“It doesn’t,” I said, although it seemed like it most definitely did. But I wasn’t one hundred percent sure about it, and until I was, I didn’t want to say it out loud. “Thanks.” And this time, I ended the call.
I sat for a second, staring out at nothing.
The tattooed guy, the one I’d seen in the mall. He had the same ink on his neck as Kelly Masters.
I had to park in the lot at the Bright Lights Motel, across the street from Murder Ink. The motel didn’t live up to its name—the shabby building was mostly dark except for a faint glow behind a couple of windows covered by what could only be flimsy curtains—but the tattoo shop’s lights were spilling out onto the sidewalk, its bloodred neon sign flashing. It wasn’t the greatest neighborhood, and even though I knew Jeff Coleman, it was cold comfort, considering we couldn’t stand each other.
A couple of people were walking around inside, but I couldn’t see their features from where I was because the shop name was painted in large script on the window. With the neon, it was a bit redundant.
I got out of the car and locked it, shoring up some confidence as I jaywalked over to the shop and pushed open the door.
Jeff Coleman was working on a kid who looked like he couldn’t possibly be eighteen. He barely had any facial or chest hair. From the looks of it, he was getting the entire cast of the original Star Trek on his abdomen.
To each his own.
“Hey, if it isn’t the famous Brett Kavanaugh,” Jeff said. “Slumming, are we?”
The Star Trek kid looked over at me. “Painted Lady, right?”
I recognized him now. We’d kicked him out last month when he showed up drunk and definitely underage with a bunch of his friends.
I ignored him, concentrating on Jeff. “I was wondering if I could ask you a couple of questions.”
Jeff’s machine stopped whirring.
“You want to ask me some questions?”
“Is there an echo in here?”
Jeff studied the Star Trek tat for a second. “Let’s take a break,” he told the kid as he peeled off his latex gloves and swung his leg over the swivel chair he was sitting on.
Jeff Coleman was a slight guy, shorter than me by a couple inches, and skinny. His arms were covered with ink, and I could see it just around the collar of his T-shirt, hinting at the tats on his torso. He was older than me, maybe around forty, and the lines in his face indicated he’d lived hard. The buzz cut on his head was salt-and-pepper, and his beard was scruffy, as if he hadn’t shaved in a day or so.
He grabbed a pack of smokes and indicated I should follow him outside.
“What’s up, Kavanaugh?” he asked as he lit a match, touching it to the cigarette that was now balancing precariously between his lips.
“Have you seen the news? The girl who’s missing from Philadelphia?”
He blew a perfect smoke ring, his eyes never leaving my face as he leaned his shoulder against the side of the building.
“Saw it. Also saw you. She was in your shop?”
I nodded.
“Figures. Girl like that wants a custom design.” He took a long drag off his cigarette. “What does she have to do with me?”
“The address of your shop was on the back of the drawing she gave me.”
The smoke curled out of his nose and from between his lips. “Really?” His demeanor didn’t tell me whether it was a surprise or not.
“She didn’t come in here, did she?”
“And take one look at my flash and decide to go upscale instead?” Jeff chuckled.
“Come on, Jeff, I’m serious. Can you let the competition go for a few minutes?”
He studied my face for a second, nodded, and took another drag off his butt. “Okay. No, she didn’t come in here. Although I wish she had. You’re getting some great free advertising.”
If I couldn’t explain how I felt about that to my own staff, how could I possibly explain it to Jeff Coleman? I let it alone, let him think what he wanted. Elise Lyon may have written down the addresses of more than one shop—it had been only half a piece of paper, after all—and stopped checking out any others once she came into The Painted Lady.
Jeff tossed his butt on the sidewalk and ground it with the heel of his boot. “Is that all, Kavanaugh? Or do you want some ink as a souvenir of your walk on the dark side?” A smile tugged at the corner of his lips, but on him it looked more like he’d just bitten into a lemon.
I was about to say “thanks for nothing,” but then I had another thought. I pulled my cell phone out of my bag, hitting a couple of buttons, and watched the picture of Kelly Masters pop up. I held it up so he could see.
