Including Finn Ambrose.
Chapter 40
To rule out Beau, I drove to the Black Hawk Saloon. I paused inside the front door. The country music blasting through the speakers made my head ache.
The bar was beyond the dance floor, where line dancers were toe heeling in rhythm to a lively song. Beau paced behind the bar looking comfortable in his element. He tossed a bottle of Jack Daniel’s in the air, caught it by the neck, and poured a shot of whiskey into a tumbler. A customer slid him a bill. In rhythm to the music, Beau spun around, rang up the charge, and returned to the patron with change and a smile.
I sauntered to the counter and waited until I caught his attention.
“What’ll it be?” Beau moseyed over and, recognizing me, said, “How’s your head? Need some ice?”
“I’m cool. Nothing a little aspirin can’t solve.” Liar. “How about a club soda with lime?”
Beau fixed my drink, slid a napkin in front of me, and set the drink on top.
“How’s Gloria doing?” I asked as I laid a ten-dollar bill on the bar. “She’s not answering her cell phone.”
“She took an Ambien. That knocks her out.”
“For how long?”
“She was sleeping like a log when I left her. I’d give her until the morning to respond.” He pushed the money back to me. “But that’s not why you’re here, is it? What brings you in?”
“I’d like to ask you a couple of questions. The answers might help me track down the guy who is taunting Gloria.”
Beau scanned his customers, all of whom appeared content, and returned his attention to me. “Fire away.”
“Do you know a young woman named Laila Walton?”
“Never heard of her.”
“She frequents Incline Bowl.”
He frowned. “Nope.”
“She’s the person who delivered one of the notes to Gloria.”
“Still not registering. Camille might know. She—” He had the decency to falter. “Poor Camille. Hard to believe she’s gone. May she rest in peace.”
“She’s the one who helped me locate the delivery girl. Laila said a man wearing a disguise hired her to deliver the note about Dr. Fisher.”
“It wasn’t me. I’ll prove it. Have the sheriff put me in a lineup.”
“Too late for that. Laila is dead. Murdered.”
Beau’s mouth fell open. “When?”
“Earlier today.”
“You saw me. I was at the studio and left with Gloria.”
“Earlier than that. Around dawn.”
Beau grabbed a towel and wiped the bar with gusto. “Not me. I am not a murderer.”
“Laila left me a message this morning before she was killed,” I went on, “claiming she could identify who’d hired her.”
“One more time, it wasn’t me.”
“The forensic specialists have determined that animal hair was found at all of the crime scenes,” I said, the lie tasting somewhat bitter.
“I don’t own a dog or cat. Guess that lets me off the hook.”
I kept quiet.
His jaw ticked with tension. “Give me a break. Anybody could’ve tracked hair into the crime scenes. Practically everyone in Lake Tahoe owns a cat or dog.”
“It could be horsehair.”
“I don’t own a horse, either.” He stabbed the counter with his index finger. “In case you hadn’t noticed, I’m a little strapped for cash. That’s why I’m holding down two jobs.” Beau whipped the towel at a fly. He didn’t nail it because it buzzed past my ear. Even so, he pretended to pick up the fly and fling it into the sink.
Quietly I said, “You wear a horsehair vest.”
His mouth dropped open. After a long moment, he closed it. “It doesn’t shed, as far as I know.”
“Are you sure?”
Beau braced both palms on the bar. “Look, babe, should I get a lawyer?” He blanched. “Sorry. Didn’t mean to call you babe. It’s just—” He scrubbed his neck. “This whole interrogation thing has me wrapped around the axle. So, should I? Get a lawyer?”
Coolly, I took a sip of the club soda.
“C’mon. I’m willing to help any way I can. I did not do this.” Beau splayed his hands. “No way, no how.”
“Hey, bartender, another round,” a customer yelled from the far end.
“Back in a sec.” Beau thumped the counter as if it were a set of bongo drums, filled the order, and returned. “Let me tell you my alibis. For every murder. How about that? Let’s start with the Fisher murder. When did that take place?” He held up a hand, fingers separated.
