The Fatal Funnel Cake

by Livia J. Washburn

  “She could be like that when she didn’t get her way,” Bailey said. “That’s just the truth, and anybody who worked with her will tell you that, at least if they’re telling the truth. She studied the tapes of every episode after it was broadcast, and she’d rip poor Charlie a new one if she didn’t like some of the camera angles. The same with Reed if the running time was off at all. And of course any time I did something that she didn’t like—”

  “That’s enough,” Miller cut in. “We’ll talk about all that, just not right now.”

  Despite what the attorney said, Phyllis was glad Bailey had been honest. Bailey’s words had confirmed the hunch Phyllis had about the way Joye Jameson treated the people who worked for her. It was somewhat disillusioning—Joye had always seemed so nice on TV—but not that surprising.

  “Let’s get back to the autoinjector,” Miller said to Bailey. “You used one during that earlier incident, the one in New Orleans?”

  “That’s right. And it stopped the reaction pretty quickly. Joye was choking, but she was able to breathe again in seconds after I injected her. The swelling in her throat went down right away.”

  “She had that reaction to one peanut?”

  “She’s pretty sensitive. I guess enough of the oil soaked into that funnel cake to set off the reaction.”

  Phyllis said, “I used paper towels to soak up the extra oil after I took the funnel cake out, but some of it certainly would have remained in the cake.”

  “You brought this angle up, Mrs. Newsom,” Miller said. “Do you think it’s important that the pen didn’t work?”

  “I thought maybe the killer tampered with it, too,” Phyllis explained. “He or she could have substituted something for the epinephrine that wouldn’t stop the allergic reaction.”

  “Coppering his bets, eh?” Miller said. “It’s certainly possible. The forensics team probably analyzed whatever was left in the pen, but if they didn’t, they need to. That might bring us around to the question of not only who had access to the bottle of oil but also the pen.”

  “That’s not going to help us,” Bailey said. “We already know one person who had access to both of them.” She looked around at the others and heaved a sigh. “And that would be me.”

  Chapter 25

  A long moment of silence followed that disheartening statement from Bailey. Finally, David Miller broke it by saying, “I think we could all use a break and some coffee. There’s a small kitchen here in the suite. I’ll have Karen make some for us.”

  “Why don’t you let me do it?” Phyllis suggested as Miller reached for the intercom on his desk.

  He stopped and shrugged. “Well . . . all right, I suppose.” He pointed at a door to the left of the office. “There’s a hall through there. The kitchen is on the right. Bathroom and a small bedroom to the left. Sometimes I spend the night here when I’m working on a case and don’t have time to sleep much. It’s easier than going home to an empty apartment.”

  Too much information, and slightly pathetic, too, Phyllis thought, but she didn’t say that. Instead, she stood up, motioned for Sam to keep his seat, and said, “Bailey, why don’t you come with me and give me a hand?”

  For a second Bailey looked like she was going to refuse, but then she said, “Why not?” She stood up and followed Phyllis out of the office.

  The kitchen was small, as Miller had said, but it was equipped with a state-of-the-art microwave, a compact refrigerator and freezer, a fancy European coffeemaker, a gleaming stainless steel sink, and a well-stocked cabinet. Phyllis found the coffee in the cabinet and started it brewing while Bailey folded her arms and leaned against the counter.

  “So you’re a detective,” she said.

  “I’m a retired schoolteacher who’s been lucky enough to figure out a few things,” Phyllis said.

  “If it was just a matter of luck, I don’t think Mr. Miller would have called you in as a consultant. He’s supposed to be one of the best defense attorneys around. I know he doesn’t really look like it, but that’s what Reed says, anyway.”

  “I heard that the production company wouldn’t provide a lawyer for you.”

  “How could they? Joye was their star. They have to be on her side . . . now. Even though she’s dead.” Bailey made a little noise in her throat. “Maybe especially because she’s dead.”

