Shunning Sarah

by Julie Kramer

“Such is the circle of life,” Loecher said. “Our policy is to request that hunters voluntarily refrain from shooting such bears, but in the case of such a kill, we do not believe it would be easy to prove the hunter could tell the bear was marked, especially since so many bears are taken at dawn or dusk.”

  On my way out, I stopped by a black bear display in the front lobby. The furry creature had been mounted on its hind feet, leaning against a tree stump. The head wasn’t much taller than my own, which surprised me. We could almost see eye to eye.

  It seemed the perfect place for a stand-up. With the toe of my shoe I marked a location on the floor that seemed the right position for me to speak. Then I set up the tripod and camera, hit Record, and rushed to that spot.

  ((STANDUP))

  UNDER CURRENT STATE LAW,

  RESEARCH BEARS ARE “FAIR

  GAME” FOR HUNTERS AND COULD

  END UP LIKE THIS TROPHY.

  I rewound the tape to double-check my standup and found that my head cropped off at the nose. All that could be seen of my face was my mouth talking. The stuffed bear in the background was barely visible.

  I tried again, pulling wider with the shot. This time I clipped one ear and arm, but at least the bear was discernible.

  The news desk called then, ordering me back to the station because one of the evening shift photographers needed the camera.

  “I really need to shoot another version of my standup,” I said. “I’m having a hard time centering.”

  “Then write a set piece instead of a standup.” Set pieces are used with limited video stories; the reporter sits on the news set for most of the story. They are often dull.

  I used the standup anyway, the one with the clipped arm and ear, because I thought the shot would demonstrate the futility of one-man bands. That wasn’t the only video problem. When Teresa waved the bear color ribbons, the focus blurred. Her audio was a little scratchy because I’d forgotten to use the wireless mic. And the color on the DNR guy’s face was washed out.

  Instead of calling a halt to the trial, or at least giving me more training, Bryce dubbed the mistakes “artistic.” He assured me that soon I’d be as comfortable behind the camera as I was in front of it.

  As for the bear story: my boss loved it. “I see it as controversial, not complicated.” And we both knew that while many institutions view controversy as a negative, newsrooms welcome brouhaha. We tell ourselves that it’s proof of free speech, but we know it also breeds buzz.

  The station ran a link to the bear center’s website so members of the public could sign a cyberpetition supporting the legal protection of radio-collared bears.

  CHAPTER 18

  The morning sky was darker longer as we moved deeper into fall, so I couldn’t count on the sun to wake me. After silencing my alarm, I reached for the TV remote and turned on the news before lifting my head from the pillow.

  I liked making sure nothing wild had happened overnight before I faced the day. The morning anchors read the news on a set in front of a window overlooking the streets of downtown Minneapolis. Viewers could see weather and city buses in the background. But today, all you could see were protesters whose signs read Hunters Have Rights and Bears Are Fair Game.

  I scrambled to turn up the volume. The anchor introduced one of the protesters for a live through-the-box interview about radio-collared bears.

  ((ANCHOR, DOUBLE BOX))

  SEEMS LIKE THERE ARE MORE

  THAN ENOUGH BEARS IN

  MINNESOTA THAT WE COULD

  SPARE SOME FOR RESEARCH …

  WHY SUCH STRONG OPPOSITION?

  ((PROTESTER CU))

  GETTING SHOT IS ONE WAY

  ANIMALS DIE. IT’S A LEGITIMATE

  PART OF THE BEAR RESEARCH

  AND THEY NEED TO ACCEPT THAT

  OUTCOME.

  ((ANCHOR DOUBLE BOX))

  YOU SOUND QUITE PASSIONATE

  ABOUT ALLOWING HUNTERS TO

  KILL THESE MARKED ANIMALS.

  ((PROTESTER CU))

  WE NEED TO PROTECT THE RIGHTS

  OF HUNTERS. ANTIHUNTING

  GROUPS ARE BEHIND THIS. AND IF

  WE GIVE IN HERE, PRETTY SOON

  THEY’LL BE PUTTING COLLARS AND

  RIBBONS ON DEER AND WOLVES

  AND ALL WILD ANIMALS JUST TO

  END THE SPORT OF HUNTING.

