Sinister Sprinkles Part 23

"Then she can listen from there. No guests allowed, remember? We covered all of this on the telephone last night."

"I'm afraid there's been some kind of misunderstanding."

We stopped in front of a broad window looking into a control room, and I saw Lester sitting behind his desk, headphones on and a microphone married to his lips.

She explained, "Listen, we're a small station. Save your prima donna act for Charlotte, okay? Just go in and talk to him. It's as easy as that."

I saw the ON AIR sign go off, and the next thing I knew, the woman was shoving me through the door toward Lester. We'd met a few times, and I thought for sure he'd know who I was, but he barely looked up as I walked in.

"You're late. Sit there and put on the headset."

I started to say something when he held up a hand and said into the microphone, "Cutnip, a cut about the rest. Welcome back. Our guest has just arrived, and we're all eager to hear what she has to say about grilling salmon."

He waved frantically at me to talk, but he still didn't make eye contact. I put on the headset, then leaned into my own microphone and said, "Lester, I have no idea how to grill a salmon. I guess you keep asking it questions until it breaks down and finally tells you the truth."

That got his attention. His head jerked upwards, and after a second, he realized who I was. "That's some of our own Suzanne Hart's humor, folks. Since Chef Lisa couldn't make it today, we did the next best thing and invited our very own donut maker into the hot seat. Tell me, Suzanne, how do you justify serving food that is as dangerous to its consumers as cigarettes or machine guns? Hold that thought, we'll be back in thirty seconds while she tries to come up with an answer, folks."

I pulled the headphones from my ears as the ON AIR light went off. "What are trying to pull? That's a dirty question, and you know it."

"Why did you pretend to be someone else, just to get on the air?"

"I came to talk to you," I said. "I never claimed to be Chef Lisa, or even Chef Boyardee. Your a.s.sistant threw me in here, and you told me to talk."

"Cara, come in here," he said as he hit one of the many b.u.t.tons on the panel in front of him.

"I'm busy right now, Lester."

"Make the time."

"Your commercial break is up," she said, clearly trying to buy some time.

"Then run another one," Lester said. He was a large man, with a shiny bald head and beady brown eyes that would look more at home on a ferret.

I felt bad for Cara, but she didn't seem the least bit concerned when she came in. Lester pointed at me and scowled. "That's not Chef Lisa."

"I've told you before, Lester. If you insist on booking your own guests, you can't blame me when things go wrong."

"She makes donuts," he screamed.

"Bite me," she said, low enough for me to hear, but not Lester. Or so she thought.

"What did you just say?"

I stepped in before they had a blowout. "She said, 'Like me.' I turned to Cara. "So, you make donuts, too."

She nodded, then said, "All the time."

Lester frowned, but the light came back on, and Cara escaped while she still could. I envied her the opportunity.

"Now, you were saying?" Lester said.

I was ready with my answer.

"If you eat too many donuts, I'm the first one to admit that they're bad for you," I said. "But so is ice cream. So is steak. So is watermelon. Moderation is the key to all things."

"But why make them at all?" Lester asked, still pressing me pretty hard.

"We aren't machines, Lester. Every last one of us deserves a guilty pleasure now and then. I'm sure you have a secret vice yourself. Why don't you tell your listeners what your bad habit is? I'm certain they'd all love to know."

Ignoring my counter-jab, Lester forged on. "So, you admit that what you make is poison, and yet you still sell your products to the unsuspecting public. Back for Suzanne's answer after this."

He cut the live feed, and then said, "Don't try to get in a war of words with me, especially not on the air. I'll have you tattered and crying in two minutes if you keep trying to make me look bad. Is that why you came by? To torment me?"

"No, I need to ask you some questions."

"What about?" he asked, the suspicion heavy in his voice. "I can't imagine anything the two of us have to talk about."

"Darlene Higgins is a good place to start, don't you think?"

There were no mistaking it, I'd scored a hit with that one. The ON AIR light came back on, and before Lester could say anything, I decided to jump in and defend my donuts.

"You call my donuts poison," I said. "I won't debate it. It's beneath my dignity to lower myself to your level. You're the one who needs to explain himself. Tell us all about your relationship with Darlene Higgins, Lester. Why did she have one of your business cards, and a hundred-dollar bill that matched up to it, in her apartment when she was murdered?"

I looked at him, and noticed he was smiling. "What's so funny?"

"We've been off the air for thirty seconds," he said. "Technical difficulties. Sorry about that. If you'd like to schedule a new interview time, see Cara on your way out."

"When did you cut me off?" I asked.

He fiddled with some dials, and then I heard my voice replayed saying, "You call my donuts poison. I won't debate it." And after that, there was just the hiss of dead air.

"I'll sue you for that," I said, starting to get up before I realized that I still wore his headphones. I'd have to boil my ears after I left to get his touch off me.

"For a technical difficulty? I'd love to see you prove it."

I realized pretty quickly that he was right. I didn't have a chance, and my little truncated comment was going to stand uncorrected for a long time. I was fairly sure of one thing: Lester wasn't about to extend an invitation to me on the air so I could clear my name, and my product's reputation.

"You got me, congratulations," I said. "But that still doesn't explain what that bill and your card was doing at her apartment."

"I give out cards all of the time. Anybody might have taken it and pa.s.sed it on to Darlene."

"Then what about the matching hundred?" I said.

"That's my business. Suzanne, if you're going to come after me, you're going to have to have better ammunition than that. Now if you'll excuse me, I've got work to do."

"I thought you had a technical problem," I said.

