Dead Air: A Talk Radio Mystery (5 page)

I was cradling the phone on my shoulder so I could spoon half Dunkin’ Donuts decaf and half French vanilla high voltage into the coffeepot when I heard someone pounding on the front door.

Mrs. Higgins!
We have an eighty-year-old neighbor who loves to go for early-morning walks and sometimes forgets to take her key. Lark, petite little thing that she is, always manages to find an unlatched window in Mrs. Higgins’s house and squeezes in, saving the day.

“Look, Maggie, I’ll explain it when you get here, okay? Make it snappy.”

“Just give me the short answer. I can’t stand the suspense.” The hammering on the door intensified, a maddening counterpoint to the drilling noise in my head.

“The short answer is, Guru Sanjay Gingii may have been murdered!”

With that Cyrus hung up.

I ignored the pounding, filled the pot with filtered water, pressed the red button, and padded to the door. Six in the morning, a dead guru, and a forgetful neighbor. Things couldn’t possibly get worse.

They could and they did.

Standing on my doorstep, looking way too sexy for such an early hour, was none other than Cypress Grove’s finest, Detective Rafe Martino.

Chapter 4

My first thought (after noticing that he looked like a million bucks) was that I was looking my absolute worst. Pale, shiny morning face, bed head, and a ratty yellow bathrobe decorated with faded blue ducks that had seen better days.

“Sorry to wake you, Dr. Walsh,” he said, not looking the least bit repentant. “May we come in?”

I shielded my eyes from the glaring sunshine and noticed he had a uniformed cop with him, a gangly guy who looked about twelve in his scratchy blue serge uniform.

“Officer Duane Brown,” he said, gesturing to the Opie look-alike who was shifting uncomfortably from one foot to the other and mopping his forehead with a white handkerchief. It was early morning, but they were predicting a scorcher and the day already had a hazy glow to it.

“What’s this about?” I said quietly, not wanting to blast him with morning breath. (Although when you think of it, what does he expect, when he comes barging into someone’s house at this ungodly hour?)

“It’s about a homicide investigation,” Detective Martino snapped, suddenly all business. “Could we come inside?”

I reluctantly stepped back, yanking the robe more tightly around me.
He must be talking about Guru Sanjay!
“If this is about the guru, I don’t know anything about it.”

I regretted the idiotic remark the second the words flew out of my mouth. Why did I immediately assume it was about Sanjay Gingii?
Methinks the lady doth protest too much!

Maybe Martino wasn’t up on his Shakespeare, because he lifted his shoulders in a slow shrug and made a noncommittal sound.

“But you can come in, since you seem determined to,” I said inhospitably. I glanced over my shoulder toward Lark’s door and thought I saw it open a tiny crack. Was she standing there listening to our conversation or was I imagining it?

“Where were you last night?” Detective Martino asked abruptly. He moved past me into the living room, eased himself into the green and white wicker love seat, and whipped out a tiny notebook.

I noticed Officer Brown took a cushiony armchair and looked like he was ready to settle in for the long haul. Were they going to play good cop, bad cop? (Or have I been watching too much
Law & Order
?)

“I was here. I came straight home after my shift at WYME. I ate a pizza, watched TV, and then went to bed.” Dear god, he was writing all this down! Now all of Cypress Grove would know about my nonexistent social life.

“No unusual occurrences?” Opie asked.

I had the feeling he’d piped up just to be saying something. Martino shot him a look and he sank a little deeper into the armchair. He was so slight, the padded arms engulfed him, threatening to swallow him whole like an amoeba.

“Well, just one. They forgot to put extra cheese on my pizza.”

“Do I write that down?” he asked Martino, who silenced him with a look.

“So . . . you’re claiming you were alone?”

“I’m not
claiming
I was alone. I
was
alone.”

“I see.” A beat of silence fell between us. His eyes skimmed over my terry bathrobe, and there was a wry twist in his voice. The corner of his mouth quirked, and I knew exactly what he was thinking:
No wonder she is alone!

The notion of me having a hot date was about as likely as Mother Teresa pledging Delta Gamma.

He stared at me and I stared back. He had a strong mouth and, of course, those smoldering eyes. Wary, watchful eyes. Cop eyes.

