Deadly Production (Mapleton Mystery Book 4)

by Terry Odell

  Xander spoke, louder, as if he felt the need to project his voice throughout an auditorium, not Gordon’s small office. “The lipstick on the cup from the lounge is a match for the one in Marianna Spellman’s purse. But wait. There’s more.”

  “So, what do I get if I phone in right now?” Solomon called out.

  Xander chuckled. “You get to find out what we discovered when we ran the prints on the cups.”

  Gordon grabbed a legal tablet and a pen. Solomon extended his hand and waggled his fingers. Gordon ripped off a couple of sheets and slid them across the desk to Solomon, who reached into Gordon’s pen container and snatched one. “Let’s hear it,” Gordon said.

  Xander’s voice took on that lecturing tone. Gordon accepted it to mean the tech was running through procedures, not doing the in words of one syllable so even you small-town cops can understand it routine. “We got partials on the cups. Nothing, unfortunately, that could be matched by AFIS, assuming these people would be in the database to begin with, but enough so we’re confident we’ve got one person’s prints on all three cups.”

  “Three cups?” Solomon said. “Where from?”

  “From the trailer designated lounge one,” Xander said.

  “What we’ve been calling the VIP lounge,” Gordon said.

  “But there was no actual rule banning anyone from either lounge, was there?” Solomon asked.

  “No. Which, as has been happening all too often, means we haven’t narrowed our suspect list.” Gordon faced the phone. “Continue, please, Xander.”

  “We found three cups with hot chocolate, and all contained traces of citalopram hydrobromide.”

  “The same concentration in all of them?” Solomon asked, busily writing notes.

  “Good question,” Xander said. “Yes. Not a massive dose, given nobody finished their cocoa, but there are lots of factors to take into account, like body weight, metabolic rate, sensitivity, interaction with other drugs.”

  Gordon groaned inwardly. Could their killer have had a different—or another—target? “So someone in addition to Yolanda Orozco and Marianna Spellman was likely drugged as well?”

  “That would be my take. Of course you can’t rule out that person number three didn’t drink his or her hot chocolate, which would mean he or she wasn’t drugged, although it doesn’t eliminate whoever that person was as a target,” Xander said, echoing Gordon’s thoughts.

  “Or, person number three knew the chocolate was drugged and pretended to drink.”

  “Recapping.” Solomon drew a grid on his paper. “You have three cups of tainted hot chocolate. Based on the lipstick, one is confirmed to have been Marianna Spellman’s.”

  “Also based on her prints,” Xander said. “We have enough to feel reasonably confident they’re hers. Likewise, based on what we found in the wardrobe RV, we’re assuming the strong likelihood one of the other cups was handled by Yolanda Orozco. And, given she was admitted to the hospital showing symptoms commensurate with ingesting citalopram, I think it’s safe to assume she drank some of the cocoa.”

  “How much was left in those cups?” Solomon asked.

  “Another excellent question. We found two on the table, one in the trash. Enough hot chocolate in the trash to indicate at least that cup was tossed before the chocolate was finished. The two on the table were a little more than half empty, which is based on another assumption that the drinks came from a standard hot chocolate packet of the variety found in the trailer, and whoever mixed it up followed the package directions—”

  “Wait a minute.” Gordon cut off Xander’s exposition. “Let’s not get too far into speculation land yet. Who knows whether the hot chocolate left in the cups represented the only ones each person drank? Maybe they were having seconds. Or thirds.”

  “If that were the case, we’d have found the empty packets in the trash, wouldn’t we?” Solomon said. “How many were there?”

  “And the hat trick of good questions goes to Officer Solomon.” Xander paused, perhaps for effect.

  “You need a drum roll, Mr. Tech Man?” Gordon said.

  “Not for this one. There were seven. No decent prints, not even enough to compare with the others.”

  “We don’t have a record of everyone’s comings and goings, so if you don’t have prints on the empty packets, we can’t be sure who used them. Or when. But we should know who was in the trailer after the body was found and we herded everyone out.” Gordon grabbed the murder book and leafed through it, looking for the lists his officers had made while Xander continued.

