“It was about…three, three-thirty in the afternoon.”
“Sunday afternoon?”
“Yeah, Sunday afternoon. I was doing my rounds. Just checking the grounds, and I heard the arguing coming from Ms. McLaughlin’s hotel room.”
“Okay.” Decker kept his face flat. “When you say ‘arguing,’ could you define it?”
“Yelling.”
“Who was yelling?”
“Both of ’em.”
“Ms. McLaughlin and…”
“I don’t know the man’s name. He never did say it. Just offered me the money, and like a damn fool I took it. Only reason I took it is because she said for me to take it.”
“Ms. McLaughlin did.”
“Yes, sir. Boy, she was angry. Angry at him…but she looked angry at me for bothering them.” He reached in his pocket and pulled out a wad of hundred-dollar bills. “I didn’t even spend it. I knew it was wrong.” He thrust the bundle in Decker’s face. “Just take it from me. That stuff is poison!”
“I can’t do that, sir.”
“Well, I sure as hell don’t want it.” He threw the money on the table.
The bills started to uncurl. Decker didn’t make a move to take them, but he knew later on that he’d bag the money as evidence. Maybe it was payoff from Donatti to do something bad. “Let’s backtrack a little, Mr. Booker. You were doing your rounds. It was about three, three-thirty on Sunday afternoon.”
“Yes.”
“You heard some arguing coming from Ms. McLaughlin’s room.”
“Yes.”
“Then what happened?”
“I knocked on the door. I called out her name, asking her if everything was okay.”
“What happened after you knocked and called out to her?”
“Well, for one thing, the arguing stopped. The yelling. After I knocked, no one said a peep.”
“Okay. Go on.”
“I knocked again, calling out her name. I started to put my passkey into the door, but then she opened it up before I had a chance.”
“How’d she look?”
The man’s skin darkened. “She was a beautiful woman.”
“I mean what was her emotional state?”
“Angry.”
“Angry and afraid?”
“No, sir, just angry. If she woulda looked afraid, I wouldn’t have gone away. She just looked pissed, pardon my French.”
“So what happened after she answered the door?”
“She told me…let me see if I can get this exactly right…” He took another dab at his brow with the Kleenex. “She said thank you for my concern. That she was sorry they were making a racket, but everything’s fine.”
“Did she look like she was roughed up at all?”
“Roughed up?” The guard looked horrified. “Like she was beaten?”
“Well, was her hair messed up, did she have any marks on her face—”
“No, no, no. Nothing like that. If I would have suspected anything, I would have called my supervisor or even the police.”
“What was she wearing?” Decker asked.
“Wearing?” Booker looked pained. “I gotta think a minute. She had something red on…like a loose red top. She was wearing dark pants. Her hair was down. She kept swishing it off of her shoulders. She had on big diamond studs in her ears.”
“Was she wearing makeup? Like lipstick or mascara?”
“I don’t remember.”
“Did she look like she’d been crying?”
“Her eyes weren’t red or anything like that. Nothing dark running down her face. She just looked mad. Which was different from other times I saw her. Normally, she was very nice and social. Not this time.”
“Did you happen to see who she was arguing with?”
“Yeah, of course. He was the one who gave me the money.”
“What did he look like?”
“Very tall. Big, blond guy. Spooky eyes. I was worried for her.”
“And she didn’t look scared?”
“No. Not scared, not crying, just angry. When he offered me the money for my ‘troubles’”—Booker made air quotes—“I almost called the police. But then she told me to take it. She said, ‘Take the money, Eddie. And keep this little incident to yourself. It would be embarrassing for me if you told someone.’” He furrowed his brow. “She said something about that the man was the boy’s father and they were having a difference on how to raise him right. That’s why I asked you about the son. Is he really okay?”
“Yes, he’s fine. Do you think that’s what they were arguing about?”
Again, Booker looked pained. “I couldn’t say yes and I couldn’t say no. If you’re asking for my opinion, I think the arguing was more personal than raising a boy.”
