Deadly Production (Mapleton Mystery Book 4) (16 page)

“I wanted to discuss the resumption of filming. As I understand it, you have all the evidence you need, so there’s no reason to tell the crew they can’t continue today.”

A pause told Gordon there was more. “Sir?”

“I’m sure nothing would come of it, but Mr. Dawson said that the studio could very well file a lawsuit regarding the extra expenses any delays would cause them. I’d rather not have to find out.”

“Understood,” Gordon said.

“Very good,” McKenna said. “If you let them get back to work, they’ll only have lost one day, and after the publicity from the press conference, they’ll probably more than make up for their losses with increased box office revenues.”

And Mapleton will come out bright, shiny, and smelling like a rose. Gordon sniffed. Or like a cinnamon roll.

“I should have an answer for you later this morning,” Gordon said. “I’m meeting with Tyler Colfax, who’s a top notch county homicide detective. And, the pathologist is conducting his autopsy today. While I agree that it makes sense to have everyone within reach in Mapleton,”
thanks, Angie for that one
, “I want to confirm that we’re not missing anything that would shed a bad light on our city.”

Nothing like piling on the BS, and using the mayor’s words to get what you want
.

Gordon noticed Solomon’s smirk and flipped him off.

“What time might I expect your decision?” the mayor asked. “Need I remind you that officially, there has been no crime committed other than petty vandalism to an RV belonging to the production company. Even if it should turn out to be more, the studio has their own security people to handle it, and it shouldn’t be a Mapleton issue at all. I’m not pleased with all the time and energy you’re wasting on this potentially needless investigation.”

Did he think the Village was its own separate jurisdiction? Those vehicles were parked in Mapleton.

Gordon kept his tone level. “I would imagine we’ll have reached a conclusion by eight. I don’t know when the coroner is doing the autopsy, but if his findings show a natural or accidental death, we should be back to business as usual across the board.”

Gordon waited, wondering if the mayor was going to say anything about Yolanda Orozco. Nothing. So, the man’s grapevine hadn’t caught that one? More kudos to Gordon’s team for keeping that one off the radar. Mayor McKenna wasn’t as obsessed as Mayor Alexander had been with following scanners and having spies all over the community.

“I’ll keep you updated,” Gordon said, then hung up before the mayor could think of anything else to say.

Solomon waved his hand in the air. “My turn? My turn?”

Gordon sighed. “Yes, Ed? Do you have something for show and tell?”

Solomon put on his serious face. “I’d been cross-referencing locations. I agree that it wouldn’t be unusual to find deaths in the destinations
Paula’s Places
blogged about, and I also agree that her blog posts don’t coincide with her actual visits to those locations. But that bugged me, because it seems to fit in with trying to draw attention away from the fact she was in all those places.”

“Hang on,” Gordon said. “Didn’t we agree that we can’t even be sure Paula is the only one who posts these blogs to the site? So it doesn’t even have to be her who visits.”

“Yes, we did. But that’s not my point. It’s not the blog, it’s the comments.”

Gordon’s interest piqued. Something new. “What about the comments?”

“I’m seeing repeats of comments.”

“That’s not unusual. A lot of people who follow blogs like to leave comments.”

“Yeah, but I’m seeing the identical comments on a lot of posts, but they’re not made by the same person.” He opened the file folder and handed Gordon a bunch of what appeared to be screen shots of a website.

“What am I looking for?” Gordon asked.

Solomon crossed behind Gordon and tapped the first sheet. “See. Here, ‘Bored in Bama’ wants to know if
Paula’s Places
will review Bakersfield, California.” He moved that sheet aside and pointed at the next. “This one has the exact same wording, but about Marshalltown, Iowa.”

Gordon read the entries.
I love what you do on this blog. I hope you’ll come to Bakersfield.
He scanned several more sheets. Again, the same words, but for different cities. “Seems innocuous enough. Pretty generic wording. Nothing sends up a red flag for me.”

“Which is probably why I didn’t notice it until now,” Solomon said. “I’m getting hinky vibes, although I think you’re right. Thought I’d throw it on the table, get your take. And seeing it again, with the input of a respected colleague kind of erases the hinkiness.”

