Away in a Murder (4 page)

The next morning I awoke early. I showered and dressed slowly, taking my time to ensure that everything was perfect. I wore a very professional, well cut suit that would reveal very little skin, but still managed to complement my figure. And it hid my little tummy. I was getting older and I accepted a little tummy as a part of the process. I hated exercise, but I still got plenty by walking around the park and I danced when no one was around to see me. I felt very good as I looked in the mirror.

Frankie had left for work even earlier. He wanted to ensure that things were prepared for the interview. So, I walked to work alone this morning. I felt great. As I entered my park I could see and hear things that were so familiar to me that they were comforting. I was sad that I had to skip my regular lap around the park today. The interview was more important and I had to prepare for it. Maybe I’ll get a walk in afterward, I told myself.

When I got to the theater where the interview was to take place, I was met by Frankie, Nigel, Frank, Marlowe, Jerome, one of our lawyers, and William. My entourage. Cool, I had an entourage! Wait, why was William here? I expected everyone else but not William.

“William, don’t get me wrong I’m glad to see you and all, but why are you here?” I asked him.

“I am serving as your clergy,” he said smiling.

“My clergy?”

“Yes, I am here to bless the interview and to pray for you. I’ll even throw in a prayer for that mean man’s soul while I’m at it. Lord knows he needs it.”

“Well, thank you. I appreciate that,” I told him honestly.

William was the pastor of a store front church. His church was located in a neighborhood which he was instrumental in reforming. He helped get rid of the gangs and cleaned the place up. Now it might not be the richest neighborhood in the city of Neuspech, but it was one of the safest and happiest.

“We’re all set,” Frank said to me.

“Thank you, I feel better.”

Just then one of the ladies from our theater department walked over to me. I was informed that she was here to do my makeup for the interview. I already knew how to do makeup for TV and had done mine that way, but I didn’t tell her that. However, I must have done a good job because she did almost nothing to my makeup.

While I was sitting in her chair being groomed I watched Al’s crew as they set up the cameras, checked the microphones and just generally got ready for the interview. Some of our own engineering technicians and theater technicians were there as well. I liked having our own people there. Kudos to who ever had that idea.

“Jerome, is everything ok? Why is your team here?” I asked.

“Yes, Misty everything is ok. The fire marshal is here doing general tests and there was a problem with the sprinklers in here. But, Bob over there used to install these systems. He knows them very well,” Jerome said.

“Oh, fantastic. Will he be done soon, or do we need to wait?”

“No, ma’am, he’s finishing now.”

When Bob came over to talk to Jerome I made a point of thanking him for doing the work so quickly. We exchanged a few pleasantries, and he and Jerome left.

I noticed Al Learner was nowhere to be seen. Was he hiding in another room somewhere? Did he not want the mouse to see the cat until he was ready to pounce? If so, that was ok. Maybe it was better if he didn’t know that the mouse was also ready to pounce.

When it was time to start someone from Al’s production crew came over and led me to my seat.

“Mrs. Summer have you ever been on camera before?” he asked.

“Call me Misty. What’s your name?”

“Mike,” he said looking at me kind of funny.

“Well, Mike, no I haven’t. However, I’m sure Al will be polite and take it easy on me.” I practically batted my eyes at him. I wanted to sound innocent and unaware of what might happen. I think it worked.

Mike tried not to smile. “I’m sure he will.”

I wasn’t sure how he said that without laughing.

“Ok,” Mike continued, “just stay relaxed, and look at Al. Just pretend that the cameras are not here. Ok.”

I shrugged my shoulders. “Ok, I can do that.” Better than he imagined.

“Of course you can.” Again how he said it without laughing I didn’t know.

Al walked into the room. He looked a little disappointed, as if he didn’t get the applause he was expecting. When he saw me his lips changed in to what could be mistaken as a friendly smile. But one look at his eyes would tell you that he was going to try to tear you apart. Kind of like a lion on the hunt. All I could think was “bring it on little man, bring it on”.

“Mrs. Summer so nice to meet you,” he said.

We shook hands and he took his chair. Which I noticed was higher than mine. Did someone have an ego issue?

“Now, I don’t want you to be worried,” he said. “I’ll ask some questions and you just answer them as best as you can. If you make a mistake, or if you need a moment to answer don’t worry, we’ll just edit that part out. Ok?” He winked at me.

“Yes, thank you.”

All I could think was, “yea I bet you’ll edit out the embarrassing stuff. You lying little…”

And the interview began. He started out by introducing me to the audience. He explained the story of how Frankie and I bought the park and then started to refurbish it.

“By the way,” he said to me, “you’re PR guy gave me some great before photos. My crew was in the park this morning taking some footage of the progress you’ve made. We’ll show it during this part of the interview.”

“Oh, Nigel gave you some before photos that’s great.”

“You’ve done wonders with the park.” He gave me that smile again.

“I’d like to think that we, as a team, have made some great changes.” It wasn’t like I’d done the work myself.

“Oh, Misty. I have something else I wanted to ask you about.”

Ok, it was time for the real action, was my first thought. My second was, “Who the hell said you could call me Misty?” I’m into using first names but hearing him say mine made me want to change my policy.

“That’s fine, ask away,” I said. I was trying to remember what I had learned in the acting classes I’d taken so many years ago. I had the feeling I would need all of those skills now. If I still had them.

“Thank you so much.” He cleared his throat and gave me one of those fake smiles again.

“I was just wondering if you had heard of a singer named Misty Breeze.”

