Details at Ten (6 page)

Zeke backpedaled the way we’d just come, shooting the scene all the while.

We had great position: the professor had to pass right by me. When he got close, I stuck my mike in his face. “Professor, what’s going on?”

The man was giddy. “They found my little boy. He rode off on his bike. They have him at the police station at Fifty-first and Went-worth!”

“Your son’s safe and unharmed?”

“Yes! Thank God, yes!”

The professor jumped into his car and we shot more video of him driving off. Now all the crews scrambled to their trucks and headed for the police station to get the reunion picture—the capper to the story, the moment he sees his little boy and hugs him. Everyone would be live from the cop shop. I called back to the station and told them what happened and where we were headed. I felt so much better. Now the Hyde Park kid was found. We’d get the reunion picture, I’d write a short package, go live with it from the cop shop at six. Then I could fight for doing Butter’s story for the ten o’clock news, which is our bigger audience anyway.

Hey-now, I felt like my luck was changing.

Everything went as planned. We got the huggy-kissy picture we wanted of the little boy and his dad. We got a shot of the red bike with the high-mounted handlebars; the little boy grinning, two teeth missing in the front, holding his Batman action figure.

As soon as we wrapped, I saw Detective Doug Eckart. The man actually looked better than he did when I first met him. He was leaning against a corner wall near the front desk reading a report on the counter. One hand was up cupping his head and the other arm was resting on the counter. His sleeves were up, the flat folds of white resting against the tan muscles of his arms. I walked over to him. I needed help.

I stuck out my hand. “Remember me?”

“Yes.” He smiled warmly. “I remember my five-minute exclusive.”

“But you don’t remember to return phone calls?”

He dropped his head and chuckled. “I’m sorry. I’ve been swamped.”

“Okay, well why not make it up to me then—”

“Sorry, I’m not working the professor’s case so I can’t give you an interview.”

“No, I’m all set on that. Anything new with the drive-by?”

“No suspects in custody,” he said, and I watched his body posture get a little stiff and guarded. I was talking about his case now. He got super-serious in a heartbeat.

“But you know who you’re looking for?”

“I don’t have anything for you right now.” His voice was serious but his eyes were smiling.

“C’mon, Detective. Did the evidence at the scene turn up anything? Anything at all?”

“I’ve got some paperwork to do.”

“Wait,” I said, stepping in his path. He drew back, seemingly amused, and I felt as if he was toying with me, but not maliciously.

“I need a favor.”

“I told you,” Detective Eckart said, moving around me, gently touching my shoulder.

“No, this has nothing to do with the drive-by. There’s another child missing. A little girl named Butter. She’s been missing for about twenty-four hours. Her mother, Kelly, called police and they wouldn’t do anything. Then she called me. She was hysterical. I had promised to cover the story and they blew me out of it to do this one. Butter lives over at Fiftieth and South Hedge.”

“That’s the hot zone. Bandits’ and Rockies’ territory.”

“I know. My bosses didn’t want to cover her story because they assumed that a poor little black girl in that kind of neighborhood is a runaway or a troublemaker and it’s wasted air time.”

Detective Eckart grunted sympathetically.

“Of course I fought to cover her disappearance, but early on I lost. Now with this case wrapped up, I’m planning to go over to Butter’s house and finally do her story.”

“You’re a scrapper,” he said admiringly.

“You bet. If I don’t fight for this story it won’t get done. I’m determined.”

“Good.”

“But I need help from you, Detective. I was wondering if you could ask the squads in the area to look around for her? Maybe get a beat cop to talk to the mother? If you ask, they’ll do it. It’s just that we, the media, and you guys, the police, pulled out all the stops for this little boy and no one wants to give the time of day to Butter.”

“Except you,” Detective Eckart said, his voice relaxing as he leaned against the wall again. “And now me. Sure I’ll alert a couple of the guys. Give me the name and address of the family.”

“Thank you, Detective,” I said, writing down the information for him.

