We Interrupt This Broadcast

by K. K. Beck

  “Sit down,” said Caroline. “This is my brother, Franklin. He owns the station too, but he’s not very interested in what we do here. I inherited my mother’s interest in the arts.”

  “That’s right,” said Franklin with a big smile. “Caroline’s the sensitive one. I’m boorish, materialistic and crass.”

  Alice sat down and gave each sibling a wary smile. “I guess I should get in touch with some of the regular advertisers,” she said. “Let them know I’ll be taking over for Ed.”

  “Oh, I think you’ll find that they’ve heard Ed is no longer with us,” said Franklin solemnly. “The poor bastard’s body was discovered shot to death here last night.”

  “What?” said Alice.

  “Not only that, apparently he was running an escort service out of his cubicle here at the station.”

  Wide-eyed, Alice looked over at Caroline. Her new boss’s large teeth were resting on her lower lip. She was looking down at her lap where she fiddled with a massive copper bracelet studded with beach rocks. Franklin’s more pleasing features were equally inscrutable. “You’re kidding, right?” Alice said.

  “I wish I were,” said Franklin.

  Alice took a deep breath. Strangely, this bizarre state of affairs actually seemed to give her more confidence. During her many years as a suburban housewife, Alice had spent a lot of time reading true crime paperbacks and watching Cops and America’s Most Wanted on TV—although she’d had to give up Court TV when she had the cable yanked in an economy move. Lurid crime was actually one of the few areas in which she felt she had some expertise.

  “I imagine the press will be all over us anytime now,” said Franklin, glancing at his watch. “Not real great publicity.”

  Alice heard herself saying, “I think a simple statement that says KLEG wants to get to the bottom of any crimes committed here, supports all the efforts of the appropriate law enforcement agencies, and then refers all questions to them is the best course,” she said.

  With an air of happy surprise, Franklin said, “That seems reasonable.”

  “We should say something nice about poor Ed, shouldn’t we?” said Caroline. “How he was dedicated to classical music or something?”

  “Was he?” said Alice with a sympathetic air.

  “He was a pimp!” said Franklin. “I shudder to think what else has been going on around here on your watch, Caroline. Certainly nothing that generates legitimate revenue.”

  She straightened up in her chair and gave her brother a fierce look. Alice noticed him flinch.

  “Look, we’re all kind of stressed out,” he said in an apologetic, tired voice. “I’d better get over to my office. Why don’t you fax me the press release when it’s done? I’d like to have a look at it.”

  “We let him see the legal stuff,” said Caroline begrudgingly. “He’s a lawyer.”

  After Franklin left, Caroline turned Alice over to Judy, saying vaguely, “I suppose she’ll need a desk and all that.”

  As soon as Caroline had shut herself back up in her office, Judy put a hand on Alice’s sleeve. “I suppose you can have Ed’s old cubicle. The police cleaned it all out. Want a tour of the station first?”

  “Sure,” said Alice, who was especially interested in the crime scene. “Tell me more about Ed Costello,” she added. “It must have been a terrible shock.”

  “Ed wasn’t too well liked around here,” said Judy. “We don’t think he really cared about KLEG.” Alice made a mental note to pretend to care about KLEG.

  Judy led her down a long corridor. “We’ll start with the record library.” Here, in a large, dim, windowless room lined with CDs and LPs, were two facing desks lit with round bright circles from a pair of metal lamps. At one desk sat an elderly man in a checked shirt with wisps of white fluffy hair, a birdlike profile, and Coke-bottle glasses. Opposite him sat a young man with oily hair, wearing a nappy mustard-colored sweater.

  Judy introduced Alice to the older man, Phil Bernard, who was apparently the program director. He rose stiffly.

  “I’ve certainly enjoyed you on the air,” said Alice. “I didn’t realize you also chose the music.”

  Phil’s features took on a look of deep contempt. “Unfortunately there are some members of the staff who don’t know the first thing about classical music,” he said. “I program their shifts, and check over the entire schedule for duplications and lacunae.”

