Cancelled Vows

by Lauren Carr

  “Carl and his mistress did it,” Ali said with certainty. “Maybe they hired someone to do it. I find it very convenient that they were eatin’ supper with not one but two other couples and watchin’ baseball at the exact same time that Ruth was bein’ strangled.” In response to Yvonne’s worried expression, she smiled. “Don’t worry, sugar. I’ll figure it out. I always do.”

  Gathering up her news copy to go over, Yvonne hurried off to makeup without another question. As soon as she was gone, Ali put on her black trench coat and hat and rushed across town to meet with the retired detective who, two years before, had been in charge of the investigation into Audra Walker’s disappearance.

  Unfortunately, dead men don’t talk.

  Ali’s only hope to uncover the details of Audra Walker’s disappearance was to find the notebook in which he had kept his notes of the case—the one the detective had promised to let her examine.

  Aware that time was ticking away, Ali gave up. Given Yvonne’s foul mood, she would be furious if Ali wasn’t back at the studio before they finished filming. With one last glance around the apartment, she made her way to the front door, pausing to gaze with sympathy at the old man sitting in his easy chair, his head a bloody mess.

  “I’m gonna find who did this,” she whispered to him. “I promise.”

  Silently letting herself out through the front door, she paused to turn the knob and lock the door behind her in order to leave the place the way she’d found it. For a police detective, it wasn’t much of a lock. Sergeant Robert’s killer had been unable to lock the dead bolt from the outside. It had taken her fewer than thirty seconds to pick the regular lock.

  Turning around, she came face to face with an elderly woman moving toward her. Her arms were filled with grocery bags. Their eyes met, and Ali smiled and greeted her in Italian with a heavy foreign accent. “Buona sera.” Better to acknowledge her in a friendly manner than to hide my face and run. Less suspicious. When the police ask if she saw anyone suspicious, she’ll dismiss me as not suspicious and remember me as a foreigner.

  “Hello,” the elderly lady replied politely while quickly turning away to unlock her apartment door. As soon as the door was open, she hurried inside, as Ali knew she would.

  The heavy foreign accent had made the neighbor, who didn’t want to get trapped in an awkward conversation with someone who didn’t know English, run away as quickly as possible.

  Out on the street, Ali stopped at the nearest pay phone and, using her knuckle, dialed the emergency operator.

  “Nine-one-one,” the operator said. “What is your emergency?”

  “Me gustaría informarles de un asesinato,” Ali said, indicating she’d like to report a murder.

  “Do you speak English?” the operator replied.

  “No, no hablan inglés,” Ali lied with desperation in her tone.

  Chapter Eight

  “What type of male homicide detective wears mascara?” Mac muttered to David as they waited in the back of the control booth while Lieutenant Wayne Hopkins prepared to be interviewed on camera by the headline host of Crime Watch. The police lieutenant had changed into a blue suit and had taken off his glasses. Mac noticed that he’d applied mascara to his eyelashes to make his eyes less beady.

  “Is it me, or has Archie rubbed off on you?” David asked Mac with a sly grin.

  “Rubbed off on me in a good way or bad?” Mac asked.

  David reached over to scratch Gnarly, who was sitting between Mac’s knees, behind his ears. “You’re suspicious of anyone who doesn’t like Gnarly.”

  “I’m suspicious of police officers who are camera hounds,” Mac said. “And I’ll admit it. Gnarly has proven to be a good judge of character. It’s been proven that most of the time, if he doesn’t like someone, there’s an excellent reason for it.”

  “You’ll get no argument from me,” David said.

  Crime Watch was recorded in one of ZNC’s multiple studios on the thirty-sixth floor of the News Corp Building. The directors and producers oversaw the production in the sound-proof control room that looked out onto the set. On that set, journalists interviewed their guests or reported from a huge news desk equipped with computers and monitors built onto the desktop where viewers would not see them.

