The Forecast is ... Murder!

by Susie Black

The United Television Network exiles disgraced investigative reporter Sunny Knight to a remote California desert affiliate. Sunny is informed by the station owner that, since nothing happens in the middle of nowhere, the station does not need an investigative reporter, and she is now the weather reporter. After they have a vicious altercation, the station owner’s bridge partner is discovered dead, and Sunny’s boss is arrested for the murder. Despite her differences with her boss, Sunny is convinced that the station owner didn’t do it. The wise-cracking, irreverent amateur sleuth jumps into action to nail the real killer. But with a clown car full of viable suspects to investigate, will Sunny bring the right one to justice or become their next victim?

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Excerpt:

A stately woman in her mid-sixties opened the door and strode purposefully into the office. Around three inches shorter than me, she carried her rail-thin frame regally—shoulders back, head held high, chin jutted out. A ramrod posture that screamed confidence, control, and power. 

She wore an expensive-looking sand-colored gauze pantsuit embellished with an embroidered trim and beige macrame sandals with two-inch heels. She styled her salt-and-pepper hair in an upsweep. A jeweled gold comb held the hairdo in place. She sported a set of piercing, steely, wide-set gray eyes that could cut you down to size with a glare that was set above a patrician nose. Her only make-up was a stripe of blood-red lipstick slashed across thin, turned-down lips.

“Mister Durbin,” she glared at Jock and barked in a gravelly voice that sounded as if she gargled with razor blades. “Has the new weather girl managed to grace us with her presence yet?” She tapped the face of a diamond-encrusted watch. “Time is money. And I don’t cotton to anyone wasting either of mine. She must be brought up to speed immediately to take over the eleven o’clock spot tonight.” She drew her lips into a tight, thin line. “The giggly bimbo morning program co-anchor you’ve been using to pinch hit simply won’t do for another segment. The birdbrain is unable to read off of a teleprompter properly, let alone tell the difference between a barometer and a thermometer.”  

A nasty sense of superiority coursed through my veins. Then a surprising stab of pity pierced my heart for the poor soul stuck in such a dead-end job.

Jock beamed a hundred-thousand-watt smile at the crabby woman and swept an arm towards me. “Mrs. McClintock,” he purred sweetly as a lover, “Allow me to introduce you to Nelly Dean Knight, our new weather reporter.”

Wait. What? Weather reporter? Who? Me? 

She turned her head to follow Jock’s hand as his index finger pointed to me. Mrs. McClintock blinked as she noticed me for the first time. 

She eyed me up and down as though examining a head of cattle at an auction. She glanced at Jock’s Hawaiian shirt and rolled her eyes. She clucked her tongue. “At least this one came to work dressed properly…”

She jabbed her right hand out like a fencing sword, clamped her slightly gnarled fingers tightly over mine, and gave my hand a solid shake. “Edwina McClintock. Head honcho of this establishment.”

She let go of my hand and swept hers across the room. “To save us both a lot of time and aggravation, here’s how it works around my shop. I run a tight ship. I don’t put up with crap from anyone…so, don’t even try wasting my time. Show up when you’re supposed to. Come to work prepared. Do your job right. Around here, it’s my way or the highway. Follow my rules, and we’ll get along fine. If not, you and the little still left of your broadcasting career will be history faster than you can say Cactus City.” She narrowed her eyes. “We clear?”

Clear? As mud. Who the hell does she think she’s talking to? 

Jock’s eyes widened to the size of silver dollars as I snatched my resume off his desk and slapped it into her age-spotted hands. 

She glanced at the cover page and shrugged. “So?”

I spoke through gritted teeth. “So, if you bothered to read my resume, you’d see I am an award-winning investigative reporter, not a weather girl, as you disrespectfully referred to me. I dunno who’s supposed to take that dead-end job, but it sure as hell isn’t me.”

Mrs. McClintock narrowed her eyes and studied me curiously, as if I were a newly discovered species.

If the old bat thought she’d intimidate me with her stare-down tactic, she had another thing coming. If you grow up in a house of five kids, you’d better stand up for yourself, or the others will walk all over you.

I tapped my toe impatiently. 

Seconds before I was out the door and on my way back to New Jersey, she rolled my resume into a cylinder and smacked it across my arm. She grinned impishly. “You have spunk and guts, young lady. Good on you. I like it.” 

She jabbed an index finger into her chest. “You remind me of myself back in the day.” 

She tipped her head. “So, here’s the thing. I don’t need an investigative reporter. Truthfully, not enough goes on out here in the middle of nowhere to investigate.” The corners of her downturned lips quirked into a faraway smile. “Mr. McClintock won this station in a poker game twenty-five years ago, and he treated it like a hobby. After he passed, I kept the station for sentimental reasons, but once I chose to hold onto it, I ran it as a business, not a toy.” 

