He liked it. He liked it a lot.
“Of course, we wouldn’t get rolling on it for a month or so. We’d run it around summer vacation time, but we should be thinking it now.”
“And, we have some great footage,” she said.
“Hmm.” He nodded.
“We have all that footage of people being hurt while they’re out having fun in the sun,” she offered with a wry smile.
He didn’t like that smile or the tone of her voice.
“We have some footage, yes,” he said with a warning note of his own, “but that’s not the point.”
She gave a short laugh. “Oh, I think that is exactly the point. Think about it. We could do one part on the dangers of hiking without ever leaving the station.”
“Ellen, is there something you want to say?” he asked, annoyed.
“No. I’m here to find out what happened to Debbie.”
“You know what happened.”
“No. I know what happened on the mountain, I guess.” She shrugged. “But I don’t know what happened here.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I have a feeling something happened here at the station, something not so nice. Now, why would I feel that way, Jim?”
She leaned back in the chair and crossed her legs. She ran her hand along the crease in one leg of her black slacks.
“I hear Debbie had some trouble here before she went on her little walk,” she said, playing with the crease.
He swallowed hard.
“I hear there was some problem with Tom and she ran out of here in tears,” Ellen continued.
His face went tight, the fear starting low in his chest.
“It’s the little things that make a story interesting. Don’t you think?” She smiled.
“Ellen, I don’t know what you’re getting at, but you’re wrong, whatever it is,” he stated strongly.
“Really? And here I’m thinking it might make it a better story, a little extra something nobody’s talked about. Isn’t that what makes it news, even now? And we do love our news, don’t we, Jimmy.” She grinned. “So why don’t we talk about what happened to her here that set her off that morning?”
“Nothing happened here,” he declared firmly to hide his growing fear.
“Of course,” she went on,” nobody really cares, but if they did, all you would have to do was tell them how much we loved good old Debbie and how much she loved her job and how happy she was here, like all of us. Right?”
Suddenly, she felt incredibly tired. All the other things she wanted to say, all the anger she put into the words she rehearsed, had faded away. She stood.
“What’s it to you, Ellen?” he demanded, sensing the weakness. “How much did you ever care about Debbie, or anybody else, for that matter? What kind of a friend were you to Debbie?”
Now he could have his own smile.
“I think you’re in shock, Ellen. You go home and cool off. When you come back, we’ll have a talk about how you see your work and your future here.”
She left his office without shutting the door.
He waited for a few seconds before going to the doorway and looking out. He could see her, the top of her head over the cubicle partitions. He quickly pulled back and closed the door. He sat in his chair. He was shaking.
She could cause some trouble. Yes, she could, with that big mouth of hers. She’d make a few phone calls and he’d get the questions. The whole thing was supposed to be over and done with. He heard about the argument with Carter. Carter said it was nothing. Both of them letting off some steam.
“I only asked her where she had been and why she wasn’t answering the phone,” Carter told him. “What the hell? If you ask me, the girl was always a little loose around the gills.”
And now there was this other thing, this phone call from Clifford Williams. Steve told him he called and said he was halfway to New York.
“Said he was going to buy a fur coat,” Steve said and grinned. “Though you might like to know.”
The only black in the newsroom leaves, no explanation. It might look bad to the people Back East. Then again, maybe not. You could never tell with those guys.
*
Chuck Farrell watched as Ellen threw papers and tapes into a box.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing. Don’t worry about it.” Another tape clattered into the box. “He wants me to do a series on hiking accidents, but frankly, I don’t think I want to.”
“Where are you going?”
“I don’t know and I don’t care, Chuck, but I have to get out of here.”
“You know, Ellen,” he said softly, “we’re all just trying to earn a living. That’s all. We’re people doing a job. We’re all trying to survive.”
“Good for you, Chuck, but I can’t, not this way.” Her voice broke with the words. “I’m definitely not tough enough for this.”
She picked up the box and walked down the cubicle row. She paused at Carter’s office. He wasn’t there.
52
The night air was soft. A good night, she thought, March and still cool.
There wasn’t too much noise, some traffic moving in the distance, the gentle hum of a hundred television sets filtered through screened windows and open patio doors.
She sat in the car, her legs outside, feet on the ground. It never took long to move. She looked at the sky, black as that night in the forest. She had been so sick with fear that night, sick that the men who killed four or five people were there, hiding in the dark, waiting as she waited with her dolt of a photographer.
“Look,” the officers told her, “if these guys come, you run. Get into the woods. They’d love to get their hands on some television people.” They both nodded their blond, short-cropped heads.
She tried joking with
