by Dave Balcom
“Maybe the reason this person keeps needling this story isn’t about me at all. Maybe it’s about you guys. Maybe this killer has it in for somebody and wants them to be found guilty of this crime, but that can only happen if you guys stay on task, and these tips – to me and to you– are just a means of making sure you don’t just go, ‘Oh, hell, it’s hard!’ and give up.”
Hennessey boiled up a bit at that, “That’s not fair, Jim. We’ve worked our tails off for more than a year...”
I interrupted him, “And got what? Your best theory has me moving here with my family from halfway across the country and committing my first-ever serial abduction and murder?”
Both men looked pained at my mean version of their theory, but they said nothing.
“Guys, what did this perp do to her? Did forensics find anything?”
Hennessey spoke, “No rape; that was one surprise. Lots of bruising around the head and mouth, lots of cuts and punctures of the breast area and slashes on the buttocks and thighs...”
“Cause of death?”
“Asphyxiation; she was unconscious but alive when she was buried.”
“Tortured and killed?”
Both men nodded looking down at their hands on the table. “Worst thing I’ve ever encountered,” Morrison said.
I took a deep breath and exhaled it loudly. “Guys, I’m giving you until this time tomorrow to notify the family and then stage a press conference in time for us to go to press with it.”
Morrison’s head snapped up, “And if we refuse?”
“I’ll write the story about my non-arrest and this meeting without sources.”
“You’d do that?” Hennessey asked in a voice that expressed incredulity.
“That’s outrageous,” Morrison blurted.
“All the same, that’s what’s going to happen. Now, if you in your press conference explain that because of my frequent visits to that area to practice calling ducks had made me a person of interest for a brief period, I’ll forego writing about my day with Detective Sherman.”
“Jim, I can’t believe a headline like this is worth everything to you with no regard for the family or the community,” Hennessey said, anger boiling in him.
I responded in kind, “Me? I have no consideration for the family? I have no consideration for the community? Did I take an oath to serve and protect that community? Am I leaving the family swinging in the wind wondering where their little girl has gone?
“Don’t you dare throw that kind of garbage at me or this newspaper. Go find this ‘unsub’ that’s been leading this investigation by the nose, and this newspaper will lead the cheers for you. Until then, do your jobs.”
They glared at me, and I glared back. Finally Morrison said, “Cindy will get notice of the conference.”
“Good luck,” I said as I got out of my chair and opened the door for them.
Max held back until Morrison was out of the office. “This pretty much ends things for us, Stanton,” he said softly. “I thought you were one of the good guys.”
“Was that before or after you sicced Sherman on me without a word or a question?”
35
I busied myself with the staff and getting the edition off and running until Doug came into work. Harriet buzzed my phone in the newsroom. “He’s here, and ready for you,” she said quietly and hung up.
“Morning, Jim,” Doug said with a warm smile as I walked into the office. “Harriet said you were looking for me...”
“Yes, I needed to bring you up to speed, and it’ll take a minute.”
I sounded intense even to me, and he noticed. “Sit down and take the time you need,” he said pointing at the chair in front of his desk.
I forced myself to focus for a second on my center, and then, with a big breath to relax, I recapped my meeting with Hennessey and Morrison. I wanted to hurry, but I took care to be thorough and as objective as I could be. For once, Doug listened without interrupting or expressing any emotion. In fact, he sat back in his chair and seemed to focus on the light that slanted in above the top slat of his office blinds.
When I finished, he sat quietly and I couldn’t read him at all. Finally, he seemed to shake himself, and he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his desk, “Whew! What do you think is going to happen?”
“I haven’t a clue, really. I think we’ll be notified this morning of a press conference for tomorrow, but I can’t really say they agreed.”
“How do you think you played it?”
I shook my head, “I haven’t really analyzed it. I know I will, but sometimes I process without thinking I’m processing, and that may be going on now.”
He nodded. “Like background printing on your computer...”
“Like that, I guess. I’m pretty sure I could have reacted better, but I was really surprised that given my relationship with Hennessey, that he didn’t bring me in for questioning instead of sending a stranger like Sherman. That was an upsetting series of events.”
I handed him my memo from the previous day, even though I had already told him the story. “I typed this up last night to focus my thinking,” I said. “I think I need to go back to help Randy and Mary get the paper out so I can bring them and Cindy Shaul up to speed... one way or another tomorrow’s going to be one heck of a day.”
He put his hand up to stop me as I started to rise out of my chair. “What’s our exposure if they decide not to announce, and you go ahead with your story?”
I settled back. That was a decent question from a publisher. “I’m not a lawyer, but I don’t think there’s any exposure. I know of no prohibition against reporting accurately what you are told about a police investigation...” I let that hang there, and then I started musing, “I’ll probably call Fred McAvoy this afternoon if it looks like they’ve decided to call me on this. I can’t have that family reading about it in the paper even if that’s okay with Morrison...”
Doug nodded and made a note. I could see him end it with a question mark.