Gordon didn’t respond to Solomon’s inflection of
respected colleague
. He knew there was no disrespect intended, but he did go heavy on the banter when they were alone. Solomon had more cop years under his belt, had no desire to move into Gordon’s position. And he was a damn good cop, one Gordon didn’t want to lose. For those reasons, Gordon feigned more interest than he felt. “I see the replies are the same, too.”
Thanks for your interest. You can subscribe to my newsletter for more information.

“Before you ask, yes, I signed up,” Solomon said. “And, I followed the pattern and asked if she was going to visit Manitou Springs. I reckoned it wasn’t required that the potential victim live in the same place where the person who wants to hire the hit does. I wanted to compare, see if there might be two separate newsletters.”

A solid rapping at the back door cut their conversation short. Solomon gathered the papers and shoved them into the folder. Gordon got up to admit Colfax, who carried a cardboard tray with three designer coffees in one hand, two fat manila envelopes tucked under his other arm.

“I figured if you’ve got the cinnamon rolls, I should provide coffee. Although, it wasn’t
you
who provided the rolls, now, was it? I recall they’re the handiwork of one very cute blue-eyed blonde.” Colfax dropped the envelopes on the table and handed a coffee to Solomon, another, marked with a bold black D, to Gordon. “You know, word gets out you’re drinking unleaded, they might take away your badge.”

“And I’ll know who to come after for leaking such critical information,” Gordon said.

Colfax eyed the platter of cinnamon rolls. “So, we don’t get personal delivery from the chef. Too bad.” He slid the platter to the middle of the desk, snagged a roll and a napkin for himself, and settled into the second chair. Patting his slight paunch, he said, “Good thing I don't live in Mapleton or I might have to exercise.”

“Shall we get to work, gentlemen?” Gordon said. “No pressure, but the mayor is waiting to give the green light on the movie shoot.”

“Which is your call, isn’t it?” Colfax said.

Solomon reached for a roll. “Yeah, but we like to let the mayor be the good guy.”

Gordon gave them a minute to munch and sip before starting his summary. He reported his conversations with Ethan Lang and Neil Ryan from the night before. “Aside from knowing that the tablet I saw Marianna Spellman using is part of a two-in-one, I haven’t found anything remotely resembling a motive to want her dead.”

“What’s the good news?” Colfax asked. “There’s always a positive.”

Gordon pondered that. “How about Yolanda Orozco is on the mend, and we haven’t found any other bodies?”

“Where I come from, a day without a body is a good day, indeed.” Colfax raised his coffee cup. “I took the liberty of lighting fires with the CSR techs, and I come bearing reports.”

Reports.
Data
, Gordon thought. Data would be good. “Let’s have it.” He moved the empty platter aside.

Colfax opened the first envelope and extracted a sheaf of papers. Leafing through them, he set them in stacks on the desk. “These are from the break-in at the office RV, which is the location of an actual crime, unlike the wardrobe RV, which is still iffy.”

“Enough with the snide remarks, Colfax.” Gordon tapped his watch. “Tick, tick, tick.”

“Trying to keep things light,” Colfax said. “But have it your way. You’ve got your fingerprint reports. You’ve got an inventory of everything collected. You’ve got your trace evidence reports. And, my personal favorite, shoe impressions.”

Gordon reached for that stack, going through the photos. “Got some clear ones here. Any reason to think they belong to whoever broke in? It would be reasonable to expect our victim had people in and out of her RV over the normal course of a day, and we don’t know how often the place was cleaned. Or how thoroughly. Without more, we’re not going to have cause to examine everyone’s shoes.”

“True. I happen to think they’re cool,” Colfax said. His steel-blue eyes showed a glimmer of pride.

“Because you closed a major case with them,” Solomon added. “And you rarely miss a chance to mention it.”

Colfax shrugged. “I’m sure you’ll do the same if you ever find your Deadbeat Dad Killer. Assuming there is one.”

Solomon glowered. Gordon rapped the desk with his knuckles. “On task, gentlemen.”

Solomon flipped through the inventory list. “You have anything on that stain in the RV kitchenette yet?”

“Nothing toxic detected, if that’s what you’re asking. Assuming it’s coffee based on what the tech report said. Given it’s her office, it makes sense that she spilled it,” Colfax said.

“Let me see those pictures again,” Gordon said. “Did anyone find a coffee mug lying around?”

