Dead Air: A Talk Radio Mystery (3 page)

I skirted around the edge of the crowd, slipped by a drop-dead-gorgeous guy mumbling into a walkie-talkie, and sneaked back into the station.

I was making my way down the hall, and I couldn’t see any signs of fire or smoke damage. If it hadn’t been for the firefighters and the boys in blue patrolling the corridors, you would have thought this were an ordinary day.

Luckily everyone was too busy rolling out equipment to notice me. Or were they packing up their equipment, getting ready to leave? I couldn’t be sure.

One thing was certain. I wanted to get back into the booth and finish out my show.

And I would have, if it hadn’t been for a six-foot male hunk blocking my path. It was the guy with the walkie-talkie I’d spotted outside. How had he managed to get ahead of me?

“Not so fast,” he said, pulling my hand away from the door to the recording booth. “This area is off-limits, and you’re supposed to be outside. All personnel are ordered to evacuate.”

His grip was surprisingly strong, and I winced a little as I yanked my hand away. Who was he? He wasn’t a cop and he wasn’t a firefighter.

From the look on his face, I figured he wasn’t a fan.

“I need to go inside to check on something.”

“No.”

I reached for the door again, and this time he grabbed my hand in midair. He had very nice hands, with strong fingers and warm skin. I’m embarrassed to admit that even in times of crisis, I pick up on things like this. I noticed that he also had broad shoulders, thick dark hair, and the sculpted features of a movie star.

How did I notice all this in a split second?

I admit it, I’m shallow.

“What part of ‘no’ don’t you understand?”

Okay, he was hot looking, but he had the personality of a storm trooper. I breathed a sigh of relief. Cancel immediate sexual attraction; storm troopers are not my type.

Time for the famed Maggie Walsh feistiness to kick in.

“Nobody manhandles me, bozo. Do you know who I am?”

“I have absolutely no idea.” A little smile played around the corners of his mouth, softening his chiseled features and adding to his attractiveness. Damn! I hate it when guys like this are good-looking. It makes it so much harder to keep an argument going.

“I’m Maggie Walsh.” I waited for a look of recognition, a pleased smile, maybe even a request for an autograph. Which, of course, I would graciously grant.

Nothing. Nada.

“Maggie Walsh, host of WYME’s
On the Couch with Maggie Walsh
show. I’m a . . . a radio personality.” I stumbled a little over this last one because according to the latest Nielsen reports, the
Maggie Walsh
show was running neck and neck with
Bob Figgs and the Swine Report
. We were practically tied for last place.

Still, Bob Figgs called himself a radio personality, so why shouldn’t I?

He raised one eyebrow. “Lady, I don’t care if you’re Rosie O’Donnell. You’re going back outside, and that’s an order.” He frowned. “On the couch? That’s the name of your show?”

“I’m a psychologist. A licensed psychologist,” I said. “On the couch is a reference to Freud. He used to have his patients lie on a couch while he analyzed them. He thought it helped them free-associate as he delved into their unconscious. There isn’t any sexual connotation to the term, if that’s what you were thinking.”

“I wasn’t thinking that.” He gave me the once-over, a look of cool appraisal in his smoky eyes. “In fact, that was the last thing on my mind.” He had sexy eyes and a lazy, heart-thudding smile.

“It was?” Now I was getting annoyed. Not only did this guy have the personality of a Gestapo general, but he didn’t even find me attractive. Clearly, my academic credentials didn’t impress him, either.

Who was he, anyway? He couldn’t be anyone official: He was wearing a pair of neatly pressed khakis, a white shirt and navy blazer, and boat shoes with no socks. Plus the annoying film-star good looks and the throaty voice.

I forced some iron into my voice and tried again. “And if you don’t get out my way this very instant, I’m going to . . .”

I lost my train of thought just then because hunky guy stepped closer—so close I could see the golden flecks in his dark eyes and the sexy curve of his mouth.

“You’re going to do what?” he murmured, making it sound like the sexiest thing anyone had ever said to me. His voice was low and husky, and I felt a funny little tingling at the base of my spine.

I paused for a second, ready to spring. “I’m going back in there, that’s what!”

With a burst of adrenaline, I made a mad dash for the door once again, but something big and powerful stopped me. I slumped against the wall as if I had just run into a Subaru.

