Silencing Sam Read online

  “Come on, Riley, let’s roll.”

  The monarch still sat there. “You better head south,” I advised it, snapping my fingers. The butterfly scattered.

  Malik positioned me about forty feet to the left with the broken turbine in the background centered between a row of spinning blades while I practiced my scribbled standup.

  ((RILEY, STANDUP))

  AUTHORITIES HAVE NO

  MOTIVE IN THE DESTRUCTION

  OF THIS WIND TURBINE IN

  RURAL MINNESOTA … BUT THE

  INVESTIGATION CONTINUES.

  With a thumbs-up, Malik signaled he was rolling.

  ((RILEY STANDUP))

  AUTHORITIES HAVE NO

  MOTIVE IN THE

  DESTRUCTION—

  Suddenly a blast shook the ground, almost knocking me over. I turned in time to see another wind turbine crash behind me. I wondered whether this was the way an earthquake felt.

  “Malik?” I was glad he was shooting with a tripod and not off the shoulder.

  “Yeah,” he answered, “we got it.”

  Of course, when Noreen heard we had dramatic-explosion video, she sent the satellite truck so I could go live from the scene. Malik also got video of a crying child in the arms of his father, which helped visually emphasize the danger at stake.

  The old bachelor farmer who owned the land where the blast had just happened was not crazy about being on TV, but I assured him it would only last a couple of minutes, and my dad, arguably one of the most popular men in the county, helped talk him into it.

  Gil Halvorson was a bit of a rural survivalist, but in an adorable sort of way. He had a shy smile, a power generator, a propane tank, a private well, and a stash of ammo in the root cellar for when the end came near. No kids of his own, but lots of nieces and nephews.

  Back at the station, Sophie Paulson sat at the anchor desk, reading a narrow column of print off the teleprompter. It’s typed about two inches wide, so anchors can read it without their eyes darting back and forth. Producers like it because it times out to about a second a line, making it easy to estimate story length.

  ((SOPHIE CU LIVE))

  RILEY SPARTZ GOT CAUGHT IN

  THE MIDDLE OF SOME

  BREAKING NEWS TODAY

  DOWN IN SOUTHERN

  MINNESOTA. TAKE A LOOK AT

  WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.

  News control rolled the video for viewers to watch the smash.

  ((RILEY REPLAY))

  AUTHORITIES HAVE NO

  MOTIVE IN THE

  DESTRUCTION—

  ((BOOM, CRASH, SCREAMS))

  ((ANCHOR DOUBLE BOX))

  RILEY JOINS US NOW FROM

  THE SCENE WITH THE

  LATEST.

  Then news control went full-screen with Malik’s close-up shot of me as I recapped what little information had been released about the explosions. Because of the immediacy of the situation, neither law enforcement nor Wide Open Spaces, the energy company that owned the wind farm, had given an official statement.

  On my cue, as I introduced Gil Halvorson as the landowner, my cameraman pulled wide to include him for a live interview.

  ((RILEY/GUEST/TWOSHOT))

  WHAT DID YOU THINK WHEN

  YOU HEARD THE BLAST, GIL?

  ((GIL/LIVE))

  SOUNDED LIKE A FREIGHT

  TRAIN.

  Those first words out of his mouth are the ultimate cliché in broadcast interviews: It sounded like a freight train. The sound tech back at the station marked the audio booth wall with a check each time the “freight train” phrase aired. The tradition dated back years and the marks covered an entire wall.

  ((RILEY/GUEST/TWOSHOT))

  THEN WHAT, GIL?

  Though I expected him to give me the inevitable It could have been worse, I pressed him for something a little more original and he sure gave it to me.

  ((GIL/LIVE))

  THEN I SAW IT CRASH AND

  THOUGHT, FUCK, THERE GOES

  THE NEIGHBORHOOD.

  Suddenly news control voices were screaming in my ear as I tried to wrap my guest.

