Max Collins - Girl Most Likely

His chin came up, his gaze came down. “From what I understand, from the wire service story, this was a crime of extreme violence. With none of the earmarks of... a professional assassination.”

“Some assassinations pose as something else. A killing that appears to be the work of a psychopath might be that of a cold-blooded hired killer disguising what he’s up to.”

He nodded. “So what is it you want from me, Detective Larson?”

“I need to ask you a few questions that I’ll record on my phone, if you have no objection.”

“None.”

Keith got out the phone and placed it between them on the table. “Ms. Lund was working on a story about sexual misconduct, presumably in the workplace. Were you aware of that?”

An eyebrow rose above the black frames. With light sarcasm, he said, “Of sexual misconduct in the workplace? Certainly. But this station has a very clean record in that regard. We’ve had a zero tolerance policy for that kind of thing, long before doing so became fashionable.”

Keith raised a palm. “It may not be in this workplace. I don’t think she was necessarily looking into, say, sexual harassment at one workplace, rather that subject, that problem, in general. Possibly as involving various Chicago-area businesses.”

He nodded. “I can look into that. I didn’t work directly with Astrid, of course, but she did intersect with any number of others on our staff. She was, however, something of a self-contained... shall we say, force of nature. Tended to do her own research, pick her own subject matter, clear it with me only when she’d done some preliminary homework, at least.”

“Did you know about this story?”

He shook his head. “No. I’m not surprised, in the wake of the #MeToo phenomenon, however, to find Astrid looking into that area. And we haven’t done a major investigative piece on it, so it makes sense.”

“Anything else she was working on?”

“Not that I know of.”

“Something political maybe? Possibly involving the current-day Outfit?”

Carlson seemed amused. “Gangsters, Detective? You are an old-school type. Galena may be frozen in time, but this city isn’t.”

“Understood. I do have to ask you where you were Saturday evening.”

“At a play with the woman I’m seeing now,” he said, adding, “my wife and I are separated.” He provided the specific information, then Keith asked about the second week in August.

“Out of the country. A vacation in the UK with the same individual.” He provided that information, too.

The station manager stood. Keith — knowing he was being dismissed — collected his phone and rose as well.

“I’ll make sure any calls to me from you go right through, Detective Larson. Any way I can support you in this endeavor, I will. I would hope you folks in so small a town will soon come to realize that this is bigger than you can handle. If you need me to pave the way for you, say the word.”

Carlson opened the door and revealed the PA waiting in the corridor to show Keith out. A huge framed poster of a beaming Astrid Lund was looking over her shoulder.

Soon Keith was following the PA down the narrow hall again, where from a dressing room — larger than most, but its door open just the same — a woman with her back to them called out, “Detective! Could we talk?”

The woman had seen him in the mirror, which was where he saw her now, framed by the traditional backstage lights as if this were Broadway and not a news station.

Rebecca Carlson.

The wife of the handsome Lincoln with whom he’d just spent an unproductive fifteen minutes — the real star of the station, whether her husband liked the word “star” or not.

She wore a dark blue satin robe, her light brown hair pinned up out of the way as she cleaned her face with cold cream. She was forty-something and at her worst, yet astonishingly beautiful.

Looking back at him in the mirror, as he stood in the hall frozen next to the PA who was also in pause mode, she said, “Come in, would you? And close the door.”

The PA shrugged at him, and he shrugged at her, then went in, closed the door, and pulled up a chair — not too close to his hostess, just a little to the left of her back to him.

“If you’ll excuse me,” she said. “I always take the war paint off, after the noon broadcast. I do the morning show and leave it on for noon, and then it’s off for the day and so am I. Not a bad way to make a bundle, huh?”

“Not bad at all,” he said to her back. He couldn’t see much of her face.

“You’ve been talking to my ex?” she said.

He nodded. “I hadn’t been aware he was your ex.”

“Not final yet, but trust me. It’ll take. That’s not a divorce either one of us is questioning. No-fault divorce in Illinois kicks in after a two-year separation — ‘irretrievable breakdown.’”

He said, “Sorry to hear it.”

“I’m not. He’s a charmer, isn’t he? Funny how he knows more than anybody he meets, particularly about whatever it is they do.”

“I noticed that.”

“Told you how to run your investigation, right?”

“He started to.”

“Ah! And you cut him off! Good for you. I hate the son of a bitch. I don’t remember why I married him. Job security maybe? Thank God we have no kids. Thank God I’m past that. This is your investigation, isn’t it? You just have that look.”

“Actually I’m retired. Just consulting. My daughter is chief of police in Galena. I was a cop for a long time, detective in Dubuque.”

“Galena is charming. I love Galena. I didn’t do it, by the way.”

“Didn’t do what?”

“Kill the bitch. Sorry. She wasn’t a bitch, not really. Just ambitious, which makes me a bitch and a half. It’s just... well, you’ll find out anyway.”

“Find out what?”

“That she broke me up with that bastard. Her and my cold-fish husband, although she warmed him up, I’ll bet. They had an office affair, didn’t you know that? You’d find out soon enough.”

“Would he have any reason to kill her?”

“I wish he did. And you’d get him for it. Be nice not to have him around. The minute my ratings slip, my pretty bottom... and it’s still very pretty, I assure you... will be bounced out of here. I’ll be looking for work at a small station somewhere. Is there a station in Galena?”

“No. There’s a couple in Dubuque.”

“Good to know.” She was unpinning her hair. “You know, I had a lot to do with her success, Astrid’s. It was an All About Eve thing. I’m Margo, she’s Eve Harrington. You know that movie?”

“I know all Marilyn Monroe movies.”

“Ha! Anyway, I helped her climb, then she climbed on me, on her way over. I keep my eye on her, believe me.”

“Not anymore.”

She was applying some cosmetics now, from her purse. Leaning into the mirror. “I’m sorry. I sound cold.”

He said, “Astrid may have been a bitch or Eve Harringbone or whatever. But she didn’t deserve to get hacked up by some lunatic, or somebody pretending to be one.”

She turned to him. Her personal makeup was perfectly applied, very subtle, just right for a woman her age. Of course, to him forty-something was a kid. And oh you kid... big blue eyes, lovely carved features, just the face you want to deliver you the news, good or bad.

“I’m the bitch,” she said, “talking about her like that. She was very good at what she did, and she was going places. I don’t resent her that — certainly now I don’t. And it was my ever-loving ex who made the moves on her, I’m sure.”

“He has a motive.”

One eyebrow hiked. “Does he? Well, I know she dropped him. She has the ratings to get away with it. What motive? Getting dumped? Even my ex wouldn’t carve a woman up over that.”