Chapter Nine: The Scoop
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Television may have prime time but in radio we have two of them. The most important time of the day for advertisers is what we call “Morning Drive” which stretches from about 5:00 a.m. until 9:00 a.m. That’s the time when most people are driving or otherwise commuting to work. In the mornings people are stressed and in a hurry since there are usually consequences to being even five minutes late to work.
The second most important time of the day is “Afternoon Drive” when people are trying to get home. You might think this would be a more relaxed period but what research has found is that people are even more anxious then to make it to the house or the local watering hole with enough time to spare to have a life before succumbing to the need for sleep and the preparations for another day serving their corporate masters.
On this afternoon drive, the radio studios were packed with people from all dayparts as we awaited this big station-wide meeting. All of the seats in the newsroom were taken and the human generated noise level was on high drowning out the police scanners and even the voice of afternoon drive anchor and Santa Ana native Craig T. Barker coming out of the speakers above the door to the announcer booth.
“What do you think it’s about?” Eddie Solis finished his sixth cup of coffee of the day, folded the supposedly environmentally friendly paper cup, and tossed it with a Kareem Abdul-Jabbar style skyhook into the recycling bin against the far wall. Impressive considering Eddie was probably in sixth-grade max when Kareem retired from the NBA and at 35 Eddie was one of our older behind the scenes guys.
“This place is toast,” Business Editor Yoshiro Negishi said. Negishi loosened his pastel tie and leaned back in his chair. “We should have been out of business two years ago. No clue how the old man and Mrs. H kept the plates spinning as long as they have.”
“Are you serious?” Eddie put his head in his hands. “My wife just told me we’re pregnant again.”
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here,” I laid a hand on Eddie’s shoulder offering him more comfort than was prudent. “There are still a lot of moves that have to be made before they kick us all out onto Sansome Street.”
“Whatever happens, it will be for the best,” that prompted a double-take not just from me but from the whole crowd coming as it did from Isabella, known as the most cynical and foul-mouthed person on staff.
“What the hell have you been smoking?” Yoshiro asked. He picked up his Peabody award from three years back and start to polish it with a small piece of felt he kept inside a leather case in his desk.
“Nothing yet you sanctimonious ass,” Isabella was back to the loveable demeanor we’re used to from her. “I’m just saying anything will be better than showing up everyday not knowing if your keycard will let you in the building. I’m just ready for some fucking answers.”
No one had anything to say to that and trust me it takes something to shut up a group of radio people. I thought back to eight years earlier when I had arrived in San Francisco fresh from winning my own Peabody in Sacramento. At the time I had thought I had never seen a more technologically sophisticated radio station in my life. Now this same room with its fading paint, threadbare carpets and old computers seemed a step or two away from the broadcasting museum.
No doubt the place had seen better days. That was a time when the Internet was in its infancy, when cell phones were large contraptions primarily focused on letting you make calls, and owning a radio or television permit was very close to having a license from the government to print money.
Now if you give a shit about the news or the weather or the stock market or who won today’s games, you probably already have the information before you get in your car and if you don’t give a shit you’re probably not listening to all-news radio anyway.
I slipped my earbuds back over my ears and finished editing my fourth and final version of the Clarence and Sally Druthers story for morning drive. Since I didn’t plan to be up at 5:00 a.m. when the story would air, I had to have several prerecorded versions ready for the morning audience. I had already done two with sound from Sally and one with sound from Mira Hansson. The final one was just told in my own words and included the basics of my earlier meetings with Clarence from before the murder. This was designed to run after a reader-act that told the basics of the story.
I had two edits to go when Eddie shook my shoulder and pointed at the row of televisions hanging above the editor’s desk. I paused the sound editing program, popped the earbuds out, and looked up.
“Hey McKay,” afternoon news editor Gimja Sayid held up a hand quieting the room and pointed her remote control at the TV showing the Channel Five news. “It looks like your lady friend Cynthia Ito has an update on your story.”
This brought a round of laughter from the crowd who knew about my less than passionate relationship with the woman I considered Gil O’Bannon’s dupe. Gimja held her hand over her head like she was the smartest kid in class trying to bring the room to order. When it did she brought the volume up on the TV.
The screen showed the exterior of the Druthers home then Cynthia walked in from the right side of the frame and spoke directly to the camera.
“I’m standing in front of the victim’s home in the Sunset,” Cynthia transferred the microphone from her left hand to her right then used her left to make a sweeping motion taking in the ordinary looking home. “Sources tell Channel Five news investigators have made a major break in the case late this afternoon. It’s possible, these well-placed sources tell me, arrests could be imminent. It’s also possible, according to the same sources, this murder could be tied to high-level corruption within the city’s bureaucracy. I will have more details tonight on Channel Five News at 11:00. In San Francisco, Cynthia Ito, Channel Five News.”
