“In that case,” Ian said, finishing the sentence for me, “Eli must really be following you around.”
“Which means that he knows something's up. If Eli knew that Tariq was in Santa Verona, then maybe he found out that he left—and Eli's just put two and two together and figured out that Tariq left Santa Verona to come to Vegas. Which means that Tariq is trying to get in touch with Stone.”
“And the easiest way to get in touch with Stone is through you.”
I shuddered. “This is not good,” I said, repeating myself.
“Maybe Billy's right,” Ian said, “maybe we need some help here. Do you think we should ask Nanna to join us?”
“No! Nanna thinks she's tough, but she's really an eighty-year-old woman who just wants to have some fun. I wouldn't ever get her mixed up in this kind of thing.”
“Then maybe you should let Stone know about this.”
I nodded. “I'll do that. As soon as I get home, I’ll use that special phone Stone gave me for getting in touch with him, and send him a text about this. He might have some ideas.”
“In the meantime,” Ian said, “we should be extra careful.”
Chapter 13
The next morning, I went over to Ian's for breakfast, for a change. It turned out that Tariq had gone through Ian's kitchen cabinets, and found flour and a couple of other baking ingredients, and made us muffins for breakfast.
The three of us sat around and had a delicious breakfast of chocolate and blueberry muffins, while Snowflake watched us carefully from the countertop.
We talked a bit about how Tariq was settling in, and he insisted that he wasn't bored and was fine with staying inside. I had texted Stone the night before to let him know about Eli’s potentially watching us, and Stone had sent a terse response—”Stay safe, tell Tariq. I'll keep an eye on you guys.”
So I took Stone's advice, and filled Tariq in on the Eli situation.
He didn't say anything, but his eyes grew stony and hard.
“I wish I could come out to help you,” he said.
Ian and I quickly shook our heads. “It would be more dangerous if you came out—at least now, Eli doesn't know for sure that you're here, or that you've got anything to do with us.”
Tariq nodded. “What are you two going to do today?”
Just then, Ian's phone buzzed with a text. “It's Nanna,” he said after reading it, “she's on her way over here, and she wants to talk to us.”
We said a hasty goodbye to Tariq, and headed back to my apartment. Nanna showed up a few minutes later.
She was dressed in black sweatpants, and a black T-shirt.
“Let's do it!” she said, as soon as she entered the apartment.
“Do what?” I eyed her warily. Wearing all black was Nanna's idea of what a “break in” costume should comprise of.
“We're going to explore Mary's apartment, of course.”
I shook my head. “I hate to keep saying no, but you do realize that it's illegal to break in?”
“You know that she's hiding the truth from you, and you know that you've got to find out the truth,” Nanna said evenly. “How else do you intend to learn what's really going on?”
“We don't have to break in,” Ian said, “but let's at least go there, and see if she'll talk to us.”
“You know she’ll have work right now,” I argued.
“Then let's see if Christine knows anything about what's going on.”
I couldn't dissuade Ian and Nanna, so the three of us drove over to Mary's apartment, and as we headed upstairs, I peered along the street. I couldn't see anyone following us—neither Billy nor Eli—so maybe we were safe for now. Maybe Eli had followed us once or twice, and he'd given up again; maybe Billy would change her mind about trying to “help,”, too.
We knocked loudly on the door, but there was no response.
“Seems like nobody's home,” Ian said.
“Maybe Christine's inside, and she’s asleep,” I said.
“Maybe she's inside, and something's wrong,” Nanna said. “Don't you want to go and make sure she's okay?”
“The longer we stand out here,” Ian said, “the more suspicious we look. I vote for breaking in, and we should do it right now.”
I shook my head. “I think we should just wait to talk to Christine.”
“I'm not going to stand out here any longer,” Nanna announced. “I've got my own set of lock picks, and I found a nice website on the Internet, where they explained how to do this. Stand back!”
