The Violence Beat

by JoAnna Carl

  I plucked the statement out of his grip and took his hand. He clutched mine tightly.

  “I think the violent death of someone you love is the hardest thing in the world to accept,” I said. “It’s so awfully sudden. My mother was killed in an accident when I was eight. I was sixteen before I really believed she was gone.”

  “You were eight? It’s rough to lose your mother that young.”

  “Worse for her. She was only twenty-six. I was lucky. My grandparents took me in. I had a careful and loving upbringing. Financially secure. Emphasis on education. Camp Fire Girls and church camp. All that middle-class stuff. But it was still hard to grasp that my mother was gone. She was there one night when I went to bed and gone the next morning when I got up. I used to dream that it was all a mistake. That she’d been looking for me, and I wasn’t where she’d left me, so she couldn’t find me.

  “Of course, because of the accident—my grandparents didn’t want me to see her body.”

  Mike nodded. “Mom insisted on seeing my dad, for just that reason, even though we weren’t going to open the coffin. I went with her. It—it wasn’t easy. But I know it was a smart thing to do.” He massaged my hand silently, then went on. “They were a really happy couple. His death was hard on her.”

  “Hard enough on you. You don’t have any brothers or sisters, do you?”

  “A spoiled only child. That’s why I’m so irresistibly egotistical. I always think I should get what I want.”

  Mike gently pulled me out of my chair and into his lap. He kissed me thoroughly. As soon as he worked around to my right ear, he murmured into it. “Can I talk you into coming over to my place?”

  “That’s too far away.” I got up and went into Brenda’s room and found the right items in her top dresser drawer. She went on the pill after she and her boyfriend had made their engagement official, but I’d thought they were still there. I took them back to my room and closed the door behind me.

  I dangled the box in front of Mike. “Take your shoes off,” I ordered.

  “Those things will not fit on my feet,” he said.

  “Then we’ll have to use them on some other part of your body.”

  A half hour later, we were resting happily, with our arms around each other, when Martha and Brenda came upstairs. Mike and I had turned out the lights, and they shushed when they saw my closed door.

  “Guess Nell made it an early night,” Brenda said. “Have you got my Vogue?” They went into Martha’s room.

  “Should I leave?” Mike murmured.

  “Not unless you want to.”

  “Nope.” He snuggled closer. “I feel like I sneaked into the sorority house. That was my dream when I was nineteen. I wanted to be the sex slave of the Kappa house.”

  “Gee, can one reporter take the place of a whole houseful of Kappas?”

  “Even more exciting. Especially since I’m not nineteen anymore. Massed Kappas no longer have the appeal they once did.”

  We snickered as silently as possible, and Mike began to slide his hand back and forth along my rib cage.

  “I wanted to ask something,” I whispered. “What did your mother have to say after Mickey and I left this morning? I’ve been wondering, in between the other exciting events of the day. I hope you didn’t quarrel with her because of me.”

  “Not because of you.” Mike laughed softly. “She told me that I was thirty-two-years old and that knowing I had a girl stay overnight made her a lot less worried about me than she would be if she thought I never did that.” He kissed me. “She was especially pleased because I’d invited such a nice, wholesome girl over.”

  “I’ll bet.”

  “Mom and I parted in better shape than we did the last time we got together.”

  “Glad to hear it. Mickey said you’d had a fight earlier.”

  “Did he tell you what it was about?”

  I decided it was time to fudge a little. “He said you’d objected to their relationship.”

  “I acted pretty much like an asshole.” Mike’s arms tensed. “It’s none of my business.”

  I couldn’t think of a safe reply, so I didn’t make one. Mike began to stroke my breast. I began to stroke his. Knowing that Martha and Brenda were within earshot seemed to excite us both, to give us a sense of intimacy even greater than we’d had alone in Mike’s house. We fondled and titillated each other, taking care to giggle, gasp, and pant silently. Luckily, we discovered, my bed doesn’t creak.

