Deadly Production (Mapleton Mystery Book 4)

by Terry Odell

  “Will do.”

  Maybe Solomon had found something helpful when he’d searched Marianna’s room. Gordon changed into his dress uniform, then reached for his phone to call him.

  His desk phone rang. An internal call. He checked the ID. Connie. He put down his cell, picked up the land line receiver. “What do you have?”

  “Sir, a report they’ve found Yolanda Orozco, the wardrobe lady. Thought you’d want to know.”

  Connie might have the cool, detached voice of an experienced dispatcher, but Gordon heard the you’re not going to like this in her tone.

  Chapter 13

  Gordon hurried to Dispatch, wondering if this would be his excuse for getting out of the press conference. No way. As much as he hated being chained to his desk, as much as he wanted to spend more time being the cop he’d trained to be, he knew his job meant delegating responsibility so he could do the dreaded Chief Stuff.

  Connie flipped her mic away from her mouth.

  “Report,” Gordon said.

  “They found her in the alley behind Mr. Johnson’s house,” Connie said.

  That was less than a block away from the Village. Johnson was half-blind, and tended to call 911 every time he heard something, but Gordon’s bad-feeling vibes twanged like a badly tuned banjo.

  Connie continued. “Nathan Romash was on his routine civilian patrol route. Mr. Johnson had complained there was another prowler in the alley. I was going to send Animal Control, figuring it was another raccoon call, but Romash was in the area, and I directed him to talk to Mr. Johnson.”

  Gordon was about to remind her the civilian patrol unit was for visibility, and they were never supposed to be in a potentially dangerous situation, but she went on before he could speak.

  “Don’t say it, Chief. I also called Jost for backup.”

  He nodded. “And—?”

  “Yolanda Orozco is en route to the emergency clinic. Jost and Romash found her, unconscious, and called the medics.”

  “Get Solomon to the scene, and call the CSR team. I have to play nice at this press conference, but I’ll bug out as soon as I can, and I’ll want full reports.”

  “On it.”

  Striding across the high school campus, Gordon forced himself to relax—as if that was going to happen—while he dodged reporters and cameras and sought out the mayor backstage at the auditorium. Mayor McKenna was pacing, muttering, holding sheets of paper in one hand. Every now and then his other hand would rise, either waving, or pointing a finger. Rehearsing his speech, no doubt.

  Gordon stepped into the man’s path. “Mayor? You wanted to see me?”

  “Ah, yes.” McKenna smiled as though he was already on camera. “Thanks for getting here. I know things have been busy for you today.”

  Why did Gordon feel he was being slathered with honey before having a vat of vinegar dumped on his head? And was the mayor wearing makeup?

  “Yes, they have.” Gordon chose not to mention the latest turn in the case. He had no facts, and there was no point in giving the mayor anything he might mention in front of the media. “But we’re making progress.”

  “Good, good.” McKenna peered over his glasses. “I’m going to turn things over to you after my opening remarks. What do you plan to tell the press?”

  “Sir, I plan to be honest, but I won’t say anything that can’t be confirmed, or that might impede the investigation. My remarks will be short.” If the mayor was curious about what Gordon’s exact words were going to be, he had the decency not to demand to read—or vet—his speech.

  “You do understand we need to make sure we don’t give the impression Mapleton isn’t a safe place to live or visit.” Although the mayor’s tone was neutral, Gordon caught—or thought he caught—a hint of contract review in the man’s steely-eyed gaze.

  “I do. This is my town, too. And I take my responsibility to all its citizens seriously.”

  McKenna’s taut facial muscles seemed to relax. “Right. Of course.”

  A woman in black denims and a pale blue sweater approached. “Mayor. We’re ready for you in five.” She gave Gordon a quick assessment. “I want you to stand behind the mayor, to his right, until it’s your turn to speak.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” She left, and Gordon shot a questioning look at the mayor.

  “Media liaison,” McKenna said. “You gave her the right answer. It’s about the only one she’ll accept. I’m going to find a men’s room before things get started.”