  Phyllis pretended to keep most of her attention focused on the coffeemaker as she said in an apparently offhand manner, “What do you mean by that?”

  “I mean they were ready to dump her over those contract negotiations. They probably never really would have, mind you. Star power is still important in Hollywood. But there were a lot of people pretty mad at her, from Reed on up to the suits at the very top. She really put Reed in a bad position by throwing several tantrums and walking out of meetings with the executives. He was caught right in the middle.”

  “That’s not a good place to be,” Phyllis agreed, still keeping her tone casual. “Speaking of star power, it appears they were grooming you for something like that until . . . well, until this unfortunate incident.”

  “No, you’ve got that wrong,” Bailey said. “I was going to be strictly an emergency replacement; that’s all. With Joye gone, they would have killed the show—” She stopped, closed her eyes for a moment, and pressed the fingertips of one hand to her forehead. “Good grief, that’s a terrible way to phrase that, isn’t it?” She looked up again. “They would have canceled the show, or brought in somebody else and rebranded it. It would have been essentially a new show. Who knows? They might have even brought Gloria back. They might do it yet.”

  “You think so?”

  “I wouldn’t say it was likely, but you can’t rule it out. Enough time has passed since her little meltdown that it’s possible. The viewing public has a pretty short attention span. And she’s done pretty well for herself here with her local gig.” Bailey thought about it and nodded. “Yeah. It could happen.”

  The delicious aroma of the coffee brewing filled the room now. Phyllis took a deep breath and enjoyed it, but she didn’t let her mind stray from the real reason she had cajoled Bailey into coming to the kitchen with her. She said, “If Gloria did come back to the show, I’m sure Reed would be disappointed. He must have had high hopes for you taking over.”

  “Maybe.” Bailey looked away again, like she had in Miller’s office. “Reed always seemed to have more faith in me than I did in myself. But he would have been disappointed. I would have been a big disappointment to him.” She ran her fingers through her hair and started to look agitated. “He shouldn’t be wasting his money paying for somebody to defend me. It’s not fair to him.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because he’s got it all wrong! I’m not . . . I’m not who he thinks I am. Things aren’t what he . . . they just aren’t . . .”

  “Are you talking about your involvement with Hank Squires?” Phyllis asked quietly.

  Bailey’s head snapped up. “What are you talking about?” she demanded. “What do you know about Hank and . . . and . . .”

  That shot in the dark had paid off, Phyllis thought. And she felt bad about taking it, too. If Bailey hadn’t been in such a frightened, depressed state of mind, she might have been able to keep up the deception.

  As it was, she crumbled. Tears began to run down her cheeks as she stared at Phyllis.

  “I’m sorry,” Phyllis said. “I saw something the other day that made me think there might be something going on between the two of you, but I wasn’t sure.”

  “You tricked me.”

  “Only because I don’t believe you killed Joye. I don’t want to see you convicted for a murder you didn’t commit. I want to help you, Bailey.”

  “Well, you can’t do it by blaming anything on Hank! He’s the sweetest, gentlest man—”

  “Big men like that often are.”

  “He
wouldn’t hurt anybody, let alone Joye.”

  “He used to be married to her, you know.”

  “Of course I knew that,” Bailey said. “Everybody on the show knew that.”

  “When a couple splits up, a lot of hard feelings can linger,” Phyllis pointed out. “And in this case, right after their divorce Joye became a big success, while Hank was still running a camera.”

  “He loves running a camera. He didn’t hold any sort of grudge against Joye. He was happy for her success. He told me so, more than once.”

  “Just because he told you that doesn’t necessarily make it true.”

  “You must not have ever loved anybody,” Bailey said. “I would have known if Hank was lying to me.”

  Bailey was incredibly young, thought Phyllis. She hadn’t discovered that some people could look right in the eyes of a person they loved and tell a bald-faced lie. Phyllis sort of envied her that youth and innocence.

  David Miller stuck his head in at the kitchen door. “How are we coming on that coffee?” he asked.

