We Interrupt This Broadcast Read online

  Jane da Silva novels:

  Cold Smoked

  Electric City

  Amateur Night

  A Hopeless Case

  Also by K. K. Beck:

  Death in a Deck Chair

  Murder in a Mummy Case

  The Body in the Volvo

  Young Mrs. Cavendish and the Kaiser’s Men

  Unwanted Attentions

  Peril Under the Palms

  WE INTERRUPT THIS BROADCAST. Copyright © 1997 by K.K. Beck. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the publisher, except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a review.

  For information address Grand Central Publishing, Hachette Book Group, 237 Park Avenue, New York, NY 10017.

  The “Grand Central Publishing” name and logo are trademarks of Hachette Book Group, Inc.

  ISBN: 978-0-7595-2387-6

  A hardcover edition of this book was published in 1997 by Mysterious Press.

  First eBook Edition: May 2001

  Visit our Web site at www.HachetteBookGroup.com

  CHAPTER ONE

  “We have a little schedule change for you, night owls,” said Bob, breathing heavily into the mike and enjoying the sound of his own voice through the headphones. “We had scheduled a medley of Viennese waltzes, but as a special treat for a special person, we’ll hear instead Ravel’s Bolero here on Seattle’s Classic KLEG.” As was customary, he pronounced the call letters as one word.

  Bob glanced over at Melanie in the corner of the broadcast booth. She was perched on a tall stool, her heels hooked over the top rung. She opened her mouth as if to say something, but he gave her a stern look and held his finger to his lips in a shhh gesture. Horrified, she clapped her hand over her mouth and blushed.

  Bob gave her a reassuring smile. She had a hefty body, poured into a short black dress. Heft was fine with Bob. He liked something to grab on to. He imagined she was about forty-five, but well preserved.

  Bob himself was pushing sixty and looked ten years older. He never gave any thought to his appearance, apart from getting a cheap haircut every couple of months and occasionally brushing the dandruff off his shoulders. His voice, however, a golden baritone dripping with testosterone, was ever youthful. Bob had learned many years ago that women were suckers for a nice set of pipes.

  Up on the high stool in that short dress, there was no way Melanie could hide those ample but firm-looking thighs. She smiled back a little nervously, wriggled, and tugged at her hem, a sign perhaps that she had noticed he was looking up her skirt.

  He transferred his gaze to the liner notes in front of him. “An interesting thing about this work,” he began, then paused pregnantly, scanning for some esoteric bit of information to offer his listeners. Seconds ticked by as he failed to find anything suitable, then he blurted out “is that Ravel was a Basque on his mother’s side.”

  Let’s face it, he thought. I’m distracted. Bob had barely been able to contain his joy that Melanie had not only called the listener request line again tonight but had accepted his invitation to come down for a tour of the station. This was his reward for the last time she’d called, when he’d listened so patiently and with such sensitivity to her whining through an entire Schubert symphony about how tough her divorce had been.

  “Let’s listen to it now, shall we, night owls? In this superb recording on the Deutsche Grammophon label, with the Berlin Philharmonic Orchestra under the direction of Herbert von Karajan.”

  Melanie mouthed “Can I talk now?” twirling one of her strawlike curls on her forefinger. She had a lot of bright blond hair in a large perm.

  “Sure,” he said, turning down Bolero and removing his headphones.

  “So who’s the special person?” she asked.

  “You, of course, my dear,” he said tenderly.

  She looked confused. “But I never said I liked this piece. I’ve never heard it before.”

  “Ah,” he said. He threw in another pause and laid the headphones down on the console. “But this piece has a running time of an hour.” Actually, it was sixteen minutes, but Bob had programmed it to repeat indefinitely. Bolero sounded like the same phrase over and over again anyway. And it was supposed to be sexy. “There just happens to be a bottle of champagne in the fridge in the break room. Not very good champagne, I’m afraid, but it will have to do.” He gave a self-deprecating little laugh, as if to imply he was used to the good stuff. “We can use the time to relax and get acquainted. Not that I don’t feel I already know you from all our wonderful phone conversations.”

