"His son and the son's girlfriend were at the taping," Angela replied. "But they only stopped by backstage for a few minutes."
"And neither of them seemed upset with Dog?" Tina asked. "No one argued with him?"
"Argued?" I cocked my head at the word.
Tina's eyes shot to mine for a second, but they immediately went back to Angela as she answered.
"No. Why would they?"
"Just curious."
"Well, like I said, they were only there for a few minutes."
"How about on the set. Did anyone seem upset at Dog? Fernando, maybe?"
"Why would Fernando be upset at Dog?" Marco asked, narrowing his eyes at Tina.
Tina gave him the same glance-ignore-glance-away thing, focusing on Angela as she answered.
"The only person I saw mad at Dog was Rupert Blick," Angela said. "He's an executive at the network and didn't seem too happy with Dog's performance. He came over and yelled at him every commercial break."
I'd seen that too. In fact, I'd seen him arguing with Dog before the show even started taping. I glanced at Tina, wondering what she was up to. This felt more like a witness interrogation than an interview.
"So when am I meeting this kid?" Angela asked.
"Hmm?" Tina's head popped up. "Oh, right. Yeah, we'll be in touch."
* * *
As soon as Angela was out of earshot, I turned to Tina. "Okay, spill it, Bender. What were all those questions about?"
Tina shrugged, getting up from the table. "I told you. I'm doing a story on Dog's death."
"But why were you asking if anyone argued with him? What does that have to do with his death?"
Tina didn't answer, instead avoiding my gaze. She was definitely hiding something.
"Why did you want to know who visited Dog backstage?" I pressed. "What does that have to do with his death?"
Tina chewed the inside of her cheek, still not answering me.
"I mean, Dog's death was an accident. He died of a drug overdose, right?"
Tina sucked in a breath of air and let it out audibly before finally answering. "That is the official story. But I don't think it's the whole story."
"Why not?" I asked.
"I heard something on my police scanner."
"You have a police scanner?" Marco asked.
"Doesn't everyone?" When neither of us answered, she just shrugged. "Anyway, I heard some chatter last night after the call went out about the 10-54."
"What's a 10-54?" Marco asked.
"Cop code for a possible dead body," Tina explained.
"What chatter did you hear?" I asked, halfway wondering if it had been from my own husband.
She paused, seeming to weigh how much to share. "I heard them mention ethyl glycol ingestion."
"What's that?"
"Antifreeze."
"Antifreeze!" Marco gasped. "Dog drank antifreeze?"
Tina shrugged.
"So his death was not a drug overdose like the police originally thought?" I asked, skeptical.
Tina shook her head. "Didn't sound like it from what I overheard."
"But he did drink poison?" Marco added.
"Or someone poisoned him." Tina shot us a pointed look.
"Wait—are you saying it's possible Doggy Z was murdered?" I asked.
She nodded very slowly.
"And you think Angela Gold did it?" I glanced behind her to where I could see the brunette mingling with her fans.
"Possibly. Or possibly another Jeopardy! contestant." Tina paused, that pointed look making a reappearance. "Like maybe Fernando."
"Oh, now you done it, woman." Marco stepped forward, putting his fists up as if about to fight her.
Tina didn't look very scared. Then again, Marco was 100 pounds soaking wet and wearing a schoolgirl uniform.
"What reason would Fernando possibly have to kill Dog?" I asked. "He didn't even know him!"
"Maybe he was killing off the competition."
I scoffed. "Dog could barely work the buzzer. He was hardly tough competition."
"Well, maybe it was personal," Tina reasoned. "Maybe Dog found out some secret about Fernando that he didn't want told."
I felt a chill run up my spine. "Tina, Fernando was not involved in this. If someone killed Dog—and that sounds like it's a big if—it was not Fernando. I can assure you he had nothing to do with it."
Tina looked from me to Marco and back to me. "But we all know he has something to hide."
I clenched my jaw. "What is it going to take for you to leave him out of this?"
Tina cocked her head to the side, assessing me. I had a bad feeling she was calculating her demand, and the longer she stared the higher I could feel her bid going.
