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

by Dempsey, Diana

  “I know I wouldn’t be the first girl you’d take up there. But I might be the first you don’t have to pay.”

  Hans’s grin droops.

  “I bet the little lady you’re with on this videotape cost you a bundle.” I make a show of holding a thumb drive high above my head, then hand it off to one of Hans’s entourage. “Don’t worry if he loses it. I’ve got plenty of copies. Not only that, I know exactly where to send them,” and I rattle off the names of his wife and his employer.

  As I grab my drink I have the pleasure of watching panic contort Hans’s features. “This’ll help you chill out,” I predict, then aim my tall, cold drink at his crotch.

  Bull’s eye.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO

  The next morning I impress the heck out of myself when my alarm goes off at 5:30 and I actually get up. My mother is a snoring heap of bones in the next bed. When I part the drapes and peek outside, I’m startled by how dark the Strip is. Then I realize that this just-before-sunrise hour is one of the few when you can catch Vegas without her makeup on. There’s no neon.

  I throw on my Juicy Couture tracksuit and make for the Starbucks in the lobby, my laptop in tow. The hotel is so empty that I half wonder if a neutron bomb vaporized everybody but the barista and me. As she brews me a sustaining cappuccino, I note that Cassidy’s murder made the front page of the local newspaper, “above the fold,” as they say. No surprise, really. Two murders in a matter of days in a major Vegas hotel are pretty noteworthy. Not in a good way.

  The barista sees me eyeing the article. “We’re all nervous wrecks around here.”

  “You mean, worrying if there’ll be a third?”

  “And if the hotel can survive this. It’s not exactly good for business.”

  Maybe that’s why the place looks so empty. It’s not the early hour. It’s that everybody who could clear out did.

  I eat my banana and boot up my computer, bypassing email for my spreadsheet on Danny and Cassidy’s murders. I have my suspects listed along with means, motive, and opportunity. Fat lot of good all that organization has done me. The only progress I can make is deleting Hans’s name. The clock is ticking down to my Sparklettes performances and subsequent departure from Vegas and yet I remain flummoxed.

  I wrack my brain for a while longer, then buy coffee and a muffin for my mother and go upstairs to my room. I find my mom not only awake but preening in front of the bathroom mirror with a mascara wand in her hand. I’m so astonished I almost drop her Starbucks booty.

  “I’m practicing,” she says, “because I’ll need a light makeup next week for my job interview.”

  “Your job interview?”

  “With Bennie Hana. You know. The used car guy?”

  I know Bennie Hana. Everybody in the Cleveland area knows Bennie Hana. His TV ads run constantly and they all feature him executing a karate move while screaming that he chops prices.

  I lean against the door jamb and find my voice. “Are you telling me you have a job interview with Bennie Hana?”

  “You hard of hearing all of a sudden? Rachel helped me look through the job ads on that Internet there.”

  So this is what she’s been so coy about, the “decisions” she made that she wouldn’t cop to. At least not with me. “What’s the job?”

  “Office receptionist,” she declares proudly. She lays down the mascara and faces me. I’ve never once seen her wear more than a touch of lipstick but I have to admit she looks good. “Since for some mysterious reason you’ve got so much trouble believing this, I’ll prove it to you.” She leads me into the main room and hands me a sheet of paper printed from craigslist. “The girl in that business center on the mezzanine level printed this out for me.” She points to the ad circled in red ink.

  Office receptionist. General office duties. Full time weekdays and occasional weekends. Must have phone experience and pleasant personality to interact with clients.

  I’m thinking that last could be a problem. “Mom?” I keep my voice gentle. “Does Bennie Hana know you’ve never held a job outside the home?”

  She narrows her eyes at me. “What’s your point?”

  That means no, her potential employer is not aware of that fact. Before I can reply, she goes on.

  “Let me tell you something, little lady. If you think that running a home and raising a child”—she pauses to glare at me—“isn’t twice as hard as most jobs, you got another guess coming. Of course, there is one exception and that is a job doing nails, which everybody knows is so easy any numbskull could do it.” She juts her chin.

