Free Dead Air: A Talk Radio Mystery by Mary Kennedy

to mine. “Insane!” At this angle, with her flat, broad features and glittery eyes, Miriam looked a little demented herself.
    “The girl who was just in here?” I said stupidly.
    “Her name is Olivia Riggs.” She shook her head up and down, nearly dislodging her Jackie Kennedy hat. “Completely delusional. She was infatuated with Sanjay. Sanjay wanted nothing to do with her. She’s an annoying little pest.”
    She glanced in the mirror, grabbed the hat pin, and viciously jabbed it into her pillbox to anchor the hat more firmly on her head. Our eyes met for a moment in the glass, and her mouth was tight, her face contorted with rage.
    “So you’re saying there never was any chance that she was going to—” I wasn’t sure how to tactfully finish the sentence.
    “Take my job? Oh, please.” Miriam gave a sardonic chuckle. “The girl has the IQ of a pigeon. She could never do what I do, not in a million years.” She tapped her gray curls in a self-satisfied way. “It was all in her head,” she said meaningfully. “She has a vivid imagination.”
    I did my business and scurried out, not sure whether I could take any more surprises.

Chapter 8
    Of course I knew I had one more big surprise waiting for me back at the town house.
    Lark. I glanced at my watch. In just a few hours, I’d know what really happened the previous night with Guru Sanjay.
    But first I had another show to do. Two shows in one day, but this was an easy one—no callers, just a guest interview. We’d rerun this show for a holiday broadcast—a girl has to get some time off. I peeled out of the Seabreeze parking lot in a cloud of blue smoke, heading straight for the station. My guest was Dr. Hyram Rosenkrantz, author of You and Your Colon: A Fragile Alliance . We were low on mental health experts and Vera Mae had the bright idea of adding some shows on wellness and lifestyle issues.
    I waggled my fingers at Irina, who frowned at me and pointed to the giant wall clock over the reception desk. “You are cutting it close to the bone,” she said reproachfully. “Vera Mae is going pecans, wondering where you are. And your guest, he is looking to be losing it.”
    “I’m running a little late, sorry!” I tossed the apology over my shoulder as I sprinted down the hall. Grabbing a donut out of the break room barely broke my stride, and I kept on running straight into the booth, just as Vera Mae scurried to her spot at the board.
    She glared at me through the window. “Holy buckets, girl, where’ve you been? Big Jim was going to rerun one of his sports broadcasts to fill the time slot.”
    I slapped my headphones on as Ray, the intern, hustled Dr. Rosenkrantz into the booth and settled him in a chair. My spirits sank when I got a look at my guest. He was a Pillsbury Doughboy of a man with a mass of yellow-white facial hair that nearly obliterated his pudgy features.
    No time to offer him mineral water or coffee, not a moment to introduce myself or to make any attempt to put him at ease. The eminent doctor treated me to a scowl as I gave him a breezy smile. He was going to be a disaster on the air—I just knew it.
    No time to worry about that, though, because we were going live in ten seconds!
    I’d like to say the next two hours flew by, but really, how much can you say about colons? Dr. Rosenkrantz wasn’t the most scintillating guest in the world, but in all fairness, he had a pretty grim topic—flatulence, constipation, and diver ticulitis, all leading to the dreaded IBS, or irritable bowel syndrome.
    The thrill of it all nearly sucked the air out of the booth.
    His message was primarily cautionary: Be kind to your intestines and they will be kind to you. A sort of gastrointestinal Boy Scout oath.
    I waved my whole-wheat donut at him to show I was with the program, but he seemed unimpressed and looked mournfully over his notes during the commercial breaks. Perhaps he needed a little more roughage himself?
    Note to self: Ask Cyrus to find