by Lis Wiehl
“Well, that was all it took. Three months later, The Hand of Fate was a real morning talk show. We ended up completely changing our format. No more classic lite hits. Now we’ve got a guy who does financial advice, a garden lady, two guys with a sports show, a couple that gives dating advice, and a shrink who yells at people to get their act together. And Jim and his show. Less than a year after he made those first comments, he was airing on a dozen local networks. Now he’s syndicated. The Hand of Fate airs on 120 affiliates, and Jim’s my golden boy.” Aaron heaved a sigh. “Was. Was my golden boy. Now I don’t know what we’ll do.”
Allison said, “I heard Victoria Hanawa filling in for him yesterday.”
Aaron shrugged. “She doesn’t have that out-there quality that Jim does. Did. She’s more the voice of reason. And that’s not necessarily the voice you want to tune in to. Reasonable isn’t as entertaining. It doesn’t really matter to me what someone says on the air. It doesn’t have to be right or wrong. It just has to get people to listen. In the end, it all boils down to the ratings. The higher the number, the more we can charge for commercial advertising time. And that’s the only thing that keeps us in business.”
Thinking of Cassidy, Allison said, “I have a friend who is a TV reporter, and she says the same thing. It’s all about ratings.”
“Exactly,” Aaron said. “And even then it’s not enough to have a huge number of people tuning in to your show. They have to represent the right demographic group if the station’s going to make money. Most ad agency media buyers target the twenty-five to fifty-four age bracket. And women aged twenty-five to thirty-four are pure gold. They’re the ones who control the purse strings. That’s one reason we brought Victoria in last year. Jim’s listeners tend to be older and male. Victoria was supposed to help us skew more toward people like herself.”
“You said supposed to,” Nicole observed. “That didn’t work out?”
Aaron sucked air in through his teeth. “Our numbers haven’t risen that much. And Jim didn’t really cotton to the idea. He felt it was— hmm . . . something of an intrusion. He didn’t exactly make things easy for Victoria. But she’s a real trouper. You’ve probably heard that she stayed even when Jim ordered us to leave. She risked her own life to be with him for those last few minutes. It was . . .” Aaron’s voice cracked, and he paused for a minute, his lips pressed together as he struggled for control. “It was horrible to look at him and know that he had to be dying and that you couldn’t help him. When I left, he already looked awful. And when I looked back, Victoria had her hand up against the glass, and Jim was on the other side, pressing his hand against hers, with the glass in between.”
Aaron put his hand over his eyes, and they watched as his shoulders heaved with a silent sob. He finally straightened up, his eyes wet and red.
“Why would Victoria take the risk of staying?” Nicole asked. “Were they more than just coworkers?”
Aaron blinked. “I don’t know, and I don’t want to know. I mean, technically, Jim wasn’t Victoria’s boss—I was. Sure, it was Jim’s show, but when it comes to talent, I’m the one who hires and fires. Jim has always had an eye for the ladies; that’s all I can tell you.”
Allison and Nicole made eye contact. Allison knew they were thinking the same thing. In other words, yes.
“Did Jim have any enemies?”
Aaron shrugged. “He ticked people off on a regular basis. But mad enough to kill him? Killing someone for being a blowhard or for riding roughshod over a caller—that’s pretty hard to fathom.”
“How about Quentin Glover?” Nicole asked.
“I’m sure he wasn’t happy, but he’s facing an indictment. He’s got too much on his plate to be worrying about Jim Fate.”
Allison said, “What about Brooke Gardner?” The transcript had been pretty damning, once you knew the truth behind it. “She killed herself after appearing on the show.”
Aaron’s face darkened. “The story is not that simple. That’s why her family settled out of court. That girl had a whole raft of problems.”
“What do you mean?” Nicole asked.
“She had a drug habit and let a number of men come and go through that apartment. Her ex was trying to get custody. She was afraid all that was going to come out.”