“I really don't think—” I stopped talking when I saw a man coming up the stairs.
Nanna had already inserted a lock pick, and she was jiggling away furiously. She looked as suspicious as an eighty-year-old woman with a lock pick could.
Ian and I quickly stood on either side of her, all the better to hide her lock picks.
“Hurry up,” Ian hissed. “What if we get caught?”
“I can't get the lock pick out,” Nanna stage-whispered back. “Otherwise I’d just move away—maybe I’ll look like my key’s stuck.”
I was starting to panic, when the door creaked open, and Nanna gave a low, triumphant whoop. “I knew I could do it! You can learn anything from the Internet.”
“That doesn't mean you have to learn everything they teach you on random websites,” I grumbled, as Ian, Nanna and I all rushed in. Nanna remembered to pull out her lock pick set, and we closed the door safely behind us.
“Hello…” I called out as soon as we were inside. “Christine? Are you in here?”
But there was no answer.
“Maybe she's still at work,” Ian said. “She might walk in any minute now.”
I looked at my watch. It was almost lunch time, and I knew Ian was right.
“Or Mary could come home from work,” Nanna said. “One of us should stand guard.”
“Maybe Tiffany should go,” Ian suggested. “You can let us know if someone shows up.”
“I'm not going,” I said. “I don't approve of doing this, but now that we’re in here, I need to make sure everything’s okay.”
“I'm not going out,” Nanna said. “You two wouldn't even be in here if it wasn't for me.”
“I think we should toss a coin,” Ian said, “and then Nanna and me can decide who should be outside.”
Nanna picked heads, and Ian picked tails, and then they flipped the coin. Heads came up.
Ian and I looked at Nanna expectantly.
“I'm not going out,” Nanna declared. “It's hot, and I’m old. You know the heat’s bad for me. Plus, an old lady standing outside in the heat looks suspicious. But a young man standing outside, and pretending to talk on his cell phone looks absolutely normal.”
“Nanna's right,” I admitted reluctantly. “We can't have her standing outside in the heat. Ian, I don't think you should be out in this heat either—maybe you can wait in the car, and then if you see either Mary or Christine, you can give us a call.”
Ian grumbled, but he made his way out, and promised to let us know if any of the roommates showed up.
Nanna and I put on gloves, wiped down the door knob, and then made our way through the apartment.
There was quite a lot to go through—the living room we were in, the kitchen area, a small dining area, and then three bedrooms. There was also a bathroom that looked like it hadn't been cleaned often enough, with old fittings and a dripping tap.
It was easy to tell which one Charlene's room had been—that was the one with no covers on the bed, and nothing in the wardrobe.
We glanced quickly at the two other bedrooms, and then decided to start with the room that had a wardrobe full of black clothes.
“I'm sure the other one’s Christine's room,” I said. “Might as well start here.”
“And then, if we’ve got time, we can go through Christine's room, too.”
I hated to agree with Nanna, but she had a point—we’d gone through all this trouble to make our way in, so we might as well look through ev
erything we could.
Nanna and I looked through Mary’s bedroom slowly and carefully, but nothing jumped out at us. Next, we went through the bathroom, and then the kitchen, living room, and dining room. Finally, we looked through Christine's bedroom. And then, just to be extra careful, we looked through the room that used to be Charlene's, even though everything had been removed, and only a bed, mattress, and empty wardrobe stood there.
We were just about to head out, when Ian called, and said, in an urgent, hushed voice, “I just saw Mary! She's on her way up.”
“Nanna and I’ll get out,” I said. “We'll pretend we came to see her.”
I hung up, and Nanna and I quickly made our way outside, locking the door carefully behind us, and shoving our gloves into our handbags.
Mary noticed us when she was a few paces away from her door.
She narrowed her eyes at me. “What are you doing here? And who’s this old woman?”
She chucked her head toward Nanna, and Nanna bristled. “Who are you calling old?”
“You! Don’t you ever look in the mirror?”
