by Amanda Lamb
“I still don’t understand how a zebra reaches out of an enclosure at a zoo and attacks a woman,” I said. “Are zebras really that aggressive? Who knew?”
“Apparently they can be super dangerous. It was like a weird spot in the habitat where the zebra was just close enough to the woman to grab her. She was eating an ice cream cone, not sure if that had anything to do with it.” Janie typed as we talked. I could hear the rat-a-tat of her fingers tapping the keys, as well as the muffled static of the police scanner punctuated by sirens in the background. I didn’t know much about zebras, but I was pretty sure the ice cream had something to do with it.
The attack had happened at a zoo in another state, but the woman was from North Carolina and her family wanted her close to home. So as soon as doctors said it was safe to move her, they flew her to University Hospital in the next town over. The family called us and said she was recovering well and was available to talk. Janie has also lined up a zoologist from one of the local colleges to talk about zebra attacks. The variety of my new reporting beat continued to amaze me. It didn’t have the same level of intrigue as crime reporting, but it certainly satisfied my curiosity for all things bizarre.
“Hold on, Janie. I’m pulling up to the curb.” The teacher who was monitoring the carpool line opened the back door of my car for the kids to get in. We weren’t supposed to talk on the phone in the car while on campus in case a child decided to dart out in front of a vehicle, but everyone broke the rules and then tried to pretend they weren’t doing it. Janie knew the drill.
“Hi, Mrs. Millinsky. How are you? Hey, kids, how was your day?”
Four children piled into the car, with their heavy book bags, zippers undone, things hanging out in every direction—sheets of crumpled paper and wadded up jackets. They threw the bags, along with their lunchboxes, on the floor and assumed their regular seats—Miranda behind me, and Blake behind the passenger seat, where he could have a clear view of me. We also drove Sadie and Doug Bradley, our neighbors. They piled into the bench seat in the very back. Their mother, Glenda, reciprocated three afternoons and two mornings a week. It was no trouble because they lived right next door to us. Thankfully they were quiet, well- behaved kids.
“Hi, Mom. I’m so happy you’re picking us up. Why can’t you do it every day?” Blake made his smile into a dramatic frown, his little lips protruding into a serious pout. His exaggeration made him look like an emoji.
“Sweetie, you know Mommy has to work.” I gave Mrs. Millinsky a little wave and pulled away from the curb, waiting until I was well out of her view until I resumed my conversation with Janie.
“Blake, you’re such a mama’s boy. Who would pay the bills if Mommy didn’t work?” Miranda fired in her brother’s direction, in her usual acerbic, self-righteous tone.
“Mom, I thought you got life insurance when Daddy died. Why do you need to work?” Blake said with genuine confusion.
I looked in the rearview mirror at Doug and Sadie, who were, as usual, ignoring our family drama. Sadie was reading a book, and Doug was playing a game on his phone. I was always shocked by how aloof they were when chaos was going on inside my car. I guessed they were used to it, which seemed like a bad thing.
“Wow,” Janie said, a disembodied voice from the car’s speakerphone. “Heavy topics. Want to call me back?”
“Yes. Just let me know when the zebra lady can do the interview. Thanks.” I hung up, embarrassed that Janie heard Miranda verbally her brother.
I turned up the radio, rolled down my window and tried to drown out the ugly banter between Miranda and Blake which was still coming from the backseat. It was moments like these when I wondered if I had failed as a parent. I also wondered if it was too late to turn things around. Could I miraculously make Miranda be nice to her brother? I wanted them to have each other’s backs. They were twins, after all. Weren’t they supposed to be best friends, like all the parenting books told me they would be?
I didn’t ruminate on their sibling rivalry for long, as the meeting with Tanner began to creep back into my brain. I still couldn’t get over how kindly he had treated me, especially in the parking lot, giving me the records that I asked for and apologizing for upsetting me. But then there was that dramatic shift—from kind, concerned Tanner to joking around on the phone Tanner. Maybe I had misjudged him.
“Mom,” Blake screamed with an eardrum-shattering voice. “We have to go back. Miranda threw my math homework out the window!”
I glanced in the rearview mirror and saw Miranda with her arms crossed, a smug expression on her pretty, little round face surrounded by wild, brown curls. I could also see the Bradley kids staring at her. We finally had their attention.
O
Early Tuesday morning I decided to take a run by myself. It was hotter than I expected, so I ended up sitting down for a moment on a bench next to the paved greenway. I passed benches on my running path all the time and wondered who sat on them way out here in the middle of nowhere. I was not usually a bench-sitter, but I had drained my water bottle already and was feeling light-headed. I decided maybe I was a bench-sitter after all.
I squinted in the sunlight to see the screen on my phone. I had forgotten to grab a hat when I left, even though I had a basket of them in the hallway right next to the front door. Since Adam died, I felt like I was always forgetting things—little things like hats, and bigger things like doctors’ appointments and friends’ birthdays. Grief had chipped away at the part of my brain that managed memory.
