by Cathy Ace
“Is true! This happen to me!” exclaimed Svetlana. “I am in car in London, England, and driver of car smell like old man I meet in Moscow.” She lowered her voice as though I was the only one listening, which I wasn’t. “I play woman convict in Shostakovich opera Lady Macbeth of the Mtsensk District. I am young. Very young. He help me with my career. I do not know name of smell. For me is . . . difficult smell. He give me pretty things. I like pretty things. Smell can bring good memory, or bad. Ah . . . life is hard, then we die. But I have my voice.”
I allowed Svetlana to dwell on her youthful indiscretions, and continued, now addressing the group more widely. I was determined to make my point. “We don’t always know that we’re encoding, or what makes us recall things. We’re very rarely aware that we are automatically comparing a current experience with previous experiences or attitudes. It’s the process that makes us ‘feel’ a place is homey, or not. We’re assessing multiple stimuli and gauging them against what we already ‘know.’ Ever bought a home, Jimmy?”
Jimmy looked surprised to be called back from his reverie. He shook his head.
“Well look, when you went hunting for somewhere to rent, did you pick a place that ‘felt right’?”
He nodded.
“Since you moved in, has it always still felt that way?”
Jimmy smiled sadly. “No. It didn’t feel at all the same when I moved in. I thought the woman who rented it to me had changed something, so I called her. She said the day I viewed it she’d been making toast just before I arrived, and burned it. She had worried it would put me off. I didn’t even notice it at the time . . . or I didn’t know I had. I don’t know why burnt toast would make me feel like I was home, safe. But I believe it did. I don’t remember Ma burning toast in the van that often, but maybe she did, and that’s what it was. I do remember we used to go somewhere when I was very small that was bright, noisy, and smelled of toast and grease. I have no idea where it was, or whether I went there once or many times. But I do remember it smelled like that.”
“You see, Jimmy? That’s what I mean. As humans we don’t knowingly encode all the stimuli around us. We can’t. We have to selectively give our attention to certain things and ‘ignore’ others, or we’d stretch our poor brains to the point where they couldn’t cope. Right now I’m choosing to ignore the unpleasant odor of the warming remnants of caviar and cheese and so forth, the flashing of the giant screen across the road, and the fact that someone in this room is very angry.”
“How you know someone is angry?” snapped Svetlana. “This is this Rain Man also?”
“No, Svetlana, it’s nothing to do with Rain Man, nor is it anything to do with Spider-Man . . . I have no ‘spidey-senses’”—the Russian opera singer looked confused, but I let it pass because I just didn’t have the time, or the will, to explain Spider-Man to her—“but I know that anger changes our body chemistry. Most of us are familiar with the idea that pheromone production plays a role in attraction. It’s the same sort of thing. Think a dog can’t smell your fear? Think again. Their powerful sense of smell, combined with the change in a person’s bodily chemical excretions when they are afraid, means dogs can smell fear at a great distance. If you are, somehow, able to act with confidence, or bravado, for long enough, you might be able to fool your body into changing back to its normal chemical balance, and that’s when the dog can no longer smell fear.”
“You smell us all to find murderer?” Svetlana guffawed.
I allowed a smile to curl my lips, but I didn’t let it reach my eyes. “No, but I can sniff out a liar, and I think you were less than truthful with me when you said you and Jimmy were in physical contact for the entire time the lights were out.”
“Why did you think that the furniture was moving?” asked Bud, right on cue.
As Svetlana fussily rearranged her wrap, her nostrils flared with anger. She tossed her head and addressed Bud. “I feel table move. Table touch me here.” She indicated her midsection.
“And that’s when you cried out?” Bud spoke sharply.
“Yes. Is dark. I am afraid. Table moving like séance. I think now is Miss Shirley’s ghost leaving when she is killed. I feel her being killed.”
Jimmy sighed. “Okay, it was then that Madame let go of me. She stopped clutching my arm, but the lights came on just a few seconds later. I know she was sitting next to me the whole time. She could not have killed Miss Shirley.”
“Ah, my Jimmy,” said Svetlana, beaming.
