Soap Opera Ch. 02

"That's a good thought." I said. "But where did they hide or dispose of the uniform without being seen? And the TCPD had instructions to take notice of any of the private security trying to leave the area."

"And most of the Officers were watching for people trying to leave, or outsiders trying to get in." said Captain Croyle. "I take responsibility for them not have better and more frequent sight of the trailer areas."

"Something to learn from, but not something to take blame for." I said. "I think the perp didn't stay where he or she could be seen for very long. Only seconds to go from the empty trailer to his or her own trailer. The perp could've been in that empty trailer with the body for a long time, hours even, before sneaking back to his... or her trailer."

"So you think it's one of the cast, sir?" asked Theo.

"That's what we're here to discuss." I said. "I don't want to cloud your thoughts and judgement, but to answer your question, Mr. Washington, the most likely scenario for both murders is one of the cast members."

"Did the same person commit both crimes?" asked Joanne Warner.

"All signs point to 'Yes', as the Magic Eight Ball says." I said humorously. "Seriously, it's either the same killer, or two working in tandem. The other possibility is that Seiko killed Ken, then someone, a traitorous confederate, killed Seiko."

"What's the motive?" asked Theo.

"That's another thing we're going to discuss." I said. "I want us to theorize on the data we currently have. Detective Warner is eager to start whiteboards, is that not right?"

"Yes sir, it is." Joanne said with enthusiasm. Joanne loved using whiteboards.

"Then go first." I said.

"Yes sir." said Joanne. She went up and began putting photos of cast members on the mobile whiteboards that had been brought in. "First, Carolyn Chastain. Next, Thomas Cromwell. Next, Danny Darmond. Next, Victor Kuykendall. Next, Marlena Kuykendall. Next, Maria Del Fuentes. Next, Kevin Park. At far left here are Ken Moore and Seiko, the two victims."

"Benny Black is excluded, by the way." said Joanne. "The CEO of BOW Enterprises and the TCPD's Captain of Operations are excellent alibis... and I don't want to give Captain Croyle any incentives in the Police Boxing Matches." Everyone laughed.

As Joanne talked, I had typed out a text to have someone brought into protective custody. "Okay," I said, "anyone else? Office personnel, crew, dining facility people?"

"Donna Hull, scriptwriter." said Joanne, putting the woman's picture up. "Kayla, the intern. And I'll note that I'm only putting up Maria Del Fuentes to round out the discussion; she was in sight of someone during the entire possible time of Ken's death, and she did not sleep alone during the night."

"How do you know that?" Jerome asked.

"Uh, you might ask the Commander about that one. The Red Commander as opposed to the Green one." Joanne said.

"Well, she's not fully exonerated," I said, "but my wife is vouching for her. I might add that Maria is shorter than either of the victims, and it's possible but not likely she stabbed Ken like she did and also strangled Seiko."

"She wears a lot of perfume, too." said Teresa. "The guards wouldn't have to see her; they'd smell the perfume from a distance, and there was little wind to blow the heavy perfume smell away."

"Thin, but something to think about." I said. "Okay, Warner, go through these people."

"Carolyn." said Joanne. "She may not be the murderer, but she may be the reason for it. She was carrying on with several of the cast, including Thomas Cromwell, Danny Darmond, and occasionally Ken Moore himself. She also had a relationship with a crew member who was fired. She's pregnant, and her husband Kevin is not the father."

"We can go wild on theories over her." Cindy said. I suspect she was subtly needling me with that comment.

"Yes. Yes we can." I said. "Keep going for now, Ms. Warner."

Joanne said "I have the financial reports on everyone, though they're not much. Carolyn and Kevin are worth a good bit of money through his production company. If she files for divorce in California, she'll get a huge chunk of change from that, if not half... unless they have a pre-nup of which we are so far unaware."

Joanne then said "Thomas Cromwell. Been with the cast a few months and has become a popular character with fans, if Facebook is to be believed. He has admitted to a sexual relationship with Carolyn, and possibly is the father of her unborn child, so there may be a love triangle motive, there."

"Thomas's finances appear clean," Joanne said, "but he doesn't have much of a history here in the United States, and we haven't gotten much on him from England yet. We may have to ask the FBI to help us with his foreign finances."

"I'll call Jack Muscone right after this meeting." I said.