“I prefer the term ‘wise,’” Nanna said haughtily. “Just because I’ve got white hair, it doesn't make me old. Age is a number, and I'm young inside.”
Mary rolled her eyes. “Whatever. Where’s that funny-looking partner of yours, the one with the curly red hair?”
“I'm not funny-looking,” Ian said from behind Mary. “I was just parking the car.”
“Well, whatever,” Mary said. “What are you all doing here?”
“We came to talk to you,” Nanna said. “You were Charlene's roommate after all.”
“I've already told you everything I can,” Mary said. “I don't have to talk to you. You're not the police.”
I raised one eyebrow at her. “Did the police come around here?”
Mary nodded. “Yeah, right after Charlene died.”
“We really would appreciate some of your time,” Ian said politely. “We think you might be able to help us.”
“How?”
“There’s something you’re not telling us,” I said. “We're here to see if you can remember anything new.”
“Well, I can't.”
“We know you went to a pawn shop last night, and that it’s related to Charlene’s death.”
Mary looked at me with alarm in her eyes. “What? How do you know that?”
I shrugged. “We have our ways.”
Mary took a deep breath and recovered. “Yeah? So what if I went to a pawn shop, there's nothing wrong with that. Doesn’t mean it’s related to her death at all.”
“I think the cops would be interested to know that you're selling your roommate’s stuff. The bags and jewelry weren’t yours.”
Mary's eyes widened again, glittering with panic. “How do you know that?”
“Like I said, we've got our ways.”
Mary looked over her shoulder, and then opened the door. “You'd better come in.”
When we were all settled down in her living room, Mary said, “You're not going to tell anyone, are you?”
“Maybe Christine should know.”
“Why would Christine want to know about Charlene’s stuff? It's nothing to her.”
I raised my eyebrows. I'd taken a shot in the dark, thinking that Mary had been stealing Christine's things as well, but clearly I was wrong. “How did you get your hands on Charlene's things?”
Mary shrugged. “I used to borrow her stuff all the time, when she was alive. She never minded.”
Nanna said, “Did Charlene know that you ‘borrowed’ her things?”
Mary shrugged. “She wouldn't have cared. She had so many nice things and she hardly ever used them. They're not my taste, but I've got a girlfriend who likes those kind of things, and she liked to carry the designer bags whenever she went out to have some fun—said she got more free drinks and better treatment that way. I always gave everything back within a day or two.”
“Except when you didn't,” I said.
Mary rolled her eyes. “Charlene’s dead, and I know designer bags and jewelry are expensive. There wasn't anything in them, and it's not like the police had any use for them, and what would her family do with them either?”
“So you stole them,” Ian said.
Mary smiled. “I gave them better homes. I wasn’t actually sure what I was going to do—as soon as I heard she was dead, I knew the cops would stop by and take everything. I've watched enough TV shows to know that's how they work. So I headed into her room, and gathered up everything I thought might come in handy.”
“What were you going to do with them?”
“At first I thought I'd sell them online, but then I didn't want a paper trail, or an Internet trail. I was going to ask my girlfriend if she wanted anything, but then I worried that maybe she would tell someone about it. I was still deciding what to do when you guys came around to talk—and then I thought, what if you wanted to go through my things, or something.”
“So you panicked,” Nanna said, “and you took them to the pawn shop, and you got some good money for them.”
“I wouldn't say good money,” Mary said. “Those places are rip-offs.”
“But maybe they could have come in handy during the investigation,” I said. “Did you ever think of that?”
Mary laughed. “A couple of designer handbags? It's not like they're great big clues or anything, and I could use the money. Living here is expensive.”
“Did you sell any of Charlene's things when she was alive?”
Mary shook her head quickly. “No, of course not. She would’ve found out in the end.”
“How much did you get for selling everything last night?”
“A couple of grand.”
