for a happy ending. But a happy ending this early in the news cycle decreased suspense, and hence viewership.

Audiences love stories of lives in peril, but they need to get to know the victims before they begin to care about their fate. Right then, neither they—nor I—knew anything about Josh Kueppers.

It had taken a while to find the location. Unlike in cities, where addresses are precisely marked with street signs and house numbers, out in the country, drivers must rely on landmarks like a red barn or a broken windmill.

A large brown sign in the small town of Fountain caught my eye. It read: Sinkhole Capital of the USA. I pulled over on the side of the road and shook Malik awake, then pointed the unusual slogan out to him.

“Weird,” he said. “Are they bragging or warning?”

We used the opportunity to grab thirty seconds of video for the story and switch places in the van. I knew we were getting
close to the action and wanted to be free to take notes. For the next several miles we veered from one country road to another, slowing once to pass an idyllic scene of a horse-drawn Amish buggy, driven by a bearded man with a boy wearing a matching straw hat beside him.

The area has one of the fastest-growing Old Order Amish communities in the country—a population of more than a thousand plain folk. The public was very curious about their conservative faith and quaint customs; thus a successful tourism industry was helping the region economically.

A farm girl myself, I was familiar with the simple ways of the Amish, and had long envied them their peaceful lives … especially now that my own life was beyond complicated. If not for the edict that women part their hair in the middle, going Amish was tempting.

Malik was Muslim and had never encountered Amish before. He wanted to stop for video. I nixed that idea, explaining that Amish do not like being photographed and further had nothing to do with our story at hand.

“Someday we’ll come back and do a timeless feature on the Amish,” I promised. “But right now, we need to concentrate on this trapped kid.”

Just then we spotted several emergency vehicles with flashing lights and determined we were in the right place. And that we were the first media on the scene.

A yellow backhoe loader—a piece of excavating equipment—was parked near some trees, away from the road, its bucket extended as far as the arm would reach. I noticed it because my parents kept one on their homestead. Backhoes came in handy for carrying, digging, or reaching.

While Malik sprayed the scene for video, I chatted up Sheriff Ed Eide, who delivered the news that we were too late. I immediately concluded the worst. “I’m so sorry.”

But he quickly corrected me. “Not that. Got the kid out more
than an hour ago. Story’s over. You might as well move along and head on back to the Cities.”

I pried Josh’s name out of him, but was surprised the law wasn’t more enthused to see us. Sheriffs, as elected officials, are generally congenial to the media. They appreciate their voters watching them on TV doing their job. Especially when they’ve apparently done it well. Sheriff Eide seemed almost reluctant to gloat about his successful rescue.

And that seemed odd.

Malik started moving toward the clump of trees—and backhoe—but was ordered to keep away from the action.

“How about telling us what happened here, Sheriff?”

I purposely referred to him as “Sheriff” because professional and personal experience has taught me law enforcement types appreciated being called by their title—our way of acknowledging that they outrank us. Even if he had asked me to call him Ed, I never would. And he didn’t.

“Soon as we get the story, Sheriff Eide, we can be on our way.”

Another problem with rural news events is that fewer witnesses are generally available to interview out in the sticks than in the city. And the sheriff made it clear no one on site except him was authorized to talk to the media. And he wasn’t in a very talky mood.

“We can wait while you finish up.” Malik set up a tripod and smiled like we had all the time in the world. Only he and I knew we didn’t. I purposely kept from checking my watch to avoid appearing impatient.

The sheriff looked peeved that we weren’t packing up. “All right, media miss, let’s get this over with.”

I clipped a wireless microphone to his uniform, not bothering to ask him to run the cord up under his shirt. I just draped it over his shoulder and down his back, figuring, good enough.

Being so near his holster made me nervous. I didn’t like being around guns anymore after the newsroom massacre. Even
though I knew the sheriff’s weapon was part of his uniform, the steel on his hip made me tense.

Meanwhile, Malik continued fussing, framing the shot, and holding a reflector to improve the light. I was anxious to get the interview under way, but he wanted perfect visuals.

We’d argued about this numerous times. I’d say, “In color and in focus. Let’s go, Malik.” And he’d say, “Patience, Riley.”

Finally he signaled ready.

“So Sheriff Eide, what happened here today?”

The sheriff swallowed before speaking, almost as if he was uncomfortable being on camera. “A local woman called to report that her son was trapped in a sinkhole. By the time we arrived, she had moved that piece of equipment to the scene.” He pointed to the backhoe and Malik followed his gesture by panning with the camera.

“Did she dig him out?” I asked.

The sheriff shook his head like I was crazy for even asking. “The ground is too unstable. It had started to collapse around the boy. We tied one end of a rope to the scoop and made a loop on the other. She lowered it into the ground. The child grabbed onto the line, she pulled him up, and we untangled him.”

Fast thinking and smart. I looked forward to interviewing the mother. Our female demographics would be torn between cheers and tears. “Sounds like a team of heroes.”

