Silencing Sam (8 page)

“Do you think they'll ever find her head?” I asked.

He shrugged. “No way of knowing. Sometimes killers dump a body in one state and a head in another. If both are discovered, the different jurisdictions slow down any investigation.”

“Quite a road trip,” I said. “Driving a human head across state lines.” Not the kind of cargo anyone would want to get caught hauling. “I guess the murderer got lucky that no one noticed anything that night in the park.”

“No surprise,” Garnett said. “The body was dumped on a Sunday night. That's the dog watch. When the fewest number of cops are on patrol. If I was going to dump a body, that's when I'd do it.”

Dog watch. Cop talk. I love it.

Amid tangled sheets, Garnett slept.

My mind kept returning to Sam. As a journalist, I pondered questions like how much he bled and whether the bullets hurt for long.

Even though I hadn't liked him as a person, I didn't like being haunted by thoughts of him lying dead. Probably because, if I was being honest, I knew that in the mind of the general public, not much separated my work from his. So it wasn't outlandish
to visualize an angry viewer coming after me for something I reported. Telling myself that Sam deserved death more would be of little consolation if I joined him on a morgue slab.

To keep my mind off such unpleasantness, I forced myself to concentrate on the headless homicide. That was an even worse mistake. Now I couldn't shake the sight and smell of crime-scene gore. The blood from the victim's head must have sprayed the killer and his surroundings like a brand of death. That image made the bloody elevator in the movie
The Shining
seem tame. And when I closed my eyes, instead of the black comfort of darkness, I saw the color red.

I must have slept because I woke with a start. Afraid. I might have made a strangled cry, but I wasn't sure. It took a few seconds for me to realize I was safe. In bed. A man by my side. A man who loved me. And whom I loved back.

“Are you okay? Riley?” By then Garnett had reached for a lamp switch.

Light brought reassurance that the warmth I felt came from blankets, not blood.

My nightmare stemmed from a childhood memory I hadn't thought about for decades: the day the chickens got butchered. We kids were supposed to take turns holding the comb of the bird's head across a wooden stump while my mother held the feet. I remember the chicken's eye blinking as its neck stretched uncomfortably. Then my father swung the ax.

I tried blocking out the red hue as I rushed to the bathroom to puke. Vomit vapor hit my arms, reminding me of the warm mist of chicken blood on my skin long ago. Then I threw up again.

“Can I get you anything?” Garnett handed me my bathrobe.

I shook my head, rinsed my mouth, and climbed back in bed. He held me close, urging me to go back to sleep. I cried as I told him about the dream. He called it my “Clarice moment.”

That made me smile. Instead of screaming lambs, I was tormented by the sound of a whack, followed by frantic, flapping wings.

“Well, Clarice, have the lambs stopped screaming?” Garnett whispered in my ear as our heads lay on a pillow.

I recalled the mesmerizing final telephone scene he quoted. “Anthony Hopkins,
Silence of the Lambs,
1991.”

The film opened just as the first Gulf War was getting under way. To take the eerie emotion out of my bedroom, Garnett and I started comparing Saddam Hussein to Hannibal Lecter. It wasn't the most outlandish stretch. Two psychopaths wielding power. One factual, the other fictional. In each scenario, the government needed to do business with them. Talking politics made the dream seem distant.

But later, in the shower, I found myself envying Jodi Foster for a couple of reasons. Lambs evoke more sympathy than chickens. And Jodi's terror was make-believe.

Neither Garnett nor I mentioned the chicken dream the next morning. While toasting English muffins, I noticed the vase of black-eyed Susans and realized I'd forgotten to tell him about the mysterious bouquet I'd received at the station.

“Not this again,” he said.

I had a history of strangers, who ending up being genuinely strange, sending me flowers. No good ever came of it.

“I gave them to Noreen,” I said. “Maybe the curse will cling to her.”

“More likely it'll slide right off her back, she's so slick.”

In a brief domestic moment, we laughed, exchanged a quick kiss, and both left for work.