“How is that?”
Booker blew out air. “I heard him call her a lying little bitch. She called him paranoid and crazy. That’s when I knocked on the door and everything got quiet. Those kinds of words…to me, that doesn’t sound to me like they were arguing about their son. I knew I shoulda said something, but…” He shook his head in shame.
“What?”
“This is gonna sound bad.”
“Tell me anyway.”
He covered his face. “He gave me a thousand dollars. I could really use that money. But there was no question in my mind that I wasn’t gonna keep it. Just as soon as I got back from the cruise…I was gonna give it back.”
“So why’d you take it?”
“You’re not gonna believe me.”
“Try me out.”
“I took the money because Ms. McLaughlin…well, how do I say this? Like I said, she was a beautiful woman with this beautiful, soft voice and a lovely smile. She smiled at me whenever I passed her. Always addressed me by my name and took the time to say a couple of words to me. She always treated me like a person instead of a piece of furniture.”
“I heard she was very friendly.”
“Friendly but never flirtatious. Just a good soul. And like I said, she was so pretty.” He looked down. “I had kind of a crush on her. I took the money because I didn’t want her to be mad at me.”
“YOU LET HIM go?” Marge asked.
“What am I going to hold him on?”
“Maybe he sneaked back in after Donatti left, and killed her.”
“He gave me a complete schedule of his movements. The only way he could have murdered her and disposed of the body would have been if he did it on the grounds. And too many people saw him in between the time he took the money and the time that Gabe got back home and discovered his mother was gone.”
“Maybe he murdered her, stuffed her in a closet, and came back to dispose of the body.”
“He left for home after six-thirty and arrived forty minutes later. He claims he was with his wife the whole time, packing for his vacation. I checked his face, his hands, his arms, and his legs. He even showed me his back and stomach. There were no scratches anywhere. He agreed to take a polygraph. You saw the room. Was there anything to indicate that a struggle took place inside?”
“Loo, he admitted having a crush on her. Maybe she rejected his advances.”
“If he got physical, she didn’t fight back, and I find that hard to believe. I had nothing to keep him on. He doesn’t have a record, he’s got a sterling history of employment, he pays his taxes, he sends his kids to Catholic school. You get a gut feeling about a person. I believed him, so I let him go.”
“I don’t like the part where he said he had a crush on her.”
“She’s a charming woman. He probably wasn’t the only one.”
Marge regarded his face. “Including you?”
“I remember her as a little kid, so to me she’s always a little kid. Objectively, she’s alluring. And I think she played it to the hilt. Not with me, though. With me, she used the helpless-female dodge. ‘Please, Lieutenant, you’re the only one I know that can control him. I feel safe when you’re around.’ And moron that I am, I bought it.”
>
“You sound angry.”
“I’m an idiot. But at least I was smart enough to ask my wife’s opinion about helping her out before I agreed to do it.”
“And Rina said yes?”
“Rina said she’d back me either way. But we both knew that I’d agree to do it because of Donatti’s potential for violence. It could be something terrible happened to Terry, but I’m beginning to think that she planned this all along and I’ve been had. And now I got a teenage boy living at my house and my wife is renting him a piano.”
Marge laughed. “She’s renting Gabe a piano?”
Decker looked sour. “She heard him play this morning. Apparently, he’s some kind of piano genius. Now she’s got him a teacher and I don’t know what else. All I know is it’s going to cost me money.” He hit his forehead. “I’m ready to retire. What the hell did I get myself into, Marge?”
“You’re not going to retire. You’d die.”
“Maybe not retire retire, but I was certainly ready to kick back. How did I get bamboozled into letting this kid into my life?”
“You’re asking me? I adopted Vega and haven’t slept a night since.” She paused. “It’s better now. But I still worry until I get that phone call, telling me ‘good night, Mother Marge.’” She threw up her hands. “Some people take in stray cats. We take in two-legged creatures. It’s not so smart, but at least we don’t deal with litter boxes.”
