by Cathy Ace
“Maybe you hit the wrong number? You know, like when you misdial on a phone?” Ian was hovering behind the bar next to Julie and speaking to her as though she were a normal human being. I found it hard to imagine she’d ever admit to doing anything incorrectly. Her next remarks, and the vehemence with which she made them, bore out my assumptions.
“I did not hit the wrong numbers. I hit all the right numbers, and in the right order. It’s easy enough, after all. The pads are huge. You’d have to be an idiot to hit the wrong ones. Even Miss Shirley could manage it with her arthritic hands.” She glowered at Ian as though it were his fault that her efforts had gone unrewarded.
“What’s the matter, Julie, dear? Anything I can help with?” It was Jack Bullock, also a lawyer, who’d introduced himself to me earlier as Julie Pool’s husband. He was very gracious when we met, but his just-too-shiny gray suit, his slightly-too-well-styled hair, and the touch of dandruff in his eyebrows had all combined to make me instinctively distrustful of him.
Julie relaxed her shoulders and smiled. It was a genuinely warm smile, from the heart. Looking at the oddly matched couple, it was clear to me that they loved each other very much. She was as elegant as he was sleazy, and her role as a cool corporate litigator was offset by Jack Bullock’s grinning presence on thirty-foot-tall billboards that dotted the road from McCarran Airport, announcing that when it came to a DUI or a speeding ticket, if you couldn’t get out of it, it was because “You don’t know Jack!” Very tasteful. Despite these glaring differences, they were clearly besotted with each other.
Julie spoke to her husband in an intimate whisper that my keen ear still managed to catch. “Jack, dear, keep an eye on . . . you know . . . make sure Miss Shirley’s body isn’t . . . disturbed. I’ll do this. I’ve got three tries. I’ll do it more slowly this time.”
“Okay,” replied Jack, winking affectionately at his wife. “You do that, and I’ll stand guard over the old b . . . bird.”
“Jack!” admonished his wife, guessing at his first choice of word. “Don’t. She wasn’t that bad. And she’s dead.” Julie’s chin suddenly puckered. “Oh, Jack, she’s dead.”
Jack gave his wife a hug. “Come on, Julie, love. Keep it together. You do that, I’ll do this.” For all of his overt greasiness, Jack Bullock seemed to have a cooler head than his spouse in a crisis. He moved to within a foot or so of his wife’s late employer to fulfill his assigned duty.
As Jack assumed his position as Guardian of the Corpse, he was joined by the man who’d been sitting opposite Miss Shirley at dinner. Clemence Foy—he’d put a heavy emphasis on the French pronunciation of the “mence” part of his name when he’d introduced himself to me before dinner—was sobbing as he looked down at the dead woman’s body and wiped at his tears with a voluminous white handkerchief. The sight made me think of Louis Armstrong.
Clemence was not quite as dark skinned as the trumpet player, but he had the same sort of build and wore a snazzy bow tie—the use of the large linen square enhanced the similarity. Other than his name, I knew nothing about the man. He looked to be about eighty, though his crimped hair was still glisteningly jet black. His surprisingly youthful head of hair aside, he looked tired, almost deflated. I spotted a gaping space between his neck and his worn white collar. I also noted that he was the only person in the room who seemed to be mourning the casino owner, which hinted at a strong connection between the dead woman and this aged man.
I looked back at Julie Pool just in time to see her shake her shoulders and reach out to, once again, punch in the numbers that would reset the security system and allow us to regain access to the outside world. The numbered pads were, indeed, large, and she didn’t seem to care that we could all hear the code numbers as she called them out, then punched them in. Each time she punched I heard a beep, signifying that the pad had been properly depressed.
“Zero, nine, two, five, four, two, zero, one, zero, one, zero, zero,” she said.
Twelve beeps sounded, then—nothing.
Beginners, Please
THE FEW SECONDS OF EXPECTANT silence that followed Julie Pool’s second attempt to reset the security system were followed by uneasy mutterings. I noticed a few concerned faces, but it was, once again, Svetlana Kharlamova who stole the scene.
