Free The Morning Show Murders (1) by Al Roker

..."
    "What people?"
    No answer.
    "Your mother?"
    Hesitation, then the decision to remain silent.
    "Father?"
    "He's not my father," she almost shouted. "My father died. This one's not much older than my brother. He thinks 'cause he gave my mother a ring, he can do anything he wants to me."
    "Okay," I said softly. "I've got the picture. How much does Rita know about it?"
    "Not a lot. Doesn't take much to put Rita into attack mode. I'm not lookin' for any payback. I just want that whole part of my life gone and forgotten."
    She looked even younger than eighteen. Maybe she was. People have been known to lie about their ages on their contracts, though usually it's in the other direction.
    "Melody Moon your real name?"
    "It is now," she said. "Aw, hell. Everything would have been so perfect if only Rudy and I could've ..."
    She drew her legs up and hugged them.
    She must have seen the concern on my face, because she attempted a grin and said, "I'll be okay."
    She looked at the disk in her hands. "We would have had a happy family. Rudy loved kids, you know."
    "He had children?"
    "Oh, not any of his own. He never was married. But when he was starting out he hosted a kids' show on a local station in Cleveland. That's where he's from."
    I guess I didn't know very much about Rudy. Maybe I should havebeen more curious about the guy who'd won Gretchen's heart and, assuming he'd been straight with Melody, had decided to break it.
    "He gave me this," she said, indicating the disk. "Four of his shows. You can see he really cared for the kids. Didn't talk down to them at all. He was so nice to them. Like a real dad.
    "You mind if I put this on? It makes me happy to watch it."
    "Please," I said.
    It was a standard videotaped kids' show circa the 1980s. Produced on the cheap. A youthful, skinny Rudy Gallagher, decked out in what looked like an old brass-buttoned Sergeant Pepper coat and a yachtsman's cap, and operating under the nom de video of Cap'n Rudy, set sail in the good ship USS
Huckleberry
with ten or so kids on board.
    The ship's bulkheads were black muslin, the portholes cardboard with cartoon waves. Rudy and the kids sat on fold-up chairs while some unidentified hapless station gofer, whom the cap'n called Yeoman Yuckie, pretended to operate an ancient motion-picture projector ostensibly showing Hanna-Barbera cartoons that suddenly filled the screen. Chief among the characters was Huckleberry Hound, hence the show's title.
    Melody fast-forwarded through the cartoon segments, making the usually lethargic, blue-coated Huckleberry move faster than the Road Runner. Then she hit the play button and we watched young Rudy bonding with the kids, listening to their stories, singing sea chanteys and employing a truly awful "Avast ye, mateys" old-salt growl to spin tall tales that were rewarded with youthful cheers and laughter.
    While I found these blasts from the past initially interesting, they quickly lost their charm for anyone who'd not been in love with Rudy Gallagher. By the time I'd endured two of the thirty-minute episodes, my eyes were starting to roll back in my skull.
    To keep from screaming, I excused myself and went to the kitchenette, where I found an assortment of booze. I selected a half-full pint bottle of bourbon, took a sip to make sure it wasn't turpentine, and used another inch of it to fashion a medicinal warm-milk punch for Melody.
    She accepted it, took a tentative sip, and pronounced it "delicious," taking a larger swallow. "Do you think any of Rudy's old shows might be for sale on eBay?" she asked. "Maybe more of these
Huckleberrys?
"
    "Wouldn't hurt to check," I said.
    The possibility of owning more video minutes of Rudy seemed to please her immensely. She settled back against the couch and drank more of the milk punch.
    We were halfway through yet another
Huckleberry
episode when Melody put the empty glass on the coffee table and stood up, unsteadily. "Excuse me for a minute?" she mumbled and tottered off.
    When