“What about her? Did she ever come into your shop?”
Jeff’s face turned white and he froze.
“What happened to her?” he asked, his voice tight, as if he were afraid to take a breath.
I didn’t want to say. But maybe I’d get a straight answer if I did.
“She’s dead.”
He swallowed. “How?”
“Not sure. How do you know her?”
He didn’t answer.
“Jeff, she’s dead.”
“Murdered?”
Tim hadn’t said as much, but I was willing to bet something had gone down. “Yeah, possibly.”
Jeff pulled another cigarette out of his breast pocket and lit it, his hands visibly shaking. I watched him take a long drag and then let it out slowly. As the smoke hung in the air between us, he said softly, “She’s my ex-wife.”
Chapter 12
Jeff swore he didn’t even know she was in town. They’d been divorced for three years.
“She was living out in L.A. Went upscale after we split, got mixed up with celebrity life,” he said. “Heard she might be getting married again.”
“When did you hear that?”
Jeff was on his third cigarette. “Not long ago.”
“Who’d you hear from?”
He shrugged. “I’ve got my ear to the ground.”
I wasn’t going to get anywhere with that. “She looks young,” I said.
Jeff gave me a wan smile. “Younger than me, right, Kavanaugh? Sure, she was twenty-two when we hooked up. We were married five years. You do the math.”
The look on my face elicited a smirk.
“You’re wondering what she was doing with me.”
I was, but I tried to be nonchalant. “None of my business.”
“I pulled her out of a hole. She was a mess when we met—drugs, hooking. I helped her; she straightened out.” He paused, took another drag on his butt. “And then she left.”
Interesting.
“Did you do the tat on her neck?”
The question threw him. He was still trying to digest the fact that Kelly was dead. “The eagle, you mean?”
“Yeah,” I said, like I’d seen more of it than just the corner in the picture on my cell phone.
He nodded.
“Did you do another one like it?”
“What?”
“Have you done others like it?”
Jeff frowned, not knowing where I was going with this. “I don’t see how it matters, does it?”
I couldn’t get the image of that big guy out of my head. “Might, might not,” I said, hopefully with enough mystery in my voice so he’d think it really was relevant.
“Sure, I’ve done the eagle at least a dozen times. Probably more.”
“How about a big guy, at least six-four, looks like a biker, shaved head? He’s got a face full of tats.”
It was the second time I’d rocked Jeff’s world. He caught his breath, the smoke moving slowly out through his nose as he pulled the cigarette from his lips.
“What does Kelly’s brother have to do with this?”
Her brother? Why would Kelly’s brother be following me at the mall and watching my shop?
“Did he have something to do with Kelly’s death?” Jeff asked.
I shook my head. “No, I don’t know.”
Jeff suddenly caught wind that I might be asking questions I shouldn’t.
“Cops don’t know about me, do they?” he asked.
“I just found your address on the paper a couple hours ago. I haven’t told anyone.” I paused. “You don’t have any reason not to want the cops to come around, do you? Because they’ll probably find out you’re Kelly’s ex-husband. That’s their job.”
“You really didn’t know?” Jeff took another drag off the cigarette.
“No. I was just looking for a connection with Elise Lyon.”
As I said it, I realized I’d found another connection between the two women. The first was that Elise was using Kelly’s name; the second was Jeff Coleman’s shop, if not Jeff himself.
“So you never saw Elise Lyon here?”
Jeff took a deep breath. “No.”
“Did Kelly ever mention a friend named Elise?”
“You think Kelly knew her?”
I shrugged.
The Star Trek kid poked his head out the door.
“Jeff?” The booze was starting to wear off; I recognized the weariness in his voice.
“Be right there, Scottie.” The door shut again.
Jeff tossed the butt into the street, and we watched the glow from its tip for a second before he said, “Listen, Kavanaugh, I’d appreciate it if you didn’t say anything to your cop brother about me. They’ll figure it out eventually, but I’d rather it was later rather than sooner.”
