Reel Murder

by Kennedy, Mary

  “Mom, I don’t think homeless people spend much time on Rodeo Drive—”

  Lola cut me off with a wry little laugh. “Well darling, no one could seriously believe I would sleep with her husband. What a dreadful little man! The funny thing is, I was probably the only woman in Hollywood who wasn’t sleeping with Marvin.” Mom chortled. “He had so many girlfriends, he made Warren Beatty look like a celibate monk.”

  I took at peek at the Gazette. Nothing on the front page about the film. I quickly riffled through the sections: local, business, arts-and-entertainment. Zilch. I’d have to call Nick, my reporter pal, the moment I got into work.

  “The movie deal isn’t a secret, is it. Mom? Because there’s nothing in the local paper about it.”

  “Well, maybe not in this paper,” she said. “Hank said the news is hitting the Hollywood Reporter today. And the L.A. Times and New York Times.” She reached over and tapped the Gazette with a manicured fingernail. “You’re living in a time warp, sweetie, a time warp. I wonder when the news will make it to this burg?”

  I strolled into WYME show around noon, with plenty of time to call my favorite reporter, Nick Harrison, at the Gazette. I waved to Irina sitting at the reception desk, before heading down the hallway to my cubbyhole of an office.

  Irina is our beautiful blond receptionist, straight from Sweden. Irina is doing her best to master the English language, but she’s making slow progress. Puns, humor, and slang expressions go whizzing over her head, which leads to some embarrassing gaffes and a few double entendres.

  Today, she was chatting with Big Jim Wilcox, our sports announcer. “So I said to Gustav, I can’t go back to square zero, no way! It’s time to fish or get off the pot.”

  “Time to fish or get off the pot, that’s a good one.” Big Jim chortled appreciatively. He was peering over the reception desk, hoping to catch a view of Irina’s impressive cleavage. Big Jim spends a lot of time hanging around Irina, laughing outrageously at her comments, letting his eyes skim lustfully over her body.

  But this time Irina was too fast for him. She jutted her chin, folded her arms primly over her chest, scooting her desk chair back several feet from the desk.

  “Is Gustav your boyfriend?” Big Jim asked. He was ogling her, with his tongue practically hanging out of his mouth like Jim Carrey in The Mask.

  “Boyfriend?” Irina gave a sardonic laugh. “No, not boyfriend; he is landlord. He is . . . how you say, filthy old man. He is at least forty years old. I would have to be cuckoo to be interested in old man like that.”

  “Oh. I see.” Big Jim’s face flushed and he backed away. I knew Big Jim had hit the big four-oh at least five years ago. “Well, that’s very interesting, Irina. I better get back to the sports desk now,” he added, beating a hasty retreat. It was obvious how his mind was working. If Gustav was a “dirty old man” at forty, that made Big Jim—out of the running!

  Score one for Irina. Zero for Big Jim.

  Vera Mae, my producer, scurried out from the control room to meet me in my tiny office. “Hey girl, did you have a good weekend?”

  I tossed my oversized hobo bag on the desk and riffled through the listener mail. “Lola’s back in town.” I arched an eyebrow, waiting for Vera Mae’s response. “Need I say more?”

  “Oh Lord,” she said, sinking into my visitor’s chair. “And I have the feeling she has more on her mind than shopping at the Sawgrass Outlets.” Vera Mae patted her towering beehive, which she’d lacquered like a Ukrainian Easter egg. My producer hails from Georgia and she’s of the firm belief that “the higher the hairdo, the closer to God.”

  “You’re not going to believe this, but she told me she’s got a part in a movie being filmed here. Some schlockmeister flick called Death Watch. Have you heard anything about it?”

  “A movie? Being filmed here in Cypress Grove?”

  I nodded. “Someone named Hank Watson is the director. Lola actually has a speaking role.”

  “I haven’t heard a thing about it. We could check with Cyrus. He’s still head of the Chamber of Commerce, far as I know. If there’s any filming going on, he’d be sure to know about it. “

  “Good idea.” I gave myself a mental head-slap. Of course, Cyrus Still, the station manager at WYME, would know about Death Watch. I’d talk to Nick first, and then Cyrus.