  The debate was provocative. And the story tagged out with a mention that this particular hunting group had started its own online petition to continue the “legal harvest” of radio-collared black bears. Channel 3, in the interests of fairness—and controversy—also made that link available to our viewers.

  • • •

  Husky needed a morning stretch. Or maybe I did. My newly acquired dog actually didn’t like going out any longer than necessary to do his doggy business, but I enjoyed his company on the street and thought I looked less lonely with him on a leash. That didn’t mean I wasn’t lonely. Or that he wasn’t lonely. We both had a lot of people missing from our lives—some dead, some behind bars, some just far away.

  “Come on, boy.” We both started running through the neighborhood. Husky was a hand-me-down dog. First he belonged to Toby Elness, an imprisoned animal activist. Then Noreen Banks, his ex-wife and my deceased boss, took custody. Now me.

  Even in my current rough patch, my life was better than most—especially with a ball of fur by my side.

  I dwelled again on how lucky I was to find a TV news job in a market near my childhood stomping ground. Old teachers tell me they watch me on the news. People come up to me on the street and tell me they know my parents or they used to babysit me.

  I’d done some checking on Bryce through the TV news grapevine and Channel 3 was his fourth station. When journalists aren’t chasing news, we’re chasing gossip. But oddly, Bryce was the guy nobody wanted to talk about.

  CHAPTER 19

  The bear story ended up being one of those instances where covering news makes more news.

  By midmorning, just over two hundred people had put their names on the petition supporting the hunting of radio-collared bears. But for the opposition, more than five thousand signatures sided with safeguarding research bears and two lawmakers were already vowing to sponsor such legislation.

  Two major hunting organizations were distancing themselves from the morning extremists and taking a more mainstream political approach using lobbyists rather than protesters.

  Dozens of viewer comments followed my story posted online. THE MADNESS MUST CEASE. I scrolled and read through them. HOW CAN HUMANS BE SO CRUEL? Predictably, most were from people against all forms of hunting. ALL GOD’S CREATURES HAVE A RIGHT TO LIFE. Yet some were even from hunters. I AM A HUNTER AND HUNTING COLLARED BEARS IS A DISGRACE. RESEARCH BEARS HAVE HAD CONTACT WITH HUMANS, REDUCING THEIR FEAR OF US. But others were from hunters who supported the status quo. DEATH BY HUNTING IS PART OF A BEAR’S LIFE.

  One comment had a familiar, snarly tone. PROTECTING RESEARCH BEARS … I’M TORN BETWEEN POSING THE QUESTION, DOES A BEAR SHIT IN THE WOODS? OR BRINGING UP A QUOTE FROM ANCHORMAN: THE LEGEND OF RON BURGUNDY.

  I dismissed the first half of the comment because jerk clichés don’t merit replies.

  As for Anchorman—set in the 1970s happy-talk, Action News era—the movie includes a debate over whether women should be hired in TV newsrooms. I knew the quote in question: the weatherman and a reporter have a conversation about bears being attracted to women’s menstrual periods, and how that meant that hiring a female would put the entire television station in jeopardy.

  The film was a tongue-in-cheek comedy, but I still considered the dialogue crude and wasn’t about to respond on Channel 3’s website. Viewers weren’t required to leave their real names on their comments, and this one didn’t. But I had a feeling we’d watched Anchorman together, on DVD, curled up on my couch once upon a time. And we’d also developed a routine of incorporating famous movie quotes into our own conversations and guessing the actor, film, and ye
ar.

  For Nick Garnett to comment on my story, he had to be missing me. Or stalking me. And I wasn’t sure how either scenario made me feel. I’d spent the last couple of months trying not to look at the photo of us holding hands by the Lake Harriet band shell, even though a framed five-by-seven lay among other memorabilia in my bottom desk drawer.

  We had been ready to spend the rest of our lives together. Our engagement was brief, yet intense. The breakup was complicated. On one level, his fault. On another, mine. To be mature, I was willing to share responsibility for our split. After all, if, like the song says, it takes two to tango, it must also take two to untangle.

