The Fatal Funnel Cake Page 21

  Phyllis’s eyes narrowed. They weren’t far from the exit for Mockingbird Lane now, and that would take them back to Peggy’s house. She said, “Mr. Miller, I have to go. Was there anything else you found out?”

  “No, and the information doesn’t really help us that much. It just confirms what we already suspected. But I wanted to let you know anyway.”

  “I’ll talk to you later, then,” Phyllis said. She broke the connection and slipped the phone back in her purse. “Sam, would you mind turning around?”

  He took his foot off the gas and said, “No, not at all. Did you think of somewhere else you need to go?”

  “I need to go back to the fair.”

  He looked over at her, and he couldn’t keep the excitement out of his voice as he said, “You really have figured it out this time, haven’t you?”

  “No, but I thought of a different way of looking at it,” Phyllis said. “And I hope now I can see all the pieces that will lead us to a killer.”

  Chapter 30

  On the way back to the fairgrounds, Phyllis turned the theory over and over in her head. She thought back to the information she had gleaned from all the websites she had read about Joye Jameson, from the straightforward fan sites to the glitzier, trashier celebrity gossip sites. One thing was conspicuously absent from all of them. By itself that absence didn’t mean much, but looking at it in the context of the idea that had come to her, it could be important.

  She could tell that Sam was intensely curious about what she had figured out, but he didn’t want to ask questions and break her concentration. When she had gone over everything in her mind, she said, “That was Mr. Miller on the phone. He got some information from a source of his in the crime lab.”

  “Somebody he bribed?”

  “That’s the impression I got,” Phyllis said. “I don’t really care about that. What’s important is that we have confirmation now about the injector Bailey used to inject Joye Jameson. It had peanut oil in it, instead of epinephrine.”

  “Well, other than knowin’ for sure, I don’t see how that helps much,” Sam said. “You already had a hunch that must’ve been what happened.”

  “Yes, but Mr. Miller made some comment about how it was overkill, switching out the corn oil for peanut oil and then loading that pen with peanut oil, too. He said it was lucky for the murderer—but for no one else—that both methods were used, because there wasn’t enough peanut oil in the funnel cake to have killed Joye, especially if the pen hadn’t been tampered with.”

  Sam thought about it for a moment and then shook his head. “I’m still not gettin’ it,” he said.

  “Mr. Miller assumed—and we have been, too—that the person who switched out the cooking oil was the same person who tampered with the pens.”

  “Yeah,” Sam said. “Makes sense, doesn’t it?”

  “It does,” Phyllis said. “But it makes even more sense if two different people were responsible for those things.”

  Sam looked over at her again, his eyes widening with the realization that she was right.

  “You should probably watch the road,” Phyllis reminded him gently.

  “Yeah,” he said, putting his eyes back on the freeway and the traffic in front of them. “That changes everything if you’ve got two would-be murderers instead of one.”

  “I’m wondering if the person who switched the cooking oil didn’t intend to kill Joye. Maybe he just wanted to make her sick.”

  “Why would anybody do that?”

  “Well, think about what happened as soon as Joye had that allergic reaction.”

  “Bailey jumped in right away with that pen to save her life.”

  Phyllis nodded. “And unwittingly wound up killing her instead. But if the pen hadn’t been tampered with, she would have saved Joye’s life. She would have been hailed as a hero. And if Joye had to take some time off because of it, who would step in and take her place on the show?”

  “Bailey would have . . . just like Joye took over for Gloria Kimball. And who knows if she ever would’ve given the job back? It’s like Lou Gehrig and Wally Pipp all over again!”

  Phyllis shook her head. “Lou Gehrig the baseball player? The Pride of the Yankees? What in the world does he have to do with this?”

  “Wally Pipp’s the guy Gehrig filled in for at first base one day. Twenty-one hundred and some-odd consecutive games later, Gehrig was still playin’ first base and everybody had forgotten about poor ol’ Wally Pipp, the guy whose place he took. Same thing happened with Joye and Gloria Kimball, and now it might’ve happened again with Bailey and Joye.”

