Today was shaping up to be one of those days where every ounce of me would be needed to make it through the newscast. Since Scott and I were the first news crew on the scene, that meant we’d have to wait around the longest of all the media types who would show up eventually for an update from a police spokesman.
My heart breaks knowing how this ends. It’s the little girl. I have been doing this long enough to read the room. This is an all-hands-on-deck to secure the area effort. No one from the newsroom was calling. Sources were drying up. No one wants to talk, or they see it as too risky to confirm.
It was unseasonably warm for mid-October, but Chicago weather can be funny that way. Sometimes it snows in April. Freakishly, in the summer of 1995, in a city known for its bitter cold and hawkish wind, nearly eight hundred people died here from the heat.
The jewel of the Midwest offered a taste of life in a variety of flavors. And I’d had a dose of just about all of them in the past three years. Covering violent crime was humbling and terrifying. This beat has forced me to go to the dark end of the street my parents warned me about while I was growing up near a sketchy part of Southeast Austin. It was a wasteland of two-bit liquor lounges and abandoned buildings where addicts went to shoot up and dealers went to recruit. All this took place three blocks west of our growing black middle-class neighborhood of split-level, partial brick single-family homes. Since I left Austin for graduate school in Missouri, the area has been regentrified and is home to seven-figure condominiums, trendy restaurants, and music lounges in a city already full of them.
My mother, Eleanor, a brave and fair-minded woman, was convinced I’d become a lawyer. She would have lost all her bingo money winnings on the bet. But her sage advice has gotten me through way too many gut-wrenching moments in which I questioned whether there were any good people left as I stared at a body being loaded into an ambulance at a crime scene. She’s warned me not to linger in the dark places for too long.
“You’ll fall into despair if you keep trying to step into the shoes of the people going through this kind of trauma. I raised you to be empathetic, sweetheart, but God doesn’t require all this of you. Leave it at the office.”
But there was no office for me to store the heavy emotional baggage I lug around to do this job. I never understood why colleges and universities stuck courses in journalism and marketing/advertising in the same schools. The disposition my job requires is more akin to a surgeon’s or a psychiatrist’s. I must constantly remind myself to turn away from other people’s despair and move toward the light that glows in my own life. It’s a fragile balance; it’s made me hard at times, but just as often, softer than I needed to be.
My cell phone vibrated in my pocket. It was Joey. “Hey, Joe-Joe, what you got?” I asked.
“You still at the scene?” he asked.
“Yeah. I’ll be here all day, most likely,” I said.
“Well, I don’t know much yet. One of my guys did confirm that a body was recovered from a weed-infested lot over there. And I got an email about a news conference at 45th and Calumet today at one-thirty,” Joey said.
I immediately called Ellen to let her know that I had confirmed the tip with a source inside the police department.
“Did they say whether it was a man or a woman?” Ellen asked.
“No,” I responded. Neither of us stated what we feared and tried to remain positive, as if the mind could simply erase the body lying nearby, or will it not to be the person we already suspected it was.
“Okay, I’m heading into the news meeting now,” she said. “Good work, Jordan. Keep an eye on your phone. I’ll text you when I get out of the meeting.”
Down the block, I noticed a crowd had gathered across the street from the crime scene. Neighbors, I imagined. One woman was crouched down on a stoop. I turned back toward Scott.
“I’m going to walk down there and try to talk to them,” I said.
“The cops are gonna stop you,” Scott warned.
“They can try,” I said.
As I gained on the police barricades, an officer who looked all of fifteen years old spotted me and approached swiftly to head me off like a Bears defensive tackle.
Okay, rookie, settle down.
At that moment, I caught the attention of the woman on the stoop, and I waved to her like we were old friends. I stopped in my tracks and waited for the young officer to approach.
“Ma’am, we’re not letting anyone past this point,” he said, far more politely than the cop had earlier.
“I can appreciate that,” I said with a slight smile. “I’m just trying to get to my friend’s house over there. See? She just waved at me. See?” I said, and waved again at the stranger, who waved back.
“Okay, but you have to stay on that side of the street,” he said.