  Yet given time and distance, I could also make a strong case that neither of us was to blame. Call it circumstances beyond our control. We’d both seen it on the street: sometimes tragedy brings people together, other times heartache pushes them apart. Living through the newsroom nightmare apparently made it impossible for us to find happiness around any reminder of that day. Even each other. And if our love wasn’t powerful enough to withstand such stress, maybe we were better off apart.

  His phone number was still on my speed dial, but I wasn’t bold enough to call. Neither was he, clearly. Texting would have been more direct. Even Facebook. Posting an anonymous comment on one of my stories was a long shot. But maybe “long shot” best described our destiny. I posted a line that seemed to fit our predicament. “What is it about love that makes us so stupid?”

  If Garnett was behind the original comment, I would know soon enough. Our fondness for movie trivia had developed over the years into a competition of quizzing each other on film quotes. If he kept quiet, he would lose.

  An hour later, I read a reply to my reply. “Diane Lane. Under the Tuscan Sun. 2003.”

  So it was Nick Garnett on the other end. I still wasn’t bold enough to hit speed dial. Online exchanges felt safer.

  Searching for a profound rejoinder, I posted: “Oh yes, the past can hurt. But the way I see it, you can either run from it, or learn from it.”

  If no answer followed, he was running and I would not chase. But seconds later, I read, “Rafiki. The Lion King. 1994.” I resisted reminding him that Rafiki was a character, not an actor.

  Instead I was focusing on what I had learned from the past and what that understanding might mean to us—if there was an “us”—when my cellphone rang and Garnett’s number appeared on the screen.

  One ring. Two rings. Seconds to weigh past versus future. I took a deep breath. Then, I answered.

  “Riley, I’m not a smart man, but I know what love is.”

  He couldn’t see me smile, but his words made mine easy. “Tom Hanks. Forrest Gump. 1994.”

  • • •

  We caught up on the basics, discovering much of our lives remained unchanged. Washington was messed up; Channel 3 was messed up.

  “I don’t need you to tell me that,” he said. “I saw that horrible bear story of yours. It looked like you shot it yourself.”

  I explained my new boss’s approach to news.

  “One-man bands?” Garnett said. “Sounds like the uproar over one-man patrols that police departments went through twenty-some years ago.”

  Most cities shifted from two-man squads to one-man squads to save money, despite opposition from police officers who feared for their personal safety.

  “Now it’s the norm,” he said.

  “I don’t want it to ever be the newsroom norm,” I replied.

  “It may not be up to you. My experience is that decisions like those are made far above our pay grade.”

  He was probably right. Instead of arguing employment philosophy, I told him about my latest Jane Doe. Nude. Dumped. Unclaimed. Garnett had spent a career as a homicide detective, and I was interested on his take on my case.

  “That’s cold,” he said. “Ditching a body in a pit. Too brutal a farewell to someone you cared about, so I’m going to make a guess the victim didn’t know her killer.”

  “Random?” Too bad. “Those are tougher to solve.”

  “They can be.”

  “So even if the victim is identified,” I said, “there may not be an obvious suspect.”

  “And even if there is, that doesn’t necessarily close the case. Otherwise Agatha Christie would be out of print. Remember how she made the least likely suspect classic.”

  We chuckled over a few of those whodunits and I confided that I was trying not to get too attached to this murder because of the news director’s desire to concentrate on crime closer to the Twin Cities.

  “Nothing unusual in metro murders right now?” he asked.

  “Mostly gang shootings.” Those kind of homicides were never very interesting to the police or media. Often unsympathetic victims as well as killers.

  “So you might be stuck on the bear beat,” Garnett said. “Maybe I should fly in this weekend and give you a bear hug.”

  It wasn’t just a bluff. He worked as an investigator for the Transportation Security Administration and could come up with a reason to fly anywhere, anytime.

  I didn’t want to rush our relationship from a phone call to a blanket brigade. “Sorry, Nick.”

