“Yes,” she said and dabbed at her eyes with the crumpled tissue. “This is horrible. I really loved her, you know. I really did.”
“We all did, Jean Ann. That’s why we have to do this right.” He was almost overwhelmed with the emotion he felt, “It’s her last story, Jean Ann, her last story.”
It hurt him to say it, to hear it. It was that goddamn beautiful. He knew he would say it again.
Jean Ann raised her eyes to his face. She nodded.
“I’ll get ready,” she said.
*
Fifteen miles away, Rick Whalen waited impatiently on the players’ bench. He had an hour before he would be on air. The engineer moved around him, carrying cables back and forth across the floor.
“I can’t do anything without a camera,” the engineer told him.
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Rick Whalen chanted. They’d get him on the air somehow, cameraman or not. And where the hell was the photographer? He’d give him five more minutes and then he’d call the station.
He patted his jacket pocket to assure himself the round of pancake makeup was there.
Now, how was he going to get into it? He liked starting with a smile and a joke. He’d have to think of something funny to say to Reynolds.
He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly. He had nothing to worry about. He was a natural, everybody said that. He was a natural.
*
At the station, another engineer began to sweat. He had no tapes for the newscast, not even a fucking rundown. What the hell was he supposed to do without tapes?
“Where the hell are the tapes?” he called into the control room. “Is anybody there?” He tapped on his headset microphone.
“Jesus H. Christ, is anybody listening?”
He tore off the headpiece. He knew about Hanson. They all knew about Hanson. But, what the hell was he supposed to do? He didn’t have the tapes. How the hell could they get a newscast on the air? Nobody sent over any tapes.
Down the hall in the dressing room, Jean Ann Maypin started into the mirror. She did not judge her beauty or lack of it. She did wonder, for a few seconds, if she should have her ears pierced. They would let her wear those small button earrings. It was the big dangling ones they didn’t like.
50
Thirty-five minutes before the six o’clock newscast, the weekend producer from Across the Street called.
“All I can say is that we’re really sorry,” he told Brown.
“Thanks, fella,” Brown said. “We appreciate that. We really do.”
“Is there anything we can do?” The producer tried to match the low and emotionally drained tone of Brown’s voice. As he spoke, reporters and editors stood around him making frantic hand motions.
“No, I think we can handle it,” said Brown. “Hey, guy, thanks for asking.”
“You’re going with it, of course?” the weekend producer asked.
“Have to. She was our baby,” said Brown.
So, thought the producer, the bastard was going to make him ask. He wasn’t going to give him a break.
He asked. “Next of kin notified?”
“It’s being taken care of. That’s the tough part, isn’t it?” said Brown.
Did that mean next of kin had been told or not? Smarmy bastard.
“That means we can all go with it,” he stated. “That’s the way I see it.”
“Guess so,” replied Brown.
The producer gave a thumbs up to the people around his desk. They broke away in a run.
“Look,” he said to Brown, “I know this is hard on your people, but I’d like to put something together about Debbie, something short, maybe pull something from one of her stories, some background on her.” He waited.
“I think that’s great,” said Brown. “Why don’t I send a tape over with some of her work. It will take a little while,” he warned. “And we don’t have any still photos of her.”
Prick, he wasn’t going to give him even a shot of her for the lead. Well, what the hell. They had Rafferty’s pick-up on the mountain, the body coming up. Get something from Brown for the end of the newscast and they had more than enough.
“That’s okay, Jim. Anything you’ve got will be fine,” he told him. “Don’t worry about sending it over. I have somebody on his way right now. Should be there any minute.” He smiled to himself. The guy he was sending would kill to get that tape.
“And listen, we’re sorry about this. Real sorry.” And, they were.
*
The Best kept the story at one minute fifty-five for the Saturday six o’clock. Re-edited for the ten o’clock news, it ran two minutes. The story ran a third time on the Sunday six o’clock.
The other stations had complete packages for their Saturday ten o’clock newscasts, with footage and information supplied by Jim Brown. The Sunday newspapers carried the story on the front page. A picture was added for the Monday edition, but the story was now front-page. second section.
Jim Brown spoke to Judge Hanson at eight o’clock Saturday night. He assured him the station would do anything they could to help him during this terrible time.
“You know,” Brown said to the father, “we thought of Debbie as a member of our family here. We all loved her. She was the best.”
Brown wondered if he should organize a memorial service in town. They had a minister they used for stories on religion. He could put together something uplifting. Wait. Did he really want to do that? It would have to be soon, within a few days, and who could make time on a weekday? Not in this business. Next weekend would be too late. People move on, they forget. Only natural.
What mattered was what they did for Debbie right now, and they did it well. Yes, they did. They pulled it together. There had been only one problem, and that one he expected.
*
Tom Carter flew into the newsroom ten minutes after the six o’clock ended. He was purple with rage.
“Why the hell wasn’t