  “What’s interesting is the print on cup number three also appears on cups one and two.”

  “You have a theory on that one?” Solomon asked.

  “Not a theory. A tentative hypothesis that could explain it, although we have no proof. But if someone was passing the cups out, that would put his—or her—prints on the cups.”

  “Yeah, I can see someone standing at the machine, dispensing the water and mixing the packets, passing off the first two, and keeping one,” Gordon said.

  “Wait a minute.” Solomon dashed out of the office and Gordon continued searching for the right list in the murder book.

  Solomon returned with a packet of hot chocolate mix from the breakroom. “Sorry, Xander. I work better with visuals.” He took the packet to Gordon’s coffee maker, took one of the extra mugs and dumped the mix into it. “If our culprit is mixing up dosed cocoa, I see two ways he can do it. Either she—using the feminine to avoid that he or she every time, and poisoning is usually a woman’s crime—brought the doctored packets in with her so nobody else can tell they’ve been tampered with.”

  “Right, because anyone grabbing one of those in the lounge would see there was something wrong,” Gordon said.

  “Or two,” Solomon said. “She brought the drug in and managed to add it to the cups before adding the mix.”

  “Of course, there’s always the possibility there’s a different miscreant,” Xander said.

  “You’re killing me,” Gordon said. “What do you mean?”

  “Making sure you’re considering all the possibilities, no matter how far-fetched,” the tech said. “What if there was a person number four, who was mixing the cocoa? Normal procedure is to dump the mix, then add the water. She—accepting your female as poisoner theory— could have brought the pulverized pills with her, and slipped some into each cup as she prepared the cocoa.”

  “Doesn’t seem to fit with the same concentration of the drug in all the samples, though,” Gordon said. “If you’re trying to keep what you’re doing out of sight, taking the time to make precise measurements might call attention to yourself.”

  “Agreed,” Xander said. “But I’m tossing out possibilities. Being able to eliminate them is good.”

  “If there was a fourth person, wouldn’t you have found her prints on the cups as well?” Solomon asked. “Wearing gloves of any kind to mix cocoa would raise questions.”

  “Not if she wiped the cups down, pretending to get rid of a spill, or used a napkin to hand them off, saying they were too hot to touch,” Xander said. “Like passing plates at a family dinner, she could have given each cup to person number three, who then handed them to Yolanda and Marianna.”

  “Wait,” Gordon said. “The lipstick on the one cup puts Marianna in the lounge. What about Yolanda? Was she there?”

  “We don’t know what time any of this happened, other than before the day’s shooting began,” Solomon said. “So, she might have come in early, before she got to her trailer to do her wardrobe thing.”

  Gordon ran it around in his head. “So, hypothetically speaking, we have a meeting, whether planned or by chance, whether business or social, of Marianna Spellman, Yolanda Orozco, and one or two other unknowns, at which time drugged hot chocolate was ingested by two or more of the group. But, Ed, didn’t you say Yolanda denied having seen Marianna that day? When you interviewed her in the hospital.”

  Solomon riffled through his noteboo
k, shot Gordon an apologetic expression. “My bad, Chief. I asked her if Marianna had come to the wardrobe RV, and Yolanda said no. I didn’t go beyond that, to ask if she’d run across her anywhere else.”

  Gordon jotted a note to follow up with Yolanda if necessary.

  “And, it’s possible the two weren’t socializing in the lounge,” Xander said. “We can’t put them any closer than inside the trailer. If they didn’t speak, they might not have taken notice of each other.”

  “What’s your explanation for having the same concentration of the drug in all the samples, then?” Solomon asked.

  “What if the culprit, be it person three, whom we know was there, or our hypothetical number four, brought in the cocoa already mixed? In a thermos, for example,” Xander said.

  “And said individual would have taken the thermos with her, dumped the contents, washed it out.” Gordon picked up his mouse. “I’ll go through the crime scene pictures, just in case.”

  “I don’t suppose anyone saw people carrying thermoses?” Xander asked.