“A week ago Friday. Early in the morning.”
“As I told you the other day, I was at the gym. I do an hour of cardio followed by a two-hour stretch class. I go every Friday.” He bent his index finger. “Plenty of witnesses. Lots of regulars.” He leaned toward me, his face inches from mine. “Tell me, why would I have killed her?”
“Your sister Stacy had an abortion.”
Beau’s eyes flashed with fury. “Aha, you’re the one that called her.”
“You don’t believe in abortion. You have an anti-abortion sticker on your car.”
“I’m pro-life. Sue me.” He pointed a finger at me. “Look, I understood why my sister needed it. She would’ve died otherwise. I didn’t blame the doctor. And honestly?” He grinned maliciously. “If I were going to kill someone, it would’ve been the chump who got my sister knocked up in the first place. Next.” Beau drummed the bar again, this time like he was playing high stakes poker and winning. Just because he was cocky didn’t mean he was guilty.
I said, “Tony Vittorio was killed around two p.m. last Monday.”
“At that hour, I’m at the studio going over footage and outtakes. Not as many witnesses as stretch class, but enough.” He held up his hand again and bent down two fingers. “Two down.”
“The teacher, Miranda Tejeda, was killed Thursday night around ten.”
“I was bowling with Rick Tamblyn. You can ask him. Rick never lies. It’s against his religion. There were—”
“Plenty of witnesses.”
He aimed a finger and mimed pulling an imaginary trigger. “Right.”
“Camille died early this morning, some time after midnight. You weren’t here; you weren’t at KINC, and you weren’t bowling, though I saw you at the bowling alley earlier.”
“Yeah, but bowling came into play. See, I was walking off a major headache. For some reason, the sound really got to me. Couldn’t sleep. I must’ve hiked for two straight hours. A car or two passed, but who knows if the driver could ID me. It’s a weak alibi, but it’s all I got.” Beau smacked the bar. “FYI, I wouldn’t have knifed Camille. Her skin was too taut. I’d have beaten her with a baseball bat.”
“She wasn’t killed with a knife. She was—” I hesitated.
Had Hernandez kept that information from Beau when he’d questioned him, or was Beau hoping to deflect suspicion by pretending not to know the weapon?
A buff waiter slammed a tray down and yelled, “Two chocolate martinis, a Manhattan, and two chardonnays.”
Beau seemed relieved by the interruption. He filled the order and returned, the tension in his forehead erased. “What else do you want to know?”
“Were you having an affair with Camille?”
“No way.”
“I saw you two flirting.”
“Yeah, we flirted. I’m a flirt. Heck, I’ve even flirted with Marie, despite the nose rings. It’s in my nature.” He propped an elbow on the bar. “Look, I want to get out of this town. I want to move to LA or New York and give my lackluster career a boost. I flirted with Camille hoping she might make some phone calls on my behalf. Now, she’ll never be able to. But I swear, we never had a roll in the hay. Ever.” He filled the sink with soapy water, gathered a couple of empty glasses off the bar, and tossed them into the liquid. “Why would I kill all these people? What’s my motive? I get where you’re going with the doctor thing, but the rest? I�
��m not going around killing people and sending Gloria ridiculous notes to scare her. I love her.”
“You broke up. You said she had some issues.”
“I was . . .” He fanned the air. “It doesn’t matter. We’re back together. I told her before she went to sleep that I won’t relocate until she’s ready. She’s my soul mate and I’m hers.” Beau buffed the bar as if it were scarred with an indelible stain. “Whoever’s doing this is a lunatic. Speaking of lunatics, if you want to round up a good suspect, check out Tom. He owns a horsehair rug. Plus, I heard him and Camille arguing the other day.” He hurled the towel at a laundry bin and grabbed a fresh one. “And between you and me, he’s frustrated because he’s never going to get to first base with Gloria. She likes a guy with brains.”
“Like you?”
“I went to Berkeley. Graduated top of my class.”
That caught me off guard. If Beau was smart enough to go to Berkeley, why was he bartending?
