Song of Suzies

by Dave Balcom

She smiled sadly, “So what time is an early emergency meeting going to take place? I heard you say seven...”

  “Nine. Sharp.”

  “Sharp indeed,” she said with careful aplomb. Then she cracked up and so did I.

  9

  “Jesus wept!” Doug exploded when I explained why I needed his attention. I had been reading copy at the universal desk when I saw him come into the department. I met him outside my office, and started to explain the letter.

  I had left an empty box over the “evidence” on the credenza with a sign for any would-be janitor “do not touch.”

  I lifted off the box, and invited him to read. He got as far as “worms” and exploded.

  “Jim, what’s this mean?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but I believe it’s intended that we believe it’s from the person responsible for Suzanne’s disappearance...”

  “Holy Christ almighty!” He swore again. He then finished reading the note, and as he did, he started to reach for it...

  “Doug, don’t touch it. If you do, you’ll have to be fingerprinted with the rest of us.”

  He looked at me as if I were crazy. “What are you talking about?”

  “I think we need to notify the police. They’re going to want to know about this.”

  “You didn’t do that yesterday?”

  “I didn’t want to do anything until I’d had a chance to talk with you. I figured you might want to talk with your lawyers or your dad... I don’t know, it just seemed too big for me to run off without you knowing...” I ran out of gas.

  He sat down in my chair, swiveled so he could look at the letter. He looked at it as if it might turn into a snake and strike him at any moment. I realized, he may have felt it already had.

  The silence in the room stretched to the point that I had to walk around the desk to see if he was still conscious.

  “That was good thinking on your part,” he said at last. “But clearly we need to call the police; you take care of that, I’ll contact my dad and let him know.”

  “I don’t think it’s a big rush to notify the police, Doug.” I said softly. “If you want to check with your lawyers, see if they have any input, suggestions, cautions...” I was out of gas again.

  “Oh, I’ll call them, but we’re going to turn it over, and now is as good a time as any. But what else can we do? If there’s any chance...” He stalled.

  We both stood there realizing that there may have been thousands of chances available to us, but the one we really had hoped for wasn’t one of them.

  “Make the call,” he said as he lifted himself out of the chair. “You call now, we can have the story yet today, right?”

  I nodded. “We’ve got most of it written already. We’ll just add quotes from the cops... and you. I’d like to quote you ‘but clearly we need to call the police’ in the context that this isn’t business as usual for you, me, or the newspaper... I can get quotes from Hennessey or someone to support that as well. Okay?”

  He nodded. He left the room looking much older than he had when he entered. His shoulders were slumped and his step was dragging a bit. I suddenly worried about him, about how he’d handle the shock.

  I followed him down the hall to his office. I saw Harriet notice him, and I saw the alarm register in her eyes. I stood there as she rose from her desk, opened the door to his office and led him inside. As the door swung closed, I heard him say, “I’m okay, really. We’ve got work to do...”

  I went back to my office and called Hennessey. He answered right away, and I told him that something to do with the case had come up, and I thought he might want to come to the paper to see it.

  “Cut to the chase, Jim. What is it?”

  “A letter to the editor that portrays itself as having been written by the person responsible for Suzanne’s disappearance.”

  “Holy Jesus! Don’t touch it any more. I’ll be there in minutes with a crime scene crew.”

  I hung up realizing trying to calm him down would be hopeless.

  I went out into the newsroom, picked up a phone and punched the intercom button. Then I whistled as if my dog was lost. The entire place went still. “Folks, this is Jim Stanton in the newsroom. In just a few minutes we’re going to be visited by the police. We’ve received an anonymous letter that portrays itself to be written by the person or persons responsible for Suzanne’s disappearance. I called the police, and they’re on their way.

  “We have to get a newspaper out today, but I’m sure that’s the least of the police’s worries. Be patient. If you touched the incoming mail yesterday before it got to Randy, make yourself known to me right away, the police are going to want to talk with you.

