by Sandra Balzo
Or are they?
Because here I was, standing over the body of Marvin LaRoche. Murder weapon in one hand, blood on the other.
‘Call 911,’ I said.
Chapter Fourteen
On TV, the first cop to arrive on the scene would be the handsome love interest, Pavlik.
But this was cable access, so what we got were rent-a-cops from the convention center. There were three of them. One was fat, one was skinny and one was just right.
‘Can’t you get her to stop that?’ the big rent-a-cop asked, hitching up his pants.
‘What?’ Sarah asked, looking over her shoulder at Janalee. ‘The screaming or the crying?’
‘I’d take either,’ the cop muttered and walked away to talk on his giant walkie-talkie.
‘Would it be against type for him to be talking on a little flip-phone?’ I asked Sarah.
I was very busy thinking about all things inconsequential. Which was pretty much everything except Marvin LaRoche’s body. That didn’t bear thinking about.
‘Probably,’ she said. ‘Image is everything when you’re a rent-a-cop.’
‘I suppose.’ We were sitting on two of the judges’ chairs, waiting for the authorities. I looked down at my hand. ‘I really, really want to wash the blood off.’
‘Don’t blame you. Looks like it’s going bad.’
Sarah was right. The blood was turning brown. Crusty brown with red and white flecks. Yuck. ‘I think I’m going to be sick. Is that white gunk brain matter?’
Sarah leaned in a little closer. ‘Nah. Look, it’s fuzzy. Like it’s growing something.’
I couldn’t look. I was afraid I was going to get sick. ‘Aren’t the CSI people supposed to be here? Taking samples with cotton swabs and squeeze bottles? And then letting me frickin’ wash?’
‘Only on TV,’ Sarah said, taking a puff on her nicotine inhaler. ‘I have a friend whose husband disappeared. I guess the guy’s body was found in Idaho a week later, but she didn’t find out for nearly a year.’
That didn’t seem right. ‘But what about DNA and databases and all?’ I asked, happy to be distracted from whatever was growing on the Petri dish that used to be my hand.
‘Like I said, that’s just on TV. She said they can’t do DNA for everybody because crime labs are under funded. And even when they do, it takes a long time to get results because there’s a backlog because they’re also understaffed.’
‘That’s awful.’ I looked down at my hand. ‘I think I’m going to throw up.’
‘Concentrate on something else.’
‘Like what? The body on the floor? The fact it’s LaRoche, my arch-enemy, who accused me of stealing his barista last night? Or maybe that I touched the murder weapon and now have the victim’s blood on my hand?’
‘Last night? What happened last night?’ Sarah asked, choosing to ignore the rest of my ramblings.
‘I had an argument with LaRoche.’
Sarah looked heavenward, but I continued. ‘Listen, his barista and his wife were finalists, and he was head judge. The right thing to do was recuse himself. I was just trying to get him to see the light.’
‘So you won.’ Sarah cocked her head toward the body. ‘LaRoche not only saw the light, he went toward the light.’
Any other time I would have laughed at that. Drying blood on your hand and a dead man on your stage impairs your sense of humor. I watched as the EMTS finally arrived. They were hurrying, but not save-a-life hurrying. More like make-sure-he’s-dead hurrying.
‘So did anyone else hear the argument?’ Sarah asked.
‘No, thank God. No one was there to hear.’
‘Not last night, at least.’ Sarah stuck her puffer back in her pocket.
‘What do you mean?’ I looked around.
Kate and Jerome were busy following the EMTs with the camera. Jill still had her lens trained on the body, and the audience and judges had been herded to the far side of the hall. Amy, Janalee and Davy were sitting quietly in the corner with the other contestants.
‘There’s nobody to hear me,’ I said.
‘You do know you have your mic on, right?’
A Lavaliere microphone was pinned to my sweater. I thought it would be easier than using the hand-held for the finals. Was it truly on? Had everyone heard what I was saying?
Trying to seem nonchalant, I glanced toward the knot of people on the other side of the room. Henry and Sophie waved back. Oh, God.
I jumped up and went to pull off the microphone. ‘My bloody hand – I can’t touch the microphone,’ I whispered urgently to Sarah. ‘You have to get it off.’
