Chapter Seven
When we arrived at the security kiosk Tuesday morning, two nondescript sedans with police plates were parked next to the gate, and I sadly suspected that Seth’s hunch about Ray’s condition would have paid off in Vegas.
While we presented our lanyards for scanning, Mort casually asked, “What’s with the police?”
The security guard shrugged. “They were here when I arrived this morning. The night guard said even more were crawling all over the place before that. The ones left are in plain clothes, though, and not in too much of a hurry, so I don’t think there’s anything dangerous going on.
At least, I wasn’t told not to let everybody else in. Looks like business as usual.”
“Reassuring,” Seth said.
By now we’d mastered the maze, and we made our way directly to the soundstage door. An adjacent poster frame that had been empty on our earlier visits was now filled with a toothy Bobby Brandon and all the info for Pub Trivia Live.
We’d just turned the corner from the hallway to the soundstage when I heard my name.
“Jessica? Jessica Fletcher!”
I squinted. “Lieutenant Caceras?”
Still as tall and lanky as I recalled him but a little balder, Gabriel Caceras—dressed in his signature sport coat, freshly pressed shirt, and tie—rushed over and gave me a hearty double-handed handshake.
“When I saw your name on the potential witness list, I knew I had to handle this one myself. It’s been far too long. ”
“Oh dear,” I said. “As pleased as I am to see you, I take it there’s no good news about Ray, then.”
“Afraid not, Jessica.” He looked past me to where my Cabot Cove friends were standing.
“Uh, may I introduce you to my friends from back home?” I said. “Sheriff Mort and his wife Maureen Metzger, Doctor Seth Hazlitt, and this is my nephew, Howard Griffin. This is Lieutenant Caceras—oh my, I guess I should have asked. Is it still lieutenant?”
Caceras finished shaking hands before he answered. “Lieutenant again. I was promoted and served one unhappy year as captain, then took a voluntary step back down. Too much paperwork. I’m much happier to be out in the field.” He turned to Mort. “You must know what that’s like.”
Mort pointed a thumb toward me. “She keeps me busy enough.”
“Pardon if this is an inappropriate question,” Seth said, “but I tried to help Ray yesterday before the ambulance arrived. I gather from your presence that his death is suspicious.”
“Yes, doctor,” Caceras said. “I read about you in the EMT’s reports. If it makes you feel any better, there’s nothing you could have done. And we’re past suspicious.” He moved closer and lowered his voice. “It’s definitely a homicide. The victim was poisoned.”
“How ever did you get a tox screen done so quickly?” Seth asked.
“That’s where we got a little lucky,” Caceras said, “or maybe we just have an extremely skilled pathologist. Or both. She checked the body as soon as it got to the morgue and said all she could smell was corn chips. Apparently, that rang a bell with her, and she moved him right up to the top of the line. Wanted to see his stomach contents ASAP. And guess what she found?”
“Corn chips?” Mort guessed.
“That would have been unremarkable,” Lieutenant Caceras said.
“It was finding no corn chips that made her sure it was murder. She just had to run one test on his stomach contents to verify the presence of methyl cyanide. Without that hunch—and if he’d had to wait his turn in the morgue—it might have gone undetected.
I guess the toxin degrades in like two days. ”
“You know,” Seth said, “I noticed the same odor, only I wrote it off as something he’d eaten.”
“I thought cyanide smelled like almonds,” Mort said.
Caceras wagged a finger. “That’s right. Potassium cyanide and sodium cyanide smell more like bitter almonds.
Methyl cyanide—and there’s another name for it, which escapes me at the moment—can smell like corn chips or popcorn.
Apparently, it also has a sweet taste, which makes it easier to slip to somebody. ”
“Just what the world needs,” Mort said. “Easier poisons.”
“You’re telling me, brother,” Caceras said.
“I take it that it’s relatively fast-acting too,” I said. “Otherwise, you wouldn’t be at the studio.”
Caceras laid a finger on the side of his nose.
“Sharp as always, Jessica. Given the time of death, the cyanide had to be administered here. So,” he said, taking me by the elbow, “can I count on your help?” He looked at Mort’s slightly crestfallen expression.
“All of yours, of course. I mean, none of you met the victim before yesterday, right? I doubt he could have made such a poor impression that one of you wanted to kill him.”