Clay's gun had given me an idea.

Because of the clout of the Second Amendment, no state keeps a list of gun owners, but Minnesota residents are prohibited from carrying concealed weapons around without a special permit. This allows law enforcement to weed out the mentally ill and dangerous felons, and to require applicants to take special firearms training.

So I sidled up to Lee Xiong, the station's computer geek, for a favor. He'd made himself irreplaceable at Channel 3 for breaking
news by matching government databases to obscure story premises, like whether drunks who weren't allowed to drive cars drove speedboats, menacing any of Minnesota's ten thousand lakes.

Xiong had a large library of computer records on voting, vehicles, property ownership, and criminal histories. He was Channel 3's version of Big Brother and probably sat on some good blackmail material, but as far as I could tell, he only flexed his cyber muscles for work-related projects.

I figured the names of people with gun-carry permits were probably collected by one state agency or another. That didn't mean that Sam's killer was on the list, but it was a place to start. And a place Clay wouldn't think of checking.

“We do not own this precise database,” Xiong said. “I will have to get a copy from the state.”

He was curious as to which local politicians or celebrities might be packing heat. But then I had to tell him why
I
was interested and why I needed him to keep my interest from Noreen.

I gave him my spreadsheet of Sam's gossip victims and asked him to match it against the gun-carry permits. Since motives were too numerous and subjective, perhaps suspects known to actually own weapons might illuminate something.

“I do not like it when you put me in the middle of work politics,” he said. But we'd been through enough news scrapes together that Xiong agreed to do it on the sly.

I tried disregarding Clay on my way to my office, but he waved me over to his desk, which was covered with a mess of notes and photos.

“Look at what I have here, little lady.”

Rather than argue about the nickname, I ignored it.

Clay showed me how he was comparing the headless woman's physical description with that of recently reported missing women in the Midwest.

“I reckon the cops are probably doing the same,” he said.

“Smart move.” I had to respect that. But that didn't stop me from wishing the story were mine. “Any leads?”

“I'm sorting the blondes. So far, four possibles.”

Since I wasn't able to (at least not officially) cover the gossip columnist's murder, it was starting to feel even more important to me that I make something happen in the headless homicide case. But wrestling it away from Clay seemed less likely now than it had a few days ago when he appeared just a small-market rookie. Clearly, I'd underrated him.

I was just throwing my shoulder bag on the floor of my office when my desk phone started ringing.

“We have a problem.” Xiong was on the other end. “The conceal-and-carry permit names are not public.”

“What do you mean, not public?”

“Not public record.”

“How can that be?” In Minnesota all government data is presumed public unless a specific exemption is made in the law.

Apparently, for the right to bear arms, one was. Gun lovers lobbied under the theory that burglars might target them and steal their weapons if such information should ever be released. The flip side to the argument, that robbers would be less likely to break into armed households, didn't fly. Neither did the idea that Minnesotans should know which of our neighbors are walking around armed and potentially dangerous.

By my pause, Xiong could tell I was disappointed.

“I will think, but I do not see alternatives,” he said.

“I know, Xiong. Thanks anyway.” I hung up and stared at my office wall.

We didn't have much in the way of options. We could launch a legal challenge, but that would take time and cost money, something Noreen was unlikely to approve, especially once she knew the reason.

Unless I gave her a different reason.

Quickly, some online research told me more than fifty thousand Minnesotans had conceal-and-carry permits. Out of that bunch, I'd gamble there were some newsworthy names. Maybe pro athletes. Maybe religious leaders. Maybe politicians who'd voted for the measure to keep the permit records private.

I imagined confronting some of them on the street, camera rolling, asking to see their guns. And asking why they needed one.

Interesting approach, unless they shot me. Or my photographer.

I decided to do some more research. An hour later I was confident that I could make a compelling argument that without oversight on the conceal-and-carry gun process, abuse could occur.

“What kind of abuse?” Noreen asked when I pitched the story.