She pointed to Jock. “I made the deal with the network under the proviso I’d only be sent the cream of the crop who’d screwed up.” She waved my rolled resume like a baton. “The network sends me every candidate’s resume. Contrary to popular opinion, you weren’t forced down my throat. I could have rejected you, but instead I chose to select you. Why? Because you have a brain and a moral compass—a rarity in the broadcast biz.”

She pointed to a window. “Mr. McClintock and I made our money in the date business. If your fortune depends on the weather, you’d better pay close attention to it and learn to anticipate Mother Nature’s wrath and respect it, or you’ll go broke in the blink of an eye.”

She shook the resume at me. “We can do each other some good. You need a way back into the industry, which I can provide, and I need someone who understands the importance of accuracy in reporting.”

I said, “If the weather reporter is such a critical job, shouldn’t it go to a trained meteorologist?”

She dipped her head. “A reasonable assumption…thirty years ago. Now, thanks to modern technology, a reporter pulls all the information right from the US Weather Service website.”

I grinned. “You don’t need to pay a reporter for the job. Nancy, the receptionist, is qualified. How hard is it to say it’s going to be beastly hot today and a little less hot tonight?”

She steepled her fingers as though she were in prayer. “Lives and livelihoods depend on the weather in this little corner of the world. The key to the job is the way you explain the forecast to our viewers and its meaning to their lives.” She funneled her lips. “You can maximize the importance of any position by the way you approach it. Why not use your investigative skills to go into the field and report how our severe and often unpredictable weather impacts the residents and the economy? Don’t discount the job for a single minute. The weather reporter is critically important to the community we serve.”

The madame missed her métier. She should have gone into sales. 

I arched a brow. “Okay, just for the sake of argument, say I agree there’s more to the job than meets the eye. Show me the compensation package.”

Jock handed her a manila folder. She opened it and pushed a sheet of paper over to me. 

I scanned it and burst out laughing. I stood and held out my hand. “Thanks for the offer, but I’ll make a lot more as a mortuary cosmetician.”

Mrs. McClintock wrinkled her nose. “Good grief. Talk about a grim career choice. That one wins the gold medal.”

I grinned. “Grim, yes, but since death is inevitable, you’re never out of work.”

Mrs. McClintock took a pencil from Jock’s desk and put the sheet of paper between us. “Before you go, just to be sure you understand how much you’re walking away from, let’s go over the offer sheet in detail.”

I rolled my eyes. “Go over it all you want, but the numbers don’t lie. You’re offering a salary of $26,000 a year gross before taxes. How you expect me to live on it is a mystery. I earned double the salary in Newark.”

She nodded. “I did my homework. For a single person to live modestly in Newark, the normal minimum annual income is $46,000. In the first place, the cost of living here is a lot lower than in Newark. But putting that aside, if you don’t focus on the salary and consider the benefits we include, then this offer is quite generous.”

Mrs. McClintock tapped the pencil eraser on the offer sheet. “We offer company-paid health and dental insurance and a non-taxable pension plan that we match dollar for dollar. We offer free housing to our broadcast staff. For a single woman, we provide a furnished two-bedroom two-bath Spanish-style hacienda with utilities, including air conditioning, that you live in rent-free. Trust me, the power bill alone would eat up the lion’s share of your take-home salary. This is a turnkey, professionally decorated home. Just show up with your toothbrush. Our staff also enjoys a generous discount at the supermarket and pharmacy I own here in town.”

She pushed the offer sheet closer to me. “Remember, Ms. Knight, it’s not how much you earn, it’s how much you keep.” She grinned. “And let’s face it, I don’t care how much money they pay you; this is a helluva lot better gig compared to preparing corpses for funerals.”

She had me there.

Bio:

Named Best US Author of the Year by N. N. Lights Book Heaven, award-winning cozy mystery author Susie Black was born in the Big Apple, but like her protagonist in The Sunny Knight Mystery Series, she now calls sunny Southern California home. 

She reads, writes, and speaks Spanish, albeit with an accent that sounds like Mildred from Michigan went on a Mexican vacation and is trying to fit in with the locals. Since life without pizza and ice cream as her core food groups wouldn’t be worth living, she’s a dedicated walker to keep her girlish figure. A voracious reader, she’s also an avid stamp collector and ardent sailor. Susie lives with a highly intelligent man and has one incredibly brainy but smart-aleck adult son who inexplicably blames his sarcasm on an inherited genetic defect.

Looking for more? Contact Susie at: E-mail: mysteries.authorsusieblack@gmail.com