  “Fuck” is a word stations aren’t allowed to broadcast because the airwaves are owned by the public. Radio has a seven-second delay, but not local TV news. The Federal Communications Commission is prone to levying big fines for such indecent utterances. And in the current economic turmoil facing the news business, Channel 3 can’t afford potty-mouth talk.

  Because I was reporting live from the field, I couldn’t see the ensuing chaos in the news control booth. Later I learned the station had gone black. That’s one of the worst things that can happen during a television newscast. Someone, maybe a producer, maybe a director, decides they can’t risk staying live and utters the command, “Go black.” That sends the station off the air and into a commercial break. Or even worse, puts a slate on the air that reads “Technical Difficulties.” The fear is that viewers are immediately switching channels, especially when this transpires during the first minute of a newscast.

  “Do you have any idea how much the station might have to pay?” Noreen yelled at me when I got back to the newsroom. “And even if we challenge the FCC and win, the attorney costs could be staggering.” Noreen hollered some more; the rest of the staff could hear as well as see the fireworks through her glass-walled office. What she sacrificed in privacy she made up for in sending a message to the rest of the troops.

  “This wasn’t my fault, Noreen,” I insisted. “The guy never said the F-word once during our preinterview.”

  “Well, Riley, we need stories that will get ratings but won’t get us in trouble with the FCC. Sure the explosion video was cool, but who really cares about windmills anyway? What else have you got?”

  I remembered the monarch butterfly and suggested going to Mexico and covering the migration. As cold weather approaches, our audience enjoys warm-weather tales.

  “Minnesotans love nature news,” I said. “And the video is guaranteed to be spectacular.”

  Noreen was especially fond of stories about animals—even fish. But that affection apparently didn’t apply to bugs. She nixed the butterfly idea in about two seconds flat.

  Too much money.

  “Not in today’s economy.” She shook her head. “We need more close-to-home scoops like that headless murder.” She pointed through her glass office at Clay Burrel, typing away at his desk. “That’s what people are talking about. The police chief even called up screaming about our coverage.”

  I smiled, imagining the chief’s fury—having lived through it during a story or two myself. “But, Noreen, I thought our station image was warm and fuzzy. Channel 7 is the blood-and-guts station.”

  A look of regret passed over Noreen’s normally Corporate America face. “Riley, we can’t afford warm and fuzzy.”

  CHAPTER 4

  I saw an unattractive close-up photo of myself with my mouth open when I paged through the newspaper early the next morning.

  Sam Pierce had frozen a shot of me from yesterday’s wind story for his gossip column, apparently just as I’d realized that my guest had uttered the F-word. No surprise, Sam made a big deal out of how much trouble I was in for the gaffe.

  Then he took a cheap shot and wrote how some local TV reporters had made a better transition to high-definition TV than others, while I was starting to look my age. After our confrontation the other day, I expected some kind of dig like that.

  But the next line made me almost stop breathing: “Sources also tell me Riley Spartz appears to have recovered from her husband’s hero death quite nicely and is finding comfort in the arms of a former cop—which raises the question of just when this relationship started and how good a wife she was when she was a wife.”

  I wanted to heave just then, but my stomach had twisted into a tight, uncomfortable knot.

  When my husband, Hugh Boyer, died in the line of duty nearly three years ago … well, I nearly fell apart with grief. Only a handful of people know how close I came t
o killing myself. If Sam ever found out, he’d probably attribute it to guilt, not grief, and lead with it.

  The journalist part of me noticed that the gossip writer didn’t name my companion, Nick Garnett, probably because he didn’t meet the standard of a public figure. But as a TV reporter, I was considered fair game.

  I dialed Garnett. He’d left a cushy security-director job at the Mall of America and moved to Washington to work for the Department of Homeland Security. The phone rang four times before he picked up. I stumbled a couple of times before I could explain the problem.

  “I’ll get a flight back right away,” he said. “I’ll hold you tight and pound that gossip guy hard.”

  “No. You’ll just make things worse.”

  As much as I craved his consolation, I also dreaded the finger-wagging of others. And I hoped no one showed the “Piercing Eyes” gossip column to my parents. While they knew I was “seeing someone,” the timing had never seemed right to introduce them to Garnett.