"Your husband works homicide, right?" she finally said.
The chill was back. "Yes," I answered slowly. "So what?"
"So…I bet you he knows if Dog accidentally drank antifreeze or if this was a case of deliberate poisoning. And I bet you could get that info out of him."
"No. No way." I shook my head so hard my hair whipped my cheeks. "I'm not asking Ramirez to do that. He could be in real trouble if the department thought he was leaking details of an ongoing investigation to the press."
Tina shrugged in an over-the-top display of nonchalance. "Okay, fine. Then I run with my story. Beverly Hills' most sought after hairdresser isn't who you really think he is…and possibly killed to keep his secret."
I felt my stomach drop.
Marco whimpered, shooting me a pleading look.
"The choice is yours," Tina said with a smirk.
I took a deep breath. I counted to ten. It didn't work. I still wanted to strangle the purple-haired reporter.
"Fine," I ground out. "I'll talk to Ramirez."
CHAPTER FIVE
I dropped Marco off back at the salon, where we agreed he'd tell Fernando not to worry about Tina anymore—we'd taken care of it. Or, we would. Or, I would. At least I hoped.
Then I went through In-N-Out's drive-thru and ordered two Double-Doubles, fries, and chocolate milkshakes. The car smelled wonderful as I drove toward Ramirez's station with the food, and no one could judge me for digging into the fries on the way.
Ramirez looked surprised but pleased to see me as I pushed through the glass doors to his division. "Hey babe." He rose from his desk and deposited a kiss on my cheek. His eyes came to rest on the paper bag and cardboard tray in my hands that held the milkshakes. "That fragrance you're wearing smells terrific."
I laughed. "I was in the neighborhood, so I thought I'd pick up lunch and we could have a picnic of sorts. Can you get away for a few minutes?"
Ramirez took the milkshake tray from my hands. "Just a few. Crazy day, but I need some air anyway. Let's go."
We walked outside and over to a small courtyard, which held a basketball hoop and a few picnic tables that weren't currently in use. I handed out the food and napkins while Ramirez rolled up his shirt sleeves and took a sip of his shake. The sun ducked behind a couple of billowy clouds, giving us a reprieve from the heat.
Ramirez unwrapped his burger, removed the bun, and added two packets of ketchup to it. "So, why were you in the neighborhood?" he asked.
I sipped my shake, trying to think of a reason that sounded legit. Nothing came to mind. "Well, not really in the neighborhood. I just thought it would be nice to see you and have some alone time."
He reached across the table to squeeze my hand. "Sorry. I know there have been a lot of late nights lately."
I gave him a smile and suddenly felt twice as guilty for my ulterior motives. "It's fine. I totally understand." I cleared my throat, shoving a french fry into my mouth in an attempt to shove that guilt down with it. "So your crazy day…I'm guessing that's due to Doggy Z?"
He nodded. "Yeah. We're having to tread carefully. Press has been relentless."
If he only knew.
"Any idea what he OD'd on yet?" I asked, trying to infuse a little innocence into my voice.
&
nbsp; He paused, eyeing me suspiciously over his burger. "Not sure that's really great mealtime conversation."
"Sure," I said, nodding as I popped another fry in. "But it was an overdose, right? I mean, accidental and not intentional?"
"No official ruling yet." He shot me a look that said that was the end of it as he sipped from his milkshake.
I bit into my burger and tried to act as if the subject bored me. "You know, I heard someone mention that maybe Dog hadn't necessarily been on drugs but maybe, probably accidentally, drank something that could be possibly poisonous."
"Drank poison." My husband just stared at me.
I licked my lips. "Well, there are a lot of household items that could be poisonous, right? Like, oh, for example, antifreeze?"
"Antifreeze." He sighed deeply and put his burger down on his tray. "Okay, Springer, what are you up to?"
When he used my maiden name, I knew it was serious. I put on my best attempt at an innocent face. Which was difficult due to the guilt sticking in my throat along with the fries. "Who me?"
"Where, exactly, did you hear about antifreeze?"