  The champagne was Korbel from the chilled section at the twenty-four-hour convenience store nearby. After Melanie had told him it would take her about forty minutes to drive down to the station from Edmonds, a suburb to the north, Bob had thrown on Saint-Saëns’s Carnival of the Animals, running time twenty-two minutes, and dashed across Highway 99 to make his purchase. He had also picked up a bottle of Scope mouthwash and a state lottery ticket. “I’m feeling lucky,” he’d said to the Korean clerk watching The Montel Williams Show on the tiny TV behind the counter.

  “I’m afraid it’s not very glamorous,” Bob said now as he guided his guest out of the studio and down the hall to the break room, a hand placed lightly on her shoulder. Things were definitely looking good. She wasn’t flinching at his touch. “Radio is all illusion—that’s the beauty of it.”

  “Gosh, it’s not how I imagined it,” she said, hesitating at the door and blinking as the fluorescent tubing overhead sputtered into action. The sickly glare washed over the avocado-colored fridge, the plastic wood table with cigarette burns and copies of Gramophone, Opera News, and People, and three of the kind of white plastic lawn chairs displayed in stacks at hardware stores.

  Hunkering low along the far wall was the dingy beige tweed sofa. Bob’s penultimate goal was to maneuver Melanie onto this article of furniture. After that, before the final chords of the final performance of Bolero, he hoped to exploit its Hide-A-Bed feature and proceed to his own thrilling finale. He knew from grim experience that the sofa by itself was simply too narrow. There’d been that awful time when he’d thrown out his back with that little schoolteacher from Burien. He’d had to crawl to the broadcast booth on all fours in excruciating pain to do the back-announce on this very same piece, then ad-lib a spot for, ironically, a chiropractic clinic.

  He sidled over to the fridge and checked his watch as he pulled out the Korbel. “I was awfully worried about you after our last talk,” he said. “But I sense that you’re coming more and more to grips with the divorce. You seem ready to put the grieving behind you, get on with life, begin it anew. Who knows what life has in store for you? It’s a time to be open! Receptive! Spontaneous!” He turned and popped the champagne cork, which shot into the ceiling, slightly dislodging one of the yellowed Styrofoam panels from its metal grid, as the Ravel swelled.

  * * *

  Franklin Payne sipped Spanish champagne and tried not to look openly hostile as his sister took the lectern. Caroline had promised him that the whole wretched thing would be over by ten-thirty at the latest.

  He was hanging back in the darker shadows of the banquet room at one of Seattle’s better hotels, and after having ascertained that there were no interesting-looking women at the gathering, was skittishly avoiding eye contact with anyone. He knew what these vultures were like.

  Franklin was forty-two, a little on the burly side, well tailored and immaculately barbered. He had spent a lifetime repressing open hostility to Caroline, and his face had a tight, controlled look as a result.

  “This evening is
the culmination of a dream,” Caroline began. “A dream my mother had and which my brother and I feel privileged to make into a dream-come-true—the first annual Marjorie Klegg Payne Awards for Outstanding Achievement by Local Artists.” Caroline was clearly in her element and looked about as attractive as she ever did. Franklin’s sister was fourteen years older, leaner and more sinewy, with pepper-and-salt hair cut in straight bangs across her forehead. Her tanned, lined face was blotched by the sun after many years of golf and tennis. Her prominent teeth and fierce, dark eyebrows gave her an aggressive look, further enhanced by her habit of wearing bristling barbaric jewelry bought at crafts fairs. Tonight, though, her enthusiasm for the spotlight had given her face a happy glow, and instead of some of the more threatening items from her jewelry box she had chosen Mom’s old pearls to wear with her gray chiffon dress.

  Seeing her at her best, Franklin was wary. Her habit of marrying fortune-hunting artists had cost the family plenty over the years. There had been three of them: a bad poet, a bad musician and a bad actor. The office of consort was presently vacant. A venue like this was crawling with just the kind of weasel who might lure Caroline into his greedy clutches.