Aspen, honestly? My bias drew me up short. Over the past year and a half, many people had asked me why I, with a Stanford degree, was now working for a private investigation firm, as if all Stanford graduates should become doctors, lawyers, or nanotech geeks and being a PI was the bottom rung of the career ladder, second only to garbage collector.
I slid off my stool. “You know, Beau, as a sign of good will, you might want to give your horsehair vest to the sheriff.”
“I can’t. After Gloria made fun of it, I donated it to the Salvation Army.”
Chapter 41
I returned to the office and, unable to tolerate having a bandage on my head any longer, removed it and treated the wound using items in our well-stocked medicine cabinet. I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and felt generally healthier in a matter of minutes.
Next, I checked in on Nick to see if he’d received my email about Laila and the men she’d dated. He sounded even sicker than before and had gone home. His sister was fixing him chicken soup. Hernandez was in charge of obtaining the warrant. Unfortunately, the judge had demanded more probable cause. Seeing a nonspecific van in the area of a murder wasn’t enough.
Nick asked me if I’d learned anything else I wanted to share. I told him about Beau Flacks and his brown-and-white horsehair vest.
“Did you get that tip from the Post-its?” he asked.
“Yes. Candace has good eyesight. Anyway, Beau got rid of it because Gloria hated it. At least that’s his story.” I went on to add that after interviewing Beau, I believed him to be innocent. He had some pretty solid alibis.
Nick said he’d send someone to verify them. I added that Finn Ambrose had a white bearskin rug and black-and-white pinto hide in his penthouse and asked if a warrant would let Nick search for one with brown hair. He said yes. The warrant was to include Ambrose’s entire premises as well as the casino.
I asked him if Detective King had interrogated Tom Regent yet. Nick said she’d gone to Northstar Clinic, but she couldn’t rouse Tom because he’d been sedated. However, she confirmed that the clinic admitted him around one in the morning and that his accident had occurred about a mile from the clinic. He promised to keep me apprised of his next step and wished me good night.
As I was hanging up, my aunt texted me. Her granddaughter was out for the count, but Candace, Cinder, and she were binge-watching Friends. I didn’t need to rush to pick them up.
Given the extra time, I decided to visit Tom Regent. Maybe he was no longer sedated.
• • •
With a little cajoling, the admissions clerk at Northstar Clinic divulged that Tom was alert. She sent an aide to find out if he was open to seeing a visitor.
Pacing the foyer, I wondered about Tom’s ever-so-convenient time of arrival. If he’d killed Camille, he would’ve had to race over the hill in record time to sustain the accident. Doable, yes. Likely? No. Also, if he really had been admitted around one a.m., he couldn’t have killed Laila.
“Miss Adams?” A nurse the size of a refrigerator strode into the foyer. She stared at my injury and said, “Come this way.”
As I followed, I heard her mutter, “Shoddy work.” Apparently she didn’t think the stitches on my head were done well. I didn’t care. My head wasn’t aching and the hair would grow back. She led me to Tom’s hospital room and left.
One glance at Tom made me queasy. His skin matched the pasty white walls. Deep purple bruises marred his face. His left arm was in a sling, and his right leg, its knee bandaged, was resting in a continuous passive motion machine. Glucose trickled into his right arm via a tube. A second bag for pain medicine, which was empty at the moment, was secured to his other arm.
“Hi, Aspen.” Tom licked his parched lips. “How do I look?”
“Pretty bad.” I wasn’t going to lie.
He raised his cast. “Arm’s wrenched bad, knee’s shattered.” His speech was slow and slurred. He lifted a plastic cup from the over-bed swivel table, used a straw to drink, and set the cup back down. “I downed one too many whiskeys. Stupid. Never going to touch booze again.”
I would bet he’d made that promise before. On the other hand, a serious car crash could do wonders for changing bad behavior problems. A couple of my patients at BARC had stopped doing drugs after setting themselves on fire.
“Why are you here?” he asked.
To determine whether he was making beautiful, peaceful Lake Tahoe a killing ground, but I couldn’t say that.