“Did you feel the table move, Jimmy?” Bud was still using a clipped, professional tone.
Jimmy shook his head. “No, not personally. But I wasn’t touching the table then. I’d pushed my seat back from the table to stretch my legs. I was . . . I was thinking about dessert. I could smell the chocolate, and my stomach was growling, even though we’d not long finished the main course.”
“You see,” I said quietly, trying to be just as professional as Bud, “you recalled some things you didn’t know you had encoded. That’s really useful.”
Bud spotted his next cue and jumped right in. “Folks, I know it’s late, and I know we’re tired, but if we’re going down this road, we need to give our attention to the moments immediately before the lights went out, during which they were out, and immediately after they came back on. If we can do that I’m sure we can work out where everyone was at the critical moment.”
“Now? I could really do with just putting my feet up and being quiet,” said Ian. “I started my shift at Babushka Bar at ten this morning, so a very long time ago, and I didn’t get a break at all before I opened up the bar here ahead of dinner, so I’m beat. Just so you all know, I was behind the bar, in my usual spot, the whole time.”
“No, you weren’t, Ian. You’re misremembering,” said Art. “I was at the bar pouring myself a drink. You were at the dessert table before the lights went out.”
“Was I?” Ian looked puzzled.
“Yes, you were,” added Julie. “Jack and I were standing over there near the window wall having a chat, and I saw you standing behind the desserts, wiping off the saber with a cloth.”
“Oh yeah, you’re right,” said Ian, sounding surprised. “It was wet with champagne. I didn’t want it to spoil the silver . . .” He glanced toward Miss Shirley’s corpse and shuddered.
“Where did you put the shashka after you wiped it?” I asked.
Ian gave my question some thought. He looked uncertain when he replied, “On the bar, then I walked around to rehang it. Or, I guess, I meant to. I’m pretty sure I’d put it down before the lights went out . . .”
“You must have, unless you were the one who used it to kill Miss Shirley,” said Carl, finally deciding to get in on the act.
Ian blushed and nodded. “Yes, right. Of course I’d put it down, but I think I was still standing between the bar and the dessert table.”
“So anyone wanting to get to the blade would have had to pass you?” I asked. Now we were getting somewhere.
Ian sighed heavily and rubbed his head. “I dunno. I’m confused. I guess it would be easier if we all just went to the places we were when the lights went out, after all.” He got up from his seat with obvious reluctance and moved to the end of the room farthest from Miss Shirley, between the bar and the dessert table. “I was here,” he said loudly, “and I was heading this way, so I probably got, I dunno, about this far.” He walked all the way to the end of the bar nearest the ladies’ room, where there was an entry point to his workspace. “What about the rest of you?”
Julie Pool got up. As she straightened her jacket and skirt, she spoke brightly. “Come on, Jack. We might as well get this over with.” She began to move toward the window, pausing when she noticed that her husband wasn’t rising. “Are you alright, Jack? How’s your head, dear? You look a bit off color. Do you feel up to doing this?”
I looked at her husband too. He was still in the seat his wife had forced him into after she’d helped him up from where he’d fallen on the floor.
He certainly appeared pale, and beads of sweat glistened on his brow.
Jack Bullock sounded weak when he replied. “I’ll be fine, dear. I think I have a pretty thick skull, but you’re right, I’m not a hundred percent. Still, I guess moving around a bit won’t hurt.” He got up to join his wife, then paused. “Should we clear this broken urn, before it gets ground into the carpet?” He looked down at the remains of the porcelain pot.
I spoke up, spotting a way I could confer with Bud. “I tell you what, Bud and I will clear that away, if you can all go back to the points as close as possible to where you think you were when the lights went out. Maybe we could move at least two of these tables back to their exact original positions. Of course, we can’t interfere with the body, so let’s put the third just approximately where it was, and be careful to work around . . . Miss Shirley.” I only just managed to stop myself saying “it,” rather than “Miss Shirley.” “It” is not a good word to use when referring to the corpse of a loved one.