  “Okay? Big deep breath now! This is why we didn’t go to work putting fenders on cars. Roll with it, and we’ll come out the other side with a great edition of the Sentinel-Standard.

  “Now, let’s get back to work!”

  Hennessey and his crew hit the front door seconds after I hung up my phone. The receptionist buzzed me. “They’re here.”

  I headed for the lobby. When I got there, I found Doug and Hennessey nose to nose.

  “Listen,” Hennessey was saying, “I know you have a paper to get out, but we’ve got to process this now!”

  “Just don’t keep my people from doing their jobs, that’s all I ask.”

  I butted in. “Max, glad you could come. I’ve got the stuff in my office. I’m guessing there are only three or four people who might have touched that letter after it was delivered yesterday.”

  “Yesterday! You sat on this since yesterday?!”

  I reached out for his elbow, noting the shocked looks of the customer service staff. “Come on, we don’t need this kind of histrionics here. If I did something wrong you can chew me out down in the newsroom, okay?”

  I tugged at his elbow, and that got him moving. He looked from me to Doug, and back at me. “I gotta hear this.”

  “Of course you do, that’s why we called you,” I said in my calmest voice. I thought I might be good at handling mental patients if this gig didn’t pan out, but I kept the smile from my face through sheer will power.

  In my office, I pointed to the letter and envelope on the credenza, next to the empty box. He leaned over the letter, his left hand across his chest, keeping his tie from dangling onto the paper. “You touched this?”

  “Before I knew what it was, yes.”

  He was studying the envelope. “This?”

  “Yes, when I opened it, but when I retrieved it from the wastebasket I used my letter opener to hook it out.”

  He nodded, and then he backed away and turned to one of his technicians, a young woman. “Patsy, process this, please?”

  She moved in.

  “Tell me how it happened, from the beginning.”

  “I don’t know the actual beginning...”

  “Oh, Jim, don’t play cute with me...”

  “I’m not being cute. I came into this after the mail had been in the building for quite some time, I don’t even know when the mail arrives, actually. The letters to the editor hit my desk between press time and my lunch.”

  “Tell me how that works.”

  “Mail arrives in a bundle at the front desk. A business office clerk opens the bundle and rough sorts the mail, making sure the envelopes that might contain money – you know ad payments, subscription payments that sort of thing – get separated out and the rest is broken down between the various departments.

  “The newsroom gets the bulk of the rest of that mail. If it’s addressed to Lifestyles or Sports, those department editors get the mail directly; the rest goes to Randy Patterson the City Editor.

  “He screens the newsworthy mail and directs it to the appropriate staffer for processing – we call it ‘rewrite’ and they’re deadlined for 2 p.m. same day. The stack that looks like or is addressed to Letters to the Editor is sent to me.

  “Yesterday, because of the story we ran on Sunday, he brought an unusual quantit
y of letters to me. I started processing them for our clerk to get them into the computer system, and then I came across this one, and it kinda stopped the process.”

  “But you didn’t call me right away, right?”

  “I felt I needed to confer with Mr. Read, so I had his secretary try to find him. He and I didn’t get a chance to talk until this morning at nine. I called you at nine-fifteen.”

  He studied his notes. “You figure the business office clerk and Randy touched the envelope, you and who else touched the letter?”

  “Nobody but me; once I realized what it was, I put it right there,” pointing to the credenza, “and it stayed there, untouched until your tech moved it.”

  He turned to Doug. “Did you read the letter?”

  “I did.”

  “Did you pick it up?”

  “No, I might have, but Jim cautioned me not to.”

  Hennessey looked sharply at me. “Who else read the letter?”

  “Randy and Fritz; Fritz shot photos of it, but neither of them touched it.”

  “How do you know it wasn’t touched in the night?”

  “I don’t. I locked the office when I left, and put a “do not clean” sign on the window of the door. I also put that empty box over the letter and envelope.”