"You should go. Right now."

I did as he said, not because I felt threatened by him, but because I knew he had me. I had no real proof of anything, just suspicion and conjecture, and I knew neither one of those was going to be good enough for Chief Martin.

Cara stopped me as I started to leave, and I could hear someone pounding on the outside door from the hallway. Evidently Grace wasn't about to give up until she managed to get inside.

The producer put a hand on my arm. "Thanks for covering for me. As much as I loathe working for Lester, it pays for groceries, and my kids have to eat. I lost my grip a little and snapped at him, and if you hadn't been there to cover for me, I would have gotten fired."

"It was my pleasure," I said.

She nodded. "Come here a second."

I followed her into her booth-a much smaller room that was across the hall and down ten feet-so she couldn't see Lester, and more importantly, he couldn't see her.

"I heard what you asked him, and you deserve a straight answer."

"How did you hear our conversation?" I asked. "The microphone was off."

"Just the one for the broadcast feed," Cara said. "He forgets all the time, and I get the juiciest gossip that way. Lester's nothing more than an old fishwife. He loves to spread rumors, and he gets his own pipelines in here to feed his on-air slander from his secret informants. That's why Darlene had his card and a hundred-dollar bill. There was a number on the money, wasn't there?"

I nodded.

Cara took a book out, and recited a number to me. I didn't even have to look at the bill or the card to know that it was a perfect match.

"He was paying her for rumors?" I asked. "What could she know that was worth a hundred dollars? This is April Springs, not Dallas."

"That I can't tell you," Cara said. "All I know is that she was on his payroll. Working at Cutnip must have been a great source of rumors about folks around town."

"But I just heard Lester do a spot for the salon. Isn't that kind of crazy, risking losing a sponsor like that?"

Cara leaned forward and whispered, "You don't know the half of it. Wilma's ads are the only thing keeping him on the air right now. He's lost two other sponsors in the past month. If she drops him too, his so-called career in radio will be over."

"So he had a reason to want Darlene dead, didn't he? If she threatened to tell Wilma what she knew, he could have killed her to shut her up."

Cara's face went white. "No, that couldn't be."

"It's possible," I said.

"I have to check on something, and then I'll get back to you. Is there a number where I can reach you?"

I jotted down the donut shop's number, and after a second's hesitation, added my cell phone number. "Call me anytime. I appreciate your help. Just don't do anything to get fired. I couldn't live with that on my conscience."

"And I couldn't stand by and let a murderer go free," she said.

Lester came out of the booth and started down the hall. When he saw me, his eyes narrowed to two tiny slits. "What are you doing here?"

I was at a loss for a plausible reason when Cara said, "I was just getting her a mug," she said as she slapped one into my hands. "Every guest gets one."

He tore it out of my grasp. "She wasn't a guest, she was an intruder. Now get out," he said.

"Fine, I didn't want your mug anyway," I said as I hurried toward the outside door. I nearly knocked Grace over as I darted outside.

She said, "Finally. I thought you'd forgotten all about me."

"I couldn't get you in," I said as I hurried toward her car. "Let's get out of here, and I'll explain what happened to you once we get away."

"What? Did you end up hitting him with a microphone?"

I stopped in my tracks and looked at her. "Why would you say that?"

"I heard what happened on the radio, and n.o.body would blame you if you took a shot at him. When I couldn't get in, I wondered if you might accuse him of something on the air, so I came back to the car and tuned the station in on my radio."

"How bad was it at the end?" I asked.

"Pretty bad," she said. "Why won't you debate whether your donuts are poisonous or not? I think you should."

"It wasn't like that. He cut me off in midsentence."

"I figured it was something like that. Don't worry, I doubt many people heard you say it."

"Don't even pretend that you don't know that most of April Springs listens to him, no matter how bad he is at what he does. I don't know how I'm going to fix it, but whatever I come up with, it's going to have to wait."

"What's more important than saving your business?" Grace asked as we finally climbed into her car.

"Finding Darlene's killer. She was feeding Lester gossip from the beauty shop, and he was paying her for it."

"What would Wilma say about that, if she knew?" Grace asked.

"That's the question, isn't it? According to Lester's producer, if Cutnip dropped him as a sponsor, his show would go off the air. That's motive enough for murder, wouldn't you say?"

"In Lester's mind, it probably was. But how do we prove he had anything to do with Darlene's murder?"

"I'm working on it," I said, then I noticed that we were back in front of the donut shop. "Why are we here?"

"Where did you want to go, home?" she asked. "I'll take you wherever you want, but you have to give me some idea where we're going, or we're going to just sit here until it's time to eat dinner."

"I just wish I knew," I said.

We were still sitting there five minutes later when Grace's cell phone rang. Before answering it, she turned to me and said, "I could use some coffee."

"I'll make some," I said as I got out, clearly taking the hint.

I went into the shop, and before I could lock it behind me, there was a tap at the front door. A man in a heavy jacket and large hat yelled, "Are you open?"

I pointed to the sign. "Sorry, we're closed."

"Then why are you inside?"

I said the first thing that came to me. "We're doing inventory."

I hadn't done it since I'd opened the shop, though I knew I should keep better tabs on the supplies I had on hand. My operation was small enough so that if I ever ran out of anything, I just ordered more, or if it was a real pinch, I'd run to the market and pick some up myself. I knew that it wasn't the most efficient system in the world, and admittedly, sometimes it did leave me in a temporary bind, but not enough to bother with adding to my workload, when I was already open seven days a week.