Ms America and the Villainy in Vegas

by Diana Dempsey

  Even better than all this, Jason answers his phone. “Hey, babe.”

  “Hey.” For no good reason I’m on the verge of crying.

  Of course, since he’s known me forever, he immediately picks that up. “You okay? What’s going on?”

  I lie. “I’m fine.”

  “You don’t sound fine.”

  “No, really I am. I just miss you. It feels like forever since we talked.”

  “Didn’t we talk yesterday? Before the wedding.” At this moment, that seems like eons ago. “So are the cops making any progress?”

  Of course I left Jason voicemails about Danny Richter’s murder, which is too small potatoes to make the news in North Carolina.

  This is what I need to focus on to feel like myself again, I realize. The murder. My dancing debut with the Sparklettes. And being the best Ms. America I can possibly be. “I don’t know if the cops have come up with anything. I haven’t talked to Sally Anne since this morning. And I didn’t watch the news all day.”

  “Something really is wrong with you.” Jason quiets to leave me an opening to spill. I remain silent because I don’t know what to say. “Well, whatever it is, babe,” he goes on, “you’ll get over it. You always do.”

  That’s true. All it takes is mind over matter. That’s something we beauty queens are good at. Want an ice cream cone? Just say no. Daydreaming about another guy? Stop. Just stop.

  “You excited about the dance thing?” Jason asks.

  “Yes! I think the training’s going to be hard but it’ll be really fun with Shanelle and Trixie doing it, too.”

  “Man, tell me about hard training! We’re at it nonstop here. Up before the crack of dawn and I’m lucky if I get a chance to eat. I gotta boost my endurance to the next level or I’m gonna wash out. You know anything about muscular hypertrophy?”

  Since I’ve never even heard of it, Jason starts telling me there are two kinds, sarcoplasmic and myofibrillar, and you really want the myofibrillar kind which you can attain through high intensity and low volume training, and I gather all this has to do with building muscle, but what really comes through is that Jason hasn’t been this excited about anything in I don’t know how long. And anyone who thinks my husband lacks intelligence need only listen to him expound on this topic and they’d realize how wrong they are.

  He winds to a close. “Sorry. I don’t want to bore you with all this stuff.”

  “You’re not! I’m really glad you’re liking pit school so much.”

  “Man, you were right to push me into it.”

  I guess I was. I want Jason to be excited about all the things he can do in life. But now he’s in North Carolina for twelve weeks and that part I’m not liking.

  The fact that we’re both traveling is new, and weird. If it were only me on the road and he were at home, I could picture where he is and what he’s up to. But he’s somewhere I’ve never been and so I can’t conjure it in my mind.

  “So will you come visit me?” I ask it before I even think about it.

  “You mean … in Vegas?”

  “Why not? I’m here through next weekend. Don’t you get at least some weekends off? You could watch me dance with the Sparklettes!”

  “I might be able to get time off this weekend.”

  “It’s Vegas.” I make my voice low and suggestive. “You know what that means.”

  “This is sounding better all the time.” He chuckles. “So you don’t care how much it’s gonna cost to buy a plane ticket with zero notice?”

  “We do have the money, Jason.” Since I won Ms. America, yes, we do. I don’t want to be profligate but this is a bona fide I Need To See My Husband emergency.

  “I don’t know what’s going on with you, babe, but if I can get off you’ve got a deal.”

  “I love you,” I tell him, which brings me close to tears again.

  “Love you, too,” he repeats, though he doesn’t sound anywhere near crying.

  Men.

  Before I slide open the balcony door to return inside, I raise my head in search of the brightest star in the heavens. I make a wish to bring my husband close, in every which way. That night I sleep super well and wake up so rejuvenated I make a beeline for the hotel fitness center before I even grab coffee.

  Wouldn’t you know it? I spy Frank through the glass walls of the spa and make a detour. The spa is sleek and contemporary in style, with dim lighting and loads of metallic accents. Frank is manning the reception desk, sporting a black tracksuit and a glum expression.

  “Good for you for being back in the saddle,” I tell him.