“Doug is fine.”

“And you can call me Georgia. I owe you one.”

“I collect all my debts, too.”

His voice sounded so cute I raised an eyebrow. “Oh you do?”

“Yes, ma’am,” he said folding up the paper I’d written the information down on. Doug winked, “See ya.”

I wanted to stop him, make him stay, talk to him a bit longer. “Any witnesses in the drive-by?”

Doug stopped and gave me an incredibly straight face.

“C’mon, Doug, there’s no camera here. Give me something. A little something so I can stay on top of this story.”

Doug smiled slyly and said, “Can I trust you?”

“Ask around.”

“Oh, I did,” he offered solemnly.

“What? I know my rep is solid.” Then his gorgeous eyes softened. He was playing with me again.

“Let’s just say that we have an idea of who we want to talk to.”

“You wouldn’t want to go on camera and tell me that, wouldya?”

Doug stonewalled, crossing his arms in front of him. “You’re pushing your luck again, lady.”

“Okay, okay … thanks again for helping Butter. I’m going to call her mother with the good news now.”

“Fine, you just do that,” Doug said wistfully.

I ran back to the news truck and called Butter’s mother, Kelly. It took a few minutes for her to warm up to me but she was very happy when I told her the police would be by soon to help. While I had her on the phone I got a description of Butter for the story I was planning to railroad through for the ten o’clock news. I had made up my mind to fight for it despite how bad the humbug might become. I was thinking knockout. Muhammad Ali mode. Float like a butterfly and all that jazz.

I was repeating Butter’s description as I wrote it down. “Four feet tall, thin, brown eyes and brown hair. Hair in little braids. Wearing a pink and white dress, torn.”

Kelly said, “You remember her, don’t you? She’s the little girl you interviewed!”

I recalled the events of that day and struggled to picture the little girl.
Oh wait!
Then I got an ugly connection in my mind. “Kelly, let me get back to you, okay?”

I hung up the phone and yelled, “Zeke!”

“What?” he yelled back. Zeke came from around the other side of the truck. He was holding a long black strand of cable used to set up our live shot. Zeke’s right arm went up like a waiter holding a tray and he began looping the cable around his open palm and his elbow so it could be stored easily.

“Did you record that newsbreak I did at the drive-by?”

“No, I didn’t have time. But I had them roll on it back at the station. I always like to grab the tape later to take a peek, to make sure I got you guys lookin’ good.”

“Is it here in the truck?”

“Yeah, it’s here, somewhere.” Zeke started searching through a stack of black Beta tapes on the floor of the live truck. “Here!” he said, holding it up. Then he played it for me.

“Cue it up again!” I ran back inside the cop shop and grabbed Doug by the arm. “You’ve got to see something.”

The urgency in my voice forced him to follow. We reached the news truck and I told Zeke, “Play it.”

There I was and there was little Butter on tape. “I seent a car. This real dark black boy with a scar, he was dressed all in yellow, and just shooting his gun!”

Zeke looked at us and we looked at Zeke. He rewound the tape, played it again, then froze it.

“That’s the missing girl, Doug. That’s Butter.”

Doug’s face lost a shade of color and gained a stony cast. “Butter saw the shooter and admitted being a witness on live television. That’s how the word got out on the street who the shooter was in the drive-by. Now the one person who really saw it all and could be a witness in court is missing.”

“Tell me again, Doug, which gang uses the color yellow?”

“The Rockies. That’s our suspect, a top-ranking punk in the Rockies. I’m going to Butter’s house to see her mother.”

“That makes two of us,” I said. “Because I’m right on your heels.”

B
utter Where Are U?

That was the message written in white chalk on the sidewalk in front of the two-story frame house where Butter lived.

Butter Where Are U?

All the other front porches on the block were crowded with people because it was too hot to be cooped up inside. But no crowd was on the front porch of Butter’s house. There was no one.

