“So, they’re together?”
“I’m sure they are.”
I glanced around the room, trying to understand what might have happened. The carpet, like the carpet in my room, was very plush. I remembered that it had the imprints of being vacuumed when we’d arrived. This carpet was now covered in footprints, between the sofas and the coffee table, behind the sofas. I wanted the footprints to tell me something, but they didn’t. Not really. I mean, it looked like they’d been walked on a lot. Did that mean something?
“Noah, how could this have happened? How could he be dead?”
I couldn’t actually see much of the balcony, since there were wall-to-wall drapes across the windows. Forcing myself, I walked to the sliding doors. From there, I could see the southern view of the strip. I could also see the top of the casino and the neon awning that greeted guests.
The outside furniture looked normal. The railing was well above my belly button, but Sonny was taller than I was. It would be easy to push him off. You wouldn’t even need to be that strong. You’d need a bit of surprise—
I’d broken out in a sweat and my stomach felt like a washrag being rung out. I had to get off the balcony, just not yet. I forced myself to keep looking around. I couldn’t see any indication that Sonny had gone off the balcony. No scuff marks, no footprints in the dust. Presumably, the balcony was cleaned before we arrived, so there wouldn’t have been any dust. Everything looked normal.
Gritting my teeth, I peeked over the railing and saw Marc and Louis in the parking lot below speaking with a white-haired man in a beige suit. He had to be a police detective.
And then there was a knock on the door. I jumped, which was unnerving standing there next to the railing. Breathing heavily, I backed into the suite. As I did, I began to cough.
9
Officer Louise Benton was the kind of girl k.d. lang liked to sing about: big-boned. She had brown hair pulled back tight and a wide face. She asked who we were and told us we’d need to leave the suite but remain in the hallway for a while.
When we realized she was sealing off the room, Aunt Katie begged to be allowed back inside to get some clothing. Reluctantly, Benton did just that. While we waited, she used a walkie talkie. I heard bits of her conversation: She gave someone our names, listened to instructions, then signed off. Aunt Katie hadn’t come back, so the officer stuck her head into the suite.
“Ma’am?”
A moment later, Aunt Katie popped out wearing black linen slacks, strappy sandals, a red Mexican peasant blouse and about a pound of turquoise jewelry. She was slipping a very large leather purse over her shoulder.
“I’m going to have to look through your bag, ma’am.”
“Oh, sure,” Aunt Katie said.
Officer Benton took the bag from her, and allowing it to hang open fingered through it. After what seemed like forever, she handed it back to Aunt Katie.
“I need you both to come downstairs with me,” Benton said. We followed without a word. I thought about trying to make conversation but that felt weird. Someone was dead. Small talk hardly seemed appropriate. Instead, Aunt Katie and I glanced at each other uncomfortably.
When we reached the casino, we followed Officer Benton through the clanking, blinking slot machines to a plain beige door marked EMPLOYEES ONLY. We went through, finding ourselves in a bright, barren hallway. Halfway down we turned into a small, windowless room with two tables, some plastic chairs and a couple of vending machines.
“Wait here, Mr. Valentine,” Benton said. Then turned to Aunt Katie she said, “Come with me, Ms. Bell.” I knew she was using our last names to establish authority, but it only made me feel like I was in high school. I tried to smile at her anyway. That earned me an angry glare.
They left the room, Benton shutting the door behind them. Despite the fact that it looked like an employee breakroom, I had the uncomfortable feeling this might be the place where they brought gamblers who welched on their debts. I mean, they had to make it look like something else, right? They couldn’t just put a sign on an empty room that said: BEATINGS HELD HERE.
The room had linoleum floors and glossy white paint on the walls. Easy to clean. Not to mention, it was absolutely silent. I couldn’t hear a thing—and that meant no one could hear me. Someone being tortured in the “breakroom” would go completely unnoticed.
I was left in there for nearly an hour—or what seemed like nearly an hour. There were no clocks in the room, which was odd since you’d think—oh, I found a hook high up on one wall. The police—or someone—had taken down the clock.
If it was the police, it could only mean one thing. They were sweating me. I think that was the term they used. When they thought someone was guilty, they’d leave them alone in a room for a long time. But why did they think I was guilty? I was twenty stories away from Sonny when he—oh shit, if they were sweating me then he didn’t fall. And he didn’t jump. He had to have been pushed.
Nervously, I checked my pockets for change. I had thirty-seven cents. Which was unfortunate. It was not enough for a candy bar. I could have bought a pack of gum, but I was afraid I’d turn into the wise-cracking, gum chewing bad guy.
Yes, I’ve seen too many movies. I may have mentioned that.
Finally, the door opened with a click. A tall thin man of about fifty walked in. He had thick, white hair and very dark eyes. His beige suit told me he was the same man I’d seen talking with Marc and Louis in the parking lot. He sat down at the table with me and took out a pad.
“I’m Detective Sergeant Brace Ryland.”
“Pleased—”
“You’re Noah Valentine?”
“Yes.”
“And your mother is Angelica Valentine?”
“She likes to be called Angie.”
“Mmm-hmm. Do you know where she is right now?”