“So,” he continued, staring at his notebook as if for inspiration, “what can you tell me about Guru Sanjay Gingii?”

He stumbled over the tongue twister of a name, but I resisted the impulse to smile. I had the uneasy feeling that I was in trouble, even though for once in my life, I was completely innocent.

The only thing I could possibly be charged with was being a fashion disaster in a tatty terry bathrobe and yellow flip-flops, but as far as I knew, that wasn’t a criminal offense.

“Besides the fact that he’s dead?” I said wittily. My mother always said my sense of humor would be the death of me, and I wondered whether she could be right.

“You knew all about that,” Martino said flatly. “It was the first thing you mentioned when we came to the door.”

“Well, of course I knew about it,” I shot back, feeling a little bubble of anger rising in me. “It’s on all the news outlets, and Cyrus Still called me this morning to tell me about it.”

I glanced at the smiling Mexican sun god wall clock over the brick fireplace. “In fact, I’m supposed to be at the station doing a live broadcast in thirty minutes.”

“Don’t let us stop you,” Opie piped up again. I could tell he was trying to put on a low, testosterone-charged David Caruso voice, but his voice cracked in an embarrassing squeak.

“Am I free to go, then?” I asked. If I didn’t bother with hair and makeup, I could still make it to the station on time.

Martino stared at me, his face a picture of calm innocence. He made no move to get up; he just sat there, tapping his pen against the cover of his notebook. “Of course you’re free to leave,” he said easily; “this is your house.”

He laughed at his own wit. Move over, Jay Leno!

“I mean are
you
going to leave?” I asked pointedly. Did I imagine it, or did his dark eyes flicker to the bedroom right behind me to the left? I felt as if we were playing a Tom and Jerry game, and I didn’t like being Jerry.

“Just one more question,” he said, dragging out the words like Columbo. “Where was your roommate last night?” He glanced down to check his notes. “Lark Merriweather.”

“Lark?” I repeated, stalling for time. Opie leaned forward eagerly in his chair, muscles tensed as if he were a cougar sizing up a wildebeest, or maybe he just smelled the delightful aroma of French vanilla creme brewing in the kitchen.

The sooner I got these two out the door, the better! I planned on grabbing a cup of coffee and hitting the road in five minutes flat.

“Lark was . . .”

“Yes?” Martino said lazily. He was eyeing me carefully, and I could tell that his bullshit detector was in hyperdrive.

“Well . . .” I faltered, my chest tightening as my pulse thudded. Martino’s eyes narrowed a little, and I tried to keep my expression neutral.

Did I dare tell them that Lark had disappeared for a few hours? Why did I have the sneaking feeling that they already knew that? Was this some sort of trap? I hesitated, and then Martino frowned, something registering in his dark eyes as he looked past me. I resisted the impulse to look around and took a deep breath.

“Lark and I . . . ,” I began.

Then I heard the bedroom door fling open behind me, and Lark walked into the living room. She looked pale and tired and was wearing a gray Juicy sweat suit that only highlighted the dark circles under her eyes.

“You don’t have to answer that,” she said quietly. “Go to work, Maggie; I’ll handle this.” She pulled over a bar stool from the breakfast nook and slumped into it. She looked like she hadn’t slept a wink, and even her choppy blond tresses appeared limp and dejected.

Both Martino and Opie jumped to their feet.

“Are you Lark Merriweather?” Martino asked, his voice hard and metallic. When Lark nodded, Martino and Opie positioned themselves on either side of her.

I didn’t like the look of this, and I wouldn’t put it past Martino to slip a pair of cuffs on her. I was still smarting from the embarrassing perp walk he had put me through at the station yesterday.

“We have some questions for you, Ms. Merriweather,” Martino said, “about your whereabouts last night.”

“She was here,” I said, my brain finally kicking into gear. “I just told you we had dinner together.”

Lark glanced at me, her forehead creased. Her expression was hollow, guarded, as if she was afraid of what was going to happen next.

She was telegraphing something to me with her eyes, but all I could pick up on was an emotion I had never associated with her. Uncertainty? Dismay? Naked fear?

I felt like my brain had been taken over by alien body snatchers who had tinkered with my neurotransmitters and now I was incapable of forming a coherent thought.
Think, Maggie
,
think!