‘You sound like something out of a British horror movie,’ she said, snickering. She grasped the wrist of one of her hands with the other, like she trying to keeping it from attacking. ‘My hand, my bloody hand – get it off, get it off!’
‘Will you shut up?’ I hissed. ‘This isn’t funny.’
Sarah just cocked her head.
No help apparently forthcoming from her, I managed to pull the clip-on microphone off with my left hand. I was still tangled in the wire that ran inside my sweater to the pack positioned at the back of my waist.
‘The on/off switch is on the pack,’ I said. ‘Can you reach it?’ I was trying to get at it with my left arm, but it didn’t seem to bend that way.
‘Can I help?’ a familiar voice said.
I hadn’t noticed the cavalry – in the form of a cadre of sheriff’s deputies – arrive, but I sure was happy to see them. And the sheriff, himself.
I turned to Pavlik. ‘I’m so glad you’re here. Can you turn this microphone off?’
Pavlik looked quizzically at me, but he checked the pack. ‘It is off.’
I threw Sarah a dirty look, and she grinned. ‘Got your mind off throwing up, didn’t I?’
I was at a loss for words. The thought that Sarah had been torturing me in order to be kind was staggering. And a little sick.
Pavlik nodded toward my hand. ‘Blood?’
‘It isn’t my blood,’ I said, though at this point I kind of wished it was. Your own blood was bad enough, but somebody else’s blood drying on your hand? That was downright creepy.
‘There was blood on the tablecloth, and I accidentally put my hand in it,’ I explained in a rush. ‘The little rent-a-cop said I couldn’t wash it. Which I knew, of course, from TV, but I was getting a little crazy, what with the blood getting –’ I looked down at my hand – ‘crusty and all.’ I gagged.
Pavlik took my arm and sat me back down. ‘Before you fall down.’ He waved a deputy over. ‘Can you ask the crime scene guys if they need to take a sample of this blood?’
If?
Of course they were going to take a sample. How else could the police mistakenly send me to prison, where I would be Big Bertha’s girlfriend until I was finally freed by a criminal justice class some twenty years later?
I was the star of my very own made-for-TV movie.
Pavlik knelt down in front of me. ‘They’re probably going to take a sample, just to confirm it’s the same as on the tablecloth and the trophy.’
‘There was no blood on the trophy,’ I said. ‘And I should know. After all, I was the one caught brandishing it over the body, just like in the movies.’
‘From what I hear,’ Pavlik said, ‘two hundred people saw you pick it up.’
‘Maybe she picked it up to cover the fact her fingerprints were already on it,’ Sarah said helpfully.
‘I’m not that smart,’ I growled.
‘There is that.’ Sarah was mulling it over.
‘The killer tried to wipe off the trophy.’ Pavlik apparently had decided to move the conversation along. ‘But the felt fabric on the bottom caught quite a bit of blood.’
I nodded. I was holding my hand out to the side, trying to keep it beyond my peripheral vision.
‘They’ll need your fingerprints, too,’ he continued.
‘To eliminate me?’ I squeaked.
‘Sure,’ Pavli
k said, sounding preoccupied. He’d stood up and was looking over at the trophy. ‘Just what is that supposed to be?’
‘What does it look like?’ Sarah asked before I could answer.
‘A big-breasted woman in a hot tub?’ Pavlik hazarded.
‘Close,’ I said dryly. ‘A barista in a coffee cup.’
‘OK, I can see that.’ Pavlik squinted. ‘And the two . . .’ He cupped his hands.
‘Headlights,’ Sarah supplied.
‘Right,’ Pavlik said. ‘They’ll likely fit the indentations on LaRoche’s forehead.’ He pointed toward the body.
I cleared my throat. ‘Listen, are those crime scene guys going to be coming soon?’ I asked, holding up my hand.
‘Yup. Sorry.’ Pavlik waved over a man with a toolbox.
‘You’re looking a little green,’ Sarah said as she moved aside to let the guy in.
‘She’ll be fine.’ Pavlik crouched back down in front of me. ‘Just let Jim here –’ he gestured to the tech – ‘take a sample and fingerprint you.’
‘And then can I wash my hand?’ I asked.
‘Yes, then you can wash your hand,’ Pavlik said gently. ‘Now I need to talk to the rest of the people here.’