  Vera Mae reached for a pack of cherry Twizzlers I keep in my desk drawer and helped herself to one. Vera Mae has been trying to give up smoking since I joined WYME a few months ago and she’s going through at least twenty Twizzlers a day.

  “We could do a show on it, you know? Maybe you could interview the stars, or you could even do a remote broadcast from the set? Cyrus would like that. Ratings are down this month.” She lowered her voice. “He thinks we need to jazz up the show a little, get some exciting guests, some more controversial topics. I think he’s gonna bring it up at the next staff meeting.”

  “I’m not sure what he expects me to do. It’s not like we’re going to lure any big names to WYME,” I reminded her. “How bad are the ratings?” I asked after a moment. I hated to ask, but I had to know.

  “Well, you know how you and Bob Figgs on the Swine Report used to have identical ratings?”

  “I sure do. We always tie for last place.” Bob Figgs calls himself a “radio personality” in all his publicity; so I do, too. It was embarrassing to see my show, On the Couch with Maggie Walsh, linked with his.

  Vera Mae leaned closer and whispered, “I hate to tell you, sweetie, but Bobby’s inching ahead of you.”

  “Ohmigod, you’re kidding!! I’m losing out to a show about hogs?” And to think I left a nice, cushy psychoanalytic practice in Manhattan for this, I added silently. What was I thinking?

  “It looks that way, hon.”

  “If we can’t change the guests, maybe we should change the title,” I suggested. “On the Couch with Maggie Walsh. It doesn’t really pop, does it?”

  “Now, I wouldn’t go messin’ with the title. You know Cyrus loves that title. He thought of it himself. He thinks it’s sort of cute and sexy.”

  I rolled my eyes. “He probably doesn’t even know it’s a reference to Freud, a play on words.”

  “It is?” Vera Mae put her Twizzler down to stare at me. “Well, butter my butt and call me a biscuit. What’s Freud got to do with it?”

  “Freud used to have his patients lie on a couch while he analyzed them. He thought it helped them free-associate as he delved into their unconscious.”

  “Well, you got me on that one, girl. Sounds mighty impressive, though. I don’t think you should change it.”

  At that very moment, Kevin Whitley, our college intern, popped his head into my cubicle.

  He’s annoyingly cheerful, as effervescent as a club soda.

  “Hi there, Dr. Maggie.”

  Kevin is barely twenty but he dresses like someone forty years older. Today he was sporting Larry King suspenders, a Matlock seersucker suit, and wire-rimmed glasses. Bizarre.

  Worse, I noticed he was squinting at a sheaf of papers that looked vaguely familiar. Oh God, the Arbitron Ratings “Maybe if you have a sec, you can explain something to me.” He gave a wide smile, showing a large number of teeth, which gave him an unfortunate resemblance to Eeyore.

  “Sure, Kevin. I’ll certainly try.” I flashed a helpless look at Vera Mae, who raised her eyebrows. Maybe she knew what was coming.

  “Dr. Maggie, what does it mean exactly when the Arbitron Ratings says your show has a minus twelve? How could you have a negative number? I’m afraid we haven’t covered that yet that in broadcasting school.” His toothy grin never wavered.

  “A minus twelve?” I shrieked, pulling the papers out of his hand. I forced myself to take a deep, calming breath. I stalled for time, even though the numbers were right there in front of me. “Well, Kevin, a minus twelve means . . .”

  “Yes, Dr. Maggie?”

  “It means not only is no one watching my stupid show, but twelve people are marching ou
tside, picketing the station and throwing rocks!” I snorted in disgust. “That’s what it means.”

  Kevin’s face crumpled and he put his fist to his mouth, his eyes wide with shock. “Dr. Maggie! Bite your tongue! You shouldn’t be saying things like that.”

  “She’s kidding,” Vera Mae said quickly. “Kevin, why don’t you go check and see if the coffeepot is turned on in the break room. I filled it with hazelnut decaf this morning, but I may have forgotten to turn it on. You know how the announcers get antsy if they don’t have their morning joe.”

  “Sure thing, Miss Vera Mae.” Kevin grinned and loped off down the hall like an obedient border collie, glad to have something to do.

  “Could my show really be a minus twelve?” I asked, aghast.

  Vera Mae gently took the papers out of my hand. I hadn’t realized I was holding them in a death grip; my knuckles were white and I was hyperventilating. “Maggie, you’re gonna have an aneurysm if you let this stuff get to you. I’m worried about you, girl.”