“I can accurately report the conversation, and even some quotes, but I think I wouldn’t use the direct quotation approach. I’d suffice it to say that ‘officials’ reported to me that I had been officially cleared of any suspicion in the ongoing investigation of Suzanne’s disappearance..., but that would be after the lead that officials confirmed Tuesday that they had located Suzanne’s body on the county’s wildlife area near the Inlet bridge...” I let my voice trail off.
“I don’t see any legal exposure,” I continued, “but I think it would be pretty easy for Morrison and the cops to try and paint us or me as the culprit in obstructing their investigation.”
He nodded, wrote another couple of questions on his tablet, and then smiled at me. “You go get the paper out. I’ll make a couple of calls. When you pull your folks together, buzz me, I want to join in if that’s okay with you.”
“Of course; you’re always welcome.”
His smile turned a bit and he said, “I was born at night, Jim; it wasn’t last night.”
“No,” I started to protest, “I haven’t forgotten who runs this paper...”
Doug was laughing now. “I know; get hoppin’.” He was shooing me out with his hand, “We have real work to do today.”
As I walked back to the newsroom, I realized that Doug was enjoying this, and my second thought was, “Maybe there’s hope for him yet.”
36
When I got my crew together after deadline, I handed them a memo recapping my “non-arrest” and that morning’s meeting with Hennessey and Morrison. As they started reading, I dialed Doug’s intercom. He answered on the first buzz.
“They’re getting up to speed, we’ll be ready to start in a couple of minutes,” I said into the phone.
“Perfect. I’m refilling my coffee on the way, should I bring some for others?”
I looked around and saw they all had brought beverages of their choice. “No, I think they’re all set.”
Randy was looking at me and h
is eyes were blinking in rapid fire. “Doug’s in this?”
I just smiled at him. He immediately went back to the memo.
Doug walked in just as Randy finished his second reading of the memo. Mary was looking at me and looked a little green around the gills. Cindy was making notes on the back of the memo pages.
The publisher quietly closed the door and said, “I know, I know. Let’s just get past my being here. This is an important moment in this newspaper’s history and I’m certainly interested...” He sat down in the corner, behind them and facing me. “I’m not qualified to be actively involved unless you need a cost-to-revenue spreadsheet or a return-on-investment analysis, but my name’s on the masthead, so I’m really interested in how this works out. Okay?”
Randy turned back to face me with a look of wonder on his face; Mary and Cindy were both smiling like kids at the fair.
I started, “You’ve read my memo. Your questions?”
Cindy looked at Randy and then went ahead, “Can I have any calls I might get forwarded into this room in case Morrison’s office calls while we’re in here?”
I picked up the phone, buzzed reception, and passed on the request.
Randy was next. “How are we going to play this in either case?”
I nodded at him. “Good thing to discuss. How do you see it?”
“I think it’s a replay of the day she was reported missing, don’t you? Full page one, good art, jump to an inside page with a timeline and featuring the various community reactions?”
“Even if they don’t officially announce?” I asked.
“It’s either the fact of the matter or it’s not...”
Doug spoke up, “I can’t argue with that logic.”
I nodded, and watched Cindy making notes. “Cindy?”
“I’m just starting a list of everyone who I’ll need a reaction from. When will you make the call if they don’t announce the press conference this morning?” She glanced at her watch and saw that it was in fact still morning.
I looked out the window to the newsroom and saw Jay Knight heading toward the pressroom. Knowing Randy and I were tied up, he would be checking the paper as the press started.
“So, who’s on your list?” I asked Cindy.
As she rattled off the obvious people, I could see Mary had a thought and was getting antsy waiting to share it. When Cindy finished, Randy joined in, “I think we need to talk with the FBI psychologists. We could get Marge on that, I wouldn’t even know where to start. But I know that Marge mentioned knowing the NYSP evidence tech from some connection in Syracuse.”
“Add that to your list, Cindy. Mary, you have something?”
“I remember something from a law class, and we should be prepared for Morrison’s going to a judge asking for a restraining order to keep us from publishing. I think we should have a ‘Plan B’ for tomorrow in case we can’t legally go to press with this.”
I looked at Doug and he was beaming at his youngest editor. “Doug,” I said. “Can you have your guys analyze that and see if that’s a real threat or not?”
“I will,” he said quickly. “But isn’t there something to the effect that ‘Congress shall make no law...’”
Randy laughed despite himself.
“What?” Doug said in a mock hurt voice, “You don’t think business guys are familiar with the First Amendment?”
That got a laugh from all of us, especially because his self-deprecation was so obvious. When he quit snickering, Randy answered, “That may stop Congress, but nobody knows how a judge might react when his buddy brings a problem to him.”
“Well, our guys have friends on the bench, too. A ‘show-cause’ will slow that process down and make a good story, too,” Doug responded.
“Anything else?” I asked. Nobody seemed ready to talk, so I wrapped up the meeting. “Let’s get working on the stuff we’ll need regardless of their decision.” I looked at my watch. “Let’s figure we’ll call the question at two p.m. If we haven’t heard from them, I’ll have my story finished and in your hands, and we go from there. My first move will be to visit Mr. McAvoy and Mrs. Czarnopias. Doug, I think you should go with me on those calls.”
He nodded.
“Last chance in this meeting; anything?”
