As the Wicked Watch(43)
I scanned the crowd, assessing people to interview on camera. The aromas of scented candles—apple cinnamon, vanilla, and pumpkin spice—broke the stale tension in the air and spoke volumes about the carriers, from their religious beliefs to their favorite TV and film characters. One teenage girl cradled a religious candle in a long glass cylinder emblazoned with a yellow cross that appeared to glow with the flickering light catching it and softening the exaggerated neon color. Then it hit me: The crowd was predominantly made up of women and children around Masey’s age. These kids could be anywhere else, gossiping with their friends about the boy they liked or playing video games. Instead, the horrific nature of this crime broke through their teenage indifference and led them here.
I didn’t have a lot of time to conduct what we refer to in the industry as man-on-the-street interviews, which was a funny thought considering I was surrounded mostly by women. But again, that kind of male-dominant terminology was another example of the archaic nature of the business I must fight to thrive in. I had to at least try and squeeze in a few before the program started without allowing the exchange between Pamela and me a few moments ago in Tanya’s living room, which I was still processing, to distract me from doing my job.
After the roundtable interview, George waited for me on the sidewalk in front of Tanya’s, and the two interns went back to the news truck to label the tape. I was glad when they left, because it gave me a chance to sneak over to Pamela without my colleagues witnessing how emotional, how personal this story had become for me. I hadn’t thought about what to say, so I simply took Pamela by the hand and gave it a gentle squeeze. For the first time since that uncomfortable moment when I asked during our one-on-one, “When was the last time you saw your daughter?” we made eye contact. It was brief but intense. No words were exchanged between us, but none were needed. We had an understanding, I now realized, that had been there all along. More of a code of conduct, really, and it was this: I’m too familiar with the way these investigations play out for Black families to abandon her, and she knows that. Expressing her appreciation on-camera was her way of letting me know that she didn’t take it for granted. It wasn’t necessary for her to say in that moment, and I almost wish she hadn’t, but it helped me undo some of the awkwardness between us that, as it turned out, I had invented in my own mind.
The racket around me started to quiet down. Volunteers got busy tidying up the dining and kitchen areas, tossing discarded plates, half-eaten sandwiches, and piles of crumpled napkins into the garbage. The McMillans’ foyer grew congested as people made their way out onto the street below. It was time for me to join them, but the smells emanating from the donated food and the Sternos burning the bottom of the aluminum chafing pans connected with my brain, reminding me that it’d been hours since I’d scarfed down that hearty breakfast with Commissioner Clark. I walked over to Tanya and her mother and thanked them again for hosting us.
“Did you get something to eat?” Tanya’s mother Patricia asked, pointing toward the dining table. “There’s plenty of food.”
I reluctantly declined, but her offer legitimized a need in me to be seen as one of them. That I belonged here. Or maybe I just missed my family. Still, I discreetly picked up a cube of pineapple from a fruit plate and popped it in my mouth before stepping out into the chilly air to find George.
The crowd fanned out across 45th Street, spilling over onto the former Ida B. Wells-Barnett playground. The city had made a half-assed attempt to clean it up—performing the bare minimum of a task turned herculean due to years of neglect in order to be able to say it was keeping up its end of the bargain to maintain public land. Overgrown weeds as tall as the Chicago Bulls’ latest draft pick still lined the perimeter. Earlier, as I walked to Tanya’s from my parked car, I noticed signs tacked to utility poles by the tracks warning of rats, then tried to unsee them as I recalled Dr. Chan’s alluding to night creatures as one of several obstacles to collecting useful evidence from the crime scene.
The wind gusted and the temperature instantly dropped about ten degrees. But that’s Chicago. I learned soon after moving here to keep an extra jacket and something to cover my legs in the trunk of my car. I felt sorry for the group of girls I spotted wearing shorts, though up top they had on matching warm black-and-gold jackets with Hyde Park/Kenwood Drill Team stitched on the back and black berets.
“Hey, George.” I pointed. “Let’s go talk to them.”
None of the girls knew Masey personally, but said they were disturbed and saddened by what had happened to her and concerned about their own safety.
“It’s scary, you know. There is a killer out there,” one of the girls said. “It ain’t safe out here in these streets.”
I noticed a boy and a girl standing together wearing blue sweatshirts with orange letters and an emblem that looked vaguely familiar. Then it occurred to me I had seen it before; it matched the symbol on a navy blue and orange school spirit flag that I’d noticed on Pamela’s front porch for Carol Crest, the STEM school Masey had transferred to on the Near West Side. The one it took her nearly two hours on several buses to reach each day. Masey had attended the school for only under a month, but if these kids came here tonight, there was a good chance they might have known her.
“Hey, George, start rolling. I’m going to talk to these kids over there in the blue-and-orange sweatshirts.”