Allison didn’t let it show on her face, but she was revising her opinion of Aaron. He seemed like the kind of man who went with what was expedient, who toted up the balance sheet before making any decision. How much of his grief was about Jim’s death—and how much was about losing the golden goose? That gave her an idea.
“Did you have keyman insurance on Jim?”
Aaron looked blank. “What’s that?”
“It’s a kind of insurance that a company can take out on someone key to the business. Then if that person dies or is incapacitated, the insurance pays the company.”
He raised his shoulders. “I don’t know. You’ll have to ask our accountants. We do carry liability insurance against lawsuits. That’s what paid off when Brooke Gardner’s family decided to settle.”
“How about the other staff?” Nicole asked. “How did they get along with Jim?”
He pursed his lips. “Pretty well. No more arguments than at most workplaces.”
“There were arguments?” Nicole raised an eyebrow.
“Well, not really arguments. People learned it was better not to get into a discussion with Jim. He had that way of never stopping, never letting go. He would just talk over you until you gave up.”
After they told Aaron he could go, Allison turned to Nicole. “What do you think?”
“I’m thinking we might want one of our accounting specialists to go over the books. If you read between the lines, it sounds like the station might have been in financial trouble. They brought Victoria in, but it didn’t help.”
“And if they did have keyman insurance,” Allison said slowly, “then Jim might have been worth more dead than alive.”
CHAPTER 25
KNWS Radio
Back in the interview room, Nic looked at Allison and shook her head in mock amazement. “Okay, for suspects we now have station management, the Gardners, Representative Glover, Craig, NOD winners, and now Victoria. And don’t forget Leather Hat Guy.”
Allison laughed. “Maybe for this next interview we should concentrate on finding out who couldn’t have killed him.”
“Who’s up next?” Nic asked as she massaged a knot on her inner thigh. Because she was still recovering from being shot in the shoulder, her Thai boxing instructor was focusing on the lower half of her body. Thanks to the training Nic had begun at Quantico, she was already good with her fists, but Muay Thai also used shins, knees, and elbows as weapons. The past weekend she had been too slow to block a kick and learned firsthand exactly how much pain the nerve that ran from the groin to the knee could produce.
Allison looked at the schedule. “Next up is an intern who was assigned to work directly with Jim. Willow Klonksy.”
“Willow Klonsky? Doesn’t exactly sing, does it?” Nic wondered which part of her name the girl would take after. Hippie chick Willow or plodding peasant Klonsky?
The answer turned out to be neither. Slender and model pretty, Willow was dressed in a black skirted suit, ivory blouse, and a single strand of pearls. Her makeup was flawless, her dark hair pinned up in a French twist. She looked like she was about to pose for a stock photo that would be labeled “young businesswoman.” But when she shook hands with Nic, her palm was damp.
“I understand you’re an intern here,” Nic said, taking the lead. “Is that a paid position?”
“I get college credit,” Willow said in a low voice. “I’m a senior in the broadcasting program at Reed.”
Nic revised Willow’s age down five years. She raised an eyebrow. “No offense, but you don’t really look like a Reedie.”
Reed was a top-drawer private college that attracted extremely bright kids with Birkenstocks, progressive ideas, and a liberal attitude tow
ard drug use.
Willow offered them a smile, her first. It changed her face, softened some of the edges. “I don’t necessarily dress like this when I’m not at work.” Her tone became more serious. “And I don’t necessarily take part in all the after-school activities you hear about.”
“So you’re working here for free?” Nic asked. Maybe white girls whose parents had lots of money could afford to do glorified volunteer work while they attended a college that cost tens of thousands of dollars. Every hour Nic hadn’t been studying while she was in college, she had been making milk shakes, mopping floors, entering data into a computer. She barely remembered her courses. Every now and then her parents had been able to give her a twenty or two, or sometimes just a bottle of shampoo.
Willow leaned forward. “You don’t understand. I am so lucky to be here. There were more than two hundred applicants for this position. Being an intern is about the only way to get around that whole catch-22: ‘Can’t get a job without experience, can’t get experience without a job.’ Because I’ve worked here, I’ll be able to show on my résumé that I do have relevant experience.”
