Ms America and the Villainy in Vegas (Beauty Queen Mysteries No. 2)

by Dempsey, Diana

  We make it to the collection window. As Shanelle pockets her cash, I quiz the clerk about Cassidy and he tells me he’s already seen her that morning. We’re to keep our eyes peeled for a brunette with short hair.

  Long hair is a feature of most of the women serving drinks so it’s easy to spot her. Taking in a view from across the casino, I whisper to Shanelle. “That outfit might be even tackier than our showgirl costumes.”

  Cassidy is sporting a too-tight-to-breathe burlesque-style corset, a teeny-tiny ruffled tutu skirt, and a bowtie choker that matches the silk straps on her cigarette tray. Like Shanelle and me the prior day, she’s also wearing fishnets and gloves that rise above the elbow. She looks one sly wink away from landing on her back, no doubt a tip-doubling strategy.

  Since the alcohol is flowing even though it’s 11 AM on Sunday, she’s flitting from one customer to the next.

  “You planning to accost her?” Shanelle asks me.

  “I intend to offer my condolences. Then make a probing inquiry or two.”

  We sidle closer to wait for an opening. It comes when Cassidy asks what’s our pleasure. “Grapefruit juice?” I suggest.

  She looks at me like I’m an invader from an alien planet.

  “We don’t really want drinks,” I confess. “I’m Happy Pennington and this is Shanelle Walker. We were bridesmaids at the wedding Danny stood up for yesterday.”

  Her eyes widen. She backs away a few steps. “I don’t know anything about that.”

  This surprises me. “You didn’t know Danny was standing up at a wedding?”

  “I don’t know anything about anything. He never told me anything.” As she says this, she’s whipping her head around like she’s looking for an escape.

  This is one Nervous Nellie. “Well, be that as it may, we just wanted to say how very sorry we are about Danny.”

  “What did I just tell you?” Her voice hardens. “I feel bad and all about Danny but we weren’t soul mates or anything. So save it.”

  Even though I wasn’t expecting an outpouring of grief, I’m taken aback. “It’s still a shock for you, I’m sure. I’m sorry you have to work today.”

  “Yeah, well, I had to yesterday, too. It’d be nice to say I’m too freaked to be here but the economy sucks and I can’t lose this job.” She eyes me like she knows I have more professional latitude than she does and it ticks her off. “So if you don’t wanna start a tab—”

  “We’ll start one! We’ll take … mimosas.” Even churchgoers drink those. “And maybe I can help you with the whole reality-show thing.” I remember Sally Anne telling me about Cassidy’s desire to land a reality-show gig. And even though I feel Shanelle’s questioning gaze on my face, I have a secret plan and I aim to put it into action.

  “You can get me on a reality show?” Cassidy’s eyes narrow. “How?”

  “I can help get you on one,” I specify. “I am very proud to say I am the reigning Ms. America. Shanelle here is Ms. Mississippi. We have connections in Hollywood.”

  “We do?” Shanelle says.

  “Mario Suave!” I cry. I wouldn’t mind an excuse to contact him, truth be told. “I could make a few calls,” I inform Cassidy, and then go in for the kill, so to speak. “How about Shanelle and I come to your place when your shift is over to talk about it?”

  Cassidy sets her hand on her hip. “You for real?”

  “Totally! Totally for real.”

  She shrugs as if she only half believes me, which is wise on her part, then glances around again and jots something on an old receipt. She slips it to me and I see it’s an address. “Be there after six.” She pauses, then, “Just so you know, it’s not like I didn’t give a flyer about Danny. It’s just that we were having a good time more than anything else.” She stops speaking and I realize she’s one false eyelash away from bursting into tears.

  “I understand.” I reach out to touch her arm but the show of emotion has already passed.

  “You know I finaled once for Survivor so it’s not like I’m some no hoper.” She moves away toward an actual customer. “I’ll get to L.A. one way or the other.”

  We watch her sashay away. Shanelle harrumphs. “I wonder if she thought mowing down her boyfriend would get her to La La Land faster.”

  The same thought occurs to me. But I’m trying hard to keep an open mind.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Shanelle and I make the bold decision to venture outside the Cosmos Hotel. We grab a few necessities from our rooms and sally forth into 95-degree heat and full-on desert sun.

