Stalking Susan

by Julie Kramer

  Like I said, it was just a theory.

  I DIDN’T WANT to linger on the mayor’s block, so we hit a handful of houses there then drove to another neighborhood and started fresh. It wasn’t even six o’clock, plenty of time to make good on my promise to net Davy and Darcy enough candy to last till Christmas. Call me Aunt Santa.

  “You tell me when you’ve had enough,” I told them, noting their already bulging bags.

  “We’re not tired,” Darcy said.

  Davy agreed. “I’m strong.”

  A small house down the street captured their attention. Decorated with pumpkin lights, bats hung from strings, and ceramic black cats adorned the sidewalk.

  “Wow.” Davy moved toward the action. “It looks scary.”

  “Let’s go,” I answered.

  A line of children, mesmerized by the haunted house décor, stood in front of us. As we got closer I watched the man handing out popcorn balls and felt certain I’d met him before.

  “Come back anytime,” he told the trick-or-treaters.

  I guessed he was in his midthirties. He wore thick glasses and a black cape. He didn’t need a mask because a reddish scar stretched across the bridge of his nose. My memory clicked. When we reached the door, I stooped down, pretending to tie Davy’s shoes, but actually keeping my eyes pinned to the man’s feet. I spied a monitoring bracelet around the guy’s ankle and knew I needed to call Xiong.

  I herded my niece and nephew back to the car and told them I’d give a prize to whoever had the most Reese’s peanut butter cups. They started counting in the backseat while I hit Xiong’s number on my speed dial.

  “It’s Riley. Can you call up the Minnesota Corrections Web site? I have an address I need to check on the sex offender’s database.”

  “I’m in the middle of a story for ten,” he said. “Can’t you do it yourself?”

  “I’m out of the office, trick-or-treating. It’s a long story. This could be big.”

  I gave him the address and waited.

  “Hey Aunt Riley, so far I have six Reese’s and Davy only has four.”

  “Interesting, honey. Keep counting.”

  Xiong confirmed that the address matched that of Paul Friendly, a level 3 sex offender, convicted of molesting boys. In the legal world of sex crimes, level 3’s are deemed most dangerous, most likely to reoffend. A few years ago I’d covered a community meeting where residents protested his moving into their neighborhood. Headlines and promotions read along the lines of “Friendly Unwelcome.” Apparently he had moved again. Inconspicuously. The idea of him handing out Halloween candy repulsed me.

  “Now Davy has more than me.”

  “Keep counting.” I called the Channel 3 assignment desk to fill them in and page Malik to meet me a couple blocks away. I took off my wig, put a jacket over my nurse uniform, and rubbed off the lipstick. It might be Halloween, but I didn’t want to look like a clown when I confronted Mr. Friendly on camera.

  “We’re done, Aunt Riley. Guess what? Davy and I have the same amount.”

  “That’s great. Why don’t you count MilkyWays next?”

  “I want to go to more houses,” Davy said.

  “We’ll do that later,” I said. “A friend of mine is coming to take our picture at the scary house.”

  “We get to go back?” Darcy asked.

  “Sure do.”

  Malik groused about shooting late on Halloween. “I got kids, too, you know.”

  I apologized. “This is a once-in-a-year opportunity. We’ve got to get this on camera now.”

  First Malik shot wide from the back of the van, videotaping the line of kids lured by the elaborate decorations. We wanted a close-up of Mr. Friendly, so Malik put on hat cam—a baseball cap with a pinhole lens in the front and a cable through the back. It wasn’t great for low-light situations, but we had no choice.

  “Come on, kids.” I considered leaving them in the car, but decided I better keep them in sight. Technically, I was a babysitter, not a reporter. “You can each get another popcorn ball, but then wait behind me while I talk to that man. I need to ask him some questions.”

  Malik signaled that the camera was rolling. He turned his head back and forth to get some nice cover of children wearing football jerseys and dinosaur outfits. Just as we reached the steps, our man told a young boy dressed in camouflage, “Come visit again.”

  Mr. Friendly patted Davy on the head. “You must live nearby. I think this is your second time here tonight.”

