Lucky Charm in Las Vegas

by A. R. Winters

  “And you go along with it! So at some level, you must think it's a good idea after all.”

  My mother had a point.

  But I didn't want to think about investigations and relationships anymore. Instead, I bit into the delicious berry cheesecake that my mother had made for dessert. It was cool, creamy, and sweet with the perfect amount of berry tanginess—just what I needed to take my mind off things.

  Even if it was only for a brief moment or two.

  Chapter 7

  After lunch was over, Glenn and Karma invited Wes and Nanna to come over to their apartment for coffee.

  “We'd love to,” Nanna said. “Maybe Tiffany can give us a ride, and tell us more about her case.”

  Ian and I exchanged a glance—Nanna was always curious about my cases, and very often, she insisted on “helping out.”

  But it wouldn't be a bad idea to tell someone else what we'd learned so far. Maybe discussing the events would help us get some idea as to who the main suspect should be. So as I drove back to my place, Ian and I told Nanna and Wes everything we'd learned from the police and from our chat with Andrew.

  “Let me get this straight,” Nanna said, after we told her what we knew, “Charlene went out for a walk at seven, and was seen by one of her neighbors leaving. She didn't show up for the date at 9 o'clock. So she must've been killed sometime between then.”

  “Exactly,” Ian said. “But nobody remembers seeing her. I know that neighborhood, and it's full of cheap apartments. People move in and out, and nobody knows their neighbors, or even pays attention to what's going on. Folks don’t really look around much when they're in a hurry to get to where they're going, and when they've been told to respect everyone else's privacy. For all we know, someone might have pulled a gun on Charlene and kidnapped her, and no one would have noticed.”

  “And that's what the police think happened?”

  “I guess,” Ian said. “They don’t think it’s anyone related to her. It's hard to investigate a crime when the criminal is some random psychopath.”

  “That might just be what happened to Charlene, though,” I admitted reluctantly, as I drove toward my apartment. “As far as we know, anyone could have killed Charlene—even someone who never knew her.”

  “I don't buy that for a second,” Nanna declared staunchly. “Pretty much every single murder is committed by someone who knew the victim. Just because it’s Vegas doesn't mean the statistics have changed.”

  There was silence for a few minutes, as we all thought about that, and I pulled up at my apartment and parked. As we headed upstairs, Nanna said to Wes, “I think I'll go with Tiffany and Ian and chat a bit more about the case.”

  Wes looked at me and gave me an apologetic smile. “I know you don't like your Nanna getting involved in your investigations. But she won't listen to me when I say not to.”

  “Just because I’m old,” Nanna said, “doesn't mean I can't be useful. I've got enough brains and wit to help Tiffany with her investigations. And I’m not even that old. Tiff might’ve been doing this for a while now, but an extra set of ears to hear all the details never hurts.”

  “As long as that's all you're planning on doing—listening,” I said to Nanna. “We’re happy to talk to you about it.”

  I turned to Wes. “Would you like to come up to my apartment for a bit as well?”

  Wes shook his head. “I don't mean to be rude, but thinking about things like murders gives me the creeps. I'd rather go and help Glenn with his baking. He said something about Danishes.”

  We got into the elevator, and said goodbye to Wes when he got off at Glenn’s floor. And then, Nanna, Ian and I headed over to my apartment and settled down to rehash the case.

  “The odd thing here,” Nanna said, “is that Charlene didn't have a boyfriend. Usually, it's the spouse or the boyfriend that’s the main suspect.”

  I nodded. “That's one of the things that makes the cops think it was a random killing. I mean, she did meet Andrew and agree to go out with him, but he's our client.”

  “You suspected clients in the past,” Nanna said. “Don't you think Andrew might have had something to do with Charlene's death? Maybe she insulted him, or turned him down, and he’s not telling you the truth. Maybe he killed her, and now he's panicking and hiring you two to dig up dirt on everyone else, just so he can protect himself.”