“What are your duties?” Allison asked.
“They told me I would be booking guests, doing some research and editing, sound gathering, audio production . . .” Willow let her voice trail off.
Nic said, “And in real life?”
Willow raised one shoulder and smiled. “About what you would expect. I answer phones, and sometimes check the newswires for stories. But I’m mostly a gofer. I go out for coffee and sandwich runs.”
“So how did Jim Fate like his coffee?” Allison asked.
Willow replied without hesitation. “Twenty-ounce latte with four shots, extra hot, no whip, with three sugar packets. He was very firm about that. No Splenda or Equal. It had to be sugar.”
“So Jim was a man’s man, huh?” Nic said. “Not afraid of a little sweetener?”
A smile quirked Willow’s mouth. “Jim wasn’t much afraid of anything.”
Nic wondered if that trait had gotten Jim Fate killed. “How long have you known him?”
“I met him when he interviewed me and the other finalists for the job. But I’ve been listening to him since I was in middle school. In fact, he’s the main reason I decided to major in broadcasting. He spoke the truth without fear.”
Willow was so earnest that Nic practically expected her to put her hand over her heart.
“What was Jim like to work with?” Allison asked. “Was he a good boss?”
“He liked to explain to me how radio worked, what listeners wanted versus what they said they wanted. He liked to tell me why something was wrong, and how it should be changed.”
“Sounds like pretty one-sided conversations,” Nic observed. She had worked for a lot of people like that in her time. Some of the older guys at the Bureau still treated her like she was wet behind the ears.
“But that’s what I’m here for,” Willow said earnestly. “To learn about how things really work in the real world.”
“What are your plans now?” Allison asked. “Will you stay here?”
“I don’t know.” Willow sighed. “Aaron says I can stay. But my dad wants me to quit. He’s worried that it’s not safe here. He keeps asking me, what if someone sends another package? Aaron says they are going to contract with a company that will X-ray any package before it comes to the building, but my dad’s afraid something will slip through, or that some crazy guy will just show up at the front desk and start blasting away with a machine gun.”
Nic could understand that. If this girl were her daughter, she would already be gone.
“Did Jim Fate have any enemies?” Allison asked.
Willow’s answering smile seemed faintly patronizing. “You must not have listened to the show very much. He made a lot of people mad. I saw some of the letters Jim threw in the trash after reading them. People would say that they hoped he would get cancer or that lightning would hit him or that God would strike him dead.”
“Given that Jim made people so mad, were you surprised that he opened the package? Why didn’t he have you screen things for him?” Nic asked.
Willow shrugged. “Jim always opened his own mail. He made that clear to me the first day.”
Allison asked, “Isn’t that just the kind of thing you have a gofer for?”
Her cheeks pinked. “He got a lot of, um, things, in the mail. Personal things.”
Nic raised an eyebrow. “Personal things?”
Willow looked down at her lap. “One time I saw him open a package, and a pair of lace panties fell out. Maybe he just wanted to check out everything on his own so he could decide what to do with it without everyone knowing about it.”
“It sounds like he was a player,” Nic said.
Willow’s smile was rueful. “Kind of. I guess I didn’t pick up on that when I was in middle school.”
Allison said carefully, “If you don’t mind me saying so, you’re very attractive. Did Jim ever express an interest in you?”
Her lips twisted with disgust. “Jim Fate? He’s old enough to be my father! In fact, my dad’s only two years older than him.”
“But you didn’t really answer the question,” Allison pointed out. “Just because Jim Fate was older doesn’t mean he didn’t have eyes in his head. Did he ever flirt with you, ask you out, touch you inappropriately?”
“Flirt? Jim flirted with any woman from seventeen to seventy. But if I had thought there was anything more there, I would have cut him off right away.”
Looking at Willow’s curled upper lip, Nic had no doubt she was telling the truth.