“Why?” I blurted it out before I could stop myself.
Jeff chuckled. “Kelly and I didn’t have the most friendly of divorces. But I really didn’t know she was in town, and I didn’t have anything to do with her murder. The cops will think I did. Ex-husband, always the first suspect.”
He had a point, but how did I know he didn’t kill her?
My hesitation must have told him I had doubts.
“Trust me, Kavanaugh. I loved her; I wouldn’t hurt her. She left me.” I could tell he was confused by that.
For a second, I flashed back to Paul, asking me, Why? He really had no clue. Asking me to quit my job at the Ink Spot, follow his career by giving up mine. I shook off the memory.
Jeff was still talking. “I want to do a little look-see into this myself, and if I don’t have the cops breathing down my neck, I’ll be able to do it a lot easier.”
I couldn’t resist. “If you find out anything, can you let me know?”
Jeff cocked his head to one side and studied me for a second. “Why?”
“Maybe I just want to find out what happened to Elise Lyon, and I’ve got a hunch there’s a connection.”
“A hunch? Who are you, Nancy Drew?”
Okay, maybe I deserved that. But it didn’t deter me. “Elise showed up at my shop and told me her name was Kelly Masters.”
I couldn’t read his expression.
“So maybe there is something there after all,” he said thoughtfully. “Sure, Kavanaugh, I’ll play Starsky and Hutch with you, as long as you promise not to blab my name prematurely to that brother of yours. Agreed?”
“Agreed.” I shifted my messenger bag to my other shoulder, crossing my fingers behind it so he wouldn’t see, and asked, “So who would want her dead?”
He laughed, opened the door to his shop, put one foot inside. “The best question would be, who wouldn’t want her dead?”
“What do you mean?”
“Let me worry about that right now.”
“So Kelly had a lot of enemies?”
“Let’s just say she would never be voted Miss Conge niality.”
Again, the link between Kelly Masters and Elise Lyon seemed really remote.
He started to go inside, but I grabbed the door before it shut, causing him to stop in the doorway. “What is it, Kavanaugh?”
“Kelly’s brother. What’s his story?”
“I don’t know where you met him, Kavanaugh, but my advice? Just stay away from him.” He paused, and when he spoke again, his tone was soft, like he actually had a heart. “Matthew’s bad news. You don’t want to mess with him.”
Matthew?
Chapter 13
So now I had two Matthews, or rather, a Matt and a Matthew.
Jeff Coleman’s words floated around in my head, interrupted every second or so by the fact that Kelly Masters’s brother, Matthew, was the guy watching me.
Matthew.
The object of Elise Lyon’s devotion?
Maybe.
Or was it Chip Manning’s driver Matt?
I had a hard time connecting Elise—from a well-to-do family in Philadelphia, about to marry one of the richest heirs in the world—with someone like Kelly’s brother.
Where would she meet him? Did she hop a plane to Vegas, meet him in a casino or a bar here, decide she couldn’t marry Chip but had to marry Matthew instead?
Something inside me wouldn’t let me believe that. It just didn’t fit.
Then there was Matt, the driver. That made the most sense. She would obviously have known him through Chip. Maybe Matt drove her around, too. Maybe he started her engine a few times. Maybe that was enough for her to realize Chip was never in the driver’s seat.
My car analogies were getting out of hand.
Now I knew how Tim felt when he was working a case and didn’t have all the answers.
It sucked.
Tim. He wouldn’t be happy with me once he found out about my trip to Murder Ink to see Jeff Coleman. I thought about my promise to Jeff that I wouldn’t tell Tim. It let me off the hook, but only temporarily. Even though no one knew I’d come here tonight—except for Scottie the Star Trek fan—Tim would find out Jeff was Kelly Masters’s ex-husband and since Jeff was a tattooist and I was a tattooist, Tim was smart enough to figure that we might know each other and ask me about him.