  “I’ll be fine, Vera Mae.” I gritted my teeth and tried to come up with a game plan. I had to increase my ratings, but how?

  “Well, first off, you can’t be telling Kevin things like that,” she chided me. “Even in jest.”

  “It wasn’t said in jest,” I said tightly. “I was dead serious.”

  “Well, it’s not a negative number,” she said, peering at the sheets. “See, look right here; it’s a tiny bit better than you thought.” She flipped to another page and pointed to a column of numbers. I was listed right under Bob Figgs, the King of Pork. It wasn’t a negative twelve after all.

  “It’s still bad.” I let out my breath in a slow whoosh.

  “You’re right, sugar; there’s no way to put a good spin on this. We need something to boost these numbers. A movie would do the trick. Let me get right on it. I’ll make some calls. If no one’s covering it locally, maybe we could get an exclusive interview with some of the stars. The first thing we need to do is find out who knows a dang thing about the movie. We have to start at the top.”

  “I’m going to put in that call to Nick at the Gazette,” I said. “And I might even call that AP stringer up in Boca.”

  “I know something that’s a lot quicker.” Vera Mae grinned. “I’ll just call Wanda at the House of Beauty. If there’s a movie company comin’ to town, she’ll know about it. There’s not much that gets by Wanda.” She heaved herself out of the chair and grabbed a couple of Twizzlers for the road. She tapped her watch and gave me a meaningful look. “You can’t spend too much time frettin’ over this; you need to go through some of that listener mail.”

  I nodded grimly. “I’ll get right on it.”

  Chapter 2

  “Hey, Maggie, what’s up?”

  Nick Harrison’s voice came racing across the line. Nick and I have been friends since I first arrived in town and he interviewed me for the Cypress Grove Gazette. Nick covers arts and entertainment, but he’d love to be an investigative reporter and he’s angling to get into a bigger market like Miami or Atlanta.

  “I need to pick your brain.”

  “Slim pickin’s,” he teased. “What can I do for you?”

  “Any news about a movie being shot here? Death Watch, by a director called Hank Watson?” I heard Nick typing in the background.

  “How’d you hear about it?” he asked idly.

  “My mother has a part in it. But she doesn’t know the start date and I’m wondering if it’s legit.”

  “If it’s Hank Watson, it’s probably legit. Probably one of his straight-to-video epics. I bet it’s an indie, though.” He sounded preoccupied and I heard more tapping in the background. A long beat passed. “Okay, here it is. Death Watch is legit, and filming is supposed to begin in Cypress Grove this week, maybe as early as tomorrow. The film company should be rolling into town late today. Gotta run; I’ll keep you posted.”

  O-kaaaay.

  A few minutes later, Cyrus Still, the station manager, handed me a press release and asked me to start plugging the movie on my show. So now it was official.

  “How did Cypress Grove ever persuade Hank Watson to come to town? I figured he’d rather shoot exteriors in Boca or Palm Beach, or maybe even Key West.”

  Cyrus grinned. “In this business, connections pay off, Maggie. Big-time. Not many people know this, but Hank and I went to Ohio State together.”

  “You’re kidding!”

  “Yeah, it sure beats all. Hank went out to Hollywood and I guess I missed my chance because I fell in love with small town radio. Oh well, you know what they say, woulda, shoulda, coulda. Can’t complain; I’ve always been happy here. Maybe I’m just a hick at heart.”

  It’s true, I suppose. As Irina always says, Cyrus is a “big wheel in a little pond.”

  Cyrus paused, helping himself to a Reese’s peanut butter cup from the jar I keep on my desk. “When I heard that they planned to shoot in south Florida, I called up the production office out in L.A. and got the name of the location manager, Eddie Kosinski It turns out that he was looking at Manalapan and a couple of other places in Palm Beach County.”

  “Manalapan? Interesting.” I knew that Manalapan and Lake Worth were popular with cinematographers. Body Heat, the steamy flick that launched Kathleen Turner’s career, was shot in both those cities. I still was amazed that a film company would want to come to a little boondocks town like Cypress Grove. I wondered if Cyrus had an ace up his sleeve.

  “And that was all it took? A phone call?”