  Nice to see the mayor had to dance to someone else’s tune once in a while.

  Gordon pulled out his phone and called Solomon. “Two minutes. Talk to me.”

  “No signs of a struggle at the scene.”

  “You think Yolanda went for a walk and collapsed?” Gordon asked.

  “That’s what it looks like. But given we had a similar nothing looks wrong scene—not counting the dead body—and that scene happened to be where Yolanda worked, I’m thinking no.”

  “Make sure the ER runs a tox screen. Check with Asel to see if he can give them specifics to test for.” The liaison, a frown on her face, was marching toward him. “Gotta run.” Gordon smiled and headed for the stage.

  The mayor wasn’t at the podium yet. Waiting to make a grand entrance? Or bathroom issues? Did the mayor have attacks of nerves, too?

  Seconds later, McKenna, back straight, head lifted, strode to the podium. He set his pages on its surface and fiddled with the microphone, although Gordon knew they’d already done sound checks and adjusted the mic for the mayor’s height.

  Gordon feigned interest while the mayor spoke the way politicians did—lots of words, no content.

  As if you’re not going to do the same damn thing.

  He tried not to think about the packed house, the first rows reserved for the press with their recorders, cameras, and a few with notepads and pens. The rest of the auditorium was for the public, and Gordon wondered how many had come to hear about the death of Marianna Spellman and how many were here to get autographs.

  And then Gordon heard his name. He slipped his remarks from his jacket pocket and replaced the mayor at the podium. He read Laurie’s words, offering the right amount of sympathetic compassion, emphasizing that although Marianna Spellman’s death was unfortunate, the coroner was the one who would say whether her death was from natural or unnatural causes. “At this time, that is yet to be determined,” Gordon said, pinning his gaze on a reporter he knew liked to go for the sensational. “And, as police officers, it is our job to investigate any unattended death as if it were a homicide. However, because we’re investigating it that way does not mean it is indeed a homicide. In fact, only a tiny percentage of deaths turn out to be homicides. It would be premature and inappropriate for me to comment further, as it’s an ongoing investigation.”

  He paused, and the expected hands flew into the air, accompanied by shouted questions. “I’m sorry, ladies and gentlemen, but I’m sure you understand it’s vital I return to my office and do what the citizens of Mapleton are paying me for, which is keeping everyone safe. I know Mayor McKenna will be happy to answer all your questions.”

  He turned, nodded at the mayor. “They’re all yours,” he said under his breath. And kept walking. In the lobby, tables were ready for the autograph session. Four stations, Gordon noted, so he assumed Damien Rivers and Julie Ames were going to join Cassidy and Lily. His assumption was confirmed as workers set out life-size cutouts of all four of them alongside the tables. Another worker set a stack of photos at each place.

  Break a leg.

  Tempted to drive straight to Johnson’s house, he trusted Solomon to do the job and went to the station. Back in his office, Gordon loosened his tie and wasted no time getting out of his dress uniform, swapping it out for his normal blues. Normally, he’d be in street clothes at this time of day, but he worried there would still be public appearances, and no matter what words he uttered, the uniform gave them credibility.

  Next, a quick trip to Dispatch to
find out whether there’d been any updates on Yolanda’s condition.

  “Gilman and Reynolds made the run. Her heart rhythm was totally screwed up,” Connie told him.

  Okay, that was enough for him. Two people in the wardrobe RV, one dead, one hospitalized. Coincidences happened, but he didn’t believe in them when it came to crimes. Had they missed a clue at the trailer? Or had the techs picked it up, but hadn’t run whatever test that would have sent the rockets soaring? Or they hadn’t connected whatever they had to Marianna’s death, and now, Yolanda’s heart condition?

  He called Solomon. “Give me everything you’ve got.”

  “Marianna Spellman’s room or the Yolanda Orozco scene?”

  “Both. Start with whichever is easier.”

  “Spellman’s room is clean. As in housekeeping clean. Fresh sheets, towels, emptied wastebaskets, carpets, vacuumed. The works. However, I did call in the CSR techs, since you want everything by the book. No laptop. She’s got one of those compartmentalized pill containers, jumbo size, with two weeks’ worth of slots. Less hassle than carrying a bunch of bottles around. As far as I could tell, they’re all vitamins and supplements. Lots of pills in each. No prescription vials. The lab geeks have it all for testing.”

  “Did she take the ones for today?” Gordon asked.

  “Assuming she pays attention to the days of the week, then, yes.”

  Given Marianna’s penchant for organization, Gordon assumed she’d be meticulous about the right pills on the right days. “Anything else?”

  “No, if she worked here, she didn’t leave any papers lying around. My guess is all she did was sleep here. Everything was in the RV, and if she took work to her room after hours, she brought it all back to the RV the next day.

  “What else did you collect?” Gordon asked.

  “Not much, although we requested nobody be allowed in or out of the room until we know whether we’ll need a second pass.”

  “Moving on to Yolanda’s scene, then.”

  “No signs of a struggle. No drag marks like she’d been taken against her will. No convenient footprints or tire tracks. She wasn’t carrying a purse, so we’re going to go to the wardrobe RV and see if we can find one there. However, my hunch is most of these people had nowhere to go and probably didn’t bring much with them to the set. They’d get catered meals, weren’t allowed to have phones—they might have ID and a few bucks in cash, but not finding personal effects doesn’t seem hinky.”

  “Did Gilman or Reynolds get anything from her en route to the ER?”

  “No, and before you ask, she was unconscious the whole time. I’ve notified the ER staff to give me a call when she’s awake enough to answer questions.”

  Solomon had said when, not if. That sounded like their first promising lead.

  “Any luck with our stand-ins?” Gordon asked.

  “Funny you should mention that.”

  “Don’t toy with me, Ed. It’s been a long day, and we need answers. If we let a potential killer go home, and he or she kills again—let’s say we need to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

  “Mayor won’t like seeing Mapleton’s finest in a bad light, you mean?”

  “No, I mean I don’t want to feel responsible for someone dying because we missed something that could have prevented it. I can’t keep that entire production company here while we go fishing for suspects, and they’re getting restless.” Gordon hadn’t voiced his concerns about his job to Solomon—or anyone else—and this wasn’t the time to bring them up. “So, do you have something for me on the stand-ins or not?”

  “Yes. They called Lionel Dawson about fifteen minutes ago. Alive and well, as I heard it.”

  Alive was good. “Explain.”

  “Don’t have the details. McDermott is on her way to fetch them. Should be at the station in under an hour. You can talk to them yourself. I’m finishing up with the scene. Unless you’d like to switch places so I can question them and you can go through three more garbage cans.”

  “You know the CSR techs are in charge of collecting evidence, so why are you messing around in the garbage?”

  “Because in Mapleton, I’m the closest thing to a CSR tech you have, and I figured helping them out would hone my technique. Not to mention they’ll think kindly of me the next time we need them.”

  Gordon left Solomon to playing detective-crime scene tech. He was right. Most of the crimes in Mapleton weren’t worth calling in the county, and if it kept him happy—and it must, or why else would he have volunteered to go through garbage?—Gordon was all for it.

  He set a fresh pot of decaf to brew, made sure he hadn't missed any messages, and reviewed the case notes. When that was done, he went to the war room to update the whiteboard. Still no motive. At least not one anyone was admitting to. Marianna Spellman might not have been loved, but nothing anyone had said gave Gordon a reason to believe anyone would want to kill her.

  What if they didn’t want to kill her? What if they wanted her out of the way so they could search her office, but things went wrong?

  Too bad there wasn’t an inventory of what should have been in Marianna’s office, because Gordon was confident that’s where the missing puzzle pieces had been.

  He went back to his office where the coffee maker was gurgling the last of the water into the pot. He poured a mug, found a chocolate bar in his cabinet and brought them both to the war room. Solomon stood in front of the whiteboard.