As Pavlik stood up, I grabbed his arm. With the clean hand. ‘Listen, someone may tell you that Amy – she was the manager of Janalee’s Place, you’ll remember – is coming to work for Caron and me, and that’s true.’
‘OK.’ He started to move away.
I tightened my grip. ‘They also may tell you that I burned down Janalee’s Place.’
Pavlik’s jaw dropped.
‘But that’s not true,’ I added hastily.
‘Good,’ he said, looking a trifle dazed. ‘That’s good.’ And he walked away.
Swabbed, fingerprinted and washed, I went into the exhibit hall in search of a friendly face, preferably one that wasn’t actively gossiping about me.
‘Maybe I’m being paranoid,’ I said to Kate, who also had been tossed out of the crime scene. We were walking down the main aisle of the exhibit hall. ‘I feel like everyone is looking and whispering.’
‘No, I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘Did you know they confiscated our tape?’
‘What do you mean?’
‘I mean they made Jack give them his cassette.’
‘No,’ I protested. ‘What I wanted to know was whether you meant “No, you don’t think I’m being paranoid,” or “No, you don’t think people are looking and whispering”.’
‘Oh, they’re looking and whispering alright,’ Kate confirmed.
Great.
‘Anyway,’ Kate continued, ‘I thought the kid was going to chain himself to the tapes. He was arguing with the police and citing the First Amendment when I left.’
You had to wonder why a college student was more concerned about freedom of the press than the press, herself.
‘Good for Jerome,’ I said. ‘At least he has the courage to stand up for what he believes.’
‘Yes, yes, yes,’ Kate said, rolling her eyes. ‘But let’s get back to you and the whispering and the pointing. Rumor has it you burned down Janalee’s to steal Amy and that LaRoche knew it.’
Kate was trying to get a rise out of me again for her newspaper, and I had no intention of confirming or denying what Marvin LaRoche had said to me. I didn’t spend all those years in public relations for nothing.
‘Why would you say that?’ I said evenly. ‘If LaRoche or anyone else thought I had something to do with the fire, they’re mistaken.’
As I spoke, Kate was fishing through her voluminous handbag. I heard a muffled ‘click’ and then a whirr.
A tape recorder – I couldn’t believe it, even of Kate.
‘You’re trying to tape me,’ I said. ‘After all we’ve been through together the last few days. How could you? We’re partners.’
She pulled the tape recorder out of her bag. ‘Partners? We have a seventy–thirty split, your favor. And you’re the star. You consider that partners?’
Worked for me. ‘Seventy percent of nothing is nothing,’ I pointed out. ‘We have no profits and no program.’
‘Only because you killed the chief judge.’
‘I did not kill LaRoche,’ I said, perhaps too vehemently. The exhibit hall went silent. Now people definitely were staring.
‘Arson and murder.’ Kate smiled blissfully. ‘If you thought there was speculation before, just you wait.’
‘Kate.’ Jerome came up to us before I could answer. Or slap her silly. ‘I’m glad I found you. I’m concerned about our footage. Maybe if you spoke to the police―’
‘Not now, Jack,’ Kate said. ‘I have more important fish to fry.’ She threw me a dirty grin and walked away.
‘What could be more important than the First Amendment?’ Jerome asked me, looking shocked.
‘The Eighth, perhaps?’ I muttered, watching Kate stop to talk to a group of people. They all looked our way. ‘Cruel and unusual punishment.’
He gave me a knowing grin. ‘Don’t worry, I’ve dealt with worse.’
I’d been thinking about Kate torturing me – guess I wasn’t the only one. While a case could be made that I was capable of taking care of myself, picking on Jerome was like teasing a puppy. A very smart, bespectacled, Mr Peabody-like puppy.
‘Listen,’ I said, linking arms with him. ‘I assume you have some time on your hands now. Want to help me?’
‘I’d be honored,’ he said, looking pleased.
‘Great. You and Jill have been going around taping people – sort of the sights and sounds of Java Ho, right?’
I had two reasons for asking the question. First, something they had inadvertently captured on tape might suggest who had wanted LaRoche dead. Second, I wanted to make sure they hadn’t caught me on tape, sounding like I wanted LaRoche dead.