  The sidewalks on the Strip are wide and jam-packed with tourists and hucksters. It’s noisy as all get-out. Music blares from invisible speakers, women blow whistles to draw you to their storefront, men either sidle close to whisper a proposition or just shout it from yards away. Many of the hotels are built around some theme so we pass one faux edifice after another. Here’s the “Eiffel Tower.” Next is “New York, New York.” Behind us: Egypt’s “Sphinx.” Across the boulevard is a “castle” from the “Middle Ages.” Everything is huge and gaudy as can be. And everywhere are billboards the size of high rises advertising the current crop of shows, all limited to ninety minutes so tourists aren’t kept too long from emptying their wallets at the casinos.

  “There was something weird about that conversation with Cassidy,” I shout to Shanelle, because even though she’s right next to me there’s no way she could hear me otherwise.

  “You’re telling me!” We weave around a bikinied girl on a unicycle handing out casino coupons. “What in the world kind of nonsense were you spewing about reality shows?”

  That is not the weirdness I was referring to. “Sally Anne told me Cassidy is desperate to be on a reality show so I used that as a way to get invited to her apartment.” After all, Cassidy was Danny Richter’s hottie, as Sally Anne would say. Who knows what clues to his murder we could find at her place? On Oahu, I got myself into murder victim Tiffany Amber’s hotel room and gleaned a valuable tidbit or two.

  Shanelle casts me an accusing look. “So we’re invading that bereaved girl’s personal space on false pretenses?”

  “Not entirely false. We do know Mario Suave and he does host America’s Scariest Ghost Stories. Besides, half an hour ago it sounded like you thought Cassidy was more ‘suspicious’ than ‘bereaved.’ ”

  “I’m giving her the benefit of the doubt.” Shanelle stops and arches her brows. “And I’m trying to do the same with you.” She pauses, then, “I’m starting to wonder if Ms. Happy Pennington is itching to have some one-on-one time with Mario Suave again, like she did in Honolulu.”

  “I never had one-on-one time with him!”

  “Um hm.” She eyes me. “Not that you didn’t think about it.”

  “Thinking is different from doing.” I walk on ahead. I tell myself it’s because I don’t want my skin to cook in the sun but really it’s because I don’t want Shanelle giving me that penetrating look she’s so darn good at. “Mario and I have a professional relationship,” I assert. “It is completely appropriate for me as the Ms. America titleholder to call him, the pageant emcee, and ask for his advice on how someone could get on a reality show. After all, he is a Hollywood insider.”

  And now that there’s been a murder, I could ask for guidance on that, too. Though Shanelle doesn’t know it, Mario has expertise in that area as well.

  “You don’t want to go encouraging that man,” Shanelle tells me, ignoring the fact that I’ve walked on ahead pretending not to listen. Somehow, now that it’s something I don’t want to hear, her voice carries loud and clear. “Because he likes you, girl. You got no business stoking that fire if you intend to douse the flames.”

  Now, let me clarify a few things, lest you get the idea that Happy Pennington is prone to playing fast and loose with her marital vows. I am a faithful wife to Jason. I always have been and I always will be. Not to mention that I love my husband.

  That said, I will not deny that I am flattered when a devastatingly h
andsome, successful man clues me in that he finds me attractive, and not just “for one thing and one thing only,” as my mother would say. It gives me a boost, and a girl needs that kind of boost once in a while. Even a beauty queen, who, I will admit, is the beneficiary of a fair amount of male attention.

  I also learned a thing or two about Mario Suave while we were on Oahu. It turns out that not only is he a sought-after television host, he works for the FBI. He packs heat and carries a badge and helps nab bad guys. How exciting is that? He helped me out big-time when things got a trifle hairy with Tiffany Amber’s killer, and then he confessed his secret agent job.

  Meaning: he trusts me to keep important information private. Also meaning: I feel closer to him because I know something about him that almost nobody else does. And thirdly: I feel a particular kinship with him now, because he too harbors a fascination with matters criminal. For me it’s only matters homicidal, but you get the drift.

