Sleuthing Women

by Lois Winston

  “You knew all about that,” Martino said flatly. “It was the first thing you mentioned when we came to the door.”

  “Well, of course I knew about it,” I shot back, feeling a little bubble of anger rising in me. “It’s on all the news outlets, and Cyrus Still called me this morning to tell me about it.”

  I glanced at the smiling Mexican sun god wall clock over the brick fireplace. “In fact, I’m supposed to be at the station, doing a live broadcast in thirty minutes.”

  “Don’t let us stop you,” Opie piped up again. I could tell he was trying to put on a low, testosterone-charged David Caruso voice, but his voice cracked in an embarrassing squeak.

  “Am I free to go, then?” I said, jumping to my feet. If I didn’t bother with hair and make-up, I could still make it to the station on time.

  Martino stared at me, his face a picture of calm innocence. He made no move to get up, and just sat there, tapping his pen against the cover of his notebook. “Of course you’re free to leave,” he said easily, “this is your house.”

  He laughed at his own wit. Move over, Jay Leno!

  “I mean are you going to leave,” I asked pointedly. Did I imagine it, or did his dark eyes flicker to the bedroom right behind me to the left? I felt like we were playing a Tom and Jerry game and I didn’t like being Jerry.

  “Just one more question,” he said, dragging out the words like Columbo. “Where was your roommate last night?” He glanced down to check his notes. “Lark Merriweather.”

  “Lark?” I repeated, stalling for time. Opie leaned forward eagerly in his chair, muscles tensed like a cougar sizing up a wildebeest, or maybe he just smelled the delightful aroma of French vanilla crème brewing in the kitchen.

  The sooner I got these two out the door the better! I planned on grabbing a cup of coffee and hitting the road in five minutes flat.

  “Lark was...”

  “Yes?” Marino said lazily. He was eyeing me carefully, and I could tell that his bullshit detector was in hyper-drive.

  “Well...” I faltered, my chest tightening as my pulse thudded. Martino’s eyes narrowed a little and I tried to keep my expression neutral.

  Did I dare tell them that Lark had disappeared for a few hours? Why did I have the sneaking feeling that they already knew that? Was this some sort of trap? I hesitated, and then Martino frowned, something registering in his dark eyes as he looked past me. I resisted the impulse to look around and took a deep breath.

  “Lark and I...” I began.

  Then I heard the bedroom door fling open behind me, and Lark walked into the living room. She looked pale and tired and was wearing a gray Juicy sweat suit that only highlighted the dark circles under her eyes.

  “You don’t have to answer that,” she said quietly. “Go to work, Maggie, I’ll handle this.” She pulled over a bar stool from the breakfast nook and slumped into it. She looked like she hadn’t slept a wink and even her choppy blond tresses appeared limp and dejected.

  Both Martino and Opie jumped to their feet.

  “Are you Lark Merriweather?” Martino asked, his voice hard and metallic. When Lark nodded, Martino and Opie positioned themselves on either side of her.

  I didn’t like the look of this, and I wouldn’t put it past Martino to slip a pair of cuffs on her. I still remembered the embarrassing perp walk he had put me through at the station yesterday.

  “We have some questions for you, Ms. Merriweather,” Martino said, “about your whereabouts last night.”

  “She was here,” I said, my brain finally kicking into gear. “I just told you we had dinner together.”

  Lark glanced at me, her forehead creased. Her expression was hollow, guarded, as if she was afraid of what was going to happen next.

  She was telegraphing something to me with her eyes but all I could pick up on was an emotion I had never associated with her. Uncertainty? Dismay? Naked fear?

  I felt like my brain had been taken over by alien body snatchers who had tinkered with my neurotransmitters and now I was incapable of forming a coherent thought. Think, Maggie, think!

  I hesitated, uncertain of my next move, and Martino pounced as if he’d been reading my mind.

  “Be careful what you say, Dr. Walsh, unless you want to be charged as an accessory.” His voice was like shards of ice.

  “An accessory to what?”

  “To murder. The murder of Guru Sanjay Ginjii.”

  My heart stuttered, but I held my ground. “That’s ridiculous! Neither one of us know anything about his death. I interviewed the man on my radio show yesterday and that’s the last I saw of him.”

