Just Deserts in Las Vegas

by A. R. Winters

  “Did you hear anything about a one-eyed man with a white horse?”

  Pepper laughed, but then quickly fell back into moroseness. “Oh. Yeah. Nanna mentioned him. He’s called Eagle-Eye Bill. He and Abner don’t get along from what I heard.”

  “Did you ever meet him? Do you think he could have wanted to harm your Nanna?”

  “I never met him. But if Nanna really was killed, it must have been one of those rednecks out there. Abner, or Bill, or someone else.”

  Ian caught Pepper’s eye and leaned in like he was trying to read her.

  “Pepper, what did Dylan think of your Nanna?”

  Pepper’s eyes fell back to her knees.

  “He loved her.”

  “Really?” Ian asked incredulously.

  “Sure. She was my Nanna, and Dylan loves me, so he loved her too. He had to.”

  “But did he really?” Ian asked again. “I mean, she was mean to him. We heard her yelling at the two of you after he proposed.”

  “You… you heard that?” Pepper asked, looking up at Ian with a look of disappointment or betrayal. “You were eavesdropping?”

  “It was hard not to hear,” I said trying to smooth things over. “You were all being very loud. Of course we didn’t want to eavesdrop, so we got Abner to open up the saloon, so we could get some distance. But before that, we could hear the yelling.”

  “Nanna was just surprised, that’s all. I think she was shocked by the suddenness of the proposal. She loved Dylan, really. She would have come around. I know it. For me.”

  While I was sure Pepper knew her grandmother better than any of us, I found it hard to believe she was right about this. I’d heard and met her Nanna, and she didn’t seem like the type to change her mind about people. Pepper was either lying or had a very different image of her grandmother than the rest of us did.

  “What about your friend Rachel?” Ian asked. “Your Nanna upset her too.”

  “Rachel?” Pepper shook her head. “Oh, that was just a silly misunderstanding. Water under the bridge, that’s what Nanna said.”

  “Rachel seemed pretty annoyed.”

  “I guess Rachel holds grudges. But that stuff all happened years ago when we were in high school. We’ve all grown up now.”

  “What exactly happened between them?”

  “Rachel worked for Nanna back when she had her chain of ice cream stores. Nanna thought she was stealing and fired her. Rachel claimed she wasn’t.” Pepper shrugged. “These things happen. And like I said, it was years ago.”

  I drummed my fingers on my knees. Pepper was right in that it seemed like an unlikely motive for murder. But I got the feeling there was more to the Rachel and Nanna story that I wasn’t quite seeing. We needed to speak to her as soon as we could.

  “Ta-da!” Angel yelled.

  Angel was standing proudly in front of the board, upon which she had drawn a series of stickmen shooting at each other. It was pretty gruesome for a toddler, in my opinion, but she wanted praise and it would have been rude to deny her it. Ian and I both offered her a round of applause.

  Angel hopped off the chair and hurried toward us. In each of her fists, she was gripping an uncapped marker.

  “Sofa draw!”

  “No!” Pepper shrieked in a way that reminded me of her wail on discovering her dead grandmother’s body.

  Ian handily intercepted Angel, snatching her up by the waist and lifting her into the air, earning a couple of black marks in the process—literal ones, as Angel drew on his cheek before he could disarm her.

  “No drawing on the sofa, Angel,” I said to her gently. I had been worried that Pepper’s shriek might have upset her, but it hadn’t in the slightest. She was grinning with delight. I turned back to Pepper, who was now standing beside us looking worried.

  “Where’s Dylan’s gig?”

  Since it wasn’t yet midday it seemed like a rather odd time for a musician to be performing. But then Dylan had claimed he didn’t want to sell out, so who knew what kinds of gigs he did?

  Pepper explained to me that he was in a nearby park.

  “Really? What’s going on there? Is there some kind of event he’s performing at?”

  “Umm, no. It’s more like an… impromptu concert.”

  An impromptu concert. In a park. On a weekday. In the morning. I could think of another word for that. “He’s busking?”