  Franklin had wanted to mail the award winners a check, but no, Caroline had to make a big deal out of it as usual and put together this ceremony. It wasn’t bad enough that Franklin had to turn over a sizable chunk of family money to a lot of no-talent pseuds; he had to mingle with them socially as well.

  He eyed a troop of starving artists and a group even lower in his estimation, low-paid arts administrators, all snuffling eagerly around the bar and buffet. Why not just get a trough for the greedy hordes and set it up in the middle of the room? God, Franklin hated artists.

  Caroline was now thanking the distinguished committee who had selected the winners. They were a distinguished group all right. Distinguished by bad judgment—old hacks who’d floated around the arts scene for years with some loony faculty members from local universities thrown in to bolster the award’s credibility.

  The winners included an artist who glued eviscerated teddy bears and various other stuffed animals, decapitated and otherwise mutilated, onto plywood, then ran over them with her old Pontiac station wagon; a composer who had incorporated the sounds of people coughing and doors slamming into a concerto for woodwinds; and a playwright who wrote, with the aid of a dictionary, in the extinct language of an Indian tribe to which one of her ancestors had belonged. In English, the play was called The Great Web of Life, and was about old-growth forests.

  Caroline now went on about the trophies themselves, which had been designed, at vast expense, by “an important local world-class glass artist.” Caroline held one up and explained that the large pink-tinged shell-like objects were meant to represent the blossoming of the creative spirit. To Franklin, however, they looked alarmingly gynecological. When he’d pointed this out to Caroline she’d said he had a filthy mind, adding that if he were in a fulfilling relationship he wouldn’t obsess like this over a fabulous piece of art. “Well, I’m not desperate enough to try to get a date with that vase just yet,” he’d snapped back at her.

  “Today, in this era of philistinism, when arts funding is being slashed,” Caroline went on, “our family is glad to be able to provide some encouragement to those who enrich our lives with their music, their art, their poetry—those who elevate the human spirit and help make Seattle a world-class center for the arts.”

  That was the second time she’d used the phrase “world-class.” Franklin hated that. Why should Seattle try to be world class? If people wanted world-class culture they should go to New York or London or Rome or Paris, for Christ’s sake. Franklin saw no need for Seattle to have world-class baseball teams or convention centers, either. It was a vulgar conceit of newcomers to the area, and Caroline, as the descendant of pioneers, should know better.

  Caroline finally wound down, but not before enraging Franklin further by mentioning KLEG-AM. “My late mother’s legacy to the arts in Seattle is not limited to the award which bears her name. I’d like to take the opportunity to say that my brother and I are also committed to keeping Classic KLEG on the air, where we hope it can continue to serve as an important institution in the cultural life of our community.”

  How dare she speak for him like that? As far as Franklin was concerned, Classic KLEG was a money-sucking pit that served the community only as employer of last resort for a lot of pretentious geeks.

  CHAPTER TWO

  Zack Jordan leaned on the kitchen counter while his mother, Alice, made peanut butter sandwiches. From tiny speakers mounted high above the solid birch cabinets, Bolero came wafting into the airy room.

  “Now that you have this job,” said Zack, “do we have to listen to this stupid station all the time? At least KING-FM has normal commercials between all this classical music.”

  Alice sighed. “I’m just trying to familiarize myself with KLEG,” she said. “I don’t want to screw up.”

  “Are you nervous about tomorrow, Mom? Like on the first day of school?”

  “Kind of. I haven’t worked for thirteen years. Not since you were born.” Alice wished she didn’t always sound so negative. Poor Zack. It wasn’t his fault that they had hit the skids so spectacularly. She tried to sound upbeat. “I hope it will be interesting and fun. And it’s good for me to get out and meet people.” She smiled at him tenderly. He had a cowlick that made a tuft of his fine blond hair stand up at the crown in a way she found enchanting. “Everything will be fine, darling,” she said.

  “Jeez, Mom. I know that,” he said.