  I shook my head. “I know something similar’s happened on a previous case, but I don't think that's what's going on with Andrew. And I don't think the cops suspect him either.”

  “I agree,” said Ian. “Andrew doesn't seem like a potential killer to me. For one, he seemed genuinely upset by Charlene's death—he has this whole belief about luck and destiny now.”

  “But he might be making all that up,” Nanna said.

  I got up to make us each a mug of coffee, and said, “I don’t think so. Even if he was making all that up, I'm sure he's got a solid alibi. He must've been in the casino until eight thirty or so, and then after that, he was sitting in the restaurant waiting for Charlene to show up. Besides, if he was any kind of suspect at all, Ryan would have told me, and warned me off taking the case.”

  Nanna looked at me shrewdly as I returned to the living room with the coffee. “Has Ryan warned you off the case at all?”

  I shrugged, and sipped my coffee. “Not in so many words, but he's not happy about it.”

  “You can't be with a man who doesn’t support you,” Nanna said. “We each have something we’re meant to do on this earth, and your life partner needs to support your work. Doesn't mean they have to be super enthusiastic, or actually physically help you out, but they need to be there with you in spirit. Seems to me that Ryan will never be there with you in spirit.”

  I sighed. “I really like him, and he’s great and always so calm and drama-free. Being with him is like relaxing next to a quiet stream. Maybe he'll come around in time—he's never had problems with my being a private investigator before.”

  “That was before we worked on the same case as him,” Ian reminded me. “He wasn't happy about that.”

  “He wasn’t too bad today. I mean, he showed us the crime scene photos and told us a bit about the case before warning us to not to comprise his investigation.”

  “And there’ll be other cases where he won’t want you to ‘compromise his investigation.’ Any more of these run-ins and he’ll soon be warning you not to investigate at all. “

  I frowned and leaned forward. “No, no. I've made it clear that I'm a private investigator, and I like being one. Looking into all these mysteries lets me help people. I don't mind working as a dealer, but I'm not making people's lives better when I hand out blackjack cards. But I can find things out for people, and I can help them out—I’m not about to stop being a PI.”

  Nanna nodded seriously. “I don't think you should stop. I mean, I haven't been playing poker much these days, but that's not because Wes doesn't like me to, or anything like that. He knows about my poker playing, and he doesn't mind—I've just cut down on playing because I'm busy with other things. You could stop being a private investigator sometime in the future, if you get busy with other things—but you should never change who you are just to make a man happy.”

  “How come you tell Tiffany not to change, but everyone keeps telling me I need to change if I'm going to find a long-term girlfriend?” Ian said.

  Nanna and I looked at each other and grinned. Ian’s tragic love life was legendary—from women dumping him as soon as they discovered they couldn’t get their hands on his trust fund, to girlfriends stalking him and trying to strong-arm him into marriage.

  “That's because people keep taking advantage of you,” Nanna told him. “You don't need to change in order to find a girlfriend—you need to change so that people stop taking advantage of your kindness.”

  Ian took a thoughtful sip of his coffee, and I said, “But back to Charlene's death. She didn't have a boyfriend, and Andrew isn’t a suspect.”

 
“Maybe she had a secret boyfriend,” Nanna suggested. “Maybe nobody knew about him, but he's the one who killed her.”

  I wrote down “secret boyfriend?” in my notebook, and chewed my lip thoughtfully. “I'll try to see if anyone could know about it—maybe the roommates would have some inkling. If Charlene went out on dates, or brought a guy over, they're the ones who would know.”

  “Maybe it's not love,” Ian said. “Tiff, you keep saying that it’s either love or money that gets people killed. Maybe in Charlene's case, it was money.”

  “It doesn't sound to me like Charlene had money,” I said. “I know Andrew was very taken with her, but she sounds like the kind of woman who would go out with a man only if he had money—she went out with Andrew just because he won that jackpot. If Charlene insisted on limiting her dating pool to men with money, then she couldn't have had much wealth herself.”