  Anyway, it’s rare when a man like Mario Suave comes around—actually, in my case, it’s never—and without trying to, he makes you think about the road not taken. That is not always the most comfortable thing to ponder. He makes me wonder what my life might have been like if I hadn’t gotten pregnant at 17 and married Jason and remained within the confines of the greater Cleveland area.

  With these disquieting notions in my head, Shanelle and I arrive at our destination, a hotel whose pool is open to all and sundry on Sunday afternoons but that is on particular lookout for hard bodies like us. (At least when we’re not feasting on beef and bear claws.) It is THE place to be in Vegas because the pool action is televised on cable. I can’t help but think Cassidy would be here right now if she weren’t punching a time card.

  It’s a gigantic expanse of chlorinated water that flows like a river, banked by real sand and punctuated by swim-up blackjack tables. A famous DJ blasts tunes over a mob that numbers in the thousands. Big screens project the action, some of which is R-rated. I have never seen this many oil-slicked half-naked bodies outside pageant competition.

  Shanelle and I are stripping down to our neon bikinis when an amazingly buff black guy in blue and green plaid board shorts, his hair in dreadlocks, comes up to us. “I’m with the DJ and he would like to know the names of you two fine ladies. I wouldn’t mind knowing them myself,” he adds, and gives Shanelle a wink.

  She speaks up. “You tell your DJ this is Happy Pennington, the reigning Ms. America, and I’m Shanelle Walker, Ms. Mississippi.”

  “Ooh, genuine beauty queens!” He pronounces it JEN-you-wine. “Well, feel free to make yourselves at home, ladies. I’ll stop by later to make sure you’re doing all right.” With another wink and a grin, he’s off.

  Shanelle and I eventually find an unoccupied inch on which to sunbathe. “I must be getting old,” I say as a nearby couple gets way cozier than I care to witness. “This is almost too much for me.”

  “What did we used to call it?” Shanelle rolls out her striped pool towel. “A meat market.”

  I realize as we slather ourselves with sunblock that I am woefully out of place by not sporting even a tiny tattoo. They’re frowned upon in the pageant world because they “detract from natural beauty,” we’re told.

  And everyone knows how naturally we queens achieve our appearance.

  “I just thought of what I wanted to tell you about Cassidy,” I shout, even though I’m right next to her. It’s even louder here than on the Strip. “When we first met her and said we had been at Sally Anne’s wedding, her reaction was downright bizarre.”

  “It was like that girl was petrified.”

  “Exactly! She acted like she wanted to get away from us when I would have expected her to want to know every last detail about what happened to her boyfriend.”

  “And what was all that business about, I don’t know anything about anything? He never told me anything? That was weird.”

  I struggle to sort out exactly why. “It was like she knew Danny was into something bad and she wanted to deny all knowledge of it.”

  “You consider her a suspect?” Shanelle asks me, as if I were Vegas 5-0.

  “Well, those closest to the victim are always the most likely suspects.”

  I’m mulling over just how short the suspect list is when I realize that somewhere between the Cosmos Hotel and here, somebody called my cell phone. Of course with all the noise I never heard it ring and I can’t hear the voicemail now. I do ascertain that Magnolia Flatt is the caller.

  Pageant business, that means. This queen is all over it.

  I tell Shanelle I’ll be back, grab my cover-up, and seek quieter pastures. I have to go as far as the hotel ladies’ room, where I note framed black-and-white photographs of old-time movie stars hanging in each stall. I’m hoping I won’t need to attend to personal business because I would feel awkward doing so with Natalie Wood or Ava Gardner scrutinizing me the entire time.

  I gird myself before I place the call. Interacting with Magnolia Flatt is never my favorite thing to do. Though one would expect the receptionist at pageant headquarters in Atlanta to exude charm and friendliness, she just may be the Queen of Snarkdom. And now that our pageant owner is facing felony charges—don’t worry; I will explain—her duties have expanded. Power has not improved Magnolia’s people skills.

  “So you found time to call me back,” she snaps by way of hello.

  Deep breath. “How are you, Magnolia?”

  “You’re gonna be staying in Vegas for a while. You got a new booking.”