  “That’s exactly my point, although I probably never would have thought of the baseball analogy.”

  Sam said, “But wait a minute. It sounds to me like you’re makin’ a case for Bailey bein’ the one who replaced the corn oil with peanut oil. She’s the one who stood to gain from it.”

  “No, I still don’t believe that’s what happened. She was too shocked when Joye collapsed. She didn’t know about the peanut oil. But whoever made the switch could have done it in a misguided attempt to help Bailey become a star.”

  Sam nodded slowly. “I can think of two fellas who might fit that description.”

  “So can I. Hank Squires and Reed Hayes. Both of them were around the set all the time, so no one would think it was odd for them to be there. Both of them were romantically involved with Bailey, so either might have tried to do something to help her career. Something short of murder, although they were playing awfully fast and loose with Joye’s life. They couldn’t be absolutely sure the peanut oil in the funnel cake wouldn’t cause a severe enough reaction to kill her . . . but they were counting on Bailey being right there with an injector to save her, either way.”

  “If the pen had worked,” Sam said, “there probably wouldn’t have been any real investigation. The whole thing would’ve been written off as an accident that almost had a tragic result. The cops would never have gotten involved and tested all the evidence.”

  “That’s the way I see it,” Phyllis agreed.

  “Would Hayes have done such a thing if he knew that Bailey was cheatin’ on him with Hank?”

  “I don’t know,” Phyllis replied honestly. “He may not have known about that. He might have set up the business with the cooking oil just to give Bailey a shot at being a star, and get back at Joye a little for some of the trouble she had caused him over the contract negotiations. He could have done it to show Joye how easy it would be to replace her and to make her come down on the salary she was demanding. Or if he did know about Bailey and Hank, he could have come up with the idea of making Joye sick in an effort to win Bailey back. If he told her that he was responsible for her chance to take over the show, he might think she would be grateful enough to him to end the affair with Hank.”

  Sam shook his head. “Sounds like sort of a harebrained scheme to me.”

  “Unfortunately, once someone comes to the decision to take such drastic action, their plans can turn harebrained in a hurry.”

  He laughed. “Yeah, we’ve seen that happen more than once, haven’t we? But what about the pen? How in the world did somebody come up with that, and how does it tie in with the rest of what happened?”

  “Here’s the way I have it figured,” Phyllis said. “Whoever tampered with the pen had to know that the cooking oil had been switched. Otherwise there wouldn’t have been any way of him knowing that one of the pens was going to be used. He must have seen the switch take place and figured out why someone would want to replace corn oil with peanut oil. Knowing that Joye would take a bite of the funnel cake and have a reaction to the peanut oil, he also knew that Bailey would inject her with the pen. By tampering with the pen, not only did he deny Joye the epinephrine she needed to save her life; he also made sure the reaction she suffered would be severe enough to kill her.”

  “Who
would do a thing like that, and why?” Sam wanted to know.

  “I’m not positive yet, although I have a pretty good idea.”

  “And how could he be sure that Joye would take a bite of the funnel cake?”

  “Because she always does,” Phyllis said. “Or rather, did. Anytime she and a guest prepared anything, Joye always sampled it.”

  Sam nodded in understanding. “And anybody connected with the show would know that.”

  “I don’t see how they could help but know it.”

  “So now we’re lookin’ for two fellas instead of just one. Who do you think swapped out the cookin’ oil, Hank or Hayes?”

  “Remember when we saw Hayes arguing with someone earlier today?” Phyllis asked.

  “Yeah. Although we don’t know for sure he was arguin’. Looked like it, though.”

  “Yes, it did. I’m convinced he was talking to the person who tampered with the pens.”

  “My head’s startin’ to hurt,” Sam said. “Now you’re sayin’ that the two of them are workin’ together?”