  “I think you're right,” Nanna said slowly. “I don't think Charlene had any money worth getting killed over. But if she didn't have any love interests, maybe her family should be the next suspects.”

  “Andrew said that Charlene had a brother here,” Ian told than Nanna. “We've already looked up his details on the database and the Internet, but Andrew said the brother seemed really upset by Charlene's death. He tried to talk to Brad—that’s Charlene's brother—at the funeral, but he was too upset to talk much.”

  “But you and Tiffany still need to talk to him,” Nanna said, regarding us with thoughtful eyes. “Brad must've already talked to the police—do you know if they've learned anything useful from him?”

  “I don't think he said anything particularly helpful,” I said. “If he had, I'd like to think that Ryan would have mentioned it to me.”

  “But if Brad didn't want to talk to people at the funeral,” Ian said, “he probably won't want to talk to us. Lots of people don't like talking to private investigators, and if he's not talking to Charlene's friends, Brad’s definitely not going to want to talk to an investigator.”

  “You just need to go in disguise,” Nanna said brightly. “Act like you're selling Girl Scout cookies or something like that.”

  “We’re a little too old to look like we’re selling cookies,” I said doubtfully, “but maybe you've got an idea. Ian and I should pretend to be interviewing Brad for something else.”

  “Where does Brad live?” Nanna said.

  I looked up my notes, where I’d written down all of Brad's details. I'd already told Nanna that Brad owned a laundromat with his partner Chris, and I wasn't sure if he'd be home or at the laundromat now.

  “He's more likely to be at the laundromat now,” Ian said, “maybe we should just drive up and try to talk to him there.”

  “Why don't we call him at home,” I said, “and see where he is?”

  “You could just do the whole interview over the phone,” Nanna said. “I know you don't like talking to people over the phone, but it’s easier to keep up an act if you're on the phone—and if Brad has something to hide, we can follow up with him in person.”

  I thought about the idea for a few seconds, and then admitted that Nanna was probably right. “Let's give him a call, and see what he has to say.”

  “I know what we should say,” Ian said, “people love to be on TV—we’ll just pretend we’re doing a TV show.”

  I wasn't sure about that—Ian had gone through a period of having reality TV show fever, but I handed him my phone, along with my notebook with Brad's details. Ian put my cell phone on speaker, and dialed Brad's home number. It rang about four times, and then finally, a male voice answered.

  “Is this Brad Nelson?” Ian said, and Brad answered that yes, it was him.

  “This is Jeremy Whitkins,” Ian said. “I'm a TV show producer, and I'm planning an exciting new show about laundromats. I wonder if I could ask you a few questions, for research purposes? I'd be happy to give you a credit on the show, when it goes live.”

  “No thank you,” Brad said instantly. “I can’t help out with that.”

  “It’ll just take a few minutes of your time,” Ian pleaded. “We'd really appreciate it.”

  “I'm sure there are other laundromat owners who’d be happy to talk to you,” Brad said. “I'm going through some things in my personal life, and I'd rather not talk to too many people now.”

  And then, the line went dead.

  “He hung up on us!” Ian looked at me in shock. “He wasn’t even impressed when I said that I was from TV!”

  I made a face. “I'm only surprised that he was so harsh. He must really be grieving.”

  “Maybe he just doesn't like TV,” Nanna said. “I know it's hard to believe, but some people don't watch TV at all.”

  “I never watched TV until I met Ian,” I said. “Who has time for that? I'd rather read a good book if I’ve got a moment free.”

  “Maybe you need to try something else,” Nanna suggested. “Some other way to get him to talk.”

  I had a flash of inspiration, and I redialed Brad's number, and put the phone on speaker.

  When he answered, I verified that I was talking to Brad, and then I said, “Congratulations! I'm calling from Anderson's Grocery, and I wanted to let you know that you're in the running to win a ten thousand dollar check as a thank you for shopping at our stores.”

  It had been a wild guess on my part that Brad shopped at Anderson's—but I assumed, that like many people who lived in Vegas, he must've visited their stores at least once in the last year. And even if he hadn't, who would turn down free money?