Colfax rooted around for the establishing shots. “No mugs.”

“What kind of cups do they use in the lounge? Maybe she brought some from there,” Gordon said.

“Cardboard,” Solomon grabbed more paperwork. “No cups in her office trash. Wastebasket was empty.”

“Did we find out the cleaning schedule? Had they cleaned yet?”

Solomon searched his notepad. “They clean the lounge trailers daily. Same with hair and makeup. The others are on an every three days’ schedule, but they’d cleaned everything after the Aspen Lake shoot and setting up here. Normal policy is to clean at the end of the day.”

“It’s possible whoever broke in took the trash, but given the early hour the victim died, I’d suspect an empty wastebasket means Miss Spellman hadn’t thrown anything away on the day in question,” Colfax said. “If the units hadn’t been serviced, then an empty wastebasket in only one of them might be conspicuous.”

“I agree,” Solomon said.

Gordon shifted in his chair. “So, more nothing.” He turned to Solomon. “What about the cross-referencing of papers to the list of everyone working the production?”

“We were trying the
what’s missing
angle,” Solomon explained to Colfax. “Marianna Spellman had hard copies of everyone’s release forms with emergency contact information. They were strewn around the RV—”

“I
did
look at the photos,” Colfax said.

Solomon went right on. “So we were hunting for anyone on the production list who didn’t have matching paperwork.”

“And, I assume if you’d discovered which page, or pages, were missing, you’d have announced it, so it’s another dead end,” Colfax said.

“Still working on that one,” Solomon said.

Colfax shoved his chair away from the desk. “I need a refill. Won’t be the same, but when in a police station, one comes to expect lousy coffee.”

He left Gordon and Solomon to go through the paper.

“Good thing he’s good at what he does,” Solomon said. “He can be a real knickers twister sometimes.”

Gordon refrained from adding, “Like someone else I know.” Instead, he said, “I’ve worked with him on the other side—his public persona is pure professionalism.”

“Nice alliteration,” Solomon said, grinning. Probably knew what Gordon had kept to himself.

Colfax returned carrying a mug of coffee. “Hit it just right. Fresh pot.” He stepped toward the desk, lifting the mug to his lips. He sipped. Swore. “Damn, that’s hot.” The mug jiggled in his hand, spilling coffee on the floor. He set the mug down and grabbed a napkin from the desk.

Watching Colfax clean the spill triggered a thought in Gordon’s head. “Back to the RV. The coffee maker was empty. Clean, too. So, what does that mean? She pours a cup of coffee, washes the pot, then spills the coffee but doesn’t clean it up? If it happened while she was standing at the sink, there should have been evidence she’d stepped in it. Can’t picture her jumping over the spot and leaving it. You spill coffee, what do you do?”

“Mop it up,” Colfax said, searching for a place to toss his sodden napkin.

Gordon moved the wastebasket closer to the detective. “And then you toss what you’d cleaned it with.”

“Assuming it was disposable, and not a cloth towel or rag,” Solomon said.

Gordon nodded. “But in the trailer, the spill was sitting there. Nothing in the wastebasket.”

“So not likely spilled by the victim,” Colfax said.

“Whoever broke in didn’t appear to be the neatnik type,” Solomon said. “Maybe he was surprised and left in a hurry, before he could mop the spill.”

“Do you bring a cup of coffee with you if you’re burglarizing a place?” Colfax shook his head. “Don’t buy that one. And how much coffee? A sloshing, or most of a cup? How old?”

“I’d go with a slosh,” Solomon said. “Recent, because it was still wet enough to swab a sample without any problems.”

“Let me think this through.” Gordon lifted his cup. “We have a couple of alternatives. One, Marianna sloshed her coffee, left it on the floor, and took the cup away with her, not bothering to clean the spill, and being in a position where she wouldn’t step in it. Maybe on her way to the sink, something startles her, she spills the coffee but turns and leaves. Two, which Colfax has eliminated, and I agree, someone else brought in the coffee.”

“Any drugs show up in the lab report?” Solomon asked.

“They ran a basic tox screen,” Colfax said. “But that doesn’t mean there wasn’t something that wouldn’t show up on a preliminary screening.”