  “Not at all. I think Hayes switched the cooking oil, and the other man saw him and decided to kill Joye by tampering with the pens. But think about it . . . at this point, Hayes doesn’t know there was anything wrong with the pens.”

  “So he thinks what he did was responsible for killin’ Joye!” Sam nodded emphatically. “So the real killer not only gets away with murder; he turns around and blackmails Hayes over a killin’ that he didn’t actually commit.”

  “That’s what I believe is going on,” Phyllis said. “It fits everything we know and answers all the questions about what happened.”

  Sam took the exit ramp from North Central onto Interstate 30. Fair Park was only a short distance to the east. They would be at the fairgrounds in a few minutes.

  “So does Bailey Broderick really tie into this at all?” Sam asked. “Was the killer tryin’ to frame her?”

  “I don’t think so. She was just a tool he used to get what he wanted.”

  “Blackmail money.”

  Phyllis didn’t say anything. Sam didn’t grasp everything about her theory yet, but she wasn’t sure it was correct. There were still a few fuzzy areas. She hoped to find out soon if she was right.

  Proving it was something else again. The killer had done a masterful job of manipulating everything, but Phyllis thought she saw one narrow opening she might be able to exploit.

  The safest thing to do, she told herself, would be to call Detectives Morgan and Hunt and drop everything in their laps. But to their way of thinking, they had already arrested the killer. They wouldn’t be interested in some theory that might well be, as Sam put it, harebrained, especially when there was nothing but some circumstantial evidence to support that theory. They wouldn’t follow up on anything she told them. Phyllis was sure of it.

  David Miller might be more receptive to her idea. She should have called him back, Phyllis thought.

  But it was too late now. Sam took the exit for the fairgrounds, and there it was up ahead, crowded with people out for a pleasant Sunday afternoon in autumn.

  And one killer.

  Chapter 31

  “Are we goin’ back to the Creative Arts Building?” Sam asked as they entered Fair Park.

  “That’s right. I hope we can find the person we need to.”

  “Scene of our previous triumphs,” Sam mused. “You, me, and Carolyn all brought home ribbons from there. Reckon anything like that will ever happen again?”

  “It’s not likely,” Phyllis admitted. “But you never know. Anyway, I’m not sure I should be that proud of my funnel cakes. They played a part in getting a woman killed.”

  “Maybe, but you weren’t to blame for that by any stretch of the imagination. And it doesn’t make the funnel cakes any less delicious, either.”

  “I’m sure I’ll be able to look at it like that . . . someday,” Phyllis said.

  They were walking past the Embarcadero Building and approaching the Creative Arts Building when Sam said, “Hold on. Isn’t that Hayes over yonder?”

  Phyllis stopped and looked where Sam nodded. Sure enough, Reed Hayes was walking toward the building from a different direction. He strode along rapidly, seemingly distracted by something.

  He had every reason to be distracted, Phyllis thought, if it was his scheme that had wound up contributing to Joye Jameson’s murder.

  Hayes wasn’t going into the building, Phyllis realized a moment later. He veered off the path he’d been following and went toward the the big RV that was still parked on the side of the road, the satellite dish on its roof pointed toward the heavens. When the producer reached it, he climbed the steps, unlocked the door, and went inside.

  “We gonna go talk to him?” Sam asked.

  “Wait,” Phyllis said, her voice tense. “Maybe he’s meeting the person who’s blackmailing him.”

  “Charlie Farrar, right? He had a reason for wantin’ to get rid of Joye, what with all the trouble she’d given him about his directin’. And the blackmail money he’d get from Hayes would help tide him over until he got one of those other jobs he was talkin’ about when we were here earlier.”

  “How do you figure it has to be Farrar?” Phyllis asked. She was genuinely interested. She wanted to know Sam’s reasoning so she could compare it with her own.