I scrolled through the typical unimportant emails from retailers telling me I had only twenty-four hours to access their online sale, emails from work that didn’t pertain to me, and countless emails from school about everything from field trips to new food items in the cafeteria.
My routine was to file or delete emails right away to keep my inbox from getting too cluttered. This was a feeble attempt to prevent myself from feeling overwhelmed. Admittedly, in my haste sometimes I deleted important emails and had to go back and retrieve them from the trash. But for the most part, the system worked and prevented me from becoming panicky at the sight of my inbox.
That’s when I noticed the email titled Body Found.
Back when crime reporting had been my beat, these emails always made my heart jump. I would immediately click on them, eager to learn as much as I could from the first sketchy details being distributed by our assignment desk editors. Was it an accident, a natural death, a murder? I usually had my own initial theories based on what I had learned over the years. Dead guy in the woods? Probably homeless, natural causes. Dead guy in his house without a gunshot wound? Probably a drug overdose. Dead guy in his house with a gunshot wound? Probably suicide. Dead guy in a car? Well, it depended.
I willed myself not to read the note. It had gone out to the entire newsroom on an email list called Update meant to keep everyone in the loop. It wasn’t sent to me directly, so I had no obligation to read it. At least that’s what I told myself. This wasn’t my beat anymore. Keri Hue was the new crime reporter. She was young, green, and eager. I knew her tenacity would rub some of the old guard in the police department the wrong way, but I also knew she was hungry for a good story, and I could tell by the few moments I had spoken with her that she was bright and would ultimately find her way. I would be there to answer her questions and guide her in the right direction if she needed help, but Keri could now have the dead bodies all to herself.
I closed my email, restarted my exercise app that tracked my mileage, turned up the volume on my music, and then stuck my phone back in the pouch around my waist to continue my run. I was due at University Hospital in an hour-and-a-half to interview the woman who was attacked by the zebra, and I wanted to make sure I had enough time to shower and eat something before I headed out.
Just as I got my stride going again, my phone rang, interrupting my music. Annoyed, I stopped and pulled my phone back out of the pouch. I held one hand up to shield my gaze so I could see the screen and decide if I
was going to answer it or not. In my phone I had the numbers of everyone I had ever called, so if a number came up without a name, I had a strict policy of letting it go to voicemail. It was probably a telemarketer. My eyes struggled to adjust in the bright sunlight as I peered at the tiny screen. It read La Fiesta.
O
“Hello,” I said, tentatively, stepping back into the shade beneath a large tree that offered a canopy of green leaves to protect my eyes from the sunlight. It had to be Maria. Who else? While I had never called the restaurant, I had put the name and address in my phone as a contact for future reference while I was investigating Maria’s possible link to Tanner.
“Are you the reporter lady?” a man’s voice with a Hispanic accent said, as tentatively as I had answered the phone.
“Yes, and you are?”
“Juan Lopez. I am Maria’s big brother.”
“Yes, I left a card for her at the restaurant,” I replied, with hesitation. I wasn’t comfortable telling him the real reason I wanted to speak with her. Plus, I assumed Maria was busy with her new baby, and I couldn’t imagine why my card would suddenly seem important to her.
“What do you want with her, with my sister?”
“I just wanted to ask her a few questions about a man I thought she might know.”
“What man?”
“I’d really rather speak with her directly, if that’s okay. I know she just had a baby. Congratulations, by the way, to her and your family. So we can talk another time, when things settle down for her.”
I was glad he couldn’t see me shifting my weight nervously from one foot to the other on the edge of the paved path. I wished I had never picked up the phone.
“What man? Maria and I are very close. She wouldn’t mind if you talked to me.”
“His name is Tanner Pope. He’s a doctor. Honestly she may not even know him. It really is no big deal. Forget I said anything. Why don’t you just have her call me when she can,” I replied, instantly regretting mentioning Tanner.
There was a long silence on the other end of the line. I almost thought Juan had hung up, but I could still hear him breathing deeply. I wasn’t sure what to make of his silence. Did they know Tanner Pope or not?
“She just had a baby,” Juan said, with indignance.
“I know, and that’s why I really don’t want to bother her right now.”
“But you’re trying to find him, Dr. Tanner. You’re looking for him, too?”
“Too?” Suddenly, I was confused. There was a disconnect. Something was going on here that I wasn’t getting. “I never said I was looking for him. I just saw him the other day at his office. I’m not trying to find him. I just have a few questions about him that I thought your sister might be able to answer.”
With each statement, I could feel myself sinking deeper and deeper into the hole I was digging. What if Tanner found out I was snooping around, asking questions about him after he had treated me with such compassion in his office? Or even worse, what if he really was the jerk Suzanne described, and he found out I was pressing his mistress for information that was really none of my business. I hadn’t thought the situation through at all.
“Dr. Tanner. He disappeared.”
“What do you mean?” I tried to keep my voice calm. I thought I misheard him. I wanted to make absolutely sure I understood what Juan was saying.
“He was visiting Maria and the new baby at our apartment Sunday. We live behind the restaurant. He went out to get supplies for the baby, diapers and formula, because she told him we needed some things. He never came back.”