  “Maybe it’s best we cool things a bit.” He couldn’t see it, but my eyes were damp as I said the words. “Us in tandem simply gives credence to that article.”

  “We’ve done nothing wrong.” He reminded me our romance had not started until recently, nearly two years after Hugh’s death.

  “I know. But I still want you to stay in DC. I think this chatter might die down faster if we aren’t seen together for a while.”

  He didn’t agree with my decision but had no choice.

  When I got to work, Noreen came over to my office to tell me the article was definitely unfair.

  “Except for that part about your appearance,” she said. “I’ve been thinking maybe you should take a look at airbrush makeup now that we’ve gone digital.”

  Colleagues tried to cheer me with examples of their own victimization by the gossip writer.

  We all knew Sam was not above blackmailing local personalities into inviting him to their weddings or giving up dirt about friends and colleagues for amnesty themselves.

  Because Minneapolis has fewer and lower-level celebrities than places like New York or Los Angeles, fairly minor indiscretions by fairly unimportant people that otherwise would be shrugged off get blown into headlines.

  Anybody who complained to Sam’s editors about the coverage went on his shit list and got bombed harder the next time. And there always was a next time.

  The newspaper knew he was trouble (they’d quietly paid out some settlements) but the editors didn’t want to fire him because his “Piercing Eyes” column generated more web hits than even Minnesota’s most beloved sportswriter. And these days, hits are money.

  I needed reassurance, maybe even forgiveness, so over lunch, I drove to church in downtown St. Paul to visit Father Mountain, my childhood priest, who’d long since been promoted from rural pastor to urban clergy.

  He agreed with Garnett’s take on our relationship.

  “You can’t let bullies determine the path you take in life,” he said.

  Then he pulled out a Bible and quoted various verses about the harm of gossip, including Romans 1:29: “They have become filled with every kind of wickedness, evil, greed and depravity. They are full of envy, murder, strife, deceit, and malice. They are gossips …”

  Father Mountain assured me God would punish gossips and slanderers.

  “I might not want to wait for God,” I said.

  “We all must wait for Judgment Day,” he replied. “Patience is a virtue.”

  He handed me the Bible, reassured me the Lord was on my side, and offered to take my confession if I had any real sins.

  None that I wanted to share with him.

  After work, I headed to an old bar where the newspaper people hang out and ordered a glass of wine. While I waited for a word with Sam, I spent the next twenty minutes or so marking with sticky notes Bible passages condemning gossip.

  All my attention was focused on my own grievance, so I didn’t notice Rolf Hedberg until he pulled out a chair and sat down across from me. He was the kind of guy who looked fifty when he was twenty-five, and now that he was fifty he looked older than Larry King.

  He had his own reason to hold a grudge against the newspaper. Until six months ago, he had been their political columnist. In the latest round of budget cuts they’d shoved a buyout down his throat—not caring that losing him meant losing much of the newsroom’s institutional memory.

  The bosses told him news was more important than opinion, so they were getting out of the political commentary business. For him it was either take the money or take the overnight shift.

  He publicly groused to any radio station that would put him on the air that he was canned because of his liberal slant. And there might have been some truth to that, except a conservative columnist was also cut.

  Rolf’s bitterness wasn’t reaping a lot of requests for repeat appearances—much less his own radio show—so now he’d lost his platform as well as his paycheck.

  “Let me buy you a beer, Rolf.” I waved over a waitress and she brought him whatever was on tap.

  He raised the glass in a toast in my direction and told me he was surprised to see me.

  “Especially here, Riley. Especially after that ‘Piercing Eyes’ column. You know this place is newspaper stomping ground. Sam walks in, there’s just going to be trouble.”

  “Maybe he deserves trouble,” I answered. “Maybe he deserves the wrath of God.”

  I showed Rolf my list of biblical gossip quotes and he rolled his eyes like I was some kind of religious fanatic. I tried to explain, but he cut me off before I could tell him that today was the first time I’d held a Bible since last year, when I’d used one as a weapon to slow down a serial killer.

