Hard News (Rune 3)

"Parole? Maybe a few years. But hell..." The thin man looked at the camera quickly, then away. "A man's innocent, he shouldn't be out on parole, he should just be out."

Rune watched the rest of the tape, listened to him tell about how bad life in prison was, how nobody in the warden's office or the court would listen to him, how incompetent his lawyer had been. She was surprised, though, that he didn't sound bitter. He was more baffled--like somebody who can't understand the justice behind a plane crash or car wreck. She liked that about him; if anybody had a right to be obnoxious or sarcastic it was an innocent man who was in prison. But he just talked calmly and wistfully, occasionally lifting a finger to touch a glistening sideburn. He seemed scared of the camera. Or modest or embarrassed.

She paused the tape and turned to the letter that had ended up on her desk that morning. She had no clue how she'd happened to receive it--other than her being your typical low-level-person-of-indeterminate-job-description at a major television network. Which meant she often got bizarre letters dumped on her desk--anything from Publishers Clearing House award notices to fan mail for Captain Kangaroo and Edward R. Murrow, written by wackos.

It was this letter that had motivated her to go into the archives and dig up these old interview tapes.

She read it again.

Dear to who it may concern:

You have to help me. Please.

It sounded so desperate, pathetic. But the tone wasn't what affected her as much as the third paragraph of the letter. She read it again.

And what it was was that the Police which I have nothing against normally, didn't talk to all the Witnesses, or ask the ones they DID talk to the questions they should of asked. If they had done that, then I feel, in my opinion, they would have found that I was innocent of the Charges but they didn't do this.

Rune looked at the image freeze-framed on the screen. A tight close-up of Randy Boggs just after his trial several years ago.

Where was he born? she wondered. What was his history? In high school, had he been a--what did her mother call them?--a hood? A greaser? Did he have family? A wife somewhere? Maybe children? How would it be to have to visit your husband once a month? Was she faithful to him? Did she bake him cookies and send them to prison?

Rune started the tape again and watched the dull-colored grain on the screen.

"You want to hear what it's like to be in here?" Now, at last, bitterness was creeping into the thin man's voice. "Let me tell you 'bout the start of my day. Do you want to hear about that?"

"Tell me whatever you want," the invisible interviewer asked.

"You wake up at six and the first thing you think is Hell, I'm still here...."

A voice from across the room: "Rune, where are you? Come on, let's go. We've got an overturned something on the Brooklyn-Queens Expressway."

The Model was standing up from his desk, pulling on a tan London Fog trench coat that would keep him ten degrees warmer than he needed to be on this April afternoon (but that would be okay because it was a reporter's coat). He was an up-and-comer--one of the hotshots covering metro news for the local O&O, the Network's owned-and-operated New York TV station, Rune's present employer as well. Twenty-seven, a round face, Midwest handsome (the word "sandy" seemed to apply to him in a vague way). He spent a lot of time in front of mirrors. Nobody shaved like the Model.

Rune worked as a cameraman for him occasionally and when she'd first been assigned to him he hadn't been quite sure what to make of this auburn-ponytailed young woman who looked a bit like Audrey Hepburn and was just a little over five feet, a couple ounces over a hundred pounds. The Model probably would have preferred a pickled, chain-smoking technician who'd worked the city desk from the days when they used sixteen-millimeter Bolex cameras. But she shot damn good footage and there was nobody better than Rune when it came to blustering her way through police barricades and past backstage security guards.

"What've you got there?" he asked, nodding at the monitor.

"I found this letter on my desk. From this guy in prison."

"You know him?" the Model asked absently. He carefully made sure the belt wasn't twisted then fitted it through the plastic buckle.

"Nope. It was addressed to the Network. Just showed up here."

"Maybe he wrote it a while ago." Nodding toward the screen, where Randy Boggs was freeze-framed. "Looks like you could carbon-date him nineteen sixty-five."

"Nope." She tapped the paper. "It's dated two days ago."

The Model read it quickly. "Sounds like the guy's having a shitty time of it. The prison in Harrison, huh? Better than Attica but it

's still no country club. So, suit up. Let's go."

The first thing you think is, Hell, I'm still here....

The Model took a call. He nodded. Looked at Rune. "This is great! It's an overturned ammonia tanker on the BQE. Boy, that is gonna screw up rush hour real nice. Ammonia. Are we lucky or are we lucky?"

Rune shut the monitor off and joined the Model at his cluttered desk. "I think I want to see her."

"Her? Who?"