“No problem,” I said.
I walked toward my unknown but willing accomplice, who’d stepped away from the group gathered near the corner. In her mid to late thirties, the woman wore her hair braided with a detailed precision that must have taken hours, pulled into a ponytail that hung down her back.
I surveyed those around her. It was a quarter after nine.
Most of these folks just climbed out of bed.
I extended my hand and introduced myself and instantly got the feeling this woman was glad to see me.
“Hi, how are you? Thanks for your help back there. I wasn’t sure they’d let me by,” I said. “I’m Jordan Manning with Channel 8.”
“I know who you are,” she said shyly. “Tanya. McMillan,” she said, breaking her name into two distinct parts the way Mama says JOR-dan when she is exasperated with me. “So, what’s going on over there?”
I wasn’t about to tell her that a dead body had been found across the street from her house, not before I tell the rest of Chicago.
“I’m not sure, but police are calling it a crime scene,” I said. “Do you live here? Did you see or hear anything overnight?”
“Yeah, I live here with my mother,” she said. “I didn’t see anything going on last night. Everybody is saying they found someone dead. This morning, a bunch of orange jumpsuits was over there at about seven-thirty. I guess that’s who the city finally sent out here to clean up that lot. They worked a good forty-five minutes, and next thing you know, the place was crawling with cops.”
“Orange jumpsuits?” I asked. “Did they say Cook County Jail on them?”
“Yeah . . . they did,” she said in a tone and with a shrug of her shoulders that let me know she thought I’d asked a naive question. “You know how you see those guys out on the expressway picking up garbage? It was that kind of crew.”
“Ms. McMillan, have you told anyone else about this?” I asked.
“No, other than my neighbors and my moms. You’re the only person I’ve talked to today,” she said.
Damn! I wish I could’ve gotten all that on-camera. But there was no way I was getting over here with Scott in tow.
My phone vibrated in my pocket. It was Scott. WE’VE GOT TO GET READY TO ROLL. I’d missed an earlier text from Ellen. WE’RE LEADING WITH BREAKING NEWS.
I turned to Tanya. “Thank you so much, Tanya,” I said, making certain to say her name, another valuable lesson I learned from Mom.
“When someone tells you their name for the first time, look them in the eyes and repeat it back to them. You won’t forget the name and they won’t forget you tried to make a connection. You never know who you will need.”
“We’re about to do a live broadcast,” I told Tanya. “Would you mind saying on-camera what you just told me?”
Tanya McMillan’s smile grew sheepish, and she dropped her head a little. “I don’t wanna be on TV. Look at my hair,” she said, then suddenly looked down at her outfit. “I need to change clothes first!” she exclaimed.
To me she looked great. But as a woman in television who is often criticized for what I wear, the color of my lipstick, and definitely my hair style, I get it. “Girl, I wish we had time for you to change,” I said, code-switching into the Jordan my friends knew.
I know we just met, Tanya, but I need for you to trust me.
“I’ve got to do a live segment in less than five minutes,” I continued. “You look beautiful, and the shot will only be from the chest up. I promise. You look great.”
It wasn’t a lie. She looked like someone on her way to work in a blue polo uniform shirt with a company logo and khakis. She might not look as nice as she would have liked to, but she did look put together and relatable, from my perspective, unlike the people the women at the beauty salon always complained about. “Why do news reporters go out and interview people who make you cringe or still in their hair rollers?” asked Estelle, the receptionist there.
Believe me, it’s not on purpose.
“Okay, come on, girl,” I said. “Let’s go!”
As we hurried back to Scott, a voice called out from behind, “Tanya! Where are you going?”
“I’ll be back, Mama!” she screamed. “I’m about to do an interview on TV!”
The commotion drew attention from the officers at the scene. As we passed the baby-faced cop, he gave me the side-eye. I responded, mouthing the words thank you with an apologetic smile.
By the time we reached Scott, I had less than three minutes to script the segment. I brought him and the field producer, who’d arrived as I went fishing for information, up to speed.
“I’ve got a resident interview. This is Tanya McMillan,” I said.
