“Damn it.” He shoved the gun back in his shoulder holster. “Get the hell out of here now.”
“Hey, wait a second,” she moved toward him. “We’re okay up here. Come on.”
She could hear the whirr of the recorder. Cappy was shooting and would not stop until he had what he needed.
The man hesitated. She saw the indecision.
“Please,” she said. “We’ll move back but let us stay up here.”
“Cappy,” she called, “move back.”
Cappy waved one hand but never took his eye from the eyepiece.
Feet pounded on the stairs. The door slammed open. Behind it, other feet pounded upward.
“What the shit’s going on here?” one of two uniformed officers shouted.
“Television,” the first man said. “They are leaving.”
“You get out of here now or I swear to God, we’ll take you in,” hissed one officer.
Cappy looked up and gave her a quick smile. He had it.
“No problem, officers,” he said and moved toward them, still in a crouch.
“I should arrest your ass,” someone shouted as they went out the door. “Arrest your sorry ass.”
Twenty minutes later, the station broke into regular programming with a live report on the sniper. Debbie stood in a parking lot near the hospital. As she spoke and helicopters whirred, they rolled the tape fed to the station only minutes before with its grainy shot of the man at the window.
They had an hour before the six o’clock. Tony told her to come back in.
“We’ve got Burton out there now, talking to the cops. We’ll go live with him at six. We need you and Cappy back here.”
“It’s my story,” she argued.
“No, we want you in-set. It’s going to be tight, so get back now.”
“Shit, shit,” she shouted at Cappy. “Do you believe that?”
“They want me too?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay,” he said. “If that’s what they want.”
It was also what he wanted. This thing could last for hours. Going back in was fine by him.
“Good story,” Richard Ferguson called to her when she came into the newsroom.
“Yeah, but damn it, it’s my story. They shouldn’t have brought me in.”
“They got him. They got him,” Tony yelled from his position beneath the scanners. “Somebody find out who the hell he is. Get Benton. Debbie, get that copy into editing.”
Jack Benton kicked it off, going live from the scene with the cop lights flashing behind him. Debbie followed, reporting from the set. They used Cappy’s shots in the newscast intro and in Debbie’s voice-over along with other shots from the scene.
“Tight,” Tony sighed with pleasure during the commercial break.
“Woo,” Jim Brown exhaled. “Fantastic. We beat all of them.”
“Good work,” they all said to her.
*
That night she asked Ellen what she thought.
“It was a good story. Nice tape. I don’t think anybody else had anything like it. And, your in-set worked. I didn’t think it was going to, but it did. That one shot of Cappy’s of the sniper, that was something else. You were lucky.”
“Lucky?”
“Yeah, lucky to have that shot,” Ellen concluded.
“Well, I think it was more than luck,” Debbie stated.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, I think I did a real good job, both of us did.”
“You did,” Ellen agreed.
“You didn’t say that. You said I was lucky.”
Ellen sighed.
“No, Debbie, I meant the shot Cappy got was lucky, that’s all.”
“I know, I know,” Debbie sniffed. “I guess I wanted you to tell me how good I was.”
“You were,” Ellen laughed.
“You know, I felt proud of myself, like I was on top of everything. I felt like this is what we are supposed to be doing. Get the story, tell the people the truth. That’s the reason I got into television.”
She heard the click of Ellen’s lighter and waited for the exhale.
“I thought television news was the one place where I could tell the truth. You are paid to find out the truth and report it and help people understand what’s going on.”
“I know, Debbie. You’ve told me that.”
“All right, but that’s how I felt tonight, like I did my job.”
“You done good.”
“You really think so?”
“Yes, Debbie, I do.”
“Okay, then, well, I better go. I’ll see you tomorrow?”
“Yes, you will,” Ellen answered.
Two minutes later Ellen’s phone rang.
“It’s me again.”
“Yeah?”
“I wanted to say thinks, thanks for everything, listening to me and all that. I know I can be a pain.”
“No problem.”
“Okay then,” Debbie said. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”
Ellen stared at the phone, wondering, with a head shake of exasperation, how anyone could get so churned up over what actually amounted to about an hour of real work.
33
She told the group about her story with a shy pride.
“So what?” the younger woman asked. “So you’re a big television star. So what? Does that make you better than the rest of us?”
“No,” Debbie tried to explain, “that isn’t what I meant. I meant it was a good day for me. That’s all.”
“You know,” the younger woman went on with a toss of her head, “I don’t know why you are here. You’re so happy with your job and everything, why do you need therapy?”
“Yes, I sort of wondered that too,” said the older woman. I still don’t know what your problem is.”
Bob nodded his agreement.
Because I need to be here,” Debbie responded. “Because I need to find out why I get so depressed.”
Now she called her sadness depression because the others in the room used that word to describe their own weekly conditions.
“You never seem depressed to me,” said the older woman.
“Maybe that’s good?” Dr. Waddell offered.
“You mean she feels good when she’s here with us? Is that what you mean?” she asked.
“Yes, Maynell, I think that’s what I mean. Debbie doesn’t feel sad when she’s with us and that’s good, isn’t it? Isn’t it, Debbie?”
“I guess so,” she said and smiled, but she felt the fear begin. “I hope I am getting better. No,” she corrected herself, “I am getting better.” She smiled at them. They would like that.
“Well, I don’t know why any of us are here,” the older woman said. “I mean, what are we supposed to be doing here?”
The younger woman ignored
