Reel Murder (24 page)

“But I wasn’t in any danger at all; it was nothing, a nonevent.” A sudden thought hit me. “How in the world did you manage to find out about it?”

“Maggie, I’m a cop. I have my sources. Why would that surprise you?”

“I guess it shouldn’t.” I was silent for a moment. “But it was no big deal, honestly. Really, Carla
tried
to make a big deal of it—” I stopped, hit by a sudden idea. “Wait a minute. Did Carla Townsend call you? Is that how you heard about it?”

“Guilty as charged,” he admitted. “She wanted to quote me for a story she was filing tonight. She said it should hit the TV news late tonight or early tomorrow.”

“The evening news? You mean the network news?” I groaned in dismay. “This is worse than I thought. I figured she meant one of the tabloids.” I remembered Carla’s ghoulish delight in describing the Death Chair and I wondered if I’d end up on
Access Hollywood
. “What did you tell her?”

“Are you kidding me? I didn’t tell her anything. I told her the captain would have my badge if I talked to a reporter and I put her in touch with the community relations officer. Of course, Carla got nowhere with her, either, so eventually she threatened to go to the mayor. She’s an amazingly persistent woman, you know.”

“Do I ever! If she really does have a piece on the ten o’clock news, we can still catch it.” I glanced at my watch and picked up the pace, urging Pugsley to walk faster.

“Thank God, you’re back! Maggie, you’re going to be on television, right after the commercial break.”

“So they really
are
actually doing a feature on the accident with the Klieg light?”

“Of course they are. You’re big news, honey.” Mom amped her smile to the nth degree when she spotted Rafe trailing behind me. “And you brought company home; how nice.” She gave Rafe a saucy wink as I handed her the freezer bag and shot her a meaningful look. “I’ll just stow this away and be right with you.” She darted into the kitchen and I noticed she couldn’t resist giving a seductive little swivel to her hips.

The hip roll was presumably for Rafe’s benefit. He locked eyes with me and shot me a see-what-I-mean? look. What can I tell you? Lola is incorrigible.

I let Pugsley off the leash and he trotted after Mom, skidding on the oak floor in his excitement, hot on the trail of ice cream. I thought of telling her that’s he’d already had his Frosty Paws treat, but then I decided a tiny taste of Mom’s frozen yogurt wouldn’t kill him.

“I can’t believe this,” I said, sinking down onto the beige IKEA sofa. “Carla certainly didn’t waste any time, did she?”

“She figured she had an exclusive—a breaking story,” Rafe said.

I was appalled. Carla had actually followed through on her threat to get the maximum coverage for something that was a nonevent. The woman was shameless. If the incident with the Klieg light was making the network news, I knew it would be blown all out of proportion. I wondered if Hank Watson was watching and what his reaction would be. Note to self: remember to let Hank know I had nothing to do with this unwelcome PR blitz.

“They’ve already played the teaser for it,” Lark piped up. “They had a picture of something they called the Death Chair.”

“Oh no,” I groaned.

“They had a nice shot of you, though. I think it was your headshot from WYME. Someone had Photoshopped your teeth. They were dazzling.”

“I wonder how Carla got my picture. She probably stole it.”
Had Carla stopped by the station after she left the
Death Watch
set? I’d have to check with Cyrus.

“Well, maybe something good will still come of all this.”

Lark is an incurable optimist and believes in cosmic harmony, yin and yang, and the notion that the universe bestows blessings disguised as disasters. I don’t share her beliefs, but she’s such a gentle soul that I never try to force my more cynical, hard-boiled views of life on her. I’ve seen more of the dark side of life than she has, and as Lark is fond of telling me, I’m an “old soul.”

We’re polar opposites. As I said before, I love Woody Allen flicks; her favorite movie is
Forrest Gump
. Need I say more?

She smiled at Rafe, who settled himself in a wicker swivel chair and then she flashed me a he’s-as-gorgeous-as-ever look. At one time she and Rafe had been at odds, because Lark was the prime suspect in a murder case. But that was all cleared up, and now she thinks he’d be the ideal boyfriend for me, if only we both didn’t have so much “cosmic baggage.”

According to Lark, I’m a mercurial Pisces, dreamy, impulsive and never able to settle down with one man, one job, or in one town. After all, as she reminds me, Pisces is a water sign and my symbol is two fish, eternally swimming in opposite directions.