The sheriff nodded, but gave me nothing verbal.

“Not too many people can be that sharp in a crisis,” I said. “You must see a lot of cases that end badly. How does this one compare?” I was trying to get him to elaborate on the mom hero angle.

He shrugged and said, “Sometimes we get lucky on the job.”

And some people just aren’t very good interviews. I wondered how Sheriff Eide had ever gotten elected. So I stopped going for color and went for nuts-and-bolts questions that would help flesh out the tale.

“How deep was the pit?”

“At least fourteen feet. Maybe more. Some of the walls caved in.”

“Tell me a little about the sinkhole, Sheriff. Was it already there and did Josh slip in? Or did it open up suddenly and trap him?”

“It appears to have been there for some time, but was overgrown. Locals apparently once used it to dump trash. The boy fell in while chasing his dog.”

Viewers love dogs. I made a mental note to get a shot of them together. “How did Josh seem when he got out?”

“Scared. Real scared.” That was the most emotional I’d seen the sheriff. He almost seemed scared himself. The camera does that to some people. “And cold. He spent the entire night in the hole.”

He filled in some details about why Josh wasn’t reported missing until morning.

“Which hospital was he transported to?”

I wasn’t sure if Winona or Rochester was closer. I hoped Rochester, because that particular highway was on our way back to Channel 3 and would save us time.

“No hospital.” Apparently the mom was a nurse and the family had waived all medical attention. “The kid just wanted to go home.”

That wasn’t a half bad sound bite, I thought to myself. We all want to go home. Viewers would relate. “Where’s home for Josh?”

The sheriff glanced at a farm in the distance before quickly shutting down the interview. “That’s enough here. We need to get back to work. We have to secure the scene.” He started to walk away, but Malik stopped him to unclip the mic first.

“We just need one more thing, Sheriff.” I eyeballed the direction where he had been heading. “A shot of the hole.”

“Nope.” Sheriff Eide held his hand in front of the camera lens. “Can’t let you out there. Too dangerous.”

“We’ll take our chances,” I said. Out of the corner of my eye I saw Malik mouth “We?” with a disapproving look. If anyone’s going to get hurt covering the news, it’s usually the photographer.

But returning to the station without a picture of the hole would doom the story. After all, this was TV. And that shot was basic journalism.

“How about if we climb one of those trees and get a shot from above,” I offered.

Malik gave another disapproving look while the sheriff continued to shake his head.

“We have a telephoto lens,” I continued. “We don’t have to get real close.”

“Good,” he said. “Because this is as close as you’re going to get.”

Figuring he might ease up later, I handed him my business card and asked him to call if he learned anything useful. I told him I’d let him know what time the piece would air.

“Are you going to fill in the hole?” I asked. “So no one else gets trapped? We might want video of that.”

The sheriff said no decision had been made, then turned and walked toward the rest of his team. He glanced back once to make sure we weren’t following. Subconsciously perhaps, he slapped his gun as if checking to make sure he was armed and ready.

I had to settle for taping a standup of me with the sinkhole far in the distance, for insurance, since we didn’t know what direction our story might take. Quickly, I scripted a standup.

((RILEY STANDUP))

SOUTHEASTERN MINNESOTA IS

KNOWN FOR SINKHOLES, BUT

NOT KNOWN FOR TROUBLE LIKE

THIS. WHERE THAT GROVE OF

TREES DIPS IS THE SCENE OF

TODAY’S DRAMATIC RESCUE.

As far as standups go, the content and visuals were fairly lame. Especially for a story of salvation. “Dramatic” might end up being an exaggeration. I was banking on the interview with Josh making this tale memorable and viewers weepy.

But I knew that goal might be a journalistic long shot. Some kids are good talkers, but most aren’t, uttering one-word answers and looking down during the interview. We set out to meet Josh and hear his tale of spending the night in a dark and dirty pit.

T
he good thing about chasing news out in the country is that the only posted signs banning trespassers apply to hunters. And they don’t generally count those of us hunting facts.

So Malik and I headed toward the homestead a mile from the sinkhole. The one the sheriff seemed to eye without thinking. The mailbox indeed read Kueppers. A tan dog announced our arrival and stuck to our heels as we approached the front door. We knocked confidently; me armed with a smile, Malik with a camera.

A woman answered, then cut us off when she realized we were media. “He’s fine,” she blurted, closing the door in our faces.

“Maybe he’d like to thank his rescuers?” I suggested in a loud voice I hoped could be heard beyond the porch. “Maybe you would? Mrs. Kueppers?”

I was a little surprised at another negative reception. Happy-ending stories usually result in happy interviews for all parties. Victim expressing gratitude, hero murmuring how it was nothing, really. Hugs for all.

Since we missed the riveting rescue shot, video of the boy was crucial to the story. And heading back to Channel 3 with a big fat nothing was not going to sit well with the new boss.