  I didn’t need that snarky caveat to grasp what lies behind my mother’s sudden employment urge. Hazel Przybyszewski does not want to be two down to Pop’s so-called “floozy woman,” who owns a nail salon. She’s already one down, as the Nail Lady has Pop and my mom doesn’t.

  As a dutiful daughter, I feel I must manage my mother’s expectations when it comes to this job interview. I hand her the Starbucks coffee and muffin as if they were a peace offering. “You know, you might have to interview at more than one place before you land a job.”

  “Maybe.” She unwraps the muffin and bites into it with uncommon delicacy, apparently wishing to preserve her lipstick.

  “Do you want to come to rehearsal?” I thank the stars above that today’s is to be short. Elaine doesn’t want to tucker us out before tonight’s performance, which is good, as I, for one, am already darn close to tuckered.

  “I have plans for this morning,” she informs me. “That Eddie Wozniak wants to show me Liberace’s car collection and I said yes even though I’ve seen it.” She sips her coffee. “Liberace had a car that reminds me of the one Sally Anne had at that almost wedding of hers. A Rolls Royce covered with tiny mirrors. Tasteful in Liberace’s case.” Carefully she dabs her lips with a napkin. “With the license plate 88 Keys.”

  That reminds me of Danny’s designer license plate on the Cadillac Samantha gave him. 1 HOT 1.

  “I’ll have you know that Eddie Wozniak may be 94 but he still has his mental function,” my mother goes on. “Not only that but Florence Dunbar tells me he has full control of his bowels.”

  I gather that passes for studliness in the geriatric crowd. I kiss her cheek and head for the bathroom to change. “Have a good time but don’t let Eddie and his stupendous bowel control distract you from getting back in time to go to the Ziana matinee.”

  A half hour later, it is a mercy to discover that rehearsal—although still pretty intense—involves more stretching and icing than jumping and kicking. “I could really use cryotherapy today,” I tell Trixie as we finish by soaking our feet in an ice bath.

  “I never got to try it. I am a little sad about that.”

  “Let’s go past the spa when we get back to the Cosmos. Maybe we’ll get lucky.” I make the suggestion even though I’m not hopeful. I’m thinking there’s a good chance Frankie’s in the slammer. Or, as Sally Anne fears, that he’s fled.

  “Get back here an hour before showtime, girls,” Elaine calls, and we are released.

  “You want to join us for the spa walk-by?” I ask Shanelle.

  “I got an appointment with my Jacuzzi tub. Catch you two later.”

  It turns out that not only is Frank at the spa, he can squeeze both Trixie and me in for cryogenic treatments.

  “This is my lucky day!” Trixie cries. “Thank you so much, Frank.”

  He grunts. I waylay him en route to the chamber and keep my voice low. “Everything go okay last night with Detective Perelli?”

  “She didn’t charge me with murder if that’s what you wanna know.”

  “When I saw Sally Anne, she told me you were worried about that.”

  “Yeah, well, maybe yesterday was my lucky day.”

  I don’t get anything more out of him. He is monosyllabic as he runs us through the treatment. I am not surprised that Trixie gets as big a kick out of it as I do.

  “My Lord!” she shrieks when it’s over. “I feel like I could do
a thousand eye-high kicks now!”

  That’s about the size of it. I’m jubilant as I get back in my rehearsal clothes. The fact that they reek of sweat doesn’t even faze me. I hang back as Trixie heads out. “I want to see if I can get Frank to talk to me,” I whisper.

  She nods knowingly. “Good luck!”

  I linger in the wide corridor outside the spa, not far from its exterior glass wall, keeping an eye on Frank at the reception desk and waiting for a quiet moment to attempt another conversational bout.

  If I’m going to have any hope of finding justice for Cassidy or Danny, I can’t stop investigating. Not that I want to, anyway. I’m kind of an addict, I will tell you. I get a whiff of the stuff I love and I can’t resist it. It doesn’t hurt that I’m on a cryogenic high, pretty darn sure I could lasso the moon if I wanted.