  Alice looked around the room. “I see you still have a lot of LPs,” she said.

  Phil’s head reared and his nostrils flared like a skittish horse. “If I had my way, this whole CD nonsense would never have happened. There was no need to replace vinyl. We did just fine before this stuff came on board!”

  Judy interrupted his tirade. “And this is Carl Weeb, the record librarian,” she said.

  Alice smiled at Carl, who gave her a brief glance and an unintelligible whisper before letting his eyes drop back down to a computer keyboard.

  “Oh,” she said, picking up a CD sitting on the corner of Phil’s desk. “The new Cecilia Bartoli.”

  “Oh, so you actually know something about music,” said Phil skeptically. “That’s usually a reason not to get hired around here.”

  The phone rang on Phil’s desk, and he picked it up. “Record library,” he said in a smooth, announcer voice.

  “Think about it,” he said to the caller with a sneer. “Isn’t that like asking who’s buried in Grant’s Tomb?”

  After a pause he said, “Pachelbel.”

  When he’d hung up, he said to Carl, “Another knucklehead wanting to know who wrote Pachelbel’s Canon in D.” Carl produced a thin smile and huddled back over his keyboard.

  Phil turned back to Alice and gave a snort. “I hope you don’t have any tasteless stunts in mind for the staff. Ed Costello always wanted us to do remote broadcasts from used-car lots and electric organ stores!”

  Alice didn’t think unleashing Phil on the public was necessarily a good idea. She thought that for the good of the station’s image, he and Carl should remain hidden back here in their little den.

  * * *

  Franklin always loved coming back to his law offices after a visit to KLEG. Here the employees gave the appearance of being functioning members of society, were reasonably well groomed and had adequate social skills. The bland, expensive decor was soothing, the view of Puget Sound and the Olympic Mountains beyond, often inspiring.

  In his office he browsed through a stack of letters, faxes and phone messages, and listened to his voice mail. There were several routine calls and then something that produced a wave of horror. It was a message from Ed Costello.

  “Say, listen!” Ed’s voice had its usual false urgency, characteristic of the habitually desperate salesman. “I think I’ve got a hot buyer for the station. This guy I worked with years ago. Looking for a talk-format thing. I figure a going-nowhere AM station is just the ticket. As soon as we get together a legal finder’s-fee agreement, I’ll set up a meeting with my guy and his people. Believe me, this party is hot to trot.”

  Franklin’s spirits rose, then sank again. A legitimate buyer for the station was exactly what he wanted. He’d never thought a sleazy guy like Ed would have been able to find one. But Ed had cagily failed to say who the hot prospect was, taking his secret with him to the grave.

  * * *

  “They removed the sofa,” Judy explained to Alice as the two women stood in the break room staring at the wall where the sofa had stood. A smudgy line indicated its previous position.

  “And they found him folded up inside it?” asked Alice. “How strange. What kind of a person was Ed?”

  Judy’s thin lips made a downturned line. “He wasn’t very popular. He showed a real insensitivity to the programming department. He didn’t know anything about the format.” She leaned over confidentially. “And he kept saying he couldn’t do a better job selling ads because the ratings were so bad. But of course our numbers are low. The kind of intelligent, sensitive listener who li
stens to classical music isn’t going to fill out those dopey rating-book diaries. There’s really nothing more pathetic than a radio time salesman,” she added tactlessly.

  “You can put your lunch in here,” she went on, opening the refrigerator door. “But if there’s meat in anything, I’d appreciate it if you don’t put it on the top shelf. That’s where I put my lunch, and I don’t want any meat touching it. Also”—she indicated a small microwave oven, which Alice thought needed a good scrubbing—“I’d appreciate it if you never use this for any animal protein. I’m extremely sensitive, and if even the smell of dead animals gets on my food, I get ill. In fact, I have a lot of health problems, simply from living in a world where others are less particular about what they eat.”

  “I see,” said Alice, who had decided that leaving this place for lunch, even if it meant sitting in her car on the shoulder of Highway 99, would give her a heady sense of freedom.

