The ratings the next morning showed a huge jump. The days of a 40 share were long gone. Even a 30 was unrealistic. But last night—a 28 share—had put Channel 3 farther ahead than we’d been in several sweeps months. Clearly our competitors’ audience had switched to us for a chance to look a murder suspect in the eye.
Noreen felt smart.
My parents felt proud.
And I felt trapped.
Besides the ten o’clock news, I was also assigned to read teleprompter for the two early-evening newscasts. My opening line became routine and boring.
((RILEY, CU))
GOOD EVENING, EVERYONE.
I’M RILEY SPARTZ, FILLING
IN FOR SOPHIE PAULSON,
WHO’S ON ASSIGNMENT OUT
OF THE COUNTRY.
That bit about Sophie was to create mystique for her return and remind viewers that I was just a temp and could be pulled off the anchor desk at any moment by the whim of my boss. So if they wanted to look me in the eye, they better do it while they could.
Because I was now the lead anchor, the station suddenly cared about me, like they had with Sophie and all the previous lead anchors. They insisted I park in the basement, where the photographers park to protect their expensive gear and where the bosses park just to show who’s boss. This way I didn’t have to worry about being stalked arriving and leaving the station. I felt safer on the job than anywhere else. But the novelty of star treatment grew monotonous.
I had no time to leave Channel 3 to hunt for Sam’s killer. And there was only so much time I could devote to perfecting my airbrush makeup technique. So I continued researching wind turbines and learned they weren’t just deadly to bats.
Xiong helped me download government safety records and I discovered numerous cases worldwide where wind workers had died on the job. Unlike black lung, the silent killer in coal mines, when wind energy kills, death is immediate and awful.
Some employees fell hundreds of feet because they weren’t wearing safety harnesses. Another, with a harness, dangled too long waiting for rescue. His blood drained to the lower part of his body and turned toxic.
Ice can form at the top of the wind turbines—inside and outside—and sometimes chunks break off and kill whoever is standing underneath. I shuddered reading of a wind company employee sliced in half when ice crashed down on him while he was working inside the tower.
The cases got even more grisly. An inside ladder leads to an upstairs chamber, big enough to stand in, at the top of the turbine. Blades are attached to a spinning rotor. One worker’s harness got caught, and according to the death certificate, he suffered “multiple amputations.”
I was starting to think I had the makings of a major work place safety investigation. Even transporting the giant turbines can be dangerous. Sometimes, on rural roads, truck drivers are electrocuted when a blade hits a low-hanging power line. Other times, while unloading the windmills, pieces roll off the truck, crushing employees.
When I learned one casualty died more than a year ago constructing the Wide Open Spaces wind farm, I pressed Noreen to give me a day away from my anchoring duties to interview his widow, who lived in Upper Michigan. But Noreen observed that the overnight demos were still strong and she didn’t want to risk moving me from the anchor desk until sweeps were over.
Neither of us mentioned Toby, so I was under the impression he had not said anything to Noreen about his role in the fatal wind bombing. Being an accused murderess myself, I didn’t have the influence or evidence to call anyone else a killer.
Meanwhile, in Mexico, the butterflies were running late. And Sophie had been told to just sit back and wait for the monarch migration.