  “No,” Davy said, “my aunt just wants to talk to you.” He pointed at me. Damn. Kindergarten curriculum must not include undercover skills.

  “Really.” Mr. Friendly looked warily at me.

  “That’s right. You’re a level 3 sex offender.” I didn’t ask it, I said it.

  He didn’t deny it. The mom and pop crowd in the yard gathered to listen.

  “I’m Riley Spartz from Channel 3. You’re Paul Friendly and you’re not supposed to have contact with children.”

  “They’re approaching me. I’m not approaching them.”

  “Let’s see what the Corrections department has to say. If luring kids with candy isn’t violating the letter of your parole, I’m sure it’s violating the spirit.”

  “It’s Halloween. Everybody’s handing out candy.”

  “You’re not everybody.”

  “Excuse me,” said the father of a boy wearing a Spiderman suit. “Did you say he’s a sex offender?”

  “Level 3.”

  His fist hit Mr. Friendly’s face a split second later making a crunching noise and squirting blood onto Darcy’s yellow princess dress. She screamed and dropped her bag of candy. Davy started to cry. A woman wearing Playboy bunny ears kicked Mr. Friendly in the crotch. I overheard someone in the back calling 911. Malik and I each grabbed a kid and raced for the van. He heaved the big camera onto his shoulder just in time to roll tape of somebody’s grandma throwing a pumpkin through Mr. Friendly’s front window.

  “BASICALLY, YOU STARTED a riot.” Noreen relished playing Monday-morning quarterback. “But you did beat the competition.”

  “Only because she started the riot,” said Miles Lewis, Channel 3’s media attorney. “Of course she beat the competition.” He was a short black man in a fancy suit. Him being in the news director’s office didn’t bode well for me.

  Actually, I’d hoped to do more research and hold the story a few days until the first night of the ratings book. But two squad cars responded and the other stations followed on the heels of their sirens. I scrambled to feed tape back from a Channel 3 truck and do a live shot for the top of the news. Noreen was right about the competition. We had the story. They had the aftermath.

  “It’s just too bad we weren’t able to promote it,” she continued. “An early show tease or prime-time spot would have let viewers in on our scoop.”

  Malik and I suffered a setback when we discovered our hidden camera tape didn’t have audio. Technical gremlins must have been out Halloweening, so I had to paraphrase for viewers Mr. Friendly’s explanation of why he wasn’t scum. What we did have on tape was literally a knockout: an exclusive shot of fist slamming face.

  “The story’s got legs,” I said. “I’m happy to do some follow-up stories.”

  “That’s what we need to talk about,” Miles said. “It might be better to hand the story off to someone else.”

  “No way. It’s my story. I found it.”

  I also lost it.

  Trouble was, Mr. Friendly’s attorney called Noreen earlier that morning, using big lawyer words and threatening to sue Channel 3. Even Miles called that idea laughable. More problematic for us, Mr. Friendly wanted to press criminal charges against his attackers. Our tape was potential evidence and Malik and I, potential witnesses.

  Two things stood in our favor. Even if we had to give up the raw tape, our shot wasn’t wide enough to capture the gentleman who had thrown the first punch. And if called to testify, I honestly couldn’t remember what he looked li
ke.

  “Honestly.”

  “You’re sure?” Miles asked.

  “Absolutely. It was dark. I was distracted by my niece and nephew.”

  “That’s another thing,” Noreen said. “I don’t want you taking young children along on stories. Ride-alongs need to be in college. Station policy.”

  “It didn’t start out as a story,” I insisted. “It started out as a family outing. If it weren’t for them, we wouldn’t have the story.”

  “Whatever,” she scolded me. “Don’t let it happen again. And I think Miles is right. You’ve become a part of the story. We need to assign another reporter.”

  Just when I thought nothing worse could happen, she told me to give the tapes to Mike Flagg. “His dumpster-diving story fell through and he needs another project.”