By the time the anchor was back on camera teasing the prime-time drama that leads into their 11:00 news I was already on the phone trying to reach Vince. His cell phone rang four times before it went to voice mail. I left a message for him to call me asap. His desk phone went directly to voicemail.
I pulled up Mira Hansson’s cell phone. She answered on the second ring.
“Mira, it’s McKay. What do you know about a break in the Druthers case?”
“Dylan, slow down,” It sounded like Mira was driving somewhere while juggling her cell phone, something that’s perfectly legal for a police official in performance of her duties. A lot of people don’t know that and keep filling our tip boxes with supposed scoops of cell phone pictures showing police officers failing to heed the hands-free law. “What are you talking about?”
“Cynthia Ito just teased a major break in the Druthers case for eleven,” I was so focused on my conversation that I barely noticed a group of three people entering the newsroom, passing the employees, and climbing the steps to the second floor conference room overlooking the newsroom.
“News to me,” Mira said. Bass-heavy hip hop made it hard to hear her, I assumed coming from a car next to her on the road. Mira seemed more the smooth jazz type to me, but I guess I could be wrong. “Let me make some calls and I’ll get back to you.”
“I have ten minutes left in afternoon drive.”
“I said I would make some calls. I’ll do it as fast I can safely.” Before I could respond, she had hung up.
I tried Vince’s phones again with the same result as before. I tried the detective’s squad to see if the JJ’s were there but the secretary told me they were still out working a case. The Channel Five web site was no help and a Google News search turned up nothing either.
“Should I leave a slot for you, McKay?” Gimja asked.
I shook my head and held my hands out palms up. I had nothing. I stared at the digital clock counting up to the end of drivetime.
“6:56:59” had just changed to “6:57:00” when I felt the vibration in my coat pocket that precedes my ring tone by about a second and a half. The phone was to my ear before the music activated and the clock reached “6:57:03.”
“McKay”
“Dyl, it’s Vince,” I would have known that if I had taken the extra three seconds to look at the phone before I answered it.
“I have two minutes and fifty seconds. So what’s the big break in the case?” My reporter’s notebook was open, an actual old school pen in my hand ready to take notes.
“I wish I knew.”
The tip of my pen froze about two inches over the notebook paper.
“Come on Vince, I don’t have time, how could you not know?”
“Funny, those are almost the exact words I just heard from Assistant Chief Poung,” Vince’s rueful laugh broke off after a chuckle and a half. “I will tell you if I had a good answer to that question, I would have given it to her and not saved it for you, buddy.”
“So Cynthia Ito…”
“6:57:40”
“Either she has better law enforcement sources than the Captain in charge of the homicide squad or she is completely and exhaustively full of shit.”
“Or both,” I thought but didn’t say. Gimja was looking at me and so, it appeared, was everyone else in the newsroom. I shook my head, thumbs down, defeated. I could have sworn I heard a moan from all of my newsroom colleagues.
“Could the JJ’s have come up with something and not gotten around to telling you yet?”
“They better not have. They know I’ll kick their asses.”
“Cynthia’s a stooge,” I put the notebook and the pen back into my desk drawer. “But she wouldn’t just make something like this up. Plus someone in her newsroom had to sign off on this, especially if they’re making it a promotable for eleven.”
“6:59:15”
I could hear the sounder start to come under Barker’s voice, counting down the seconds to the tone at the top of the hour marking the start of the network newscast and the end of drivetime. It would end without an update from me and nothing makes me angrier than the idea that someone else is ahead of a story that I’m on especially a story like this one that I was way ahead of everyone else until just a few minutes ago.
“Did you talk to Blake?”
“Yeah,” I said trying to keep my eye off the clock. “He sounded a little weird but he’s on the case. I’m supposed to pick him up at Caltrain in the morning and take him out to that house.”
“Excellent. If anyone can figure out what’s going on here, he can,” Vince paused. “Unless Cynthia Ito already has it all solved by then.
“Fat chance,” I said as Barker twirled his earbud cords around a white holder while stepping out of the booth. “Alright my friend, time’s up here. If you’re home by eleven, we can watch Cynthia together.”
“Deal,” Vince clicked off.
“Alright folks, glad you could all make it, now do you think you could all make it upstairs?” Guy’s voice boomed across the newsroom. It took a beat and a half for most of us to spot his bald head hanging over the balcony from the conference room a floor up.
About six years ago I had the honor and misfortune of witnessing an execution at San Quentin. I’ll never forget a detail of that surreal night from the plastic candleholders of the protesters gathered outside my window as I entered the main parking lot to the antiseptic smell of the corridors leading to the death chamber to the looks on the faces of the witnesses as we filed in to the bewildered face of the condemned man just before and after the chemicals took effect.
For some reason that experience flashed back in my mind as I looked at my friends and colleagues standing in line to walk up the stairs to the meeting that could determine our professional lives.
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