Laura Caldwell - Red Blooded Murder

“Don’t fall apart now, Izzy.” C.J. grabbed my shoulder and leaned nearer to me. Her brown eyes were bottomless, and yet they seemed all knowing. It seemed as if she could see inside me. “We’re all falling apart inside, but we’re going to hold it together for Jane, okay?”

I nodded, trying desperately to stick with the image of Jane behind the news desk. But my mind kept snagging on that scarf. The scarf that had choked the life from her.

“Izzy.” C.J.’s voice was like a snap. “Are you listening to me?”

I blinked furiously. “Yes. Yes, I’m listening. Tell me what you need.”

Her hand on my shoulder tightened. “Ari and I have talked and we want you to do something for us. For Jane.”

“Okay.”

“We’re not going to be able to find a replacement anchor right away,” C.J. said. “Everyone in town who might work is under contract. And you know how hard it is to break those contracts.” She looked pointedly at me.

I laughed a little. I used to write the contracts for many of the newscasters in town, and I always included solid non-compete clauses and astronomical buyouts, which made it all but impossible for a broadcaster to move quickly from one station to another.

C.J. smiled a little, too. “Thanks to lawyers like you, it’s going to take a while before we can get someone on the morning desk. We could have the afternoon people step in, but we don’t think it will look good to have newscasters working around the clock, especially since we expect to get even more people tuning in once they’ve heard Jane is gone, which is why we need you to step up your game.”

I threw my hair back and nodded. I was glad that I’d managed to do my makeup and put on the stylish black suit that I’d bought for Forester’s funeral. “Of course.” I looked around for Ted, my cameraman from the day prior. How long ago that seemed. “Just tell me where you want me to go.”

C.J. paused. Was she worried that I would fall apart?

“I’m fine,” I said. “I did okay yesterday at the courthouse.”

“I saw it. You did more than okay. Which is why Ari and I want you there.”

“Back at the courthouse?”

“No. There.”

I noticed then that C.J. was pointing. At the anchor desk.

“L et’s go over it again,” C.J. said. “What’s the key to working the prompter?”

“Focus behind it. Look past the words into the iris of the camera, so it doesn’t look like you’re reading.”

“What camera do you look at?”

“The one with the red light. When a new light goes on, I glance down at the script before looking up at the new camera.”

“Right. What about the talk-backs today?”

“Try to keep the guests on point. Remember that Senator Hinton will go on forever. Listen for the producer to tell me when to cut him off.”

“Great. Opening line?”

“Good morning and welcome to Trial TV. I’m Isabel McNeil.”

I had tried to tell C.J. that I wasn’t an anchor; I was barely a reporter. But C.J. was relentless. I’d finally caved when she told me that Trial TV wasn’t going on the air without me. Did I want to let Jane down?

I didn’t. And now here I was fifteen minutes before my first broadcast. And with that realization, it started-a blush that crept up my body, a heat that overtook me.

C.J. pulled back and scrutinized me. “Are you perspiring?”

“Uh-oh.”

“Uh-oh?”

“Son of a motherless goat,” I said, my working replacement phrase for son of a bitch.

“What does that mean?”

“I have this little problem. It hasn’t happened in a long time.”

“What kind of problem?”

“Um, flop sweating?”

The muscles in her jaw went rigid. “Flop sweating? What does that even mean?”

I told her about how occasionally, when I got acutely nervous, usually at the beginning of a trial or some other public speaking, I experienced extreme perspiration. This little problem of mine was unbelievably embarrassing, as if someone had dropped burning embers into my gut and then thrown gasoline on them. And then a truck full of lumber. The waterworks in my body would pour, and my face would get as red as the fire inside me.

“How long?” C.J. barked.

“I don’t know. I guess it started in high school. Maybe it’s a hormonal thing.”

“I mean how long does it last?”

“An hour or so.” The more I thought about it, the more I sweated.

“Goddamn it, we don’t have an hour! Marissa!”

The makeup artist who had already spent half an hour touching up my face came running out of the dressing room.

“Powder her!” C.J. ordered.

Marissa made a face. “Geez,” she said. “That’s going to be tough to cover. We should wait until the sweating stops.”

“Powder her!” C.J. said again. “And I mean good. I want her spackled.”

Marissa stuffed tissue around my collar, pulled a huge powder pad out of her apron and went at me. But I could tell it wasn’t working.

“Izzy, stop it!” C.J. said.

“I can’t.”

“So if you know this is a problem, what’s the solution?”

“I’ve tried a bunch of things.”

Once, at the beginning of a trial, I ripped out my shoulder pads and tucked them under my arm. Another time I used the liner notes from a Missy Elliot album I stole off Q’s desk. My greatest fear had been that this would happen at my wedding. But since I wasn’t getting married anytime soon, I’d stopped thinking about it.

Suddenly I remembered something. “Benadryl!” I yelped. “Does someone have Benadryl?”

C.J. spun around and faced the newsroom. “Who has Benadryl?” she thundered.

Through swipes of the huge powder pad, I could see some people shrug. Faith Lowe, the avant-garde producer I’d met my first day, began to dig in her purse. She held up a triumphant fist. “I’ve got some.” She ran up to C.J. and gave it to her.

C.J. tore the backing from the foil packaging. “Why didn’t you bring this out before, Faith?” she asked in an irritated tone.

“Because you didn’t ask for it before.” Faith turned and stomped away.

“Thanks,” I called to Faith’s back, but she was weaving her way through the newsroom.

C.J. pulled two tablets out of the foil. “Does this work?”

“I don’t know,” I said, reaching for them. “A doctor once told me to try it.”

C.J. pulled the tablets back toward her. “This stuff makes you tired. Like really tired.”

I pointed at my pink, burning face. “Do you prefer this?”

“Get her a Red Bull!” she yelled over her shoulder, then put the tablets in my hand. “Take the things. Now!”

I popped the pills. The makeup artist handed me a can of Red Bull.

For the next ten minutes, Marissa kept spackling, while everyone gathered in the newsroom to watch me. I felt like sweating livestock at a county fair.

“Just keep reading your script,” C.J. said. “Get ready to go on-air.”

But the sweating wouldn’t stop. I was dripping onto my script. “I can’t put any more makeup on her,” Marissa said.

“Yes, you can,” C.J. said.

More blotting with tissues; more swats with a makeup brush and the powder pad.

“Three minutes to air!” someone yelled.

I looked at C.J. with terrified eyes. “I can’t do this.”

“Yes, you can. That Benadryl will start to work any minute. And remember, you’re doing this for Jane.”

I closed my eyes. I tried to picture Jane at the anchor desk yesterday, working her magic. But I kept seeing Jane dead last night; Jane rolled out of her house on a gurney.

“One minute to air!” the guy yelled. “Quiet on the set!”

“Izzy,” I heard C.J. say.