Free The Morning Show Murders (1) by Al Roker Page A

fifteen minutes had passed, I put the TV and myself out of our shared misery and went looking for her.
    There were two bedrooms just past the kitchenette. The first had, in addition to the usual bedroom furniture, an artboard, inks, paints, and a floor littered with discarded sketches.
    I moved on to the second. A bedside lamp was lit, but Melody was fast asleep. There was a pink woolen coverlet folded at the foot of the bed. As I eased it from under her legs, I noticed that a red-leather wallet had worked its way free of her jeans pocket. I picked it up and draped the coverlet over her.
    I scanned the room, saw nothing more interesting than the wallet, which I took to the living room. I plopped down on one of the soft, pink chairs to do some snooping. At first I found nothing of consequence. A credit card in her name, a reminder of a hair appointment at Roland's in the Village, two ten-dollar bills, a five, two ones, a receipt from a neighborhood dry-cleaning establishment named Pressing Matters, and several business cards.
    My big discovery was an Illinois driver's license with her photo, which was tucked in one of the wallet's folds. It had been issued eight months before to a Mary Lou Meeshon, then a resident of 13121/2 North Welles Street in Chicago. According to Mary Lou's birth date, she was still a few months shy of eighteen.
    I pawed through the rest of the wallet, but the only other things of note were two photos: a creased snapshot of a little female toddler being held by a black man, his bearded face softened by a grin of parental pride, and a more recent version of that same toddler, all grown up or nearly so, sharing a love seat with Rudy Gallagher, staring at a camera that Rudy was holding up in front of them. Mary Lou and her real father, and Melody and her father figure.
    I took the wallet back to Melody's room and placed it under the coverlet near her. She was still sleeping comfortably. I was reluctant to leave her alone in the apartment. I doubted she needed babysitting,but I didn't know her well enough to make that call. I'd been wrong about her before; at the
Food School
tryouts, she'd struck me as nothing more than a pampered, self-centered bubblehead, albeit a pretty one. So though I had no reason to suppose she might wake up depressed enough to do damage to herself, I didn't want to risk it.
    I thought about searching the place, checking the medicine cabinet, the closets, but I could think of no good reason to invade their privacy further. Instead I went back to the pink chair in the living room and waited for Rita Margolis to return.
    It wasn't a long wait.
    She rushed in, saw me, did a quick scan of the room, then demanded, "Where's Melody?"
    "In her room, asleep."
    She double-timed it in the direction of the bedrooms, slipping out of her plastic coat as she went. I watched her as she tossed the coat into her bedroom without pausing and rushed into Melody's.
    I moved closer.
    Rita was standing beside Melody's bed, looking down at the sleeping girl with such adoration I felt uncomfortable enough to back away before being seen.
    I was seated on the pink chair again when Rita finally joined me. "How long ago did she fade?" she asked.
    "Less than an hour," I said.
    "You put her to bed?" It was almost an accusation.
    "No. She did that herself. I did put the coverlet over her."
    "Well, thanks for your help, chef. I can take it from here."
    Her mood was so brusque, I asked, "Do we have a problem?"
    She frowned. "They were talking about the murder at the gallery. You and Rudy Gallagher weren't friends. In fact, the cops think you killed him."
    "It's true Rudy and I weren't exactly drinking buddies," I said, "but I had nothing to do with his death."
    "Really? That must be why the cops have closed down your restaurant," she said. "And don't tell me they haven't. I went by there and saw the crowd. It was your food that killed him."
    "It wasn't my food," I said. "It was poison. The killer might have put it in my