  Once one was outside the control booth and facing the set, he or she would see that on the right side of it was the sound stage, which contained recording and computer equipment, chairs, desks, lights, and anything else that might have been needed on camera. The outer corners and far walls were dimly lit in stark contrast to the brightly lit stage and set. Shelving units, unused equipment, and a snack table filled with day-old pastries and stale sandwiches were stationed at the far wall.

  The makeup department was located on the other side of the control room. On-air personalities and their guests could watch ZNC’s newscasts streamed live on monitors and could communicate with the directors and producers via intercoms while preparing to go on camera.

  In the control room, Jim Wiehl was speaking in low tones with ZNC’s CEO and preparing for his wife’s interview with the detective. Even before David had clued him in, Mac had sensed that the distinguished executive was someone of importance. As soon as Preston Blakeley entered and demanded Jim’s attention, an air of apprehension dropped in the room.

  “Most likely, he came down from the fortieth floor to watch Yvonne Harding’s segment about the Internet troll’s murder,” Ryan Ritter said as he walked behind Mac and David.

  The celebrated news journalist offered Mac his hand to shake. “I heard you were in the building today when Audra Walker’s body was discovered.” Spotting Gnarly, he asked, “Is this the cadaver-sniffing dog?”

  “I don’t know about cadaver sniffing,” Mac said. “More like he simply finds things.” Noticing that Ryan Ritter was also wearing mascara, he shuddered. Take me back to Spencer. I’m just not ready for this.

  “Well, Mr. Faraday, you picked one bizarre day to stop by ZNC.” Ryan offered Gnarly a cheese curl, which, surprisingly, the German shepherd refused. “Preston Blakeley doesn’t make it a habit to stop by to watch the filming.” He jerked his head in the direction of the network’s CEO, who was engaged in a low conversation with the producer. “Clearly, he’s here tonight to conduct damage control, since Rubenstein’s husband intends to sue. In our business, all loyalty goes out the window when it comes to lawsuits. Yvonne Harding may be Blakeley’s darling—”

  “Darling?” Mac picked up on the term of affection. “Darling as in ‘mistress’?”

  “Maybe, maybe not,” Ryan said. “No one is really very sure. Knowing Blakeley and the ZNC board, if Yvonne costs the company a couple of million dollars in a wrongful death suit, regardless of how good she is in bed or high her approval ratings are”—he jerked his thumb over his shoulder—“she’s out of here.”

  “Knowing how people are nowadays—the wackos out there—Yvonne should have never outed Rubenstein. It was totally irresponsible of her,” David said with disgust.

  “Irresponsible like this police detective going on the air to answer questions for the whole world about an open murder investigation?” Mac asked. “It’s like laying out all of your cards in a poker game and then wondering why you aren’t winning anything.”

  “You would think,” Ryan agreed. “Ever since Preston Blakeley got Hopkins signed on as an expert, he’s been all about the camera. He hangs around these studios a lot, appearing at least once a week on one show or another to offer law enforcement’s views on different cases.” He lowered his voice. “Chatter is that he’s getting his own show in the near future.”

  “Easy to see where Hopkins’ priorities are,” Mac told David.

  “These people live for fame and forget about what’s really important.”

  “Are you saying fame ruined Yvonne?” Mac asked.

  Anger seeped into David’s tone. “She’s
not the woman I married.”

  “It’s that obsession with fame that’s going to get you your divorce,” Mac hissed.

  Ryan Ritter jerked his head around in David’s direction upon hearing the reference to being married to Yvonne Harding. Not understanding Ritter’s perplexed expression, David asked, “What are you looking at?”

  “We’re shooting in five … four …” the director counted down.

  In the studio, Pam Wiehl and Lieutenant Wayne Hopkins sat across from each other at the news desk. On the signal from the director, Pam opened the segment with a recap of the Audra Walker case, which included a break to show a clip from Yvonne Harding’s interview, the last public appearance of the noted investigative journalist.

  Audra Walker’s face came up on the monitor. Seeing her, Mac was reminded of how pretty Audra Walker used to be, but not in a cosmopolitan way. Raised on a Texan ranch, Audra wore her thick, wavy dark mane loose. She also wore little makeup—less, he noted, than Lieutenant Wayne Hopkins and Ryan Ritter.