‘Correct,’ he said, turning to me. ‘For B-roll.’
The term B-roll is a throwback to when film was edited from reels or rolls. Editors would use B-roll, or secondary footage on another reel, to provide segues and context between segments of the main event: the A-roll.
‘But since the police took everything we shot this morning,’ he went on, ‘I guess B becomes A, doesn’t it?’
‘Or, since there is no barista competition,’ I countered, ‘it’s all B-roll. Garbage.’
‘Never garbage,’ Jerome said, aghast at the thought. ‘Tape and film – they are what we chronicle our lives and our times on. What would we know about the 1940s or 50s or 60s without TV or movies?’
‘Well, some of us actually remember a few of those years,’ I pointed out.
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to . . . I mean, you look so young.’
Yeah, right. I waved him off. ‘I know, I know, to someone your age, Raiders of the Lost Ark is a classic. Me, I’m more Rear Window or North by Northwest.’
‘Quite honestly, I love old movies,’ Jerome said. ‘It’s one of the reasons I decided to study Communication and Theatre Arts.’
Interesting kid, this one. ‘I’m afraid I’m a bit of a movie junkie myself,’ I admitted.
‘My father says that we’re all addicted to something,’ Jerome said. ‘The trick is to make sure it’s something that’s good for us.’
Just then I caught a glimpse of Sarah heading out of the door of the exhibit hall. ‘Listen,’ I said to Jerome, ‘I need to do a few things first, but how can I get a look at those tapes?’
‘The editing suite at the school would probably be easiest,’ Jerome said. ‘There’s a lot of footage, and we can get through it faster there.’
‘Perfect.’ I checked my watch. Could it only be one thirty? ‘Want to meet there at say, three?’
‘I’ll be there.’ Jerome gave me directions and then hesitated.
‘Something wrong?’ I asked.
He cocked his head. ‘I’m just wondering when you’re going to tell me what you’re doing. As you said, there’s no hope in salvaging the show.’
W
hat did I say to him? I’m afraid my boyfriend is going to arrest me for murdering my competitor, burning down his shop and stealing his barista?
Jerome would think I was a lunatic. But the truth was, that’s exactly what I was afraid of.
‘I’m afraid my boyfriend is going to arrest me for murdering my competitor, burning down his shop and stealing his barista.’
I braced myself, waiting for Jerome’s reaction. Surprise, reassurance, commitment – probably of me, to an insane asylum.
But he just nodded. ‘Makes sense. See you at three.’
Yeah, see you at three.
Chapter Fifteen
I found Sarah with the smokers outside the revolving door. I was reminded of Jerome’s dad and his thoughts on addiction.
‘Maybe you should take up red wine,’ I said. ‘At least there are health benefits to that.’
‘I’m not smoking,’ Sarah protested. She was standing next to a red-haired woman with permanently-pursed lips and nicotine-stained hands. When the woman exhaled, Sarah centered herself in the cloud of smoke and breathed deeply. ‘Oh, God, that’s so good,’ she said, as Red looked at her uneasily.
I pulled Sarah away. ‘Have you lost your mind? You’re exchanging air with that woman. Her germs, her breath, her smoke. In some cultures you’d have to marry her.’
Sarah waved me off. ‘I’ve had a bad day. You were there. We found Marvin LaRoche dead. I’ll breathe anybody’s air I want to.’
I have to admit I hadn’t given much thought to Sarah’s reaction to the death of LaRoche, a longtime client. Questionable tactics aside, Sarah had tried to help me in the competition room. The least I could do was offer her a shoulder.
‘I’m sorry, Sarah,’ I said, patting her arm. ‘You knew LaRoche better than I did. How are you doing?’
My friend looked surprised that I was being so solicitous. ‘Why . . . why, thanks for asking Maggy. I do feel a little light-headed.’ She put a hand to her head. ‘Perhaps a cigarette might get me past the worst of it.’
‘Shame on you,’ I scolded her. ‘At least I’m honest enough to admit I didn’t like LaRoche―’
Janalee LaRoche chose that moment to rotate out of the revolving door, though ‘chose’ wasn’t the right word. Janalee didn’t look like she was capable of making any decisions, including walking and talking.