"Danny Darmond." said Joanne. "Reportedly is Carolyn's favorite lover at the moment. He's relatively new to the cast, and they're essentially re-casting him as a past love interest. Before that, he was doing bit parts, and love scenes, with Maria Del Fuentes."

"Oh, so he's not new." I mused. "From the scene I saw yesterday, it looked like this was the first time he was appearing, coming out of the blue as Carolyn's husband."

"Yes sir." said Jerome Davis. "I was looking at the scripts that our CSIs confiscated and put in the servers. They were going to start explaining why he hadn't said anything to Carolyn before."

"Okay." I said. "Go ahead, Joanne."

Joanne said "Financially, Danny is young and just starting out. He did buy an expensive sports car when he began doing the 'Days of Promise' gig, but other than that, he's living on set and has virtually no expenses."

"Victor Kuykendall." said Joanne. "Patriarch of the show, has been on it for decades now. His roles are much more minor than they used to be. He incorporated himself, and has made a lot of money from advertising and appearances at fan shows. He doesn't live on set, and no one is sure exactly where he does live; his mail is delivered to a box on the set, and his drivers license also lists the set as his address."

"Ohhhhhh!" I exclaimed. As everyone looked at me, I said "I've had a bee in my bonnet about why they had an empty trailer on the grounds. This explains that. I'll bet there's one on the studio grounds in California, and it's his address. Since it was set up there, they set one up here, as a matter of routine."

Joanne said "He has not had a love interest with Carolyn, off-set at least. No relations at all that we're sure of."

"Maybe he's gay." said Teddy Parker. When all eyes went to him, Parker said "Young people don't really care if the world knows they're gay, but older guys like him might still try to keep things like that in the closet."

"That's a point." I said, seeing Cindy staring at Parker with something resembling anger. "He's also made himself the moral compass of 'Days of Promise'. If it came out he was gay, the world might not care like they would have years ago, but it might hurt his 'street-cred' on set, because he was hiding it. How are his finances, Warner?"

"Probably the weakest of the cast members." said Joanne. "He has some debts to go along with all the money he's made. Not anything really bad, but he's run up some credit cards. If he were to suddenly lose his job, he or his corporate entity would be in some trouble."

Joanne went on: "Marlena Kuykendall. Once married to Victor, now single. Has a reputation of being a very nice person, especially to fans of the show. She was once the hot stuff of the show, but she's more minor now. They've been writing her scripts to have her be a Cougar MILF seducing younger men, and she's had some pretty hot scenes with Danny and Benny Black."

"Financially, she seems to be fine." said Joanne. "Like Victor, she self-incorporated... in Nevada. She makes a lot of appearances around the country, and gets paid for them as well as expenses. And like everyone else on the show, with meals and even lodging paid for by the show, she has few expenses."

"Maria Del Fuentes." said Joanne. "She's young, full of life, is the darling of the paparazzi and the tabloid media. She has relationships on and off-set, many sexual, none serious, and by that I mean serious love interests. But she's also a shrewd businesswoman. Marlena has advised her a lot, and Maria set up her own self-incorporation, but is just beginning to use it properly. Men, rich men, are showing her with gifts; someone even bought her a Jag. The murders were probably not by her, but could've been done because of her."

"Last, Kevin Park." said Joanne. "Producer and director. Married to Carolyn Chastain, has a growing production company. The company has debts like other, similar companies, but it has really good cash flow. If he took it public, and there's talk of doing that, he'd be a very wealthy man."

"The issues with him are reports that his marriage is struggling." Joanne continued. "His wife is spreading her legs for a lot of other men, she's pregnant by another man, and he may be getting tired of it all."

"How was his relationship with Ken Moore, and Seiko?" I asked. "And for that matter, with his bosses, the execs of the show?"

"Some of the cast and crew said in the interviews that his relationship with Ken was 'professional' and that they worked pretty well together." said Joanne. "But more recently there was some friction between them. Kevin and Victor, and Marlena, too, also had some strains in their working relationship, mostly over the show's direction. Seiko and Kevin had a much better relationship, she seemed to have better ideas of what Kevin wanted, and helped Ken make it happen."

"Donna Hull." said Joanne. "She's been a scriptwriter for 'Days of Promise' for three years. Fanatically protective of her work, and she is paid very well. Other office workers said she's a very boring person to talk to, keeps pretty much to herself, not known to be dating anyone. Her relationship with Kevin Park is good, she understand what he wants in the story arcs, but Ken would at times berate her when she wrote scripts that were not exactly what he wanted, and there was another situation I'll get to in a second. Financially, she has no issues."