“I leave now! My voice! My throat. Stress very bad for me!” wailed the satin-swathed diva. I turned my attention away from Julie, who was still swearing at the keypad, to see the Divine Kharlamova, as she’d been referred to in her heyday, push away a glass of water offered by her ever-patient assistant Jimmy, but gleefully accept a flute of champagne offered by Tom White. Clearly feeling he had fulfilled his duties, Tom approached us.
“What’s going on, Uncle Bud? What’s the delay?”
Bud smiled. “I told you at dinner, Tom, you can drop the ‘uncle.’ Jack’s your uncle; I’m just your uncle’s friend.”
Tom shrugged. “You’ve always been more than a friend to Uncle Jack,” he said, “especially since his heart attack, and I’ve always called you ‘Uncle Bud.’ But if I’m too old for that now, I’ll keep doing my best to just call you Bud. Hey, Tanya . . .” Tom motioned for his soon-to-be live-in girlfriend, Tanya Willis, to join us. As she excused herself from the opera singer’s clique and approached us, I smiled at this other improbable couple.
At thirty years of age, Tom White might have grown up in the quiet, though beautiful, District of Mission in British Columbia, but he was proving to be a real shooting star in the culinary world, having won a television competition where hopeful chefs are eliminated on a weekly basis. Scooped up by the Tsar!, he was one of the new young guns taking the already world-famous kitchens in Vegas by storm. Six feet tall, with a mass of curly sandy hair, his ruddy cheeks, freckles, and strapping frame were in stark contrast to the pale-skinned, willowy Tanya, who, like me, hovered somewhere between five foot three and five foot four.
At twenty-four, her hair was darker than my own graying locks, but, like mine, it was pulled back into a ponytail. Mine was finished off with a billowing bow of black silk edged with gold thread that matched my bouncy black-and-gold pantsuit—an outfit befitting a very fancy dinner at an exclusive private dining room. Unfortunately, hers was lumped into a grubby scrunchie. A claret-colored blouse, ill-fitting navy skirt, and complete lack of makeup, save a smear of questionable pink lipstick, didn’t improve her overall appearance. To top it all she was lugging a huge black purse on her shoulder. Behind her thick rectangular spectacles, the circles under her dark eyes seemed even more pronounced than they had been earlier in the evening. To be fair to her, I reasoned that might just be the effect of the dreadful lighting.
As ill-matched as this couple appeared, Tom had spent most of the evening telling us how happy they were. It seemed they’d recently made a big deal of their nine-month anniversary, with a lavish dinner downstairs at the fabulous Romanoff Room, where Tom was a chef. Tom had regaled us with the less-than-happy tale while we’d joyously savored a delicious main course of skate wing with a merlot and berry reduction sauce, flecked with capers and lemon zest. I’d managed to listen to him even as my taste buds sang with delight at the wonderful flavors. It seemed that Ian, who was a barman at the Romanoff Room when he wasn’t on duty in the private dining room, had chosen that particular night to show off his prowess, or lack of it on that occasion, at opening a bottle with a saber, and had ended up drenching poor Tanya with champagne in the process. Tom had laughed heartily when he told us he’d threatened to suck the sleeves of Tanya’s blouse dry of champagne as they were driven back to her place in a cab. Apparently Tanya hadn’t been amused. I could understand why. Maybe that’s why she hadn’t bothered to make an effort with her appearance for this dinner engagement.
“What’s going on?” asked Tanya as she peered in the general direction of the body. “Why hasn’t Julie reset the system yet? It only takes a moment.”
“You sound as though you know what you’re talking about,” I replied.
&nbs
p; “Miss Shirley took a special interest in you, didn’t she, Tanya?” Tom looked sympathetically at his girlfriend and wrapped his big bear arm around her. She seemed an insignificant figure beside him, and almost disappeared into his body as she snuggled against his chest. Tom looked proud as he added, “Tanya was up here with Miss Shirley all alone yesterday, weren’t you, eh?”
Tanya smiled and poked Tom in the ribs. “Maybe I was, or maybe I was ‘out and about in a boat,’ don’t you know.” They both smiled as she gently mocked Tom’s Canadian accent. I’d gathered that Tanya had grown up in Henderson, which is just a few miles from the Vegas Strip where she now worked.