  “How exciting!” I love bookings. They give me confidence about my Ms. America titleholder performance. They’re also evidence that my proximity to murders has not yet pegged me as a dangerous queen to have around.

  Speaking of murders, if I get to stick around Vegas, I get to snoop around Danny Richter’s death …

  “There’s this dance group called the Sparklettes,” Magnolia says. “They’re like—what are they called?—the Rockettes. Three of their dancers got some bug and are laid up. They want you and Shanelle to fill in on the shows they got next weekend.”

  And Shanelle? To stay through next weekend to perform dance routines? I am more thrilled by the second. I get a brainstorm. “They’re down three dancers? How about having Trixie Barnett fill in, too?” I miss her so much even though it’s been only a month since we were all together on Oahu. “She is Ms. Congeniality, after all. Everybody loves Trixie.”

  Magnolia grunts. I know she can’t imagine anybody loving any beauty queen. “I don’t know. She’s gotta be between five foot six and five foot ten and a half.”

  “She is.” That’s the sweet spot height-wise for beauty queens. I am lining up arguments to buttress my case when Magnolia says something unexpected, not to me but to somebody back in Atlanta. “Yeah, I’ll take more champagne,” she says.

  “Magnolia?” I frown. “You’re drinking champagne at headquarters?”

  She sounds annoyed at being caught out. “I’m not at headquarters.”

  “Where are you?”

  “Not that it’s any of your business but I’m at the airport.”

  Is Magnolia on a boondoggle? I have heard scuttlebutt that she’s gone crazy with the pageant’s money since Sebastian Cantwell, our owner, got charged with fraud for using the pageant’s losses to improve his tax situation. “Did you buy a first-class ticket to fly somewhere?” If so, I must intercede to protect the organization as best I can during this period of vulnerability. Mr. Cantwell is out on bail but he and his lawyers are prepping for his trial. It’s safe to say he’s distracted.

  “I’m not flying first class,” Magnolia snarls. “I’m flying business. And besides, you’re trying to get me to send Barnett to Vegas, which will cost money.”

  True. “We’ll be careful with expenses, though. I bet Shanelle and Trixie will want to share a room, so that’ll save money.” I’m already sharing with my mom, and if I stay all week, I want her to as well. The poor woman needs the company, not to mention the enterta
inment.

  “I just checked Barnett’s data sheet,” Magnolia says, “and she’s five foot eight. So you got clearance for her, too.”

  I do a jig in glee. This is such good news. If Trixie can get off work to come to Vegas, I’ll get to see her, spend more time with Shanelle—assuming she can get off work—and dance with a Rockettes-like group, all on the pageant dime.

  After all, even a beauty queen in possession of enviable prize money must watch her pocketbook.

  “Listen up,” Magnolia goes on. “The only reason the Sparklettes people even thought of you to fill in was because they saw you on the news after that murder. You know from last time you’re not supposed to get involved in that stuff.”

  I did get into a bit of trouble with the pageant brass when I investigated Tiffany Amber’s murder. That sort of thing is not within the scope of my duties. Then again, once I proved I wasn’t the guilty party and pinpointed the real perp, all was forgiven.

  “I hear you,” I say to Magnolia, which is a far cry from a promise not to snoop.

  We end our call a few details later, and I rejoin the pulsating poolside horde to share the booking news with Shanelle. I realize as I head in her direction that it’s in part because of Mario that I have mixed feelings about Mr. Cantwell.

  On one hand, I maintain a real affection for him because he made the Ms. America prize money the biggest in the business and my winnings have changed my family’s life. They’ve given me a cushion the likes of which I’ve never known before. Plus, he’s a colorful character: a ponytail-wearing Brit prone to wearing the sort of outfit that would be appropriate for viewing a regatta.

  Yet there is another hand. Mario helped build the tax-fraud case against Mr. Cantwell and Mario is convinced he’s guilty. I trust Mario’s judgment. So how can I feel good about an owner who isn’t acting in the pageant’s best interests?

  “Get a load of this!” I shout to Shanelle as I strip off my cover-up and fill her in on the booking. We’re debating just how quickly we’ll master synchronized high kicks when I am grabbed from behind and twisted around.