Prophet (56 page)

“What the *^!@$# are you talking about?”

“I’m talking about Channel 6 policy, that’s what.”

“Tina, now come on, give me a break. I need the story stopped. You’ve got to kill it before it gets out of hand.”

This sounded big. Tina had to ask. “Martin, what’s the story about?”

“I told you! It’s a slanderous piece of trash just to smear the governor, dredging up slime about his daughter. I can’t believe the audacity of some people!”

“Did Hillary Slater have an abortion?”

Devin seemed to drop out of existence for a moment. The silence on the other end spoke volumes. Finally he said, “Don’t be ridiculous!”

Now it was Tina’s turn to curse, and she made sure Devin knew her opinion of his character. “Don’t you play your little games with me! You know where I stand on that issue, and I won’t be lied to! I’ve done plenty for you. I’ve checked around for you. I’ve confided in you. Now if you want friends in the media you can start with me. Otherwise, we’ll say good-bye right here and now!”

Devin thought it over for a long time and then gave in.

“Then I guess we’d better have lunch tomorrow.”

“Dinner tonight.”

“All right . . . dinner. How about Keaton’s, at 7?”

“That’ll be fine.”

Devin fumed for another moment, then asked, “So . . . what do you think about the story they’re working on? I mean, can you stop it?”

“It’s already dead, Martin. I told Leslie I’d never approve it. They can do what they want, but they won’t get anything on the air.”

“Thank God.”

“No, thank me. But, Martin . . .”

“Yes?”

“That doesn’t mean this won’t get out. Whatever it is, people are going to find out about it—other media are going to pick it up. You’d better be ready for it.”

Devin sighed, cursed, and moaned, all at the same time.

THAT EVENING, IMMEDIATELY
after the 7 o’clock newscast, Leslie and John rushed over to Mom Barrett’s. Mom and Carl were there waiting, Mom with some snacks and coffee, Carl with a tampered-with-and-taped-together telephone, a vast tangle of wires, two pairs of headphones, and a reel-to-reel tape recorder.

“Does it work?” John asked before he’d even taken off his coat.

Carl gave him a thumbs-up. “We were picking up the radio station for a while, but hey, I’m a genius, what can I say?”

John gave him an excited and grateful pat on the back.

Leslie removed her coat as Mom went around the table to collect it and John’s. “I’m just glad the office at Midwestern University was still open. Thanks, Mom. There’s a two-hour difference as it is.”

“Where’d you make the call?”

“The pay phone across the street from the station.” She produced a notebook from her handbag. “But I got the number of Shannon’s dorm room. If she’s there tonight . . .”

John looked at his watch. “It’s 8:10 . . .”

“So it’s 10:10 over there. She might still be up.”

“We’ll just have to be rude,” said Carl.

“Well, we can always pray,” said Mom.

Leslie sat in front of the telephone sitting on the table, a pair of wires protruding from the receiver. “So how does this work?”

Carl explained, “No different from a regular phone. I tapped into the wires to the earpiece and ran them through the tape recorder here, so we’ll be able to record the call, everything you hear, and then we’ll be able to listen with the headphones.”

Leslie was impressed. “Good work.”

“How about a quick test run?” John suggested.

“And I think we’d better pray,” said Mom again.

“Fine,” said Leslie. “Who do we call?”

“How about . . . your sister?” John suggested.

“Sure . . . okay.”

Carl sat in his chair, the tape recorder in front of him. John sat between Carl and Leslie and picked up one pair of headphones. Mom sat on the other side of Carl, and Carl turned one earpiece around on his headphones so Mom could press up against it and listen.

“Ready?” Leslie asked, her hand on the receiver.

“Go,” said Carl, starting the recorder.

Leslie picked up the receiver as the reels started slowly winding and dialed her sister’s number. John, Carl, and Mom listened raptly. John was delighted; the sounds were coming through loud and clear.

“Hello?” came a voice.

“Hello . . . Angie?”

“Oh, hi, Leslie. What’s up?”

