Dead Air

by Mary Kennedy

  “I’ll get it,” Mom sang out from somewhere inside the condo.

  “Probably Lark forgot her key again,” I called out. “Tell her dinner will be ready in fifteen.”

  Except it wasn’t Lark.

  My barbecuing fork froze in midair and my heart skipped a beat when I heard Mom say, “Well, hello, gorgeous!” Hardly original. This was one of her favorite lines. And not even original. She stole it from Barbra Streisand’s acceptance speech on Oscar night.

  A friendly yip from Pugsley, and then I heard a sexy male voice that I immediately recognized as Martino’s.

  Martino? Here?Now? The possibilities burst in my head like fireworks when Mom trilled, “Maggie! Turn down the grill and get in here. We have a guest.”

  I quickly closed the lid on the grill, wiped my hands on a towel, and paused for a moment, flipping a mental coin. Play it cool? Light? Sardonic? A small voice in the back of my head reminded me to ignore how incredibly hot he was and not fall to pieces at the sight of him. Note to self: Play it cool, Maggie; play it cool.

  Of course, my resolve crumbled like a Thin Mint when I saw him. My hormones had stormed into high gear and my mind was running willy-nilly in a thousand directions. Let’s face it: I was a lost cause whenever I was around him.

  “Dr. Walsh,” he said in that sexy baritone. “I hope I’m not intruding.” He looked from Mom to me, a slow grin flickering at the corner of his mouth.

  “Intruding? Don’t be silly,” Mom babbled, practically dragging him into the living room and pushing him into a basket chair. “What would you like to drink? I make a mean mojito. Or there’s beer, iced tea, or lemonade.” Mom had once played a flight attendant in a B movie, and she seemed to be reprising her “Coffee, tea, or me?” role. Was I imagining it or did she just give him a saucy wink?

  He gave her a level look and then nodded. “Some lemonade would be nice. Or just a can of diet cola. Don’t bother with a glass.” Don’t bother with a glass? Was he afraid she might try to slip him a roofie? “I’m here on police business,” he added, just to let her know it wasn’t a social call. Uh-oh.

  “Maggie told me you’re a detective,” Mom gushed. “That is just so exciting. You know, I played a forensic investigator years ago in a movie we shot in Tijuana. Pasiones peligrosas. Dangerous Passions. Of course, the script was in English, so it had to be dubbed into Spanish and had limited distribution, but—”

  “Mom,” I said sharply. “The lemonade?” The moment she sashayed to the kitchen, Rafe turned to me with a disbelieving look.

  “Your mom is a movie star?”

  “In her own mind. When she said it had limited distribution, she meant three people might have seen it in a drive-in in Kentucky. Before it went straight to video.” I paused. “So you’re here to see Lark?” Not a sparkling conversation opener, but the best I could do, under the circumstances.

  He looked like a million bucks, a crisp white shirt showing off his Florida tan, sleeves rolled up, his dark hair boy ishly falling over one eye. He wore it a little long, at least compared to other cops I had known, but maybe the detectives had more leeway. He gave me a neutral look I couldn’t quite read, and my mind flipped through the possibilities.

  “I do want to ask Lark a few more questions. But I really came here tonight to see you, Dr. Walsh.” His tone made it clear that passion, romance, or even sheer animal lust wasn’t in the cards. Bummer. He wasn’t mixing business and pleasure, after all. Rafe Martino was all business.

  “Maggie,” I said automatically. “You can call me Maggie.”

  “Maggie.” He managed to make it sound like a caress, and a little hum began in my head. My heart started to pound like crazy, but there was still that cool-cop look that I couldn’t quite decipher.

  I stalled for time and sat down on the love seat, with the wicker coffee table between us. I was definitely feeling uneasy. Freud would probably say I was out of my psychological safety zone so I was overcompensating by keeping the coffee table between us. Like a barrier. Hmm. I considered the Freudian hypothesis for about two seconds, and then I reminded Uncle Siggy that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar.

  “So what do you want to see me about?” I noticed I was crossing and uncrossing my legs the way perps do on Law & Order, so I made a conscious effort to stay still. My hands felt clammy and I folded them in my lap. I took a deep breath, forcing myself to lean back in the chair, as if I had memorized the entire first chapter of Secrets of Body Language 101.