And Rafe—can you guess?—is a Leo. If you’ve ever read up on astrology, you’ll see that we’re practically doomed to fail, right out of the gate. Whenever a Leo and a Pisces get together, there’s plenty of fireworks and sizzle, but never a solid future.

Lark blames it on the stars, but I think there’s more than astrology going on here. I think it’s
characterological
—another five-dollar shrink word, meaning a deeply held personality trait, highly resistant to change. I have some hard evidence about Bad Boy Rafe from the Cypress Grove gossip mill (thanks to Vera Mae and her friend Wanda, from the House of Beauty).

The word on the street about Rafe is that he never gets too involved with anyone—he’s had a string of girlfriends, but he makes sure he can walk away at a moment’s notice. Rafe always has an exit strategy. Doesn’t give a girl a warm, fuzzy feeling inside to hear that, does it?

So I hold back a little, too, knowing that Rafe isn’t the kind of guy who plays for keeps. I have the sneaky feeling that with Rafe it’s all about the thrill of the hunt. On some level—even unconsciously—I tend to cool my jets when I’m around him. Why should I put my heart on the chopping block and let Rafe do an Emeril Lagasse (Bam!) on it?

“Shhh, here it is, everyone!” Lola gave an impatient flip of her hand. She squeezed between us on the sofa and pulled Pugsley onto her lap. His breath smelled like coffee frozen yogurt; what a surprise. “Lark, turn up the volume, sweetie; I don’t want to miss a word.”

I recognized the newscaster, Laura Tremaine, a sleek blonde with model-perfect features and a Julia Roberts smile.

“Has someone put a curse on
Death Watch
, the Hank Watson flick being filmed here in south Florida? Sounds like something out of a Stephen King novel, doesn’t it?” Laura managed to talk and show all of her teeth at the same time, as she zipped through the cheesy introduction.
“Death Watch.”
She drew out the syllables, and threw in a sexy little chuckle, letting the viewers in on the play on words. Nudge. Wink.

“Stephen King? What is she talking about? This is ridiculous.” I could feel a little bubble of anger rising inside my chest and my jaw muscles were clenching.

“There’s already been one death connected with the film, the actress Adriana St. James, and today there was a near-fatal accident on the set. Let’s take a look.” She lowered her voice to a somber pitch and swiveled to look at the monitor behind her.

A crumpled director’s chair filled the screen. Was it staged? No, it looked exactly as I remembered it.

The shot was slightly out of focus but it was still pretty dramatic, with the smashed chair, broken glass, and twisted metal lying on the sand. A few grips were standing in the background, but none of the principal actors appeared in the shot. The picture had very bad resolution and I wondered if Carla had taken it with her cell phone as soon as she left the production office.

“Oh, Maggie,” Lark said, grasping my hand. “That’s where you were sitting?” Her eyes filled with tears. “I didn’t realize how awful it was. You really had a close call—you could have been killed.”

Lola held up her hand for silence. She was sitting on the edge of the sofa, raptly watching the feature, her lips parted. “Maggie, honey, look at you! You are absolutely gorgeous.”

Suddenly my WYME head shot filled the screen. Lark was right, my teeth were so white they were practically fluorescent; I bet they’d glow in the dark. And they used a tight close-up, which made my head look ridiculously large. Gorgeous? I didn’t look gorgeous; I looked like I’d just dropped in from Roswell.

The head that ate Miami.

“Nice teeth,” Rafe said, his lips twitching.

“Dr. Maggie Walsh is probably thanking her lucky stars tonight, because she could have been killed today. She was sitting in the Death Chair when a fifty-pound Klieg light came crashing down on her.”

“But I wasn’t sitting in the chair, you idiot,” I muttered. “At least get your facts right.” I practically shot off the sofa and Lark put out a restraining hand to stop me.

“A narrow escape for the former psychologist who now hosts her own radio show right here in south Florida. In the picturesque town of”—she took a quick peek at her notes—“Cypress Grove.”

