Free Soap Opera Slaughters by Marvin Kaye Page A

you.” His voice was as musical as someone gargling with gravel.
    Lara stepped forward. “Hasn’t Ms. McKinley arrived yet?” He said no. “Never mind, this man’s with me, you can pass him in on my say-so.”
    “Sorry, ma’am, I can’t. Gotta be okayed by WBS or Mr. Ames.”
    “Since when?”
    “Since that turkey jumped off the roof.”
    Lara reddened, but I stopped her from arguing. “You go in,” I suggested, “I’ll wait out here for Florence to arrive.”
    “That could be a while yet, Gene, she’s not on till the fourth scene. All right, look—you stay here, I’ll run on up and get Micki to clear you.” Without explaining who Micki was, Lara exited through an iron door to the left of and behind the security desk.
    The guard mopped his florid. “Guess I’ll catch hell for not taking her word you’re okay,” he said morosely, “but they already fired another guard for Saturday, and he only had one year left to retirement.”
    “I’m not mad,” I said. “I understand the position you’re in, I used to be a security guard myself once.”
    “Yeah? Where’d you work? What kinda place?”
    “A bank.”
    “You had it easy,” he rasped wryly. “Money at least stays put. It don’t rob itself.”
    Micki turned out to be Marianne Lipscomb, assistant to the producer of “Riverday.” A tiny brunette with hair parted in the middle and swept over her ears in two midnight wings. Her small oval had large brown eyes and a nose that overbalanced everything else. Likewise, her trim frame looked lopsided because her shoulders were too broad. But she had so much poise she looked like she knew exactly what she was going to be doing for the next thirteen weeks, minute by minute, and maybe she did.
    Emerging from the same door Lara left by, Micki Lipscomb introduced herself to me, then rounded on the guard. He started to argue with her, but gave up after a few acrimonious exchanges, during which she impressed on him that her authorization was synonymous with that of Joseph T. Ames himself.
    I was finally permitted behind the metal door. Ames’ assistant led me through a maze of corridors studded with so many unnumbered doors I felt like the lost child in George Macdonald’s fairy tale about goblins. Heeltapping briskly in front, Micki took me up two flights of steep stairs to the third-floor offices of Colson-Ames.
    I entered a suite of cramped cubicles opening off a moderately large central space filled with phones, desks, chairs, filing cabinets and a barrage of color TV sets.
    “Wait here,” she instructed me. “I can’t let you into the studio without direct clearance from Mr. Ames, and I can assure you he won’t give it to you unless Florence tells him to.” She took a deep breath. “Did she ask you here because of what happened to Ed Niven?”
    “Yes. Did you know him very well?”
    She cocked an eyebrow. “You might put it that way.”
    I regarded her curiously. Another candidate? “I heard he was dating Ms. McKinley.”
    “What a quaint phrase,” she said ironically. “I didn’t know that people still ‘date’ nowadays.”
    “Some of us do. I also understand Mr. Niven used to be involved with Joanne Carpenter.”
    “If you’re going to dredge up ancient history, you’re going to need a score card. Ed ‘dated’ anything with two sets of curves. I think he drew the line at nymphets.” Her lips seemed unsure whether to frown or sneer. Just then the phone rescued her from deciding.
    She held the receiver to her ear for a few seconds, then hung up and strode over to her desk. That was Mr. Ames. Emergency meeting on set. You’ll have to keep yourself company for a while.” Marianne Lipscomb grabbed a clipboard and pencil and hurried out.
    Some detectives I’ve met regard an empty office as an invitation to poke around in drawers and files, but since I had no idea what I might be looking for, I reserved the temptation for a time when it might be worth the risk. I busied myself,