The Triple Threat Collection

by Lis Wiehl

  You always shot more footage than you could use. But to be able to decide what part of the tape to use, you had to log it—record exactly what was on the tape and the time it appeared. Logging narrowed things down, weeded out the unusable. It allowed you to save time in the long run, searching for that elusive shot. But in the short run, it was tedious and time-consuming. Just one of the thousand little tedious tasks that put the lie to the “glamour” of being a reporter.

  As she took another sip of coffee, Cassidy used the knob to shuttle through some footage she was sure they wouldn’t use. At the upper right was a time code that showed how far into the footage that particular scene started. She took notes about what was in each scene. When someone was speaking, it was impossible to take down every word, so she only wrote down the first and last few.

  There was Nicole, clipping the microphone onto her collar. Cassidy turned up the sound and listened to her friend say, “We’ve realized that during our first canvass many renters did not disclose that they had other people visiting or living with them. Sometimes there were two names on the lease, and six people living in the apartment or friends of friends who had been visiting. And some of these people have turned out to be fugitives of one kind or another.”

  Nicole went on to explain law enforcement’s version of Cassidy’s grunt work. They now had to identify as many individuals as possible who had been in the area where Katie disappeared, and then either clear them by obtaining a valid alibi or gather enough information to justify a search warrant.

  “We also are locating and interviewing every registered sex offender who lives in the area,” Nicole continued. “But that’s going to take time. There are approximately nine hundred registered sex offenders with Northwest Portland addresses.”

  That was her next angle, Cassidy realized. She could profile a few of the worst of those nine hundred. With luck, she could track down old victims who might be willing to talk if their faces and voices were altered. That kind of footage was actually more dramatic than filming the actual people, in Cassidy’s opinion, so it was a win-win all the way around.

  Next came some shots of Cassidy standing next to a poster of Katie that conveniently looked weather-beaten. It allowed her to pontificate about whether people were already forgetting about the girl. Cassidy watched her on-screen self critically. Had she talked too fast, swallowed consonants, sped past important points? Had she been clear, credible, and comfortable?

  After all, this could be her big break. Did she really want to stay in Portland forever? Los Angeles sounded marvelous after months of gray skies. But then again, was she still young enough to make it in LA? Every time she saw her parents, they reminded her that she was, as her dad put it, no spring chicken.

  Cassidy was so deep in thought that she didn’t see Jerry, the station manager, until he was close enough to touch.

  He cleared his throat.

  She jumped and then tried to hide it. “Hey, Jer. What are you doing here on a Saturday?”

  “Looking at these. Did you see the overnights?” He waved a printout under her nose.

  Ratings haunted Channel Four. Theirs was a “metered market,” which meant Nielsen had put meters in a sample of Portland’s households to automatically measure viewership. But ratings were like getting a report card without any explanation from the teacher. You knew what you had, but you had to guess at the why.

  But this time Jerry seemed to think he knew. “It’s the Katie Converse thing. People are eating that up,” he said. “Last night’s program delivered a 9.7 household rating and a 15 percent share in the metered-market overnights. That’s up 45 percent from a year ago. Forty-five!”

  Cassidy was stunned. Such a huge jump for a news broadcast was nearly unheard of. More and more, people turned to the Internet for the news. A TV news broadcast was practically an anachronism, filled with “news” that people had already learned about hours earlier. The only way to fight back was with news that was more than just a recitation of dry facts. News that was more like the stories she had been doing about Katie Converse.

  This was it, Cassidy realized. Really and truly it. The Katie Converse story could make or break her career.

  And right now it was making it.

  MYSPACE.COM/THEDCPAGE

  I Am Not a Freeloader

  September 8

  I got lost on my first official day of work. All those long corridors look alike. While I was trying to find Senator Y’s office, I ran into Senator X—my senator. He walked me to the right office & asked me how it was going.

  Just before lunch, this other page in the program, R, told me she had seen me talking to Senator X. She said she knew he was my sponsor, but that it seemed like I knew him personally.

  Finally I gave in & told her that my parents were supporters of his & that V & I had dinner with him before the program started.

  R sniffed. She has all these freckles. I’ve got some, but she looks like someone spattered her with olive-green paint. Then she said something about how a lot of the pages here seem to have some sort of “in” & don’t really need to be qualified.

  I couldn’t believe her! I am qualified. Straight A’s, debate, mock UN, mock state legislature, etc. How is it that on my first day of work I’ve already been branded a freeloader? I told her I still had to meet the same requirements as everybody else. It wasn’t just a slam dunk.

  Sometimes people think they know you, but they really have no idea.

  Then the weird thing was that R asked if I wanted to go to lunch together. Like we were friends or something! We all have meal cards so we can eat in the Senate cafeteria. I told her I was meeting someone else. No way was I hanging out with her.

  Of course, then I had to make sure we didn’t show up at the cafeteria at the same time, so she wouldn’t see that I was alone.

  But guess who was there? Senator X! He asked if I wanted to sit with him. I didn’t care if it looked like I was sucking up. I just said yes.