Laura paused, staring straight into the lens, a fake-thoughtful expression on her face. She looked so serious you’d think she was pondering global warming or the mysteries of sub-prime lending. “Will this near-death experience have a profound effect on her? Was it a coincidence or a curse? We’ve asked Dr. Heinrich Smoot from the Okaloosa County Psychoanalytic Society for his take on all this.” She flashed another toothy grin at the camera, as it panned to a tiny bearded man who bore a passing resemblance to Toulouse-Lautrec. He’d been staring blankly at the desktop, but magically sprang to life when he realized the camera was focused on him. He widened his eyes and bared his lips in a grin, showing a mouthful of yellowed teeth that really did need some serious Photoshopping.

“Welcome, Dr. Smoot. I know you’ve been following this incredible story out of Cypress Grove.”

“Ya, is very interesting. Really incredible.”

Then he stopped talking abruptly and looked at Laura. Uh-oh. She raised her eyebrows, her glossy lips pursed in pained surprise. Actually shock was more like it. I could almost see a thought bubble drifting above her head:
Hey, didn’t anyone tell this guy he’s on live television? So say something! Anything!

He was from the psychoanalytic society so I assumed he was a Freudian. Maybe he gives his patients the silent treatment (as Freud recommended) but I could have told him it doesn’t go over well on camera. He’d better lose the mute act fast or they’d have to cut away to a commercial.

“You said you find it, um, interesting,” Laura said, tripping over the words. “Would that be because you believe the set might actually be cursed? Would that be an apt description?”

“Cursed? Nah, that is kooky conspiracy theory.” He wagged a finger at her playfully. “No curse. There is no curse. Who would believe such nonsense?”

Again, total silence. Dead air.

Dr. Smoot reminded me of a Tickle Me Elmo doll whose triple A batteries needed recharging. He had only enough energy to spew out a few words before slamming to a quivering halt.

Apparently, he’d never mastered the art of the sound bite, which involves using a few well-crafted sentences to make your point in a way that’s succinct and compelling. The trick is to talk about the issue in a way that viewers can immediately grasp. Instead, he just sat there and stared at Laura who stared right back at him; it was painful to watch. She looked flustered and he appeared eerily calm.

The tension was palpable and I caught Laura gnawing her lower lip when the camera panned to her unexpectedly. A thin sheen of perspiration had popped up on her forehead and her eyes had that distinctive deer-in-the-headlights look, the telltale sign that signals: full panic attack dead ahead.

I wondered if anyone had bothered to do a “preinterview” with Dr. Smoot. If they had, they would have known he’d be a disaster on the air. In a preinterview, the producer asks you to come up with three interesting stories about the topic and then you “deliver” them, in a way that’s entertaining, or at the very least informative.

Entertaining? Informative? Dr. Smoot failed on both counts. I wondered how he’d ever made the cut.

Laura’s eyes flickered nervously to the left as if she was getting instructions from the IFB (interruptible frequency broadcast) monitor device tucked behind her ear. I bet her producer was pulling a Vera Mae on her, urging her to pick up the pace, pleading with her to get this guy talking.

Some performers, like Rosie O’Donnell, refuse to use an IFB, saying it’s too distracting to have a flood of instructions pouring into your ear when you’re live on camera. You’re bombarded with suggestions from the producer and at the same time, you’re trying to listen to the guest and come up with your next question.

I know what it’s like to have dead air on my radio show, and I felt a little twinge of compassion for her.

“So, tell me. Do you believe in coincidence, Dr. Smoot?” Her words tumbled out in a rush as if she was trying to make up for lost time.

“Coincidence?” He looked suspicious, as if it was a trick question.

“Do you think Maggie Walsh just happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

Just a touch of desperation in her tone, but who could blame her. He scratched his beard for a full five seconds. My Magic 8 Ball is more entertaining than this guy!

“It could be.” A long beat. “Or maybe not.”

“And what do you think the aftereffects of this, uh, accident might be?”

“Could be very serious,” he said, looking profound, and then gave a little shrug. “I think maybe evaluate her for PTSD.”

“PTSD?” Laura said brightly. “We just did a feature on that. It’s posttraumatic stress disorder,” she said, showing off for the viewers. “But I thought it only happened to combat veterans?”

“Nah, can happen to anyone. Any place, any time. Someone has big shock and then boom—they end up with PTSD. Nightmares, racing thoughts, big-time anxiety.” He paused, and Laura leaned in, eager to catch every word. “It could happen,” he said, stroking his jowly chin. “Not fun stuff.”