“Hi, Tanya, how are you?” Scott asked.
“Good,” she responded.
My heart pounded, not only because I was on deadline but because the plot was thickening. A prison crew had discovered a body. Not the surge of cops Fawcett had described earlier out looking for Masey.
Diana Sorano: “We begin today’s broadcast with breaking news on the South Side of Chicago. Channel 8’s Jordan Manning is in Bronzeville, where we are told there has been a gruesome discovery. We go to Jordan live now to tell us more.”
“Good morning, Diana. I don’t know if you can see it from here, but in the distance behind me is an overgrown playground at 45th Street and Calumet Avenue that police are calling a crime scene. Sources inside the department have confirmed that human remains were found here this morning below the ‘L’ tracks.”
I turned to Tanya, who had a horrified look on her face. Shit! In my haste, I’d forgotten to confirm the rumor she heard well before I got there.
Please, Tanya. Keep it together.
“With me is Tanya McMillan. She lives across the street from where the body was found. Earlier today, she saw a crew of prisoners from Cook County Jail in the lot. What were they doing, Tanya?”
“Um, they were cleaning up,” said Tanya, looking and sounding stunned. “Me and my mom were like, ‘Hallelujah! It’s about time,’” she said, replaying the moment as if her Oscar depended on it. “We’ve been trying to get the city to come out and clear that lot for months! They ignored us!”
Tanya’s rounded cheeks were now puffed up in anger. Her eyes sloped. It now hit her in real time what I had just revealed live. I felt horrible about my omission, but I was on live television. I had to go on.
“Oh my God, and that little girl is missing!” Tanya had officially made the unconfirmed connection and lost it. “Oh my God!”
Why? Why did she allude to Masey? Damn it!
I angled my body to the left, away from Tanya. Scott picked up on my cue and focused the shot on me.
“Diana, as you can see, this news is very upsetting to folks here. Tanya told me earlier that her mother and some of the neighbors went to City Hall only a week ago to file a complaint about the condition of the abandoned playground.”
Diana Sorano: “Jordan, what do we know about the victim?”
“Diana, nothing definitive yet. Obviously people are worried it could be connected to the Masey James case, but I stress, no one here has confirmed that. We have to keep in mind Masey’s family are likely hearing this news and fear the worst. Police have scheduled a news conference today at one-thirty here at the scene. Hopefully, they’ll be able to tell us more then. Back to you, Diana.”
I pivoted toward Tanya.
“Tanya,” I said.
“Yeah!” She was a different person from the one I’d met less than ten minutes ago.
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you about the discovery before we went on the air,” I said. “In my haste and on deadline . . . and I was worried about getting back across the police barricades. I’m sorry. I had a lot going on in my head. Are you okay?”
Tanya paused, as if she had to think about her answer, her head tilted slightly to the left. “No!” she exclaimed. “I’m scared! What else do you know that you’re not telling me?” she asked.
“That’s all I know, and what you told me was very helpful, by the way,” I said, trying to calm her down. “Thank you.”
A tear slowly rolled down her right cheek. “It’s like we take one step forward and two steps back. We’re trying to build a safe community. How are we supposed to do that now?”
I didn’t have an answer for her.
“I bet it’s that girl,” Tanya said, shaking her head in disagreement with her own words. “I bet it’s that girl,” she repeated.
* * *
The news conference was pushed back to three-thirty. I hadn’t eaten anything since I left the house. By the time noon rolled around, Scott and I were no longer the only media on the scene. Police had erected privacy crime scene barriers around the spot where the body had been found beneath the “L” tracks and gradually allowed the media, which had blocked traffic on the residential street, to move in closer.
Scott had done his best before the privacy screens went up to zoom in to capture a decent shot of the overgrown lot from behind the barricades. But it was Baby Smierciak who got the money shot. Putting his agility to work, he’d managed to scale a fire escape on the building adjacent to the playground and got off a few overhead shots that provided the best view of the property’s ragged conditions before investigators noticed him and threatened to arrest him.
GOT A GREAT SHOT! UPLOADING IT, he texted, with an image attached of investigators standing around, their necks craned forward, peering down at a dark-colored tarp.
