Reunions and Revelations in Las Vegas: A Humorous Tiffany Black Mystery

by A. R. Winters

  “How well would you say you knew Norman?”

  “Not very. He and Beryl spent most of their time talking in her library—I mean, in here. I would just bring in their drinks and exchange some pleasantries.”

  “But you think he was just being nice to Beryl to get in her will.”

  “Yes.” She nodded primly.

  “We might have some evidence that helps prove that case.”

  “Oh?” Maeve leaned forward and narrowed her eyes. “What?”

  “Norman had a girlfriend. Or a lady friend, if you prefer, in Las Vegas.”

  “What?” Maeve blinked at us rapidly and shook her head. “No, he was divorced. That’s what Beryl said.” She corrected us quickly and confidently.

  “Exactly. He was divorced and looking to mingle. One of the other guests said they saw him on a date with a woman at an Italian restaurant.”

  Maeve’s brow furrowed. “They told you today? Not yesterday?”

  I nodded at her.

  “That strikes me as being rather odd. Surely they would have told you yesterday?”

  I shrugged. “They forgot.”

  “They forgot? How could they forget Norm? It’s not like there are many of us in the house.”

  “It is strange, isn’t it?” Ian said to her. “Do you think they might be lying to us?”

  Maeve paused a moment before giving us a hesitant nod. “That seems most likely. I’m sure Beryl would have said something if Norman had a lady friend of that sort.”

  “Unless he kept it a secret from her,” I said to her. “Which, if he was trying to get into her will, he would have, right?”

  “Yes. But I don’t believe someone would have forgotten to tell you that yesterday. It sounds like something they made up to cast suspicion elsewhere.”

  Maeve stared down at her hands, her lips pursed. It sounded like she was trying to convince herself as much as us.

  “You might be right. Maeve, is there anything new you can tell us? Have you seen, heard, or remembered anything new since last time we spoke?”

  “It was Roman, wasn’t it? Roman and Yumi.”

  “Hmm?” I said innocently.

  “That’s who told you about Norman.” Maeve nodded to herself. “I’ve seen them whispering to each other.”

  “What were they saying?”

  Maeve shook her head. “I didn’t hear. I’m sure I heard them mentioning Beryl, though.”

  “But nothing definite?”

  “No.”

  “Anything else?”

  “I don’t think so.” Maeve pulled a tight smile while she thought, then finally she shook her head again. “No, I’ve told you everything I can think of. I’ve nothing more to add.”

  A thump sounded as the front door of the house was opened with too much enthusiasm and met the wall.

  “Sounds like our salt spreaders and avalanche inspectors are back.”

  “And we didn’t even have time to join them and help out.” Ian swung a fist through the air. “Darn it.”

  I could have done the exact same motion, but in my case, it would have been entirely sarcastic. Staying in the nice warm house was clearly an eminently more sensible way to spend the afternoon.

  “I better make some coffee and get started on dinner.” Maeve stood up.

  We walked out of the library together to meet the returnees. I motioned for Uncle Joe to come toward the library.

  When the door was closed behind him, I asked, “Anything interesting to report?”

  “First, my back isn’t cut out for shoveling salt. Second, bags of road salt are heavier than they look.”

  I grinned at him and patted him on the shoulder. “Well done for making the effort. Anything else?”

  “We got to that narrow pass again. Sure enough, it was blocked off. There’re some smaller rocks and snow we’d be able to clear, but there were a couple of big boulders that would be beyond us. Maybe a truck could tow ‘em out, if you could get some chains or rope around ‘em.”

  “Could you see Norm’s Mercedes Benz?” Ian asked.

  “Yeah. It wasn’t actually hit by the avalanche, if it had been, he wouldn’t have been able to get out of the vehicle—he’d have been trapped by the rocks and the steep sides of the road there. But just before the pass, his car was off the road. Crashed right into a tree.”

  “Probably swerved when he saw the avalanche,” Ian said.

  “Or he got confused, saw the road was blocked, and thought he was heading off the road and turned in a different direction.”