  “Why did you do that?”

  “I have no idea, it just sounded like a good idea, and we have lots of empty printer paper boxes...”

  He snapped his notebook closed. “So why didn’t you call me yesterday, Jim?”

  “I told you, I felt Mr. Read should be aware of my actions before I set out, and from the tone of the note, whatever had happened had already happened, and there was no real need for speed...” I’d run out of gas once again.

  Hennessey gave out a big sigh. “We’ll need your finger prints and those of the rest of the people who touched those papers.”

  Doug spoke up, “Not a problem. Randy’s on deadline so let’s go to the business staff and make sure we have all those finger prints...” He looked at me, “You needed elsewhere?”

  I looked out at the newsroom and caught Randy’s wave, telling me to keep away. “I think they’ve got me covered. Give me just a few seconds to confer with them, and I’ll join you in the business office.”

  Hennessey had caught Randy’s signal, too. “Take your time. We’ll print you and Randy together after you get your work done.”

  I was taken back, but smiled. “Thank you Detective. We’ll be right along.”

  We buttoned up page one ten minutes after deadline, but the lead story about the letter was complete, and for once I knew it was one hundred percent accurate. The camera crew did magic, and the press started on time.

  Cindy had even taken the initiative to collar Hennessey in the business office for a quote on what this note might mean to the investigation.

  The detective might have been having fun with us, I couldn’t tell, but his quote went, “The investigation will rely on the community and its citizens making every effort to keep their police aware of any relevant activity. I hope the general public will be as responsible to this need as their local newspaper obviously has been.”

  10

  Saturday was the Ducks Unlimited banquet, and Sandy hired a sitter so she could attend with me.

  She grew up in an outdoors family, and while she wasn’t a hunter, she had a real appreciation for the sport, the dogs, and the food. She loved wild game and understood how unique it was.

  I cleaned the things I killed, and took great pride in doing it well. But once they were kitchen ready, they were Sandy’s, and she took equal pride in how they graced our plates.

  She also loved watching the dogs work. She grew up with Chesapeake Retrievers that her dad and her brothers plied on the marshes and sloughs around Chesapeake Bay. But she had come to love pointers as well, especially Hans, the Vizsla that shared our home.

  The committee members and many of their wives were at the banquet early to complete the set-up.

  “Reminds me of decorating for the prom,” Sandy whispered to me at one point.

  The night was a great success.

  Lenny came up to me as I watched the people browsing the tables of art, guns, raffle, and silent auction items that churn the money used to keep waterfowl plentiful year after year. He clapped me on the shoulder, “My man, that idea of buy-one, get-one was a huge success here tonight. I’ve never seen silent auction and gang-raffle tables so well stocked. And the idea of giving each donor a ticket was great, too. I counted twenty of our donors here who never had been before. Good job, guy!”

  A local Boy Scout troop cleaned up after the dinner, which had been served by another local troop, but the committee members hung around to make sure everything that needed to be done had been completed.

  “That’s it, folks,” Bart said. “We’re through! Let’s move on to my house and have an adult beverage or two, whaddaya say?”

  “I believe we’ve found consensus at last,” Wayne Crosby crowed from the door. “You’ll have to be movin’ to keep up with me.”

  Sandy was totally taken by the Ward home, and said so. Trish Ward glowed and then asked, “Would you like the tour?”

  “Of course, if you don’t mind,” Sandy said. Four other women piped up with “me too.” As they moved off to look at the downstairs, Bart came over to me, “She’s a wonderful asset, Jim. I can see she and Trish are hitting it off.”

  “I hope so. She’s in that ‘just about out of diapers’ stage where she needs some adult diversion from baby talk all day.”

  “Does she work outside the home?”

  “She’s an elementary school teacher; she plans on getting certified for New York next spring and hopefully finding a job next fall.”

  Crosby joined us. “You got a hunt lined up for the opener, Jim?”