  “We can go into the studio in just a sec,” Judy said, leading Alice back into the main office area and pointing up at the red On Air light. “Just never walk in here when that light is on.”

  Alice, who had been dutifully listening to the station all day long the previous week, recognized the melodious voice of Daphne Hamilton, the morning-shift announcer, coming from the office speakers. “And now,” she was saying in hushed tones, “Maori diva Kiri Te Kanawa sings the Pie Jesu from Fauré’s Requiem with the Montreal Symphony Orchestra.”

  As the music came up, the On Air light went out, and Judy pushed open the heavy studio door.

  “Daphne, this is Alice Jordan. Caroline hired her to replace Ed.”

  In front of a microphone sat a thin, languid, pretty, middle-aged woman with her dark hair in a ballet dancer’s chignon. She was wearing a large flowered and fringed shawl over a dress that looked as if it were made from a Pier One Indian bedspread.

  “Really? Hello!” said Daphne, gazing up at Alice with liquid brown eyes. She appeared to be wearing stage makeup—orange base, two slashes of rouge at a forty-five-degree angle, kohl-rimmed eyes and a scarlet mouth. “Maybe you can do something about this dreary old place. No one knows we exist. I think you should make me a star!” She flung her long-fingered, red-tipped hands gracefully up over her head and laughed rather wildly.

  “I guess I’d better take some of these calls,” said Judy, glancing down at the studio phone. “All the lines seem to be lit up.”

  She left, and Daphne put a hand on Alice’s arm. “We’re playing nothing but funereal music because of Ed,” she confided, with a dramatic roll of her dark eyes. “Phil thought it was respectful, even though none of us were friends with Ed or anything. I mean, radio sales guys are the lowest of the low, no offense, but after all, any human life is sacred in and of itself, whatever form it takes.” Daphne leaned back in her chair. “So what do you think of this place so far?”

  “Well, I suppose it’s not exactly normal today, what with the murder and all,” ventured Alice.

  “It’s never really normal,” said Daphne. She wiggled her long fingers in the air in front of her face and narrowed her eyes. “There are strange undercurrents here all the time, odd dramatic surges of intense emotion.” Daphne looked as if she thrived in such an atmosphere.

  Judy came back into the studio. “One of those calls is for you,” she said to Alice. “Franklin Payne. You can take it at Ed’s desk.”

  Alice left the studio, went over to the bare little cubicle in the outer office, and picked up the phone. Was he going to yell at her because she hadn’t written the press release yet?

  “Listen,” said Franklin Payne. “I’ve been thinking about this, and I think I should go over all the stuff on Ed’s desk with you. Leads and so forth. Caroline doesn’t pay much attention to the sales side of the house. The first thing we should do is get all of Ed Costello’s papers back from the police. They boxed everything up and carted it away. I’ll call them and find out when we can have it back. We need all that stuff. I’ll help you go through everything there with a fine-tooth comb. There may be some hot leads that need pursuing.”

  “All right,” said Alice, feeling confused. She didn’t like the idea of having two bosses, and she was surprised that Franklin Payne wanted to go through a bunch of files and memos with her. Caroline had already told her he wasn’t too interested in the station. But he told her Caroline wasn’t interested in sales. “Do you think I could ask you a few questions about exactly what I’m supposed to be doing?” she said. “I’ve never sold anything before, and I could use a few pointers.”

  “All right,” he said, sounding a little impatient. “Come by in about an hour. Then you can make a few calls. You need to jump right in and hit the street.”

  After she hung up, she decided that she’d better write that press release. She would ask Judy if there was a computer or a typewriter she could use. Over at Judy’s desk she heard the pale-eyed receptionist speaking into the phone. “Sure,” she was saying. “Bring your TV crew right down here. I’ll be glad to show you where the body was and tell you all about it. I’m sort of the operations manager here.”

  She hung up and said, “Do you think my hair looks okay? I’m going to be on TV. All those phone messages were from the press. Three TV stations and both daily newspapers. Isn’t it exciting?”