  It soon becomes clear that I needn’t attempt anything so remarkable. All I need do is follow Frank when he exits the spa and heads for the hot shimmering glare of the Strip, glancing furtively around him as he goes.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE

  Context is everything, I realize, because if I didn’t consider Frank Richter a murder suspect, I wouldn’t think twice about his actions. There’s nothing odd about getting money from an ATM, although as I watch him count out fifteen bills—meaning he withdrew the maximum three hundred dollars—I deem that a trifle unusual.

  I trail him back to the Cosmos, more than a little surprised that he didn’t immediately make for the hotel casino he visited the last time I followed him, with Trixie in tow. After all, his wallet is bulging with cash. For a gambling addict, that must be one heck of a temptation.

  As a homicide investigation addict, I well understand the unhealthy compulsions that can overwhelm us.

  I keep an eye on Frank as he enters the hotel’s rear parking structure, ready to conclude that following him was pointless. Clearly his shift is over and he’s driving home. He pops the trunk of his silver Impala and that’s when I get a surprise. He pulls out a roll-aboard suitcase and unzips an exterior pocket to slide something inside.

  So Frank must not be going home. Suitcase and cash in hand, he’s fleeing, as Sally Anne feared he might.

  No more hanging back for this queen. I run toward him yelling at the top of my lungs for him to stop.

  He looks as astonished to see me as if I were Santa Claus appearing at a bar mitzvah. “What is your problem? This is none of your business!”

  “Where are you going?” I demand.

  “None of your damn business!” He tosses the suitcase back in the trunk.

  “Running away won’t do you a bit of good. If you’re guilty, they’ll find you. And if you’re innocent, you’ll never clear your name.”

  “I am innocent!” He gets in the car, turns on the engine, rolls down the window, and leans out. “But I won’t be for long if you don’t move your butt!”

  I plant myself behind the Impala. “You won’t hurt me.” I’m not sure why I assert that with such confidence. The cryotherapy has made me brave or foolish, I’m not sure which. “I’m not budging till you tell me where you’re going. I can’t let you abandon Sally Anne like this.”

  “When will you get it through your thick skull that she’s better off without me?” He backs up a few inches. True to my word, I don’t budge. “Fine!” he thunders. “Get in the damn car!”

  “Open the door.” I’m guessing that’ll make him less able to speed off without me. He obliges and I throw myself in the passenger seat. Off he goes like a rocket, tires screeching on the concrete.

  “Where are we going?” I inquire a few minutes later as we merge onto the highway and the Strip recedes in the rearview mirror.

  “Wyoming,” he barks. “I got a buddy there.”

  “Sally Anne predicted you’d do this.”

  “If you don’t stop with the Sally Anne business I’m pulling over and pushing you out. Believe me, I’m doing the right thing by her.”

  “Only if you murdered Danny or Cassidy. Or both. Then I agree it would behoove you to break off your engagement.”

  He slaps the steering wheel. “I didn’t murder either one of them! I’m guilty of one thing and one thing only and that’s gambling.”

  “Then man up, stay put, and clear your name!”

  “You make it sound so simple, lady! It ain’t that simple.”

  “Why the heck not?”

  “Because I took money from Danny, okay? I took money from him.”

  Okay. Now it’s really getting interesting. I twist toward Frank. Cars whiz past on both sides of us. “Money he got illegally? Is that what you’re telling me?”

  “I don’t know how he got it. All I know is he had it and I needed it.”

  “Why did you need it?”

  “Why do you think? To repay my debts.”

  “Your gambling debts. And he wanted to help you.” This is the first Danny Richter Is A Nice Guy report I’ve heard. “But you knew how little money he made from his blackjack job so you had to know that cash came from ill-gotten gains.”

  “Where I grew up, you don’t look a gift horse in the mouth.”

  “Even if that horse is knee deep in some pretty nasty business?”

  “Until Danny got shot, I didn’t think he could be into anything that bad.”

  “Well, apparently he was.”

  “What do they say? Hindsight is 20/20. At the time I didn’t want to think about it. All I knew was that I was in a hole, he offered me a hand up, and I took it.”