“Everyone at KINC is concerned about you.”
“That’s nice to hear.” He jutted his chin in my direction. “How did you bang your head?”
“Gardening.”
“Ouch,” he said. I didn’t detect guilt in his eyes. He was innocent. He had to be.
Even so, I wanted to ask a few more questions so I could totally exonerate him. “Tom, someone died today. I thought you might know her. She was a caver and climber, like you. Laila Walton.”
Tom’s face clouded over. “Name doesn’t ring a bell, but like I said, with the drugs . . .” He ran his tongue across his lips again. “How did she die? Did she fall? Too many people without the right kind of training are getting into the game, if you ask me. They’re free-styling and not using the proper equipment.”
I assumed free-styling meant climbing without benefit of pitons and ropes—Laila’s preferred way to climb.
“She didn’t have an accident,” I said. “She was murdered.”
“Oh, man.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Did Gloria receive another note?”
“Sort of.”
“What does that mean?”
“There was a note at the crime scene. It wasn’t complete. Could be a copycat. Are you sure you didn’t know Laila? She was a delivery girl. I was wondering if you’d hired her in the past.”
“To do what?”
“Make a delivery.”
Tom’s eyes narrowed. “Are you hinting that I hired this Laila person to deliver one of the notes to Gloria?” Apparently lingering drugs weren’t making him as dopey as he’d implied. “You’re grilling me just like Camille does. You and she would make great prosecutors.” He was speaking in present tense. Either he didn’t know about Camille’s death or he was a heck of an actor.
“When did you and Camille discuss this?”
“Yesterday morning. We went at it.”
Confirming Beau’s account that they’d fought.
“She asked if I was the one hounding Gloria. She said she knew I was in love with her.”
“Are you?”
“I am, but I’m a realist. I know I don’t stand a chance. I swore to Camille I would grow up and move on.” Perspiration beaded on his forehead and above his lip. “She doesn’t believe me, of course. She never does.” Again he spoke in the present tense.
“Tom, I hate to be the one to break it to you, but Camille is dead, too.”
“What? No!” He coughed and grabbed the plastic cup. After a few sips of water, he set the cup aside. “What happened? She was the epitome of heal
th. She couldn’t have had a heart attack.”
“She was . . . murdered.”
“No-o,” he keened. “No. No. No. Where?”
“In her house.”
“So that’s why the detective stopped by earlier. To question me about her. Not about this.” He hoisted the arm in the sling.
“You met with Detective King?”
“No, my nurse told me I’d had a visitor. I was out of it. Man—” He coughed again and reached for the plastic cup. He knocked it over.
In an instant, the enormous nurse marched into the room. She glared at me but didn’t say a word. She patted Tom on the back, grabbed the plastic cup, and made him drink slowly, calmly. When he was steady, she checked his vitals, left the room for a second, and returned to replace the bags attached to the drips.
“Tom,” I went on, “my understanding is that with Camille dead, you will assume ownership of KINC.”
“Big deal.” He grunted. “It’s worthless. We’re in debt up to our eyeballs. Oh, man, what will I do without her?” He choked back a sob. “When did she die?”
“Late last night.”
“After I hit the tree?”
“Right before.”
“Before? You can’t think . . .” He licked his lips. “Uh-uh. No way. I’d never kill her. She was my bellwether. My rock. We were a team.” He rubbed his chin hard. “Has anyone reached out to her family? Who’s going to take Zorro? I suppose I’ll be in charge of her funeral.”
“I suppose.”
Tears leaked down Tom’s cheeks. He wiped them with his fingertips.
“You need to leave,” the nurse said to me.
“Yes, ma’am.” I started toward the door and turned back as I recalled something Beau had said. “Tom, one more question.”
“Fire away.”
The nurse glowered at me.
“Beau told me you own a horsehair rug.”
Tom snorted. “That ugly thing? Camille made me get rid of it a couple of years ago. Made her itch. Guess it’s been a while since I had Beau over to dinner.” He coughed and then coughed again. Harder.
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