  “Can’t say for sure,” Joe said. “We checked our phones—those of us who’ve managed to save a bit of battery, that is. Not me. I left mine switched on.” Joe shook his head to scold himself for the mistake. “Nothing. No signal at all.”

  “If we had let them go, do you think Roman and Yumi would have made the hike okay? How were the conditions?”

  Joe’s bottom lip pushed out, and he held out a hand, wavering it up and down. “Not good. It warmed up a bit, and now some of the snow’s melting. But it’s thick in places. They’d be wading through slush and slurry. We salted the road up to the avalanche, and it’s melting down good now. What we really need is a truck.”

  “Or a helicopter,” Ian said, nudging me.

  Joe gave me a curious look. “You don’t have a helicopter, do you?”

  I laughed. “I’m a private investigator, not a business tycoon.”

  “Her friend Jack has one though.”

  “Yeah, well he doesn’t even know we’re stuck here.”

  “Shame,” Joe said. “A friend like that would be mighty useful to us right now.”

  He was right, a friend like that would be useful—a Jack with his helicopter, or a Stone with his survival knowledge. But in the meantime, we’d have to make do with the friends, family, and others we were stuck with.

  “At least you guys have got me,” Ian told us.

  “Yep,” Joe said with an amused smile. “We do. Now. Do I smell coffee a-brewing?”

  “Let’s go get you a cup. You deserve it after today.”

  Status updated, and with some new clues we intended to keep in our pocket for the time being, we escorted Joe to the kitchen.

  We discovered that Maeve’s coffee was now better than ever.

  Or we were more desperate.

  Chapter Nineteen

  Ian and I sat beside each other for dinner that evening. We were both nervous about what was to come. It’s always that way when nearing the end of a case.

  Thanks to our discovery that afternoon, we’d managed to pull all the threads of the case together. We knew what had happened, and it was time to prove it.

  The dining room was looking homier than ever with the candelabras alight and a couple of our electric lanterns filling out the dimmer corners of the room. Maeve had cooked three roast chickens for us, claiming the deep freeze was beginning to defrost and she needed to make use of them. It was served alongside a medley of vegetables and some mashed potatoes that had been made with a sinfully decadent amount of butter, and a big jug of hot, rich brown gravy.

  The mood was cheery, and even Roman kept quiet rather than spoiling it for everyone else with his complaining. I bit my lip nervously at the thought of just how much more complaining he was going to do later that evening.

  Still, one last, happy meal before Ian and my wrecking ball would be swung through our little community.

  “Electricity’s really overrated, don’t you think?” Ian said somewhat philosophically to the table.

  “No,” was the almost unanimous response.

  “I mean,” Ian continued, oblivious, “look at us. We can cook without it—”

  “We?” Maeve asked.

  Ian did not hear. “And this lighting’s really atmospheric, isn’t it?”

  “I prefer reading with electric light,” Jini said. “It’s a lot easier on the eyes in the evening. I’m getting eye strain.”

  Ian shook his head at her. “No way! You’re no
t getting eye strain. You’re getting to train your eyes. Like going to the gym.”

  Jini gave him a skeptical look. “Consider me skeptical of that science,” she told him.

  “I’ll have to look into the specifics later,” Ian told her. “But it makes sense.”

  “How are you going to do that without your overrated electricity?”

  “I just mean, it’s nice to detox for a while.”

  Finally, he got the murmurs of agreement he was looking for.

  Yumi yawned and covered her mouth.

  “You need an early night,” Uncle Joe said to her. “Especially with that eye injury of yours.”

  “You should let me look at it,” Maeve said to her.

  Yumi shook her head at Maeve. “I just need some rest. After dinner, I’ll call it an early night.”

  Ian punched my leg under the table. Like I didn’t hear exactly what she’d just said. I punched him back.

  “Actually,” I said to the table at large, “we’d like to talk to everyone together in the drawing room after dinner.”

  “Why?” Roman snapped. “Today was exhausting, and we need to recover.”

