January 10
Well, my hopes for having a calm January to recover from a typically crazy December--culminating, as always, in my annual New Year's Eve special on Channel 7, Janet Davies’s Wild n’ Wacky Windy City Countdown--have just been dashed. About an hour ago, I was sitting here at home, brainstorming ideas for segments I could put together for my three-time-local-Emmy-nominated lifestyle program, 190 North. Has anyone ever done a piece on eco-friendly synagogues? I asked myself. Or how about a followup to last year’s report on jeggings for the disabled? And would it be possible to incorporate Snooki somehow? Your mind always has to be going in this business.
Suddenly, I was startled from my idea-generating by an insistent tapping on the glass of the back door that opens into the kitchen. Jerry and the kids had gone to a movie so I was all alone in the house, and I was more than a little frightened to see pecking at the door a birdlike figure wearing a black hooded cape and standing there in the falling snow looking like Poe’s raven or Heckle bereft of Jeckle. But then the figure pushed back the cape’s hood, and who should it be but Chicago Sun-Times theater critic, murder suspect, and occasional 190 North contributor, Hedy Weiss!
Dear God, had she come to allegedly murder me, too? The way she had allegedly murdered former Chicago Tribune columnist Mary Schmich? Hoping she hadn’t seen me, I immediately dove behind the counter.
“I know you’re in there, Janet Davies!” she called through the glass. “I can see your reflection in your stainless steel appliances!”
Damn that general contractor! I told him the kitchen was too reflective, but he just wouldn’t listen!
“Please don’t hurt me!” I begged. “I don’t want to die without winning a local Emmy!”
“I’m not going to hurt you, you moron,” she said. “I’m a respected theater critic, for God’s sake. I hurt people’s feelings, not their bodies. Now will you open this door? I’m freezing my tuchus off out here!”
“Hedy, please--”
“I didn’t kill Mary Schmich, Janet. I mean, yes, I disliked her column. And her stupid comic strip. And her face. But you have to know, in your heart of hearts, that I didn’t--that I couldn’t--”
And I don’t know why, but something in her tone persuaded me to open the door.
“Fine, you can come in to warm up,” I said, “but you can only stay a minute.”
“Perfect,” she said, plowing her way in, “a minute’s about all I’ve got. I’m jumping bail and escaping to safety.”
“What?!” I said. “I thought you said you were innocent!”
“I am,” she said, “but someone is obviously framing me for this murder, and if I’ve learned anything about plot mechanics from sitting through hundreds of plays, it’s that they’ll stop at nothing to destroy me. I’ve got to get out of here. That’s where you come in. While I’m away, you’ve got to find out who did this and clear my name.”
“Me?! I’m a lifestyle reporter on television! Why me?”
“Because dammit, Janet, these charges are false. And I know that in spite of all the reports you’ve done on cupcake trends and the best places to take your dog for a colonic, somewhere in there beats the heart of a journalist. And a journalist cares about the truth.”
I wanted to point out that my piece on doggie colonics, “Poopy Puppies,” is highly regarded in the industry, but she continued. “Besides, of all the people with media credentials in this town, you’re the last one anybody would ever suspect of doing any actual reporting. My enemy, whoever it is, will never be on to you. So what do you say? Will you help me?”
And before I knew what I was doing, I had agreed and she was already headed out the door.
“Where will you go?” I asked.
“For your safety and mine, I better not say,” she said, and with that, she was gone.
Oh goodness gracious, what have I gotten myself into?
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