YOU’RE A GENIUS! I texted back.
I forwarded the image to Tracy to accompany my next broadcast. “Hey, this might be good for a teaser before the four o’clock news,” I told her.
By 3:20 p.m., all eyes were on Linda Folson, the public information officer for the Chicago PD. She had just arrived on the scene. She was easy to spot: a tall woman, at least five-eleven, with graying sandy blond hair and a perpetually grim look. In her job, though, it worked in her favor.
At three-thirty on the dot, Folson stood before a podium the department had set up adjacent to the crime scene.
“Good afternoon, members of the press,” Folson began somberly. “Thank you for your patience.”
Then she got right to the point.
“This morning at 8:13 a.m., we received a call from Cook County Sheriff’s Police that a crew of prisoners from the county jail on work detail had discovered human remains under the ‘L’ tracks at 45th Street and Calumet Avenue.”
Folson’s words came in rapid succession. “The victim is an African American female, approximately five feet nine inches tall. The remains are now with the Cook County medical examiner. Police will continue to work here at the scene collecting DNA evidence. We have no further information on the victim’s identity or cause of death. But police have opened a homicide investigation. We ask anyone with any information to call the crime hotline by dialing 311. Also, we’re asking the media to please respect the privacy of the residents here in the immediate area. We’ll update you as information becomes available. That’s all I have. No questions at this time. Thank you.”
Before the word you had left her lips, Folson went into full retreat. She scampered away from the podium quickly, ignoring calls of “Linda! LIN-da!” at her back. Not from me, though. I’d turned to stone.
“Jordan, we’re going back to the desk,” field producer Tracy said through my earpiece. “You’re clear.”
I was grateful. “The victim is an African American female” had temporarily halted my breathing.
Scott saw it in my face. “It doesn’t mean it’s her,” he said, reading my thoughts.
Why would police reveal the race and gender of the victim to the public before they had made a positive ID?
“It’s irresponsible!” I said, incredulous, the words struggling to keep up with my growing outrage. “I mean, isn’t it?” looking at Scott.
“What’s irresponsible? I don’t follow you,” he said.
“For police to release that kind of detail about the victim when there’s a child missing who fits that description!” I said.
Was Pam watching?
Her words were in my head from that day in the booth at the back of the coffee shop at our third meeting. “Masey’s always been tall for her age. She says, ‘Mama, I can’t wait for these little boys to catch up with me in high school.’”
She also told me about a girl who had a “pick at Masey” at her old school in West Englewood.
“I would’ve thought she’d be afraid to mess with my baby. Mase has got about three inches on her.”
Pam went on to explain how her eldest gets up at five o’clock on school days to make it in time for the eight o’clock bell.
“She literally has to go to the suburbs to get to school in the morning,” said Pam as she nervously took a sip of coffee. “It takes her almost two hours to get to school.”
Pam laid out the entire route for me: Masey leaves the house around 6:15, walks two blocks to catch the No. 75 bus at Damen Avenue, and rides nine or ten stops to the corner of Chicago Avenue and Kedzie. There she picks up the No. 94 bus to Berwyn, a west suburb that shares a border with Chicago and its better-known suburban neighbor Cicero. From there, she has to wait on the No. 49 Pace bus, sometimes as long as twenty minutes, then ride another forty minutes, deboard at Western and Van Buren, and walk another seven or eight minutes to the Carol Crest Academy on the city’s Near West Side.
“The program’s worth it,” Pam told me. “Getting her out of Hilton High School was, too.”
“That’s odd that she has to go through Berwyn,” I said.
“I know right,” Pam agreed. “But believe it or not, that ends up being the shortest, most reliable route.”
Masey enrolled in Carol Crest Academy her sophomore year to take part in a gifted program for students who excel in math and science. She had received an invitation from Carol Crest’s principal, who promised that she could “count on” her and her staff to make the transition as seamless as possible.
“She wasn’t challenged at her old school, but God stepped in,” Pam said. “It was like hitting the lottery.”