  WHEN I GOT back to my desk I had a message from my sister, peeved. Okay outraged, because, in her words, I used her kids as “pedophile bait.” She had still been at work when I finally brought Darcy and Davy home. Fortunately, their dad was lying on the couch watching a cable show on bass fishing, not the news. One of Robyn’s friends probably saw my niece and nephew on Channel 3 and ratted me out; more likely, the kids couldn’t keep a secret.

  Thanksgiving dinner could be tense this year.

  AND NO MENTION of Halloween would be honest without disclosing a horror that had been haunting me for the last week. I tried not thinking about it, and I definitely didn’t say it out loud. As if denial would keep it from happening and shield me from blame.

  If there was a Susan killer, what if the publicity my story would stir up stirred him up?

  Right now he didn’t seem to pose a physical danger. So the loftiest rationalization I might use to defend airing the SUSANS story—“warning the public”—wasn’t quite valid. I had to fall back on “examining the competence of the police” and “bringing closure to the families.” All very good and fine reasons unless the killer struck again. Or a new killer got inspiration.

  CHAPTER 19

  The first production snafu came when Noreen refused to air the SUSANS story on the anniversary date.

  “We’re not wasting it then,” she said. “That’s a Saturday. Our lowest-rated show of the week. Everybody’s out on the town. Nobody’s home in front of the tube. Especially not our younger viewers.”

  Advertisers particularly covet viewers in the 18–49 age bracket. For once, no argument from me. Nobody wanted a 40 share more than I did. If Noreen could scheme up some strategy to help make that happen, well, that might help explain why she was the boss. She and the promotion manager shuffled the November lineup on a wall-sized calendar and slated the story for the sixth, to kick off the first Sunday night of the book, following the network’s powerhouse prime-time lineup.

  “If we can build on those numbers, that will help our overall rating for the month,” she said. “Also any follow-up stories will benefit us as the book unfolds. Riley, start crashing.”

  A deadline.

  Some folks need drugs or alcohol for exhilaration. Me, I get high on deadlines. And that’s good because smoke makes me cough, needles scare me, and I’m inept at swallowing pills.

  For writing inspiration, I pushed away visions of viewers and concentrated on the victims. Propped against my office walls, the SUSANS boards displayed a photo of each woman. Their eyes seemingly watched as I told their stories.

  Susan Redding—a doctor’s wife with a secret lover who may or may not have killed her.

  Susan Chenowith—a waitress who never made it in to work the next day.

  Susan Moreno—a teenage hooker living and dying on the edge.

  Susan Niemczyk—a schoolteacher bent on suicide. Or was she?

  I was in a zone when I wrote SUSANS, or when the story wrote itself. The words fell onto the pages that easily.

  ((RILEY/TRACK))

  A DEADLY ANNIVERSARY

  IS APPROACHING.

  Television news scripts are typed, all caps, in a two-inch-wide column on the right side of the page. The caps allow for easy reading on the teleprompter. The width times out to about a second a line, enabling newscast producers to estimate the time block needed for the story. Novels measure in pages, newspapers measure in inches, TV measures in minutes and seconds.

  A CHANNEL 3

  INVESTIGATION INTO

  THE VIOLENT DEATHS

  OF FOUR MINNESOTA

  WOMEN HAS DISCOVERED

  EERIE PARALLELS THAT

  MIGHT SIMPLY BE A

  STRING OF STRANGE

  COINCIDENCES…OR

  THAT MIGHT BE MUCH

  MORE.

  The left side of the page is reserved for editing instructions, location of specific video shots, and names of the talking heads in the story. As I related the dates and facts of each case, I dropped in sound bites from the interviews.

  ((SOUND/MOM/TEARS))

  SOMETIMES I WATCH MEN

  ON THE STREET AND

  WONDER, WAS IT HIM?

  OR WAS IT HIM?

  ((SOUND/FATHER))

  I’D KILL THE GUY IF I

  KNEW.

  SUSANS was enterprise work, not some feature story spoon-fed to the media by government or corporate press releases. That meant the station lawyer had a hand in vetting it, but because Channel 3 was merely questioning the competence of the police, not pointing a finger at a specific suspect or a big advertiser, script review went relatively smoothly.