“Oh, the usual,” I said. “Felons carrying guns. Crazy people carrying guns. Maybe the police chief's ne'er-do-well brother-in-law.”

I explained that, across the country, state laws were inconsistent on privacy and concealed weapons. While in most cases Minnesota was known for open records, when it came to conceal-and-carry permits, we were on the conservative side. Probably because of our strong hunting tradition.

Businesses had the option to post signs saying they banned guns on their premises. And many did. From the Mall of America to my neighborhood diner.

Noreen seemed to buy into the news value.

“I wouldn't want you guys carrying guns around the news-room,” Noreen said. “This is such a hothead environment, what if one of you went postal?”

I thought it best not to answer.

“I'd probably be the first one shot,” she continued.

I really thought it best not to answer that. But I felt like I ought to speak up about Clay. And it wasn't like he'd made me
promise to keep his gun secret. He seemed to enjoy showing it off.

“The way the law's written,” I said, “we could be armed, and you wouldn't know. Clay is.”

Noreen's eyes narrowed, and she leaned forward over her desk. “What did you say, Riley?”

Okay, so I ratted him out.

“Clay carries a gun. He showed me. He says everyone in Texas does.”

“Not in my newsroom he doesn't.”

She told me to talk to Miles about what legal steps it would take to access the gun permit information. Then she picked up her phone and paged, “Clay Burrel to the newsroom.”

Clay was plenty mad. He probably knew some folksy Texas saying, like being “as mad as a wet cat,” except he wasn't speaking to me.

I tried to apologize. After all, I was more fascinated by his Glock than fearful. But he wasn't buying my regret. He turned his back and stomped away, so loudly my eyes were drawn to his tan snakeskin cowboy boots.

I figured that would be our last newsroom encounter for a while. But later that night, I heard the same stomping noise, looked up from my desk, and saw him standing in my doorway.

“Happy now?” He pulled open both sides of his suit jacket. No gun. “You're just jealous,” he said. “That's why you're trying to get me into trouble.”

He was right about the jealous but wrong about the trouble.

“I'm sorry, Clay.”

“You're mad because I'm leading the newscasts and all you've been able to come up with is that stupid windmill story.”

Ouch. “I'm not jealous.” I said it with a straight face even.

“Texas outranks Minnesota in wind anyway.”

He was right about that, too. While most of us think of Texas as an oil and natural gas state, it leads the nation in wind power.

His voice pitch was leveling off and he was starting to seem more confused than angry about my betrayal.

“Maybe you're just one of those crazy gun haters,” he said. “You like the First Amendment; well, I like the second.”

So that's when I denied hating guns and told him about how my dead cop husband always wanted to teach me to shoot, but it was one of those things we never got around to.

That's when Clay shaped his hand like a gun and offered to take me to the firing range sometime.

For the first time, I noticed his wedding ring and asked how his wife liked him working so many hours.

“My wife left me. So I have no personal life.”

Once again, I was apologizing for putting my big foot in my big mouth. This time I meant it. I tried to change the subject, but Clay apparently wanted to talk about his struggling marriage. And I knew what it was like to have personal demons and how hard it is to remove a wedding ring.

He explained that he wanted to accept the Minneapolis TV job and his wife wanted to stay in Texas.

“I told her this was a better news market and would really help my career.” I nodded. Quite true. For numerous reporters and producers, Minneapolis–St. Paul is a network farm camp. “She told me Texas was a better weather market and would help her tan.”

Also true, I thought, but still, Minnesota has tanning booths.

“I asked her, don't you love me?” he continued. “But she said, ‘I love the sun more.'”

Clay's Texas swagger seemed gone, and he appeared almost humble. I told him to pull up a chair and sit for a minute. And he did. Neither of us said anything right away. But resting there together felt sort of comfortable in an unexpected way. It made me grateful my spouse had been able to stomach the desperate
world of TV news without going all crazy on me. If I'd had a glass in hand, I'd have raised it to heaven and Hugh.