Second Intermezzo
I MADE SURE THAT EVERYONE gave the once-precious urn a wide berth as they moved to take their places, while Bud grabbed a tablecloth from behind the bar. As he and I bent to gather the shards of porcelain and lay them on the linen, we managed a whispered exchange.
“I’m not too keen on this line of investigation, Cait,” he opened. “The cops here will be livid. Probably with me, given my background. We’re giving the killer a great opportunity to get their story straight before we’re all formally interviewed.”
I nodded. “I know, Bud, but we have to manage this process, because people will talk about it anyway. If I can get people to focus on what they can recall of everyone’s actions at the vital time, it might give us some insight into what really happened. If they can stand where they were, see the room again as it was, or as close to it as possible, then they might recall something that will help us work out who could have been able to get at the saber and Miss Shirley. The logistics will help, but, to be honest, I really want to consider motives for the murder. There’s a lot that’s come to light on that score already. Miss Shirley had twin boys, so there’s a question of inheritance. That’s certainly one avenue, but there could be other reasons. Petrosian is an Armenian name, and this is a Russian-themed casino—so there could be some sort of organized crime connection. Maybe Svetlana’s been a traveling Russian mobster all these years, with opera singing as her cover?” I managed a wan smile, which Bud returned. “There’s the disappearing egg . . . so maybe plain old theft is at the bottom of this, and Miss Shirley got in the way somehow—possibly quite literally. By the way, did you know that Carl Petrosian Sr. was found dead in his swimming pool a year ago, fully clothed?”
Bud’s shocked and concerned expression showed me he hadn’t learned that fact.
I kept my head down as I continued, “Sounds as though pretty much everyone here tonight could have been at the Petrosian house that night, though Clemence wasn’t clear about that. Of course, tonight might be an entirely separate issue. Maybe Carl Sr. just had too much to drink and fell into the water. We don’t know. Clemence told me the cops said he was drunk, and I’m sure he’d have mentioned it if there’d been any sort of investigation other than what would be carried out in the case of an accidental drowning.”
Bud nodded his agreement. “Why so much animosity between Art and Carl, do you think? They were pretty tough to handle. Once the issue of the stolen egg came up, Art was all over Carl. You have a take on that?”
“Testosterone, and a billion-dollar business on the line?”
“I’d have thought that Art was a bit too old for testosterone to play much of a part, but they clearly have a relationship that’s got some barbs in it. Could you find a way to get them to talk a bit more about themselves, Cait? You’re good at that, in this sort of informal setting. It’s not like I can point shiny lights in their faces and sweat it out of them, eh?”
“If only.” I smiled. “But for now we might at least be able to pin down who was where, when. I’ll try to get everyone to use my memory techniques to draw out the truth on that score, for a start. We might find out something useful. Is there anything you’ve remembered that could help?”
Bud shook his head. “I stayed at our table after you left, but Tom and Tanya got up and moved away. As you know, I was facing the window wall, not the bar, and I had my back toward Miss Shirley’s position.”
“Where did Tom and Tanya go?”
“I don’t know, Cait, sorry. I was mesmerized by the lights outside, just letting the whole thing wash over me. I was just thinking about . . . stuff. They were behind me somewhere, near the bar, I believe.”
“And you’re sure you heard a pop first, then a crash, then the metal collar clang down around the elevator shaft, and then the power went out? In that order?”
“Certain. Though, like I said, it wasn’t a real crash.”
“Okay, I’ll go with that. I am aware that this is a risky undertaking, Bud, but we’re stuck in here for hours yet, and this is all bound to come up at some point. We might as well manage it the best we can. Okay?”
Bud nodded. “You lead on this. I know I possess special cop powers”—he winked—“but this is the time for a gentler hand than mine. You take the lead, I’ll back you up. You’re good at directing a room full of suspects, Cait.” He smiled. My heart and my head agreed that I was the luckiest woman in the world to be with Bud Anderson.