  I made a special effort to call him by his first name. In the news biz, staffers often refer to people by their last names. To save time. And when Garnett was simply a source, that didn’t bother him. But when that changed, he wanted a feeling of intimacy in our conversation as well as our relationship.

  “Really, Nick, the only bear I’m hugging this weekend is named Teddy.” That was my flirty, yet not phony, way of telling him I wanted to take things slow.

  He got it. But we both knew this conversation wasn’t over.

  CHAPTER 20

  Jane Doe became Sarah Yoder.

  I was on my way to the station greenroom for a powder and blush touch-up when my cell phone rang again. I expected Garnett with a final line about not being able to bear being apart.

  “I’m not caving on your demands.” I hit the answer button and spoke without looking at the caller ID. Or even saying hello.

  It was my mother. She didn’t know the name, but said the talk around town was that the dead woman was Amish.

  When she said the word, I got chills. That was one direction I hadn’t anticipated regarding this sinkhole murder. If you go by police reports, Amish are seldom crime victims or perpetrators. Of course, the numbers could be skewed because Amish prefer to handle infractions within their own community and not involve outside law.

  “Call me if you hear anything else, Mom. I’m going to try to get ahold of the sheriff.”

  Ed Eide was preparing a news release, but read me the details over the phone.

  Sarah Yoder, age 18, Harmony, Minnesota. Definitely local.

  “How come no one reported her missing?” I asked.

  “We’re trying to find that out,” he said. “Her name is all I’m prepared to disclose right now at this stage of our investigation.”

  “How was she identified, Sheriff?”

  “Somebody saw her picture on the news and contacted us. And no, I’m not releasing that name at this time. We’ve got our own questioning to do first.”

  “How about a camera interview, you and me?”

  He declined, so I thanked him for the information and told him I’d check back later.

  I phoned the farm and relayed to Mom what I knew about the victim.

  “So young,” she said.

  “I know,” I replied. “But this case has been unusual from the start. Now let me talk to Dad for a minute.”

  My dad had friends everywhere. And he never forgot a name. “Do you know any Yoders around Harmony?”

  He didn’t, but he said he wasn’t in touch with the Amish so much anymore, not like when he was actively farming.

  “There used to be an Amish family who lived just a few miles east of us, but they moved years ago. You were just a little girl and probably don’t remember them.”

  I wished I did. “Do you know any l
eaders in the Amish community now?”

  He replied that one of the bishops around Harmony used to be an Abram Stoltzfus. “Not sure if he’s still around or not. My recollection is they serve for life.” Then he expressed regrets that his bad knees kept him home more than he’d like or he’d come along with me.

  I thanked him, and then rushed from my office to the newsroom, trying to figure out how to sell Bryce on this new Amish angle.

  “This story is ours,” I said. “We broke it first and we need to stay on top of it.”

  He responded that we already had the news of the day: Sarah Yoder’s name. “What more do you expect to learn?”

  “Who Sarah was, for starters. People around here are fascinated with the Amish. This murder is going to attract enormous interest. The network may even want our video. Do you want to be the one to tell them we don’t have any?”

  That argument had some impact. Bryce probably hoped to be running the news division at the network someday.

  “This is a case where cold calling won’t get us answers,” I said. “The Amish don’t answer phones. To find sources for this story, we need to door-knock and win their trust.”

  The new boss stared at my face until he was certain we had eye contact, then told me to get moving. “Remember, Riley, I did this for you. I expect your cooperation when I need it.”

  To my relief, he also let me bring a photographer for the trip—something I would never take for granted again. I made Malik drive so he would stay awake and I could brief him on what to expect.

  “We’re not going to be able to show faces of the Amish,” I told him. “So much of the video is going to have to be generic—shot from behind. Backs of buggies are fine, too. Barns. Clotheslines. Faces shrouded by hats or bonnets. Men harvesting crops, again as long as we’re careful about identifiable faces.”

  “No faces. Got it.” He sounded a bit peeved, and I realized I was repeating myself.

  “Sorry, Malik. I just don’t want us locked out of the story over some misunderstanding about the camera. We may have to continually assure our Amish subjects that we’re being respectful of their beliefs.”