It shouldn’t be a difficult decision. Jeff Coleman was my sworn enemy; we hated each other. This was the first almost-civil conversation I’d ever had with him, and still he’d peppered it with constant reminders that he only ever called me by my last name. Like he was some sort of tough guy.
I could take him out.
But there had been something sincere about his voice when he talked about Kelly, and he’d definitely been surprised when he found out she was dead. If I went with my gut, I’d say Jeff Coleman didn’t have anything to do with his ex-wife’s death.
I didn’t have to debate it too long, though, because when I got to the house, Tim wasn’t there. I remembered he said he might not be home tonight.
I tugged off my tank top and skirt, changing into plaid pajama bottoms and a short-sleeved oversize T-shirt. It had been a long time since my burger, so I rummaged in the fridge and found some cheese and crackers. I poured a glass of Malbec and went to the sofa, clicking on the TV.
Hadn’t I started my day here?
Elise Lyon was all over CNN. And MSNBC. And FOX. She was still missing. Chip Manning had joined his father in Las Vegas, and they were staying in the penthouse suite at Versailles. Elise Lyon’s father had arrived in town; her mother was in Philadelphia not speaking to the press. A local tattoo shop owner had last seen Elise Lyon. See her in her shop in this incredibly unflattering footage.
They must have bought the film from Leigh Holmes’s station. Great.
Nowhere was there any mention of Kelly Masters.
I finished my wine and felt my eyes droop. The day had finally caught up with me, and I had to get up early tomorrow for the TV crew’s little visit. Fun.
I took the glass and empty plate to the kitchen, placing them in the dishwasher. Neither of us had eaten at home today except for breakfast, and it could be a few days before we had enough dishes in there to warrant using the water.
One of my biggest issues with Las Vegas is the water situation. By all rights, we shouldn’t have any. We’re in the desert, and the fact that water is in short supply is no mystery. Lake Mead, our water supply source, was down a hundred feet because of the drought, yet every resort and
casino used so much water every day that we could probably fill another ocean in no time. Every time I looked at that fake canal that ran parallel to my shop, I tried not to feel guilty.
I shut the dishwasher, turned out the light, and went to my bedroom, where I fell on top of the covers and went to sleep immediately.
Regardless, I woke up sometime in the night when I heard Tim come in after all. He tended to have heavy feet, and I followed his footsteps in my head around the house as he got himself a glass of water in the kitchen and then went into his bedroom and shut the door.
I barely slept again, my nervousness about 20/20 bubbling up in my chest. How could I call it off? Could I do that to my staff?
When I got to the shop the next morning—Tim had managed to sneak out during one of my bits of sleep, thus alleviating my guilt about not telling him about Jeff Coleman—Bitsy and Joel acted like it was Christmas, and even Ace wore a pair of jeans that didn’t have a hole in the knee.
They all had dressed up like they were going to their First Communion. Bitsy had a new pair of trousers and a cute blue top that accentuated her blond curls. Joel’s massive frame wasn’t quite so overwhelming in a subdued charcoal rayon shirt and cream-colored slacks.
“What did you people do with my staff?” I asked as I surveyed them over my to-go coffee cup.
Joel circled me, his head shaking sadly. “Brett, you have to go get yourself something else to wear. I’ll go with you.”
I didn’t think my print skirt and black tank top were awful. Why should I look different today?
When I voiced that out loud, Bitsy “tsk-tsked” me. Even Ace made a face.
I sighed. “Okay, Joel, take me out, dress me up.”
The smile spread across his face as he clapped his hands. “Goody!”
“We’re probably only going to be on air for about one minute, you know. No one will even notice what we’re wearing.”
No one got it. Joel shuffled me out of the shop and pointed me in the direction of Ann Taylor.
“You do realize that this sort of thing gives me hives?” I asked him as I showed off a wraparound dress with a print that clashed with my tats.
“Oh, shut up and deal,” Joel said, handing me a pair of white cotton trousers and a flowing purple silk sleeveless top.
The Missing Ink: A Tattoo Shop Mystery Page 6