  He probably didn’t buy it for a second, because he fixed me with those amazing dark eyes and gave a sad little head shake. “I’m afraid you’ve been playing detective.” His voice had suddenly turned serious. “Not a good idea, Maggie. Poking into things that don’t concern you, looking for trouble.”

  “Looking for trouble?” I wrestled with my conscience for a moment, wondering whether I should come clean.

  He looked me square in the eye, as if I were a convicted felon who had violated parole and was heading back to the can. “You’re playing a dangerous game, Maggie.”

  I was struggling to come up with an answer, and Mom chose that moment to pop up from the kitchen like a prairie dog. For an actress, she has an incredibly bad sense of timing. “One lemonade coming up,” she said, putting the glass in front of him with a flourish.

  She gave him a big smile and handed him a little cocktail napkin and beer nuts like she was auditioning for the role of World’s Oldest Living Flight Attendant.

  “Thanks.” He smiled back at her and I swear she melted. He took a sip and nodded approvingly. “Very nice. Tart, not too sweet.” Mom was all set to hover, but I sent her a death glare and she got the message and scurried away.

  Rafe waited until she disappeared back into the kitchen before continuing, and I sat perfectly still, heart pounding. What was coming next?

  “I hear you’ve been asking questions about Guru Sanjay,” he said coolly. “Interviewing potential witnesses, visiting the crime scene . . .” He let his voice trail off as if he was disappointed in me.

  I immediately felt on the defensive. Was he checking up on me? And how did he know I’d visited the Seabreeze? Since I hadn’t gone up to Guru Sanjay’s bedroom, I could hardly be guilty of visiting the crime scene, but I didn’t think this was the time to mention it. I’d hung out on the front porch, talked to Ted Rollins, and swiped one of the audience evaluation forms, but Rafe had no way of knowing that. And this wasn’t the time to mention it. And I hadn’t tampered with any evidence; I’d copied the form and put the original back in the pile.

  “Well, I may have asked a few questions, here and there.” I hesitated. “And why shouldn’t I? He was a guest on my show, and it’s only natural that I’d be interested in finding his killer.”

  “It’s only natural,” he echoed in that eerily flat tone. And just the touch of a sardonic smile. His sangfroid act was putting my nerves on edge, and I found myself wishing I could wrap my hands around another frosty Corona.

  “Well, yes,” I faltered. “Of course it’s natural. I’m not just being nosy, if that’s what you’re hinting at. The sooner I find the real killer, the sooner you can eliminate Lark as a suspect. It should be pretty obvious to you by now that she had nothing to do with it.”

  The words spilled out in one rush of breath, and I felt a little ripple of anger spreading through my body. Who was Rafe Martino to tell me what to do and who I could or couldn’t talk to?

  I wondered which “potential witnesses” he was referring to. Was it Lenore Cooper, the disgruntled ex-wife, or Kathryn Sinclair, the angry mother? They were the top two on my suspect list, even if they weren’t on the Cypress Grove PD’s radar screen yet. If I didn’t hunt for the real killer, who would? As far as Rafe was concerned, it seemed to be “case closed.”

  “Did it ever occur to you that you might be compromising an ongoing investigation?” His voice was low and calm, and he didn’t seem to be the tiniest bit upset by my outburst. He took a long swig of lemonade and looke
d at me. “Doesn’t that bother you? To think that you might do or say something that would interfere with police business and make our job a lot harder?”

  He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. The air between us hummed with tension. Why was he criticizing me for doing a little freelance detective work?

  I felt a surge of heat rise to my face, and my voice lifted a little. “I wasn’t interfering with anything. I have every right to ask questions,” I began, but he cut me off, and a flicker of something cold went through his eyes.

  “And you went to his memorial service. We were there, too, you know.” He leaned forward, his eyes never leaving my face.

  “You were there?” Too late I remembered that cops often went to victims’ funerals because often the perpetrator was dumb enough to show up. “I didn’t see any of Cypress Grove’s finest at the service.”

  “We were there undercover. We tried to blend.”

