old joke: We’ll go to his funeral to make sure he’s dead.
Static for the lens, she’s framed off-center so that her backdrop is clearly seen: a building of vast graystone tonnage and Corinthian columns, too stately for anything so gauche as a statue of Blind Justice. She’s young, the low side of thirty. Trim, the consummate professional, dark hair conservatively styled. One of the city’s favorite daughters, even if adopted. She has no need of introduction of self and place, for time must not be wasted. The more stories per thirty-minute newscast — minus sports, weather, and commercials — the more exciting the flow. The more excitement, the more viewers, the higher the Arbitrons. Self and place will be added in-studio, superimposed text from the Chyron machine:
Microphone in hand, she dives in:
“The reign of terror that began eighteen months ago has finally reached its end this afternoon at the sentencing hearing for Darryl Hiller. The twenty-six-year-old Hiller — the so-called Tapeworm — was convicted five weeks ago on sixteen counts of rape and murder. This afternoon, Judge Thornton Steckler passed down the expected maximum sentence of life imprisonment without the possibility of parole.”
She’s cool and steady, forever striving for the perfect blend of authority and compassionate story involvement. That intangible quality which will later, on playback after editing and splicing with other footage, reach out through the tube to seize viewer attention. Telling one and all,
Sandra’s trick: She focuses not on the camera lens, as do so many lesser-talented competitors. Instead, she focuses two feet
In truth, Darryl Hiller has yet to be sentenced. Sandra and her crew — cameraman, sound recordist, and film editor — are taping the segment in advance. If they’re wrong they’ll reshoot later. But no one in his right mind expects the Tapeworm to get slammed with anything less than the max. Pre-hearing is simply less congested outside the Municipal Court. Less background clutter to detract attention from Sandra Riley. And it will give them more time post-hearing to scrounge reaction footage of the principle players in the Tapeworm’s final day as a newsmaker: attorneys, police officers, victims’ families.
As well, she has her own press conference to give, and the anticipation is delicious. Her contemporaries and competitors citywide — from network affiliates, network O&Os, local indies — have already accused her of grandstanding. She can afford to laugh off such accusations, knowing they’re born of professional jealousy. All of them report the news; only Sandra is an insider on this,
“But even as the city breathes a collective sigh of relief,” she continues, “this day of justice cannot be considered a total victory. Police still have no leads in the copycat killings patterned after the Tapeworm’s methods of rape and murder, which began two months ago…”
Sandra wraps it, packages it, and Kevin the cameraman bags it. She reaches around her back and unclips the Sony from her skirt’s belt, draws the earphone line from beneath her jacket. Every word was taped informally from a written script so she could listen and repeat verbatim — no TelePrompTers on site — and be free to concentrate on projecting through the lens.
“Let’s get set up outside Courtroom C,” she tells her crew as they pack it up. No cameras allowed inside the courtroom.
Sandra lights a nervous cigarette and the nicotine rush calms her empty stomach. She’s eaten nothing today but a handful of peanuts gulped for breakfast, and the cigarette helps her forget.
Kevin straightens from his camera, a tall and handsome black man with a moustache and a hightop fade. “You oughta give those up. Give you those pucker lines around your mouth, look like hell on camera someday.”
She smiles, considers grinding the cigarette with a shoetip but doesn’t. “By the time I get the lines, my airtime days’ll be over.” She’s on a fast-track rise, gunning for network anchor by thirty-five. Only the youthful need apply. There are no female equivalents of wise old Walter Cronkite and Mike Wallace. Her biological clock is ticking, and it has nothing to do with children.
Gear is packed for mobility and Sandra pitches in to help lug it along. No off-camera star demeanor for her, and the crew loves her for it.
As they reach the court steps they realize something is wrong. Pandemonium and harsh voices rebound along marble corridors. Sandra and her crew break into doubletime and gear is readied on the run, and they find themselves in a swarm of confusion. Civilians are herded away by police. Courthouse deputies speak frantically into walkie-talkies. A custodial type flanked by two cops aims a fingertip along a ceiling path, as if following ductwork. A pudgy, weeping, red-haired man in a rumpled jailhouse jumpsuit is escorted from a men’s bathroom, wearing handcuffs, but these are quickly removed. Moments later a uniformed deputy is stretchered out of the bathroom, a bloody mask for a face, and a police sergeant is screaming for everyone to get back, back —
“Are you getting this?” she snaps to Kevin.
His camera is balanced on one broad shoulder. “
The sound tech feeds her impatient hand the microphone and they wade into the fray. Sandra digs in for internal focus, that center of calm, grace under pressure. They battle chaos to find someone who can tell them what’s going on, but deep within she knows it’s all about this man who vowed he would do no hard time.
Thrusting the mike into official faces, she’s rebuffed time and again, until at last she shanghais a young uniformed cop trying gamely at crowd control.
“Can you tell us what’s happened?” she asks again.
He whirls, irritable, ready to tell her to get lost. But the recognition is instantaneous —
“He got away! Darryl Hiller got away!” he says, breathless.
Sandra doesn’t let the hammer blow of distress register one flicker across her face. “How did this happen, do you know?”
“He … he told his guard he had to go to the crapper, and … and I don’t know
“By disappeared, you mean —”
“He’s gone, but there was no place for him to go.” The young cop is white-faced. “Miz Riley … that bathroom doesn’t even have a window.”
*
Seven months earlier, November:
She came home, near midnight, and the day had been typically long and exhausting. She sorted mail in the sixteen-story elevator ride up to her floor, some addressed to Sandra Riley, the rest to Shanna Riley. The latter was technically correct. Some long-ago news consultant down in Dallas had suggested a change in her pro name. Shanna sounded too close to Sheena, as in Queen of the Jungle, which some female viewership might find threatening. Management backed him, but at least she got to pick her replacement moniker.
Her feet ached, and she wore L.A. Gear tennies instead of heels toward the day’s end, when spit and polish were less crucial. She closed her apartment door, triple-locked it. Shed her overcoat and collapsed onto the sofa, a single lamp on for company. Home was a jumbled contrast to her immaculate video image, everywhere stacks of current magazines and nonfiction books, a hamster-in-wheel race to keep abreast of all matters financial and political, scientific and cultural.
A few tears, then, and cramps.
