Silencing Sam (33 page)

Even under the burka, his chest seemed to puff with pride.

“You have to admit,” he said, “Sam's murder was the perfect crime.”

I had to give him credit. It was perfect.

“Yours will be perfect, too,” he assured me. “This is better than a bullet. When police examine your broken body at the bottom of the turbine they'll conclude you either committed suicide out of guilt or simply fell to your death trespassing.”

Either cause of death would be believable. And from reading the accident reports of all the gruesome wind turbine workplace fatalities, I knew my broken body would be in bad shape. I just hoped my father didn't find it.

“Are you going to break the exclusive of my death?” I asked.

Clay shook his head. “Tempting as it is to land another big scoop, I called in sick today so I could follow you. I thought it best you die in another jurisdiction. Too many murders happening in Minneapolis.”

Then, faintly, I thought I heard my name being called but couldn't be sure. Clay didn't react, so it was probably my simple yearning for rescue.

But just in case I wasn't hallucinating, I started screaming, “Up here!”

I saw no downside in making Clay worry that the two of us were not alone. He gave up trying to pull me across the gap; instead he jumped over to my side of the chamber and grabbed me.

“Help!” I kept yelling. “On top!” As he and I struggled, I deliberately kicked off my other shoe, sending it down the ladder hole as a final cry for help. Hoping a Prince Charming might see the slipper and search up high for his Cinderella.

Clay and I struggled. He scratched my hands and arms; I tried gouging his face. He turned my body so my back was facing the ladder hole, and I couldn't gauge my proximity to the edge—and death. But I sensed mortality only inches away. Clay's back faced some revolving gears, so he was in no danger of falling down the abyss.

But I was. The back of my foot could feel the edge along the drop-off.

“You'll be long dead and I'll be at the network,” he said, taunting me.

“The Cartoon Network,” I managed to retort, pushing at him without much luck.

This could have been the moment when my life passed before my eyes and I bid farewell to our world. Instead, I found myself grappling with the central theme of
Don Quixote:
is it better to die delusional and happy, or live miserably but sane?

Perhaps if I imagined I was flying, the downward spiral in the wind turbine would be less horrific. Maybe heaven was like an eternal 40 share. I tried telling myself Hugh was waiting to catch me at the bottom and carry me over a cloudy threshold to an everlasting life together.

I had to think fast, before the abyss won. I opted to fight for
life, even if my last minutes were anguished, rather than succumb to the comfort of delusion.

Even though Clay wasn't more than a few inches taller than me, he was much stronger. To change circumstances, I reached into my pocket, feeling for some kind of weapon to wield, even just a pen. My fingers touched leather and fur. Figuring rabies was the least of my troubles, I pulled out the dead bat and pressed it against Clay's eyes.

He made a gagging sound and stepped back, dragging me with him, away from the drop-off. Not wanting to release his hold on me, he shook his head sideways to avoid the lifeless creature. I tried squishing the animal up Clay's nose, so he couldn't breathe, but his head covering was in the way.

I blinked when his veil flicked in my face, so I didn't see the flowing fabric sweep backward, catching in the spinning mass of the turbine's rotor and pulling him inside the sharp gears.

Clay dropped me to free his hands in an attempt to escape the mechanical monster.

His death was silent, it came so quickly and horribly. There was no time for either of us to scream.

Unlike his dead wife—who probably didn't bleed much when he cut off her head—Clay bled plenty.

His heart must have continued to beat as his limbs and head were ripped from his body by the twisty machine. I dropped to the floor, trying to shield my face from the red spray. My entire body was warm and sticky. My hair felt like it had too much mousse. Most of the floor, the walls, and the top rungs of the ladder were slippery from Clay's blood and my vomit. My gut was telling me future nightmares would be much worse than butchered chickens.

I didn't want to stay up high with what was left of Clay. But I was too shaken to climb down. And even though I was barely a mile from the farmhouse where I grew up, I had never felt so far from home.

Clay died with his cowboy boots on.

The first rescuer to arrive tripped over one of his legs. The wind team decided to lower me from the turbine to the ground rather than take me down the tower ladder.

They opened a small trapdoor on the chamber bottom and assured me they'd practiced this once before. Fastening a harness around my chest, they clipped a cable to the front. Slowly, they lowered me down to a crew on the ground. I closed my eyes tight until my feet hit dirt. Even then, I was too shaken to stand.

Word had spread from farm to farm that I was trapped on top of a turbine, so a crowd waited. So did Channel 3's camera. When Malik dropped the lens from his shoulder, his face looked pale. The close-up video of me ended up being too grisly to broadcast.

But repulsion didn't stop my parents from rushing to my side. Mom got there first, because of Dad's bad knees. She was crying. He was crying. I think I was crying, too. I didn't care anymore whether or not adult children should cry in front of their parents.

Vibrant splotches of red now decorated my mom's blouse from holding me, and I thought of Edgar Allan Poe, whose
mother, dying of tuberculosis, continually coughed up blood when she held him as a child. Maybe that parental horror inspired his literary genius. I prayed that something good would happen to me. Was there anything I could take from this bloody experience that could strengthen instead of shatter me?

Out of the corner of my eye, a shadow moved. I jerked back, bracing myself for one more terror, but a closer look revealed Nick Garnett, holding one of my shoes. My throat got all choky. And I knew he had answered my call for help.

At that moment, I was stalwart enough to tell him I loved him, out loud, in front of a throng of people. But I also knew that wasn't what he needed to hear just then.

“Mom, Dad, there's someone I want you to meet.”

Garnett swooped me up and it was like that final scene from
An Officer and a Gentleman
with Richard Gere and Debra Winger, only instead of Debra Winger, picture Sissy Spacek as Carrie, covered in pig's blood.