  “Yeah, I was supposed to be off this week, you know, for the honeymoon, but I figured I might as well work. Keep my mind off things.”

  “How are you holding up?”

  “I can’t believe I’m planning Danny’s burial.” He pinches the bridge of his nose. “Sheesh, the kid was only 29 and I’m going to his wake this afternoon.”

  I file that info into my memory bank. I want to go, too, in part to see who else shows up. That can be useful from an investigative point-of-view. “I am so sorry about Danny. Sally Anne told me how much you helped him over the years.”

  “Kid needed it. Damn brother of mine never stepped up.”

  I repeat the question Jason asked me. “Do you know if the cops have made any progress?”

  “Hell, no.” He glares at me. “And they never will if they keep wasting their time grilling me!”

  So something about Frank isn’t adding up for Detective Perelli, either. For Sally Anne’s sake, I don’t like the sound of that. “If you don’t mind my asking, who do you think did it? I mean, do you know of Danny having enemies?”

  Now Frank won’t meet my eyes. He shifts his weight from foot to foot. Then, “He was a grown man. I can’t be expected to know everything he did and didn’t do.”

  In other words, Frank has the same idea I’m getting: that Danny Richter wasn’t exactly a straight arrow. “Do you know how he got that shiner?”

  “Oh, he told me he got that lifting weights that morning.”

  Funny. I never got a black eye toning my upper body.

  A 30-something brunette wearing shorts and a sports bra approaches the desk. “My friend and I are ready,” she tells Frank. I see her gal pal across the reception area, dressed in the same ensemble.

  “Okay,” Frank says. “Guess it’ll be just the two of you. Be right with you.” The woman wanders away and Frank glances at me. “Unless you want to try the cryogenic chamber, too.”

  “The what?”

  “The cryogenic chamber. Our spa’s got the only one in Vegas. A Japanese doctor came up with it and then it got developed more in Poland.”

  My ancestral peeps had something to do with this? I am intrigued. “What is it?”

  “It’s a super cold chamber that you stay in for three minutes tops. The temperature’s so cold it pulls your blood to your core, then after you get out your blood pumps back through your body in kind of a rush. Endorphins get released, other hormones, that sort of thing. Great for the skin, for training, I don’t know what else. But people swear by it.” He hands me a brochure. “You’re interested, I’ll slide you in for free. Girl who usually runs it is out. Let me set those two up,” and he walks away.

  Happy Pennington is nothing if not game for inventive spa treatments. I learn from the pamphlet that super-elite athletes use cryotherapy to enhance performance and recover more quickly from injury, and that normal people try it for both beautification and to relieve all kinds of ailments, from arthritis to eczema to depression.

  Stress, too. Maybe Cassidy should give it a whirl.

  And when they say the chamber is cold, boy, do they mean cold. Negative 275 degrees Fahrenheit. My freezer is set at zero degrees. The tippy-top of Mount Everest gets down to negative 76 degrees.

  Frank comes back. “You got nothing wrong with you, right? No cancer, heart disease, blood clots …”

  I shake my head.

  “Or
claustrophia?” he finishes. “Because there’s not a lot of space in there. There’s a panic button but once you’re in, you’re in.”

  This is sounding a little freaky but I’m ready to give it a go. It is also clear that this is quite the deal Frank is giving me because these treatments cost. The liquid nitrogen that chills the tank is expensive.

  I’m required to sign a terrifying disclaimer that makes it sound like I’m sure to die, and Frank takes my blood pressure, which is not at my lifetime low. Maybe the scariest aspect of the whole thing, though, is the mandatory clothing. Layers of gloves and knee socks, tube-like bandages over the legs and arms, and clogs. This is a highly unflattering get-up but I have learned that superior spa treatments are rarely pretty.

  Entering the chamber is like going into a bank vault. Frank leads us three beyond a gigantic steel door that’s more than a foot thick. The anteroom is chilly but not crazy cold. My heart leaps a time or two when I glimpse the dark and misty sanctum sanctorum beyond. Now I understand why Frank is in fleece from head to toe.