  “Even better, did anyone see one person carrying a thermos?” Gordon said. Of course, he knew the odds of that happening were slim to none. He hadn’t noticed it, and he liked to think his powers of observation were above average. “Ed?”

  “Sorry, no. And we didn’t ask our people to document things like apparel, accessories, and the like, as I recall.”

  “I don’t have anything else for you now,” Xander said. “I’m still waiting on those pages you asked me to look at.”

  “Call me when you have something.” Gordon disconnected, then turned to Solomon. “We’ve played this by the book, haven’t we?”

  “You’re upset because the book doesn’t say to check for thermos bottles? We can’t find everything. And the thermos isn’t a given, it’s a possible explanation. Why don’t you go through the pictures, and I’ll see if I can map this out on the board.”

  “How about we swap?” Gordon said. “Since you took the pictures, you’ll have a better recollection of what to look for.”

  “Six of one,” Solomon said. “I’ve got the files on my computer, so I’ll be at my desk.”

  “And I still want you to review those personnel sheets. See if your brain latches onto something I didn’t see.”

  Gordon picked up his notebook and the murder book and went to the whiteboard. He added Marianna Spellman and Yolanda Orozco’s names to the timeline. Marianna would have had transportation from the Bed and Breakfast she was staying at. A quick call to Marianna’s Bed and Breakfast confirmed the driver had picked her up at five-fifteen, so she’d easily have been at the production site well before six. But why go to the lounge when she had a kitchenette in her RV?

  Yolanda would have come on the bus from the hotel. He checked the book for the checklists the production security guards had made when the bus arrived. Of course, there were no times noted. But since there wasn’t a column on the checklist for that, Gordon forgave the oversight. They weren’t real cops, and although he had his own opinions of how the studio ran its security, it wasn’t his business.

  Reviewing what Mai had told him, the bus had dropped everyone off before six. Made sense people wanted a cup of coffee or snack before things got busy. He had no clue whether Yolanda’s status as wardrobe manager, or simply the VIP lounge’s proximity to the wardrobe RV, would make that one her choice, but since they were both open to anyone, it didn’t matter. Based on the evidence, that’s the one she’d chosen.

  But who the hell was person number three? And was Xander’s speculation, that there could have been a fourth person, feasible? Gordon wrote 3 and 4 on the board near Marianna and Yolanda’s names. Better to keep an open mind.

  “Chief? You have a minute?”

  Gordon turned as Nate Romash of the civilian patrol unit stepped into the room.

  Chapter 30

  Gordon flipped the marker in his hand, smiled at the man whose long face and brown eyes, magnified behind thick glasses, brought the image of a horse to mind. “What do you need, Nate?”

  The man hesitated, as if he were intruding. Nathan Romash, hard working and low-key, had become a valued member of the volunteer police unit. “I was looking over your whiteboard. I hope that’s all right.”

  “Not a problem. You and the rest of the civilian patrol have been tasked with extra duty while we’ve been working this case. Your discovery of Marianna Spellman’s purse was a big help. No reason you can’t look at the process—not that it’s gotten us very far.”

  “Sir, I don’t know if it means anything, but one of the names—” Romash strode to the board and pointed to the timeline. “Bart Bergsstrom. I remember him being on the BOLO list.”

  “Yes. But he turned up on his own. Got delayed by a car accident.”

  “Do you know what time that accident happened?” Romash asked.

  “Morning, I think. I haven’t checked the report from the state patrol yet, but he said the driver of the vehicle—Kathy Newberg—was blinded by the sun on the road from Evergreen. Why? Is it important?”

  “I don’t know, sir.” Nathan paced a narrow line, as if avoiding a potentially hazardous piece of terrain. “I have contacts in the state patrol. Word of the moviemaking is all over the area, and she was telling me how she ticketed one of the movie stars for speeding. Going over eighty on the road between here and Evergreen. It was Bart Bergsstrom.”

  “Bart Bergsstrom is hardly a star,” Gordon said.

  “Yeah, well my contact considers anyone who’s in the movie business a star. But here’s what bugged me. She said she issued the ticket at oh nine twenty-eight going to Evergreen.”