Gordon went to his computer for the email Solomon had sent from the clinic. “I’ve got a list of drugs the doc taking care of Yolanda Orozco said could have caused her heart issues. You think they can run a screening for those? The coffee’s probably dried up by now, so I don’t know if we can get another decent sample. Or, if we should wait to see if the other tests have pinpointed it.”

“Send it to the lab,” Colfax said. “They can get with Asel and decide.”

Gordon forwarded the message, then perused the photos again. “How about this one?” He set it on the desk facing the other men. “What do you see?”

“An open kitchen cabinet with dishes and stuff,” Solomon said. He snapped his fingers. “And there are two of everything except the coffee mug.”

“Another missing piece?” Gordon said.

Colfax picked up the picture, squinted, cocked his head from side to side. “Not necessarily. That’s a fancy-ass mug. Might be a quota of one per unit.”

“Everything’s a maybe at this point,” Gordon said. “But we have spilled coffee, and no disposable cups in the trash. No mugs lying around the room.”

“And if someone washed the mug and put it away, there would be tracks around the spill,” Solomon added.

“We can ask to see how many mugs are provided in the office units,” Gordon said. “However, I’m assuming the logo stands for Vista Ventures, which means there could be a lot of them floating around even if there was only one supplied as part of the furnishings.”

“She could have taken one anywhere,” Colfax said. “Now, if we found a mug with a residue of drugged coffee, and there were nice, clear prints and DNA on said mug, maybe we’d have a piece of evidence we could actually use.”

Gordon checked the time. “What’s your take on letting the Seesaw people go to work? They’re having a meeting at eight, and I’d like to tell the mayor yea or nay.”

Gordon could almost see the gears spinning in Colfax’s head. Given Gordon had been running all the possible scenarios and consequences himself, it was understandable. Let the movie folks leave, and perhaps a killer would get away. Let them stay and if there was evidence they’d yet to collect—and given they hadn’t collected anything other than what was inside or in the immediate vicinity of the wardrobe’s or Marianna’s RVs, that was a strong possibility—then their investigation could be compromised. Would they be able to continue filming without access to more of the Village?

“Until Asel gives us the manner of death, we don’t have proof it was a homicide,” Colfax finally said. “In his words, ‘It’s not a homicide until I say it’s a homicide.’ I’d say let them stay, but if there’s a chance there was a toxic substance in the coffee, we need to get the CSR team down here ASAP to check any trailers with coffeemakers.” He had his phone out and was tapping the screen as he spoke.

“I’ll let the mayor know,” Gordon said. “Would you like to address the meeting of the movie crowd?”

“You’re not still a basket case about public speaking, are you?” Colfax said. “I thought you’d be over that by now.”

“No. I mean, yes. I mean I don’t mind addressing them. I thought that you, being the big city cop, might show them we mean business.”

Colfax glanced at his phone. “I have time, I guess. You did say this meeting was at Daily Bread, right?” He gave an exaggerated lascivious grin along with waggling eyebrows.

“Put a sock in it,” Gordon said, although he knew Colfax was trying to get a reaction out of him. Wasn’t going to happen. “You go talk to the movie people. I’ll cover our morning briefing and let my officers know they’ll be running more security for the production. Can you finagle a few deputies to pitch in again? The production’s security guards are a joke.”

When Colfax didn’t make any cracks about how the Mapleton cops needed help to handle a simple security job, Gordon knew the banter part of the meeting was over, and Colfax was pure cop again. The man knew the size of Mapleton’s force, and bottom line, Mapleton existed inside the county’s jurisdiction, and cooperation between the forces wasn’t unusual. Nor had there ever been any actual resentment or rivalry once they hit the streets. There, it was about the job. In the station, it was more like a high school locker room.

“Not a problem,” Colfax said. “Given you’ve got hot movie stars here, the uniforms have been falling all over themselves to volunteer. I’ll get our Dispatch to rotate them, give more of our guys a chance to mingle with the Hollywood set.”

Gordon stood. “Let’s get on with it. I’ll call Dawson, let him know shooting can resume, but not until
after
the CSR team checks out the other trailers. Ed, you go with Colfax to the meeting at Daily Bread. Let the movie people see they’ll be watched over by both sets of uniforms. I’ll call the mayor.”

“You have a board set up for this one?” Colfax said.