  “It’s just about ready,” Phyllis told him.

  Miller must have seen that Bailey had been crying. He looked back and forth between the two women and said, “Everything all right in here?”

  “Fine,” Bailey said as she turned to look at him, but she didn’t sound fine. “Mr. Miller, I need to ask you something.”

  Miller smiled and said, “Of course. You’re the client. Ask anything you want to.”

  “Is your defense of me going to be to blame somebody else for killing Joye?”

  Miller seemed to be taken aback by the question. He said, “One possible line of argument is always to create a reasonable doubt in the minds of the jurors—”

  “By making them think someone else did it.”

  “Or to make them believe that you didn’t.”

  “But you’re going to have a hard time doing that, aren’t you? Because I have a motive—the prosecutors will say I was Joye’s long-suffering assistant who wanted to take over the show—and I certainly had the means and opportunity. I mean, I was right there! It would have been easier for me to switch that cooking oil than it would have been for anybody else.”

  “We’ll try not to point that out—” Miller began.

  “I’m sure the district attorney will make certain the jury knows about it,” Bailey said. “So your only real chance of an acquittal is to point the finger of blame at somebody else, a specific somebody if you can.”

  “It’s much too early to be worried about things like that. We’ve barely started putting together your defense.”

  “You won’t get me off by accusing Hank or Reed,” Bailey insisted. “I know neither of them is guilty, and I won’t have them ruined by dumping a lot of suspicion on them.”

  Miller was starting to look angry now. “I’m not in the habit of letting the client dictate my tactics to me,” he said. “I do whatever I believe to be in your best interests. That’s my job.”

  “But you work for me.”

  “Actually, in this case I don’t,” Miller said. “I work for Mr. Hayes.”

  “You won’t once he knows the truth,” she snapped.

  “What do you mean by that?” Miller frowned. “What haven’t you told me?”

  “Ask your consultant.”

  With that, Bailey pushed past Miller and stalked out of the kitchen. He turned to look after her and said, “Wait! Ms. Broderick!” Before starting after Bailey, he threw a glance at Phyllis and said through clenched teeth, “What did you do?”

  Phyllis didn’t know how to answer that. She had just been gathering as much information about the case as she could, the same way she always did when she was trying to figure out what had really happened. Sometimes that backfired, as it appeared to have done here.

  Miller didn’t wait for Phyllis to respond. He hurried along the hall after Bailey.

  The coffee was ready, so Phyllis poured a cup for herself and one for Sam. There was no point in letting it all go to waste.

  Chapter 26

  By the time she got back to Miller’s office, the lawyer was nowhere to be seen, and neither was Bailey. As Phyllis handed one of the cups to Sam, she asked, “Where did they go?”

  “He took her into that little bedroom to talk to her and try to calm her down,” Sam said. “She was mighty upset.”

  “I know,” Phyllis said, “and it’s my fault. I told her I knew she was cheating on Reed Hayes with Hank Squires.”

  “You mean you were right about that? Her and that big fella are really carryin’ on?”

  “Evidently. Bailey didn’t take it well when she thought I was trying to blame Hank for Joye’s murder. She told Mr. Miller she wouldn’t allow him to throw suspicion on either Hank or Reed.”

  “I don’t imagine that went over too well.”

  “I just hope I haven’t ruined everything.”

  Sam put a hand on Phyllis’s shoulder and said, “You’re just tryin’ to help the girl the best way you know how. Nobody can fault you for that.”

  She leaned against him and said, “Thank you, Sam. Sometimes I worry that I’m just as much of a meddler as some people seem to think I am.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that. I’ve never seen anybody who tried harder to help people. That’s not the same thing as meddlin’.”

  Footsteps in the hallway made them move apart. Miller and Bailey came into the office. Bailey still wore a slightly sullen expression, but she didn’t seem quite as angry as she had been a few minutes earlier.

