Laura Caldwell - Red Blooded Murder

I opened my eyes. She was peering at my face, and she looked oddly relieved.

“It’s working,” she said.

She was right. I could feel the heat and the red drain away.

C.J. watched me for another thirty seconds. “Powder once more!” she yelled over her shoulder at Marissa.

This time, the powder felt like cool dust.

Marissa backed away, then C.J., who was nodding at me, staring me in the eyes. “You’re all right,” she mouthed.

“Ten, nine, eight…”

I closed my eyes again. I didn’t try to think of Jane. Instead, I thought of Forester. How he had encouraged me, how he had always told me I could do anything.

“Three, two…”

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

As I spoke, looking into the yawning square lens of the camera, a tranquil, almost eerie composure settled over me. Maybe it was the Benadryl. Maybe it was because this was one last thing I could do for Jane. Whatever it was, I could feel my mouth move, I could hear the words coming out, but it was as if someone else were speaking.

I sank into a hole of detachment that opened in my mind. I thought of all the times I had seen Jane do this, and it was almost as if I was channeling her. Like Jane, when the lead story was over and a red light flashed on a different camera, I glanced down at my script and then turned my body to face it. Like Jane, I read the next story and the next with confidence. Like Jane, I smiled slightly when we went to a commercial.

And when that first segment was over, I finally looked around the room, and I saw people nodding. Ted, the cameraman, gave me a thumbs-up. So did Faith and Ricky, the photographer who had driven the news van.

C.J. rushed up to me. “You’ve got some kinks, but you’re good.”

“I am?” I blinked. I felt in a slight stupor from the Benadryl, but I was also buzzing with an energy I had never known before.

“Really good,” C.J. said. She rattled off a litany of criticisms and suggestions.

I blinked. How did Jane do this and make it look so effortless?

“Ready?” C.J. asked.

“No.”

“Good, because we’re back to you in five…four…three…”

T here was no funeral for Jane, or at least not one open to the public. Instead, her parents, who lived outside of Grand Rapids, Michigan, were holding a private burial there over the weekend. Meanwhile, Zac had a hastily arranged afternoon memorial on Tuesday at the restaurant in the Park Hyatt where she and I had been Friday night; it had always been one of Jane’s favorite places.

It seemed early for a memorial service. Didn’t such things usually take place a few days after the death? Or maybe that was only when there was a body to be dealt with for the service. I wondered if Jane’s parents would have an open casket. I hoped not. Jane should only be remembered for the vivacious, vibrant woman she was.

Spring was still in the air on that Tuesday afternoon, with green buds sprouting from the otherwise bare trees and a fresh scent blowing off the lake. But it was chilly, and so the outside bar, where I’d had drinks with Jane just days before, where she’d asked me to join Trial TV, was closed. Inside, the bar had polished, dark wood and chic furniture. The tall windows overlooked Chicago Avenue, and on the far end, Michigan Avenue and the old Water Tower.

The place was packed. I glanced around and for a second I thought I knew everyone, but realized many were anchors and reporters I’d seen on the news for years. I waved to the few I did know from working at Pickett Enterprises. I saw C.J. standing near the end of the bar with a producer and assignment editor from Jane’s old station. They all appeared distraught. Everybody did.

Q appeared next to me. “Hi,” he said simply, somberly.

“Thanks for being here.”

Sam had offered to come with me, but I wanted to attend the memorial with someone who knew Jane. Q, as my assistant, had worked with her for years, and he had loved her.

Q peered at my face. “TV makeup?”

“Yeah.” I told him about anchoring the morning show. And the flop sweat attack. As a result, they’d powdered me in a massive way again that day.

“Wow.” Q peered at me some more. “It’s going to take an industrial squeegee to get that off.”

“And a blowtorch.”

Neither of us laughed.

“I can’t believe this.” Q adjusted his black tie, which he wore with a gray-and-black houndstooth jacket. His new boyfriend had lots of cash, and since they’d gotten together, Q had become a true fashionista. “You okay?”

“No.”

He grabbed me around the waist, and we hugged tight.

“Drink?” he said.

“Definitely.”

We made our way through the crowd to the bar, said hello to a few people and ordered two glasses of wine.

As we waited for our drinks, I looked around the place. “Oh!” I said, when my eyes landed at the far corner.

A table had been set up there, and on top of it, leaning against the wall, was a blown-up head shot of Jane. In it, she wore a crisp white blouse and a gold braided necklace. She was laughing in the photo, her eyes sparkling. I thought of her, just a few nights ago, outside on the patio, saying, When someone tells you you’re beautiful, you act like it’s the first time you’ve heard that. Because you never know when it’ll be the last.

Tears flooded my eyes.

Q handed me a glass of wine. “Sip this.”

I gulped it instead, wanting something to tamp down the emotion that coursed through me as I looked at that photo.

On the table beside the picture were two scrapbooks, filled with what looked to be pictures of Jane. Many, I guessed, taken by Zac.

Q looked from me to the scrapbooks and back. “Let’s talk about something else for a second. How’s the twenty-one-year-old?”

“In Mexico.”

“Oh, honey, is that what he told you? That’s the oldest excuse in the book for not calling.”

“No, it’s not.”

“Train wreck. Told you.”

I gave him a withering look.

I kept glancing at the table with the scrapbooks, debating whether I could handle looking at them, when I noticed that Zac, grim-faced, hands in his pockets, was standing near the table. He was speaking to a short woman with dark hair who was flipping through the books, dabbing her eyes with a Kleenex.

Zac wore his slim black suit with a white shirt and thin black tie. I could tell the suit was expensive, even from far away. He looked around the crowd, and then his eyes landed on me. For a second, he didn’t seem to recognize me, but then he nodded and started walking toward me.

“I’ll be right back,” I said to Q.

I pushed my way through the crowd until I met up with Zac. Up close I could see his face was ragged, the skin around his eyes more heavily lined than when I had seen him a few days before.

“Zac,” I said, “I’m Izzy McNeil. I met you at your house on Saturday when-” I faltered for a second “-when Jane found that stuff. And we talked that morning. And I-”

“I know who you are,” Zac interrupted me. He didn’t say anything then, he just looked at me with those anguished eyes. “You found her.”

I nodded. I saw Jane again-the white suit spattered red, the pool of blood behind her head. “Yeah, it was…” How to describe? “It was horrible.”

He started to say something but his words caught on tears, it sounded like. He shook his head a little and closed his eyes momentarily.

“I’m really sorry for your loss.” I hated saying stuff like that at a funeral. Such words always sounded cliché.

Zac shook his head. We were silent for a beat. Then he spoke. “I need to ask you something. When you were out with Jane last week…”