“Well, we’re running a little experiment here . . .” Leslie went on to explain Carl’s make-do invention without saying a whole lot about what it was really for. Angie wanted to go on talking, but Leslie asked to cut the conversation short, and Angie understood.

“Okay,” said John, “good enough.”

Carl wound the tape back to check the recording, and Angie’s voice came through fine. Mom handed Leslie a piece of paper she’d worked on that afternoon—a complete transcript of the 911 call.

“Mom, you’re beautiful!” said John.

“Carl made copies, so everybody gets one,” Mom said, passing them out.

Leslie perused the transcript, underlining key words. “I suppose one goal would be to get her to say some of these key words, anything that she pronounces in a distinct way.”

“It’ll be tough,” said John. “If she had a lisp or something it would be easier.”

“Well, hopefully the same inflections will come through.”

John looked at his watch again. “8:34. It’s getting later and later over there.”

“We’d better pray,” said Mom.

“Go ahead,” said John.

They all bowed their heads in customary fashion as Mom led in a short prayer. “Dear Heavenly Father, we ask for Your divine hand upon this undertaking. May we find the Truth, dear Lord, and may the Truth set free all those concerned. And we ask this in Jesus’ precious name, Amen.”

“Amen,” they agreed.

“God help us,” said Leslie as she picked up the receiver, consulted her notepad for the number, and dialed it.

Carl turned on the tape recorder, and he and John put on their headphones. Mom leaned close to Carl to listen.

The phone rang. No answer. Leslie scanned her scribbled notes, not sure how to start.

The phone rang again.

Clunk.
“Hello?”

Leslie had been looking at John and Carl. Now all her concentration
went on that young lady two time zones away.

“Hello, this is Leslie Albright calling Shannon DuPliese.”

“Who’s calling?”

“Uh, Leslie Albright. I’m with Channel 6 News. Is this Shannon?”

“Yes.” She sounded hesitant, wary.

“Well, hi.”

“Hi.”

“I apologize for calling so late. I didn’t wake you up, did I?” Leslie rolled her eyes at having to use such a line.

“No, I’m not in bed yet.”

“Well, listen . . . uh, we were thinking of doing a follow-up story on the first recipient of the Hillary Slater Memorial Scholarship, you know, just see how you were doing and what reflections you might have . . .”

“Uh . . . excuse me?” Shannon didn’t seem to be following Leslie’s line of thought.

Leslie saw a word on the transcript. “Uh . . . you know, we tried to write to you to see if we could set it up, but we couldn’t get your address. It’s at Midwestern, but after that we’re not sure how to write you.”

“You need the address?”

Leslie knew she’d triggered a key phrase but didn’t have time to think about it. John underlined it on his copy of the transcript.

Leslie kept going.
Keep her talking, keep her talking.
“Uh, sure, could you give it to me?”

“It’s Box 9921, Midwestern University . . .”

Leslie wrote it down. “Great. Now anyway, what I was calling about, we’d like to ask if you’d be interested in letting us do a follow-up story on you—where you are now, how you’re doing. We’re kind of keeping track of the Hillary Slater thing and the scholarship program the governor set up.”

“Uh-huh.” That was all she said.

Leslie had to ask another question; this girl just didn’t roll easily into a conversation. “Okay, well, first of all, we understand that you and Hillary were best friends, right?”

Hesitation. “Yeah, well . . . yeah, that’s right. We wen—” The last phrase was unintelligible.

“Pardon me? I think we have a bad connection.”

Shannon spoke louder. “Oh, I said we went to school together.”

“Okay, great. Well, what would you say is your fondest memory of her?”

Hesitation. “Uhh . . .”

“Well, what do you remember about her the most?”

“Well . . .” Long pause.

“Hello?”

Suddenly, “I don’t . . . I—I can’t talk about Hillary.”

Oh boy. Now what? “Oh . . . I am sorry. That must still be a very painful area for you . . .”

“I probably shouldn’t be talking to you at all.”

John and Leslie caught each other’s eye immediately.

“Oh,” Leslie continued delicately, “is this not a good time? It’s late, I can understand that. There’s a two-hour difference, right?”

