Mr. Murder by Laura Van Wormer released on Dec 27, 2005 is available now for purchase.

Mr. Murder

By Laura Van Wormer

MIRA

Copyright © 2005 Laura Van Wormer
All right reserved.
ISBN: 0778321770

"I hate to be the bearer of less than good news," my studio producer, Haydn Cooke, says, appearing in the doorway, "but I wondered if you had seen this."

I glance at our chief film editor, Clem, who sighs and drops his hands from the console to wait. This is our third interruption since we sat down, but this is what happens in television when you are a producer for DBS News in New York.

I look at the papers Haydn hands to me to read:

Harrington Hammered In Hometown

Since my name happens to be Sally Harrington, I read on:

Everybody with a television set has by now seen the great white hope for DBS News in the shapely form of the blue-eyed, almost-blond Sally Harrington. You know the one. The sensational witness from the Mafia Boss Murder Trial that audiences found so compelling the network decided to launch an early morning newscast to showcase her? Unfortunately for DBS, however, a bitter debate has broken out in Harrington's hometown of Castleford, Connecticut — a debate that has pitted residents who believe Ms. Harrington worthy of emulation against those residents who believe her worthy of deportation.

I read on to an editorial that has evidently run in the Herald-American:

The Castleford Women's Club recently awarded its highest honor to part-time resident and DBS News maven Sally Harrington "for her extraordinary professional achievements, outstanding contribution to the community and overall excellence as a role model." While the Herald-American (as her former employer) is also proud of Ms. Harrington's professional achievements, we must question the motive behind the organization's selection. Given the highly publicized trials and tribulations of Ms.Harrington's personal life, one can only shudder at what kind of role model the Women's Club would consider unsavory. Scribbling a big check to the club from a recently inflated bank account does not, in our opinion, constitute a good role model.

I am left almost breathless by the attack. My old boss, Al Royce, and I have always rubbed each other the wrong way, but I served him and the paper well. Certainly I have done nothing to warrant this kind of viciousness. At least I don't think so.

I lower the paper and cover my eyes with my left hand for a moment.Given the highly publicized trials and tribulations of Ms.Harrington's personal life, one can only shudder at what kind of role model the Women's Club would consider unsavory.

Well, let's see now, what could be considered unsavory about my personal life: I broke up with a Castleford favorite to take up with a slick New York insider; a tape of him and me having sex was distributed all over town; the defense attorney in The Mafia Boss Murder Trial set me up to come across as a nymphomaniac,making me an instant media sensation;and,finally,that slick New York insider was involved in a very messy and very public divorce trial into which my name was dragged. "Sounds like sour grapes to me," Haydn says sympathetically. Of course Haydn's still pretty new and probably isn't yet familiar with my unsavory personal life.

I drop my hand. I have a feeling if Haydn's skin was not black, I might see that he is blushing on my behalf. He's a good guy. "When I graduated from high school," I explain, "the Women's Club gave me a renewable scholarship for four straight years. I couldn't have made college work without it."

"I'm with you," Haydn assures me. "Mine was from our Rotary Club."

"So then my mother tells me that after a hundred years the club can't meet in the cultural center anymore," I continue, "be-cause the air-conditioning is shot and a lot of the older women can't breathe without it. So fixing the air-conditioning seemed like the least I could do."

I look down at the wire service release again — one can only shudder at what kind of role model the Women's Club would consider unsavory. I check my watch and look at Clem. "Can you give me five minutes?"

"Sure,"he says,turning back to the console. "I've got the Puget Sound piece to finish, anyway."

I leave editing and walk down the short hallway into the central newsroom. "Sally —" an assistant begins.

"Give me five," I beg, swerving around him to head into what we call the Fishbowl, a conference room constructed of soundproof glass. I close the door, pick up the phone, punch in my office ID number and make a long-distance call. I look at my watch. It's 4:02 p.m., Friday. Mother stays late at school Tuesday through Thursday to supervise the English lab, but today she should have left right after the bell.

"Hello?" Mother answers with her usual warm grace, giving me, today, somewhat of a pang. How she ended up with a daughter with a temperament like mine is beyond everybody's understanding, although Mother maintains it is our differences that allow us to be so close. (I think our closeness is much more likely due to long-time combat fatigue, the kind remaining family members share in the trenches when the father dies young.)

"Hi, it's me."

Pause. "Oh, darling heart, I am so sorry.When I saw the paper at lunch —"

"At lunch?" I yell. "Are you telling me this editorial ran today and was submitted to the wire services yesterday?" Son of a bitch, I'll kill him.

"Sally, what do you mean?"

"I mean that sleazebag Royce submitted the editorial to the wire services before he even ran it because he knew he'd have to write a retraction. And you can bet your bottom dollar the retraction will never make its way to the wire services."

"Oh, no," Mother says quietly.

"Oh, yes." I drop heavily into a chair. "And it beats me what I've done to set him off."

"It isn't anything you did,Sally,"Mother says. "It's what I did."

"Mother, it's okay, I'm a grown-up, I can handle this."

"No, really, darling."

"Alfred Royce adores you, he always has."

"Stop it, Sally, please," she pleads. "You're breaking my heart." I blink, taken aback.

"Al wrote it to hurt me, not you. Al is mad at me. Do you understand?"

"I don't understand at all," I tell her. The newsroom assistant is trying to get my attention by waving his arms at me through the glass. I make a swatting motion for him to go away.

"He's been harboring this — this feeling about me for years," Mother says. "It's ridiculous."

It's nothing new for a Castleford man of a certain age to have a thing for my mother, not even now that she is in her early sixties. Mother is one of those kind and gentle beauties men always wish they had married.

"Something happened, Mother, didn't it?"

Pause. "Yes." Silence.

"Are you going to tell me what?"

"Only if you promise not to do anything, Sally. And to let me handle it." She pauses for a moment, expecting a protest from me, and incorrectly assumes my silence means I agree. "He begged me not to marry Mack. He said he was in love with me and it was our last chance for happiness."

I think I'm going to scream. Alfred Royce III is one of the worst kinds of human being. He is one of those self-centered brats who inherited enough money and power to make every-one's life miserable.

"Does Al not remember, perhaps, that he already has a wife?" I ask. "A second wife, I might add? For whom he traded in the first?"

"Actually, he's been married three times," Mother says almost conversationally, "but the first was over so fast no one remembers...