Dead Air: A Talk Radio Mystery (20 page)

“Psychology is no match for police work.” His tone was blunt. “Psychobabble theories can’t match hard evidence. And most of these forensic types have never had to get their hands dirty at a crime scene.”

He was right on that one.

Compared to CSI investigators, who have to deal with grisly sights like bodies floating in the Everglades and people riddled with bullet holes, forensic psychologists have a cushy life. We can sit in an air-conditioned office doing personality tests and clinical interviews while they’re out sweating in the field. We can charge a hefty fee for our services, whether we’re doing our evaluations, writing our reports, or testifying in court. And Rafe was right. We get paid up front and we never get our hands dirty.

There’s a lot of mental stress involved, especially in the court, where we’re grilled by the opposing attorney, but at least nobody shoots at us.

The server at the counter called my lo mein order then, and I turned to Rafe. I decided to take a chance and blurt out what was really on my mind: Was Lark just a person of interest or a prime suspect? I took a deep breath and plunged in. Nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

“Is there anything new on the investigation into Guru Sanjay’s death?” As soon as the words were out, I had the sinking feeling he wasn’t going to give me anything. A long beat passed between us while I locked eyes with him.

The restaurant suddenly seemed hot and noisy, and I had the mother of all headaches. They called my order a second time, and I stared at him. Who would blink first? I had the feeling that Rafe could outwait a jungle cat.

“We’re still moving along and looking at all the evidence,” he said finally. “I hope you’re planning on filling me in if there are any new developments.”

“Of course I will.” Any new developments? Did he expect me to get hit over the head again? Or did he expect me to magically solve the crime? He’d told me over and over to stay out of police business. Plus, he equated forensic psychology with mumbo jumbo. Hardly likely he’d want me as a consultant on the case.

“You
and
your roommate. We’ll be talking to her again soon. You be sure to tell her that, okay?” He gave me a long look, his dark eyes cool and shuttered. We both stood up then, and the veiled threat in his husky voice was unmistakable, running like a dark undercurrent just beneath the smooth surface.

I knew it. He had set his sights on Lark, like a hungry tiger stalking a gazelle at a watering hole. I gave a tight nod and walked to the counter, his words sending prickles up my spine. I could feel his eyes drilling into the back of my head, and I willed myself not to turn around. As far as Rafe Martino was concerned, the Cypress Grove PD already had their man.

Or in this case, woman.

Pugsley raced to the door to meet me when I arrived home ten minutes later. He was so excited to see the aromatic bag from Johnny Chen’s that he jumped straight up in the air, all four feet off the ground, just like a Hollywood stunt dog.

“Very impressive, Pugsley,” I told him, “but you have to wait your turn. There’s a steamed pot sticker for you, if you behave yourself.” He gave an aggrieved yip but followed me into the dining area, his chunky body quivering with excitement. Pugsley is a foodie with eclectic tastes, but anything from Johnny Chen’s sends him into canine nirvana.

I glanced at Mom, who looked flushed with excitement and was humming a little tune under her breath. She had a cat-that-swallowed-the-canary look on her face, and I knew something was up. But what? The three of us were crowded around the IKEA table, and Pugsley was sitting at Mom’s feet, glancing up at her adoringly. Mom waited until Lark had dished out the lo mein and egg rolls before she dropped the bombshell.

“You’ll never guess what I did today!” she said, clasping her hands together dramatically. She was wearing enough thin gold bracelets to outfit a gypsy, and they clanked together when she raised her arms. Lark sent me a sympathetic look. It was obvious that Mom was up to something, and Lark knew where the conversation was headed.

“Okay, I’ll bite. You called Donald Trump and asked him out to lunch?” I said innocently.

“Oh, don’t be silly. He’s got that sweet young wife, Melania. He wouldn’t be interested in an old broad like me.” She paused, thinking. “Well, he might be tempted, maybe, but not seriously interested. There’s a difference, you know. At this stage of my life, I need a man who’s ready to make a commitment.” She gave Pugsley a tiny corner of her egg roll. “Use your imagination, dear. I’ll give you a hint. It fulfills my craving for something exciting and adventurous.”
Exciting and adventurous?
She gave Lark a saucy wink.

I was stumped. “Stephen Spielberg called and he’s offering you the lead in his next movie? Woody Allen invited you to Michael’s for an evening of jazz? You’re replacing Mary Hart on
ET
?”