By way of answering, everyone got up and left the office, leaving me alone with a story to write.
37
The call for the press conference came to Cindy just before noon, and the whole staff was brought into the picture in a stand-up meeting around the universal desk. By the time Cindy and Fritz attended Morrison’s press conference on Wednesday morning, they were just looking for quotes to finish the story.
When the paper hit the streets that afternoon, it was like the first day all over again. People were calling and looking for more information. The broadcast outlets had their own feeds, but they were still looking for anything that would give them an edge. I politely declined fourteen requests for comment.
That night, as I was sitting on my back porch, scratching Hans’ ears, the phone rang in the kitchen. “If you think today’s report gets you off the hook, you’ve got another think coming, Stanton.”
It was the same voice on the phone, and I had turned on the tape recorder as soon as I heard it.
“I’m not sure what you want from the newspaper or me. Why are you calling?”
“You think you understand this, but you don’t. You think I killed that girl, but you’ve got it all wrong. You’ll never know the truth if you let the cops in this hick town handle it their own way. You need to keep the pressure on them unless you want another dead girl to keep them on their toes. You can’t hide them forever, so you better stay busy.”
The sound of the phone hanging up hit my ear like the crack of a bullet.
38
And then there was nothing.
The stir caused by the report of Suzanne’s fate died down, the community went back to its normal rhythms, and I got no more phone calls or letters. The pages of the calendar turned, and I spent Thanksgiving with Sandy and Sara in Maryland. Her parents brought them back to me for Christmas, and we were living together again.
The days, weeks and months passed with only occasional mentions of Suzanne as the police investigation seemed hopelessly bogged down, but our vigil never wavered. We lived in constant awareness of the threat against our girl, and we took precautions that had been unthinkable a year earlier. Sandy never went to the grocery store alone, but shopped with friends or even Mitch Jenkins until he was finally reassigned to another case in the Catskills.
The rumors that had surfaced about me evaporated immediately upon the police announcement, and I could sense a return to friendlier greetings from casual acquaintances on the street or in the stores.
I continued my regular workouts, and had regained my ideal weight of my youth at two hundred and thirty-five pounds as February turned into March and we began the countdown on Sandy’s pregnancy.
Her mom had come to stay with us during the final weeks and it seemed to me that the world had righted itself and was spinning appropriately on its axis. Sara was growing more excited as the days went by and talked incessantly about “her baby.” Each day she came to me with a new name, based on that day’s epiphany concerning the baby’s gender.
On Sunday morning, as we were getting ready for church, she bounced into my room as I tied my tie, “Daddy, I know it’s a boy! I know it! Can we name him Cody?”
“Why Cody? Yesterday you told me it was a girl and you wanted to name her ‘Sis.”’
“Cody’s a cute name for a boy.”
“Can’t argue with that, but what if it’s a girl and you can’t have ‘Sis’?
She thought about it, her head tilted from one shoulder to the other and then dazzled me with a smile, “Don’t think like that, Daddy. It’s going to be a boy and we’ll name it ... Jeremy!”
“Jeremy? Who’d call a baby Jeremy?” I said pretending to be put out.
“Mommy, tha
t’s who!” Then her hand went over her mouth as if she could stop the secret from coming out. “Oh, no!” She started to cry.
I swept her up in my arms, “Did Mommy tell you that as a secret?”
She nodded, her lips pouting out in preparation for tears. “Well, you know how to keep a secret, this time you just slipped. It’s a lesson we learn as we turn from being a baby to a big sister. You’ll do better as you practice, so don’t cry, okay? You don’t want Gram to see you all cried out for Sunday school, do you?”
She hugged me around the neck, and I heard her whisper, “I’m going to be a good big sister, you wait...”
“I know you are, kiddo. I know you are.”
Jeremy Michael was born March 12, 1985. I was there when he came out, and I counted fingers and toes, relished his lung power, and satisfied myself that he was whole before I hugged Sandy as much as I could. As soon as we were all home, I knew my life was complete.
In August, the Inland Press Association announced its annual Excellence in Newspapers awards. The Sentinel-Standard had been honored for its coverage of the Suzanne Czarnopias story, and I had received honors for editorial writing.
The awards presentations would be in October at the Chicago-based organization’s annual meeting. Doug, who always attended the annual meeting, assigned me to attend as well, and to represent the paper at the awards luncheon.
Sandy and I decided that I’d take her and the kids to her folks that weekend, fly out of Baltimore, and then fly back there to come home with her. The airfare expense difference was minimal so Doug had no issue with the plan.
We stopped just south of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania for gas and a break on the way to Maryland. As Sandy and Jeremy went inside, Sara stayed with me as I filled up the gas tank.
“Daddy,” Sara had stepped into my left hip and put her hand on my pocket, “why is that lady staring at us?”
I looked over the top of the car and didn’t see anyone paying attention to us, so I casually turned to look behind me. A tall, elegant woman was putting gas in her car in the next lane. Our eyes met and she smiled a little, then busied herself with her fuel. I heard my pump shut off and turned to my task. “I’ll bet she was admiring a beautiful little girl helping her dad. Maybe she was thinking of her own little girl waiting at home.”