“Well, maybe he just went home or something.” I was trying to think of how I was going to break it to this man that his sister’s lover was married and had another family that Juan probably didn’t know about.
“I don’t think so. He was coming right back. He wouldn’t do that to her.”
“Did you report him missing to the police?”
“No police.”
“Why not?”
“Because it’s not my place. But I found your card in the door, and I thought you might able to help. I don’t want no police involved.”
A million thoughts started swirling through my head—Juan and Maria might be in the country illegally, which would be a good reason not to want to call the police. Juan might be involved in something shady, something he didn’t want his little sister Maria mixed up in. Juan may know about Tanner’s other family, or it could be as simple as Juan not trusting the authorities.
“Let me see what I can find out.” I wiped sweat from my brow with my free hand. “Is this the best number where I can reach you?”
“Yes. Please help us find him. He is a good man. You will help us, won’t you?”
“I’ll do my best.” I steadied myself against the trunk of the tree with one hand. Now if only I could steady my thoughts.
O
My head was spinning when I unlocked my front door and felt the cool air hit my face as I entered the long, dark hallway. I reviewed what I learned from Juan’s phone call. Tanner was involved in some type of relationship with Maria. What that relationship entailed was unclear. But they were close enough that he would visit her after the birth of her baby. Another important point—it didn’t sound like she was hiding whatever this relationship was from her family, or at least from her brother. So maybe she didn’t know about Suzanne? Was that even possible?
And now Tanner was missing. Or was he? Maybe he just ran away from the crazy, messed-up situation he was in, juggling a mistress with a newborn baby and an angry, paranoid wife. Maybe he just needed time to figure it all out. Just because he was missing from Maria’s life didn’t mean he was really missing.
I decided to take a shower to clear my head before I made another move. I would call Kojak and explain what was going on. He would know what to do. Just as I was stepping into the shower, clouds of steam cascading out of the open glass door to meet me, my phone rang again. I looked down and saw it was the station calling. It would have to wait. It seemed like every time I tried to take a second for myself, I was interrupted. Someone always needed something from me—work, kids, strangers. Breathe, just breathe.
As soon as I stepped beneath the scalding hot water and felt it pouring down my shoulders and back, I started to feel the tension draining from my body. Adam could never understand why I liked the water so hot. He would always get in after me and scream out in mock pain. How could I explain to him that it was the only way to get rid of all the bad stuff, to let the heat cleanse whatever was weighing on me and allow the water to flush it down the drain?
“You’re crazy,” he would shout. “How can anyone stand for one second in water this hot.”
I closed my eyes and tilted my head back, letting the searing water hit my face as I imagined hearing Adam ranting about the temperature. The phone rang again. This time I reached out of the glass door, grabbed the towel hanging on the nearby rack and wiped my eyes. I could see the words News Desk glowing on the screen as it vibrated and hopped across the marble surface of my bathroom countertop.
It was obviously important, or at least someone on the assignment desk thought it was. I reached behind me, turned off the water and then dried my hands so I could pick up the phone. It had stopped ringing, so I hit the newsroom number stored in my missed calls list. Janie answered on the first ring.
“Oh, thank God. I thought something happened to you when you didn’t answer the second time. You’re seriously going to kill me. Please don’t. But I’m pretty sure that you will want to. Just remember, I’m only the messenger. Okay? So here goes. Keri, well, she’s kind of on vacation, and everyone else is already assigned to something. They said to forget the zebra story for now. I mean we’re for sure going to do it, just not today. Instead they want you to…”
“Want me to do what?” I said, in a harsher tone than I intended. I knew it wasn’t Janie’s fault, but I could feel what was coming next. They were assigning me to a crime story because Keri was o
ff. This was exactly what I didn’t want to happen.
“It’s just that, well, they found a body. A dead body.” As if there was another kind of body other than dead.
Why was Keri off? My mind wandered. Then I remembered someone saying it was part of her deal when she took the job, that she had a family wedding to attend right after she started, and they allowed her to take the days unpaid since her vacation time had not accrued yet. In Texas? Wyoming? Mississippi? It didn’t matter. What mattered was that she was not in town, and I was now on deck for what should have been her assignment.
“As opposed to a live body?” I said with part sarcasm and part passive aggression.
I knew I was being too hard on Janie, but it was like something was breaking inside me. All the reasons why I didn’t want to do this were flooding back, and Janie was an easy target. In fact she was the only target available.
“I know. Please don’t be mad at me. Dex made me call you. I told him you would freak out. We already sent Buster. You just need to meet him there. I can text you the address.”
I silently stewed for a moment and thought about what I should do. This was a turning point for me in my job. I could stand my ground and refuse the assignment and see what happened, or I could suck it up and get on with it. I understood the news business was all about filling holes with available personnel. With so many hours of news to fill a day, we were like assembly line workers stuffing boxes as they rolled along the conveyor belt. There were lots of managers who met to discuss how to fill the boxes, but I was a box-filler, an indispensable part of the assembly line. The managers could disappear and the assembly line would still operate, but without the box-fillers, everything would come to a grinding halt.