  I could still hear Brenda and Martha’s voices faintly when Mike’s arms gradually relaxed, and his breathing grew deep and regular. I wondered if he ever snored, and the thought gave me an attack of giggles. We’d been so quiet. Snoring would give us away for sure.

  My giggling passed away and was replaced by that internal shivering and shaking which had hit me the night before, after I had realized just how tender Mike could make me feel. Oh, admit it, I told myself. He made me feel loving. I wanted to hold him and protect him and be a haven for him. Which was absolutely stupid. Here was a guy who could grab guns from armed madmen, could stop a giant semi with a single gesture, and even had an excellent cleaning woman, and’ I wanted to take care of him? He was doing very well on his own, thanks.

  But he did make me feel that way. I liked the feeling. But if I kept seeing him, I’d have to change my life around—long before either Mike or I was ready to make any sort of a commitment. I’d have to give up the violence beat, switch to some other job at the Gazette.

  The violence beat had been my financial, professional and emotional security for a year. I’d even broken up with Professor Tenure because of the violence beat. He thought it was lowbrow, and I objected to his opinion.

  At least, that was one of the excuses I gave him.

  My internal organs quivered harder. This was all happening too fast, I told myself. When you fell for a guy, you were supposed to go to dinner a few times, catch a movie, watch a football game. Take a long walk and talk about your ambitions and goals. Then, if you decide it’s serious, you both think about making changes in your lives to accommodate the relationship. You don’t go out once, leap into bed, then rush to the office to quit your job.

  But why did I even care about the cop beat? It was a beginner’s beat, an apprenticeship, not a career. But I’d been covering cops and firefighters for six years in two cities. Most reporters did it a couple of years and then left rejoicing, ready to cover schools, health, courts, or government. The only reporter I ever heard of who made crime reporting into a real career was Edna Buchanan, and she finally quit to write fiction.

  If I really cared about Mike—about anyone—I ought to be willing to drop the cop beat like a dead story.

  Was I turning into one of those cop junkies? Those reporters who get so close to their subject that it takes over their lives? Who sell out their principles and become PD public information officers, or who join the force themselves? Had I already lost all objectivity about my beat?

  Should I quit, even if Mike wasn’t the reason?

  The thought terrified me. The cop beat had been my security. Giving it up meant stepping off into the unknown.

  Mike probably won’t work out anyway. After all, how long could an affair this hot last? How long would it be before I deliberately set out to run him off?

  When I got to that point, my internal shaking became so marked that I was afraid Mike would feel it. I slid my arm out from under his neck, lay on my side, and stared at his sleeping face in the dim light.

  The men in my life never seemed to work out. My father had left my mother and me. My grandfather died. The guys I’d dated in college and afterward, even Professor Tenure—I’d never felt secure with them. When it got to the point when I was afraid they’d go, I dropped them. I was aware that I did this—I looked for an excuse and dropped them before they could drop me.

  I could quit the
crime beat and cover another one. But how long would it be before I got nervous and shoved Mike out of my life? Would I be stuck covering something I didn’t like as well as crime? And would I be alone again, spending my Sunday evenings with Rocky? Could I take a chance on a different outcome this time? I dropped off to sleep without solving the problem.

  Around two A.M., Mike had a shaking fit and woke us both up. After the shaking subsided, he whispered, “This doesn’t really happen every night. I saw a counselor. He says it’s not that serious. Just a nervous reaction to excitement.”

  I kissed his forehead. “Better than booze.”

  “Yeah.” We both knew alcohol was a major problem for cops. It’s a destructive way of dealing with stress.

  Mike went back to sleep, and I worried some more about giving up the crime beat. Should I take a chance on Mike? On me? I dozed off with the question still oppressing me.

  Sometime around five A.M., Mike nudged me awake and asked me to check and make sure the bathroom was clear.

  “I don’t want to run into a strange roommate in the hall,” he whispered.

  “My other roommates aren’t as strange as Rocky,” I said. Mike laughed quietly.