  “Just spare us a few moments, Roman. Unless you have pressing engagements in the morning, I’m sure you can manage to stay up until eight o’clock or so, can’t you?”

  With a roll of his eyes, he reluctantly agreed.

  Ian gave me a nervous look and then shoveled another forkful of food into his mouth.

  The conversation around the table faded away. Everyone focused on eating. Either that or they were thinking about what Ian and I were going to announce.

  I know I was.

  * * *

  After dinner, everyone gathered in the drawing room as requested. Maeve wheeled in her trolley, with cups, glasses, port, fresh coffee, and hot chocolate.

  Uncle Joe and Marcus stoked the fire, and Jini closed the curtains to the room. Everyone knew we had something to say, and they all assumed it had to do with our investigation. There was an air of quiet expectancy in the room, and conversation was low while everyone got their drinks ready in anticipation.

  When everyone, including Maeve, was seated, Ian subtly walked to the drawing room door and proceeded to lock it with the key we had obtained from the housekeeper a little earlier.

  No one was leaving until we said they were.

  Things were about to get interesting.

  I raised my eyebrows at Ian a final time, to confirm he wanted to go through with this. He gave me a sharp nod. His natural goofiness seemed to melt away.

  This was business Ian.

  I let him take the lead.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Ian said from in front of the fire. “I’d like everyone’s attention.”

  Of course, he got it. This wasn’t exactly a difficult crowd to entertain as we reached our third night without electricity. The promise of a murderer-reveal on top of everything else was enough to get everyone on the edge of their seats, sipping their drinks nervously.

  I had brought my bag down with me that evening, and it sat on my lap. Inside was a can of mace—people mace, not like the bear mace Ian still had in his cargo pants pocket—and of course my firearm. I really, really hoped none of those supplies would be needed that evening. But you never knew. I was prepared.

  “Will this take long?” Roman asked.

  “It’ll take as long as it takes,” Ian told him. He clapped his hands together. “Yumi.”

  She was sitting on one of the sofas closest to the fire, so close to Roman that their legs touched. Her cheeks flushed, and her one good eye looked up at Ian. “Yes?” Her voice was as quiet and demure as ever.

  “Could you show us your eye?”

  Yumi shook her head at him. “I hurt it. I need to keep it covered up.”

  “She’s right,” Maeve said curtly. “And rest it.”

  “I suggest you back off,” Roman said.

  Ian slowly paced in front of the fire, his head slowly shaking, as a slow chuckle began to emerge from deep in his chest.

  “What?” Roman asked him. “What’s so funny?”

  “Oh, nothing.” Ian’s head whipped around to stare at Yumi. “But you didn’t hurt your eye, did you, Yumi?”

  “I hurt it with chopsticks,” she said quietly.

  “Ridiculous. You’re as graceful as a gazelle. There’s no way you would accidentally poke yourself in the eye with chopsticks. No, I put it to you, put it to you all, that Yumi has a specific reason for not wanting us to look her in the eyes.”

  Roman and Yumi sat in stony silence. The rest of the room were biting their lips or shaking their heads as they tried to figure out what Ian was getting at.

  I stood up. “The reason she doesn’t want us to look at her eyes is because they’re fake.”

  “Fake eyes?” Uncle Joe asked. “Can they do that?”

  “Not the eyes themselves, but the color,” I said to him.

  “Yumi. Why don’t you stand up and let everyone have a good look at you?”

  Yumi went to stand up. Roman pulled her by the hand, and she sat back down. I raised my eyebrows at her. With a small nod, she pulled her hand away from Roman’s and stood up. She turned to face the room.

  “This is ridiculous,” Roman complained.

  Yumi pulled off her eyepatch, and then blinked several times as her eyes readjusted.

  The effect was not as dramatic as I hoped. Without electric lighting, in the dimly lit drawing room, it was hard for everyone to see what it was they were looking at.

  “I guess her eye looks okay?” Marcus said to us, clearly confused.

  Yumi put her thumb and index finger to the eye that hadn’t been patched-over, and then pulled something away.

  Jini was the next closest. She leaned forward, squinting.

  “They’re green!”