  “Which opener?”

  “Waterfowl, of course.”

  “I’ve been looking at the Montezuma Refuge up at the head of Cayuga Lake, and I’ve talked to a farmer who has about a mile of frontage on the Owasco Inlet that looks promising. Oh, and Dan Jennings, the state senator, has offered me access to any of his land. I’ve scouted two fields that the geese are using, and he told me about one of his farms that is just a few miles from the Montezuma that has some flooded woods, and I thought I’d check that out tomorrow.”

  “That’s a nice list with two weeks to go,” Crosby said. “I guess you’re serious about it.”

  “I don’t know about that. I’ve have so much to learn. I have just basic equipment, and I own a duck call, but I don’t know much about how to use it.”

  “What do you have for a call?” Crosby asked with obvious keen interest.

  “I don’t know. It’s an Olt, but I don’t know anything else about it.”

  “How did you come by it?”

  “The father of a friend of mine back in Michigan gave it to me as a college graduation gift.”

  “Jim,” Bart suggested, “you might want to look in on Wayne Crosby with your call in hand. Wayne’s the acknowledged top caller in these parts. You use an Olt, don’t you, Wayne?”

  “I do. I’d like to see yours and hear you blow it. I might be able to give you some tips.”

  I was pleased and it showed. “That’d be great. You name the time and I’ll be there.”

  “Why don’t you stop over after you get back from scouting Jennings’ woods tomorrow? Bring Sandy and the lass with you. We’d enjoy it.”

  I checked my memory to see if there was anything else on the schedule and found nothing. “Where do you live?”

  “Come here,” he said and led me to the front door of Ward’s home. We stepped out on the porch, and he pointed to a mercury-vapor light on the point below. “That’s our light. You go past Bart’s driveway about a hundred yards, and turn in, follow the loop until you see the mailbox with the Black Lab on top, and you’re there.”

  We went for our Sunday drive after church, and when we got to the Jennings’ farm, I parked on th
e road. The senator had told me the farmhouse was rented, but that no one had permission to hunt his farm. “It’s not that exclusive, or anything, but I insist on people asking and getting permission. If it’s worth hunting, it’s worth asking.”

  I walked across a hundred yards or so of grassland and entered the woods. It was a beautiful early-autumn day with the sun shining on colored leaves as they fluttered to the floor of the forest.

  In the middle of the woods, the ground got soggy as I approached the edge of a pond. I estimated it to be something smaller than a football field, and oval. Two wood ducks flushed off the other end of the water as I approached.

  I could see leaves under the water, and estimated the depth to be something like a foot.

  I figured it would work for a hunt and made my mind up to head for this spot on opening day.

  We found Wayne’s house, and the door opened as we approached. A middle-aged woman stepped out onto the back steps with a big smile on her face. “You must be the Stantons?” As we nodded, she continued, “I’m Roberta. Wayne and Christopher are in the shop out there, Jim.”

  “You gals come on in. I’ve got tea on the front porch. I love to sit there and look out at the lake.” She knelt down to eye level with Sara. “I’ll bet I have something a little girl will like to drink, too.”

  Sara tried to hide behind Sandy’s leg, and Roberta just beamed. “You’re a cutie, you are.”

  I followed the sound of a staple gun in use to find Wayne, wearing shorts and a t-shirt, both in camouflage patterns, installing a blind on a jon boat. His son, Christopher, was holding twine tightly over bunches of marsh grass while Wayne stapled them to the frame of his “hide.”

  “Dad?”

  “Hmm?”

  “Company’s here.”

  Wayne straightened up and saw me. A wide smile filled his face. “Jim! How did Jennings’ pond work out?”

  I realized that this was a serious duck hunter, and I felt a smile spread across my face, too. “Looks good. I think it’ll be a good place on calm weather days when the hunting pressure is high over on the lake.”

  “Perhaps you, Chris, and I can hit that pond one of these days.”