The more I learned about Masey James, the more I saw myself in her. Young, gifted, and Black. Hungry for knowledge and motivated by change. Always in her mother’s closet, borrowing her things. A girlie girl with model height and an athletic build. I wasn’t surprised she was being bullied by a girl who was probably just jealous of Masey for having all those smarts and beauty to boot. I was bullied from sixth grade all the way through my sophomore year in high school. It wore me out, and ended only after my cousin Stephanie started picking me up from school in my aunt Esther’s old Lincoln Town Car we used to call “The Love Boat.” Steph must have reached six feet by the time she finished high school, and she was straight up and down like a ruler. Uncle Dooley, who had nicknames for all us kids, called her Skinny Pickle. Stephanie’s hair was the color of sand and lighter than her caramel-colored complexion, thanks to her Creole genes and Texas’s scorching hot sun. Her age and her height gave her a presence that my nemeses couldn’t help but respect. Most people who knew Stephanie respected her. All, that is, except one.
After the press briefing, the news crews started to pack up and scatter. But a half dozen or so squad cars remained parked at various angles at the intersection. My guess was, they were intended to protect potential witnesses from media on the prowl.
“What are you doing later?” Scott said. “Drinks on me tonight at the Goat?”
The Goat was slang for the Billy Goat Tavern & Grill, a local bar made famous in skits on Saturday Night Live during the Belushi era and still popular with tourists and local newshounds.
“Can I take a rain check, Scott? I’m really not up for it,” I said. “It’s been a long day, and right now all I want is food and a pair of flip-flops.”
I know Scott. He wanted to be close in case police announced the victim’s identity.
“I appreciate the offer, though. I do,” I said.
I really did. Scott had comforted me at least twice before when a story was too much for me to handle. But it wasn’t the sort of thing I wanted to plan for.
The last time was when we arrived first to the scene of a strong-arm burglary. It was just before Christmas. An African American man who owned a cellular phone franchise on 79th Street had been shot to death. His wife arrived on the scene wearing a mink coat over her nightgown. She’d barely put her Cadillac in park before she leapt out the car and ran toward the white sheet that covered her husband’s body. Behind her wails, barely audible, I could hear “Un-Break My Heart” playing on the car stereo. Back inside the news truck, I broke down and Scott held me in his arms. I could still hear her screams.
I was grateful for the silence in my car on the drive home. The days were getting shorter, so the sky had grown dim by the time I pulled my convertible Oldsmobile into the garage beneath my building.
It was rush hour. My fellow tenants poured into the complex at this time of day. As badly as my feet hurt, I took the back stairs from the garage two flights up to avoid conversation on the elevator. Inside my apartment, the serenity of the familiar thunk-click of the door was interrupted by the rancid smell of the garbage I’d forgotten to take out this morning.
I opened the windows and lit the apple-cinnamon-scented candles planted around the living room. I busied myself cleaning out the refrigerator, throwing out old takeout boxes and liquified vegetables I had bought with the best of intentions. About five minutes later, the perfectly chilled bottle of pinot grigio on the refrigerator door beckoned.
I sealed up the garbage bag, set it by the door, and ransacked the cabinet for my favorite wineglass, the last survivor of a set of four red wine goblets Lisette gave me as a housewarming gift. The death of each glass was more dramatic than the one before it. The first got chipped somehow and almost cut my lip. The bottom of another barely clipped the dining table and broke at the stem. And the third perished in soapy water when Mom unwittingly tossed a hot skillet into the sink. I rarely drank white wine, but when I did, I preferred to sip it from a red wineglass; it felt better in my hand. It was one of my little quirks.
I pulled back the sliding glass door and slinked out onto the porch, collapsing gently onto the padded wicker chaise. Then it hit me. Pam. I had been so preoccupied that I hadn’t checked my cell phone or turned the ringer back up since I’d left the crime scene. I exhaled deeply and pivoted back inside to retrieve my phone from my coat pocket.
I had four messages: one from Ellen, from earlier today; one from Joey; and two from Pam. I dreaded listening to her voice-mail messages. But I couldn’t avoid her text.