  “Well, the killer’s got to be somebody who was around the show a lot, or else he wouldn’t have had the opportunity to see Hayes switchin’ the cooking oil. And he had to know why Hayes was makin’ that switch. He had to know that the peanut oil would cause Joye to have a bad allergic reaction. Otherwise there wouldn’t have been any point to the whole thing.”

  “That’s right,” Phyllis agreed.

  “What I don’t know,” Sam went on, “is just how common the knowledge of Joye’s allergy really was. I don’t recall hearin’ anything about it before all this trouble came up, but then, I didn’t even know who Joye Jameson was until not that long ago.”

  “It wasn’t common knowledge,” Phyllis told him. “That’s one thing that helped me narrow it down. Remember, I did a lot of Internet research on Joye, and not one time did I read anything about her being allergic to peanuts, not on any of the websites. I think Hayes and everyone else involved in the show kept that covered up, probably at Joye’s insistence. She probably thought it wouldn’t look good for a cooking guru like her to have any sort of food allergy.”

  “I don’t reckon any of her viewers would have held that against her,” Sam said with a frown.

  “Probably not. But image is everything in show business, and Joye didn’t want to do anything to risk damaging hers. We already know that she was something of a control freak. That would fit right in with her making sure the allergy remained a secret.”

  “Yep, I suppose you’re right. Which brings us right back around to the fact that the killer has to be somebody involved with the show, or else he wouldn’t have known about it.” Sam’s frown deepened. “I don’t guess it’d have to be Farrar, would it? There are more than a dozen other people who came here from California for these remote broadcasts. Could be any one of ’em. So unless we catch the fella tryin’ to blackmail Hayes . . .”

  “That’s why we’re here,” Phyllis said. “Earlier, Hayes looked like he gave in to whoever he was talking to. He’s going to meet with the killer again to finalize the deal.”

  “How do you know that?”

  Phyllis nodded toward the Creative Arts Building. “Because here he comes now.”

  “The killer?” Sam’s eyes widened as he searched the crowd. Quite a few people were moving along the walks. “Are you sure? I don’t see any members of the crew. But there’s that guard fella. Maybe we’d better go get him so he can help us corral the killer.”

  “That won’t work,” Phyllis said, “because Chet Murdock is the killer.”
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  Sam stared at her in disbelief.

  “Watch where he goes,” Phyllis went on.

  Chet walked straight to the RV, paused at the bottom of the steps, looked around as if to see whether the coast was clear, climbed them, and knocked on the door. A couple of seconds later, it opened. Phyllis caught a glimpse of Reed Hayes. He moved back so the security guard could come in. Hayes closed the door.

  “Man, I feel like slappin’ my forehead and sayin’ ‘D’oh!’ right about now,” Sam said. “I forgot all about how Murdock told us about that mysterious redheaded woman Hayes was talkin’ to. There wasn’t any redheaded woman, was there?”

  Phyllis shook her head. “That was just Chet’s way of muddying up the waters. He was the one who approached Hayes with his demands, and he didn’t want anybody finding out about that, so he tried to send us off on a false trail. When you stop and think about it, he was around the broadcast all the time this past week, just like the people who work for the show. There’s more to it than that, though. Earlier today he mentioned the incident in New Orleans when Joye had an allergic reaction. That means he had to have been there, because that episode never aired. He couldn’t have seen it on TV. There was nothing about it on any of the websites, either.”

  “So he was in the audience that day?”

  “According to what Bailey told us, it wasn’t even taped, because Joye’s reaction happened backstage, just before they were ready to start. The audience wouldn’t have known about it.”

  “So how did Murdock find out about it?”

  “He had to be backstage. My hunch is that he was working as a security guard there, too.”

  Sam’s eyes narrowed. “Sounds to me like the boy’s a stalker.”

  “Or a really big fan.”

  “That’s the same thing, sometimes, isn’t it?”

  Phyllis nodded. “It can be. There’s more to it than that, though. If Chet was that big a fan of Joye, would he have killed her? I think he was obsessed with her, all right, but he was jealous of her. Of her success. You remember he told us—”