I hesitated, uncertain of my next move, and Martino pounced as if he’d been reading my mind.

“Be careful what you say, Dr. Walsh, unless you want to be charged as an accessory.” His voice was like shards of ice.

“An accessory to what?”

“To murder. The murder of Guru Sanjay Gingii.”

My heart stuttered, but I held my ground. “That’s ridiculous! Neither one of us knows anything about his death. I interviewed the man on my radio show yesterday, and that’s the last I saw of him.”

“Maybe that’s the last
you
saw of him, but I bet Ms. Merriweather here has a different story to tell.” Opie looked pleased with himself, and I felt like I’d been sucker punched.

“Lark, tell them you don’t know anything about this!”

“Just stay out of this, Maggie,” she said in a weary voice. “Go to work. I know they need you at the station.”

“But I can’t just leave you here alone with . . . Batman and Robin!” I blurted out.

Martino flashed me a cocky smile and Opie smirked. “Oh, don’t worry about that, Dr. Walsh. You won’t be leaving her here with us. We’re taking her down to the station for questioning.”

Chapter 5

“They can’t possibly believe Lark did it,” I moaned to Vera Mae half an hour later.

I’d just finished the rush-hour traffic report, filled in for Big Jim Wilcox on the sports desk, and then covered the breaking news of the day: “Visiting Guru Turns Up Dead.”

Vera Mae peered over my shoulder to read the copy, sucked in her cheeks, and twitched her nose as if she had caught the odor of rotting fish heads. “Visiting guru turns up
dead
?” She snorted scornfully. “Oh, honey, you must be upset!”

Okay, it wasn’t my best effort. I knew my writing was as flat and boring as a fried mackerel, but my creative juices just weren’t flowing this morning.

Irina had come up with a breezier opening line: “Sanjay Says Sayonara!” It had some nice alliteration going for it, but Cyrus had nixed it because he felt it sounded too flippant.

Since all we had from Martino and company was radio silence, we didn’t have many newsworthy details about the crime scene, and the piece about Guru’s Sanjay’s death took up less than two minutes of airtime.

Ray, the summer intern in the news department, had cobbled together some clips, and I’d included a quote from Guru Sanjay’s publicist, who said they were rushing a posthumous biography into print ($7.99 and available at fine bookstores everywhere).

I’d been trying to call Lark on her cell every ten minutes and was frustrated that I kept getting her voice mail. “I just can’t believe she’s a murder suspect,” I repeated peevishly.

“I can’t believe it, either. What in tarnation would her motive be?” Vera Mae pondered.

“It beats me,” I told her. I yanked off my headphones and we ducked into the break room to grab a whole-wheat donut and coffee (hey, fiber is healthy, right?) before heading back to the studio.

“She never even met the fella. Why would she want to kill him?”

“Exactly!” I shook my head. “The police are on the wrong track, and the sooner they figure it out, the better.” Vera Mae carefully wrapped up the donut crumbs for Tweetie Bird and bought a package of peanuts for him out of the vending machine.

“And if she was at the town house all night, then I don’t think those cops have a thing to go on. If they come sniffing around here asking questions, you can be darn sure I’ll give them a piece of my mind. They’re just spinning their wheels and wasting taxpayers’ money by barking up the wrong tree. And I’m not a bit afraid to tell them so!”

She stopped as if she had run out of breath. Then she stared hard at me, her uncanny mental radar kicking in. “Maggie, is there something you’re not telling me? Lark was with you last night, right?” She lowered her voice as if she was afraid that the break room might be bugged.

“Well, you see, that’s the problem,” I admitted. “She was home for dinner, but then she slipped out on an errand.”

“Oh, lordie,” Vera Mae moaned. “This is a whole different kettle of catfish. Did you tell the police this?”

“Not exactly. I hesitated and never really answered their question directly. They probably suspected I was holding something back.” I bit back a sigh. You know what they say about hindsight being twenty-twenty. What if I had made things worse for Lark by fudging the facts?

“That might not have been the wisest choice, hon. But I know your heart’s in the right place and you wanted to help her.” Vera Mae pressed her lips tightly together, and I knew she was dying to give me a lecture on the value of truthfulness. “The police don’t take kindly to folks withholding information from them. Obstruction of justice, they call it. Or maybe even an accessory to a crime.”