"Kayla the intern," said Joanne, "is wrapping up her internship. She graduated from UCLA last December. She did the menial jobs, including getting people coffee, stuff like that, and her main job was to transport scripts in sealed file folders to Ken. He'd go through them and give instructions, often writing those instructions on the front pages, then send her back to the office. It worked here just like it worked in California.

"And coming back to Donna." said Joanne. "Issues occurred when Kayla came back with unsealed file folders, and Donna Hull would go ballistic. Kayla would say that Ken didn't re-seal the folders when Donna would accuse her of breaking the seals to see the scripts, and Ken always backed Kayla up on that. He and Donna got into some serious arguments over all that."

"So why isn't Donna a suspect?" I asked.

"She was in sight of at least two other people the entire possible timeframe of Ken's murder." Joanne said. I nodded.

"So..." I said, thinking out loud, "if Donna is so paranoid about her scripts, why didn't she take them to Ken herself?"

"She and he did not get along." said Tanya. "Maybe she knew Kayla wasn't a problem, but just created a stink to agitate Ken."

"And the poor intern has to take all the shit from both of them." said Mary Mahoney Milton. I nodded.

"Okay." I said. "Let's wrap it up. Ken and Seiko. What are their stories?"

"Ken is the one who instituted the spiked Coca-Colas in the dining kitchen." said Joanne. "Others quickly adopted his practice, including Carolyn, Marlena, and Seiko. Also some of the crew did the spiked Coke thing. The tabloids so far have found nothing out of the ordinary with people drinking Coca-Colas on set, not realizing that drinking a couple of them could give someone a ripping good buzz. Anyway, Ken has no financial problems that we could find, so far. He saved all of his money."

"His only issue was the sheer number of times he made women give him sex on the casting couch." said Tanya. "Thomas Cromwell thought he may have been reprimanded by the 'Suits' in California over it."

"But nothing said to Kevin?" I asked.

"We don't know." said Tanya. "Maybe, but maybe not. What I just told you is secondhand rumors; we haven't verified a thing yet."

"See if you can." I said. "What about Seiko?"

Joanne said "Seiko... might be the most interesting person of them all. Her finances were pretty screwed up, too." said Joanne. "Heavy debt, two maxed cards. I will not be shocked if those tests for drugs in her system turn out to be positive."

"And if anyone would be the one to be smuggling drugs onto the set," I said, "Seiko would be the one. She could even be the distributor, the point of contact. Okay, anything else?" There was nothing else. "Let's go around the horn, then. Who did it?"

"Colonel Troy. In the Conservatory. With the Crowbar." Cindy said, deadpan flat. Everyone broke out laughing, including me.

"Damn, and you were my alibi." I replied, which was actually true. "Okay... Parker."

Teddy Parker said "The love interest around Carolyn has me interested. I'm not sure why these guys want her so much... she's beautiful, but she's gotten to be a..." He paused.

"Slut." I said, finishing it for him in direct, brutal fashion. "The word is 'slut'. She's a 'slut', no two ways about it."

"Yes sir." said Parker, blushing a little bit. Gentlemen from Mississippi weren't used to speaking in such crude tones; ergo, my helping him. He said "So there's Thomas, Danny, a fired crew member that might want revenge, and maybe her husband went off on something Ken said about Carolyn."

"I'm looking at Victor Kuykendall." said Jerome. "He's upset over the more openly sexual direction the show has taken. He considers the show his teenage daughter, since he's been on it for such a long time, and now that teen daughter is acting like a.. well, slut." Everyone laughed at that.

Jerome continued: "The Commander, Commander Troy, made notes stating that Thomas told Kevin about Callie Carrington being there... in front of Victor. And Victor might not feel the same way about Ms. Carrington as Commander Ross does."

"No doubt about that." Cindy said. "So why would Victor kill Ken instead of Kevin?"

"Because, ma'am," replied Jerome, "he couldn't kill Kevin at that moment. Too many people around. But my thesis is that with Ken and Seiko both dead, Victor was taking over directing today. And maybe he thinks he can make that permanent. Better job security, too."

"Those are excellent, excellent thoughts." I said. "Here, hold on to this for a while." I passed the red crowbar down the table to Jerome, amidst acclaim. "Yes," I continued, "that's good. The only problem I have with it, is that Victor is not going to be Director very long. Kevin won't brook it for long, nor will the Suits above him. They like the steamier side of things that the actors that Chief Griswold would call the 'young whippersnappers' bring to the show."