OLIVER HUNG UP the phone. “That was Las Vegas.” He looked at his notes. “Detective Silver. He said he’d stop by the hotels but not to expect anything. The hotels keep their registries pretty damn private unless there’s a warrant or an overriding reason to expose their patrons.”
Marge said, “How about two dead girls?”
“That’s why I got the kind of cooperation that I did. But until we have more evidence, we’ll be hitting a brick wall.”
Marge said, “We could go there and hunt around the hotels ourselves, but I don’t think we’ll get much. Could be Garth is using an alias. Vegas is a place where people come to reinvent themselves. And each hotel is enormous, with lots of wings and hundreds of rooms.”
“Needle in a haystack.”
Marge shrugged. “What are you doing this weekend?”
“Nothing.”
“Neither am I. I’ve never seen O.”
“It’s good.” Oliver shrugged. “I’ll see it again.”
“I’ll check out who has the cheapest seats possible.” Marge readjusted her purse over her shoulder. “I’m off to see Yvette Jackson with a six-pack ID lineup. Wanna come with me?”
“Yeah, sure.” Oliver stood up and put on his jacket. “We should run our Las Vegas junket by the Loo. I’m sure we could get some recompense for it.”
“We could make a good case for it,” Marge said. “Except the O tickets.”
“Then we just have to figure out a good way of presenting it to accounting. How about…how about a refresher course in emergency medicine and CPR?”
Marge laughed. “And how do figure that?”
“All those women underwater…what if one of them suddenly gets a cramp?”
“Uh-huh, and how do you propose to help?”
“I’m very good at deep massages.”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
IT WAS ONE in the afternoon, but Yvette Jackson was still in her robe—a dusty rose satin dressing gown. Her apartment was a studio done up in Old Hollywood. Her daybed was dressed in heart pillows and a pink satin comforter. She also had a camel-back white couch with silk pillows, and a glass-and-chrome coffee table adorned with a vase of lilies. Her kitchenette was tiny. A lone coffeemaker sat on the counter. With Yvette’s blue eyes, her buxom build, and her white-blond hair that fell carelessly at her shoulders, she could have been the heroine of a screwball comedy from the forties. Except her eyes were red-rimmed and her expression was somber.
“Thanks for seeing us,” Oliver told her.
“I agreed before I found out.” She flopped on the white couch and drew a blanket over her chest. “I called in sick. I’m not going back to that place until I know what’s going on. I’m scared.”
“Who told you about Crystal’s murder?” Marge took out her notebook.
“One of the bartenders—Joe Melon, who heard it from Jack Henry—one of the owners of Garage.” She tucked the blanket under her chin. “At this point, I don’t know how smart it would be to get involved.”
Marge said. “We don’t know who we’re dealing with. If it has something to do with Garage, the sooner we get identification, the better it is for all of us.”
“You really think it’s someone from the bar?”
Marge evaded the question. “Do you know if Crystal was having any trouble with anyone from Garage?”
“A patron or someone who worked there?”
“Either, both,” Oliver said.
“Not that I know of.” Yvette was quiet. “Crystal didn’t have a lot of boundaries. She’d take a liking to a guy and comp him drinks. Maybe somebody took it the wrong way.” A pause. “I don’t know what that would have to do with Adrianna. She didn’t work there. So it could be their murders had nothing to do with Garage.”
“Absolutely,” Oliver said. “Crystal and Adrianna had very active social lives that had nothing to do with Garage.”
“I’m sure they had lots of friends in common,” Yvette said.
“And that’s the main focus of the investigation,” Marge said. “That’s why if we could just take a few minutes of your time, we’d like to show you a photo pack of some men and ask you if any of them look familiar.”
She got up from the couch. “Could I make some coffee first?”
“Of course.”
“Would you like a cup? It’s just as easy to make for one as for three.”