  When he came back, he began putting on his clothes. “I guess I’d better go,” he murmured. “I go on duty at seven.”

  I got up, put on a wooly robe that had been my grandmother’s, then led him down the stairs.

  “Want some coffee? Toast?” I asked.

  “No, thanks. I’ll stop at the Main Street on my way in.”

  I undid the dead bolts on the door. “I’m sorry you have to go.”

  “So am I.”

  We wrestled that situation through another couple of minutes of hard breathing. Then Mike actually opened the door and stepped out onto the porch.

  “Good night,” he said. “Good morning.”

  I watched him cross the porch. Damn! He was so sexy. So nice. So grown-up. So brave, clean, and reverent. Dammit. I wished I knew what he wanted out of this relationship. Would I even see him again?

  Abruptly, Mike turned around. “Nell!” he whispered. “I still don’t have your phone number!”

  My purse was on the hall table. I got out a Gazette card and wrote the number for the direct line to my desk on the front and my home number on the back. He wrote his number on the back of a second card, and I tucked it under a paper clip on the inside of my notebook.

  “I get off at three p.m.,” Mike murmured. “I’ll call you.” He touched my shoulder. “Maybe I’ll have figured out what to do about what Bo said. And I hope you’ll let me take you out someplace tonight. I want to show you off.”

  Decision time was there. My innards quivered. I gulped and decided to go for it. “Okay,” I said.

  He put his hands on each side of my face and kissed me. “Let’s give ourselves a chance, Nell.”

  A terrible weight lifted off my shoulders, and my internal Jell-O set as solidly as concrete.

  Mike left, and I tiptoed back up the stairs. I went into my room and closed the door. Then I stepped up onto the bed and jumped up and down as if my mattress were a trampoline.

  “Whee! Whee!” I whispered. I did a swan dive down among the sheets, still warm from Mike’s body, and lay there giggling. He was a wonderful guy, and he wanted me to be his girl. I wallowed back and forth, sniffing the scent of Mike Svenson.

  I was happy. I didn’t care how I was going to feel when I told Jake Edwards I wanted to drop the cop beat.

  Chapter 11

  By nine A.M., when I got to the Gazette office, I was still ecstatic, although I’d stopped jumping up and down. I intended to drop the violence beat, but I had decided to postpone action until the afternoon. Rather than going to the ME, I told myself, I should talk to the city ed, Ruth Borah. Ruth and I were pretty good friends. I should tell her, let her think about how she wanted the reporters shifted around, before I went over her head. Besides, I could level with Ruth, and Jake Edwards scared me. Maybe she’d talk to him for me.

  However, Ruth didn’t come in until two P.M., so I couldn’t do anything until then. Besides, somebody had to run the violence beat that morning. It obviously was going to be me. I wasn’t irreplaceable, but they’d have to assign somebody to take over before I could simply stop doing my job.

  I guess I was nervous. For emotional support I put on my favorite outfit—the tan pants for comfort, the rust, tan, and blue shirt to make my hair look golden-red, and the sapphire jacket to make my eyes look blue. As I came into the building, I stopped downstairs and asked the publisher’s secretary to notarize my statement on Bo Jenkins. She didn’t read it, of course. Just attested my signature.

  “Have you recovered from the big weekend?” she asked.

  I looked at her suspiciously. The Gazette is a seething hotbed of gossip, but surely she hadn’t already heard about Mike. I decided she was referring to Bo Jenkins and the criminal things that had gone on—being held hostage and all.

  “I’m nearly recovered,” I said.

  As soon as I got to my desk, I put the statements in two Gazette envelopes and sealed them. Jake Edwards wasn’t in his office yet. I wrote his name on one envelope and put it on the corner of my desk. The scanner was on, but nothing much seemed to be happening on the violence scene.

  Then I called Coy-the-Cop. “When will Hammond have a statement on the investigation into Bo Jenkin’s death?” I asked.