Doug and I stopped at the gate and waited for Zeke to get all of the equipment out of the truck. Doug used a hankie to wipe the sweat off his neck. “Damn, it’s hot!”

It was, too. The air seemed to bubble inside my lungs every time I took a breath. But I wasn’t thinking about the heat. I was thinking about Butter. Dog, I was feeling guilty as the devil. I was the one who put Butter on-air. Yes, Bing was yelling in my ear and he said to go with it but I’m no rookie reporter. I didn’t start doing this at sunrise today. I’m a veteran and I should have just pulled my earplug out and done the live shot the way I wanted to; the way I planned to. But Bing is my boss and he’ll have major input on whether or not I sign a new contract with WJIV. It makes me angry that I have to cater to him and his bogus news ideas but what can I do? It’s his newsroom. I can only buck him so much and survive.

Butter Where Are U?,
I read again.

Was she alive? Did they kill her? I’d been thinking about that on the way over. Finally, standing at the gate, I got the nerve to ask Doug his opinion.

“Well,” he spoke softly, then glanced up at the sky. “She’s been gone a day. The Rockies aren’t sophisticated. They’re upstarts. The other times they’ve killed it’s been in shoot-outs, drive-bys, and robberies. They leave bodies out in the open, front and center.”

“So what do you think?”

“Best-case scenario?”

“Please.”

“I think they’ve got Butter and don’t quite know what to do. I think they’re trying to scare her to make sure she keeps her mouth shut. They won’t kill her unless they really have to.”

Doug’s words of hope were like drops of water. I lapped them up with a parched and guilty conscience as I leaned back against the gate. My chin dropped forward.

“Hey,” Doug said, moving in close and leaning against the gate with me. “None of that.”

I couldn’t say a word.

“Georgia, look at me.”

Our eyes met and we exchanged an urgent look.

“I know what you’re feeling right now but you can’t blame yourself for what’s happened. Georgia, you weren’t trying to put that little girl in jeopardy. There’s no way you could have known it would turn out like this. How could you? I’ve only known you a little while but my gut tells me that you’re careful and you’re compassionate.”

Then why was I guilt-tripping so hard? Doug’s firm and soothing words crept inside my soul and warmed it. Drawn to him, I reached out and touched his forearm. He gave me a reassuring smile. Now Zeke was walking toward us carrying his gear but before we drew apart Doug stroked my back and said gallantly, “C’mon, let’s go inside and tackle this thing together.”

We walked to the door and rang the bell. I was surprised when a minister—a pudgy, gray-skinned man—answered. He had an engaging smile and his large, pointy ears shifted hard each time he flashed that smile. Black freckles lined his forehead, too. He had on a white short-sleeve shirt with jagged perspiration stains on the collar and underarms. A silver crucifix caught the glimmers of sunlight that came in through the open doorway behind us.

“Ms. Barnett, please come in.” His voice had that preachy, deep, it’s-baptizing-time tone. “I’m Reverend Kyle Walker. The family asked me to come.”

They were probably crazy with worry and needed to feel that some kind of higher power was working for them. I hoped it was, for Butter’s sake. And mine.

Four big oval fans stood in each corner blowing into the living room. The connecting rooms were blocked off at the doorways by heavy coal-gray blankets tacked onto the beams. The blankets absorbed the heat but they also killed nearly all of the sunlight in the room.

“This is the Stewart family.” Reverend Walker motioned with outstretched arms.

It was so dark I had to squint to see where he was directing us. Butter’s family was sitting quietly on the couch. Calling it a couch is giving this piece of furniture the benefit of the doubt. It was really a small love seat missing an arm and butted up against the wall to keep it from falling over.

There was a plump elderly woman, clutching a Bible, with hair as white as washing powder, pressed, oiled, and pulled all the way back in a neat bun. She didn’t wear any makeup or jewelry and she had on a blue-and-white-striped cotton pullover dress. She wore fuzzy terry-cloth house slippers with the toes out and beige knee-highs rolled down around her ankles.