  IS THIS MAN SERVING A

  LIFE SENTENCE FOR A

  CRIME HE DIDN’T

  COMMIT?

  SUSAN CHENOWITH

  WORE THIS RAINCOAT

  THE NIGHT SHE

  DISAPPEARED.

  WHEN HER BODY WAS

  DISCOVERED…THE

  RAINCOAT WAS MISSING.

  EXACTLY ONE YEAR

  LATER…SUSAN MORENO

  WAS FOUND DEAD…

  WEARING A RAINCOAT

  HER FRIENDS AND FAMILY

  SAY SHE NEVER OWNED.

  IN THE POCKET…THIS

  BUTTON.

  COMPARE IT TO THE

  BUTTONS ON SUSAN

  CHENOWITH’S SWEATER.

  I used a split-screen effect to show the button next to a button from Susan Chenowith’s sweater. Perfect match. Then the camera pushed in for a close-up.

  LOOK CLOSELY AT THIS

  CRIME SCENE PHOTO AND

  YOU’LL SEE ONE OF HER

  SWEATER BUTTONS IS

  MISSING.

  For the chief, a mere button morphed into a smoking gun.

  One minute after I left the news set, my desk phone started ringing. Chief Capacasa was on the other end of the line, steamed. He’d handled scandal before, self-made, family-made, and media-made. A pro at massaging negative news, he understood that the SUSANS story was potentially more damaging than the time he had deflected rumors that his cousin in Chicago used to be Mafia muscle.

  The last time I saw Vince Capacasa, he was chuckling as he packed the raincoat back in the evidence box. He had assumed no match, no story. But don’t forget what happens when you assume.

  “We had a deal!” The chief wasn’t chuckling now. He bellowed. “You weren’t supposed to run that story.”

  “No. We had a deal I wouldn’t air unless I could prove a connection between the killings. I believe I’ve met that burden.”

  “You didn’t tell me about the button!”

  “I didn’t realize what it meant until later.”

  Not exactly. The moment my mind made the connection, I also knew that I’d never get that videotape out of the cop shop and back to Channel 3 if the chief sensed that the button held any significance.

  “You had the same information I had, Chief. And better access to the evidence. Let’s do an interview tomorrow, talking about what this means to your investigation.”

  “An interview? You can’t be serious. I’m never talking to you again!”

  “You can look like you’re cooperating, or you can look like y
ou’re stonewalling.”

  He slammed the phone down. I leaned back in my chair, savoring the pleasant sensation of checkmate.

  CHAPTER 20

  The next morning the front desk phoned. Said I had a package. I bounded out of the newsroom to claim a glass vase covered in purple tissue paper. I’d received a slew of bouquets at Boyer’s funeral, but none since. My sister had pressed some of the petals in the scrapbook. The perennials I’d replanted outside. The rest I’d donated to the nursing home where his father lived.

  Boyer wasn’t the kind of guy who sent flowers. He made his own traditions. Valentine’s Day he’d walk through the door carrying a life-sized chocolate gun in a gold foil box. Once I had suggested I’d bring home the candy if he would send me a dozen roses.

  But he had a fatalistic view on flowers. “Why would I send you something that’s just going to die?”

  “Flowers are romantic,” I told him. “A sentimental gesture of temporary beauty. Besides, it reminds other men at the office that I’m taken.”

  “Don’t they know I carry a gun? I imagine that would be more effective than flowers. Point these guys out at the next company party.”

  Back at my desk, I eagerly tore away the tissue paper. I gasped at a bouquet of dead lilies.

  “No card?” Malik asked.

  “No card,” I answered.

  No fingerprints either. Mine were the only ones the crime lab techs later found on the vase. The receptionist had briefly stepped away from her station and missed seeing the delivery.

  Clearly someone was unhappy about the SUSANS story, but the list of suspects was long and my time was short. The middle of sweeps is no time to rest on your laurels, not even if your story delivers a veiled threat and a 37 share.

  When I had walked in an hour earlier, the number was highlighted on the overnight ratings sheet posted on the newsroom bulletin board. Through her glass office, Noreen put her phone down long enough to wildly wave me over.