“No. I don’t.”
He nodded like that was the right answer.
“Do you know where she is?” I asked, because I really did want to know where she was.
He stared at me a moment, then said, “You were standing with your friends, Marc and Louis, in the valet area when Sonny Leone fell from the twentieth floor. Is that correct?”
“It is.”
He said fell. Maybe I was wrong, maybe Sonny did just fall. But why would he fall—
“You left before I arrived. Why was that?”
“I went to look for my mother. I’m concerned—”
“Because you thought she might have something to do with Sonny’s fall?”
Ouch. He doesn’t think Sonny just fell. He’s using fall to mean pushed.
“No. I don’t think my mother had anything to do with Sonny’s fall.”
“Then what were you concerned about?”
“Well... I mean, Sonny was going to be her son-in-law. I thought she should know what happened. I thought she might be upset.”
“When did you realize Sonny had fallen from your mother’s suite?”
I couldn’t help frowning. He seemed to already know—
“When I looked up. I mean, people don’t fall sideways, do they?”
“I couldn’t say,” he said dryly, not even willing to concede that much. “Why do you think Sonny Leone fell from your mother’s suite?”
“I have no idea,” I said. Well, I didn’t, did I?
“Do you think it might have had to do with the money in the suitcase?”
I almost blurted out, “How do you know about that?” I mean, I didn’t think Marc or Louis would have said anything. Maybe Leon… Did he even talk to Leon? He had talked to Aunt Katie. I mean, I assumed he’d talked to her first. Would she have said something? I was reminded again how little I knew about her.
Calmly, I said, “The money was returned. Either before or after or possibly during, um, lunch or dinner or drunch—we ate at The Horseshoe Grill yesterday afternoon. Someone got into my mother’s suite, returned her bag, and took the suitcase with the money. The bags were swapped.”
&nbs
p; I was babbling which I knew made me look guilty, but I couldn’t help it. I wanted to be as exact as possible even though it made me look—
“You know that for a fact?” he asked.
“What? What do I know for a fact?” God, I’d even confused myself.
“That the money was returned.”
“I know that the money disappeared from my mother’s suite and that her suitcase was returned.”
“You don’t know that the money was returned.”
“Taken, then. We all thought it was Sonny’s. We thought he swapped the bags.”
“Why did you think that?”
“Well, he’s a lawyer from Chicago and his client owns Lucky Days.”
God that sounded lame when I said it to a policeman.
“How would he have gotten into the suite?”
“He knows the management.” Also lame.
“Did you consider the possibility that someone got your mother’s suitcase and that person returned it and took the money even though it wasn’t theirs.”
“And Sonny has that person’s suitcase? Like some kind of round-robin of wrong suitcases?”
“Yes, like that.”
“Um, no I didn’t think of that—wait, haven’t you searched Sonny’s room? Isn’t the money there?”
Not answering, he continued, “Have you considered that your mother’s bag could have gotten swapped with someone else’s bag at the airport and that the money doesn’t belong to anyone in your party.”
Oh my God, I thought, he has no idea where the money is. That means it wasn’t in Sonny’s room.
“How would they have known—”
“The Cotton family all had identical bags.”
“Yes. Cotton, I mean, Preston Cotton, bought them for everyone. Including my mother.”
“But not you?”
He had to rub that in, didn’t he? And then I remembered my mother reading out her claim check at the airport. It wasn’t the right number. Was Ryland right? Could her bag had been switched with a complete stranger?
“You thought the bag of money belonged to Sonny, but no one tried to return it to him. Why was that?”
“We assumed he’d brought the money to launder it. But, you know, we weren’t really sure, and it would have been awkward—”
“If you were wrong.”
“Exactly.”
“Why didn’t you call the police? Since you thought the money was illegally obtained?”
“Um, well—” I couldn’t remember anyone even bringing up the possibility of calling the police. “We didn’t know for certain the money was illegal. Or even whose it was.”
And we didn’t want to get whacked.
I continued, “We were really just holding onto it until we figured out whose it was.”
“Because it was awkward?”
“Yes.”
“And the money disappeared before you were certain.”
“That’s what happened.”
“How much do you know about Preston Cotton?” he asked.
“Very little. I met him yesterday. He’s a lawyer. He knew my mother and my Aunt Katie when they were young. He and my mother reconnected when he represented her in an insurance matter.”
“What kind of insurance matter?”
My stomach sank. I was having to tell him things that made my mother look bad. This was just like testifying against her. In fact, if he arrested her, I would have to testify against her.
“Um, she backed into a car at the supermarket,” I said.
“Repeatedly from what I understand,” Ryland said.
“Yes. How did you know that? You made it sound like you didn’t know where my mother is.”
“We don’t know where your mother is. I spoke to Mr. Cotton.”
“Wait, they’re not together?”
“No. They’re not.”
10
As soon as Detective Sergeant Brace Ryland told me I could leave, I began looking for my mother. Where would she have gone on her own? I knew from Aunt Katie that she was last seen at breakfast. I didn’t remember her saying what time they finished, but she did say that she herself had gone for a swim. Had she swum for an hour? Had they finished breakfast sometime around ten? Or nine-thirty?