  “That was quick. Finished playing garbage collector?” Gordon asked.

  “Yep. It’s all in the hands of the techs now. One of the beautiful things about garbage is that once it’s in that can, you don’t need a warrant.”

  “You see anything promising?”

  “I doubt it. But it’s another one of those all-or-nothing situations since we don’t know what we’re looking for, so we opted to err on the side of all. On the bright side, pickup day was yesterday, so there wasn’t much, it didn’t stink, and it’ll be easier to tie what we find—if we find anything—to recent activity.” Solomon flipped a chair around and straddled it. “How did the press conference go?”

  Gordon filled him in.

  “So, in other words, nothing,” Solomon said.

  “That’s about it. But I left as soon as I said my piece, so who knows what the mayor said once the questions started flying. I didn’t tell him about Yolanda.”

  “I’m sure someone with a scanner picked up on it,” Solomon said.

  “Well, McKenna can honestly say he’s unaware of that development. Until our two stand-ins get here, we can go over this again. Maybe a few pieces will fall into place.” He thought for a second. “You said Vicky was fetching them. From where?”

  “Evergreen.”

  “More leaf peeping?”

  “I don’t know. I was picking through garbage.”

  Gordon could have called Vicky to confirm their whereabouts, or checked with Dispatch, but until Bart Bergsstrom and Kathy Newberg got here, it didn’t matter much. If it had been critical, someone would have told him. “While we wait, let’s deal with what we have.”

  He considered the timeline. “Someone wants something from Marianna’s RV. Rather than confront Marianna while she’s working, he waits until she leaves. Or does he lure her away?”

  “What about her cell phone log?” Solomon said. “The techs printed the phone at the scene, so it’s in evidence here, isn’t it?”

  “Yes.”

  Solomon jumped up and headed to their evidence room. He returned within two minutes, carrying the evidence bag, shaking his head. “Why anyone blings up a phone is beyond me. Serves no useful function.”

  “Helped us ID the phone, though.”

  “There is that. We didn’t copy the log or anything yet, did we?” Solomon asked.

  “No. At the time, all we needed was her emergency contact information. I wonder if the LAPD’s done the death notification yet? You think questioning Avis Fontenot would give us more answers?”

&
nbsp; Gordon got up and wrote her name on the whiteboard. He pointed to Isabella’s name. “The makeup manager. We didn’t do a second interview of her yet, did we?”

  “No,” Solomon said. “Has everyone gone to the hotel yet?”

  “I gave Dawson permission to make arrangements. Since all the trailers are off limits, he might have called the bus in early to take them to the hotel. But we can request a deputy go interview her, since she’s not in Mapleton at the moment, and we’re spread damn thin. Let’s finish going through what we have first.”

  Gordon drew a line between Marianna Spellman’s name and Yolanda Orozco’s. “There has to be a connection here, and some answers.”

  “You think Yolanda summoned Marianna to the wardrobe RV? Or would Marianna have insisted that any business take place on her turf?”

  “Depends on the kind of business,” Gordon said. “And it wouldn’t have to be Yolanda calling her. Anyone could have said there was something important in the wardrobe RV.”

  Gordon scrolled through Marianna’s call log and found the three numbers that had been most active, the ones he’d intended to research. He dictated them to Solomon. “Look these up, see who they belong to.”

  Solomon scooted over to the one laptop remaining in the room. “On it. I’ll check them against the spreadsheet our civilian patrol volunteer made.”

  Gordon searched for text messages again. None in the log, and nothing had come in since they’d found the phone.

  “First one’s easy,” Solomon said. “Lionel Dawson’s cell phone. Stands to reason they’d be in touch. What about calls, either in or out, at the beginning of our window for her death?”

  Gordon checked the log again. Either Marianna didn’t get many calls or texts—which he doubted—or she had a quick finger on the delete key. “No outgoing. But she had two incoming during the time in question. Neither is one of the main three.” He passed the phone to Solomon. “Are these on your spreadsheet?”