“No, no, and no.” Mom flashed me a sly smile. “You’re on the wrong track. Think hidden talent. Think of something I’ve never done before.”

“I give up,” I said, helping myself to a hefty serving of brown rice. My mother has always had a rich fantasy life along with an obsessive interest in show business. I had no clue what she had gotten herself into this time, but I had the prickly feeling that whatever it was, it didn’t bode well.

Mom leaned across the table and lowered her voice as if she was about to impart a military secret. “I did some sleuthing today.”

“Sleuthing?”

She nodded in my roommate’s direction. “We all have to step up to the plate to help Lark, honey. I know you’ve been doing your best, but let’s face it, Maggie, this investigation is going nowhere. Lark is still the key suspect in Guru Sanjay’s death, so I figured it was time for me to get into the act. I did some snooping around.” She paused. “And I seem to have a real talent for it,” she said with a note of surprise. “I’m a natural.”

“A natural,” Lark piped up. The corner of her mouth quirked in a smile.

Mom turned to Lark. “Did I ever tell you I played a private investigator once? It was on a Lifetime movie, just a small part. But you know what they say—there are no small parts, just small actors.”

“Oh, no,” I groaned. “Mom, what did you do?”

“Well, it all happened by accident. Serendipity, you know?” Her eyes were bright with excitement, and I had to steel myself for what I feared was coming. “That nice young man next door, Ted Rollins? I saw him out on the porch, and I just had to go over and introduce myself and admire his garden. I asked him how he managed to grow those beautiful pink hibiscus he has in the front of the inn.”

“And then?”

“And as luck would have it, a rather stern-looking woman came rushing down the front steps. It seems she’d been part of Guru Sanjay’s entourage and she’d left some papers in the lobby.”

“Stern looking?”

Mom nodded. “She looked like a female version of Boris Yeltsin. And with no fashion sense at all, I regret to say. She was stuffed into an absolutely dreadful navy blue suit that made her look like a weiner schnitzel. With a matching pillbox hat, can you imagine?”

“Miriam Dobosh.” I was surprised.
Why is Miriam back in town?

“Yes, how did you know?”

“She was Guru Sanjay’s right-hand man. Or woman,” I amended quickly. “You spoke to her?”

“Oh, yes. We had quite a nice little chat.” Mom toyed with her egg roll. “She remembered me from one of my early films,
Santa Cruz Love Song
. It’s always nice to run into a fan, even after all these years. I was practically a schoolgirl when I played the part of Rosalita,” she said wistfully. “I was a mere child. They were afraid it might be too sophisticated a role for me, but eventually they decided I had the right look for the part. The dewy-eyed innocence of youth. A Lolita type.”

“Mom, you were forty-five years old.”

“Pffft.” Mom gave a dismissive wave of her hand. “Age is just a number.” She dropped another morsel of egg roll into Pugsley’s open mouth. He was standing motionless by her chair, mouth open like a baby bird. “And anyway, Miriam remembered my work in the film. That’s the important thing.”

“She did?” Lark and I exchanged a look. As far as I knew, no one ever saw Mom’s films, much less remembered them.

“Well, I had to prompt her a little. She had a Santa Cruz sticker on her notebook, and I mentioned I had once done a film that was set there. She told me Guru Sanjay had held a conference in Santa Cruz last month and that she was very fond of the city. Well, the next thing you know, we were talking away like best buds. Ted brought some iced tea, and we simply bonded. We have a lot in common, you know.”

“You and Miriam?” I blinked. Surely she was kidding.

“Oh, yes. You know, Maggie, now that Guru Sanjay has ‘transitioned,’ as they say, poor Miriam is out of a job. And it seems like her whole life revolved around him and the organization. It’s not going to be easy for her to find another job at her age, you know. Especially not with the same salary and perks she was getting from Guru Sanjay’s organization.”

I nodded. “That’s probably true, but I still can’t figure out why she told you all this.” The crazy thing is, I actually could imagine it. People are always confiding in Mom, and perfect strangers tell her their innermost thoughts and secrets. Mom has a certain knack—maybe it’s a trick all actors know—but when she talks to you, she makes you feel that you’re the most fascinating person on the planet.

