“Hello? Did you hear the wife? Pines knew he took sleeping pills. He could have easily poisoned Jake.”

“Bender, people make mistakes with this kind of medication all the time. They take a few pills, get drowsy, forget how many they’ve had, and take a few more.”

“A handful? They take a handful more?”

He shrugged, conceding the point. “Okay, so what now?”

I leaned against the Hummer’s door, looking out at the busy shoppers pushing carts full of screaming kids and ground chuck.

“Think there’s any way we could get in to see Pines?”

“Don’t tell me you don’t have a prison connection?” Cal teased.

“Very funny. But I’m not exactly sure I’d be on the list of approved visitors.”

“Lucky for you, I happen to have a few friends in law enforcement.” Cal pulled out his phone. “Let me see what I can do.”

Five minutes later he hung up, a look of triumph on his face.

“So?” I asked.

“So, we can see Pines at five.”

I looked down at my watch. Two twenty.

“Let’s go back to the office.” As much as I was dying for that Mullins lead to land me on the front page, I still had a daily column to write. And since Pines wasn’t going anywhere, this seemed like an excellent time to do it.

I climbed into the Hummer as Cal beeped the doors open.

“So…Mary Ann Summers?” Cal asked, roaring the beast to life.

I grinned. “From Gilligan’s Island.”

Cal laughed as he slid his shades on. “I guess that makes me the Professor, huh?” He winked at me.

I didn’t have the heart to tell him he was more the Skipper type.

As soon as the elevator doors opened at the second floor, I ducked behind a partition, purposefully taking the long way around the office. The way that didn’t lead past Felix’s glass-walled office. While I was sure I was making headway tying Mullins’s death to Pines, I was far from having copy ready yet. And copy was the only language Felix understood.

I plopped back down at my desk (Unseen. Yes!) and listened to my voice messages for any hot tips I could spin into a quick column. Luckily I had four. The first one from my morgue guy telling me that, as Max had said, there was no official ME ruling on Mullins’s death yet. Bummer. But no ruling meant no one had ruled our murder yet, right?

As I listened through the next three messages, I realized they were all about the same story—Blain Hall allegedly fathering Cherry Chase’s baby. Mental forehead smack.

So, I tried to spin what I’d gleaned from my celebrity interrogations for column fodder.

THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY