I drew up a timeline for the day in question. I blocked out the times that the food truck was in the secured lot. I highly doubted that the prankster could have managed to break into the lot, and it seemed unlikely that an amateur could get over that fence or through the gates.
So essentially it left the time period in which we had taken the truck to the studio, left it there while we were given our challenge and then from the time we went to our location until we closed up and drove the truck back to the lot.
The timeframe was much easier than I expected. I knew that I’d not left the truck once we left the studio. That only allowed the time when we went inside the studio for someone to steal the cilantro. As I had suspected, the prankster had not gone from location to location, taking things from guarded trucks. He or she had gone to the studio with the rest of us, taken a minute to sneak outside and take the ingredients. Our truck is locked, but we’d learned the hard way that the security system on the truck itself was shoddy. It would be simple to steal from multiple trucks if they were all parked in the same lot.
Having narrowed it down in that way, I knew that I’d have to investigate further to find out who had left the studio while we were filming. I could recall some people, but I didn’t have them all. I figured that Land would know who had stood next to him, and he would be able to fill in the holes in the chart. With a narrowed down list, I could start asking some questions.
The next morning came early at my house. I was up and out the door before 4:30 a.m. I made it to the lot, picked up the food truck, and had it to our location on Elm Street in a matter of minutes. Land and I always text each other to let the other know when the truck has been picked up. It saves time since no one is hunting for the truck in the wrong location. Typically, I was the one receiving the texts most days, a fact that I ascribed to being a woman; therefore, I needed more time for prep before I could appear in public. I wasn’t sure that Land believed me, but he also didn’t seem to care. So I let things stand.
I started my prep work and waited for him to appear. It figured that the one day I wanted to talk about clues and a timeline, he was slower in arriving. He showed up just after 5 a.m. and got to work on the day’s condiments. He was chopping avocados and pickles when I broached the subject with him.
“Do you remember if anyone left the studio the day before yesterday when we found out about the challenge?” I asked. I explained to him how I’d drawn up the timeline of events and the only time we could have been robbed was during the studio time.
He nodded. “I figured that out last night. As for the other people, nobody left once they got on set. Marsha gets irate if anyone wanders off on their own. The only place the contestants should be in the studio is on the show’s set or the green room. Everything else is off-limits. You’ve probably seen more of the studio than anyone else there.”
“Okay, so what does that leave us?” I asked, feeling like I’d just talked myself out of thinking anyone had taken the cilantro. If there hadn’t been other trucks that had the same circumstances, I might have thought that Land had merely forgotten the cilantro—as he’d not brought the avocado on another day. However, with all the thefts and pranks going on, I felt that he was right. We’d had the cilantro taken from our truck while we were inside the studio.
“The staff. The people who work at the studio can come and go as they please. Any one of them could have stepped outside and taken the ingredients. If they’d have waited until the filming started, there would have been practically no chance of getting caught. They’d know that all of us would be on camera, so there was no way that we’d be able to go outside. They could do what they wanted.”
I had to agree with him. The best shot for someone to take the ingredients would have been while we were filming the introduction of the new challenge. That meant someone from the studio was behind this. I thought of the DVDs yesterday and how easily that fit into this theory. The best person to manipulate the circuit breakers, steal the DVDs and wipe out the files would be someone who worked at the studio. They’d know the procedures and which rooms in the building to access. I explained all of this to Land, who merely nodded.
I went back to counting the money. Land took his phone out, hit a few buttons, and waited. The phone rang, and I gave him an odd glance. Land didn’t seem to know many people in Capital City, so for him to decide to call someone during work hours was strange indeed. I couldn’t recall him ever making or taking a personal call during work hours—ever.
Detective Danvers’ voice filled the food truck. I was startled. Not only was Land calling Danvers, but apparently he had the detective’s phone number on his device. They definitely were more involved than I suspected. I didn’t have Danvers’ phone number, and I’d worked on a previous murder case with him. I still had no idea how a Basque chef and a local police detective could know each other. Neither of them had shared that information despite several hints from me.
“Land, what’s up?” the detective said. The use of his first name, almost like a buddy, was surprising as well.
Land cleared his throat and quickly explained the entire situation regarding the DVDs and the timeline. He explained how the studio staff could easily have accomplished both of these while the contestants were less likely to be able to have the time and expertise. He finished, and Danvers was quiet for a few minutes.
Danvers said, “If it’s the staff, I doubt that this is real malice. I’m thinking that this is a huge publicity stunt to get this show in the news. I’m not a big fan of tricks like this, but I’ll tell you, it makes me far less inclined to do anything about it. Their circus, their monkeys. If I got involved, the most likely charges to come out of this would be hauling some of the staff in and threatening to charge them with filing a false report. Given that they brought this to my attention to begin with, I don’t know if it would stick or not.” He sighed deeply. “I wish these reality shows would just go away. It’s all one big publicity grab to become a semi-celebrity.”