I licked my lips. "Around. It comes up sometimes."
"It never comes up. We live in LA. It never freezes here."
Good point. "Okay, fine," I relented. "I was chatting today with a…friend"—boy, was I taking liberal use of that word—"who said they heard Dog might have died from ingesting ethylene glycol."
"This friend happen to be press?"
"Uh…sort of."
Fire flashed behind Ramirez's dark eyes. "Uh-huh. Do they happen to be named Felix Dunn, perhaps?"
"No," I answered very truthfully. "I did not hear that from Felix."
"Uh-huh." He wasn't convinced. Or happy. In his defense, if Ramirez had been spending his day chatting with an ex-girlfriend while I was busy serving and protecting, I'd probably be a little miffed too.
"So is it true?" I asked, steering this conversation back to Dog. "Did Dog die from antifreeze poisoning?"
He worked his jaw back and forth as if debating how much to say.
"Come on. You know it's going to come out in the media eventually anyway."
Which, while it was probably small comfort to him, made sense. Since I had, in fact, heard the tidbit from a member of the press to begin with.
"Fine," he finally said. "Yes."
"Yes, Dog was poisoned?"
"Yes, the ME happened to notice signs consistent with ethylene glycol poisoning in the deceased. He'd attended a similar poisoning case last year and recognized some similarities."
"So someone did poison Dog," I reasoned.
"That," he said, stabbing a french fry at me, "would be speculation. We don't know yet how the stuff got into his system."
"How else would Dog ingest it? You just said, it's not like everyone has antifreeze sitting around their house in LA. It barely falls below seventy here in January."
He picked his burger back up, taking a large bite in lieu of answering, chewing with a vengeance.
"So no drugs were found in his system?" I asked.
Ramirez paused, giving me a crooked grin. "Well, I didn't say that. THC levels were at 13 nanograms per milliliter of blood."
"English, please."
"He was stoned."
"But that didn't kill him, right?"
Ramirez shook his head. "Not even enough to be considered a misdemeanor anymore."
"So, definitely not an accidental drug overdose but a homicide."
Ramirez shot me that warning look again. "Speculation."
"Okay, okay. Without speculating as to who put the poison in his system, do you know at least how?"
Ramirez stole a couple of my fries. "From the amount in his system, it looks like he would have had to ingest it at least twelve to twenty-four hours before his death."
I frowned. "That's a large window."
"ME will know more once Tox comes back. Depending on what else was in his system, it could have sped up or slowed the effects."
"Twelve hours," I mused. "That would have been during the Jeopardy! taping." I felt my stomach clench. The timing only added fuel to Tina's theory that someone on the set had wanted Dog dead.
Ramirez nodded. "Likely the effects would have been felt quickly, though it takes some time for the chemical to convert in the body and cause enough damage to result in death."
"What kind of effects would he have felt? Would he have been in pain?" I asked, hoping that wasn't the case.
"Most likely he would have felt a little dizzy, unsteady on his feet. It basically converts to a form of alcohol in the body, so he'd be acting drunk."
I thought back to the entire scene I'd witnessed on the sound stage, everything suddenly taking on new meaning. Dog hadn't been high…okay, well, not that high… He'd been suffering the effects of a deadly poison. The swaying on his feet, the trouble focusing, the glassy stare in his eyes. I felt a deep pang of sadness for him that we'd all witnessed his slow death.
"You know, Dog was drinking something on the set of the show," I said.
Ramirez swallowed a bite. "I know. The stage manager said he had a caffeine-laced energy drink backstage. Something called Invigorate."
"Is that what the ethyl glycol was in?" I asked.
Ramirez sighed, seemingly resigned to the fact that this wasn't going to be a quiet romantic picnic lunch. "Forensics is testing the bottle now. It's possible. Ethylene glycol would have a slightly sweet taste, so it could have been hidden in the energy drink."
I opened my mouth to ask more, but Ramirez stopped me. "Could. Not did. Speculation."
"But it's possible you're looking at this as a homicide?"
