CHAPTER 11
Monday, March 20, 2017
THE NETWORK’S HEADQUARTERS BUILDING WAS LOCATED IN MIDTOWN. Sidney took a cab across Forty-second Street until traffic choked her progress. She dropped the fare over the seat, thanked the driver, and stepped into the spring morning. Weaving between cars until she reached the curb, she blended into the steady current of Monday-morning commuters flowing through the streets of Manhattan. She bumped shoulders for four blocks until she pushed through the revolving doors and into the lobby. The elevator took her to the forty-fourth floor. She showed her ID card to get past reception, then swiped it again to gain access to the executive offices. Her meeting was at 9:00 a.m. and traffic had slowed her down. The plan had been to sip coffee in the lobby’s café and peacefully collect her thoughts before her pitch. Instead, she was rushing to make it on time.
The office was a cacophony of glass walls that offered little in the way of privacy for the executives running the network. The architectural design allowed Sidney, as she exited the elevator, to see that the media room was already full. Shetook a deep breath and hurried across the office. When she pulled open the door, she was relieved to hear the quiet murmur of several overlapping conversations. A dozen rows of chairs lined the room, all facing the north wall, where a DVD projector lit up a floor-to-ceiling screen with the title:
The Girl of Sugar Beach,
Producer: Sidney Ryan
She squeezed into the only vacant seat, which was in the front row and reserved for her. She believed for a moment that her last-minute arrival went unnoticed.
“The Great Sidney Ryan has finally joined us for her own screening,” Luke Barrington announced in his deep, obnoxious voice.
Sidney closed her eyes and exhaled. She had mistakenly believed Luke only used the insufferable voice during the recording of his prime-time news program. However, over the last year, she learned the rhythmic churning of hop-along syllables and cavernous inflection came with everything he uttered, from the detailing of a young woman’s death on his top-rated news show, to the retelling of his weekend over Monday-morning coffee. Sidney wanted to claim that the sonorous voice, which had privately earned him a nickname of “the Bear,” was plastic-banana fake, but since Luke had never once faltered from this tone, she could only argue that it was annoying.
“Now that we’re all behind schedule,” the Bear continued, “let’s rush things along, shall we?”
This was directed at Graham Cromwell, who ran the news division at the network.
Graham walked to the front of the screening room and stood in the glow of the DVD projector. “Thanks, Luke. Sorry to keep you from your morning round of golf. Butperhaps you should put in a few hours of work this week. Your ratings are flat.”
This brought a chorus of chuckles.
“Flat,”Luke said. “And still the highest ratings of the network. And on all of prime-time news.”
Graham opened his mouth in mock amazement. “Highest ratings of prime time? Really? No one in this room has heard this breaking news.”
This brought more chuckles. Luke Barrington was a self-promoter of epic proportions, and modesty had never been a strong suit.
“My ratings are flat, incidentally, because I was on vacation for ten days. And, as we all know, the network has yet to find a guest host that can hold my audience.”
“It was a joke, Luke. We’re trying to set Sidney up here in prime time as well, since her previous documentaries have been so well received. We think there is opportunity here with this latest pitch. She has clearly generated a following.”
“So let’s see it then,” Luke said. “The suspense is killing us.”
Spoken,Sidney thought,like a true asshole.
“Sidney?” Graham said.
Sidney stood and took her place at the front of the media room. In addition to the packed audience inside the room, she noticed other staffers congregating in the hallway to get a sneak peek of her much-buzzed-about documentary.
“True crime is popular,” Sidney said. “We all know this. And it’s getting hotter. We don’t have to look further thanMaking a MurdererandThe Jinxto see the huge ratings potential for the networks.48 Hoursis a perennial ratings winner.Serialwas one of the most downloaded podcasts in history. The public has an appetite for true-life crimes broken down into real-life thrillers told through documentaries.
“As Graham pointed out, my previous three documentariestook unknown cases and unknown prisoners and brought to light their stories of wrongful conviction. We grew a larger audience with each doc, and we’ve developed a bit of a niche here—finding victims of wrongful conviction and bringing their stories of injustice to light. My pitch today for my new documentary is different in two ways from my previous films. It’s an ambitious pitch that is filled with potential. I hope you all agree.”
Sidney noticed that additional network staff had filed into the back of the media room, making it a standing-room-only crowd. She also noticed that Graham Cromwell had given up his seat when Dante Campbell, the cohost of the network’s top-rated morning show,Wake Up America,snuck in. Sidney faltered for just a moment when she recognized all of the power that had assembled in the room: the queen of morning television, Luke Barrington, the suits in the front row. She was suddenly glad she had been running late so that the enormity of the moment hadn’t had a chance to crush her.
“First,” Sidney continued, “instead of an unknown case, this time I’ll be highlighting a well-known individual.”
“Who is it?” Luke Barrington asked in a bored voice.
Sidney smiled, a veneer that suggested to all in the room that she was thrilled to be conversing with such an esteemed legend of prime time. In her own mind, though, her curved lips were the equivalent of raising her middle finger.
“Grace Sebold.”
There were some murmurs in the crowd, a quiet buzz of excitement at such a high-profile case.