  “Maybe that’s the last you saw of him, but I bet Ms. Merriweather here has a different story to tell.” Opie looked pleased with himself and I felt like I’d been sucker-punched.

  “Lark, tell them you don’t know anything about this!”

  “Just stay out of this Maggie,” she said in a weary voice. “Go to work, I know they need you at the station.”

  “But I can’t just leave you here alone with...Batman and Robin!” I blurted out.

  Martino flashed me a cocky smile and Opie smirked. “Oh, don’t worry about that, Dr. Walsh. You won’t be leaving her here with us, we’re taking her down to the station for questioning.”

  FIVE

  “They can’t possibly believe Lark did it,” I moaned to Vera Mae half an hour later.

  I’d just finished the rush hour traffic report, filled in for Big Jim Wilcox on the sports desk and then covered the breaking news of the day: “Visiting guru turns up dead.”

  Vera Mae peered over my shoulder to read the copy, sucked in her cheeks and twitched her nose as if she had caught the odor of rotting fish heads. “Visiting guru turns up dead?” she snorted scornfully. “Oh honey, you must be upset!”

  Okay, it wasn’t my best effort. I knew my writing was as flat and boring as a fried mackerel, but my creative juices just weren’t flowing this morning.

  Irina had come up with a breezier opening line: “Sanjay says Sayonara!” It had some nice alliteration going for it, but Cyrus had nixed it because he felt it sounded too flippant.

  Since all we had from Martino and company was radio silence, we didn’t have many newsworthy details about the crime scene, and the piece about Guru’s Sanjay’s death took up less than two minutes of air time.

  Ray, the summer intern in the news department, had cobbled together some clips and I’d included a quote from Guru Sanjay’s publicist who said they were rushing a posthumous biography into print. ($7.99 and available at fine bookstores everywhere.)

  I’d been trying to call Lark on her cell every ten minutes and was frustrated that I kept getting her voice mail. “I just can’t believe she’s a murder suspect, “ I repeated peevishly.

  “I can’t believe it either. What in tarnation would her motive be?” Vera Mae pondered.

  “It beats me,” I told her. I yanked off my headphones and we dashed into the break room to grab a whole-wheat donut and coffee (hey, fiber is healthy, right?) before heading back to the studio.

  “She never even met the fella. Why would she want to kill him?”

  “Exactly!” I shook my head. “The police are on the wrong track, and the sooner they figure it out, the better.” Vera Mae carefully wrapped up the donut crumbs for Tweetie Bird and bought a package of peanuts for him out of the vending machine.

  “And if she was at the townhouse all night, then I don’t think those cops have a thing to go on. If they come sniffing around here asking questions, you can be darn sure I’ll give them a piece of my mind. They’re just spinning their wheels and wasting taxpayer’s money by barking up the wrong tree. And I’m not a bit afraid to tell them so!”

  She stopped as if she had run out of breath. Then she stared hard at me, her uncanny mental radar kicking in. “Maggie, is there something you’re not telling me? Lark was with you last night, right?” She lowered her voice as if she was afraid that the break room might be bugged.


  “Well, you see, that’s the problem,” I admitted. “She was home for dinner but then she slipped out on an errand. I don’t really know what time she got back because I was sound asleep.”

  “Oh, Lordie,” Vera Mae moaned. “This is a whole different kettle of catfish. Did you tell the police this?”

  “Not exactly. I sort of glossed over it.” I bit back a sigh. You know what they say about hindsight being twenty-twenty. What if I had made things worse for Lark by fudging the facts?

  “That might not have been the wisest choice, hon. But I know your heart’s in the right place and you wanted to help her.” Vera Mae pressed her lips tightly together and I knew she was dying to give me a lecture on the value of truthfulness. “The police don’t take kindly to folks lying to them. Obstruction of justice they call it. Or maybe even an accessory to a crime.”

  Obstruction of justice? Accessory to a crime? I know Martino would like nothing better than to slap those handcuffs on me again and dance me down the hallway in front of my co-workers. “Vera Mae, I may have made a tactical error, but I think it will all work out right in the end. You know what they say, the truth will out.”