“You know that we’ll cooperate any way we can,” I said, “but surely you understand that we’re in this competition, so it’s unlikely that we’ll have much time to poke around and ferret out any clues. That is, if you’re allowing the show to continue.”
“Ooh, shutting down a studio production in this town is way above my pay grade,” he said.
“Besides, one could argue that keeping all the suspects here in one place could actually aid in the investigation. Better than chasing everyone all around town—or the country, in regard to the contestants. We’ll keep a presence here, in case you’re worried about safety, and I would never ask you to put yourself in any danger.
Just keep your eyes and ears open like usual, Jessica. And that goes for all of you.”
“Are all the other contestants suspects, then?” Maureen asked.
The lieutenant bobbed his shoulders as if weighing the question. “Yes and no. Mostly no. Unless they’ve met the victim before, it doesn’t seem very likely that one of the contestants would have killed him.”
“Unlikely, but not impossible,” I said.
“Yeah,” Caceras said grimly, “things like that keep me up at night.” He sighed. “But we’re going with the assumption that the killer is probably one of the cast or crew.”
“Because they’ve all worked together before,” Howard said.
“That’s right,” Caceras said. “How did you know that?”
“I read Variety.”
“Mainely Brilliant!” Jenny Yager eyed us strangely. “We need you in hair and makeup, pronto.”
“That’s us,” I told the lieutenant. “Maybe we can catch up after the morning taping. I want to hear all about the family.”
“You got it.”
When we reached the soundstage where Jenny was standing, she accompanied us to the greenroom. “You’re awful chummy with that cop,” she said. “A friend of yours?”
“We’ve met before, on previous trips to Los Angeles. I think you’ll find Lieutenant Caceras to be a fair and competent investigator.”
“That might be true,” she said, “but I wish they’d get whatever they need to finish their reports and leave. I mean, it’s tragic what happened to Ray and all, but it doesn’t help anybody if it holds up the morning taping.”
For a moment I wondered how she could be so callous and want the police out of the way after a coworker had been murdered—and a killer was still at large and probably in the studio at that very moment—but then I realized that the details that Lieutenant Caceras had just confided so freely to us likely weren’t shared with anyone else in the studio.
To her, Ray’s death was probably viewed as just an unfortunate heart attack and the police an unnecessary obstacle to work around.
And I knew better than to tell her otherwise.
Withholding key information was often an important tool in an investigation.
More than once in my books, a suspect had given himself away when he knew more than he should have about the crime—details only a killer would know.
I glanced at Mort and he nodded, making me grateful that I’d held my tongue. He leaned over and whispered something to Maureen. I assumed he was cautioning her to be discreet. Seth, whom I’d always known to be circumspect in such situations, needed no reminder.
We changed and went through hair and makeup more quickly this time, and a smaller and more subdued group of contestants took their seats at the soundstage tavern. The tables had been moved slightly so that no obvious space remained where the Stetsons had sat.
Seth brought me a wineglass of cranberry juice from the bar and a ginger ale for himself.
I took a sip and glanced over at the console, where someone new had taken Ray’s place.
I couldn’t tell whether he had been here yesterday, serving a different function, or was brought in from the outside.
I hadn’t been paying close enough attention to all the ubiquitous and anonymous technicians clad uniformly in black clothing and sneakers, who seemed to swarm the soundstage like ants on the remnants of a dropped cookie.
And when the stage lights came on, I wouldn’t be able to see them at all.
My eyes swept to the alternates’ row behind, where Howard sat, and he gave me a thumbs-up, which I returned with a smile.
Near the podium, Bobby Brandon had made an uncharacteristically early appearance, without all the pomp and circumstance he normally demanded.
Instead, he was caught up in a heated but hushed conversation with the producer and director.
I closed my eyes and concentrated, trying to pick up a stray word or two, and I caught something about the police, but that was all.
Of course, it wouldn’t be unusual for them to be concerned about how a drawn-out police investigation might hamper the production of the show.
I glanced over at Mort and Maureen. Mort’s eyes were trained on the same conversation I’d been trying to listen to, with all his highly tuned powers of observation. Maybe he picked up more than I did. We could talk about it later. Maureen stared into her faux cocktail.
“Nervous?” I asked her.
“Sick,” she said. “Probably nerves and a lack of sleep.”
“Would you like to sit this one out?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Not on your life,” she said. “No offense to your nephew. I think he’s great, but he hasn’t put in the work I have.”