Ramirez shook his head as he crumpled up his empty wrappers and rose from the bench. "Leave it alone, Maddie. Let your friend do his own dirty work." He came around the table and wrapped his strong arms around my waist. "I've got to get back to work, but I'll try to get home early tonight."
"Can't you do better than try?" I pleaded as I slipped my arms around his neck.
He stared down at me, a wicked gleam in his dark eyes that made me warm in all the right places. "I'll try really hard." He leaned in, pressing his lips against mine.
* * *
After Ramirez had left, I deposited the rest of our lunch wrappers in the trash and walked slowly back to my car. I hated to say it, but it sounded like Tina was not altogether on the wrong track. At least as far as how Dog had died. As for who had killed him and why, her theories made about as much sense as wearing Uggs with a miniskirt—none. Clearly Fernando hadn't killed Dog. And while Angela did seem pretty competitive and like she didn't care much for Dog's music, killing him just to win felt over the top even for a soap star.
But if the lethal poison had been deliberately put into the energy drink Dog had been sipping at the taping, that killer must have had access to the drink. Which meant they must have been on the set that day.
I thought back to the taping. While there'd been tons of crew, I couldn't think of why they'd kill a random contestant. Though, Dog's family had been there—his son and the son's girlfriend. Angela had mentioned Aunty Mae stopping by Dog's dressing room too. There was also the network exec, Rupert Blick, who'd argued with Dog at the taping. Both Angela and I had witnessed it. In fact, Blick had seemed angry at Dog practically from the moment he'd stepped onto the sound stage. At the time I'd assumed it was just a producer frustrated with a loose-cannon of a celebrity. But now…I wondered.
I also wondered how much of all this to share with Tina. So far, everything Ramirez had told me could only serve to confirm her theories—not dispel her idea that a contestant had wanted Dog out of the picture.
I pulled out my phone as I got back into my car and called Dana's number. It rang four times before she finally picked up.
"Hey, Maddie," she said, sounding sort of breathless.
"Hi. Did I catch you at a bad time?"
"No. Sorry, I was just waiting for a call from Ricky."
"I
s he still in Australia?" Her husband, Ricky Montgomery, was also an actor, and he'd been filming his latest movie in the land down under. Production on Road to Oz, a modern-day Wizard of Oz retelling, had already gone two weeks over, and I knew Dana was desperate to be on the same continent as him again.
"For at least another week," she said. "He got bit by a kangaroo he was working with, and they're trying to find a replacement. For the kangaroo, that is. It's not easy to find trained ones."
"I didn't know you could even train kangaroos."
"Yeah, well, apparently some are more well trained than others. As Ricky found out the hard way."
"Ouch."
"Anyway, what's up?" she asked.
"Are you on set today? On the studio lot?"
"Yeah, but we're wrapping up for the day soon. I'm just shooting our last scene in a couple of minutes. Why?"
"There's someone on the lot I wanted to talk to." I quickly filled her in on Fernando's plight, Marco and me crashing Tina's interview, and my subsequent chat with Ramirez. "It actually sounds like Tina could be right. That Doggy Z was murdered," I finished.
"Whoa," Dana said, appropriately floored by that revelation. "But not by a contestant, right?"
"I doubt it." I shook my head even though she couldn't see me. "Angela and Fernando were the only contestants on the set that day, and I don't see Angela killing Dog just to win. But we did see Dog argue with Rupert Blick just before the taping started."
Dana sucked in a breath. "That's right! Rupert seemed to yell at him at the break too. When Dog threw the buzzer into the audience." She paused. "You think he had something to do with Dog's death?"
"I think I'd like to talk to him before I hand Tina her homicide story. At least it would give her some other avenues for her story that don't lead to Fernando. Any chance we could get in to see him today?"
"Maybe. I think he has an office in the Bob Hope building. I could call a guest pass to the front gate for you if you want to meet me here in, like, an hour?"
"Sounds perfect."
Gunshots fired in the background. "Sorry, I've gotta go," Dana said. "Charlotte Benson's about to take down an entire Mafia group in a shootout."
Jeopardy in High Heels (High Heels Mysteries Book 12) Page 5