  “Oh, yes, of course.” I felt chastised. And moronic. “Then you saw me talking to Kathryn Sinclair,” I said without thinking. I regretted it the moment the words were out of my mouth.

  “Yes, we did. It looked like the two of you were pretty chummy.” He paused, looking at his hands for a moment. “Would you care to tell me what the conversation was about? Had you known her before the service?”

  “No,” I said quickly. “I never met her before she came up to me in the garden.” I neglected to say that Ted Rollins had tipped me off that she’d been making waves about the guru and his dangerous “therapies.”

  “What did you talk about?”

  “Her daughter,” I said slowly. “Her daughter, Sarah, was a client of Guru Sanjay’s. Well, not exactly a client. She went to one of those encounter groups his organization runs, and she had a bad experience there.”

  Rafe nodded. “Go on.” I had the feeling he already knew all this and was testing me. But why? I had no idea what his agenda was, and it was making me uncomfortable. Like all shrinks, I like to be the one in control, the one asking questions. Rafe Martino was upsetting the natural order of things, and I found it unsettling.

  “Kathryn was unhappy with the way her daughter was treated. It sounded as though she was bullied, and eventually”—I paused, trying to be precise—“she had to be hospitalized. Her experience at the encounter group hurt her psychologically and actually damaged her health. It sounded like reckless behavior on the part of Guru Sanjay’s organization, and I was surprised to hear about it.” I bit my lower lip, wondering what Rafe was thinking.

  “Did you ever wonder why she was telling you all this?”

  I gave a careless shrug. “No, I didn’t even think about it. She knew he’d been a guest on my show and I suppose she thought that I would find it interesting. And as a psychologist, I could understand how destructive the whole experience had been for Sarah.” I paused. “I think she just wanted someone to talk to. You know, to vent.”

  “So you’re saying she was angry with him?”

  “Venting isn’t exactly the same as anger; it’s more like letting off steam,” I sidestepped neatly. A quick lesson from Psych 101.

  “And it never occurred to you to tell me about this?”

  He was beginning to remind me of Sam Waterston, the prosecutor on Law & Order.

  I struggled for a light touch. “Hey, I’m a talk show psychologist, remember? I listen to people’s problems all day long. Most of them are calling to complain about someone in their lives, so I wasn’t too surprised when Kathryn told me about her daughter and the encounter group. She was just one more person with a gripe, that’s all. It happens all the time.”

  “Yes, but the people they’re complaining about don’t usually end up dead, do they?”

  Touché. “In your professional opinion,” he said, barely containing a smirk, “would you say that Kathryn Sinclair was mentally unbalanced or potentially violent? Could she be delusional?”

  “What? No, of course not,” I said hurriedly. Why was he slapping her with a medical diagnosis? Was he on a fishing expedition, or did he really have some cold, hard facts that made her a viable suspect? “She’s none of those things. She’s just a mother who was upset over the way her daughter was treated.” I hesitated, trying to choose my words carefully. I had the feeling that he was mentally ticking away everything I told him, even without Opie and his ever-present notebook.

  Rafe shot me a wry look that told me he guessed I was uncomfortable with the line of questioning. “Go on.” I had the feeling he was keeping his voice deliberately even, trying to lull me into a false sense of security.

  “I don’t know why she chose to confide in me, but she did. She’d heard me on the radio. Sometimes it gives people the idea of a connection, even though they’re total strangers to me.” I shook my head. “I know it sounds strange, but that’s the only explanation I can think of.”

  “Interesting,” Martino said. He finished his lemonade and slowly stood up. Every move he made was relaxed, fluid, and he walked with an air of easy confidence. Very sexy. “I’ll be back in touch with you; we may want to take a deposition.”

  “A deposition?” So he really considered Kathryn Sinclair a suspect? I suddenly felt uneasy, as though I had ratted her out, all on the basis of a brief interaction at the memorial service. “About my conversation with Kathryn, you mean?”

  He didn’t answer, and I found myself trotting along behind him like Pugsley pursuing his chew toy. My confidence was wilting like one of the quesadillas heating on the grill. I decided I better say something—fast—both to maintain my dignity and to set the record straight.