“I think she felt she could relate to me on some level.” Mom shrugged. “We talked about how hard it is for women of a certain age to find employment. It’s the same for actors, you know. I mean, how many Meryl Streeps or Diane Kea tons do you see? Once you’re over forty, they send you off to the La Brea Tar Pits.”

“The La Brea Tar Pits?” Lark asked. “Isn’t that in Los Angeles?”

“It’s where the dinosaurs went to die,” Mom said dryly.

Chapter 19

It wasn’t until after dinner that Mom revealed the most interesting fact about her conversation with the ever-loyal Miriam. We were lingering over cappuccino and chocolate biscotti while Lark was flipping through the real estate section of the
Cypress Grove Gazette
. Lark has always dreamed of owning beachfront property—a nice fantasy, but not possible on a paralegal’s salary.

“Real estate,” Mom said, tapping the paper with one of her bloodred enameled nails. “That’s what I should have invested in when I had the chance. The same thing happened to Miriam, you know,” she said vaguely. “She told me could have made a killing, if only she’d listened to Guru Sanjay. It’s so sad. She’d be financially secure if she’d just taken the plunge. Of course, she’s kicking herself now, but it’s all a moot point. It’s too late, and now she’s hustling for another job to support herself.”

Now she had my full attention. “Do you mean Sanjay encouraged her to buy real estate?” This was the first I’d heard of this, but I wondered how a real estate deal could have related to his murder. “I didn’t even know he invested in real estate.”

“Oh, yes, he bought up properties all over south Florida. Condos, duplexes, some nice houses on the intracoastal. Really fabulous places. She said he had a good eye for real estate. Say what you want about him; he knew a smart deal when he saw one, and he wasn’t afraid to take risks.”

“How does Miriam fit into all this?”

“She found out he was buying properties and flipping them. You know, picking them up when they were about to foreclose, doing some quick renovations, and selling them for double what he’d paid for them.”

“Interesting.”

“He told her if she put up some cash, he’d cut her in on the deal, but she was afraid. She’s at that age when a woman has to think about financial security, and the real estate market seemed too volatile.” I wondered whether Mom was talking about herself or Miriam. Mom isn’t the thriftiest person I know, and her erratic employment history didn’t lend itself to fat IRAs or 401(k)s. As far as I knew, she hadn’t even worked steadily enough to collect unemployment benefits.

“So she didn’t lose any money, right?”

“No, she just lost a great opportunity.” Mom gave a brittle laugh. “I told her I could certainly relate to that. When I think of the directors I could have worked with, the parts I should have had. Did I ever tell you about the time I had the chance to study at RADA? That’s the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art. Just think, I would have trod the boards at the Old Vic with people like Gielgud, Richard Burton, Alec Guinness . . .”

Would’ve, should’ve, could’ve.
Lark and I locked eyes over the table. She was too kind to tell Lola that she’d heard the story before. While Mom was regaling Lark with one of her many trips down memory lane, I decided to clear the table and take Pugsley out for a quick stroll. I’d walked only a couple of blocks when my phone chirped.

“Hey, there,” Nick said when I picked up. “How’s your head doing?”

“I still have a lump the size of a goose egg,” I told him, “but I think I’ll survive.”

Pugsley stopped to inspect the base of his favorite banyan tree, and I stopped, too. “Mom just told me something interesting about Guru Sanjay. She ran into Miriam Dobosh, who gave her an earful about life with the guru.” I quickly related the details of his lucrative real estate deals. “It turns out that Miriam didn’t take the plunge, so she didn’t lose any money. I was thinking that if she had, it would have been a motive for murder.”

Nick’s laugh, low and husky, eased over the line. “Maybe she didn’t lose any money, but a lot of people did. Sanjay had a nice cash cow going down in Fort Lauderdale and Miami by buying properties and flipping them.”

“That’s perfectly legal,” I pointed out. I never doubted that Guru Sanjay was a shrewd businessman, just a lousy excuse for a human being. Plus, he was an ex-con.

Flipping houses was the thing in south Florida. When the real estate market was flourishing, I’d heard of quite a few people making easy money by buying and selling houses. A new coat of paint, some new cabinets and flooring, and the houses were instantly rehabbed and put up for sale. A lot of them sold within a couple of weeks. If you were lucky and knew what you were doing, you could make twenty or thirty thousand over the price you had paid, in a very short space of time. As they say, “nice work if you can get it.”