  “Just walk away,” he advised me. “Can’t you see Sam’s rolling in clout right now? Don’t you think every morning when I open the paper I ask myself why they kept a dirtbag like him and axed me? Don’t you think if there was anything I could do to change that I would?”

  “Well, Rolf, I still want a word with him.”

  “Don’t bother,” he insisted. “Sam always gets the last word.”

  He slugged down the rest of his beer and waved good-bye as I pondered the inevitable truth of what he’d said—the downside of picking a fight with people who buy ink by the gallon.

  His wisdom sank in and I was about to abandon my reprisal mission when in walked Sam Pierce himself. I smelled him before I saw him, his cologne so potent, I glanced around the bar to locate the source. Sam spotted me at the same time, and the next minutes unfolded like they came off a movie script.

  He sauntered over and sat down in the same chair Rolf had occupied minutes earlier. But instead of the look of a broken newsman across the table, Sam had a proud “gotcha” look on his face.

  “Come to trade some secrets for future clemency?” he asked.

  I didn’t offer to buy him a beer and any thought I had of shrugging away the whole encounter disappeared when he flashed a smug smile.

  “No, Sam, I came to rub this in your face.” And I opened the Bible and quoted Psalm 34:13: “Keep your tongue from evil and your lips from speaking lies.”

  He laughed. “What does the Bible have to say about adultery?”

  I should have thrown the book at him; instead I threw my drink.

  Unfortunately, it was red wine and stained an expensive peach-colored sweater he turned out to be particularly fond of. And unfortunately, because most of that day’s news copy was already filed, there were plenty of witnesses in the bar.

  Apparently, under Minnesota law, throwing a drink falls into the category of battery, so even though I never actually touched Sam, I was charged with misdemeanor assault.

  CHAPTER 5

  I had to get a criminal lawyer because there was no way for Miles Lewis, the station attorney, to argue that the First Amendment guaranteed me the right to fling alcohol in public.

  So in a gesture of extreme overkill, I hired Benny Walsh, the top criminal attorney
in town. Usually he defended big-name murderers, embezzlers, bank robbers—more interesting cases than mine.

  “So you’re saying I should just plead guilty?” I asked my lawyer. “What about what he wrote about me?”

  “Well, you could sue him civilly, but, to be honest, you might lose. And it would cost you plenty because no one will take it on contingency. I sure won’t. My advice is to end this and end it fast.”

  Benny convinced me that because it was a lousy misdemeanor, if I committed no other crimes in the next year, it would be erased.

  The deal was I’d get community service.

  “You can give disadvantaged kids a tour of the TV station and be done with it,” he said.

  Begrudgingly, I agreed.

  “So what are you going to wear to court?” he asked.

  “Don’t worry, Benny, I’ll pick out something suitably appropriate for a court of law.”

  “Pink,” he said. “I want you to wear pink. And not an aggressive pink, either. A delicate, harmless pink.”

  So on the advice of my attorney, I bought a pale pink, feminine-cut blazer that the salesperson guaranteed made me look “pretty.” I figured I could always wear the soothing shade when I had to interview crime victims or their families.

  But when I got to court, and the clerk called my name, Benny’s cushy deal didn’t exactly fall together.

  Apparently Judge Tregobov harbored some rancor against the media. And she wasn’t fooled by the color pink, either.

  “Since you journalists enjoy garbage so much, your community service will be picking up garbage somewhere in the county, location to be determined later.”

  My attorney tried to argue, but the judge cut him off.

  “You heard me; trash for the trash. Keep quiet or I’ll find you in contempt.”

  But when the prosecutor wanted to talk, the judge allowed him to request a protective order keeping me a thousand feet away from Sam Pierce. I was given no opportunity to point out that anyone who compared our body of work would easily see who regularly wrote trash and who wrote award-winning public-service investigations.

  But with a bang of her gavel, the judge consented to this last piece of humiliation. And that’s the way it was. Whether Walter Cronkite would have agreed or not.