“Maybe you killed her,” Nanna said. “Maybe you thought you could kill her, sell all her things and get a decent amount of money.”
Mary shook her head quickly. “No, of course not. I would never do something like that. Besides, who kills someone over a couple of grand?”
Ian and I exchanged a glance. That was true. Unless they were a drug addict, most people wouldn’t just kill their roommate to get their hands on a few designer bags. Besides, Mary had clearly been unsure of what to do with her loot, waiting ‘til the very last minute before she headed over to a pawnshop.
“That doesn't mean you should sell off a dead person's things,” Nanna said.
“Whatever, old lady,” Mary said. “I'm just trying to survive here, and it's a—what d’ya call it?—it's a victimless crime. No one got hurt.”
I glanced off into the distance, and tried to judge whether that was true. But Mary seemed to be telling the truth, and I couldn't imagine her mustering up the ability to stab Charlene to death. I'd seen the photos the CSI team had taken, and they were gruesome.
“Are you done now?” Mary said. “I’d like to have a shower and then go out for a bit.”
I looked over at her, remembering the way her eyes had flickered when I'd mentioned Chris's name. “There's something you're not telling us about Chris.”
Mary sighed. “I suppose I should have just told you the first time.”
“Don't tell me you're having an affair with him or something.”
Mary laughed. “Chris? No, I’m pretty sure he's gay. I think he and Brad are together.”
“So you've met him.”
“I wouldn't say that.”
“Why don’t you start from the beginning? What do you know about Chris, and how did you find out?”
“I don't exactly know anything,” Mary said, gulping nervously. “But one day, Charlene was home, and she thought I was out. I was actually in my room, taking a nap, but then I woke up because I heard a crash. Charlene was arguing with a man, and she called him Chris. I don't know if it was a different Chris or not, but I don't think so, because they were talking about Brad.”
“What do you remember?”
“Well, I woke up to the crash, and then I heard their voices, but I
couldn't make out what they were saying. The only thing I could hear clearly was when the man, Chris or whoever, said, ‘Stop it! I don't want you creating trouble like this.’ And then Charlene said, ‘I won't. I'm not going to keep this a secret. I'm going to tell everyone—it's what's best for my brother in the long run.’”
Ian and I exchanged a glance. I was about to say something, when Mary went on.
“And then Chris said, ‘It's not what's best, and you'd better stop with this sorta talk.’ After that, their voices died down again, and I couldn't hear what else they were talking about. But it sounded to me like Chris and Brad must've been together, and Charlene was threatening to tell everyone, and maybe Chris or Brad, either one of them, wasn't ready to come out of the closet yet. Something like that.”
I nodded. “What happened after that?”
“Nothing,” Mary said. “I gave them a couple of minutes, and then I heard the front door closing. I figured that Chris must've left. I stayed in my room for a few more minutes, but I couldn't hear anything else, so I fell asleep again.”
“Did you ask Charlene about it later?” Nanna said.
Mary looked at her, and shook her head. “No, I thought it was none of my business. And I think Chris may have said something like that too, that it was none of Charlene's business, but I can't remember exactly.”
“What about Brad?” Ian said. “Did you see him around?”
Mary nodded. “He'd come around to chat with Charlene sometimes, so I'd see him every now and then.”
“Did you ever hear him talking about Chris?”
Mary shook her head. “Not really. I mean, sometimes I’d hear Charlene asking Brad how Chris was doing, and Brad would say ‘okay.’ But nothing more than that. Hang on—now that I think about it, one time, I was in the bathroom, and I overheard Charlene telling Brad that Chris was being mean to her, and telling her to mind her own business. I thought Brad would say something nasty about Chris—I know he and Charlene were close. But he said, what Chris said was important, and that Chris was important to him, and that Charlene should mind her own business.”
“Why didn't you tell us this sooner?” I said, annoyed that we’d overlooked something which could potentially be important. “Did you tell the cops?”
Lucky Charm in Las Vegas Page 11