  “It’ll be at least three P.M., Nell. Let’s say four P.M. for a briefing. I’ll call back if Hammond can’t make it then. The ME won’t have even a preliminary cause of death before noon.”

  Language is funny. Coy used “ME” to mean “medical examiner,” and I used it to mean “managing editor,” but we understood each other.

  “Speaking of Bo Jenkins, what happened to my keys?” I asked.

  “Keys? Oh, yeah. The kid carried them out. I’ll track them down. They’re probably in the evidence room by now.”

  “Anything else happening today?” I asked Coy. “Any new cases? Policy changes? Personnel matters? Rapes? Murders? Bank robberies? Interesting drunk drivers? Assaults with deadly weapons?”

  This is a joke between Coy and me. He’s pretty cooperative, but some law enforcement spokesmen won’t tell you anything unless you ask specifically. You call the dispatcher and say, “What’s going on?” He answers, “Not a thing.” Two days later you discover that particular outfit is working a double murder. When you complain, the dispatcher acts all innocent. “You didn’t ask me if we’d had any double murders.” Sometimes they’ll tell you an assault was simply a fistfight. Later you find out it was a pitched battle between off-duty cops and the meanest gang on the north side. A reporter has to watch her sources every minute. So I ask Coy about everything I can think of.

  “All routine,” Coy said.

  Jake Edwards came in just as I hung up, and I was in his office before he had time to sling his briefcase onto the desk. “Morning, Nell. Have you recovered?”

  “Pretty much. Jake, could I give you something?”

  “A present?”

  “Nope.” I explained what I wanted and handed him the sealed envelope.

  Jake frowned. “This is like something from an overwrought novel. I expect it to be marked, ‘To be opened in the event of my death.’ What are you up to?”

  “I’m not sure yet, Jake. I just want to have this on record a couple of places. But I don’t really want to discuss it.”

  Jake tossed the envelope in the top left drawer of his desk and sat down. “Okay, Nell. Now I’ve got a new assignment for you. And I’m afraid you’re not going to like it.”

  I sat on the edge of one of his chairs and looked at my watch. “Okay. But I haven’t made my morning run yet.” Reporters have to keep the editors in line all the time, too. Keep reminding them that the first step in putting out a newspaper is going ou
t there on the beat—to the city offices, courthouse, and schools—and gathering information. We can’t just hang around the office doing their little chores. “I usually try to head for the cop shop by ten or so,” I said.

  “We may call in the nightside guy—J.B.? I want you to work on a special project.”

  “What is it?”

  “Ace Anderson—”

  “Ace-the-Ass?”

  “That’s the one.” Jake sighed. “I said you weren’t going to like this assignment. Ace has some sort of a tip around a scandal in the Grantham Police Department. The AP bureau chief wants him to work on it. And we want you to work with him.”

  “Oh, no! You can’t expect me to work with that idiot!”

  “Yell all you want, Nell. But it’s got to be done.”

  “Why me? Let Ace do his own dirty work.”

  “What kind of a job do you think he’ll do?”

  “Lousy. Just like he does everything. But that’s his lookout. And maybe the AP will get wise to what a jerk he is.”

  “Yes, but what will happen to the Grantham PD?” Jake pulled a pica pole—a metal ruler—out of his center drawer and turned it over and over, the way an Arab handles his worry beads. “Ace claims we’re looking at a major scandal.”

  “The Grantham PD is made up of tough guys and gals,” I said. “If they’ve been up to no good, they deserve to get caught.”

  “By Ace?”

  “Just because no self-respecting journalist likes Ace—”

  “Liking Ace is not the point. Incompetence is.”

  “That’s why we don’t like him. He’s a sorry excuse for a reporter.”

  “So? What do you think he’ll do with a major scandal?”

  I leaned back in my chair. “He’ll mess it up.”

  “Right. He’ll gather half the facts and understand only a quarter of those. He’ll go off half-cocked, print stuff he can’t prove. Hint at things to come—which will never develop.”