Hot guy let out a big sigh. “Okay, lady, we can do this the easy way or the hard way.” He managed to slip one of my hands behind my back before I even realized what he was doing. “And I guess it has to be the hard way.” Another quick move and the other hand followed it.

I felt something hard and metal fastening my hands behind my back.

“Maggie Walsh, I am putting you under arrest.”

Oh, no! My hands were pinned behind me and hot guy was perp-walking me down the hallway past the smoke-filled reception area, toward the double glass doors that opened onto the parking lot.

I gave myself a mental head slap. This was not going as planned.

“You’re a cop?” I gulped.

A low sexy chuckle. “Detective Rafe Martino. At your service, ma’am.”

“Look, they’ve arrested Maggie Walsh!”

Big Jim Wilcox couldn’t keep the delight out of his voice. “Why did you do it, Maggie? Do you have a statement for us? It will be a WYME exclusive. You’ll be famous!” He fumbled around for a mike, realized he didn’t have one, and pulled out a pen and notebook from his back pocket. “Let’s hear your side of it, Maggie. Was it a love affair gone bad, or did you finally snap?”

I gave him a withering look, and Vera Mae hurried over along with Cyrus Still, the station manager.

“Good lord, Maggie. What in the world are you doing in those handcuffs?” she demanded.

“Ask him!” It was impossible to gesture with my hands shackled behind my back, so I had to nod my head up and down like Mr. Ed.

“It’s a case of false arrest—false imprisonment,” I squeaked. “This cop is taking me hostage. You’d better get me a good lawyer, Vera Mae.” I glared at Rafe, who was standing next to me, a wide smile on his face. “Or maybe get
him
one.”

“Now, folks, let’s just simmer down here. Nobody needs a lawyer.” Cyrus gave me a speculative look and then turned his attention to Rafe. “Detective Martino, is there a problem here?”

He called him “Detective.” So Cyrus knew this guy was a cop? Why am I always the last one to know these things?

“No problem,” I muttered. “Just an innocent, private citizen getting strong-armed by one of Cypress Grove’s finest.”

“I didn’t strong-arm you. You refused to obey me!” Rafe objected. “It’s a crime to disobey an order from an officer of the law.”

“I didn’t know you were a cop,” I said hotly. I gave him the once-over. He looked like a J.Crew refugee in those neatly pressed trousers and crisp cotton shirt. “Is that the new dress code for Cypress Grove’s finest? You look like a preppie on spring break.”

“I’m a detective,” he said in an aggrieved tone. “We don’t wear uniforms.”

“I try to do my job and you arrest me? What happened to protect and serve?” I demanded.

Score one for Maggie.

“Detective Martino, did you identify yourself as a police officer?”

Score one for Cyrus.

“I didn’t have a chance to flash my badge,” he said. “I was too busy restraining her from entering the recording booth. She was going to put herself in harm’s way.”

“Now, Detective Martino, I’m sure Dr. Walsh didn’t mean to make things difficult for you,” Cyrus said in a softly wheedling way. “She’s a very devoted employee; she was probably worried about her listeners.”

“Yes, I was!” I thought about my poor listeners and could only hope their psyches were still intact.

I turned to my captor. “Have you ever listened to ‘My Heart Will Go On’ for twenty minutes straight? Wouldn’t that count as cruel and unusual punishment? Like Chinese water torture? Or maybe bamboo shoots jammed under the fingernails?”

Rafe looked puzzled and started fumbling with the handcuffs. “I have no idea what you’re talking about, but let’s call a truce. No charges, no arrest.”

I yanked my hands in front of me and rubbed my wrists. I gave him my best Maggie Walsh glare, the one that I used on psychotics and convicted felons. No reaction. This guy was good. Okay, I could play it cool, too.

“Have a nice day, Dr. Walsh.”

I straightened my spine. Now was the time to deliver a snazzy zinger that he would never forget. A Maggie Walsh classic.

“Detective Martino?”

“Yes?” He turned back, his dark eyes questioning.

“Um, you have a nice day, too.”

Talk about lame! One look into those sultry eyes and my best one-liner flew out of my head.

 

“So it wasn’t really a bomb?” Jim Wilcox asked in his booming announcer’s voice. I think he was secretly disappointed that I hadn’t planned on blowing up the station. What a ratings booster that would have been!