  “It’s a hundred forty degrees below in here.” He points to a digital thermometer registering exactly that incredible number. “When you’re all the way inside and it gets a whole lot colder, the temperature of your skin should stay above 39 degrees. That gives you a good eleven or so degrees of pad before your limbs start to die. At that point they go black, which tells you frostbite has set in.

  “Okay. We all good to go?”

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  If ever a man needed to work on his cryogenic chamber bedside manner, that man is Frank Richter.

  That said, I follow him into the inner chamber, which, I will tell you, is pretty darn frigid.

  It is also black as night, and misty, and cramped. What little I can see reminds me of a sauna. Except that it is so freaking cold!

  Frank shuts the door behind us. “Three minutes start now! Move! Do squats! Stamp your feet! Jump!”

  With so little room, we keep slamming into each other like billiard balls on a half-size pool table. And boy, are our clogs noisy. It’s as if we’re performing a whacked-out version of “Riverdance.”

  Every inch of skin that isn’t covered stings like hell. Steam rises from our bodies like nobody’s business. In short order I’m having as much trouble seeing in front of me as I was at Sally Anne and Frank’s wedding.

  And look what happened there.

  I’m getting close to a panic attack when the 3-minute warning goes off and Frank lets us out. It’s like the best alarm ever. We race like crazy women past the enormous steel door and start stripping off our anti-frostbite clothes before we even clear the anteroom. My thighs are so shiny and red, they look like they could be hanging from hooks in a meat locker.

  Frank yells at us to keep moving but we don’t need him to. We are all jumping and shrieking and running around and giggling and then … whoosh!—all of a sudden I feel higher than a kite.

  “Oh my gosh!” I screech. “I feel fabulous!”

  “I do, too!” one of the other women yells.

  “My name’s Happy but it should be Ecstatic!” No offense to Jason but I don’t think I’ve ever felt this good. It’s like the highest of highs has taken over my body and my mind, too. I feel on top of the world, maybe even better than on that life-changing night when I learned I was the new Ms. America.

  Man, this cryotherapy thing could be addictive. I know my Polish ancestors are to be credited with such clever and useful inventions as the bulletproof vest and talking movies—plus I always think they must have had something to do with pickles—but they really helped come up with a winner this time.

  “I’ll let you do it again,” Frank tells me after the other women have disappeared to have facials to build on the enhancement the cryogenic treatment has given them.

  “Really? Would you?” Since I am exhibiting no evidence of frostbite and feel like a new queen from bow to stern, I am keen to repeat this experience.

  “Sure. I’m running the thing all week. I can’t crank it up just for you but if we’re shy a body or two, I’ll slide you in.”

  “Thank you, Frank, I really appreciate it.”

  He lumbers away and I realize that the more I see of Frank Richter—apart from mysterious cash handoffs, that is—the more I like him. I need to keep that in check so I don’t hamper my investigation.

  My workout is quick but intense, given the endorphins running riot in my system. I’m still quite jaunty when I meet up with Shanelle a few hours later to go to our first dance rehearsal with the Sparklettes, who are basically a sexed-up version of the famous Radio City Music Hall Rockettes.

  “Your skin has never looked so good, girl,” Shanelle tells me.

  I must agree. My face literally glows. I feel like a human moonbeam.

  A few hours later, I realize how beneficial it was that I started out the rehearsal wildly energetic. I don’t know how I could have gotten through it otherwise.

  On the very stage where we will perform Friday and Saturday nights, we meet the fifteen non-laid-up Sparklettes and their trainer, a retired member named Elaine Shreve. She has a little cap of brunette hair and must be the fittest woman I’ve ever seen on the rump side of fifty.

  Everyone, including Shanelle and me, is wearing a spandex camisole with jazz pants or capris or a flounced skirt over leggings. Our dance wear is new because we had to race out to buy it. We’ve already been presented with our shoes, which are silver with a cushioned sole, a strap over the ankle, and a flared 3-inch heel. “The larger strike zone provides greater stability,” Elaine explained.