  “Ms. Broderick and I have had a good talk,” Miller said, “and we’ve agreed that she’ll leave the particulars of the case to me. However, I’ve promised her in turn that we’ll be careful about not trying to throw suspicion on anyone who’s innocent.”

  Bailey said to Phyllis, “I asked him to fire you, but he told me you’re not working for him. You’re really here because you want to help me, not because you’re getting paid?”

  “Of course,” Phyllis said. “Right from the start, I didn’t think that you had anything to do with Joye Jameson’s death, any more than I did. Neither of us knew about the peanut oil.”

  “I certainly didn’t,” Bailey said. “And if you’re really on my side, then I’m sorry about getting mad earlier. I just don’t want Hank or Reed getting hurt. Hank’s such a good guy, and Reed . . . well, he’s going to wind up getting hurt enough already.”

  “When he finds out about you and Hank, you mean?”

  Bailey nodded. “Yeah. And he has a right to know the truth. I’m going to tell him.”

  Miller said, “I’ve warned Ms. Broderick that if she does that, Mr. Hayes might withdraw his financial support from her defense.”

  “You wouldn’t keep on with the case pro bono?” Sam asked.

  Miller smiled uncomfortably and held out his hands to indicate their surroundings. “Please, Mr. Fletcher,” he said, “does this look like a pro bono office to you?”

  “Looks like the office of somebody who can afford to kick in the occasional fee,” Sam said.

  Miller inclined his head. “An honest, forthright answer, if a bit blunt. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Ms. Broderick, it’s the weekend. I’m probably not going to be able to get much more out of the district attorney’s office until Monday. Why don’t we just put everything on hold right now, including your plans for any dramatic revelations to Mr. Hayes? Can you do that for me, and for yourself?”

  Bailey sighed and nodded. “I suppose so. A few more days won’t make any difference.”

  “Well, they can, but let’s assume that any difference they make will be a positive one. Perhaps some new evidence will come to light.”

  Phyllis took that opportunity to say, “Like the matter of whether or not the pen was tampered with, too. Where are they normally kept?”

&nbs
p; “There’s a supply of them in the production office, in the trailer outside,” Bailey said. “And there were some in Joye’s dressing room, too. She always liked to have one close by, which is understandable.”

  “Did she ever have to inject herself with one?”

  Bailey frowned in thought. “I know she didn’t anytime that I was around her, and I don’t recall her ever mentioning that she had. She knew how to, of course. Most of us on the staff did.”

  “The one that you used—where did you get it? From the office or the dressing room?”

  “I got it from the dressing room that morning.”

  Miller asked, “Did Ms. Jameson keep the dressing room locked when she wasn’t using it?”

  Phyllis had been about to ask the same thing.

  “Sometimes she did; sometimes she didn’t,” Bailey said. “If she was going to be gone for a while, she’d usually lock it up. If she just stepped out for a few minutes, she didn’t.”

  “So anyone who was around the set conceivably could have slipped in there and tampered with the pen,” Phyllis said.

  Bailey shrugged. “I suppose so. But how would the murderer have known exactly which pen I would pick up and put in my pocket? They all look the same.”

  Sam said, “Maybe he tampered with all of ’em.”

  Phyllis wasn’t surprised that he had come up with a potentially important point. Sam never said much during these investigations, but he listened and he was smart, and Phyllis had learned that when he spoke up, it was wise to pay attention to him.

  She nodded now and said, “That would be the only foolproof way of making sure Bailey got one of the pens that wouldn’t stop the allergic reaction. In fact . . .” She thought back to how absolutely certain Charlotte Morgan had been that Bailey was responsible for Joye’s death. “What if it wasn’t just a matter of keeping the pen from saving Joye’s life?”

  “What do you mean?” Bailey asked.

  “You saw how Joye’s reaction suddenly got even worse when you injected her,” Phyllis said. “I’ve been considering another possibility. What if the killer replaced the epinephrine in the pens with a solution tainted with peanut oil? What if it was pure peanut oil?”