“Aw shucks! You know what to say to a girl to make her feel real special,” I hammed. I was so distracted by Bud’s warm smile and glinting blue eyes that I wasn’t paying as much attention to my task as I should have been, and I managed to slice the pad below my left thumb with a particularly sharp-edged piece of porcelain. “Ouch!” My cry drew some attention around the room, but not much. “Ow—that hurts.”
“Oh Lord! What have you done to yourself now?” Bud didn’t sound annoyed. He seemed unsurprised that I’d managed to injure myself. He shook his head as he said, “You go wash that, and I’ll find a clean napkin to bind it. Unless you’ve got a few dozen Band-Aids in that purse of yours, like you usually do?”
I shook my head and licked the blood off my hand, which was probably a stupid thing to do, but I did it anyway. “No, it’s just my evening purse—too small for anything but the barest of necessities, like all evening purses. I wonder why Miss Shirley had such a large purse with her this evening? The red didn’t work with her turquoise dress at all. Odd choice.”
“Cait, stop it. Go get that cut washed, then I’ll bind it. After that we can get everyone to explain where they were at the moment of the crime, then you can give fashion notes, right? Priorities, Cait. Procedure. Go.”
“Yessir!” I pushed myself up from my squatting position with some difficulty, and more than a few groans—it’s amazing how quickly I seize up these days—and set off for the washroom.
On the way I passed Tom and Tanya having a heated debate at the bar about which of them was standing exactly where at the time of the murder, and Jimmy Green trying to pacify Svetlana, who was whining, “. . . just a little one, Jimmy . . .” I suspected I knew what she was talking about, and, indeed, as I rounded the privacy screen designed to shield the diners from the door of the washroom, I noticed Jimmy moving toward the decanter of port with a small glass in his hand.
When I came out of the ladies’ room with a freshly washed, but still bleeding, hand, I paused for a moment. I was struck by a strange sense of déjà vu. Well, almost. Something wasn’t right. In fact, it hadn’t been right the first time around—I just hadn’t realized it until this chance to see people “in place” for a second time.
When I’d emerged from the washroom earlier in the night, when the dining room was without any light save that which shone in from The Strip, I’d been aware of shapes moving—silhouettes against the backdrop of the myriad colors outside. Of course, the room looked different now, under the deadening low-energy emergency lighting. This time faces were washed ou
t, people were looking haggard or just plain disheveled. Bud and Art had removed their jackets, joining Clemence and Carl in shirtsleeves. Julie’s perfect hairdo was threatening to come apart. Svetlana’s wrap had been so overused it was looking like a wrung-out rag, Jimmy’s dark suit revealed how cheap it was by being so badly creased, and Tanya looked as though all the blood had drained from her face. As I noticed her pallor, I realized that I hadn’t even looked at myself in the mirror in the washroom, and I was quite glad I hadn’t, because I could imagine I was in just as sorry a state. My bleeding hand aside, I knew I must, by now, have eaten off all my lipstick, and that my hair was probably poking out of its ponytail somewhere. It usually tries to escape after a few hours of confinement.
“Got it!” I said aloud. Almost immediately Bud was at my side, wrapping my injured hand in a large, fresh white linen napkin.
“What have you got?” he asked as he expertly wound the cloth around my bleeding flesh, creating pressure as he did so, and tied a sound knot. “There!” He looked pleased with his work. “That should help stop the oozing and keep it clean. Okay?” I nodded. “Now—tell me, what have you ‘got’?”
“It was really helpful for me to enter this room again from the washroom. This is pretty much exactly where I was standing when the lights came on. I knew there was something nagging at me about the room when I first saw it, and the scene this time, but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Now I know what it is.”
Bud looked around. “Well,” he said thoughtfully, “quite a lot is different now. The table that was in front of Miss Shirley is in a necessarily different position, the urn and the egg are missing, there’s a tablecloth covering the corpse, which will give a very different spatial sense. In fact that whole section, between the two last partitions, has changed a lot. Folks have moved two of the tables back to their original places so people can show the exact spots they were in, but because we can’t move the table where Miss Shirley was sitting, Clemence just took the seat he’d have been in if the table were where it was originally placed. But we can’t get too close to the body. You know what I mean?”