“I wouldn’t mind,” Oliver said.
“Good.” She trudged into the kitchen. “It’s the only thing I know how to make.” As if to underscore the point, she opened the refrigerator and all that was inside were different types of coffee and several bottles of sparkling water. “Oh, I also have water. Would you like water?”
She was stalling before she took a look at the photos. Another few minutes weren’t going to matter. Marge said, “Coffee’s fine.”
As Yvette took out the coffee and the filter, Oliver asked, “How well did you know Crystal?”
“We were coworkers, not friends.” She filled the machine with water. “This is going to sound snobbish, but the job to me was just a job, a way to earn money until my singing career takes off. Being a hostess to Crystal…” She took out three mugs and placed them on her empty kitchen counter. “For her, it was a profession. The best she could get.” She turned to the police. “Cream or sugar?”
“I’ll take a little cream and Splenda if you have it,” Marge said. “Did you meet a lot of Crystal’s friends?”
“I met Adrianna. And her lawyer friend. She was a nice woman. I don’t know what she was doing hanging around those clowns.”
“What about their guy friends?”
“Yeah, I met a few…the one I remember is Garth.” Yvette rolled her eyes. “Not bad-looking, but a piece of work.”
“How’s that?”
“He just thinks he’s all that. When it was clear I wasn’t interested in joining his fan club, he got hostile…well, maybe ‘hostile’ is too strong a word. He got peeved. Started being a prick, shouting out orders like…‘Hey, can we get some more nuts around here.’” She shrugged. “But he was a customer and I played along…like I give a damn what he thinks.”
Marge said, “Did you happen to see Garth the night that Adrianna was in the bar?”
“Not that I remember.” She poured the coffee out, handed a mug to each of the detectives, and sat back down on the couch.
Marge took a sip of coffee and looked around for a coaster.
Yvette said, “Just put it on the table. I don’t have coasters because I rarely serve anyone. I don’t cook and there’s a co
ffee shop around the corner. It’s my home away from home.”
“Sounds convenient,” Oliver told her. “Are you ready to look at the photos?”
“I guess.”
Marge offered her the six-pack that she had made this morning. There were six men with similar facial features—three on top and three on the bottom. Tinsley was on the bottom, right side.
Reluctantly, Yvette took the card, her eyes scanning the images. Then they widened. “Oh my God, it’s this one.” Her finger was on the right bottom. “This is the guy that Adrianna was talking to.”
Marge and Oliver exchanged glances. “You’re sure?”
“Positive. If you knew, why are you asking me?”
“We didn’t know until you told us,” Oliver said.
“But you put him in the picture,” Yvette said. “You had to have known.”
Marge shrugged, but Yvette wasn’t having any of that. Her hands started shaking. “He saw me, Sergeant! He saw me and I waited on him. Now I’m identifying him. Do I have to be nervous?”
Feigning a casual air, Oliver shook his head. “Nah, we’ll pick him up and talk to him. We know where to find him.”
“How do you know? Who is this guy?”
“That’s what we aim to find out.”
AFTER THE DOCTOR’S visit, Rina took Gabe shopping. He insisted on paying and she didn’t argue. He was happy about that. Rina had a way of making him feel calm but not smothered. She didn’t try to parent him. She let him make his own choices, but if he had questions, she’d offer advice. She also had a great sense of humor. She was kind of like your favorite teacher. By the time they were finished, Gabe had two bags of clothes and two new sets of sneakers. She told him that she had stuff to do at her school, so she dropped him off at the house, giving him his own keys.
He went into the room and started to straighten out the closet again, emptying a few shelves for his meager things. It wasn’t like he was moving in, but he was trying to make himself a bit more comfortable. Afterward, he read until his eyes felt strained. He tried to sleep but to no avail. Bored and lonely, he picked up the guitar, knowing that he shouldn’t be fingering a fret board with a sore left hand.
Hangman Page 28