“Now, you were there when Jim died, is that right?” Allison asked.
“Yeah.” The girl swallowed. “Aaron was talking to me and Chris— that’s the call screener. There was a break for the top-of-the-hour national news feed, and Victoria got up to get her tea. The next thing I knew, Jim was pressing the Talk button and telling us we had to leave, that there was sarin gas.”
“You’ve heard that it wasn’t sarin, right?” Allison asked.
“Yeah, but at the time, I think all any of us could think of was that we were all going to die. You could tell Jim was trying to hold his breath. It was awful. His eyes were all wide and pleading, just staring at us through the glass.”
“But Victoria stayed, right?” Nic said. “She stayed with him until the end.”
“That certainly took a lot of courage,” Allison added.
Willow raised both shoulders slightly. “That’s the one thing I wanted to tell you. Maybe Chris or Aaron won’t mention it you, but I thought it was strange.”
“What’s that?” Nic’s antennae quivered.
“Even though I don’t open his mail, once it’s been sorted, I take it all in to Jim, and he opens it during the breaks. And that’s what I did yesterday.”
“Yes, yes,” Nic said, trying to hurry her to the good part.
“But that package—the package with the poisonous gas—wasn’t one of the ones I gave him. It was Victoria who gave it to him right before she left the studio to get her tea.”
“What are you saying?” This could change everything. Nic remembered what Chris had said about Jim and Victoria arguing. “Are you saying that Victoria knew what was in there? That she gave it to him deliberately? That she’s the one who caused his death?”
Willow’s face crumpled. “I don’t know. Maybe the mail sorter did put it in her box instead of his. But I mean—everyone knew they had had some kind of fight. They were barely speaking to each other. But, you know, Victoria is so nice! I can’t see her being a—a murderer.”
Nic tried to picture it through Victoria’s eyes if she had been the killer. Imagined handing over the package and then walking as quickly as you could away without breaking into a run. Knowing that as soon as your coworker tore it open, he was dead. And that maybe whoever else was in the room with him would be dead as well.
But if Victoria were the killer, then she would ha
ve known just how much gas was in there. Maybe it was only enough to kill one man. And couldn’t she have had a backup plan? Nic remembered what Tony had said. Had Victoria had a loaded syringe of Narcan hidden in her pocket or purse, ready to give herself the antidote if she accidentally inhaled some of the gas too?
But why had she stayed behind, stayed with Jim as he died? Was that the act of a killer?
Then Nic thought of another possibility. Maybe Victoria had decided that pretending to care would be the best alibi she would ever have. Had Jim spent his last few moments on earth drawing comfort from his killer?
CHAPTER 26
KNWS Radio
After Willow left, Allison said, “She dresses pretty nice for someone who works behind the scenes.” She wondered if Willow came from money. Probably, since she was going to Reed.
“You know what they say,” Nicole said. “‘Dress for the job you want to have.’ She doesn’t want to always be going out to get coffee or sandwiches.”
“Yeah, she’s got that hungry look,” Allison agreed. “Kind of like Cassidy. But there’s something else. Didn’t you get the feeling we were just looking at the surface?”
“Well, she was wearing a lot of makeup.”
Allison pushed Nicole’s shoulder. “That’s not what I meant. I don’t know. It’s just that she seemed artificial somehow.”
“She’s—what? Twenty-one or twenty-two years old.” Nicole shrugged. “At that age, she’s just pretending to be an adult.”
There was a knock on the door, and then Victoria entered the conference room. Victoria’s mixed heritage had resulted in a strikingly beautiful woman. She was tall and slender, with high cheekbones, tip-tilted eyes, and dark, straight hair that fell past her shoulders. Allison wondered how much of a coincidence it was that Victoria and Willow—the two women who worked most closely with Jim—were both so good-looking.
Victoria’s black eyes were shadowed, and in her left hand she carried a crumpled tissue. “I want to help you catch whoever did this,” she said as she sat down across from them.