  I gave a good facsimile of a nonchalant chuckle, even though I suddenly felt cold inside. For all I knew, I’d be next on Martino’s hit list but at the moment, my only concern was for Lark.

  “It’s a done deal!” Jim Wilcox crowed, charging into the break room, startling me so much hot coffee slopped over onto my wrist. “I just interviewed the police chief and it sounds like your roommate is guilty as sin, Maggie.” He waggled his fingers at me, looking inordinately pleased with himself.

  “She’s not guilty,” I said between clenched teeth. “No way in hell is she guilty.”

  “Hot damn! They’re gonna nail her skinny butt to the barn door. To the barn door!” His face was bright red and he was shouting like he was announcing a Hail Mary pass at a Cypress Grove Streakers football game. He rubbed his hands together gleefully.

  Lark was guilty? Impossible! I know I was gaping like a goldfish, but it was Vera Mae who trounced him.

  “Well, my, don’t you have a way with words, Jimbo,” she chirped. “Nailed to the barn door? Sounds like you’re the judge, jury and executioner. I didn’t realize you were a legal eagle as well as a sports announcer. And what exactly did you find out at the police station, pray tell?”

  “Lark was dragged down there for questioning,” he gloated. “They had her in the interrogation room and she’s wasn’t looking any too happy about it. If only I could’ve been a fly on the wall. You know what they do in there, don’t you?”

  “I don’t think we need to hear this,” Vera Mae interrupted.

  Big Jim snickered. “Well, I’ll tell you,” he rushed on. “They turn the air conditioning way down so the suspect starts to sweat. Then they saw off a couple of inches from both front legs of the chair. That way the poor sucker has to sit with his ass muscles tensed tight as a drum, miserable as hell, trying not to slide off onto the floor.”

  “Charming.” Vera rolled her eyes at me.

  “I saw that on CSI the other night.” Big Jim’s eyes were glazed and his voice had a high, jittery edge to it. “I wonder if I could do a jailhouse interview and get her to confess?” he mused. “That’s the kind of thing that can get you on Dateline. I can see it now: Women Who Kill! A Jim Wilcox exclusive.”

  Jim spread his beefy hands out in front of him, as if he could see a brilliant career in big league broadcasting unfolding before his bulging eyes.

  “I can’t believe Lark’s down there right now in a jail cell,” I said miserably. “I need to talk to her right this second and find out how I can help her. Maybe I can finally reach her on her cell.” A horrible thought hit me. “Unless they took it away from her.” I pictured Lark in a lonely dark cell with nothing but a thin gray blanket and a roller derby queen named Killer to keep her company.

  “We need to get over to the jailhouse right now,” Vera Mae said.

  “Well, there’s no point in you two playing Thelma and Louise because the fact is, she’s probably on her way home by now,” Big Jim huffed, taking his voice down a notch.

  “What? She’s on her way home? You had us thinking she was on Death Row!” Vera Mae glared at him, her hands on her hips.

  Big Jim shrugged. “They released her–but that’s just for now,” he added darkly. “She’s their number one suspect, though. They’re probably biding their time, building a case. I tried to get a statement as she was getting into her car and she darn near ran me over with that little foreign number of hers.”

  He brushed at an imaginary piece of lint on his powder blue polyester jacket. “It could have been a case of vehicular homicide. She’s lucky I’m such a nice guy. Anybody else would’ve pressed charges.”

  “Oh, vehicular homicide, my patootie,” Vera Mae exclaimed. “Is the girl all right? That’s all we want to know.”

  “She seems to be,” he said, helping himself to the coffee, ignoring the “honor jar” filled with quarters. “She’s a feisty little thing, isn’t she? But stay tuned, folks,” he said, his good humor restored. “That girl’s in a heap of trouble.”

  SIX

  I finally managed to get up with Lark during a thirty-second commercial break on my show (The Last Call Funeral Home! We’re dying to please you!). She sounded tired and listless, as if all the energy had been sucked right out of her. She said she was going directly to bed and I promised to pick up some of her favorite Chinese take-out for a late dinner together.