“I can’t talk to you.”

“You can’t talk to me?”

“No. I . . . I really shouldn’t. I don’t want to get into any of this, okay?”

Leslie could feel it—she was losing the contact.

“Well, we don’t want you to talk about anything you’re not comfortable talking about—”

“I don’t . . . Well, it’s not you, okay? I just can’t talk about it.”

“So . . . you’re not interested in any follow-up story, any—”

Click.
Shannon DuPliese hung up.

Leslie became angry with herself as she hung up the phone, but John countered her reaction right away. “Hey, you did fine. I think we got enough.”

But Leslie was still upset. “There is something wrong with that girl!”

Carl rewound the tape. “She’s scared, did you hear it?”

John scanned his transcript. “Well, we got one complete phrase—‘You need the address,’ plus an opening ‘hello,’ one ‘Hillary,’ and three ‘can’ts.’ There might be more when we listen again.”

“It’s her,” said Carl. “No question about it.”

“It’s her,” said Leslie.

“Let’s hear it again,” said John.

They played the tape until Shannon said, “You need the address?” and then John signaled Carl to stop there. John had Dad’s cassette player with the 911 tape cued. He let the tape roll until the 911 girl said the same phrase, “You need the address?”

“A little more hysterical, I would say,” said Mom.

“Let’s play them close together,” said John, winding the cassette back just a touch. Carl used his hands to manually cue the tape reels. With a nod from John, Carl played the phrase again, “You need the address?” and then John played the cassette, “You need the address?” John looked at the group for their reaction.

Leslie heaved a sigh and reiterated with all the more certainty, “We’ve got her.”

Carl shook his head. “No doubt. It’s her.”

Mom nodded. “She wasn’t frantic this time, but . . . it was her. It was the same voice.”

John withheld his vote just yet. “One more test. Let’s find where she says ‘Hillary.’”

John found the one mention of the name on the 911 tape, while Carl sought out the one occurrence in his recording. They played them close together.

“Same vote,” said Leslie.

“It’s her,” said Carl. “Now I’m even more sure.”

Mom raised her hand and said, “Praise the Lord, it’s her.”

John looked at them one by one and finally cast his vote. “We’ve got her!”

Leslie was troubled. “But how in the world are we going to get through to her? How do we get her to talk to us?”

“We pray!” said Mom.

“Well . . . besides that.”

John was new at this matter of faith and prayer, but he was learning. “No, you mean
after
that. If God’s on our side at all, we need to include Him in our deliberations. Mom’s absolutely right—let’s pray.”

Leslie smiled. “Well, it’s been a while, but I guess even a backslidden Baptist can do that. It can’t hurt.”

Carl was watching John intently. “You really think it will help?”

John tried to be honest. “Son, I’ll admit I’m still befuddled about a lot of things, but there’s one thing I know for sure: God is there, and He
can speak, and He can listen, and if we’re doing the right thing, what He wants us to do, then I think He’ll help us out.” Then John turned it right back to his son. “How about you? What do you think?”

Carl thought about it. “If you pray, I’ll pray.”

“Well, then we’re all in agreement,” said Mom.

So with a slightly fumbling but willing faith, they gave it a try, and though they couldn’t prove it in a test tube, they all knew they’d connected with the Creator by the time Mom said the final “Amen.”

CHAPTER 24

SHANNON DUPLIESE, NINETEEN,
honor student, sat on the edge of her bed in her dorm room and ran a brush through her long, brown locks, pulling hard, almost tearing through any tangles, her expression grim, her mind and heart fiercely debating. On her desk were her studies, almost completed for the night, but abandoned ever since that call from the Channel 6 lady, that call that brought a buried ghost back to life so it could return and haunt her.

Back to life? Really? As Shannon continued to brush her hair and think it through, she realized the ghost was never dead or buried in the first place, but alive and well. It had followed her to the university and was sure to follow her everywhere throughout her life. Yes, during the few weeks of classes she’d tried to turn her back on it, but now this phone call had jarred her and spun her around to see it still there, its fingers of pain and regret still entangling her as relentlessly as ever.