  I was stunned by his initiative. It was totally out of character. In many ways, Cyrus has a lot in common with Pugsley. They both enjoy long naps, are addicted to junk food, and try to get as little physical or mental exercise as possible.

  Cyrus nodded, pleased with himself. “Well, luck was with me. It turns out Eddie went to Ohio State, too, so I sent him some digital shots of the town and the beach. I guess he liked what he saw.” He reached for another candy. “Plus we offered them a really sweet deal. A lot of the stars will be staying at the Seabreeze Inn, and we’re picking up the tab. Figure it’s a small price to pay for all the free publicity we’ll be getting. The town will be flooded with tourists.”

  “Tourists? Yes, I suppose it will.” I thought of Vera Mae’s views on tourists: If it’s tourist season, why can’t we shoot them? Vera Mae likes the cozy, Mayberry-like feel of Cypress Grove and wouldn’t be thrilled that a gawker invasion was in the works.

  “You know, my mom has a part in the movie,” I said idly, flipping through my phone log.

  “Really?” Cyrus stopped chomping on the peanut butter cup long enough to look surprised. “You could have her back as a guest on the show, if you want. I remember the ratings were really good that time she cohosted with you. In fact, they were through the roof.”

  “I remember,” I said, trying to keep the edge out of my voice. How well I remembered Lola’s guest appearance on my show! A guest had canceled at the last minute and Vera Mae had come up with the bright idea of Lola cohosting the show with me.

  It was a success for Lola and a disaster for me. The listeners remembered Lola from her soap opera days and she practically hijacked my own show right out from under me. All the calls were about Lola’s soap opera career and everyone wanted her advice on life and love. On the Couch with Maggie Walsh had morphed into Lola Walsh: My Life in Soaps.

  “So do you want to schedule Lola for next week? Maybe do a special show on her first day on the set, something like that?”

  “Sounds good. She’d like that.” Total understatement. Correction. She’d love that.

  Vera Mae bustled by, carrying a stack of newspapers—probably the Miami Herald, the Sun-Sentinel, and the Palm Beach Post. Even though we’re a small town market, Vera Mae is always on the lookout for news stories featuring visiting celebrities, authors, or other people who might be interesting show guests.

  She waited until Cyrus ambled off before darting into my office and plunking the papers on my visi
tor’s chair. “Well, I guess you heard the news.” Her expression was glum. “It’s really gonna happen. Wanda gave me the lowdown on Death Watch. They start shooting here tomorrow and that means the trailers and trucks will be rolling in this afternoon. And they even hired Wanda as a part-time hairdresser on the set! That girl is over the moon.” She heaved a sigh.

  “You don’t sound too happy about it,” I teased her. “Maybe this will finally put Cypress Grove on the map.”

  “Maybe,” she said slowly. “It’ll mean a lot of tourists. What if we end up like Key West?”

  “Key West?”

  “Yeah, can you imagine a bunch of people running around town in parrothead hats, looking for Margaritaville?”

  I bit back a laugh. “I don’t think Cypress Grove will ever be that famous, Vera Mae. Maybe it’ll all turn out better than you think.”

  “I wouldn’t count on it,” she said morosely. “Hollywood’s comin’ to town, and there’s not a gosh darn thing we can do about it.”

  Chapter 3

  “Can you believe it?” Mom asked me that evening, flashing her pearly Hollywood teeth. “Tomorrow is show time.” She was dancing around the condo clutching Pugsley as she swayed to “Go Your Own Way” by Fleetwood Mac. When the song ended, she finally returned Pugsley to the sofa and sank onto a kitchen chair.

  Lark, my roommate, had returned earlier in the day and had cooked a big pot of veggie fettucine alfredo for dinner.

  Lark was ladling out the pasta when Mom clutched her hand dramatically to her chest. “Oh, that Stevie Nicks. I could have been in her shoes, you know. I would need extensions, of course.” She picked up a lock of her platinum hair and let it fall back softly to her shoulders.

  Lark and I exchanged a look and I thought I detected just the hint of an eye roll. Lark is slim and petite with choppy blond tresses that give her a young-Meg-Ryan sort of look. She has a sweet, pixiesh face and is the kindest person I’ve ever met. She’s much too polite to ever challenge Lola on her flights of fancy and she either deftly changes the subject, or says something flattering.