  Pepper looked pained. “He’s not busking—he’s performing. He’s not a sellout, you see, so this is how he gets the word out about his music. He’s just doing it until he finds the right deal, one that gives him the kind of creative freedom that he needs.”

  “Sounds like busking to me,” Ian said with a happy smile.

  “Well, it’s not,” Pepper insisted.

  “Thanks for the information. We’ll let you get on with your day. If you think of anything that could help us figure out what happened to your Nanna, you’ll let us know, won’t you?”

  “Of course. But please, you’ve got to look at those old redneck guys. It wasn’t any of my friends. It couldn’t have been.”

  “We’ll explore all avenues,” I assured her. “Come on Ian, Angel. Let’s go.”

  Ian carried Angel as we left, me following right behind. Angel grinned at me over Ian’s shoulder and then lifted one hand.

  “Pow! Pow!”

  A double-tap, right to Pepper’s head by way of farewell.

  Angel was delighted to be at the park, and immediately misidentified a flock of pigeons as piggy-birds. To be fair, she wasn’t far off in either the vocabulary or the description.

  The park had several paths leading from each corner to a central area in which there was an ornamental fountain. Pepper had told us that was where we would find Dylan.

  We arrived at the fountain, but there was no sign of Dylan or any other buskers—I mean, performers. There was an older woman feeding some of the piggy pigeons with crumbs from a plastic bag who looked like she might have been there for a while.

  “Excuse me, ma’am? I was wondering if you saw a guy with a guitar performing.”

  “The homeless busker? Oh, yes. He’s here every Tuesday and Thursday morning.” The lady looked at the fountain, and waved a fingerless-gloved hand and pointed. “He’s usually right there.”

  “He ran off,” said another late-middle-aged woman who had the air of someone eager to talk about anything and everything and had just found the opportunity. “Not five minutes ago. He answered the phone, and then he shoved it in his pocket and packed up! Whoosh.” She narrowed her eyes at me. “Are you an undercover cop? If so, I can tell you where to find all the buskers. In fact, I could go undercover. I’m very good at—”

  “No, no, we’re not cops. The guy’s just a friend of a friend and we were hoping to catch him is all. Thanks, both of you, you’ve been very helpful. Come on, Ian. Let’s go to the playground.”

  “Yay!”

  Ian and I took Angel to one of the playgrounds. There were two right next to each other, one for little children like Angel, and one for bigger, school-aged children.

  While Ian and I sat down on a bench, Angel began to run around.

  Ian slapped his hand down hard onto my knee. “Look!”

  “Oww!”

  Ian was pointing to the other side of the playgrounds, where a bench was set under a large palm tree. Sitting on it was a man in a suit who looked familiar.

  “Is that…?”

  I stood up, leaving Ian to watch Angel while I quickly crossed the playground. It was hard to tell if it was who I thought it was from that distance, but the man looked strikingly familiar.

  The bench-sitter glanced in my direction and then quickly stood up. He didn’t meet my gaze or acknowledge my presence, but with abrupt swiftness turned and hurried away to the other side of the park.

  “Hey!” I called after him. He didn’t hear, or pretended not to, and carried on.

  “Look! Look!”

  I glanced over my shoulder to see Angel, balance
d on the roof of a little cabin that sat on top of the slide. Children were definitely not supposed to be on top of that part of the apparatus, and she looked to me in a very unstable position.

  “Uh-oh!” Angel began windmilling her arms. I sprinted toward her, while Ian shot to his feet and hurried at her from the other direction. Like me, Ian had been staring after the man on the bench. Angel had only taken a few seconds to monkey her way to the roof of the structure.

  She toppled off the top of the structure, straight into my arms. I stared at her, horrified, mouth agape, imagining what would have happened if I hadn’t rushed over.

  “Whee! Fun!” she shouted in my face.

  “No… no. Not fun. Not fun.” I’d seemingly lost my ability to make proper sentences.

  Then Ian was there, taking Angel out of my arms like it was my fault she’d nearly fallen off the roof of the slide.