  Seeing Audra’s face, Mac remembered Ali’s observation about there being a difference between an investigative journalist who lives in pursuit of the story and a celebrity.

  Audra Walker was an investigative journalist first and always, with the emphasis on “investigative.”

  Mac recalled that Audra Walker could tell a bawdy joke, one laced with a Texan twang, as well as any of the men in the police department. The first time he’d encountered her sense of humor was when she’d met him at a police bar to go over the basics of the murder case she’d been researching.

  Mac’s captain at the time considered himself to be quite a ladies man. Upon seeing the leggy brunette with striking light-brown eyes, he moved right in and proceeded to brag about his long string of arrests, giving gruesome details, all in an effort to impress her with his masculine prowess. Finally, in need of a refill of his beer, the captain stepped up to the bar.

  As soon as the captain was out of earshot, Audra turned to Mac and stated in a matter of fact manner, “Now there’s a man who’s all hat and no cattle.”

  She had to have noticed the complete confusion in Mac’s expression.

  “Have you ever been to Texas?” After Mac confessed he hadn’t, she explained the saying. “Real Texans are ranchers. The bigger the ranch, the more cattle you got. Used to be that the more cattle you got, the bigger your hat.”

  “Cowboy hat,” Mac said.

  “Braggarts tend to go out and buy themselves big hats”—she held up her hands over her head to illustrate a big cowboy hat—“to put on a big show ’bout what big men they are, when really they have no cattle.” With a wicked grin, she leaned across the table to whisper to him, “In other words, as much as your boss brags ’bout his sexual prowess, I’m guessin’ he has a very tiny penis.”

  Mac choked on his beer.

  “You know I’m right, sweetie, don’t you?”

  Gasping for air, Mac was still having trouble finding his voice when she leaned across the table toward him. She arched one of her eyebrows. With a cock of her head, she said, “Come on, Faraday. You’ve been in the men’s room standin’ over the urinal with him. I can see it on your face. Tell me I’m right. He’s all hat and no cattle.”

  At that point, his captain returned to the table with his refill. Choking on his beer, Mac ran out onto the street, where he doubled over with laughter.

  On the monitor replaying Audra Walker’s last interview, which had been filmed two years earlier, Yvonne Harding was asking, “What’s next for Audra Walker?”

  “Oh, I’m now gonna finish that one project that’s been doggin’ me for my whole career,” Audra said with a toothy grin. Mac could see the excitement on her face.

  “What project is that?” Yvonne asked.

  “The true story behind Romeo and Juliet.”

  “Why did you choose this clip?” Preston Blakeley demanded of Jim Wiehl. “It was an hour-long interview. This was the best you had?”

  “Because legal advised us to not replay anything from the Brennan book until they had a chance to go over where we stand on that matter,” Jim replied. “Brennan announced last week that he’s planning another run for president. Legal claimed that if we ran any part of that interview about Jolene Fitzgerald’s murder, it could bring in criticism from Brennan’s party—or worse, a lawsuit from Brennan.”

  “Give me a break,” Blakeley grumbled.

  “Romeo and Juliet?” Yvonne asked in the interview. “Is Audra Walker moving into romantic tragedies?”

  “Actually, it’s not so much a romantic tragedy as it is the perfect murder,” Audra replied with a mischievous grin. With a tilt of her head, she arched that eyebrow.

  Mac’s jaw dropped open. That tilt of the head. The arched eyebrow. That long, dark, wavy mane. That’s it. That’s what’s been nagging at me.

  The cameras returned to Lieutenant Wayne Hopkins and Pam Wiehl at the news desk. Blinking, Pam sat up straight in her seat and faced the camera.

  “Hours after that interview with our own Yvonne Harding, Audra Walker disappeared,” Pam Wiehl told the audience. “She was never seen again—until today, when what is believed to be her skeletal remains were discovered here in our own ZNC studios. With us now is Lieutenant Wayne Hopkins of the New York City Metropolitan Police, who is leading the investigation into Audra Walker’s disappearance and the body that was discovered today. Wayne Hopkins has appeared as an expert in law enforcement many times here at ZNC.” Turning to the lieutenant, she asked, “First, Lieutenant Hopkins, has the body been positively identified?”

  “Yes,” Hopkins said into the camera. “Dental records and DNA have positively identified the body discovered today as that of Audra Walker.”

  With an expression filled with compassion, Pam said, “So tragic. Audra Walker was a friend and respected colleague. Has her family been notified of this discovery?” Blinking her eyes, her face contorted.

  “What’s wrong with her face?” Preston Blakeley asked.

  Jim chuckled. “Her eyelash is coming off. Good thing we’re recording this interview, and it’s not live.”

  “Not yet,” the lieutenant said in response to Pam’s question about notifying the Walker family. “Unfortunately, we’ve been unable to contact them. Walker’s husband died shortly before her disappearance. She had a grown son and daughter. Her son, Phil Walker, who took over the presidency of his father’s company, is traveling out of the country right now. Her daughter, Dallas, has been backpacking through Europe for the last several months. According to her social media sites, she is currently in Italy.”

  The corner of one of Pam’s false eyelashes was curling up toward her eyebrow.

  “Keep going, Pam,” Jim said to her through his earbud, which communicated with her on the set. “We’ll rerecord your questions after the interview and edit them back in.”

  “Do you know yet how Audra Walker died?” Pam asked with wide eyes. The eyelash was flapping like a wing on her eyelid.

  “We found one bullet wound to the back and two bullet holes in the back of her skull,” the lieutenant said. “And we did recover those bullets, forty-five calibers, at the crime scene. Once we find the murder weapon, all we have to do is match up the bullets.”

  “Idiot,” David said. “He just told the killer that he needs to get rid of the murder weapon.”

  “Where’s Ali Hudson?” Mac asked.

  “She should be here,” Ryan Ritter replied while looking around the control room. “Where is Ali?”

  “She’s at the dentist,” the assistant director sitting at the control panel in front of them said. “She chipped her tooth at lunch.”

  “Chipped her tooth?” Mac muttered. “On a hot dog?”

  Several minutes later, they had finished recording the segment. Cursing, Pam Wiehl ripped off the bothersome eyelash.

  Laughi
ng, Jim said to the crew via the intercom, “Okay, Pam, go to makeup to get your eyes redone.” His voice could be heard booming across the studio. “We’re going to shoot Yvonne Harding’s interview with the psychologist. Once we’re done with that segment, then we’ll reshoot Pam’s portion of the Walker interview.”

  On the stage, Lieutenant Wayne Hopkins was disconnecting his body mic with the help of a sound technician. “Do you need me here for that, Jim? I have an appointment I need to get to.” Clearing his throat, he puffed out his chest. “I’m following up on a lead for the Walker case.” After the producer responded that the detective was free to leave, Hopkins turned to shake Pam’s hand, only to find that she had already disconnected her microphone and galloped off to the makeup department.

  In the control booth, Preston Blakeley patted the executive producer on the back. “Good job, Wiehl. Congratulations on getting Hopkins to give us this exclusive.”

  “We certainly scooped every other network,” Jim said.

  “You also gave Audra Walker’s killer a road map on what to do to escape detection,” Mac said.

  “That’s one way of looking at it, Faraday,” Jim said. “Another way is that the more information the public has, the better equipped they are to help us identify the killer.”

  “Is that really what you want?” Mac asked. “Justice for Audra Walker or ratings?”

  “Why can’t we have both?” Preston Blakeley asked with a chuckle. Giving Jim Wiehl another slap on the back, the CEO said, “I’ve got a conference call to make to some board members on the West Coast. Jim, can I trust you to make Yvonne stay on point with the troll story?”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  “I’m leaving with you, Preston,” Ryan Ritter said while taking a cell phone out of his suit coat’s pocket. “Need to stop at makeup. My show is in less than an hour.”

  “They’re going to be busy,” the director said. “We got a lot of new guests on schedule.”