  “That’s right,” Ian announced. “Yumi has been wearing colored contact lenses so we wouldn’t know she has green eyes.”

  Roman stood up beside his girlfriend, his cheeks red and lips quivering.

  “Great. Now you’ve embarrassed my girlfriend. What a wonderful group of people you are. Real nice. She wears colored contact lenses because she hates the attention she gets when people see her natural eye color.”

  From the looks on everyone’s faces, none of them bought it.

  “What does it mean?” Jini asked, directing her question to me and ignoring Roman’s complaint.

  I glanced at Uncle Joe. He was right on the edge of his seat, leaning forward, staring intently at Yumi. He had figured it out but didn’t quite believe it could actually be true.

  “Yumi is not Yumi.” I looked her in the eyes. “Are you?”

  She shook her head.

  “Of course she is,” Roman snapped. “Or do you think she’s going to pull off a mask and reveal herself to be Beryl?”

  “She just did pull off her mask,” I said to him. “And she revealed herself to be…”

  I nodded at the girl. When she spoke, her voice was confident and clear as a bell. The usual softness had turned to steel. “My name is Midori.”

  Uncle Joe stood up, his eyes wide. He slowly walked toward us. “Midori? Midori Midori?”

  The girl nodded at him, biting her bottom lip.

  “What’s going on?” Jini asked. “I don’t get it.”

  “Nor do I,” Maeve said. “Did you really all not know she was wearing colored contact lenses?”

  “She was, until she lost one this morning,” Ian said. “Hence the eyepatch.”

  Midori, formerly known as Yumi, nodded at him.

  Uncle Joe took Midori’s hand. “Is it true? Really? You’re Taki’s daughter?”

  Midori nodded at him.

  “You’ve grown so much!”

  “Yes,” she said, “I have, Grandpa.”

  “And that means Beryl was your grandmother?” Jini asked.

  “Technically, yes. In reality, no. She wasn’t a mother to my mother, and she certainly wasn’t a grandmo
ther to me. I didn’t know she even existed until a little over a year ago.”

  “It also means Yumi—I mean, Midori—is mine, Tiffany’s, and Amber’s adoptive half-second cousin once removed.” Ian rubbed his chin. “Or something like that. And that makes her Angel’s—”

  I cut him off with a look. That was a road we didn’t need to go down, especially since we didn’t even know what road it was.

  “You can sit down Yu—Midori,” I said to her.

  “I kind of liked Yumi,” she said with a smile before sitting. “She was fun to play.”

  “This is all very interesting,” Marcus said, “but is there a point to this? It sounds like family business.”

  “It is family business. Everything happening here is.” I turned to my partner again. “Ian?”

  “Around thirty years ago, Beryl had a business with Roman’s mother. She ripped her off, and instead of growing up rich, Roman grew up in dire poverty. He and his mother have been bitter ever since.”

  Roman glared at Ian but said nothing.

  “Midori’s mother was abandoned, along with Uncle Joe, by Beryl when she was a child. Midori too had a grudge against Beryl. Her own grandmother had abandoned her, and also refused to leave her anything in her will. The two of them decided to, in their opinion, make things right. By punishing Beryl. By killing her.”

  Joe stared down at his granddaughter in shock. She was sitting in stony silence.

  Joe stared at Ian and folded his arms across his chest. “I don’t believe it. Midori wouldn’t have done that.”

  Ian squeezed Joe’s shoulder. “Uncle Joe, you don’t know her. She may be your granddaughter, but you don’t know her.”

  Joe pursed his lips and continued to shake his head to himself. Whether he knew her well or not, he couldn’t believe his own granddaughter was a killer.

  Roman stood up and turned to face everyone as if addressing a jury. Midori sat back down on the sofa.

  “They have no evidence,” he said to our group. “Nothing.”

  “The knife?” Ian questioned.

  “Midori told you. It’s a Chinese knife, not a Japanese one.”

  “We’re supposed to take her word for it, are we?” Ian rubbed his chin as if considering the prospect. “That seems mighty convenient.”