  “So you profited from his illegal activities. That is a problem.”

  “Finally you get the picture.”

  We drive for a while in what passes for amiable silence. Until I ask what some might construe as a provocative follow-up question. “Are you sure you didn’t participate in his illegal activities?”

  “I sure as hell didn’t!”

  I have the same reaction I always do when I’m with Frank. I believe him. I think he’s made a bad choice or two but so have we all. He seems like a good guy. I can’t believe he’s a killer. For that reason I’m fairly calm as we speed toward parts unknown.

  Until I remember that I have oodles of obligations back in Vegas and so I really have no business heading for Wyoming, charming state though it might be. I ask Frank to pull off at the next rest stop and he does.

  He turns off the engine. Around us people are unpacking picnic lunches from their cars and crowding into the restrooms. Again I twist toward Frank. “Did Danny ever talk to you about a woman named Samantha St. James?”

  “Never heard of her.”

  “Danny might have been embezzling her. Or blackmailing her.”

  Frank blanches. “Sweet heavens above.”

  “Cassidy told me Danny was blackmailing somebody. She swore she didn’t know who but that’s why he had so much cash all of a sudden. Do you have any idea who he could have been blackmailing?”

  “You can only blackmail somebody who’s got real money. Danny didn’t know anybody like that.”

  Except Samantha. “Sally Anne doesn’t know any of this, right? She doesn’t know you still gamble and she doesn’t know Danny gave you money?”

  “That’s about the size of it. She wouldn’t like it, either. Sally Anne, she’s got no weaknesses. Me, I got weaknesses.”

  “You know, when you told me about the gambling, I had the feeling there was something you weren’t telling me. Now I know what that is.”

  He looks away from me and says nothing.

  “Is there anything else I should know?”

  He keeps his gaze averted. “No.”

  I throw up my hands. “I’m getting that feeling again! That feeling like there’s something you should be telling me but you’re not. I can’t help you if you’re not straight with me.”

  He gets belligerent again. “Get this straight, lady. I didn’t ask for your help.”

  “I’m offering it just the same. Let’s you and me together go to Detective Perelli and explain all thi
s. I am 99 percent sure she’ll understand.”

  “You are nuts. Certifiable.”

  “You have no business flinging insults.” I can get pretty feisty myself. “I want you to turn this car around and drive us back to Vegas. I want you to make it right with Detective Perelli and with Sally Anne. I’ll help you with both of them.”

  He ponders for a moment. Then, “You’re right that I don’t want to go to Wyoming.”

  “No, you don’t.”

  “That doesn’t mean I’m gonna spill the beans to that detective.”

  “Let’s hit the road,” I suggest, and Frank does just that, heading back toward Vegas. When we stop outside the Cosmos parking structure, I hold up my cell phone. “Let me call Detective Perelli right now. Tell her about the money Danny gave you.”

  He shakes his head. “Don’t press your luck. You got me to stay in town. That’s as far as you’re getting with me today.”

  This queen knows a dead end when she sees one.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR

  I get to my room to find it devoid of my mother. There are still a few hours before the Ziana show. And believe it or not the Sparklettes performance is at 11 PM, given that Vegas never sleeps and our show, what with the scanty costumes, is a tad on the risque side.

  I shower and change into my blue and green halter-style maxi dress. Quick as I can, I dry my hair and twist it into a side ponytail, hiding the elastic with a length of my own hair. After applying a light makeup, I’m good to go.

  I pull out my cell phone and run through the contacts list until I come to Mario’s name. He and I haven’t spoken since our fateful tryst in the stairwell. For all I know, he is no longer in Vegas.

  I have a good excuse to call him. I want to understand more about what trouble Frank might be in for accepting money from Danny, money whose source Frank pretty much knew to be dodgy. I bet that right off the top of his handsome head, Secret FBI Agent Mario Suave could provide a valuable briefing on that topic.

  With Shanelle’s warning ringing in my ears—You got no business stoking that fire if you intend to douse the flames—I call Mario.