I was standing dumbly next to a slot machine trying to figure it all out, when a cocktail waitress walked by in an absurdly short green-and-gold minidress. I stopped her and asked the time. It was just before one o’clock. My mother had been missing three or three and a half hours.
Where could she be for that amount of time? What could she be doing? Then I wondered, had she called me? I realized I needed to go upstairs to my room to see if there was a message. I started toward the elevators.
What if she hasn’t called? Should I call the concierge and ask to have her paged? Has anyone done that already? Can they even do that? I mean, they could in the movies but in real life? I had no idea.
I was standing at the elevator having already pressed the up button when I heard, “There you are!”
I turned and there were Marc and Louis. Marc continued, “We have been looking everywhere for you.”
“I was being interviewed by that detective. Ryland.”
“Oh yeah, he seemed nice enough,” Louis said. “Conscientious.”
“But his name,” Marc said. “Brace. I wonder if his parents were hoping for a soap opera star.”
The elevator rang and we stepped in. Two other people got in as well: a middle-aged couple with ferocious sunburns and designer everything. I didn’t say anything until they got off at twelve.
“Ryland left me alone in the employee break room for more than an hour. Sweating me.”
“Really?” Marc said. “Well he can’t have thought you were involved. We told him you were standing with us.”
“He thinks my mother did it.”
“Angie! That’s insane.”
“I know, right?” I said, quickly following with, “He wanted me to give up my own mother. You haven’t seen her, have you? I need to find her.”
“I’m sure she’s with Cotton,” Louis said.
“And I’m sure Cotton is with Becky,” Marc added. And that all made sense, except...
“Ryland interviewed Cotton. She wasn’t with him. In fact, he didn’t know where she was.”
We arrived at the twentieth floor. I couldn’t help noticing that crime scene tape had been put up across all the doors of my mother and Aunt Katie’s suite. A reminder of the tragedy that had happened in there. A tragedy my mother probably didn’t even know about yet.
“I need to check my phone to see if my mother’s left a message,” I said as I walked toward my suite. Rather than going to their suite, Marc and Louis followed me. I dug out my key and opened the door.
In the few moments it took to walk across the living room into my room, I noted that things looked different. The guest closet next to the entrance was open, the cushions on the sofas looked like they’d been taken off and put back on, the entertainment center was also open, and the drapes had been pulled completely back.
In my room, the scene was similar. The closet stood wide open, the drawers to the dresser were hanging open, my bag from The Accidental Tourist sat on my bed—which was not where I’d left it.
“The police have been in here. The room has been searched,” I said.
“Obviously,” Louis agreed.
The message light on the beige desk phone next to my bed was blinking. Thank God!
I hurried over and read the instruction on the phone. I pressed the necessary buttons to retrieve my messages. There were three. One of them had to be from my mother.
The first, though, was from Robert: “Hi Noah, I’m with Tina. I want to give you guys a backstage tour of Wilma’s show. Will you be around at three o’clock? If you are, just come to the theater. I’ll be there.”
The second was from Cotton: “Noah, this is Cotton. I can’t find your mother. Something terrible has happened. You may already know. I’m sor
ry, I can’t say it. It’s just too awful. If you hear from your mother tell her I’m with Becky and Reba. The girls are—well, have Angie call or come down.”
The last message was a woman’s voice: “You have to stop it. Don’t let it happen. It cannot happen.” Then she hung up.
“Oh my God,” Marc said, “Who was that woman?”
“That was the red-haired woman,” I said.
“You mean Bozo the Clown?” Louis asked.
“Yes, her.”
“She reminds me of Sweeney’s wife,” Marc said. We’d mistakenly attended a nonmusical version of Sweeney Todd in a postage stamp theater on a side street in Hollywood. It wasn’t a good show, but the woman playing Sweeney’s wife had made a strong impression.
“She’s not that lewd,” I pointed out. “But otherwise, yeah, she’s a lot like that.”
“What do you think she’s talking about?” Louis asked. “What does she want stopped?”
“I have no idea. When she grabbed me in the casino, I had no idea she knew who I was. I thought it was random.”
“But it’s not random,” Marc said. “She must know your name. I mean, in order to call your room—”
“So she probably knows Cotton, as well,” suggested Louis. “It’s not random that she was talking to him.”
“She’s talking about the wedding, isn’t she?” Marc guessed. “You have to stop it. Don’t let it happen… that has to be the wedding.”
“Unless she means Sonny’s death,” Louis said. “When did she call?”
“After Cotton, so Sonny was already dead. Although she might not have known. Who do you think she is?”
“Cotton’s ex, probably,” Louis said. Marc nodded his head in agreement. “I wonder if the Cotton girls know she’s here.”
“We’re going to need to ask them,” Marc said.
“Yeah, but not right now,” I said, a little horrified at the thought. Actually, I was a little horrified at the thought of seeing them at all, no less asking whether Bozo the Clown was their mother.
“Where do you think Angie is?” Louis asked.
“I don’t know. I’m getting nervous.”
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