Land gave me a broad smirk. Even though I could sympathize with Danvers’ comments, I hadn’t joined the show to get personal notoriety. I had wanted to increase the visibility of the food truck and make enough income from it to support myself without counting on my parents. I’d sat at home on their sofa for too long before my aunt had passed away and left me the truck. My business degree had earned me scant interviews and no offers. I had absolutely no desire to go back to those days.
“So, I’m guessing you’re going to say ‘let it drop’?” Land shot a look at me as he spoke. Subtlety was not a strong suit of his.
Danvers laughed, which wasn’t a good sign. “Well, if it gets too bad, I’d go to the show’s producers and tell them what you told me, but yeah, if this is all smoke and mirrors from the staff, then you don’t have much to go on. You’re going to dump this at their door and then what? Expect them to stop trying to get some buzz going for the show? Good luck with that.”
They talked for a few more minutes, but they gave no clues as to how they knew each other. I figured that Danvers knew he was on speaker and behaved accordingly, which meant nothing too personal would be said. I would be left in the dark as to their connection. I tried not to think about it too much, but when I saw or heard them together, my curiosity was definitely piqued.
Land pressed the disconnect button, and the truck fell silent again. “I don’t suppose you’ll follow that advice, will you?”
I gave him a grin as I put up the window. “To some degree, yes. I will tell the producers what we found and then drop it. We’ll just try to prepare for whatever pranks might occur. I’m going to talk to my mother and see if she can be on-call for any emergency runs that might need to be made to pick up ingredients or whatever.”
He nodded, which was about as much as I typically got from him.
The next six hours were chaos. The promos for the TV show had started to air, and we had many more customers that morning. They all asked about the show and asked about our stan
ding and whether we were still in the competition. I explained to all of them that we had signed a confidentiality agreement that meant we couldn’t say a word about any of it until the episodes aired. Overall, they were understanding about it. However, it only served to change the subject to discussions of the other contestants and their personalities. Who was I friends with? Who was the biggest bitch on set?
We finished our cleanup at 2:05pm. I did some calculations and figured that most of the staff would still be around if I got there by 3. I wasn’t going to clean up or put on a different outfit. I might have in other circumstances, but given that this was a show about food trucks, they’d seen me in these clothes before. I had nothing to hide from the show’s staff.
I drove the truck back to the lot and drove my car over to the studio. I knew my way to the producers’ offices by this point, since I’d traversed that same path a dozen times the day before.
There were no conversations going on when I approached Jackson’s office today. I knocked on the door and went in. No one was around. The lights were off, and the computer was shut down. It didn’t look like anyone had been there in quite some time.
I sighed and headed to our set, but again, the set was empty and still. I decided to try the green room, thinking that Marsha might be there and be able to tell me where Jim Jackson was.
I was right on one part of that supposition. Marsha was there. She was on the floor, tied back to back with Annabella. However, neither of them would be telling me anything as they’d both had their throats slit from side to side. Their heads lolled at precarious angles, telling me how deep the cuts had run. Someone had not liked these women at all. This crime felt personal, even though I couldn’t imagine who would know both of these women except through the show.
The pool of blood circled them and started to make little rivers toward various parts of the room. I felt a lurch in my stomach and headed out of the room as fast as my wobbly legs could move me. I made it halfway to the exit door before I lost my lunch.
Chapter 7
Detective Danvers was one of the first policemen on the scene. The first responders had arrived along with an ambulance and EMTs. I’d been specific in my call to 911 that these women were most definitely dead, but they’d sent out responders who might have been able to save them. However, they took one look at the scene and left.
The first patrolmen arrived at the scene, taped it off, and called for backup. Danvers arrived about ten minutes later. I think the scene of the murders had brought his attention to this crime.
He sent the crime scene techs on to the green room while he stayed with me. I knew that it wasn’t out of some misplaced sense of loyalty or a strong attraction, but he pressed me on questions as to why I had come there today, when there was no filming, and what I’d hoped to accomplish. Since he had already talked to Land today, I didn’t feel like telling him much. I did retch twice more before he left me alone.
After my first reaction to the crime scene, I was feeling somewhat better. My stomach still roiled at the thought of the corpses roped together, but I no longer had a desire to heave up everything I’d eaten in the past week.
After I’d talked to Danvers, I’d put in a call to Land. He had demurred at coming over and standing around with me. He felt that his presence would be questioned, and that he would add very little to the conversation. So he agreed to take the truck to Elm Street in the morning, and I would get there when I could. I could already tell that it was going to be a long evening here.
Danvers and his crew continued their work inside. I had no desire to go back in and relive that scene again. The images were burned into my memory, and I knew that tonight would be a hard night’s sleep, if indeed there was any sleep. I wasn’t used to such graphic violence in my real life.