  When we’d all calmed down a little, Ian and I sat down again, both of us keeping our eyes firmly locked on Angel.

  “That sure looked like Hunter Hardwick on the bench,” I said to him without taking my eyes off our young charge for even an instant.

  “That’s who I thought it was.”

  “But it looks like he’s gone deaf.”

  “You think?” Ian asked, puzzled.

  “No, not really. He ignored me when I shouted.”

  “Ohh!”

  “That’s two guys who seem to be avoiding us today. First Dylan, now Hunter.”

  “That must be your ladylike charm,” Ian said with a grin.

  I smacked him on the leg. “Ha, ha.” I sounded it out to make very clear that I was not in the slightest bit amused. “So what do we think? Dylan got a call from Pepper warning him we were coming. And then Hunter saw us and ran off too?”

  “That sure looks like what happened. I mean, if that was Hunter.”

  We sat in contemplative silence, neither of us able to come up with a good explanation for the behavior of either of the two men. None except the pair of them being murderers avoiding the detectives, that is.

  “I guess he could have been on his lunch break,” Ian said finally. “Getting some fresh air.”

  “Followed by some speedwalking practice when he saw me coming for him.”

  Ian snorted.

  “Right. Let Angel play for a few more minutes, then we’ll get going. We’ve got a lot more people to speak to.”

  I pulled out my cellphone. In fact, I could begin right away.

  Chapter Thirteen

  While Ian pushed Angel on the swing, I called Simone. She picked it up before the first ring had even finished.

  I told her who it was, and that I’d been hired by Carl Watson to investigate the death of his mother. I asked Simone if she was available to meet with us.

  “Umm, meet with you? When?”

  “This afternoon?”

  “Umm.” Simone paused. “Can you come out to Macau?”

  “What?”

  “I’m on a flight right now. Dad says I have to get to know the casino industry, and there’s a conference on, so I’m heading to Macau. Can you come?”

  I imagined handing over an expense sheet to Carl Watson with flight to Macau and hotel listed. Somehow I thought that might be pushing reasonable expenses a little too far.

  “No, Simone, I can’t fly to Macau. I’ll speak to you when you get back, okay?”

  “Oh, okay, sure. Ciao!”

  She must be going to the same conference that Jack was at. Thinking of which, I decided to give Emily a call. She, along with some of the Tremonte staff, was looking after Bridget for the rest of the week. It would be good to catch up with her while Jack was away.

  While the phone rang, I watched as Ian played with Angel, pretending to push her higher and higher as she demanded, but making his pushes weaker than they could have been so she didn’t soar too high.

  “Hey,” Emily said, sounding tired when she answered. “What’s going on?”

  “Nothing special. Just investigating a new case. Thought I’d check in and see if Bridget’s being good.”

  Emily laughed. “Of course, she’s an angel.”

  I had to cover my mouth from laughing while I watched an entirely different Angel happily swinging away.

  “Any news from Jack about… anything?” There was silence on the other end of the phone. It lasted so long I began to think I’d been disconnected. “Emily?”

  “I… yeah.” Emily sighed but I couldn’t tell if it was one of annoyance, exhaustion, or resignation. “Can we meet later for coffee? I want to—I need to talk to someone about it.”

  “About what?”

  There was another, shorter silence. “Let’s just meet later. I’ll text you when I get off work.”

  “Okay. Is everything all right, Emily?”

  “Not really. We’ll talk later. Gotta go.”

  Emily hung up before I could press her any further. She was upset about something. I was pretty sure it wasn’t Bridget, which meant that it must have to do with Jack.

  Did that mean it was connected to Ryan and Stone too?

  I put my phone back in my bag, trying to shake the dread that had settled in.

  I couldn’t let myself give in to that feeling. I needed to keep moving.

  “Ian!” I called. “Let’s get going!”

  I got through to Rachel on the phone, but I didn’t ask her about her husband and why he may have been running away from us in the park. I would save that question until I could look at both of their faces while I asked it.