  Veggie Stir Fry for her, Veggie Lo Mein for me and a heart-healthy dumpling for Pugsley, steamed not fried, no soy sauce, no MSG. It’s probably significant that the dog eats healthier food than we do, but this wasn’t the time to dwell on it.

  This also wasn’t the right time for a heart-to-heart talk with Lark, I decided.

  I needed to get through my shift and then do some investigating before getting the lowdown from her. If Detective Rafe Martino was determined to zero in on the wrong person, that was his business. I would outmaneuver him and outfox him every step of the way and I knew exactly where I had to start.

  It was a no-brainer.

  I needed to scope out the place where the guru met his untimely end, or his “transition” into the cosmos as he would call it.

  So that meant I needed to see Ted Rollins, general manager of the SeaBreeze Inn.

  ~*~

  “Maggie, good to see you!”

  “You, too.” He pulled me into a gentlemanly hug and kissed me on the cheek.

  Ted is the proverbial nice guy, the kind your mom and all your friends wish you would marry. He’s tall, ruggedly handsome, with sandy brown hair and a terrific smile. He was wearing a crisp white shirt with a wheat-colored blazer that set off his deep tan along with some expensive-looking Italian loafers.

  Ted has asked me out ever since I moved to Cypress Grove and I hate to say it, but the chemistry just isn’t there. At least not for me.

  What can I say, I always pick bad boys, the kind the nuns warned me about. You know, the guys who don’t call, trample on my heart and wreak havoc with my emotions. And naturally I pursue them relentlessly, doomed to fail, like a salmon swimming upstream only to dash itself against those pesky rocks hidden under the water.

  Which probably explains why I’m still single at thirty-two and Ted and I will never be more than good friends.

  “Terrible news about the guru,” I murmured, as Ted ushered me into the empty breakfast room off the lobby and poured coffee for us. I shot a sidelong glance at him. He was acting very calm and collected, as always. How much did he know?

  It was a cheerful place with a high ceiling, blue chintz tablecloths and a wide bay window that offered a dazzling view of the of the hotel gardens. The polished heart-pine floors were scattered with hand-made yellow and blue braided rugs that gave it an upscale, yet cozy feel.

  I heard the chatter of cicadas and glanced outside as we sat down. It was early summer and t
he garden was spectacular, a riot of blooms and color. Delicate yellow roses and day lilies vied for attention with flashy hibiscus and purple bougainvillea. A Casablanca fan swirled lazily in the breakfast room and a faint scent of honeysuckle wafted in from an open window.

  If I wasn’t feeling so wired, it would be a great place to relax.

  Breakfast was served from seven to ten every morning, but Ted always keeps free coffee, juice, mineral water and muffins available for the guests all day long. That’s just the kind of guy he is.

  “It’s awful,” he said, pulling his chair close to me. “I still can’t believe it happened right upstairs,” he added, shaking his head. “I’ve been fielding questions from reporters all morning and we’ve already had a few guests cancel their reservations.”

  “Really?” I kept my tone neutral but my pulse skittered.

  “It’s very upsetting for them, you know. To think that someone died under suspicious circumstances, right here at the Seabreeze. I tried to reassure them, but what could I say? No one really knows what happened to Guru Sanjay. I guess they’re considering the possibility of foul play but they’re not giving out much information. His team is going ahead with the conference but they all pretty shellshocked. They’re upstairs right now in the Magnolia ballroom. A pretty good turn-out.”

  “Is that so? I’m surprised they didn’t just cancel it.” So Team Sanjay was still here. In the Magnolia ballroom. That gave me an idea, I could start my investigation immediately.

  “Miriam Dobosh–she seems to be in charge now—said it’s what the Guru would have wanted. They’re going to head back to South Beach to arrange for the funeral right after the closing ceremony tomorrow morning. Of course, there’s always the possibility they’ll have to return to Cypress Grove for questioning. I guess it all depends on what the police decide to do. They haven’t even released the body yet.”

  “I’m sure it’s very unsettling for everyone,” I said demurely, wondering how I could find out what else he knew. He’d mentioned suspicious circumstances and foul play. Was that an educated guess or had he heard something? I needed to find out exactly what he knew–fast.