  “Um,” began Alice tentatively, “actually, Caroline and Franklin and I already discussed this, and the feeling was to keep the whole thing low key. I was asked to write a press release, referring everyone to the police department.”

  Judy took in her breath sharply, producing a snaky little sound, and her eyes narrowed to mean little slits.

  “Listen, I don’t want to step on anyone’s toes,” Alice said quickly, realizing her voice sounded tense. “It’s just that I don’t really understand how things operate around here, and I don’t want to get in trouble on my very first day.”

  Caroline had drifted over to the reception area. “Trouble?” she said. “What do you mean trouble?”

  “The press is on its way to cover Ed’s murder,” said Judy. “I volunteered to show them around. I think, as office manager, that’s entirely appropriate. But Alice says you and Franklin decided to keep a lid on everything.”

  “Oh,” said Caroline vaguely. “We did? Actually, I’d like to talk to them, too. I think it’s very slack of them not to have covered the awards banquet last night. If Seattle is ever going to be the world-class arts town it should be, the media will just have to start covering important arts events.”

  “I’m glad to hear you aren’t stonewalling,” said Judy. “I believe very strongly in freedom of the press and the public’s right to know.” She gave Alice a self-righteous look.

  “Do you still want me to write the press release?” Alice asked Caroline.

  “All right,” said Caroline. “Don’t forget to mention the Marjorie Klegg Payne Award.”

  Alice had no idea what the Marjorie Klegg Payne Award was, but she wasn’t about to admit it. “Do you have some information on it?” she asked. “I want to make sure I get all the details right.”

  “I’ll write the press release,” said Judy. “It’ll be faster than telling you all about it.” She gave Alice a sly smile of triumph.

  “Maybe you should do something about your hair before the cameras get here, Judy,” said Alice sweetly. “It could use a good brushing and maybe some gel on the frizzy parts.”

  CHAPTER SIX

  Franklin was pretty confident that Alice Jordan would do a lousy job. She looked scared and genteel and not very aggressive. With any luck, working full-time, she would do as poorly as Ed had in the few idle moments when he wasn’t sending prostitutes out to motels. This Jordan woman would probably get discouraged and quit, and he could try to find a more suitable person for the job, like some broken-down old used-car salesman with a little fight still left in him. Trying to train Alice Jordan was just going to be a waste of time.

  But Franklin was interested in finding out who Ed’s buyer
for the station might be. If he continued to supervise Alice fairly closely, he might be able to figure it out from Ed’s papers when the police returned them.

  When she arrived and sat there in his office, her hands folded demurely in her lap, she said, “I have to be honest and tell you I’m not really sure how to go about this.”

  “No problem,” said Franklin easily. “It’s a piece of cake. I did it summers when I was a kid. Just find out what the client needs and sell it to them. Spend a few days calling on existing clients, and tell them you’ll be handling the business. You know, a courtesy thing. Then, the ones who are off the air, ask them when they want to start advertising again.

  “As soon as I get all that paperwork from Ed’s desk back from that Detective Lukowski, you and I will go through it looking for leads. Then you can go out and get new business. We’ll pay you double commissions on first-time business. On top of your salary.” Franklin was sure that somewhere in that mountain of papers on Ed’s desk was a name or a phone number that would lead him to the hot prospect willing to buy KLEG. The way he was feeling now, Franklin was interested in giving it away.

  “What kind of advertisers should I be targeting?” asked Alice.

  “The truth is, our ratings are terrible,” he said airily. No point giving her false hope. “Let’s face it, who wants to listen to classical music on AM? Most of our listeners are about a hundred years old, listening to us on old Bakelite plastic radios with glowing tubes inside. Or, if their driver’s license hasn’t been yanked because of inoperable cataracts, they listen to us in the antique car they’ve been driving for thirty years that doesn’t have FM.

  “Ask yourself what old people like that buy with their pensions and Social Security checks. Burial plots. Arthritis remedies. Denture adhesive. We’re talking about an old demographic, no doubt about it.

  “Except for Teresa’s fans, of course. Don’t ask me who they are. A cult following of crazed insomniacs. You’ll get a feel for it.”