The Scarecrow

I worked late into the night, pulling together the details of two dead women’s lives, looking for the commonality Rachel was sure was there. They were women from two different hometowns who had migrated to two different cities in two different states. As far as I could tell, they had never crossed paths, except on the outside chance that Denise Babbit had gone to Las Vegas and happened to catch the Femmes Fatales show at the Cleopatra.

Could that be the connection between their murders? It seemed far-fetched.

I finally exhausted that pursuit and decided to approach things from a completely different angle. The killer’s angle. On a fresh sheet of Rachel’s notebook paper, I started listing all the things the Unsub would have needed to know in order to accomplish each murder in terms of method, timing and location. This proved to be a daunting task and by midnight I was spent. I fell asleep in my clothes on top of the bedspread, the files and my notes all around me.

The four A.M. call from the front desk was jarring, but it saved me from my recurring dream of Angela.

“Hello,” I croaked into the phone.

“Mr. McEvoy, your limo is here.”

“My limo?”

“He said he was from CNN.”

I had totally forgotten. It had been set up by the Times’ media relations office on Friday. I was supposed to go live to the nation on a weekend show that ran from eight to ten on Sunday mornings. The problem with that was, it was eight to ten East Coast time, five to seven West Coast time. On Friday the show’s producer had been unclear where in the show they would go to me. So I had to be ready to go live at five.

“Tell him I’ll be down in ten minutes.”

I actually took fifteen, dragging myself into the shower, shaving and getting dressed in the last unwrinkled shirt I had in the room. The driver didn’t seem concerned and drove at a leisurely pace toward Hollywood. There was no traffic and we were making good time.

The car wasn’t actually a limo. It was a Lincoln Town Car sedan. A year earlier I had written a series of stories about a lawyer who worked out of the back of a Lincoln Town Car while a client who was working off his fees drove him around. Sitting in the backseat now on the way to CNN, I got to like it. It was a good way to see L.A.

The CNN building was on Sunset Boulevard not far from the Hollywood police station. After passing through a security checkpoint in the lobby I went up to the studio where I was slated to be remotely interviewed from Atlanta for the weekend edition of a show called CNN Newsroom. I was led by a young person to the greenroom, and I found Wanda Sessums and Alonzo Winslow already there. For some reason I was shocked by the idea that they could have gotten up so early and beaten me-the professional journalist-to the studio.

Wanda looked at me like I was a stranger. Alonzo barely had his eyes open.

“Wanda, you remember me? I’m Jack McEvoy, the reporter? I came to see you last Monday.”

She nodded and clicked an ill-fitting pair of dentures in her mouth. She had not worn them when I visited her at home.

“That’s right. You the one who put all the lies in the paper about my Zo.”

This statement perked Alonzo up.

“Well, he’s out now, right?” I said quickly.

I stepped over and offered my hand to her grandson. He hesitantly took it and we shook but he seemed confused by who I was.

“Glad to meet you finally, Alonzo, and glad you’re out. I’m Jack. I’m the reporter who talked to your grandmother and started the investigation that led to your release.”

“My grandmother? Motherfucker, what you talking about?”

“He don’t know what he talkin’,” Wanda said quickly.

I suddenly understood the error of my ways. Wanda was his grandmother but had been playing his mother- Moms-because his real mother was on the street. He probably thought his real mother was his sister, if he knew her at all.

“Sorry, I got confused,” I said. “Anyway, I think we are being interviewed together.”

“Why the fuck you bein’ interviewed?” Alonzo asked. “I’m the one spent the motherfuckin’ time in jail.”

“I think it’s because I’m the one who got you out.”

“Yeah, that funny. Mr. Meyer say he the one that got me out.”

“Our lawyer got him out,” Wanda chimed in.

“Then how come your lawyer isn’t here and going on CNN?”

“He coming.”

I nodded. This was news to me. When I left work Friday it was going to be just Alonzo and me on the show. Now we had Moms and Meyer aboard. I decided this was not going to go well on live broadcast. Too many people and at least one of them the broadcast censors would have issues with. I went over to a table where there was a coffee urn and poured a cup. I took it black. I then reached into a box of Krispy Kreme doughnuts and chose an Original Glazed. I tried to keep to myself and watch the overhead television, which was tuned to CNN and would soon be broadcasting the newsmagazine show we were scheduled to appear on. After a while a technician came in and wired us for sound, clipping a microphone to our collars and putting an audio feed earpiece into our ears and hiding all wires under our shirts.

“Can I speak to a producer?” I said quietly. “Alone?”

“Sure, I’ll tell him.”

I sat back down and waited and after four minutes I heard my name spoken by a male voice.

“Mr. McEvoy?”

I looked around and then realized the voice had come in over the earpiece.

“Yes, I’m here.”

“This is Christian DuChateau in Atlanta. I’m producing today’s show and I want to thank you for getting up so early to be on. We’ll go over everything when we get you into the studio in a few minutes. But did you need to speak with me before that?”

“Yes, just hold on a second.”

I walked out of the greenroom and into the hallway, closing the door behind me.

“I just wanted to make sure you’ve got somebody good on the beeper,” I said in a low voice.

“I don’t understand,” DuChateau said. “What do you mean by ‘beeper’?”

“I don’t know what exactly it’s called, but you should know that Alonzo Winslow may only be sixteen years old but he pretty much uses the word motherfucker about as often as you use the word the.”

There was silence in response but not for too long.

“I understand,” DuChateau said. “Thank you for the heads-up. We try to conduct pre-interviews with our guests but sometimes there isn’t time. Is his lawyer there yet?”

“No.”

“We can’t seem to locate him and he isn’t answering his cell. I was hoping he might be able to, uh, control his client.”

“Well, at the moment, he isn’t here. And you have to understand something, Christian. This kid didn’t commit that murder but that doesn’t mean he’s this innocent young child, if you know what I mean. He’s a gangbanger. He’s a Crip and right now he’s turning the greenroom blue. He’s got his blue jeans, his blue plaid shirt, and at the moment he’s wearing a blue do-rag.”

There was no hesitation on the phone this time.

“Okay, I’ll take care of this,” the producer said. “If things fall out, are you willing to go on alone? The segment is eight minutes with a video report on the case in the middle. After you subtract the video and your intro, it’s about four and a half to five minutes of airtime with our show host here in Atlanta. I don’t think you’ll be asked anything you haven’t already been asked about the case.”

“Whatever you need. I’m good to go.”

“Okay, I’ll get back to you.”

DuChateau clicked off and I went back to the greenroom. I sat on a sofa against the wall opposite Alonzo and