Never Say Sty (32 page)
Authors: Linda O. Johnston
Yes! I saw her—Detective Vickie Schwinglan—at the edge of the bleachers, looking around as if seeking someone . . . me. Her usual companion, Detective Howard Wherlon, already sat at the edge of the front row. I gave a hopefully subtle nod that Vickie instantly got, and sidled off to an edge of the huge room.
“Glad you could make it, Detective,” I said in a low voice. “Everything okay on your end?”
“Yes, but I think this is stupid.” Detective Vickie Schwinglan glared down at me. “I bet it won’t even increase your dumb show’s viewership, the way you want. It’s just one of your tricks, Ballantyne, the kind you use when you try to show up the police department. I’m only playing along because this time I’m going to demonstrate how wrong you are.”
Whatever. But I didn’t say anything that might antagonize the tall, arrogant, irritable cop. On my further inquiry, she confirmed that she had even gotten someone from SID—the Scientific Investigation Division—to come that day to assist with my showmanship.
She might think my suggestions foolish, but, despite her sniping at me, she must think the plan had at least a little merit—even just for police department public relations—or she wouldn’t have played along this far.
“Hello, Vickie, Kendra,” said a familiar voice from behind me. I shouldn’t have been surprised at Jeff’s presence, but I also wasn’t excited about it. He could act as a distraction—and I wasn’t about to include him in my list of those in the know about what I really was up to.
“Hi, Jeff,” I said without much enthusiasm. The former cop glared and started asking Vickie questions about her murder investigation, which gave me an opportunity to sidle away.
I went into the audience area to greet guests—including Detective Wherlon. I pulled my hand out of my jacket pocket to shake his hand. “Glad you could make it, Howard.”
The detective was, as always, dressed in a drab suit and surly expression. “Sure you are. What’s going on, Kendra? Detective Schwinglan was eager for us to come here today but wouldn’t give much information. What did you tell her—that you’re solving Sebastian Czykovski’s murder here, today, oncamera?” His tone clearly scoffed, and I wasn’t about to enlighten him.
“We just have a particularly interesting show planned today.”
“Yeah?” he said. “Well, I’ll be the one in the audience snoring.”
We’d see about that. “Excuse me.” I’d just noticed someone else I needed to say hi to.
Also in the audience, two rows up, was Flossie Murray, Sebastian’s ex-wife. I was delighted Dante had gotten her here. Of course, as manager of the Long Beach HotPets, she probably wasn’t about to say no to the company’s big boss.
She didn’t seem thrilled to be there. “Hello, Kendra,” she said as I excused my way through seated audience members to get to her. “Do you know why Dante wanted me here? I’ve made it a practice to stay far from things where my ex was involved.”
“I just think it’ll be an interesting show,” I said. Gee, hadn’t I said that before? Well, not to her. “Stay tuned.”
One audience member not far away resembled the photo I’d just seen of the agility guy who’d slugged Sebastian. Brody had shown it to me, and I figured he was responsible for this particular person’s attendance.
I hurried toward the judges’ table, where Dante still hung out. I first caught Brody’s eye, and he winked. The guy who’d helped me get this far was obviously ready for what was to come.
I only hoped I was.
“Everything set?” Dante asked.
“I think so.” I tellingly eyed his tote once more, and he nodded and grinned.
Together we went over to explain all to Charlotte. Then we would get started.
Chapter Twenty-nine
ALL THE INFORMATION had been passed down the line—to a point. Usually, it was up to primary host Rick Longley to explain the scenario to our piggy contestants’ owners and our audience, but because of these special circumstances, I’d enlisted a thrilled Rachel to do it.
Why her? Well, unlike most of the others affiliated with the show, I didn’t think she was ever considered seriously as a murder suspect. And I wasn’t so sure anymore about Rick.
We were down to six pigs this week—Porker and Sty Guy among them. Avvie Milton had just joined us with Pansy as our unofficial seventh. As our guest, she’d be first to participate, though Pansy couldn’t win our contest.
