"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."
"Is 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?"