POLICE SHOWED UP TO MY JOB AND ASKED ME TO COME DOWNTOWN FOR AN INTERVIEW.
Fifteen minutes later, another.
JORDAN WHAT ARE THEY SAYING? CALL ME.
The place where peace resides in my soul cried out, “Oh no!” I was no longer in control of my emotions. The first heave of my chest caught me by surprise. My muscles weakened and my phone fell from my right hand to the floor. I felt sick to my stomach. In a missing person case, hope is all you have. And now this was lost. Police wouldn’t involve Pam if they didn’t have some sense that they had found her daughter.
I reached down to pick up my phone and turned the ringer volume up to high. Had Pam seen the news? Had she heard the words the victim is an African American female, approximately five feet nine inches tall? If I call her back, until I know more, what would I say if she picked up?
I’d done it. I’d become too invested. Because I wanted to get the story and also because I genuinely sympathized, I’d allowed myself to become Pam’s crutch. I had to learn to set boundaries. This wasn’t a relationship; it was a job, after all. It was no longer simply a pattern in my dating life. It was becoming a pattern in my work life, too. In the competitive world of television broadcast journalism, especially in a popular market like Chicago, somebody’s always got their eye on your spot. And with a vulture like Keith Mulvaney lurking at Channel 8, I couldn’t afford to lose my edge.
Ellen and I nicknamed him Tonya after Tonya Harding, the disgraced Olympic figure skater who was banned from the sport in the early nineties after she allegedly orchestrated an attack carried out on her chief competitor, Nancy Kerrigan, by two goons wielding a collapsible baton. If a thwack to the kneecap was all it took to eliminate me, Keith would’ve tried it by now. But he was going to have to work a lot harder than that. Still, I told Ellen, half jokingly, “If I come up missing, check his basement.”
I gathered myself and my roiling stomach began to settle. The biting hunger I felt hours earlier had subsided, not because of anything I’d eaten but because my mind was onto bigger things. Jordan, I heard Mama say, have you eaten?
I grabbed a handful of cheese crackers from the cabinet and the bottle of pinot and headed back to the chaise on the deck. It was decorated with Southwest-style pillows and a heavy handwoven wrap I’d bought on an Indian reservation in New Mexico, just outside Albuquerque, during spring break back in college. The night air swirled around me as cooler temperatures settled in along with my nagging thoughts.
I have to call Pam back. What would I say? Why hadn’t I called before? I was at work. I don’t have any more information than I reported. I swear.
Out of the corner of my eye, I caught a glimpse of the time on the clock in the living room. It was 9:05. I hadn’t realized so much time had passed, and my phone hadn’t rung. Pam hadn’t tried to call me in more than four hours. Mom hadn’t called, either.
The sky grew cloudy and the air smelled of rain. I grabbed the empty wine bottle and headed back inside. I had a mind to call Mom, but my body went for the couch. I plopped down and covered myself with the soft yellow velour throw Mom gave me for Christmas. Sleep must’ve come quickly, because when my cell phone finally rang, it was 10:30.
If it’s Pam Alonzo, I’ll take the call.
It wasn’t. It was Joey.
“Jordan, it’s Joe.”
“Yes” was all I could manage. He had news or else he wouldn’t have called this late.
“Look,” he said, followed by a heavy, knowing sigh, “I wanted to give you a heads-up as a friend. But this is not to be shared, okay? Do we have an understanding?”
“What is it?” I asked.
“Jordan, do we have an understanding?” he repeated, which was unlike him. “I’ve gotta know. This is off the record until the news conference tomorrow at eleven o’clock. Okay? This is my job.”
“Yes, you have my word,” I said. “You can trust me.”
He hesitated.
“It’s her, isn’t it, Joey?” I asked. “Isn’t it?”
Joey expelled another heavy sigh. “Yeah, it’s her.”
My head shook from side to side, like Tanya McMillan’s, denying what I’d just heard.
“Jordan, are you there?” Joey asked.
“Yes. Thanks for letting me know,” I said.
“Mum’s the word,” he said. “Good night.”
I hung up without saying goodbye, sat straight up on the couch, held my face in my hands, and cried.