So not where I thought he was going. Of course I had no idea where he was going.

“I have heard of her, yes. She committed suicide several years back, if I remember correctly,” I said. “What about her?”

“The
rumor
is that she committed suicide.”

He emphasized the word rumor. I’m not sure I liked where this was going.

“I’m sorry?” I said.

“I don’t think she’s dead.” He looked at me and waited for a reaction. I gave him none.

“Well, I only know what I heard. It was on the news and in the paper. It was even in Rolling Stone Magazine if I remember correctly,” I said.

“It was, but that means nothing.”

So you know more than the reporters at Rolling Stone? That’s a big ego. It must be hard to carry.

“If you say so, Al,” I said. “I’m sure you know more about that than I do.”

“Oh, I think you know more than you’re admitting to,” he said giving me that lion smile.

“What do you mean, Al?” Where the hell was he going with this?

“I mean you knew her better that you admit.”

“Are you accusing me of killing her, Al?”

“No, Misty, I’m accusing you of being her.”

I heard a bunch of intakes of breath, a few “wow”s, and even a “no”. I simply started to laugh. What an idiot this man was.

“What? Why on earth would you think that?” I said.

“Put the picture up,” he said to one of his techs.

There was a TV monitor next Al. It suddenly came to life. On the screen was a picture of this pretty young blonde girl who definitely had a heavy metal feel to her. That was the Misty Breeze that I remembered.

“Ok, I think I remember her now. She was very pretty. I was jealous because I was so geeky in high school,” I said.

The next image that came up was one of me from my high school year book. Yes, I was pretty geeky. I had acne. My hair was frizzy. And I wore the dorkiest glasses. All the years of ballet lessons my parents had forced me to take did not show in that photo.

“Yep, that’s how I remember myself. Ugly and geeky,” I said. “Thanks for showing that, Al.”

“Ah, but wait,” Al said.

The image on the screen changed. The two images were shown side by side. I saw no resemblance. Then the two images were superimposed one on top of the other. It made a funny image. They eyes didn’t line up. The noses and the mouths only mostly lined up. The ears were the best match, but because one image had the hair up and one had the hair down, so you couldn’t really tell.

“Um, what am I supposed to be seeing here?” I asked not really understanding.

“That’s you, Misty. Those two faces match perfectly.”

“No, Al, I hate to tell you but they don’t. I’m sorry. Did you look at the pictures?”

“Of course you’re sorry. Because you have been living a lie all these years. You are Misty Breeze!” He was almost yelling now.

I, however, stayed calm. I gave little laugh. At least I knew what the game was now.

“I wish I was, Al. Then I’d have a lot of money. I’d be famous. I could sing. I’d have fans all over the world.”

“Come on, Misty, admit it. You are Misty Breeze.”

I gave him what I hoped was a pitying look. “No, I’m not.”

“Ok, you say you’re not. Then prove it,” he said.

“Sure. How would you like me to prove it? Do you want my DNA?”

“No, I want you to prove it right now on camera,” he said.

“Ok. How?” What was he up to?

“I want you to sing. Sing one of Misty Breeze’s songs,” he said.

“I would, not that I really want anyone to hear me sing, but I don’t know any of her songs. Not by heart any way.”

“Yes you do.”

“No, Al, I don’t.”

“Ok, if you want to keep pretending we’ll play a few lines from one of her songs and then you just repeat it.”

“As much as I’d rather not embarrass myself, if it will convince you that I am not her I’ll do it.”

He leaned back in his chair and smiled. I wondered what else he had in store once I did this.

The song played. I listened closely to the lyrics. While it played I thought I heard someone say, “Oh, my God.” I thought it was Frankie.

“Now,” Al said, “we’ll play the music and you just sing the words that you can remember.”

“Ok, here goes,” I said. I took a deep breath, closed my eyes and sang along with the recorded music as well as I could.

I opened my eyes when I was done.

“We’re running the voice analysis now,” Al said. “We’ll know in a minute who you really are.”

“Um, I know who I really am. But if you want to, go ahead.”

We waited. I watched as one of the camera men walked behind one of Al’s technicians and shot what that man was doing on the computer. We watched on the screen. There were two bars going across the screen. On each bar there was a wavy line. It reminded me of the lines you see when you get a reading of your heart beat.

The technician moved the lines so one was on top of the other. The lines did not even remotely match each other.

“They don’t match,” the technician said.

“Try a recording of Misty Breeze speaking,” Al said.

The technician tapped at his keyboard and then two more wavy lines appeared on the screen. Once again the technician slid the bars one on top of the other. And once again they did not match.

I looked at Al. His face was getting red. “Play them,” he barked at the technician.

The man obeyed orders and played the recordings. I heard myself saying, “Thank you.” Then I heard another woman’s voice saying, “Thank you.” Nope, we didn’t sound anything alike. I was beginning to enjoy this. In fact I even laughed a little.

“Are you sure that’s the right recording!” he screamed at the technician.

“Positive,” the man replied although he didn’t look very positive. He looked scared, actually.

“Al, I am flattered that you thought I was once that beautiful and talented. However, I am not now, nor was I ever someone named Misty Breeze. I’m sorry.”

He looked at me as if to say, “Oh, you’re going to be”. He had a mad look in his eyes and his face was red. I had a flash back to the restaurant last night. He looked around the room, his glance rested on Frankie. Then his expression changed. He smiled his usual smile and looked at me.

I braced myself. I could sense something coming. Something bad. The problem was I didn’t know what.

“I was wrong, you’re not Misty Breeze,” he said.