Free Shunning Sarah by Julie Kramer

their personal safety.
    “Now it’s the norm,” he said.
    “I don’t want it to ever be the newsroom norm,” I replied.
    “It may not be up to you. My experience is that decisions like those are made far above our pay grade.”
    He was probably right. Instead of arguing employment philosophy, I told him about my latest Jane Doe. Nude. Dumped. Unclaimed. Garnett had spent a career as a homicide detective, and I was interested on his take on my case.
    “That’s cold,” he said. “Ditching a body in a pit. Too brutal a farewell to someone you cared about, so I’m going to make a guess the victim didn’t know her killer.”
    “Random?” Too bad. “Those are tougher to solve.”
    “They can be.”
    “So even if the victim is identified,” I said, “there may not be an obvious suspect.”
    “And even if there is, that doesn’t necessarily close the case. Otherwise Agatha Christie would be out of print. Remember how she made the least likely suspect classic.”
    We chuckled over a few of those whodunits and I confided that I was trying not to get too attached to this murder becauseof the news director’s desire to concentrate on crime closer to the Twin Cities.
    “Nothing unusual in metro murders right now?” he asked.
    “Mostly gang shootings.” Those kind of homicides were never very interesting to the police or media. Often unsympathetic victims as well as killers.
    “So you might be stuck on the bear beat,” Garnett said. “Maybe I should fly in this weekend and give you a bear hug.”
    It wasn’t just a bluff. He worked as an investigator for the Transportation Security Administration and could come up with a reason to fly anywhere, anytime.
    I didn’t want to rush our relationship from a phone call to a blanket brigade. “Sorry, Nick.”
    I made a special effort to call him by his first name. In the news biz, staffers often refer to people by their last names. To save time. And when Garnett was simply a source, that didn’t bother him. But when that changed, he wanted a feeling of intimacy in our conversation as well as our relationship.
    “Really, Nick, the only bear I’m hugging this weekend is named Teddy.” That was my flirty, yet not phony, way of telling him I wanted to take things slow.
    He got it. But we both knew this conversation wasn’t over.

CHAPTER 20
    J ane Doe became Sarah Yoder.
    I was on my way to the station greenroom for a powder and blush touch-up when my cell phone rang again. I expected Garnett with a final line about not being able to bear being apart.
    “I’m not caving on your demands.” I hit the answer button and spoke without looking at the caller ID. Or even saying hello.
    It was my mother. She didn’t know the name, but said the talk around town was that the dead woman was Amish.
    When she said the word, I got chills. That was one direction I hadn’t anticipated regarding this sinkhole murder. If you go by police reports, Amish are seldom crime victims or perpetrators. Of course, the numbers could be skewed because Amish prefer to handle infractions within their own community and not involve outside law.
    “Call me if you hear anything else, Mom. I’m going to try to get ahold of the sheriff.”
    Ed Eide was preparing a news release, but read me the details over the phone.
    Sarah Yoder, age 18, Harmony, Minnesota. Definitely local.
    “How come no one reported her missing?” I asked.
    “We’re trying to find that out,” he said. “Her name is all I’m prepared to disclose right now at this stage of our investigation.”
    “How was she identified, Sheriff?”
    “Somebody saw her picture on the news and contacted us. And no, I’m not releasing that name at this time. We’ve got our own questioning to do first.”
    “How about a camera interview, you and me?”
    He declined, so I thanked him for the information and told him I’d check back later.
    I phoned the farm and relayed to Mom what I knew about the victim.
    “So young,” she