Tom was still smiling, though looking embarrassed at his levity, when he said, “Don’t be coy, Tanya, I know you said it was a secret between the two of you and I shouldn’t mention it, but it can’t hurt now.” He dropped his voice even lower, but sounded proud as he added, “Miss Shirley brought her here all alone, just so she could have a proper look at the artworks. That was when Miss Shirley invited Tanya and me to dinner tonight. Of course, I asked if you two could come, what with today being Uncle Bud’s . . . sorry, Bud’s birthday. Miss Shirley was delighted about that. I know she meant to speak to you about you two sharing a birth date after dinner. It was good of her to announce that when we all sang ‘Happy Birthday’ to her at midnight, it was for you too. So we have Tanya to thank for us being here to enjoy all this.”
“Really? Thanks for that, Tanya,” said Bud with a wink in the girl’s direction.
Tanya shrugged, but Tom blushed and spluttered, “Oh, I didn’t mean . . . oh, you all know what I meant.” He stopped, lost for words.
“Oh, come on, it’s okay,” I said in what I hoped was my most reassuring voice. “We were having a very nice evening, up until—this,” I said, gesturing toward the body. “But, I have to say, I wouldn’t mind if Julie Pool could manage to sort out the blessed security system, so we could start the inevitably lengthy process of dealing with the police. I suppose it’ll take hours.”
“You talk strangely,” said Tanya speaking directly to me. “It’s funny. I thought it all through dinner.”
“I suppose it’s the accent?” I asked. It usually is—there’s something about a Welsh accent that intrigues people.
“Yes, it goes up and down, like you’re singing,” she replied, “but you also use weird words.”
“Like what?” I wasn’t sure what she meant.
“You say ‘police,’ not ‘cops’; you say ‘suppose’ instead of ‘guess.’ It’s weird.”
Having already spent a few hours with the girl I decided to allow myself a little sarcasm. “Given the circumstances here tonight, I’d say there are more weird things going on in this room than my choice of vocabulary.”
“I guess,” she replied sulkily.
I’d noticed at dinner that Tanya didn’t possess the best interpersonal skills. Over the years I’ve observed it’s not unusual for software programmers like Tanya, who spend more time with computers, crunching code, than with other human beings, to lack such ability. Still, the response seemed odd, even for her. Sulkiness hardly seemed an appropriate response to murder, especially if Miss Shirley had taken a special interest in this intensely bright girl. Tom had boasted several times at dinner that Tanya had graduated from university before most had even qualified to attend one.
“Listen up, everyone!” It was Julie calling out from the bar. “I have entered what I know are the correct numbers to reset the system. Twice. I’ve used them before, so I know they work, but they haven’t worked this time. I have only three attempts to enter the correct code. If my third attempt fails, we could be in complete lockdown for twelve hours. This will affect us all. I tell you this because I have to decide which numbers to enter for my third and final attempt, and I plan on reversing the two sets of six numbers that Miss Shirley selected as the code. Mr. Sauber . . . Art?” She turned her attention to a short, dapper white-haired man who was still attending to the opera singer. “Did Miss Shirley ever mention a backup code to you?”
The elderly man, to whom I hadn’t been introduced, shook his head. “No, she didn’t discuss anything like that with me. You’d know more about it than I.”
“Just a minute,” I shouted at Julie. I couldn’t help myself. “Are you going to swap the numbers to put her birthday second and the date when the Tsar! opened first, or should you try keeping the overall order and reversing the dates . . . so that they’re year, day, month, rather than month, day, year, as they are now?”
“How do you know Miss Shirley’s code?” asked Tanya sharply. To be fair, it wasn’t only Tanya who was surprised. Julie Pool looked quite put out, and Ian, who’d been hovering at Julie’s elbow as she punched in the numbers, looked puzzled.