  She, unsurprisingly, wasn’t available to meet during the day time due to work. We’d have to catch up with her either early one morning or late in the evening. I told her I’d get back to her about that. I already had plans to meet Emily tonight.

  With our options limited, we decided to go and see Abner. Carl didn’t have a phone number for him on his list of contact details, but he had given me his address. It was a few miles outside Silver Bend, near the highway, but far from any other semblance of modern civilization.

  “What if he’s not there?” Ian asked after we had Angel safely strapped into the back seat.

  “If he’s not there, then I guess we can go over to Silver Bend again and see if there’s anything that sparks any new ideas.”

  “I know! We could try and find Eagle-Eye Bill.”

  “Yeah, that too. Come on. Ready, Angel?”

  “Ready! Ready!”

  Ian sat in the back with Angel, just in case, as he put it. It was almost alarming how good of a pseudo-parent figure he was. He may not have been great at looking after himself, but he sure was good with Angel. It made me feel almost proud of him, in a way. And I was grateful he hadn’t roped me into being Angel’s primary caregiver when Amber wasn’t around.

  The drive was uneventful, mostly because both Ian and Angel spent most of it asleep. They both woke at the same time as we left the highway onto the kind of road which my car really didn’t like: an unpaved, pothole-strewn one. As soon as we started bouncing down the trail, Ian and Angel were both shaken awake.

  “Stop it!” Angel demanded from the back seat.

  “Yeah, it’s a bit bumpy, Tiff.”

  “There’s nothing I can do about that. I’m going slow. Look, there it is, just ahead. Quit complaining.”

  I pulled up outside a ramshackle old wooden house that was like a bigger, more ancient version of the cabins Horrible Nanna had built at Silver Bend.

  After I exited the vehicle, the front door of the house slowly swung open. I breathed out a breath I didn’t realize I was holding when Abner stepped outside. He stared at me for just a second too long, before raising a hand in a wave of greeting.

  Ian emerged from the backseat, along with Angel, and the three of us walked up to Abner’s home.

  “Afternoon.”

  “Hi, Abner. It’s me, Tiffany—”

  “I know who you two big ‘uns are.” He stared down at Angel. “Who are you?”

  “Angel!” th
e little girl shouted.

  That made Abner chuckle. “What a name.” He turned to look back at me. “What can I do you for?”

  “We wanted to chat.”

  He narrowed his gaze. “Chat? Old Abner don’t get many folk comin’ to see him to chat.”

  “We’re detectives,” Ian said. “We’re investigating the murder of Mrs. Watson.”

  Abner stared at him. “Murder, huh? Well, come on up here.”

  Abner was speaking to us from the porch of his little house. He sat down in a rocking chair and waved a hand toward two old, straight-backed wooden chairs that looked less comfortable than where he now had himself ensconced. With scrapes against the wooden floor, Ian and I pulled up the chairs and sat down, Angel sitting on Ian’s lap.

  “Murder, huh. Seems the sheriff wants it written up as an accident.”

  “Really?” I said in disbelief. “The fire marshal agreed with me about—”

  “Yeah, yeah. I know. I agree with you, too. That nest wasn’t put in there by no bird. And what kind of nest was that? Twigs, cloth, even a plastic bag jammed down there. But that sheriff ain’t interested. His office is over a hundred miles away. As far as he’s concerned, it was an accident. If it wasn’t birds, then it was the wind, or a prank gone wrong. He ain’t interested.”

  “So you agree the chimney was deliberately stuffed, and she was killed?”

  Abner slowly rocked back and forth, letting himself complete two full arcs before responding. “Mighta been someone tryin’ to warn her. Or maybe they wanted her dead.”

  “And why would they want to warn her? Did she have any enemies in the area?”

  Abner made a show of looking off into the distance and scanning the horizon. “Ain’t too many people to make enemies with ‘round these parts.”

  That might have been true, but it didn’t answer the question.

  “What about Eagle-Eye Bill?”

  Abner stopped his rocking by placing both feet firmly on the floor.

  “Forget about him.”

  “Who is he? Did he have any disagreements with Mrs. Watson?”