I only hoped someone did.
Dante, Avvie, and I stood on the side, Pansy and Wagner with us. I was just as glad that Lexie was at Darryl’s. She was too small to compete with potbellies, and although I felt sure things wouldn’t get too ugly here oncamera, my little Cavalier was better off not in the way.
“We have a very special show for you tonight.” Rachel’s smile was radiant. Her hands-free microphone doodad, wrapped around her head, worked fine. “We’ve had our potbellied pig players act like detectives before, using their extraordinary sense of smell to find contraband we planted around our set. Our remaining contestants have shown they can really sniff things out.”
She gestured toward the edge of the stage where the six contestant pigs and their owners stood in a row—fortunately, all quiet and getting along well.
Rachel’s tone grew more somber. “And I’m sure everyone watching this show knows we suffered a tragedy a couple of weeks ago. One of our original judges, Sebastian Czykovski, was brutally murdered, and although the police have some suspects, they haven’t arrested anyone yet.”
I glanced toward the audience, where the detectives in charge were seated, glowering. I hadn’t mentioned their presence to our camera crew, but I still checked the monitors to make sure they weren’t being singled out and embarrassed. At least not yet.
It was time for Rachel to explain the scenario I’d set up. “We’re going to try something different,” she said. She motioned toward someone almost hidden in a corner behind one of the cameras. A short, balding man in a suit shuffled over, looking nervous. He held a paper bag in his latex-glove-clad hands. “This is Jarrod Krone, with the Los Angeles Police Department’s Scientific Investigation Division. We’ve been given special permission for our scent competition this evening. Mr. Krone has with him the actual pig harness used to strangle poor Sebastian. Isn’t that right, Mr. Krone?”
I heard murmurs everywhere in our audience, and saw Howard Wherlon standing and scolding Detective Vickie Schwinglan, whom he correctly assumed had prior knowledge of what would occur here. She stood with arms folded and face firmly focused on the stage, not her companion cop.
“That’s right,” Jarrod Krone said. He explained all that had been done via official investigative practices to determine the source of the fatal harness. They had discovered where it had been purchased, but not by whom. They had run fingerprint and other tests, but nothing had conclusively pointed out the perpetrator. “So when we were approached by
Animal Auditions
, we figured the special test that was suggested was probably a bunch of malarkey, but if it happened to work, that would be wonderful.”
Animal Auditions
, we figured the special test that was suggested was probably a bunch of malarkey, but if it happened to work, that would be wonderful.”
“And what special test is that?” Rachel asked on cue.
“Well, this harness is specially woven, mostly nylon or other artificial materials, like the majority of such straps, but this particular kind also has some decorative leather in it. Nylon won’t always hold smells very well, but leather might. The idea is that the killer might have left a scent in the leather that the pigs could smell, and use to point out a suspect.”
“And would this be usable to try the suspect for murder?”
“Not likely, but at this point we’re willing to accept assistance in focusing in on a suspect or two. We’ll collect additional evidence once we zero in on someone.”
Talk about malarkey—the whole idea was probably as absurd as many of the things that went on in the supposedly scientific TV shows about crime scene investigation. But the idea here wasn’t to be scientific—or even logical.
We’d asked Jarrod to play along to see if a suspect who happened to be here would buy into the idea of the possibility of being fingered by a piggy nose and grow defensive. And give him- or herself away.
Our first pig contestant was Randall, who’d gone first in our initial episode. He sniffed the bag containing the harness—which, unsurprisingly, wasn’t the actual murder weapon.
It was the thing I’d been hounding Dante about. He’d used his clout and financial status to have a couple of new ones flown in over the weekend from the Ohio manufacturer, expressly for today’s show.
Randall smelled it, and was then encouraged by his owner to sniff the other piggy owners, who were somewhat suspects in Sebastian’s murder. Maybe their motivation was sparse, but Sebastian’s nastiness had been the supposed reason the cops had zeroed in on Nita and Ned Noralles as prime suspects.
Randall seemed utterly friendly to his competitors’ people, and not inclined to associate any of them with the scent of the harness. Good.
Next was Nita with Sty Guy. Her job was to get her potbelly to sniff the harness and compare the scent with those of the judges. Of course Brody hadn’t been around back then, but it didn’t hurt to keep him in this scenario.
Sty Guy seemed more of a ham than Randall. He butted his adorable big nose at Brody, who only laughed. Eliza, too, seemed to enjoy this potbelly’s attention, although he quickly moved on.
To Matilda. Who looked utterly upset. She didn’t move at all as black-and-white Sty Guy nosed at her and made some excited piggy noises.
Was this it? Had Sty Guy zeroed in on Sebastian’s killer?
I had to remind myself that this scenario was an utter farce. But Matilda didn’t know that.
“I didn’t—” she stuttered. “It isn’t me. I couldn’t. I . . .” She quickly shut up as Sty Guy moved on.
But this was the kind of reaction I’d counted on from the actual killer. Matilda was once again near the head of my suspect list.
Still, we weren’t through with
Animal Auditions
. We needed to complete the entire process before I’d feel satisfied that all piggy assistance had been utilized.
Animal Auditions
. We needed to complete the entire process before I’d feel satisfied that all piggy assistance had been utilized.
Next was one of the other potbellies, whose goal after sniffing was to check out our whole production staff. That included Rick Longley, Rachel, Charlotte, our camera folk, me, . . . and Dante.
The big, lumbering white boar seemed to spend an inordinate time checking out Rick—but the guy had apparently decided to play games of his own, and pulled a small packet of popcorn from his pocket.
Was this a ploy to keep suspicion off himself as the real killer? Rick laughed a lot, and I sensed no unease at all. So what if Sebastian had threatened him with firing? The fact that Rick had punched someone else out in a similar situation didn’t mean he’d commit murder. And even though the guy was oncamera a lot and probably was a fair actor, wouldn’t he seem somewhat uncomfortable if he was, in fact, guilty? I wouldn’t delete him from my suspect list, but he didn’t stay especially high on it, despite my earlier surmises.
Dante, though . . . this large piggy seemed quite taken with our show’s biggest benefactor. Of course I’d wondered about Dante, and whether he could have killed Sebastian strictly for fun—or for the promotional value of having a murder on the show he was funding. But he, too, made a huge joke of the pig’s unyielding attention.
I reminded myself why the piggy would zero in on Dante, if any of this silly scenario could be true. Dante had undoubtedly touched the harness, since he’d had it flown in for us. He’d probably even packaged it up as supposed evidence for this show.
Gee, could there actually be some reality to this idea of potbellies smelling out someone who’d touched a harness—like the real killer, if the cops would make the actual strap used for strangulation available?
Interesting. Once we zeroed in on a real, live suspect, maybe we could give it a genuine try.
Next was Ned Noralles’s Porker. He was allowed to sniff the harness, then ambled over to our studio audience. As planned.
Right then, I had Avvie get Pansy to smell the evidence, too. Wouldn’t hurt to have two porcine opinions—with Porker’s first and Pansy to back him up.
Our ushers this day were film school interns who sometimes hung out at SFV Studios. They urged everyone down onto the floor to be sniffed out in turn.
Flossie Murray was first. Sebastian’s ex-wife seemed excited about getting to meet Porker the piggy up close and personal. Porker seemed friendly with her, too. But the potbelly didn’t give any indication he’d ever come across her scent before—and more important, she didn’t act at all guilty.
Then there was the dog agility guy who’d punched out Sebastian. I’d learned his name: Chip Fong. I’d never had a chance to chat with him, but Brody had checked him out. Now, he seemed somewhat defensive, yet he, too, acted as if he got a kick out of this meeting more than he felt singled out by it.
To save time, I asked Avvie to have Pansy check out other audience members. They all reacted in different ways. Most were there because of their affinity for potbellies and appeared to enjoy being part of the show. Dante joined the ushers and me in helping to get the audience folks scented, then reseated.
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