  He wanted to know where I had heard about the program. I told him there was a guy at school a couple of years ago who had been a page. In fact, Senator X sponsored him, although he didn’t seem to remember him that well.

  While I was talking to Senator X, R walked by & stared at me. I knew what she was thinking.

  But I am not a freeloader.

  HEDGES RESIDENCE

  December 19

  You’re taking Makayla to church?” Nic asked her mother.

  “If your child is staying in my house, then of course she is going to church with me this morning.” Berenice Hedges put her arm around Makayla’s slender shoulders. She wasn’t going to give up her granddaughter that easily.

  “But, Mama, I’d rather she decide that kind of thing for herself when she gets older.”

  “‘Train a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not turn from it,’” her mother retorted. Berenice was five inches shorter than Nic, but right now she seemed taller.

  “Like that made any difference with me,” Nic began, when her cell phone vibrated on her hip. She looked down. It was from the Converses. With a sigh she said, “I have to take this.” Turning away as she pressed the talk button, she said, “This is Nicole Hedges.”

  “Can you come by the house?” Wayne Converse said in a rush. “There’s someone we’d like you to talk to. Someone who might know something about what happened to Katie.”

  Nic’s pulse began to race. “Who?”

  “I’d rather wait until you get here to explain it to you.”

  Nic had to park four blocks away. Before she got out of the car, she slipped on her sunglasses and picked up a notebook and an empty Starbucks cup for protective camouflage.

  The media filled the sidewalk for the length of the block and spilled out into the street. Three satellite trucks, guys with TV cameras on their shoulders or long-lensed cameras around their necks, others toting boom mikes, a couple of dozen people talking on cell phones or tapping away on their BlackBerries. All of them w
aiting for something to happen.

  She twisted her way through them, her coffee and notebook a kind of disguise. There were so many reporters here now, many from out of town, that a new one wouldn’t be remarked upon. Once she came back out of the house, it would be a different story. Nic was two steps from the Converses’ walkway, two steps from private property, when someone grabbed her arm.

  “Nicole,” Cassidy hissed in her ear, no more eager to draw attention than Nic was herself. “What’s happening?’”

  Nic shook her off. “Later,” she said out of the side of her mouth.

  Cassidy fell back, a tiny smile tightening her lips, her turquoise eyes avid.

  The minute Nic turned up the walk, the crowd turned and began to shout. She thought of a pack of wild dogs baying. Baying simply because the others were baying.

  “Do you have news about Katie?”

  “What about Katie?”

  “Is there something new in the Katie Converse case?”

  The front door opened, and she heard the cameras whirr. Wayne pulled her inside. Valerie was standing behind him. It was a relief to have the door click solidly into place behind her back, to have the shouts reduced to murmurs.

  “Are you getting tired of having them camped out out there?” she asked.

  Wayne pushed up his glasses and then pinched the bridge of his nose. “It’s a balance. We have to figure out a way to keep them interested, keep the case alive, without having them lose focus—or go away completely.”

  Valerie rubbed her temples. “We learned our lesson when we let one in to use the bathroom. Next thing you know, she was boasting about having some kind of ‘exclusive.’”

  “The media can be on your side,” Nic said, “but you have to be careful. Because finding Katie isn’t their priority.”

  “Then what is their priority?” Wayne asked. “What could be more important than a missing girl?”

  “Ratings,” Valerie said flatly.

  Nic nodded, thinking of Cassidy’s eagerness. “Right. So if they can turn your life upside down and shake out some scandal, they’ll do it. Anything for a new angle. Thanks to the Internet and CNN, we live in a twenty-four-hour news cycle. The only problem is that there aren’t twenty-four hours’ worth of news. So if there isn’t anything new, they have to make something up.” She remembered why she was here. “Anyway, who is it you want me to talk to?”

  “We didn’t want you to be skeptical,” Wayne said in a rush. “But once you meet her and hear what she has to say, then . . .”

  Nic’s heart started to sink. With difficulty she kept her face neutral.

  “It’s Lorena Macy. I understand she’s quite well-known to law enforcement personnel,” Valerie said. “She says she’s even helped your agency before.”

  Nic kept quiet. She had never heard of Lorena Macy. But she already knew what was coming.

  Wayne’s voice was low. “She came to us and said she’s been having dreams since the day Kate disappeared. Even before it was on the news. Then when Lorena did see it on TV, she knew her dreams were really about Katie. She says she can get in touch with Katie by holding something of hers. But we wanted you to be here. In case she says something you can act on right away.”

  “Where is she?” Nic tried hard to keep the anger out of her voice.

  “In the kitchen,” Wayne said.

  Nic took a deep breath. “Look, Mr. and Mrs. Converse. Let me be blunt. These kinds of people are already crawling out of the woodwork. We’re getting dozens of tips every day based on people’s dreams and visions. And 99 percent of them want attention or they want money. And then there are a few who just really, really want to help, even though they have no clue what happened.”

  Wayne raised his eyebrows. “Lorena’s not asking for money. She said she would refuse it even if we pushed it into her hands.”