  “Welcome, Happy and Shanelle!” Elaine now says. “We’re thrilled that the Ms. America organization has allowed you to join us this week and we’re looking forward to meeting Trixie tomorrow.”

  The girls clap. The vibe is pageant-like minus the cattiness and hair spray.

  “Ladies, you already know we are a precision dance team. What our eighteen dancers aim to achieve in every performance is perfect synchronization, particularly in our signature kick line numbers.

  “What you may not know is that our dancers perform approximately three hundred kicks per show, and it is not unusual to do several shows a day.”

  My mind is reeling. Thank heaven for Frank Richter and the cryogenic chamber.

  “The final dance in every performance, our real showstopper, concludes with 36 eye-high kicks. I will expect all of you”—Elaine looks at Shanelle and me—“to achieve that kick height. Otherwise the beauty of our line will be marred.”

  Shanelle and I nod in acquiescence. I know that whatever it takes, all three of us queens will be up to the task.

  “It requires enormous stamina to put on these performances,” Elaine goes on. “Needless to say, the rehearsals are strenuous, too. You must stretch at the beginning and end of each session and you will become more familiar than you ever thought you would be with ice baths.”

  The girls laugh and groan. I’m thinking I got a lesson in extreme cold this morning and apparently I’ll get another one this afternoon.

  “So without further ado,” Elaine concludes, “let us get stretching …” and she leads us through a 20-minute warm-up that begins with gentle yoga stretches and segues into crunches, push ups, squats, and lunges. “We’ll leave our barre work for later,” she calls out, “now let’s get in line,” and I’m already thinking that the first thing I should do after rehearsal is buy stock in Bengay.

  I don’t know how many kicks, steps, struts, and ball changes it takes for Shanelle and me to be sprung.

  “If we didn’t have dance experience,” I shout to Shanelle as we propel our exhausted bodies down the Strip toward our hotel, “we would never be able to do this.”

  The Sparklettes people clearly grasped that most beauty queens at some point train in tap, ballet, jazz, or modern dance. Virtually every pageant includes a dance number in which every contestant participates. The routines aren’t all that complicated but they do require synchronization
. We practice till we nail it.

  “I thank God there is only one performance a night this weekend,” Shanelle yells as we maneuver around a group of tourists who are all wearing yellow tee shirts so they can find each other in the crowd. “I am already slammed and this is just day one.”

  And now we have another potentially grueling experience to get through: Danny Richter’s wake. Shanelle has agreed to accompany me, and if Trixie’s flight arrives on time, we intend to rope her into it, too.

  Fortunately, I had the presence of mind to include in my luggage a simple rayon dress in a timid pearl gray, with pleated folds that extend from curved side seams. It’s a trifle fitted for honoring the dead, but with black pumps, pearl studs in my earlobes, and hair restrained in a bun, I am wake-appropriate.

  I hear giggling in the corridor outside my room before I hear a knock. I race to fling the door open and get just what I was hoping for.

  “Happy!” Trixie Barnett shrieks.

  “Trixie!” I grab her in a hug. We jump up and down a few times—Shanelle, too—which we can manage even without flared heels.

  “I am so glad to see y’all!” Trixie follows me into the room and tosses her clutch on my bed. She looks cute as ever, what with her chin-length red hair and bright hazel eyes. Clearly she got the wake memo, because she is conservatively dressed in black trousers and a sleeveless white blouse with a sweet bowtie at the V neckline. Shanelle has selected a plum-colored sheath with a scalloped bodice and banded waist. “It feels like forever since we were on Oahu. And Ms. Happy Pennington”—Trixie gives me a playful poke in the arm—“I hope you finally believe in destiny because there is no other way to explain the Sparklettes booking. It is obvious that the fates have conspired to keep you in Las Vegas so you can solve the murder of the best man from Sally Anne’s wedding and burnish your reputation as the beauty-queen sleuth. Oh my word!” She pivots me toward the window so she can peer at my face in the strong afternoon sunlight. “What have you been doing to your skin? Your pores are as tiny as pinpricks!”

  Cryotherapy strikes again. I explain how the treatment works while we make our way to the hotel cab line.