"And to that end, Jerome, you're right... job security. If Ken or Kevin wanted to ease Victor on out of the show permanently, he might be desperate enough to try to keep his status and his job that way. Okay, Theo."

"I like Jerome's idea." said Theo. "But I think it's the Carolyn love triangle thing. Thomas or Danny. Either had moments where they're unaccounted for." I nodded, then called upon Joanne.

"Sir," she said, "I like the Carolyn idea, but Teddy made a great point that she's not worth killing for. I was thinking that maybe there's another love interest around Maria Del Fuentes."

"Good thinking." I said. "Work that out a little better, and you might take that red crowbar away from Jerome."

Purvis said he thought it was Carolyn-related. He actually had no clue. Geiger said he liked Jerome's idea. Geiger had no clue, either. Grubby Paul restored some faith when he said "I'm thinking Seiko killed Ken, over drugs. Then someone killed Seiko, though I have no idea who." I commended Grubby on his original thinking, then turned to Mary.

"I'm thinking Thomas Cromwell." Mary said. "I'm not sure why. There's just something about him. He's always around. Hanging around the Commander. Part of the Carolyn love group, to coin a phrase, but maybe on the outside looking in. I dunno, I don't really have anything concrete..."

"The infamous 'smarmy vibe'." said Cindy. Mary grinned and nodded as I peered at her.

"Perlman?" I asked.

"I freely admit I have no idea, and not enough data, on Seiko." said Tanya. "On Ken, it's one of the actors banging Kevin's wife, or it was Kevin himself. There's a love triangle at work, here, though I would think it should be over Maria and not Carolyn. And that guides me more towards Danny, since Benny Black was with Todd and Teresa the whole time."

I looked at Ross. She looked back at me and just smiled a little smile.

"Chief, want to get in on this?" I asked.

"Noooooo." said Moynahan. "But I have observed two things. One is the lack of security cameras around the place. Amazing! So who has the power to prevent cameras from being set up, security like they have at their home studios?"

"Jerome, give up the red crowbar." I said. Jerome sent it down, and I handed it to the Chief. He examined it and tapped it in his hand.


"Feels good." said the Chief. "And my second observation has been of my Police Commander in all this. I think you already knowwwww, Commander... you're just looking for the proof to get a case into the Court sys-tmmmm." And with that, he handed the red crowbar back to me.

"No, I don't know for absolute sure." I said, taking my crowbar back. "But I will tell you all this: it's a love triangle, it's a job security thing, one of you in here is likely right... and I suspect Commander Ross will solve it before I do." Commander Ross could not hide a grin as she looked down at her notebook on the table.

"Can I borrow that crowbar?" asked Tanya. "So I can beat the answer out of the two of you?"

"Noooooo." I replied. "I need it. To defend myself from Tanks trying to run over me at high speeds..."

Part 12 - Sex and Suspects, Redux

"When you love a man as much as I love my husband," Laura said, "you want to give him the deepest, wettest, hottest blowjob you possibly can." She suited the deed to the word and slid her mouth down my throbbing hard shaft, then sucked hard as she slid her mouth back up.

"Mmmm, let me try." said Maria Del Fuentes. Laura let my cock out of her mouth with a *POP* and Maria eagerly swallowed it, sliding her mouth down to the root, deep-throating me, then sucking hard as she slid her full lips back up. The beautiful Latina began fellating me in earnest, and I groaned as the pleasure spread through my loins and up my spine.

We were in Maria's trailer. I had gone over there to find my wife, and I did indeed find her. I'd heard a 'Come in!' when I knocked, and when I went inside I found my wife and Maria in a soixante-neuf, Laura on top. She nodded as I began undressing and folding my clothes and setting them in a nearby chair.

Then I slid onto the bed between Maria's shapely legs. Laura raised up and planted her cunt firmly onto Maria's mouth as I eased up, stuck out my tongue, and slid it along the length of Maria's sopping wet slit. I heard the young Latina beauty moan, which spurred me on, and an instant later I was face-deep in Maria's cunt, hungrily eating her.

After several moments of this, Laura climbed off Maria. The young beauty grabbed my head and pushed her loins harder against my mouth as my tongue delved deep and scrubbed the upper wall of her vagina. It did not take much of that to make Maria's twat tighten as she cried out in orgasm...