  “Really?” Brad sounded wary.

  “Absolutely!” I tried to muster up as much enthusiasm as I could. “All you need to do to win the money is answer a few quick questions about your experience shopping in our stores.”

  “The last time I went was over a month ago,” Brad said slowly.

  “That's fine,” I said. “We’re looking for all kinds of opinions. Now, the first question is, did you shop for yourself, or do you have any family in Las Vegas?”

  The phone went silent for a few seconds, and then Brad said, in a slightly choked voice, “I'm sorry, I can't do this.”

  Once again, the line went dead.

  Ian, Nanna and I all stared at each other incredulously.

  “I can't believe he did that!” Ian said again. “Who turns down free money?”

  “Maybe he really is in shock over his sister's death,” Nanna said. “That question about whether he had any family in Vegas—that must've been what upset him. He sounded so upset.”

  “I know,” I said, still not quite believing that he'd hung up on me and turned down the free money. “But it's been a few days since Charlene died, and you’d think that anyone would be happy to answer a few questions about their shopping habits to get ten thousand dollars.”

  “Maybe he's an introvert,” Ian said. “Some people are hermits, and they’re phobic about talking to other people.”

  Nanna suddenly grinned, and her eyes sparkled with life. “I know what to do! Hand me the phone.”

  She redialed Brad's number, and put the phone on speaker.

  This time, when Brad answered after a few rings, Nanna made sure of who she was talking to, and then she said, “My name’s Gwenda Larsen, and I'm calling from the Las Vegas Police Department. I know you’ve talked to one of our officers recently, and I want to clarify some of the things that you talked about.”

  Brad was saying something like, “Sure, I'd be happy to do that,” but I was instantly on my feet, waving my arms in the air, trying to signal Nanna to hang up.

  “Let me just put you on hold for a minute,” Nanna said, and then she pressed the hold button, making sure that Brad couldn't hear our conversation.

  “You can't do that,” I hissed. I was sure that Brad couldn't hear me, but what if the phone wasn't working properly? “You shouldn’t impersonate a police officer.”

  Nanna smiled beatifically. “I'm a confused old woman, what are they gonna do? Besides, no-one’ll ever find o
ut.”

  I was about to tell her that it was illegal, and she could get into serious trouble, but before I could say anything, Nanna hit the speaker button again.

  “Sorry about that,” she said. “We really appreciate your cooperation in all this. I know it must be very difficult for you. Were you and your sister very close?”

  There was a split second of silence, and for a moment, I wondered if Brad had caught on to us. But then he spoke with a sob in his voice, “Yes, it was just the two of us growing up. Dad died when we were young and our mother brought us up. And then, Mom died three years ago, and we moved to Vegas together. Charlene and I were always best friends.”

  Nanna murmured sympathetically. “I'm so sorry for your loss. This won't take more than a moment. Just to verify, is there anyone you can think of who might have wanted to hurt Charlene?”

  “No,” said Brad instantly. “Charlene didn't have many close friends after she moved here, and she wasn't dating anyone. She got on well with everyone at work, and I think she liked her roommates.”

  “And had she been acting strangely in the days before she died?”

  “No, not at all.”

  “And I know this must be difficult for you, but where were you on the night she was killed?”

  “I was having dinner with my partner Chris. He came over to my place at around six, and he left after eleven o’clock.”

  “Can you think of anyone, or anything about Charlene that had been unusual in the last few days?”

  “No, like I said before, nothing at all. The only thing was this guy Andrew—she’d never told me about him before. But then, she never talks about her love life much. I don't think she's had a relationship that worked out beyond the first date or two since we moved to Vegas.”

  Nanna glanced me and Ian, but we both shook our heads. I couldn't think of anything else to ask—it seemed like there was nothing we could learn from Brad.

  “Thanks for your help,” Nanna said, “and before I hang up, there are two private investigators who are looking into Charlene's death as well. Andrew hired them. Would you be interested in chatting with them for a few minutes?”