  Nic wanted to shake him. “Of course she did. Just by taking her seriously, you’re putting money in her pocket. Do you think she won’t leave here and go right out front and talk to all those people? Once they hear about how you asked her to help on the Katie Converse case, more people will want their palms read or their cards done or whatever it is she does. They’ll think that if the FBI consulted with her, then she must be good. I bet she was the one who asked if I could be here, right?”

  She could tell by their uneasy exchange of glances that she was. “She’ll drum up business, with Katie as her calling card.”

  Nic hated to do this to the Converses when they were so desperate, but she tried to make it quick and clean, like pulling off a bandage. “Have you said anything to her that’s not generally known? Because let me warn you—don’t tell her one thing she doesn’t already know.”

  “But what if she does know?” Wayne asked. “What if she knows already? That’s why she’s here. To tell us what she knows. Not the other way around.”

  So much for quick and clean. “All right. Let’s go hear what she has to say.”

  Lorena was a plump woman, sixtyish, with dyed red hair. She looked like she had fallen in a paint box. There was a bright circle of red on each cheek, turquoise shadow on eyes rimmed with black liner, and so much mascara that she looked half asleep.

  And then Nic figured it out. The makeup wasn’t so much for the Converses. It was for the TV cameras outside.

  After the four of them sat down around the kitchen table, Nic said, “Can you spell your name for me?” She hadn’t flashed her badge, hadn’t given her own name. Her goal was to give this phony as little as possible.

  Lorena did. There was something high-pitched and artificial about her voice that set Nicole’s teeth on edge.

  “And you contacted the Converses because . . .”

  Lorena patted her ample bosom. “I’ve been having visions and dreams since the very hour Katie went missing. When I saw Cassidy Shaw on the TV, and she said Katie was missing, I knew in my marrow that was who I was dreaming about. But to get to the truth, I need to be able to hold something of hers. Something she might have worn would be good.”

  Nic was glad that they had already taken away something for the dogs, should they ever need them. If they ever got to a point where they could narrow this down to an area smaller than Portland.

  “Just a second,” Valerie said. She left the kitchen and they heard her footsteps go upstairs.

  “So how does this work?” Nic asked while they waited.

  Lorena simpered, not at all deterred by Nic’s glare. “When I’m in one of my trances, I don’t see or hear in a traditional way. It’s energy. I receive an impression of the energy the person is sending out. It doesn’t matter if they’re dead. They’re not dead to me.”

  Valerie reappeared holding a red sweater. “Katie wore this two days before she left. It hasn’t been washed.”

  With eager hands, Lorena pressed it to her chest. “I’m going to go inside myself now. Don’t be worried if you hear me make strange sounds. I lose myself when I’m in one of my trances.”

  Wayne murmured, “Okay,” and Valerie nodded. It was all Nic could do not to roll her eyes. What would you do if it were Makayla? she scolded herself. How far would you go?

  Lorena closed her eyes. She rubbed the sweater over her face and then let her hands and the sweater drop into her lap. “Okay, Katie, tell me where you are. Tell me where you are, baby. I can help you. Katie, where are you?” As Lorena spoke, she rocked forward and back, her upper body following a small circle.

  There was a long silence. Nic looked at her watch. One minute ticked by. Two. Three. When Lorena finally spoke, the three of them jumped. Her voice was slower, lower-pitched, like a sleepwalker’s.

  “I see an old car. There’s something on top of it. Maybe it’s an Oldsmobile?”

  Despite herself, Nicole felt her skin prickle. She saw Katie, not sitting in a car, but sprawled unmoving in the trunk. A spill of honey-blonde hair across her open, staring eyes.

  “Katie, tell me what I’m looking at, sweetie. Come on. Tell me where you a
re. Are you in the car?” Her plump hands, with rings on every finger, kneaded the sweater.

  There was a long silence. Lorena cocked her head to one side, as if listening. “There are trees where she is. A lot of them.”

  Good guess, Lorena. Oregon is nothing but trees.

  “But is she alive?” Wayne demanded.

  “Water. She’s near water.”

  Near water. Give me a break. Every place in Portland is near water. We’ve got the Columbia and Willamette rivers and countless creeks and streams. Not to mention the rain.

  But Valerie and Wayne had grabbed each other’s hands.

  “I see something green. A duffle bag? And I’m hearing a name like Larry.” She drew the name out, giving it an extra syllable. “Lar-er-y. Or something like that.” Her face screwed up. “Katie, where are you? Are you with someone named Larry? No, that’s not it, is it? But something close. Is it someone you know?”

  Good choice, Lorena. How many names rhyme with Larry? Mary, Harry, Carrie, Barry, Jeri, Terry? Half the city probably qualifies.

  “Mmm,” Lorena moaned. The pitch of her voice had changed, arced higher. Her head was loose, her neck boneless. “Mmm.”

  The three of them stared at her.

  “Mommy.” Her voice was high-pitched and breathy. “Mommy. Where are you?”

  The back of Nic’s neck prickled. Stop it! she warned herself. Don’t fall for this crap. Despite knowing it was a bunch of hooey, there was something about the woman’s voice that was getting to her.

  Valerie leaned forward and tentatively touched Lorena’s arm. “I’m right here, honey. I’m right here.”