The images played through my mind like a film loop, and at some point, I decided to stop being horrified by the images and to see what I could learn about the situation based on what I’d seen. I’d played board games where you were asked to recall all the details of a scene that you only get to view for a few seconds. I tried to make this into a game, so that I wouldn’t freak out again. My stomach appreciated the attempt.
The first thing that struck me was that the women had not been gagged. I pondered this for a second. I knew that if I had been bound and about to be slaughtered, I would have raised a fuss. There were other people in the building, and perhaps one of them could have found the women before they were murdered. If nothing else, the second victim should have screamed out for help, knowing the fate of the first woman. She had nothing to lose by shouting out. She would be killed either way. So why didn’t the killer feel a need to silence their screams?
That likely meant one of two things. Possibly the women had been gagged prior to the murder, in which case there should be gags of some sort somewhere in the building. That could mean that the device used to silence them might be traced back to a single person, making the identity of the killer easier to deduce.
The other option was that the women had been drugged, or in some way sedated, so that they could not scream out. I thought it more likely that they’d been rendered unconscious somehow. It made more sense.
However, that meant that either the women had been drugged or they were rendered unconscious, both of which led to more questions. It’s not easy to get someone to ingest something based on your encouragement. The sedative or painkiller would have had to have been introduced into some food or drink, and both of the women would have had to ingest it about the same time. Drugs don’t affect people in the same way, so the killer could have ended up with one person fast asleep while the other was fine.
If the two women had been knocked unconscious, almost assuredly it would have been done in the green room. The thought of dragging the women across the studio to the green room seemed improbable. They would have been seen, or there would be the issue of the security cameras again. The killer couldn’t rely on having the opportunity to steal the DVDs of the security cameras’ footage again. However, if the killer had hit one of them hard enough to knock them out, why didn’t the other run?
I made a note to ask Danvers about the tox screen for the two women as well as finding out if there were any contusions or lumps made on the scalp just prior to their deaths. Part of me felt gruesome about this line of questioning, but emotionally I knew that I was engaging in this act of logic to keep from crying and throwing up again.
I scanned my memory again. I couldn’t remember seeing any signs of a struggle on either woman. There were no bruises, no signs of cuts. Their faces had been entirely intact. That made me lean more toward a possible drugging than a hit to the head.
I wondered about the blood pattern on the floor. There had been so much blood on the floor. However, I hadn’t seen any signs of bloody footprints walking away from the corpses. I didn’t know how blood came from that type of wound, but it certainly would have to have sprayed out in front and to the sides, which meant the killer had possibly had blood on him after the killing. I didn’t see any other way that it could be.
Yet, a person with that much blood on them would have been easily visible to the rest of the employees at the studio. Could the perpetrator have brought another set of clothes to the studio with them? That would have resolved the issue, but that made me wonder. An extra set of clothes would mean that these crimes were premeditated. This level of violence seemed more passionate, spur of the moment. Killing with a knife was typically a personal crime. If I thought out the murder of two women to a point where I wouldn’t be suspected, I would have made sure I could get away from the scene of the crime without rousing suspicion. That would mean a change of clothes to ensure that the blood would not be noticed on me.
Again, it seemed to point to someone in the studio as the culprit, just as it had with the pranks, but it seemed hard to believe that someone could easily make the jump from stealing ingredients from the food trucks to slicing women’s throats open. I couldn’t imagine what wou
ld force someone to take that drastic step. Even the prizes for winning the challenges here only netted a few thousand dollars and some notoriety. That didn’t seem sufficient to snuff out the lives of two women, but nothing did when I thought about it.
Danvers came back out and looked at me. “Are you going to be okay? You look white as a ghost.” He put his hand on my arm, perching it there in case he needed to keep me from passing out.
“Not a really good choice of words,” I chided him. “I wasn’t expecting that when I arrived today.”
He recognized the dark humor for what it was and gave me a small wry smile. “Right. Since you’re feeling well enough to critique my word choices, I’m guessing that you’re feeling up to answering a few questions. So, why exactly were you here?”
I took a deep breath. Even though my brain was doing everything it could do to keep me from obsessing on this, I couldn’t keep it out of my mind. I thought that discussing it in detail would only make things worse. “I already told you this—twice.”
“Once more then.”
I took a deep breath. When my stomach felt somewhat calm, I started. “I had developed a timeline for when the cilantro could have been taken from the food truck. The timeline indicated that the theft had to happen while we were at the studio. Since the contestants were being filmed, that meant that the studio employees were more likely to have been behind the theft. I was here yesterday looking at security DVDs of the time when the box of cookware was likely to have been defiled. Again, apparently someone from the studio tripped the circuit breakers and stole the DVDs. Again, the knowledge to do all that would be available to someone who worked at the studio. Plus I heard the conversation between Jim Jackson and somebody whose voice I couldn’t make out.”
FOOD TRUCK MYSTERIES: The Complete Series (14 Books) Page 20