  “I hope you didn’t get the wrong impression from what I told you about Kathryn Sinclair. She was upset, that’s all, and people say things that are out of character when they’re under stress.” I wanted to sound professional and just a touch conciliatory, but would he buy it?

  I heard a little noise in the kitchen and suspected Mom was peeking around the door to spy on us, but I didn’t dare turn to look. The fact is, I couldn’t take my eyes off Rafe. There was something wildly attractive about the broad shoulders, the chiseled features, the flashing dark eyes. I could sense my earlier annoyance with him starting to soft-shoe toward the shadows, and my heart melted a little.

  Then he frosted me with a look that killed the warm little buzz building up in my veins and stilled the pitter-patter in my heart. Rafe had his cop face on, and he was back to cop-speak.

  “Thanks for the heads-up,” he said, his voice laced with sarcasm. “I’ll be sure to remember that the next time I’m interviewing a felon. Nothing like a little nugget of advice from a talk show shrink to keep me on track.”

  Ouch.

  As Rafe walked to the door, his hand grazed my arm, and my traitorous skin tingled a little when I felt the touch of his warm fingers. I blanked on a snappy retort, and he turned to face me as he opened the door. “Oh, and that deposition I told you about? The one I may need you to give, down at the station?”

  “Yes?”

  “Just to clarify things, it’s not about Kathryn Sinclair.” He paused. “I’m going to be asking you some questions about Lark Merriweather.” He hesitated for a moment, his hand on the knob. “Oh, and in the future? Leave the investigating to us, Nancy Drew. Okay?”

  And then he was gone.

  Chapter 15

  When Lark showed up at the condo a few minutes later, Mom was nearly swooning from her all-too-brief encounter with Detective Martino.

  “Maggie, you never warned me how good-looking he was,” she gushed, spooning salads onto our dinner plates. The quesadillas from the grill were a little overdone but still edible with a hefty dollop of Lark’s homemade salsa spooned on top. “Can you imagine? I opened the door and nearly fainted. That young man could have quite a film career if he ever decides to leave police work. He’s drop-dead gorgeous.”

  “I don’t think a film career is in the cards for him, Mom. I think he’s pretty invested in his detective work. Maybe even obsessively so.” I thou
ght ruefully about Rafe and his dedication to the Cypress Grove PD. The thought of him ditching it all for a movie career was about as likely as Hora tio Caine flashing his badge to cadge a free donut and coffee at the Krispy Kreme in north Miami.

  Some things are inviolate.

  “Well, so was Dennis Farina, and look what happened to him. One moment he’s a cop in Chicago and the next thing you know, he’s a movie star. All because he was a technical adviser on a film set and Michael Mann noticed he had acting potential.”

  Mom is an expert on Hollywood trivia and loves to recount stories of people making it against all odds in the film trade. I’m sure she thinks that it’s not too late for the Hollywood gods to smile on her someday.

  We were eating dinner on the tiny balcony and I could see that Lark was more than a little unnerved to hear about Rafe’s surprise visit. She barely touched the vegetarian version of a key lime pie I’d whipped up earlier that day. It’s laced with fresh lime juice along with vegan cream cheese, and it’s usually a big hit with her.

  “But what did he want, exactly?” Lark lowered her voice to a near whisper as if Rafe was lurking somewhere in the magnolia bushes under the balcony or had planted a bug in the salt shaker. “Why did he show up here at the condo?”

  I shrugged. “Um, I’m not really sure,” I hedged. Later, I mouthed. I glanced over at Mom and raised my eyebrows a fraction of an inch, and Lark got the message. We’d talk privately after dinner when we took Pugsley for his evening stroll.

  We finished our coffee, and as always, Mom pivoted the spotlight back to herself. The talk turned to WYME, and I could see Mom was angling for another guest-host spot on my show. She said she planned to spend a few more days in Cypress Grove, and I wondered whether she was staying with us out of concern for Lark or because she hoped to revive her flagging acting career.

  Doing a radio talk show on WYME is certainly the bottom rung of the show business ladder, but Mom believes in trying every avenue to further her career. Holding on by her fake, French-manicured fingernails if necessary. Anything it takes to “get her name out there,” as she calls it.