  Gordon dropped the marker. “You’re certain.”

  “I don’t have any authority to pull citations, but I thought it might help you in your case. I know we shouldn’t be talking about people—”

  “No, Nate, this is good. You did right to tell me.”

  Nate left, and Gordon went to his office to call the state patrol. They patched him through to the trooper who’d written the citation, and the woman confirmed what Nate had told him. Also, that Bart Bergsstrom was the only person in the vehicle.

  “Are you aware he was involved in an accident that same morning?” Gordon asked.

  “Not on my shift,” the trooper said. “I’m sure I’d have been called if it was.”

  Gordon cursed to himself for not following up on Bart’s story immediately, but he’d accepted the man’s word and hadn’t ever asked what time the accident happened. If it had happened. The fact Bart had been so open, inviting Gordon to check, had moved the task down on his list. Most people didn’t tell you to check their story if it would be proven false.

  “Can you pull the accident report and send a copy to me?” Gordon asked. “It could be connected to a homicide we’re investigating.”

  “Movie people in Mapleton. Yeah, I’m aware of that. You wouldn’t need any extra staffing, would you?”

  From the trooper’s tone, Nate had been right about his friend being star struck. “Not at the moment, but if we do, I’ll be sure to request you.” Gordon gave her his email address, then hurried off to tell Solomon about the new wrinkle.

  “Well, that puts a different spin on things,” his officer said. “He no longer has an alibi for our window of opportunity for the murder.”

  “The trooper who cited him for speeding is going to send over the accident report. And then, I think we need to have another chat with Bart Bergsstrom and Kathy Newberg. You have a preference?”

  “I’ll take the woman,” Solomon said. “In the spirit of relationship harmony between you and Angie, of course. My relationship can handle me being one-on-one with an attractive female.”

  Gordon shot him a bird. “She was pretty shaken up when I interviewed her. It might have been more than the accident. Bart apparently left her while he did whatever he was doing. Maybe push their relationship angle. I watched Cassidy and Lily pretend to be in love, and damn, they’d have fooled m
e.”

  “McDermott picked them up from the ER, right?” Solomon said. “Want me to confirm they weren’t sitting in the waiting area with cleverly applied stage makeup?”

  “It wasn’t makeup, but yeah, we need to pinpoint their moves for the day.”

  As if Solomon sensed what Gordon was thinking, he said, “These people are good at making shit up, and delivering it so you believe it. I didn’t see any prevarication, either.”

  Gordon snorted. “Prevarication?”

  “Figured that would snap you out of it. Let’s get all our ducks lined up in precision formation before we talk to Bart and Kathy. If we know what they should be saying, it’ll be harder for them to hornswoggle us.”

  “From prevaricate to hornswoggle. Aren’t you full of it today.”

  Solomon grinned. “I get these dictionary words in my email every morning. Once in a while, I find the opportunity to put them to use.”

  “As long as I don’t run across them in your reports. I’m going to see if that accident report has shown up.”

  In his office, Gordon checked his email, pleased to find the trooper had come through so quickly. Probably hoping to get on his good side, have her chance to meet celebrities. But first, he checked with Angie.

  “What's happening with the movie making?” he asked. “Any indication of how long they’ll be around?”

  “They’re still going strong. Mr. Dawson is a perfectionist. At least that’s what it looks like to an outsider. I’m glad my bit’s done, because they’ve been going over and over everything. I can’t get into the kitchen because of it. Mick Finnegan catered lunch, and I think he’s going to be doing dinner, too.”

  “Are all the actors and stand-ins there?” he asked.

  “Yep. I’ve been sneaking peeks every now and then. I don’t see how they can stand the repetition. I’m not sure I’ll watch movies the same way again.”

  “Like making sausage,” Gordon said. “You don’t want to see how it’s done, you just want to enjoy it.”

  “For sure.” Angie’s voice went low and sultry. “Thanks for last night. The champagne, the chocolate, the dinner. And everything. But maybe we’ll have to do another couple of takes on the everything. Make sure we get it down perfect.”