I sighed as I replied, “Julie didn’t make a secret of the numbers. Given that we’ve only just finished singing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Miss Shirley, it’s fairly safe to assume that her birthday is today, September 25, and she was very open, and delighted, that she was turning seventy. So, zero, nine, two, five, four, two. And the Tsar! officially opened on January 1, 2000, according to the colorful book in our hotel room, so zero, one, zero, one, zero, zero. It was obvious once Julie called out the numbers. So, to repeat my question, do you think, Julie, that Miss Shirley would have swapped the full dates with each other, or reversed the numbers, or just chosen entirely new ones? In which case I’d suggest you consider the birth date of her late husband, or maybe their wedding anniversary, because it’s clear she chose dates that were impossible for her to forget.”
I glanced at Bud who rolled his eyes away from me, then shook his head, smiling.
“I had to speak up, Bud. She hadn’t considered all the options,” I hissed.
Art Sauber called out, “I think we should vote on it, because I sure as hell don’t want to spend the next twelve hours locked in a room with . . . that.” He nodded his head sadly, in the general direction of the body.
Jack Bullock spoke up next. “You should do what you think is right, my dear. After all, it’s not as though we can reach anyone outside this room to consult with them—I know that you and Miss Shirley had many heated conversations about her never allowing the installation of a landline in here, and the block she insisted be placed on all the cellphone signals and Wi-Fi in this dining room makes that a nonstarter. Though, if Miss Shirley didn’t tell you she’d decided to change the codes, and she didn’t tell Art, who, after all, owns almost half the place, I can’t imagine who she’d tell.”
Julie listened thoughtfully to her husband. The change in her demeanor signaled to me that she’d made a decision. I’m pretty good at reading people; in fact, it’s an important part of my skill set, which I’ve relied upon on many occasions. The settling of her shoulders, the straightening of her back, and her slightly elevated jawline told me that Julie was ready to act.
“Right. No voting. No phone calls to allow me to check with anyone, and no texts or e-mails either. We’re on our own. So here goes . . .” she said resolutely.
This time, everyone listened for the beeps, as Julie muttered aloud the numbers she’d written on a napkin.
After the twelfth beep you could feel the silence.
“Is over? Is done?” asked Svetlana Kharlamova, a dramatic quiver in her voice.
Julie shook her head, as did Tanya.
“No,” said Julie. “I’m . . . I’m sorry. The code has failed. The whole thing will automatically reboot exactly twelve hours from the time of my last attempt”—she looked at her elegantly expensive watch—“so just before 1:00 pm. There are special codes that our security department can use to open just the emergency exit, but this keypad is telling me that three attempts have already been made to do that, down in the main control room, and they have all failed. Miss Shirley must have altered that code as well. Goodness knows what she was thinking. Maybe they’ll be able to somehow open the emergency exit from outside before the twelve hours are up. But unless they’re abl
e to cut their way through the metal door that will have dropped into place there, we’re stuck here. We’ll have to make the best of it.”
“They must open from outside, no? Is emergency exit. This is emergency. Emergency door not open? Is illegal, I think.” Svetlana Kharlamova made a good point.
Again Tanya shook her head, though it was Julie who replied. “Miss Shirley must have had some reason to change all the codes. She was the only one who could do it. It’s very worrying.” I could tell that Julie’s legal brain was running through scenarios where lawsuits might rain down upon the Tsar! Organization. Julie looked across the room to Art Sauber. He responded to her questioning glance with a shrug suggesting helplessness and confusion. Julie swallowed hard and continued. “As I said, we’ll have to make the best of it. I know these chairs aren’t designed for it, but maybe we’ll be able to get some sleep . . .”
Svetlana Kharlamova leapt from her seat, drew herself to her full height, which was not much taller than me, and swirled her shawl about her shoulders. She dropped her chin and gave everyone in the room, in turn, a penetrating stare. It was like watching Gloria Swanson in Sunset Boulevard descend the stairs and demand her close-up, except the Diva Kharlamova was about twice the width of the silent screen star.
“Sleep? You think I sleep? Sleep here? With dead body in room? With murderer in room? I not sleep. You sleep. If you die, is not my fault.”
After the Diva spoke, it dawned on everyone that what she had said was true. If Miss Shirley had been killed, and she most certainly had been, only one of us could have done it—she’d obviously been killed during the darkness that had befallen the dining room right after it was sealed shut. And we were going to be stuck in the restaurant, together, for the next twelve hours.