The farm crowd even cheered, like the sweatshop workers in the movie. I thought if the director could just roll the credits then, happily-ever-after would be mine.

Certainly, it could have been worse.

The cops considered charging me with killing Clay Burrel, too. But when the headless woman was identified through dental records as his wife, and when my Texas Face-book friend verified that one of Sam Pierce's last acts as a newsman was to nose around in Clay's private life. They dropped the murder charges against me.

Benny negotiated a plea bargain in which Toby surrendered to authorities for his part in the wind farm fatality. He was sentenced to five years for manslaughter at the federal prison camp in Duluth, where minimum-security male inmates are housed. He joined a prison program to train dogs for disabled people. Noreen divorced him.

After being sued under the Endangered Species Act, wind farms agreed to curtail turbines on slow wind nights during bat migration season after experiments showed bats were more likely to be on the move then.

• • •

DNA tests proved that baby Jimmy was Sam's child. He inherited two million dollars from his father's estate. His mother and grandparents are still locked in an ugly court fight for visitation.

The Minneapolis newspaper advertised for a new gossip columnist and received nearly five hundred applications, mostly from unqualified candidates. Then the paper went into bankruptcy and eliminated the position.

Buzz Stolee was traded to the L.A. Lakers.

The Saudis brought a second 747 to Rochester to carry all their spoils back home.

Father Mountain gave a sermon about how, while we all want terrorists and killers to be distant strangers, often the greatest danger comes from those closest to us, whom we would not suspect.

Judge Tregobov sentenced the dine-and-dash thief to pay restitution for his mooched meals and work eighty hours of community service in a kitchen for the homeless.

Channel 3 changed its social networking emphasis from Face-book to Twitter. Employees were ordered to recruit followers and break news by constantly tweeting 140-character messages.

• • •

Channel 3's story about the monarch migration was the highest-rated night of the sweeps month, higher even than the nights viewers were invited to tune in and look an accused murderer in the eye.

The numbers were helped by heavy promotion of Sophie completely covered in orange and black butterflies. A noise startled them and they scattered, leaving her standing in a Mexican jungle, wearing a string bikini.

I was so depressed Garnett promised to take me to see the butterflies for our honeymoon if I married him.

I told him I'd think about it.

My editor, Emily Bestler, tops the list of people I owe special thanks to for
Silencing Sam
. She made me feel welcome at Atria Books, and her words—after I handed in my manuscript—about enjoying the read so much, meant a great deal to me.

It hurts to write a book. My gal pals Kevyn Burger, Caroline Lowe, Trish Van Pilsum, and Michele Cook offered comfort and humor along the way.

The following folks earned my gratitude by sharing their special knowledge: Doug Jones and the Pioneer Prairie Wind Farm folks for bringing me into the world of wind turbines, and especially to Brodie Dockendors for giving me an up close look at the mechanical giants; Linda Anderson Carnahan for suggesting the wind turbine/bat connection; Sgt. Kathy Hughes for allowing me to tour the Hennepin County Jail with the Citizens' Academy and Hennepin County Sheriff Deputy Andy Peterson and his explosives detection dog, Bunny; St. Paul K-9 officer Mark Ficcadenti for his training talent; Judy Baccas for telling me about a special night in her life; Liz Zilka for her knowledge of airbrush makeup; Joe Kimball for his word puzzle expertise; Scott Libin for discussing how television stations deal with dirty words on the air; Vernon Geberth, author of
Practical Homicide Investigation;
Dr. D. P. Lyle, author of
Forensics
; and especially to Dakota County Medical Examiner Dr. Lindsay Thomas, who looks death in the eye each day with class.

The rest of the gang at Atria for all they did for
Silencing Sam
: assistant editor Laura Stern for handling numerous details; Jeanne Lee for cover design; Isolde Sauer for production and copyediting; Mellony Torres for publicity; Rachel Bostic for marketing; and my publisher, Judith Curr, and associate publisher, Chris Lloreda.

Agent Elaine Koster and her associate Stephanie Lehmann did more for me this past year than there is room to tell.

Kinfolk merit mention for their work in building buzz about my series (although I suspect their help stems from their joy in seeing their names in the back of a book): Ruth Kramer and her red hat ladies; George and Shirley Kimball and their church gang; Rosemary and Don Spartz and their Lake Summerset neighbors; Mae Klug and my entourage of cousins, especially Beth Klug and Rosemary Jacobs; all my far-flung Spartz- and Kramer-rooted cousins, many of whom I've become reacquainted with through Facebook; Jerry and Elaine Kramer; Joe and Delores Spartz; Tom and Rena Fitzpatrick; Jerry and June Kimball; and Lorraine Kehl. My siblings and their families: Teresa and Galen Neuzil with Rachel; Bonnie and Roy Brang; Mary Agnes Kramer; Steve and Mary Kramer with Matthew and Elizabeth; Kathy and Jim Loecher with Adriana and Zach; Mike Kramer; Christina Kramer; Richard and Oti Kramer; Jenny and Kile Nadeau with Rebecca, David, and Daniel; Jessica and Richie Miehe with Lucy; George Kimball and Shen Fei with Shi Shenyu (Huan); Nick Kimball and Gannet Tseggai; Mary and David Benson with Davin; Steve Kimball with Craig; Paul Kimball; James Kimball; Vicki and Paul Blum; and four generations of friends and relatives in the Adams, MN, area, including my school teachers and 4-H leaders.

My children have all grown up loving to read, and their pride in having an author for a mom keeps me writing through the rough patches. My thanks to Alex and Andrew—the best kids anywhere; Katie and Jake Kimball—Minnesotans in their hearts always; and Joey and David Kimdon—with dear Aria and Arbor.

And always, to my darling, Joe.