I could just hear the teaser: “Local shrink goes berserk and blows up her own radio station. Get the full story tonight at six on WYME with Big Jim!” With a story like that, Jim might even be able to land a job at one of Miami’s top stations doing the afternoon drive time. I bet it would go into his audition tape.

“The chief’s gonna make a statement in a minute,” one of the firemen answered him. “Don’t want to steal his thunder.” He grinned at Jim, who was a local celebrity. He leaned close to whisper something in Jim’s ear, and then Jim burst out laughing.

“You’re putting me on!” Jim said, clapping him on the shoulder. “What was she thinking?”

“What’s going on?” I asked.

“You’ll know soon enough,” Jim said, self-importantly. It was obvious the crisis, whatever it was, had been averted, but he wasn’t going to let me in on the secret.

Just then, Fire Captain Chris Norton appeared on the grassy area in front of the station and removed his helmet. “We found the . . . uh . . . source of the explosion,” he said. “Please step forward, Miss Yaslov.”

Irina Yaslov, the station receptionist! She walked slowly out of the station, blinking in the bright Florida sunshine. “I made a big fault,” she said tearfully. “I was making the popcorn,” she said, wringing her hands and struggling with her imperfect English. “How was I to know there would be big boom? I make it many time before, and there is no boom. Just today.”

“You were making popcorn? In the microwave?” So that’s why I had flashed on a movie theater when I smelled something hot and buttery burning. And here I thought I was having an olfactory hallucination.

Poor Irina looked mortified, her eyes darting back and forth between Cyrus Stills and Jim Wilcox. “Yes,” she said softly. “I used metal plate. Maybe not such a good idea. Microwave is—how you say?—history. Kaput.”

“Well, sakes alive, girl. You should know better than to put a metal plate in a microwave. You scared us all half to death. You probably shortened Tweetie Bird’s life.” Vera Mae lifted a corner of my sweater to check on her bird, who was picking listlessly at a miniature corncob.

“It’s okay,” Big Jim said gallantly. “Irina here is from Iceland,” he said helpfully to a female reporter I recognized from the
Cypress Grove Gazette
. “They probably cook things differently over there. They eat a lot of whale meat, you know.”

“I am from Sweden, not Iceland!” Irina protested. “And no, I do not eat the whale meat.” She shot an appealing look at Cyrus. “Really, I’m desolated this is happening, and I’m hoping not to be losing my job.”

Cyrus ignored her and shook hands with the firefighters. “Sorry we dragged you out here for nothing, guys.” Then he glared at Irina. “I’ll see you in my office, missy. Someone’s going to have to buy a new microwave and pay to have those scorch marks removed from the wall.” He caught me staring at him. “What are you looking at? Don’t you have a show running? And why is that song playing over and over?” he said irritably.

I glanced at my watch and scurried back into the building. Now that the fun was over, I had a show to do!

Chapter 3

When Guru Sanjay Gingii showed up for his three o’clock guest slot, I was still frazzled from Irina’s popcorn misadventure. The mystery caller hadn’t contacted us again, and I didn’t have a clue about why he was so upset with the guru. A faint cloud of buttery smoke hung in the air, and Guru Sanjay wrinkled his nose when he walked into the booth.

Sanjay Gingii, a self-styled New Age “prophet” from South Beach, was in town for a conference at the Seabreeze Inn. My boss, Cyrus, is vice president of the Cypress Grove Chamber of Commerce, and he insisted that I invite the guru to be a guest on the show.

Guru Sanjay was tall and portly, dressed all in white, with a Nehru jacket pulled tight over his ballooning gut. He sported one of the worst comb-overs I’ve ever seen.

“I am sensing a dark presence in the air.” He squinted his eyes and waved his hands in front of himself as if he were blindfolded. Finally he eased his bulky frame into the swivel chair next to me. After an uncomfortable silence, his eyes flew open and focused on me. “I am feeling a cloud of negativity, a miasma of despair.”

His tone was low and mournful, a voice from another realm. Maybe even another planet.

His two assistants, bouncer types who looked like extras from
The Sopranos
, nodded solemnly, their arms crossed against their massive chests. They refused to sit down and remained standing on either side of the door.

“We had a little fire here today,” I said chattily. “It’s nothing, really, just some leftover smoke damage. By the way, I’m Maggie Walsh, host of
On the Couch
.”