  Now that there were just the two of them, she wanted to make sure she didn’t use Zack as a substitute adult confidant, robbing him of his childhood. The truth was, everything about KLEG depressed the hell out of her. The ramshackle studios in what looked like a shed made of corrugated tin were located in an unappealing part of south Seattle on old Highway 99. In the dusty lobby, yellowing plastic busts of Bach and Beethoven peered out from between sad-looking potted plants. The shabby, strangely unfriendly employees gave the place the look of a sheltered workshop for the marginally employable—which, she supposed, she was too.

  Alice had answered lots of ads in the paper, but KLEG was the only company that asked her to come in for an interview. The ad hadn’t said “sales” or “radio” at all. It described KLEG as an “important cultural resource,” and the job was described as “liaising with the business community.”

  Her new boss, Caroline Payne Parker, was a maddeningly vague woman with huge teeth and earrings that looked like enameled ashtrays from the sixties. She had reviewed Alice’s skimpy résumé, scraped together at a displaced homemakers’ reentry workshop at Bellevue Community College. Alice had taught violin at the YMCA and played occasionally at weddings. She had also volunteered for various arts organizations. Caroline Payne Parker beamed and asked Alice if she wanted to sell ads for the station, perhaps as a volunteer.

  Alice explained that she had a child to support, a mortgage, and a husband who had thrown over a perfectly good dental practice and run off with his hygienist, leaving her penniless. Mrs. Parker looked startled but said that, in that case, of course she could have a small salary and sales commissions, just like Ed Costello, the person who had the job now.

  When Alice asked about the health plan, Mrs. Parker looked confused and said she was pretty sure there was one. She’d find out. “You see, we had a hired station manager for many years,” she explained, “but after Mother died recently, my brother and I decided to save money by running things ourselves. I still don’t know all the little niggling details.”

  Alice had absolutely no idea what she was expected to do, but felt that to ask for a job description would confuse and distress Mrs. Parker. The salary was pathetic, but the title, “account executive,” sounded impressive, and everyone knew it was easier to find a job when you already had one. Alice Jordan had signed on with one clear goal: to get out of there and get a real job as soon as sh
e could.

  “Oh, Zack,” she said to her son now, “I’m feeling kind of guilty. I’m sorry you’re going to have to come home to an empty house. It’s not what I ever wanted for you.”

  “Hey,” said Zack, “if you hadn’t found a job, I wouldn’t have had any house to come home to. Now that you’re working, can I get a virtual-reality helmet?” He glanced over at the twin lunches his mother was assembling—peanut butter sandwiches, oranges, raisins wrapped in Saran Wrap, celery sticks—“and can I start having cool stuff in my lunch again? Like Capri-Suns and Hostess Ding Dongs and Snapple? Or even Lunchables?”

  * * *

  Melanie was, thank God, a modern woman who pitched in and helped with the heavy lifting. Bob looked at her fondly as she struggled with her half of the Hide-A-Bed. Her dress was unzipped, with the top half hanging down from her waist and the bottom half scrunched up over her hips, revealing the shiny taupe of her control top panty hose. Her twisted dark green satin bra, unfastened in back, dangled from her strong arms by the straps and hung over her white breasts like a strand of seaweed over the bare torso of a mermaid. Her breasts bobbed fetchingly as she struggled with the rusty mechanism. So far, all their joint efforts had produced was a shower of pistachio-nut shells.

  “It seems to be stuck,” she panted.

  “It certainly does,” said Bob, grinding his teeth and giving the thing what he hoped would be the final wrench. If this kept up, he wouldn’t have enough strength to finish up before the Berlin Phil did its tenth encore.

  “It’s coming, God, it’s coming, yes, yes,” squealed Melanie in what Bob hoped was a preview of coming attractions. Just as the thing got loose and they flapped the mattress out onto the floor with a huge thud, he was startled to hear a full-throated scream floating out of Melanie’s mouth. His eyes had been scrunched shut with effort, but now they flew open. Jesus, if she could get this excited just opening a Hide-A-Bed . . .